Extremely Well-Made and Incredibly Enjoyable

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Today, I finally updated the Words of the Year page here on my blog. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, direct your eyes to the top of this page. You’ll see four tabs. Click on the one that says “Words of the Year.” Then read the five very short paragraphs.

I know not everyone is a linguaphile like myself, but I still think you’ll all see how choosing a word every year is a great way to track the changes that occur in my life. By simply reading the words I’ve selected each year since 1999, you can see places I have moved to, children that have come into my life, jobs I have had, schooling, and religious events in my life.

Second, the four of us (JamesJenniferOwenIsla) went to Freestyle Yogurt this evening. It’s a new yogurt shop here in St. Paul at the crossroads of Lexington and Randolph (better known as “Where Trader Joe’s is located”). The way it works is you grab a paper bowl, then select one or more of about 12 different yogurt flavors, then head over to this buffet of toppings, including candy, fruit, nuts, and syrup. The bowls are a little on the large size, which I’m sure is intentional because the cost racks up by the ounce.

Don’t get me wrong, though, I think charging by the ounce is a great idea to keep me from pigging out. I think if there was just a flat fee of, say, $4.00 for yogurt, I would pile that sucker high with every topping in the place and then just sit down inside the bowl like I was taking a yogurt bath. But charging by the ounce…it forces me a modicom of restraint.

After weighing our options (pun intended) we sat down in the highly swank dining area (Owen and I sat at the surfboard table). The desserts were superb. I ate every bite, which, of course, goes without saying, because if I didn’t eat it, it wouldn’t be a bite. Tasty. Tasty. Tasty. Jennifer pointed out that it was pretty healthy, too, which is the sort of thing she has too tell us when were gorging on chocolate.

Afterward, I grabbed a bumper sticker and slapped it on my laptop (my computer – not my thighs). Owen picked up a marker and drew a robot on their wall (in the designated drawing circles).

Anyway, I recommend the place. Support a local business. Go there.

Friday, 27 January 2012

This evening, my wife and I patroned the theater for a matinee showing of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

This was my first time at the theater since May sixth of last year, when Owen and I went to see Rio. I was a bit torn as to what we should see, since – in a stroke of coincidence – my two favorite novels from this century were both made into motion pictures and released to theaters within a week of each other. (The other one is The Invention of Hugo Cabret.)

Jennifer nixed my idea of sitting in the back row and making out the whole time, which is too bad because this might have been a far more interesting blog post than it is. Winner = Jennifer

She also said she doesn’t like when I buy snacks and then sneak them into the theater, because that’s rude to the theater. I told her I don’t care about theaters’ feelings. Winner = James

For those keeping score: Jennifer – 1; James – 1

So…I’m always a bit apprehensive when an extremely well-written novel is made into a film. I think this apprehension comes from the fact that so many page-to-screen transformations positively suck. There are only two cases, in my opinion, that the movie was better than the book:

Jurassic Park (the movie) is better than Jurassic Park (the book). The former finally gave viewers the magnificent creatures that had long since died out. The latter was just a heavy-handed sermon on the dangers of mutating frog DNA.

The Ten Commandments (the movie) is better than Exodus (the book). The former is an epic story, the latter is a wordy, repetitive list of names.

Charleton Heston: living intense.

So, in these cases, it was almost easy for the films to outstrip the source material, since the books weren’t that great. But when a book is awesome…the movie inevitably fails (I’m looking at you, 1984).

Well, the record remains in tact: Extremely Lou (that’s what the marquee at the theater called it) is not as good as the book.

But it’s still a very good flick.

The cinematography and editing did an admirable job of capturing the cluttered thoughts in Oskar’s brain and the photographs that are so integral to the story. The acting also left me pleased. I like Tom Hanks work, but I’m not crazy about Sandra Bullock. In this movie, though, I thought Hanks’ character was a bit one-dimensional, and some of his scenes made me cringe with embarrassment. Bullock, on the other hand, toned it down enough to where I really liked her character.

I think this is Sandra Bullock. It might be Steven Tyler, though – I can’t really tell them apart anymore.

While the book fascinates by showing us Oskar’s point-of-view, however, the film doesn’t have that luxury; we have to observe him from the outside. Still, Thomas Horn does an excellent, believable job as Oskar, which I’m sure must’ve been a difficult role to portray. Also top-notch was Max Von Sydow, as The Renter, who steals every scene he’s in. His Best Supporting Actor nod is well-deserved.

The two negative critiques I heard about the movie were…

1) Using the events of 9/11 to tell a fictional tale is exploitative

2) The book leaves Oskar’s mental “condition” ambiguous, while the movie ruins it by stating that he is autistic.

Let me respond to both of those criticisms:

They are moronic.

There’s nothing exploitative about using a real tragedy as backdrop to a fictional story. It’s been done for centuries. There is nothing disrespectful or irreverent toward the events or victims of 9/11.

Additionally…the movie never tells us Oskar is autistic. The only explicit dialog regarding his difference is by Oskar himself. He tells The Renter he was once tested for Asberger’s Syndrome, but that results were inconclusive.

The film is faithful to the book, filled with the mystery, suspense, sadness, and hope that the novel is likewise fraught with. All in all, a good time at the theater. Even if we didn’t make out for two hours.