(no subject)

[mlr]

The summer's half gone.

I decided to take it easy this weekend for once. On a lark, I left work early on Friday, flew to Dallas to see as many movies as I could before flying back Saturday night.

I only managed two: Winter Bone and I Am Love (basically on recommendations from dewittar and stivalineri.) They were both very good, it would be hard to argue otherwise. Both recreated very rarefied, closed worlds of particular families: one in the Ozark backwoods, and one in upper the reaches of Milanese society. Both had thoughtful, intelligent, and discounted women as protagonists. Tilda Swinton apparently learned Italian for her role. Her character was Russian so any accent might have been plausible - although beyond my ear. She's such a wonderful actress and (for me) the essence of the Zeitgeist. Wonder if she'll get nominations? Also, I Am Love used music by John Adams - a composer I've never warmed to before. But the music (which was not constant) would jump from chamber music textures to rather loud orchestrations. That didn't make any sense. But when the titles came around, I noticed it had been culled together from Adams' entire output. It was sensitively done, but the effect was still too jumbled for my taste.

Good as the movies were I enjoyed the meals and coffee with Israel more. We spent the two hours before the return flight in Half Price Books where I found a Jordi Savall recording of Monteverdi's Vespers - a piece that has eluded me. I put it on the iPod and spent Sunday afternoon and evening going between the Savall recording and one from the 1960s by Robert Craft.