Donnie Brasco

We chatted about how things were going, and things were going pretty sleepily for him: he'd been up until 7 in the morning preparing his application for a writing award, the Oakey Comedy Writing Award. (I didn't apply, because I don't do comedy.) He ended up eating not only his chicken burrito but half of mine as well after I offered it to him. He scarfed it down so fast I was afraid he had't eaten in a while.

We headed over to Script Analysis class, where we saw the last two-thirds of A Fish Called Wanda again.

I decided I wanted to see the free movie that night, Donnie Brasco, so instead of going home after class I hung out and web-surfed for a while. At six I decided to head over and see what the hap was in terms of trying to get into the movie. There were already huge lines to get in. And it was cold. And I had just a t-shirt and jeans on. Brrrr.

Soon after I got there Jack, Brian, and Bard came by. Bard offered me his jacket, because he had a thick flannel shirt on. (Who says chivalry's dead?) I stood around talking to Jack and Brian (who sidled into line with me); Bard went off to talk to another friend.

Jack noticed that Glenn, another first year GSPer and the TA for the class that watches the free movies (yes, it's actually a class), was around. He went up and asked Glenn to let us in early. Glenn asked someone, the teacher maybe, and let us in. The three of us, that is; Bard was still over by his friend and we wanted to get in as quickly as possible to take advantage of Glenn's offer.

And I still had his coat on.

The lines ended up being so long that very few people who weren't in the class got in. The large Norris Cinema Theatre was completely full. And Bard wasn't one of the ones who got in. Glenn was letting people in by the door, and he said he'd give the coat to Bard, so I left it with him.

Poor Bard. It was pretty nippy out. No good deed goes unpunished.

Jack, Brian, and I settled in and talked for a while. I haven't ever really talked to either one of them, so it was nice talking to them for a while. I asked Jack about the short film he's been working on: he wrote it, he's co-producing, and because he's footing about half the budget he's executive producer. He said the lesson he's learned is: It's not that hard to do.

The secret is, he said, "everyone wants to be on Letterman. Some people want to be on every night, and some people want to be on once, but everyone wants to be on."

So it wasn't that hard to assemble an experienced crew in Los Angeles -- the Director of Photography is a professional camera operator who wants to move up to being a professional DP, so he's willing to work on no-budget student projects to get his name out there. That's the name of the game.

Eventually, after much seat-shuffling to get a really, really full house (Pacino's popular, I guess), the movie started.

Donnie Brasco is a good movie. The cinematography is great. The acting is great. Al Pacino is unabashedly an ugly, old, ailing, pathetic, low-level Mob guy; Johnny Depp is a cold son-of-a-bitch. The story is good.

But it doesn't add up to very much. Yet another Mafia story where guys double-cross one another and struggle to get by and blow huge quantities of money. We know that someone's going to stab someone else in the back, there's going to be a gory execution scene, a cooking scene, a made-guy scene...

And I felt like: who cares? Depp's character becomes "one of them", Pacino is a sad sack. Lots of male bonding, not a likeable female character in the movie. Guns, betrayal, Brooklyn grime...we've seen this. Maybe the Mafia has played itself out for now, like the Western. Or we need to move away from La Cosa Nostra, which is purely an East Coast-New York area obsession: we may have the Sicilians out here in California, but we mostly have to worry about the Chinese tongs, the Russian Mafia, the Bloods, the Crips. The really violent "Shoot everyone especially the bystanders" sons of bitches. None of this code-of-honor made-guy-vs.-connected-guy bullshit.

So I'd go to see if I were a fan of anyone involved, but other than that...it's a pass.