17 january 1999		the thin red line reviewed today's guest reviewer: darin.
		Last night Darin and Harry went to see The Thin Red Line. I had zero interest in seeing it, so I passed. I spent the night watching extremely bad Saturday night TV and exchanging e-mail with Greg Marriott, debating the question as to which one of us was having the more pathetic life: the one watching Martial Law or the one watching The Pretender. (Greg won, but only because of the reason he was watching the show he was watching.) When we started getting into the aesthetics of his getting a haircut, I knew we had sunk to new lows. Darin called me from the car phone when he was driving home to tell me what he thought. Here is his review of the movie: The main battle sequence is a small island of lucidity in a large ocean of incomprehensible story. The director does nothing to help us tell apart interchangeable soldiers. You can only keep track of them if you're already familiar with the actors, which I was but most people there weren't. This doesn't begin to describe how bad the movie is. I've left out the interminable beauty shots of leaves, sunlight, colorful parrots, graceful birds, Ben Chaplin's character's wife, happy Polynesians... I read an interview with Nick Nolte where he mentions Mallick stopping filming to make sure that the second unit got some shots of some particularly beautiful hawks. Easy to believe. Finally, the worst sin: the movie really had nothing to say. Besides, perhaps, war is bad. War is bad for soldiers and other living things. I'm really glad I didn't go see it. My brilliant idea for today was to take the digital camera and make a record of going out to have breakfast with Fernando. You know, the old digi-novella thing. We went to John O' Groats for breakfast. When we sat down I said, "D'oh! I forgot the camera in the car!" So I walked back to the car... ...and discovered the camera had fallen out of the car when I picked up my purse, so it was just sitting on the road by the back door of my car. Ooops. I thanked my lucky stars and said I'd be much more careful in the future. Of course, my penance was that the batteries had run out, so I couldn't take pictures of our breakfast. Oh well. I bought some batteries after we got home and I went to take some photos of things I've been meaning to take photos of. I really need to take this camera with me more often. Today's photos: California One-Stop Shopping This is a cluster of shops that cracks me up every time I go by it. In case you can't read all of the signs, they are: New Age Travel (do you actually go anywhere, do you think?) Greenberg Acupuncture, Chiropractic, and Chinese Medicine a casting office a Scientology recruitment office The mystery signs I include these signs not because I like them but because I don't understand them and they are suddenly everywhere. There are several others as well, by different poets, and not with any one particular theme. Is it an extremely subtle ad campaign? Is it some kind of strange city beautification project? If you know, please tell me.
		Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com