While I was doing laundry I walked up to my local neighborhood sushi place, which to be clear is not a sushi restaurant. It is basically a doorway where they exchange cash (and cash only) for delicious shumai. When I say delicious, I really mean close. When I ordered the salmon samurai (#52), the shrimp shumai, and a Coke, the man at the counter replied "Everything with an "S" today?" I replied, "Well, except the Coke (which incidentally they forgot)." I then said, "Well it is Sunday," that was probably more friendly. People often say I come across as aggressive with salespeople, particularly those who take down orders for food.
Anyway, in today's title everything starts with a "c." I should first mention that this problem occurred to me about 3 hours into a 6 hour movie.
Unshowered and unfed, I had scrambled down to Lincoln Center to see the first of four movies at the NY Film Festival, "Carlos." When I took my seat in row Z, the lady in the next seat turns and says, "do you think they will have a break?" Frankly, this caught me by surprise, "Do they usually have breaks during the movies here?," I replied. "Well it is 6 hours," she said. Zing!
So, three hours into what was an excellent movie, I noticed how much time was spent loading trunks (with bombs), parking cars (in front of leftist Arab newspapers), and just generally getting in and out of cars. Frankly, if the director had simply accepted that we understood how people got places in the Sixties a good 45 minutes could have been shaved off. I suspect this is generally the case with modern crime movies. Loading cars provides an opportunity for foreshadowing (bombs=future explosions) and an enclosed space that forces conversation between two characters, space in which they cannot throw things at each other, or shoot at each other.
Rants: Cash only sushi places
Six-hour long movies
Raves: Carlos
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