Global Warming Wanted! All Is Forgiven!
Now Playing: Super Furry Animals--"The Placid Casual"
The week has been remarkably blah in Ann Arbor. This is hardly surprising, but whoever's "in charge" has seen fit to dangle a couple of days of spring in front of our faces and then pee on us by bringing back the 40s. In an environment where I've become convinced I suffer from seasonal affect disorder, this is no laughing matter (for me, anyhow).

I've started walking again, and that definitely makes me feel better. Some of my best days here have been spent walking, and I found yesterday while tracing over the crime map in the Ann Arbor Observer that I've covered a remarkable area in and around downtown over the last two and a half years.

As is my wont, I passed the week by watching a couple of good movies: Memento (2001) and The Official Story (1985), both rented from the Ann Arbor District Library as usual.

Memento I got as a lark, but ended up enjoying it, a "Time's Arrow"-type journey, directed by Christopher Nolan, through one man's truly fucked-up life. Stricken with an intense short-term memory disorder, he can only remember things that happened a few minutes ago, apart from his life before his wife's death. Guy Pearce's excellent performance and truly weird charisma help to redeem some stilted dialogue. There's also a heartbreaking portrayal of a married couple by Harriet Sansom Harris (Bebe on Frasier) and Stephen Tobolowsky.

Another marriage with problems dominates The Official Story, an Argentinian film made shortly after the collapse of the military dictatorship that fought the Malvinas/Falklands War of 1982 and murdered all the thousands of "desparecidos" (people suspected of subversive activity) beginning in 1977. A well-to-do teacher realizes that her daughter is actually the child of such a couple, taken by her husband, a man with influence in the government. Her growing awareness of how the political situation is tearing her family apart is pretty moving, and I wish I wasn't so lazy at present so I could check imdb for a few names (for shame).

I also saw His Girl Friday (1939), which was great. I now have a huge crush on Rosalind Russell. Much better than the original The Front Page (1931), with Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou, pretty awesome to begin with. Those who like that sort of thing should check out a rare Cinema Guild evening showing on Tax Day, April 15, at 8 pm in Auditorium 2 of the Modern Languages Building at the University of Michigan. Cinema Guild jefe Lou Goldberg will be showing a pair of movies from His Girl Friday helmsman Howard Hawks--the original 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni (I've seen it, and it's awesome), and 1939's Only Angels Have Wings, with Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth. So many movies, so little time...

I'm not actually listening to the SFA right now, but it's the last thing I heard. I'm not sure how that thing works, anyhow.

I'm just not into the April Fool's thing anymore.