29 january 1999		waking ned devine: the review turn off that phone.
The quote of the day: "What airline are you flying on?" -- me to Greg, in response to his sending flight numbers only. "I should think you'd recognize Southwest flight numbers." -- Greg Running news: 3 miles. I'm still doing 3 miles because I haven't as yet been able to do them without my heart rate spiking above 170. So I'm going to keep at it until I can do so at a slightly lower heart rate.		One thing I don't think I ever talked about in my Israel entries was the amazing quantity of cell phones in Israel. Everywhere we went there were people talking on cell phones. Micky said 30% of the population has a cell phone; clearly the other 60% are small children and pets, because every adult had one. I remember hearing a story about how Israeli society started cracking down on people leaving their phones on in public places such as theaters and symphonies, and I could understand why. Reportedly the percentage of cell phone ownership here in the US is the same or even higher, but even in Los Angeles you don't see people using them with the frequency we did in Israel: talking in restaurants, while walking down the street, in the middle of some really incredible ruins. Of course, with the increased cell phone competition that's coming (and lower rates that are sure to follow), I may soon see cell phones everywhere I look. Forget pagers: everyone's going to have a phone. We saw Waking Ned Devine the other day. It's a cute film: I really enjoyed the characters and the setting and can recommend it. For video. But overall the film is weak and I think I know why (if you don't care, skip the final paragraph of this section). If you've seen it and weren't satisfied, let me know if you think I'm close or not. If you've seen the trailer, you have the gist of the story: Ned wins the Irish Lottery and promptly dies. A neighbor in the tiny Irish town of Tully More decides to impersonate Ned and so collect the winnings, even though he could go to jail for fraud if anyone finds out. And there are, after all, only 52 people in the entire town, so someone might find out. What works in the film are the main characters: Jackie O'Shea, who dreams up the idea of impersonating Ned; his best friend Michael O'Sullivan, who's going to aid and abet; and Jackie's wife Annie, who doesn't really like the idea of her husband going to jail for that many years. The dialogue is funny, the setting is beautiful, and the characters are people you'd like to have a Guinness with. And here's what doesn't work: the characters make a plan and it works the first time. Say what you like about that damned classical structure, it works. And one of the big dicta of classical structure is: Make it hard on your characters. Waking Ned Devine doesn't make it hard; it lets the characters have it damn easy. Because of this flaw (in my opinion), the movie never moves beyond cute. I had several ideas of ways to remedy this, and I'm sure the filmmakers would have come up with better ones (more endemic to their characters and setting). Mary and I discussed Waking Ned Devine some at the coffeehouse yesterday. She saw it with Rod at the Laemmle Town Center in Encino, because that was a "close" theater. Rod thought Darin's preference to go all the way to the AMC theaters in downtown Burbank was, basically, nuts (though Mary wouldn't use that word), so they were going to a relatively nearby theater. They went into the theater and sat down, but found they were too far from a too tiny screen. They moved again. Still too far. Moved yet closer. Found the seats were really uncomfortable and the screen was still too small. They looked at one another and said, "Darin." I think they'll go out of their way to go to Burbank from now on.
		Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com