Hangin' At Home + KUSC + "Arrival"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope your day was a good one, that your week is off to a good start and that you are gearing up for Thanksgiving and also for your birthday weekend. I say "yes" to all of that, that all of those things are answered affirmative! :) I will also bet that you are working on one project or another.....  :)

As for me.......I slept in this morning. Big time, SB. I don't always realise how tired I get by the end of a work cycle until I have a day off and that first sleep-in. Then I know, haha.

So I slept until 11:30 (!), then read my latest Charles Grant book, "The Orchard" (poetic & scary). Then I just puttered about The Tiny Apartment, straightening up a bit and listening to KUSC. I have that station literally playing 24/7 in my apartment, usually softly and never loud, but it is playing even when I am not home, to keep that vibe going at all times. Classical music is a source and a force of great positivity, and on KUSC you not only get the music, without commercials, but also the erudition and individual personalities of the esteemed hosts (I hesitate to call them DJs, lol). I started listening to the station when I was about 25, and in the last 15 years it's been a constant with me.

In the early evening, I walked out to the Northridge Mall, about a mile and a half away, to see "Arrival". Grimsley had been pestering me to see it in the theater, so I figured I'd better go while it was still playing, before all the holiday movies open.

I have read several reviews by some of my FB friends, and Grim raved about it. My review is mixed. I thought that the overall production was fantastic, the photography and sound are as good as it gets. I also liked the spare coloring of the film, pale colors instead of lurid. That lessening of the visual stimulation added to the focus on the emotional aspect. This was more of an artsy alien picture than a full-blown Mega Sci-Fi UFO Spectactular. The focus was on the human aspect, and even the "humanity" of the creatures, who also possess emotions. The story is all about how the humans and aliens communicate with each other, and the sci-fi is all stripped down. The spaceship only consists of a rough black material and nothing more.

I hope I'm not giving any spoilers, and I'll say no more about the plot or story. The cast is perfect, the leads (Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner) couldn't have been better chosen to convey the theme of human vulnerability and ingenuity. So all of that is the Good Stuff, and in all of those ways it's an excellent movie, and an interesting one too.

Where it breaks down a bit, I'm afraid, as always, is in the script. "When in doubt, blame the screenwriter". :) That's my Movie Maxim, and it usually holds up. In "Arrival", to many plot points are set up and then quickly passed over and forgotten. Difficult if not impossible feats of Alien Communication Translation are just sped past and glossed over, and all of this is to set up a final half hour on the nature of time, as it relates to a lead character, that is extremely confusing as it is presented on screen. Very obtuse writing in that final section and not nearly as good as it could have been.

This movie could have knocked it out of the park on all counts and could have been one of the great sci-fi movies of all time, artsy or not. But the script keeps it from reaching those heights unfortunately.

Still, and this is a big "still"......Still, it's a really, really good movie just as an overall production, and thus is very much recommended despite it's faults. Many have loved it and called it a classic. I simply call it very good. See it, if you haven't already, whether in the theater or on dvd.

That's all I know for tonight. Tomorrow night I will be going to The Orpheum Theater in Downtown Los Angeles to see Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, three main guys from Yes, and I couldn't be more stoked. This will be the final concert for me this year, as well as the last one in the incredible run of shows I've been fortunate to see in the past 13 weeks or so. I should be home around the Usual Time, I would guess around Midnight, and I'll be here all day until I leave for Downtown as well.

See you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)