Somewhere (2010)

I like it how, in Sofia Coppola's films, time is expansive. She lets the camera linger- the pole dancers spin until the man is lulled to sleep, the girl swims until she absolutely has to stop to catch her breath, leisurely tea parties are had underwater, long drives are long drives, and conversations are not condensed- that the audience cannot help but share in the characters' lethargy and boredom.


If I were to rank her movies:

1. Life Without Zoe
2. Virgin Suicides
3. Somewhere
4. Lost in Translation
5. Lick the Star
6. Marie Antoinette

My summer in books

After my final examination, to celebrate: Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
Alone in Palawan: Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent: Travels Across Small-Town America
At Work, to kill time: Anton Chekov's Short Stories
During Holy Week: DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (I am realizing only now how terribly inappropriate this is!), James Carse's The Religious Case Against Belief, and Through the Children's Gate continued

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I have a dear friend who, every time she would feel hopelessly lugubrious or frustrated, would scream into the window of her 11th floor apartment at the top of her lungs. When she joins the rest of the world below afterward, she would be all smiles and sunshine again and no one would suspect a thing. When I first met her, I admired and envied her invincibility; when I found out that it was all but an appearance, I admired her even more. Here is a woman who manages to control her emotions long enough to keep everyone out of her throes.

The mean reds

Tonight, Ice told me that I'm the saddest person he knows. I indulge in more sadness than I am entitled, and spend more time sulking than people with bigger, actual predicaments. I know I'm hardly the happiest person in the world, but this still took me by surprise. I have always thought- and, yes, with gratitude- that other people have it worse than I do-- how come I am sadder than them?

It is possible, Ice said, that I am clinically depressed. Apparently, I somehow manage to transmogrify even the happiest of situations into an intense discussion about death. While I cannot help but acknowledge this obsession as true, I don't think I'm quite capable of explaining it just yet. All I know is that I feel for Ice. Imagine being with someone who constantly has a dark, ominous cloud over her head. I'm not sure he realizes what he has gotten himself into.