Speaking of red shirts at Target....

Or rather I was reminded of this at dinner the other night. A group planned an elaborate prank on Best Buy. They got a ton of people to dress in royal blue polo shirts and khaki pants and they all entered a Best Buy store in Manhattan at the same time. They didn't do anything but stand around, but it caused all sorts of chaos and mayhem.

You can never be too rich or too thin

Or can you?

HBO has a documentary out called simply "Thin." I heard about it when I was at the Dr's office and read an article about it in People (yeah, I know, not very high-brow, but it was between that and some fish and game mag). Thin concerns four young women who suffer from eating disorders as they are being treated at Renfrew. It's a fascinating documentary, harrowing at times--the worst bit is toward the end where Brittany (the youngest of the four subjects who at under 100 pounds wants to lose 40 more) is in her last group therapy session. Three of the subjects have been active in forums and such, but I can't find out what happened to to Brittany, whose interviews still haunt me.

Really, really worth seeing.

Suitcases

One of my colleagues sent this link to me. It's the haunting and fascinatingWillard Suitcase Exhibit Online. Willard was a state psych hospital and after its closing, workers found a bunch of suitcases and trunks in the building's attics. Apparently these were the belongings of the patients that they brought with them when they were admitted. Many of these patients never left the facility.

Baby Face

TCM was airing a pre-code gem the other night: Baby Face. Barbara Stanwyck plays Lilly, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who will do anything to get on the right side of the tracks. In true, pre-code fashion, it is made explicitly clear that she sleeps her way to the top of an office building--literally. It's a hoot to watch. George Brent plays the male protagonist and is well, George Brent. Early George Brent. I think he became more memorable as he aged and started playing more character roles. Here he's totally outmatched by Stanwyck.

One thing I really love about this film is how very unrepentant Lilly is. She doesn't give two hoots about any of the men she uses or what befalls her. She is loyal to her friend (played ably by in Theresa Harris). There's a tacked-on ending that reportedly was added to shut up the Hayes Office (the Production Code given teeth by then and 1934 was the start of the new regime's reign of terror er...power), but it doesn't negate the rest of the film's impact.

Stranger than fiction

I used to go to the movies every week. Yes, every week. Of course, a lot of those films were at the $1.50 show and included such classics as Anaconda ("You can't scream if you can't breathe!") and Con-Air, but I went. But as time went on, I lost the habit. Oh, sure I'd go for things like the release of one of the LOTR flicks. There was also that summer when my apartment was 95F at the best of times; my only criteria for choosing a film that summer was that it be held in an air-conditioned theatre and that they take one of my movie passes. But I've got A/C now and well, it's not what I do anymore.

So you'll imagine my shock that I've gone to the flicks twice in a row now. Stranger Than Fiction is a very interesting film. I suspect the reason it got made was that a)it stars Will Ferrell and b) it's the cinematic descendant of Being John Malkovich. That is, that quirky little film paved the way for this one.

Harold Crick (Ferrell) leads a pretty colorless life and works for the IRS. He's going about his number-obsessed way when one day he starts to hear Emma Thompson narrating his life. Turns out she's a novelist whose protagonists always die. Harold, of course, would rather not die. Did she create him? Can she kill him for real with a mere click of the typewriter? How is this happening? What can he do to stop it? That's really the story here.

Reader, I liked it. Interesting premise. The set design was genius. Intelligent performances from Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. And then there's Will Ferrell. I've come to like Will Ferrell a lot. He's pretty much been established as a comedic actor, but I think this may be his breakout role. Whether or not the public or the studio people will accept that he can do more than comedy is another story; he's proved he's capable of it here.

Go see it.