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Friday, Sept. 13, 2002 / 10:28 p.m. ~Mmmmmmm.... Fab Is Fabuloso - This is Friday Night~ The air conditioning is running and it's cold. When it stops it's approaching warm. When it gets almost too warm it comes on again, and soon I'm chilly. Air conditioning. It's cool. I swear, these words are all just coming out, live, there is no editing. I'm not thinking about it, it's just happening. There, it turned off. It's on automatic. I heard something strange a little while ago, a strange sound, a pattering sort of sound, outside, but it was only rain. RAIN. It never rains anymore, but it is, now. Sort of. I think it comes and goes. And every so often there is this soft thunder. If thunder can be soft, soft and rumbly. I can hear cars going by in the parking lot, people on their way out and about on Friday night, and I can hear that the tires are wet. I must go turn down the Margaret Cho movie. One moment.... Better now. The TV is still on, I guess because I intend to go back to it. This has been one of those nights where I watch the TV and leave the computer on in the background, in this room. Instead of watching the computer and leaving the TV on in the background, in that room. I actually sat and watched the pilot for the 2002 version of one of the most mediocre sitcoms, "Family Affair", probably just to see Tim Curry playing "Mr. French". Gary Cole as "Uncle Bill" was sort of not very good. Too many scenes showed him obviously trying to act, and I don't understand because he was so good in "American Gothic", but perhaps he's never been that good. The best thing about the new version? The set design. "Uncle Bill"'s swinging bachelor pad in the NYC sky is all warm wood and sculptures, soft recessed lighting, granite, marble, chrome, lots of pull-out storage, for wristwatches, ties, you name it. Money. I wanted to see what was on, checking the movie listings, and there was something intriguing, something on Sundance (I think my very favorite movie channel), "Waydowntown", synopsis said it was about four twentysomething Calgary office workers who make a bet to see who can stay inside for a month. What a great movie. I loved it. It had to grow on me, but once I got it, once I saw where it was going, what the director was doing, and how absolutely fantastic the acting by these people I'd never even heard of was, well, what a joy. I love the smaller films, hate the big Hollywood crap, the multiplex crap, give me the Art House Film any day, the foreign, the independent..... yeah, the Canadian, eh?! I love the accents, the way they say "against", not like "agenst", but like "agane"st. Long "a". Like windowpane. Pain. Against. The acting, yes, the acting. After watching Gary Cole trying too hard, and Tim Curry being, well, Tim Curry as Mr. French, this was so good. The lead actor was someone named "Fab Filippo" in the credits, but in the little "After Thoughts" segment, in which the director is interviewed (I love that!), the director called him "Fabrizio Filippo" - who cares, he's beautiful. Amazingly, perfectly imperfectly beautiful. Dark hair, dark messy hair in this role of a disaffected office worker (something like a darker "Office Space"), big dark eyes, amazing lips, and that little bit of hair on his chin, the rest shaved. Unnnnhhhhhhh. Four people are in this bet, to go only from their homes in high rises downtown, to their offices in high rises downtown, all connected by tunnels, which in downtown Calgary (which I like to say "Cal Gary", because I believe some people from there say it like that, right?, or maybe it's just like I like to say "David Letter Man") is the actual fact. Tunnels connect living spaces, to work spaces, to shopping spaces. A mall connected to office towers, to apartments. One never has to step outside. Their bet is one month's salary a piece to see who can make it a whole month. One of them is a woman, and the main character, the handsome Mr. Filippo, plants the seed of paranoia in her mind about the air quality. How recycled it all is, to the point she is running around whilst chasing the Boss/Founder of the Company for which they all work on his big last day before retirement through the mall portion of the complex as he shoplifts, grabbing perfume inserts to stash in her purse and inhale much like Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet" with his inhaler. The acting. Did I say how good it was? I pay attention to people in films, can