Dangerous Idylls

It symbolizes a crucial lesson about craft: utility is not contingent on perfection of form.--David Sherwin

Anton Corbijn offers an inspired interpretation of landscape and enclosure, from the opening shot of rushes and thicket in a Swedish winter, to his claustrophobic overlay of Italian villages and underground freeway tunnels. AO Scott is right about Corbijn's practiced composition. AO Scott is absolutely correct that it is not enough and there are things not to like about The American, a film I wanted to view again before my rental time clocked out and did not, but the preeminent critic under the employ of the Sulzbergers is also wrong, because there are pleasures, insights gained over time, under the breezes of transfixing arcs. I was never big on George Clooney. Liked him well enough; he and the original ER cast made those early seasons, and there too, he portrayed sexual indolence with a shiek and brassy extra, asking her why they did not marry? It is there in Solaris as well, a fatal envelopment, a man done in by his own pampered intimacy, which points to why he cannot quite be the equal of Cary Grant. 

Grant was an onscreen dandy and womanizer who had the ability to contain himself. Clooney cannot; he dies for the nurturing maternal climax that smothers him. Occasionally he plays off its negation, as in Michael Clayton. I think this is why his sociopath Jack/Edward is nervous, unpleasantly taunt in certain key shots; he is attempting to demythologize the autonomic predator. With a better story line it might have worked.

It took me nearly three hours to make my coffee and omelet Saturday evening, in between copper urinal shots. We die young for fried eggs. One pitch, two submissions, in addition to all this time spent on Blogger where I earn not a fucking cent! Dedication, but I can do no more, and missed the spout because her royal highness now runs the studio. 

We shall save all felines! Had to get the incitement in-- and yes, I know your interest would peek markedly if I got past Clooney's publicist, but pricking the guilt of his privilege over his arrest record for the sake of Sudanese advocacy is a high bar.