LAmom

A MOVIE I REALLY LEARNED SOMETHING FROM

I told you all how much I enjoyed Crash, even though I didn't feel like it was as educational as some people found it.  But I recently saw Memento (checked it out from the library) and boy, was it educational.

I enjoyed the murder mystery story and the acting and all that (for obvious reasons, they wanted to cast a guy who looks good with his shirt off, but I also thought he gave a great performance), but the thing that was really inspiring to me was the idea that even the most forgetful person can get a lot accomplished if they have an organized approach.  I'm a pretty absent-minded person, and nothing feels worse than having to apologize to someone for breaking a promise because you forgot that you had even made the promise.  What I learned from Leonard, the dude with the anterograde amnesia, is that I don't need to try to force myself to remember things, even things that seem obvious or ultra-important.  I can just accept the fact that the future Joan (even if it's just one day into the future) may not remember this and just leave a note in a place where I know she'll see it -- my planner.  Once it's written down, I feel free.  I'm no longer worrying about whether I'm going to remember it.  I don't feel like I've got a million different items crowding my thinking.  Whatever it is, I don't have to "keep it in mind."

I don't have to feel any guilt about this.  It's not about admitting that I'm scatterbrained, it's about having a system.  Many of us, especially if we're raising children, have those "Leonard moments" where we finish one activity and realize that we're not really sure what we should be doing next or what is most important at this moment.  When that happens, I just read the notes.  They're a gift from my past self.

Lunchtime is over now.  My schedule tells me that it's time to gather our stuff for the homeschoolers' beach day, call the girls that we're giving a ride to, and off we go.  I already printed all the MapQuest directions last night because my schedule told me to plan out my next day's activities.  Thank you, past self.

Suggested organization websites: FlyLady (mostly focuses on housekeeping, but the concept of planning and having routines can work for any endeavor), LargeFamilyLogistics (specifically geared toward Christian homeschooling families).

I MUST BE A GOOD LUCK CHARM!

This is not the first time that the only movie I saw in a year won the Oscar for Best Picture.  Anyway, as I told you all before, I loved Crash.  I don't feel like I can really say that it was the most deserving since I didn't see any of the other films, but I was still delighted when it won.

"WE WON'T BE TALKING ABOUT . . ."

Today they aired Fried Green Tomatoes on TV (I think it was on TBS).  In the scene where Kathy Bates is talking with one of her friends from her women's empowerment group, the friend whispers, "Will I see you at group tonight?  We'll be talking about . . . menopause."

If you've seen the movie before, you'll know that the original line was altered for this TV airing.  That really struck me funny.  The whole idea of the women's group was that these prim and conventional southern women were trying to get past their inhibitions.  Kathy's friend had found it in herself to dare to speak the word, and what does she get for it?  She gets censored.  I guess that means that we, the viewing audience, are even more inhibited than these ladies from Alabama.

CRASH

Last week I saw a movie that made me wish I got out to the movies more than a couple of times a year (this time, it was my Mother's Day treat).

I really enjoyed Crash.  I thought it might be an exception to the usual rule that when Hubby and I see a movie either he likes it or I do, but not both of us.  Alas, he didn't feel it.  When he goes to a movie, he's going to relax, not to work.  The mental effort of following different characters and storylines was not his cup of tea.  Talking about it on the way home, I compared it to the difference between listening to classical music and pop music.  To really experience a classical piece, you have to put some effort into it, which is why listening to classical music while driving is so different from listening alone at home or at a concert.

And Crash is also like a piece of classical music, specifically a theme and variations.  The theme is racism, and it's played out in many ways.  Various motifs, in the forms of characters, play against each other in different combinations to produce an overall effect.

I don't think the filmmaker, Paul Haggis, believes that all Angelenos talk about nothing but race issues all the time; that's just the theme that's being used in this piece.  Nor is he trying to make me think that so many coincidences and meet-ups would ever happen between the same people in real life.  We don't expect a musical piece to resemble sound the way it naturally occurs.  We expect it to be contrived, or crafted, to achieve an artistic goal, one that speaks to us in a real way, even though the piece itself is not real.

Some people are saying that Crash is an eye-opener that can teach us about racism.  I guess my eyes were already open to that.  I didn't find the film instructive, but definitely entertaining and definitely moving.  The "lesson" I took away from the movie was from the not-realistic way the characters intersected with each other.  It reminded me that the people I run into every day are not just extras in my life story.  Everybody has a back story.  The person in front of me in the checkout line, who I am inwardly despising because they're in the express lane with 13 items, has a back story.  They are more than just a person who is doing something wrong right now.  I might dislike them even more or I might adore them if I were able to follow them home.

I thought all the acting was great.  My favorite character's storyline was Matt Dillon's.

UPDATE: Here's a comment from Haggis himself that also indicates that the movie is about people, not about race (source: IMDB):

"It’s a story about strangers, and how we affect strangers. This isn’t about ‘the bad white people’ or anything like that– I hate those kinds of movies… Racism was just a way to demark strangers."

"I didn’t know what I had until Bobby Moresco and I were finished with the script. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to talk about how we affect strangers. If you’re driving down the street and someone cuts you off and you give them the finger, then that person goes left and you go right—and I was just fascinated by the concept of what happens to that person after they leave your sight. Do they get into a collision? Do they go home and get into a fight with their wife? Maybe they do something wonderful or miraculous! And since I was setting the story in Los Angeles, which is a multi-ethnic community, I figured that a good way to talk about strangers was to have the characters meet people who didn’t look like them."