fears and insecurities of a nerd in love
Like a Woody Allen who digs deeper—way deeper—Kaufman has again found the truth of what makes us tick and has reflected it back to us.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explores the fears and insecurities of a nerd in love, exploding the myth of facile young love inevitably ageing into distance and cynicism, and replacing it with a far more complex image of the truth for so many of us—we're just too damned scared to take intimacy another step forward, especially once the initial kamikaze fearlessness of a new relationship begins to wane. Kaufman's Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is a man in search of greater meaning, but when he finds it in the form of the free spirited (and frankly slightly unbalanced) Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), he's terrified without even knowing it. And so is she. There goes another myth—that of the free spirit having no fear.
Both Joel and Clementine seek out a novel way of avoiding the intimacy that so freaks them out ...
- brian webster, review of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind," apollo movie guide
Part of the mission of this website (its raison d'être? Oh God, is there any word that's not pretentious? You know what I mean: its point) is to write about movies, not as an object, but as an experience. In this sense, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the second collaboration between music-video director Michel Gondry and Being John Malkovich screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, is a High Sign movie par excellence. It's a film that operates on the viewer intrapsychically, like a drug experience, a dream, or a kiss; when it's over, you look to the person next to you and ask with real curiosity, not "What did you think?" but "How was that for you?" You can't be sure the two of you saw the same film. People will respond to this movie with whatever they bring into it, which is why, although he's smart and handsome and has a soothing voice on the radio, I'm not sure Elvis Mitchell is meant to be my own true man. (I know, I know: another heart rent asunder, right?) I just don't recognize anything from my experience of Eternal Sunshine in Mr. Mitchell's pronouncement that, "Even as you laugh, it's a movie you admire more than love." First off, I'm not sure there's an honest out-and-out laugh in this movie. There are smiles of recognition, tears of grief, and open-mouthed "O"'s of pure mind-fucked amazement, but not a lot of knee-slapping yuks. Second, during the movie's brief-seeming 108 minutes, I never felt a moment of anything detached and abstract enough to be called admiration. I'm not sure you could say I "loved" the movie either, though I certainly swooned in its general vicinity. Rather than offering itself up as an object to be loved (like, say, Sherlock Jr.—now that's a lovable movie) Eternal Sunshine is a movie that (again, almost psychotropically) causes you to experience, to remember, what love itself feels like ...
- Liz Penn, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Déjà Vu All Over Again," the high sign March 23, 2004
posted April 29, 2004 in film, print10 years to normal?
But we CAN tell you EXACTLY what the Gang of 500 is thinking about the race overall, because three of Maureen Dowd's paragraphs today capture it perfectly—in her column on the two candidates:
"An incumbent who sticks with the wrong decisions based on the wrong facts versus a challenger who seems unable to stick to one side of any decision, right or wrong ..."
"Bush strategists seem to believe that the worse Mr. Bush makes things, the better off he is, because nervous Americans will cling to the obstinate president they know over the vacillating challenger they don't know."
"Mr. Kerry errs on the side of giving the answer he thinks people want to hear, even as Mr. Bush errs on the side of giving the answer he expects people to accept as true."
Never forget that Ms. Dowd is a stellar reporter, even when you want to strangle her.
- Mark Halperin, Marc Ambinder, David Chalian, Anne Chiappetta, Jan Simmonds, Teddy Davis, Karen Travers, and Alexandra Avnet, with V. Brown, T. Peck and R. Thomasson, "We Keep Pretending That There's Nothing Wrong," ABCNEWS.com: The Note April 29, 2004
posted April 29, 2004 in politics, printhe does not love Mr. Sharon like you do
She was pouting like a bitch because this is what the photographer, Emmanuel D'Souza, was demanding of her, and the only thing Carol O'Mealy liked better than pouting like a bitch was being told to pout like a bitch by a man wearing leather pants and a scarf for a belt ...
"I like this pout," said Emmanuel, who had stopped shooting and was now pouting himself. "But I am not convinced it is real. I am not convinced that this is the pout of a bitch. It looks more like the pout of a nice lady who is upset with her doggie. Her doggie who peed on the leg of her Hepplewhite chair, you see?"
Carol injected more venom into her pout, thinking of her mother. Emmanuel wasn't satisfied.
"No ... This is the pout of a nice lady whose copy of Family Circle came through the mail kind of—how do you say?—soggy. She cannot read the recipes. This is not the right kind of pout."
Carol straightened her back, squinted her eyes and threw hatred into her pout. Emmanuel still hadn't taken the camera off his shoulder.
"No, no. This is the pout of a Bikram yoga instructor who finds her nice hummus salad half-eaten in the communal refrigerator. She is sad about this for now she must go to the Whole Foods and get a new salad. This pout is not the right kind of pout."
Dave Eggers, "New Hampshire Is for Lovers," Salon April 29, 2004
posted April 29, 2004 in politics, print