Houssaye Quote
Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are.
— Houssaye
Literature
Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are.
— Houssaye
5 Browns - The 5 Browns sound incredible: 5 siblings, all students of Juliard, play 5 pianos simultaneously. I wish I could have made this concert.
This movie received very average reviews. It is, however, sincere in its message, if a little heavy-handed in the delivery thereof. The message(s)? “People are more important than things.” “Life isn’t worth living if you are not doing what you love.” “True love is giving of yourself.” Do these sound like platitudes? To the jaded viewer, they almost certainly will. To me, at this confusing time in my life (anybody in college know exactly what they are doing? anybody? there you go …), these messages are refreshing and bear repeating.
Furthermore, Topher Grace of That ’70s Show fame developed a full character on-screen; some people come off TV and look completely flat and one dimensional on film, like a one-trick pony. In a paradigm shift from his small-screen roll (a shift which, by itself, would be impressive), Mr. Grace really convinces us of his character: a young, confused man going through the motions of corporate latter-climbing. He discovers himself, along with many other supporting characters in the film. While this overarching theme of “life revelations” means there can only be a very general theme (everyone finds something different out about themselves), the movie made me see what I believe it set out to do: we’re all going to be messes “figuring it out.”
Perfect for movies. I do not own this. Wish I did.
ROM Exercise - The price of this machine would pay for 12.5 years of a family membership at Lifetime Fitness. Is it worth it? You tell me.
Over a month after seeing this movie, I finally get time to review the thing. Whew. It was playing only at one theater in the entire Twin Cities area: Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis. While the price was the same as big-box theaters (8 bucks per ticket), the ambience was completely different. The seats were harder, the air a little damp, and you could watch from the balcony. None of this detracted from the movie, in fact it made seeing an ‘indie’ film seem … more indie. The audience seemed a bit less numb to the movie, too: people actually laughed at the funny parts (though this movie isn’t even a comedy).
All that said, the actual movie was engaging enough to make the surroundings melt away. All the reviews I read had trouble quantifying the tone of the movie; I certainly can’t, either. It had an amazing capacity to push the limit of what you’ve seen on screen, address issues to the extreme - yet do so gently and without overdramatizing things. Perhaps you could call it “real.” That is, there was no heightened sense of reality that you see in every movie you watch: it was simply an artful insight into people doing things that people do and worrying about things that people worry about.
Those qualities made You and Me and Everyone We Know comforting. I have to admit, watching something outside the ordinary, beyond what Hollywood deems profitable for a target demographic, beyond the formulaic, was an experience I fully intend to repeat. Sometimes you want the safe and tested, the bubble-gum pop of movies, other times you want the insightful, the out-there.
Footnote: credit goes to Mykala for finding this movie.
Mike had a pool party - and since 8 seconds is too long of an exposure to captuere anybody in the water, you get this picture. You’re welcome.
We are approaching the beginning of another school year, and to all of you out there, I would like to impress something upon all the students out there: get your “to” right. Seriously.
If there is one aspect of the English language you can master (beyond spelling and basic grammar) please please get the difference between ‘to’ and ‘too.’ Take the correct usage in a recent email from St. Thomas public safety:
“Some parking lots to close in St. Paul”
What if they had made that “too”? It would have said, essentially, that some parking lots are too close to one another in St. Paul. The value of that statement is almost zero if the ‘to’ is wrong. The simple rule to remember:
Comments are turned off so people avoid the temptation to be facetious and say, “that was to stupid!” Thank you, you are dismissed.
I will be looking back at this picture in the winter, wondering what green grass and trees look like. The answer is: verdant and wonderful.
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