A few years back I went with two friends to see The Heartbreak Kid at the (completely packed) Music Box in Chicago. Caring about Chicago and Chicago history, as I do, I knew who Elaine May was. The Compass Players... Nichols and May... The Birdcage... Mikey and Nicky (which I should rewatch because all my friends love it and I didn't really like it the first time... 😬) etc. I knew of her but really didn't have an understanding the level at which she operated.... which is basically just higher than everyone else, effortlessly. Chicago comedy owes much of its success to her and Nichols.

In her first outing as a director, she cast Matthau as the bumbling rich person who never had to work. This is punctuated by a great scene of confusion with a banker, displaying just how little he understands money. There are some great jokes in the first third of the movie between Matthau and his butler, including a running gag about "Carbon on the valves..." Movies should really employ running gags more.

But once Elaine May shows up, the film is elevated beyond the typical bumbling male-centric comedy (No shade... sometimes those are great). May is adorably and clumsily introduced with a spill and a Matthau speech about the hosts rug perversions. Throughout May is hilarious with her subdued demeanor ("Heavens..") and physical comedy. Alone in my living room I laughed out loud when a waiter pulled a table back and she's covered in crumbs. Precursor to Charles Grodin disgusted by Jeannie Berlin eating in Heartbreak Kid. This gag is hilariously called back later in the movie when Walter Matthau declares "She has to be vacuumed every time we eat!". 

Matthau's scheme in the second half is pretty dark but the writing and repartee soften all of this... It is pretty easy to see how the film will resolve but knowing where it is headed takes nothing away from the journey of getting there. 

Gemma gave me this book for Christmas. A slim edition of collages married with short essays & poems reflecting upon, as far as I'm concerned, scenes from a life well lived. Or, if not "well lived" definitely LIVED. And it seems thats what stands out for me. Maybe it's a Chicago traint. Most people don't live well or even live at all... (maybe its easier to not want to?) Maybe I don't even. I think at forty four I'm starting to... 

Liesurely thumbing through the pages this past week, a faint recognition grew in the recesses of my memory of these collages; I have seen them, some of them here and there, over the 20ish years I've been in Chicago. The images, the essays, feel very strongly like the fog of early 2000s Chicago to me. The pre smart phone era, the pre dead internet era... before the bans lifted all the smoke from the bars which then settled over my youth in a haze. I never knew who Tony Fitzpatrick was. Though, I think anyone from Chicago, who was looking (or who has been here by choice for 10+ years) would recognize them.

A personal trait I've been trying to reconcile as I grow older is that I'm immediately anti and uninterested regarding books given to me. Given out of context anyways. Over the years I think I've partially connected this to really just being in love with the journey of discovery that comes with loving books and words... (Oddly I really LOVE giving folks books as gifts. The dichotomy is not lost on me.)

I can claim no ownership to any books, of course, but I do feel a sense of ownership and even attach a sense of myself to books. I know others do this, it is not unique. So when I give a book to a friend, family-member, colleague, acquaintance... it is showing them something of myself. It's an easy way to show "who I am" with a wink. Where I've landed on this whole situation is... when people give me books... its sort of like "this isn't me!".... simply because I have yet to read it so how could it be? Then I have a chip on my shoulder which often colors my reaction to the book, preemptively deciding no this is not for me. NICE TRY [friend or partner or coworker]!!

In this case, pass the knife and fork, I am most happily eating a bit of crow (an apt analogy as a third of the works in the book are about birds). 

It is an easy book to read and enjoy, to pick up and open to any page and find something good. I need more books like this. 

Tony Fitzpatrick passed away on October 11th of this year. He was honest in his writing. He looked for good in people but hated assholes and let you know it. A real Chicagoan gone, joining the ranks of Algren, Turkel, Bellows, Brooks, and Dreiser... and on and on.  I only just met him but I miss him. 

A few favorite passages. 

