Hollywood

The Hollywood & Highland Center




Mary Carlisle Blakely (1920's)


I drove up on Thursday, collected Hector as he was finishing up a conference in lovely Long Beach (that's sarcasm) and we checked into the glamorous Renaissance Hollywood. It's connected to the new Hollywood & Highland Center, which is where the Oscars are now held, in the Kodak Theatre. I can remember a number of years ago on this very spot I observed a crack whore getting an Easter morning beating from her pimp, so this corner has definitely come up in the world.

On Saturday we had brunch at Cha cha cha in Silverlake, which was both fun and delicious. They serve Caribbean tapas. Made me want to go back to Puerto Rico. Then for dinner we drove to Santa Monica to La Botte Ristorante. Another winner. It's a small neighborhood place, with a big wine list and good service. The owner was all over the place, that's a good sign. I had White Corn Soup with Lobster Tail ($15) and Tagliatelle alla Bolognese ($17). Both wonderful.

Sunday there was a National Geographic Seminar on Travel Writing, attended by me and several dozen unemployed screenwriters. Later Bill Graff and I had dinner at Fabiola, on Sunset near Vine. Mary Blakeley was going to take me to lunch on Monday at the Bel Air Country Club but she got sick and cancelled on me. (She is 95 or so*, after all). I just came on home instead of staying another night.

I know it's so tired to be going on about how things change but I mean really. The traffic! My God, there is no escape. I have lived in LA many times throughout the 1970's, 80's and 90's and it was always possible to find a secret route somewhere that would avoid the traffic jams but not anymore. I just didn't want to go anywhere. So I apologize to everyone that I didn't even call while I was there. Come here instead.


*pure speculation, since she had never told anyone her real age. that includes her son.

Movies and more movies!

Having not gone ANYWHERE for nearly 3 months, I don't have any trips to yack about but I have been seeing movies. And now I have been laying low for several days with a bad case of bronchitis so I've been lolling about on the sofa, taking a little celluloid therapy. Here's a sampling, along with highbrow critique.

Chumscrubber. Never even heard of this movie! Have you? But it has an incredible cast: Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott), Glenn Close, Carrie-Ann Moss, Ralph Fiennes, John Heard (where the hell has he been?), Allison Janney. It's a very dark comedy set in a cesspool suburbia, narrated by a video game character. Drugs, alcoholism, adultery... 2 Thumbs Up!




Bright Young Things. This one I had heard of but just briefly, then it disappeared from my radar. Directed by Stephen Fry, it's based on one of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Vile Bodies. Decline of the spoiled upper class youth. Good cast, love all those 1920's costumes. Just barely recognized Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen. James Mcavoy from Last King of Scotland. Give everyone an English accent and I'm there!




The Dish. I've seen this over and over I just think it's great. A small movie, as they say, but it's very honest and tender and funny. It's about a group of astronomers in a little town in Australia that get picked by NASA to beam the pictures from the moon landing. Lots of funny local characters.




The Da Vinci Code. Wretched. Just like the fucking book.




Three Kings. Here's another one I've seen lots. It's good! Mark Wahlberg is wonderful in this, so is Clooney. And Spike Jonze (director of Being John Malkovich) as Conrad is absolutely great! Nora Dunn as the reporter! These three Desert Storm soldiers hear about the location of Kuwaiti gold stolen by Saddam and they decide to steal it. The country is in such utter chaos that they are able to just walk in and take it but then of course are plagued by one catastrophe after another as they try to help some local Iraquis. It's funny and sad and very well written.

Flags of Our Fathers

After trashing Ryan Phillippe for Breach, I have to say he was pretty good in this. Granted, he was not called upon to do much more than a lot of falling down and looking tired and war-weary. But he was very convincing at that.

This whole thing is pretty Spielberg-ian. It's unashamedly hoaky and you can count on every soldier that you really like getting blown to smithereens. Along with Ryan, there's Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach as the three surviving soldiers who raised the flag in the famous photo. Paul Walker, whose face you'll recognize if you don't know the name, had a really small part. I always wonder if their good scenes got cut out when I see popular actors in these little almost-nothing roles.

And Jamie Bell, the original Billy Elliott, is in as Ryan's best friend. He's a really good actor, (I hate to remark on something so shallow but he does a very convincing American accent) and of course he gets killed. In fact, his death is so gruesome they don't even show it. That's saying something because there's plenty of severed arms and intestines and brains flying all around.

But frankly, I just don't get all the hoopla. I think Clint Eastwood is a good director but Americans think any movie that makes them cry is a masterpiece.

Zodiac

Being a real suspense buff, I liked this movie. And I don't mind dating myself by saying I remember hearing about the Zodiac killer although I was a mere tot. The huge cast is great, it's just one familiar face after another for 2 hours and 40 minutes. And even a barely recognizable Candy Clark (American Grafitti) in a small role! I think I spotted Armistead Maupin in the background during a scene in which they were talking about him.

The real Zodiac killer was never caught, although according to this movie, after about 15 years everybody and their dog knew who it was. There was just never enough evidence to arrest him. So the film takes us from about 1969 to the early 80's, following Jake's character, Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the SF Chronicle, as his interest in the case turns into an obsession. He follows all the leads that the police somehow missed and eventually tracks down the culprit...

It's filmed beautifully, starting out with a kind of 60's exuberance and becoming more realistic as the deaths pile up over the years. There's plenty of fun touches to remind one of the sixties: mimeograph and "telefax" machines, big clunky typewriters, the clothes of course. Jake was good, Mark Ruffalo was great as the detective, and Brian Cox was wonderful as a pompous Melvin Belli.

Reno 911: Miami

Oh yes, we did.

I love this show on Comedy Central. It's very silly but very politically incorrect and I just laugh til I cry. So Hector and I decided we wanted a feel good movie and we chose this. It started out funny with all their usual gags but then when it tried to actually sustain a plot for an hour and a half it just couldn't do it. It's like The Simpsons, more than a half hour and one starts to feel queasy.