“Old age is hell,” reports the 88-year-old monkey-man shoveling a substantial square of blizzard off the theater curb. And we’re all old men. Or rather, more or less adrift on the boundless seas of middle age (Colin Farrell looks too thin). Titanic is a love story, of course…between an iceberg and a boat. It’s no simple navigational maneuver to meet one’s chunk of destiny where it lurks beneath the waves.
“You’re going to learn a lot about MEN and WOMEN,” observed Madeleine, while we watched the previews before Nine. But give essentialism its due. I’ve never quite believed Je suis un autre. I is an avatar, sent from the world within to inspect the damage in the world outside. We’ve all heard that Lebowski’s clothes—the robe, the jellies, the Guatemalan pants—are Bridges’s clothes. When the sun flares the camera lens, fixed on a stretch of desert road, it’s not the movie that disappears through the trapdoor of belief but Bridges. Whatever a Bridges is. A gut you strap on. A peppery-gray wig. A press-on lower lip to press against the top one. Plausible guitar.
“Give the people what they want”—amen. He plays a venue called the Pavilion. You find out how much is in life when you resolve not to slowly dole but instead slash and burn months or years of feeling to write one good song—
Lighting the next day with the butt-end of the last.
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