Sunday, May 09, 2004

Ooof. Yesterday felt like bad luck. Thought I hit a kid with my car . . . I was making a right turn on a red light, edging forward like us Californians are required to do, when my car kind of jolted from some weight at the front--I looked up to see a kid with bushy brown hair leaning over the front of my hood. Then, quick as a wink, the boy got back on his skateboard and sped across the rest of the crosswalk. So he wasn't hurt. I suppose the fact that he was going quite fast on his skateboard explained why I hadn't seen him. Which is not to say that I was responsibly looking both ways the whole time. I just suck at multi-tasking--looking for cars to my left while looking for people to my right is just the kind of thing I'd screw up. I felt bad, in spite of the fact that I hate kids.

Of course, I may've misread the whole situation. It was sort of odd how the kid completely didn't react . . . I did notice that the crosswalk hand was red, so maybe he felt like he had been doing something wrong. Although I'm pretty sure the law would be on his side.

Save a baby go to jail . . .

Last night I watched Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train, which was a very cute movie. I enjoyed the scenes with the Japanese couple more than anything else. Actually, I suppose the other scenes were just somewhat entertaining. The characters of Jun and Mitzuko were so well rendered, and seemed so much like real people, and they were so charming, that it was hard not to love them more than everyone else.

There was a scene later in the movie where Johnny, Will, and Charlie (played by Steve Buscemi) had a violent moment in a liquour store that I thought was perfectly written. I guess the Italian woman was also pretty charming.

I'm not sure I felt the movie rose above its gimmick, though. I think it would've been more interesting if the Japanese couple had encountered and somehow interacted with all of these other interesting characters, and then, by the end of the movie, grown a little bit or had some kind of transition. I know, I know, that's like traditional film and probably what Jarmusch was trying to avoid. But I can't help thinking it would've made for a more satisfying experience.

These characters were great but I wanted to go on a journey with them, not just glimpse them in the windows of a passing train.

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