Hi Deb, Josie, Valerie, Lori, and Judy--
This morning I did GG, the premix with no ball (55:40).
Too bad about the SSS, Deb and Lori. Could also be the full moon, which I have heard makes it harder to sleep. When I got up Sunday morning it was still up there and had not set yet. Really pretty. Very cold here too--1 degree.
I had very mixed feelings about Her. My major reaction was one of discomfort mingled with disbelief. It is set in the future and this particular future looks very clean, modern (all the furnishings look like they came from an Ikea catalog and the apartments are all in glassy high rises), antiseptic and populated solely by humans who have technocratic jobs. It just didn't feel right to me, probably because I tend to think of the future as getting dirtier and more violent--I tend to believe more in dystopias than Marcuse's vision of everyone playing--no more alienated labor--because production of everything we need has been taken over by machines. Joaquin Phoenix writes letters for other people--that's his job. He just looks at the computer and says what the computer will write for him as he pretends to be someone else--e.g., a husband missing his wife, parents happy with their child's recent accomplishment. My discomfort was primarily a result of seeing everyone with an earpiece listening or chatting, in total alienation from everyone else, living in a private world with technology. I also did not find the idea of falling in love with an intuitive OS named Samantha very illuminating or whimsical. Spike Jonze just seems to meander with this idea. Disembodied sex took me back to the witty neo-platonic seductions in the poetry of many Renaissance poets (e.g., John Donne). The difference is that they knew it was a joke, while Jonze seems to be serious about it--the screen goes black and you just hear the voices of Theodore and Samantha orgasming. I won't tell you what happens in the end because it would be a spoiler. Irritating: we never really understand what went wrong with Theodore's marriage, although there are a couple gestures that I think were intended to shed light on this. One other thing--the clothes are just slightly off to signal that this really is a future time. The guys wear their pants really high. If this is the future, then Thoreau was right, except that it won't be just "most men," but everyone leading lives of quiet desperation.
That's my review. By the way, Valerie, I thought your spelling was funny. Joachim sounds like a Yiddish name to me. If you don't like Joaquin Phoenix to begin with, I suspect this is not the film for you because he is in virtually every frame of the film.
Phew! That was long. I had mussels again last night because they were so good, and half of a Scotch egg with slaw on the side. My usual Manhattan.