From Winter Cardinal:

In Tokyo, public greenas and parks are for solitude and reflection; you

won't see a gaggle of assholes throwing frisbees and drinking beer. 

From Chicago Winter Rail:

I try to get out to nature more now, to shut out the noise and find what is good. 

Movie club and book club ended up being back-to-back this month. It's been tough to find time to jot some notes down in this season of so many social obligations and so many beverages.

I Hadn't seen this one in many years (maybe since it came out!). Even if I do remember it fondly... I'm not sure 16 year old Nick could appreciate the craftsmanship. 

Seeing it now, after years of nurturing a love for cinema and literature, I am truly impressed at how well crafted this beautiful movie is. Each shot is gorgeous, revealing glimpses of the plot in a methodically blunt succession. Wonderful Christmas-time movie club choice on Mikes part. 

So this was a Book Club choice. It was ok. It felt overly complicated... or the technology and enhancement drugs the characters all seemed to take were just confusing... or that could be my problem. IDK. For modern "Tech Noir" or whatever the F this is... it was entertaining. Perhaps a bit TOO sexy at times, maybe. I'm no prude but I prefer my noir to be a bunch of sexy build up followed by a smirk of a scene with people smoking. Guess I'm just old fashioned that way. Or I just feel dirty when its described in stark terms.

I also started the TV show. I love old boy in it. Dude from The Killing. The show already seems to suffer from the above comments though. 

The other thing about it... its written in first person but the style is `First person as if he were the third person.` As a narrator he really doesn't have much of a style. At least not a style that necessitates the first person. It does seem most books these days are first person so maybe his editors just did a find and replace for `He` and updated them all to `I`. 

Anyhow, halfway enjoyable. 

My God. I can't believe I had never seen this.

The setup:

Eddie has one night before shipping out to Vietnam from San Fransisco. He and his pals all throw in $50 and spend the early evening looking for dates to bring to their so-called Dogfight. Guy who brings the "best", in this case "ugliest" takes home the cash. There are many similar or adjacent stories in this sub-genre of do-something-to-or-with-ugly-person (She's all That & My Fair Lady, 10 Things I Hate about You & Taming of the Shrew, Dinner for Schmucks...etc.) and none come close to the truth in this film. Credit is probably generally attributed to River Phoenix and Lily Taylor and their wonderful chemistry (rightly so!)... but the writing and the music and the supporting casts and sub-plots and the filming locations are all practically perfect. 

I had known of this movie for years but never sat down with it until I saw it on the Criterion channel. The setup itself is not one of my favorites...just somewhat off-putting for me at this point in my life. These days I try to avoid mean for mean-sake stories but the family was asleep when I got home last night, and I was out of ideas, so I threw it on not expecting much. But holy shit! Surprise of surprises! So many perfect little moments... the sweet thrill of getting to know someone and opening yourself up just little pieces at a time. Two immature but sweet and lost kids trading barbs, pushing limits; setting boundries and honoring them. And I'd say, after the first watch, it falls more into a different sub-genre that I truly love; Unexpected Frienship.

The music is used perfectly. Some great late 50s and early 60s pop fare along with some perfectly placed Dylan in the second act which bookends some grittier bluesy Van Morrison (TB Sheets) heralding in the more serious third act. 

Really too much to name in this movie but an abbreviated list:

• Fun scene in tatoo parlor
• Keeping cigarettes in socks
• The piano scene in the closed bar (the camera luxuriating on both Eddie and Rose)
• "Lock your eyes on the numbskulls and brain them!"

10 out of 10

***On a more personal note, a good chunk of the film takes place on Ballard Ave in Seattle (standing in for San Fransisco). The restaurant where Eddie first meets Rose was one of our favorite bars in Seattle circa 2018 (Little Tin sadly now closed). That whole strip is near and dear to my (and my wifes) heart as it was our neighborhood the few years leading up to Covid followed by our sons birth... so I guess sort of the last hurrah of that time of life.