I haven't wanted to be very active the past couple days. That nasty headache came back, and moreover, I just felt generally useless for any activity involving much thought. But I did manage to finish the new Boschen and Nesuko script yesterday and, looking at it this morning, I still basically like it.
I did end up seeing Hard Candy on Tuesday night. It was decent. But the highlight of the evening was just being at the Landmark in Hillcrest. There's something wonderful about just standing in a cinema where the movies aren't all essentially exactly the same fake-nacho cheese-tasting blockbuster. Even the cappuccino I bought from the concession stand was good.
I drank it in the theatre while waiting for the movie to start and reading. If I could afford to spend every night like that, my life would be perfect. Well, add in showings of old movies, and courtesans, and it'd be perfect. I like that idea--cinema courtesans. I hope someone powerful in the movie theatre industry is reading this.
But Hard Candy--really more of an illustrated essay than a work of art. What I say next is going to give away the surprise ending, so I recommend you stop reading now if that matters to you;
The movie sort of reminded me of a play I read in playwriting class a while ago. I liked the teacher, a guy named Karl Sherlock, but he had a couple of biases I considered to be silly and which were easy to deduce from how he reacted to things. The play in question was about a child molester who's lured to a remote location by what appeared to be an underage girl. Only by the end, the girl was able to overpower him and handcuff him. It was suggested that she might not be a cop, but a sort of vigilante.
When Mr. Sherlock asked for impressions from the class, I said, "I think she's Batgirl."
Sherlock laughed and said, "Yeah? A sort of modern-day superhero? Maybe . . ."
I didn't say anything, but I was annoyed for two reasons;
For one thing; are superheroes really so old a concept or rare nowadays that we have to distinguish a new example as being a modern variant?
And the other thing; I wasn't saying she was like Batgirl. I was saying she was Batgirl. Barbara Gordon. It makes sense--a vigilante girl who can overpower a grown man, who possibly has access to files on known sex offenders? May as well be Batgirl. I felt there was an attitude that the idea of her wearing a mask and cape sometimes to fight crime somehow cheapened it, or made it quaint. As if the story was otherwise plausible.
Anyway, the movie brought that to mind . . .
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