more hannibal, a visit with grace, and rupert everett.
I suspect that gun lovers are all thwarted thespians; if we could just figure out how to get them into show business, we wouldn't have to listen to their theatrical carrying-on about how `freedom' is just another word for a .357 Magnum.
3 miles. Man, am I finding it hard to get out there and run. I don't know what's going on.
The more I think about the ending to Hannibal, the more convinced I become that Harris did it as a big fuck-you to Hollywood. Everything in the novel is over-the-top up until that point, sure, but the ending--for those of you who have read the book, everything from the end of Verger's farm onward, basically; most especially "the dinner date"--is so completely outré that it's still rolling around my mind. (Why Harris would want to do this when Silence of the Lambs was such a great adaptation of a novel I have no idea. Especially as he reportedly has never seen it, although it's probably been hard to escape the endless riffs on Anthony Hopkins' Lecter.)
This is not, by the way, a book for the squeamish. If Stephen King's wackier moments turn you off, you will be severely grossed out by this novel.
Speaking of Stephen King, you can read his rave review of Hannibal (evidently he's also doing the cover review of the book in next week's NY Times Book Review also). The New York Times's reviewer is way less enthusiastic, however.
Darin and I went to visit Grace (and those people she lives with: Mary and Rod or something?) Tuesday. I asked Darin if he wanted to go, completely uncertain as to what he'd say. He said, "Sure!" Darin's enthusiasm to see the baby made me just a mite nervous and I told him to keep his distance from me at all times and get that look out of his eyes.
I was glad to see that Mary is doing quite well after 7 weeks of motherhood. Well, except for the sleep deprivation thing. She's managed to take a meeting at Disney, so clearly not all of her brain functions have stopped. Rod also looked quite pleased, if mildly dazed.
I know I shouldn't be surprised, but Grace has changed so much since I saw her 6 weeks ago. I understand this change continues apace for roughly the next 18 years, but it's still stunning. I'm still trying to get used to the idea that you have sex and 40 weeks later you get a new person.
We talked for a long time--about two hours. Mary seemed glad to have some new adult company for a while, which Darin and I were glad to provide. Everybody took turns holding Grace. Although there is no photographic evidence, I had my turns as well. I think I kept holding her wrong, because every time I held her she started to fuss and cry, whereas she was passed out in Darin's arms for a long time. Maybe he's had more practice, I don't know.
At one point Rod wrapped Grace quite tightly into a receiving blanket and I commented that babies do, in fact, look like loaves of bread when dressed like that. I told them about the Dilbert cartoon in which Dogbert (I think) comes across a woman cuddling her baby and says, "Lady, that's a loaf of bread!" She looks at the baby and discovers that, indeed, she's been cuddling a loaf of bread. At which point her baby pops out of her shopping bag. The idea of Grace popping out of a shopping bag kept me cracking up all visit. I know, it's sad.
If you are in the slightest bit interested, I have provided more pictures of Grace and Co. (There are seven pictures--might take a while to download.)
Last night in Sneak Previews we watched An Ideal Husband, the new adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play, which has enjoyed a recent revival both in the West End and in New York.
The story, roughly, is: Sir Robert (Jeremy Northam) is a rising star in British politics, renowned for his moral rectitude. His wife Gertrude (Cate Blanchett) is similarly renowned for never having put a foot wrong in her life. Problem is, Sir Robert did do something bad 20 years ago (when Northam was what? 10?) and Mrs. Cheveley (Julianne Moore) knows about it. She wants to blackmail Sir Robert into backing a fraudulent canal scheme that will make her a lot of money if the government buys into it. Sir Robert's best friend, Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett) knows Mrs. Cheveley very well--they were "engaged"--and tries to help Sir Robert get out of this mess, and he succeeds only at making things worse, which isn't helping the progress of his romance with Sir Robert's sister Mabel (Minnie Driver).
It's Wilde (in a screenplay adaptation by the director Oliver Parker), so everyone is very witty, with Rupert Everett playing, as the executive producer put it last night, the Oscar Wilde character. He gets all the best lines, all the best reaction shots, and the best screen time.
(I wonder if I'm going to hear the same things said about Everett that I heard ad infinitum about Anne Heche in Six Days, Seven Nights: that no one could possibly believe him in this "'cause everyone knows he's gay." And I'm going to bet we're not. I have my reasons for believing this, none of them very pretty.)
The movie's a lot of fun, although Minnie Driver doesn't have much to do other than exchange insults with Everett. It's slight, though, despite the weighty subject matter: you know everything's going to turn out okay for everyone. (The executive producer said the weirdest thing: she said that cutting at the scene when the two couples kiss would be the Hollywood ending, whereas the movie goes on for 3 or 4 more minutes. And I have no idea what she's talking about: the ending they've got is definitely the Hollywood ending.)
You could do worse than spend two hours of your life with two incredibly gorgeous guys (Everett and Northam). And boy, is Everett nice to look at in this picture. Yum.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com