2004-08-17 - 8:53 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Surfin' USA", Beach Boys

We saw M. Night Shyamalan (and his hot wife, Bhavna, of course) on Howard awhile back. Shyamalan made one of them: "Unbreakable". I absolutely adore how Shyamalan draws you slowly out of the "real world" and into his imaginary one, and how the process happens gradually so that you're almost unaware of it. I also loved his use of colors in the movie. And I loved watching Bruce Willis discover the power he had and learn to use it.

It got me thinking about my other favorite movies. Movies that I loved, that left me with a magical feeling. The LOTR trilogy are three beautiful films, and I loved those, but it was too plot-driven for me and there were too many battle scenes that made my eyes glaze over. There's something else I'm looking for.

Three more beloved movies are "Monster's Ball", "You Can Count On Me" (has anybody else even seen that?), and "Lost in Translation". I think that "Lost in Translation" was too long, but the thing was, I didn't care. I wanted to keep watching Scarlett and Bill for hours more. One of the critics said that Sofia Coppola is a brilliant visual storyteller, and that's exactly it. The dialog and the plot were irrelevant to me; I just loved watching the characters do their thing, watching their faces and body language as they did it. One of my favorite scenes is one of the deleted ones, when Scarlett's character interacts with some small robots. Everything about the scene is visually pleasing and interesting -- the robots themselves, the room they're in, the lighting, and Scarlett herself.

In the other movies, it's the same thing. A favorite scene from Monster's Ball is when they're sitting on the steps at the end of the movie, when Halle's character has made a shocking discovery, and they just sit there eating ice cream. You see her still looking a bit stunned, but you can also see the wheels turning inside her head as she seems to be deciding not to say anything. There's a scene in "You Can Count On Me" where two characters just sit next to each other, and the camera just watches them for a while.

Apparently, despite my great fondness for talky films ("Before Sunrise", for one) and a general preference that people just "say what you mean goddammit", my very favorite films are the ones that are character-driven and wherein said characeters tell the story without saying a word. I like to be a voyeur, to people-watch, to see the story written on people's faces.

There are other movies that tell stories visually -- "Mystic River" had some amazing acting-without-words -- but there's nothing like a depressing story or a bad ending to turn me off a movie, which is why that one doesn't make the cut. Bittersweet is fine, but not just plain bitter.

I'm still busy with work. It's the Neverending Project, the same one that's been popping up off and on since spring and which ruined my vacation and my chance to see Mike. I hope things will ease up for a few days after Wednesday, but I'm not holding my breath. Life is not hellish or miserable, and the project is fun, it's just that when work gets busy my mind is not in a good place to write posts or thoughtful comments.

Everything you've seen me write since I got back, with the exception of the Northern Liberties post, was written in a single evening while I was on vacation. I have been measuring out my writing with coffee spoons to y'all ever since. Anyway, this last bit is about leg-shaving. I know y'all're just SO EXCITED to read it.

TMI ALERT.

Awhile back, the shaving experiences my friends relayed to me led me to believe that if I could just stick out the leg-shaving for three weeks or so, my skin would become less annoyed and I could shave comfortably. So, ever the optimist, despite my resentment of the extra grooming time-suckage, I have shaved every 24-48 hours since mid-May. Up until two weeks ago I had not gone longer than 36 hours, because in the past I've found that if I go any longer than that, my skin completely rebels and I end up with red dots everywhere. It seems to be adjusting to 48 hours as well.

By time-suckage, I mean it takes about 20 minutes to loofah, lather up with shaving cream, and carefully shave all those square inches -- if I go too fast I'll nick myself or irritate my legs -- never mind the rinsing of the tub afterwards and application of lotions. ARGH! I am not one of those people who can just run the razor over her legs in the shower.

So, my skin is now somewhat less annoyed. I think a few spots -- particularly one area the hair grows in a circular pattern on the backs of my legs -- are just determined to be pissy about it. What surprised me, though, is that I'm now addicted to wearing shorts and having smooth legs and can't stand the stubble, so I have not found this to be the ordeal of a chore I thought it was going to be. I manage to just space out while I'm doing it. (What I really should be doing is using the time to compose journal entries, huh? I could keep a pad and pen by the tub to take notes.) Having smooth legs is really quite nice. Poindexter likes it too, as you might imagine. I haven't heard "You're fuzzy" for three months; instead I get "Mmmmmm, smooooth." Gotta like that.

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