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WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL bird's eye view, as seen from the 48th Fl of World Trade Center 7 (PIC)

NOTES FROM A HACK: Unorganized, Semi-Coherent Thoughts About DRIVE

I read the script for DRIVE a little while back and loved it, thought it was one of the best reads of the year, had high hopes indeed for the movie, hopes that weren't quite met in the theater but, still, all in all I thought they did a pretty good job considering the extremely limited budget they were obviously saddled with ($10M)... But then, looking back on it, each time I mentally review the movie in my head, I'm finding it gets just a little bit worse, and I'm actually starting to wonder, now, if I didn't give it more credit than it deserves, simply because everything else this year has been so very, very bad...

So to hop on the ever-growing "DRIVE Really Didn't Work For Me--And on a Number of Different Levels" Internet Bandwagon, check out the following ("Unorganized"! "Semi-coherent"!!) review of DRIVE from NOTES FROM A HACK--

I get movies that are slow. Movies without a lot of talking. That's fine. But this was beyond that. This was uncomfortable and not representative of real life. There are long stretches where he is asked a question and just stares without saying a word. That doesn't happen. People don't do that. And people that do do that, are fucking weirdos who don't get Carey Mulligan.

She says "you want some water", and he stares at her for a good minute and a half, and then says "uh, sure".

Love!

He's in love now! She's in love now! That's all it took. They have no connection other than physical, I guess. And even that is questionable. Do they have anything in common? Nope. What do they talk about? Well, water and how refreshing it is. Not even that, just the offer of water and the acceptance of it.

Oh, but one time, she touched his hand.

Love!

Yeah, I find I've really gotta agree with The Hack on this one--watching the interaction between Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, I was thinking the exact same thing: "A glass of water--and they're in love? Really?"

(Or maybe Gosling just ordered that pheremone cologne off the Internet... Hmm...)

>> To read the rest of the article at NOTES FROM A HACK click here

"You see, the film studio of today is really the palace of the sixteenth century..."

A wonderful quote I was just sent from my dear friend Nesya Blue--

You see, the film studio of today is really the palace of the sixteenth century. There one sees what Shakespeare saw: the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically beautiful women, there are incompetent favorites. There are great men who are suddenly disgraced. There is the most insane extravagance, and unexpected parsimony over a few pence. There is enormous splendor, which is a sham; and also horrible squalor hidden behind the scenery. There are vast schemes, abandoned because of some caprice. There are secrets which everybody knows and no one speaks of. There are even two or three honest advisors. These are the court fools, who speak the deepest wisdom in puns, lest they should be taken seriously. They grimace, and tear their hair privately, and weep.

-- Christopher Isherwood, Prater Violet, 1945

ERIK VIDAL: "Sun in an Empty Dorm Room" (Oberlin, 1997) (PIC)

JUSTIN BIEBER vs SLIPKNOT "Psychosocial Baby" Mashup (VID)