Having a full time job is an interesting problem sometimes. I work a set schedule now and because of this, I've had to miss out on a lot of things. This varies from the relatively minor, like missing a portion of the debate on Tuesday, to the unfortunately large, like a family birthday party that was planned for me. My social life has become minimal and I feel like I pay the price on my days off.
I've dealt with depression for a good portion of my adult life, but it helps when I have set activities. This has been the benefit of Tae Kwon Do and running in the past, and the benefit I currently enjoy from working full time. I always have something to do. But on my days off, I usually don't have a routine and there are times when this means that I descend into a funk. These funks compound upon themselves and I'll find myself sitting at home all day doing nothing, and when the night comes, wondering why it is that I haven't moved in hours. Today was dangerously close to becoming one of those, so I ran this morning and then took it upon myself to get out and go to the movies.
Burn After Reading was an interesting beast. The Coen brothers are following up a film that was critically aclaimed and in no way a comedy. I haven't personally seen No Country for Old Men, but I have seen other Coen films including Fargo, The Big Lebowski and Miller's Crossing so thats the history through which I'm filtering this review.
Overall, I felt that the movie was strong. Watching it, you could tell that the cast was having a great time, playing out a dark comedy by just taking things as far over the top as they could. Between the moments when Brad Pitt is dancing and biking his way through life, however, there is a pretty decent, though odd story to be told. Primarily, the movie reminded me of Fargo with its combination of outrageously dark moments and awkward humor. I felt that JK Simmons, though not a major player, gave one of the best performances in the film and summed it up perfectly in the end. You may not understand what happened, but you probably enjoyed it.
Apart from the movies and the reading I've been doing lately (Gormenghast still), I have been writing. I'm inching my way through a short ghost story that is going nowhere fast, and I'm working on some poetry that I think is going pretty well. I mailed out a few submissions to Tinhouse and Nimrod the other day so we'll see how that goes.
I apologize for the lack of commenting ability, but the harassment was a bit irritating. I may turn them back on in the future.
The cats are probably chewing something up, so for now I'll deal with that. I guess comments if there are any, can be emailed directly to me.
Goodnight.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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