Memoirs of a Geisha
is a pretty movie. Gorgeous, even.
But that’s really all it is. The plot isn’t terribly engaging, the characters who aren’t loathsome are fairly uninteresting and the movie feels two or three times as long as it really is.
This is a rental, nothing more.
In May, I’ll be speaking to students at Hesperia Junior High School about the benefits of a college education. While I have some ideas (it opens a lot of doors career-wise, broadens your worldview, gives you a taste of independence with a safety net and, of course, you can meet a lot of new girls), I’m curious what other people feel are the benefits.
While my book-reading at Topaz Elementary School went well, I’m still haunted by Career Day at Hesperia High School last year, where I think students actually fell into a coma listening to me, so I’d appreciate any input.
My brain hurts after hearing about these.
We bought a new bed this weekend, since the waterbed, even with the (relatively) new motionless mattress, has finally given up the ghost. The heater is dead, there’s a mystery leak giving us a small puddle of ice water around the edges and, frankly, we’re tired of dealing with it.
We hit mattress stores in Victorville before settling on a Sealy Reed Rose plush, queen-sized. After a whole lot of Goldilocksing, this one just felt right.
It gets delivered Thursday, meaning we had to drain the waterbed (and the tougher to drain motionless mattress) one final time.
Crash is extremely well-acted, and has great dialogue, but the plot is just too pat. Everyone is racist, including the victims of racism, we get it. We didn’t need it said over and over for two hours. But that’s what we get. In fact, of all the characters to appear on the screen, only two (the Persian daughter who works the late shift at the LA County coroner’s office and the DA’s housekeeper) aren’t shown to be explicitly racist. It’s the kind of thing that seems deeply profound in high school or college, but the plot simply isn’t as sophisticated as it should have been.
Having said that, the movie’s still worth seeing. There are, to a person, great performances in the film (including the eerie sight of Tony Danza convincingly coming off as a racist Hollywood television producer) and some very sharp dialogue, a lot of it performed by Ludacris (including a humorous attack by him on hip-hop music).
Strongly recommended for the performances and the dialogue, but as a rental, not a purchase.
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