I tell they are acting?, how do they look in the scenes where they have no lines?, when they are merely listening? What is in the eyes? What a good movie. I had never even heard of it. It's probably one of those movies you'd have to see at a Film Festival, or on Sundance, or at a Canadian Film retrospective... which I actually attended once. At Emory University. Years ago..... I have a little Canada fetish. A little Canada jones. I've always wanted to go there. It looks so beautiful. When I was 19 I was on my way there. I got sidetracked. I ended up in Manchester, Michigan instead. And I have no regrets. I visited Yellow Springs, Ohio too, and Ann Arbor and Detroit. Never made it across the border to Toronto. But I'm not dead yet.... "Waydowntown", see it if you can. It's small, but it's very good. Damn, I've got to go find a photo of Fab Filippo.... give me just a second. I am so culturally deficient. One brief search tells me this guy was on Buffy the fucking Vampire Slayer. D'oh! I slap my forehead on this one. Still looking.... he was on "Queer As Folk" too. Why have I not seen him before? I just found a decent picture of him, not as good as he looked in the movie I just saw (which was released in 2000), but I realized he reminds me an awful lot of Vincent Perez.... it's the big forehead thing. I guess. Let's see if I can post a picture of both. Let's. Okay, so here's Fab:  Here's Vincent:  Whew..... I got sidetracked there. Vincent has a wider nose, and more prominent brow ridge. Almost prehistoric. Very attractive, in a peculiar way. I'll never forget forcing my friend Leigh, years ago, to sit and watch "Indochine" with me, all the while groaning every time he came on screen. "Unnnnnhhhh, isn't he BEAUTIFUL?!", and she thought he was too perfect. I said, "No, look at him, he's losing his hair, he has a definite receding hair line, and a bizarre sort of permanent scowl because of the heavy brow ridge thing going on, but look at those lips, those eyes, come on!" We agreed to disagree. Click on that picture above and you can see a plethora of photos of the guy. He's very photogenic. My back hurts. This chair is horrible for sitting here for long periods. Why do I do this to myself? And I have been having semi-horrible cramps. This is the slowest period in the history of menstruation. It's been creeping along for days, now finally hitting me in the lower half of my body, no, the lower mid section. Now, I'm hot, but I was cold. Lovely. Happens every single month, without fail. Symptoms galore. Set your clocks by them, set your calendars, always know the phase of the moon, it's all right here, all the gravitational pull, all of the cosmos, right here in this physical form. No guesswork here. I must catch up on BB3. Just a random thought. I ate a big bowl of broccoli for dinner. Steamed broccoli. With lemon butter. Real lemon juice I squeezed myself. I squoze it. And real butter I melted myself. Fuck olive sauce. Never made it. And Charles Chips. I couldn't stare at that box forever, just look at Gladys sitting atop it. I had to dive in, and Norma drove me crazy wanting some. She likes chips. I must go, I'm hot, I must drink cold water, I must check BB3 recaps, see what I've missed. The show is on tomorrow, and it is SO much better on TV, I must say, than on the computer screen. Of course then it's not really a 'show', it's just people stuck in a house. ***Addendum: It's 2:16 a.m., I'm listening to BB3 live feeds, just ate Little Debbie Zebra Cakes and drank apple strawberry juice to take my vitamins. Before that, I ate some bocconcini with tomatoes, olive oil.... if I don't get major indigestion from that bizarre combination of foodstuffs I am a very lucky woman. I was just perusing the links I linked in this entry, and came upon this little review of "Waydowntown", so I thought I'd add it - I suppose it's more a synopsis - it came from this page: "In the interconnected office spaces, apartment building and shopping malls of downtown Calgary, Canada, a group of co-workers make a bet as to who can stay indoors the longest. More than just another office comedy, Burns' pic casts a sly, sidelong look at the travails of modern living during one extremely eventful lunch break. Aided by the harsh, garish look of digital video, the director and his fine young cast create an oddly poetic, yet strangely real work in this rough-hewn gem." I want to see it again. Cost of the War in Iraq
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