Sunday, Sans Photos

And trust me, it kills me to be unable to post photographs as -- naturally -- the Pacific Ocean lends itself to gorgeous photography, packed with saturated colors, foaming and cascading waves blasting the coast at the behest of northern winds.

At this time, I write in our ensconced room on Saturday night, with the deck door open so that we can hear the crashing winter waves.  I captured our sunset with my Sony A300 dSLR.  My wife is watching the first Harry Potter film (like most kids, she could watch every Harry Potter film every day, nonstop, from now to forever) on our portable DVD player whilst I tap out this post on the new PowerBook laptop.  God bless her.  What other wife would give her husband a present on her birthday?  This still befuddles me!

I took her, earlier today, to a local spa that offers any number of massage therapies.  We partook of a 1-hour Thai Herb Salt Scrub directly linked to a 90-minute deep tissue massage, separated by a wonderful and warming double-spray shower.  That equals, in essence, a full 2 1/2 hours of massage and it was -- how shall I write this? -- decadent.

Following that, I took her to a local showing of the Clint Eastwood directed-and-produced movie "Gran Torino."  In my estimation, a shocking and yet very Eastwood-like film.  I was of two minds about the film; photographically and in terms of film stock, casual and almost disappointing.

I say this predicated upon the fact that I would like to see Hollywood hearken back to the days when its film stock was replete with saturation, sharpness, crispness, accentuated colors.

These days, the physical nature of film is, to me, predominantly disappointing.  Too washed out, too little access to the full palette of nature's colors.  Too many purposeful pastels, too many nature colors, too much washed-out stock.  For whatever reason, these days, little thought is apparently given to the film stock utilized on the majority of movies shown.  

And, not knowing if this is a projection issue or an original issue: sharpness is, in general, very poor overall.  The overall experience of a movie suffers.

Or perhaps I am standing in a field all by myself: I would like nothing more than for future films to be sharper, higher in contrast, more saturated with color.

I attend a movie to not precisely experience a slice of dismal life in terms of display; I attend a movie so that it can manipulate me, to include, I should submit, the film stock or the video program as well.

I submit, further: you should attend Gran Torino for, I believe, it's likely to be Clint Eastwood's last captured performance.  At 78-years-of-age, he's made this goal no secret.

The pizza's been delivered.

The waves are crashing.

Time to eat.  Time to get off the internet.

BZ