About seeing Ben Affleck's penis.

I read the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It was a fun and easy read. The movie version was released yesterday. I'm not interested in seeing the movie (or Ben's penis either), but for those of you who might be, here's a guide to catching a glimpse. Full guide can be found here, on Vulture.com.

3. There will come a time near the very end of the movie when one character suggests that Ben Affleck take a shower. This is your cue! Lurch forward in your chair, elbow your date, pull out a pair of opera glasses, and generally behave in a fashion that you’ll regret later.

4. The other character will then leisurely stroll upstairs, and the next scene begins in media [sic] res in the bathroom, with Affleck shrugging off his clothes as he approaches the shower moving right to left. Focus intently on the screen at this moment. One method of concentration I’d suggest is to open your eyes very wide and emit a high-pitched, unnerving keen, in order to better block out dangerous and distracting external stimuli.

5. Do not look at the other character, who is naked and showering at scene-left. You did not come here for this other character. Know your mission. Memorize it. Say it out loud to yourself in the bathroom mirror before you leave your home.

6. The camera will start a parabolic dive-swoop towards the disrobing Affleck as he pulls off the below-the-waist garments that have previously restricted your visual access to his nethers. You will experience a brief moment of panic and may even find yourself murmuring, “Wait, the camera is rising all of a sudden, am I even gonna see his ass? This movie ticket was $15 and I might not even see a famous person’s ass! Goddammit, Julie!” (Assuming your date's name is Julie.)

7. Relax, because there is the ass. Is it not fine? Smooth, supple, and tinted olive by director of photography Jeff Cronenweth? It is a good ass. The people nod in assent, knowing this in their hearts to be true.

8. You may be tempted to focus on the ass. You cannot. Instead, shift your attention to the furthest-left part of Affleck’s thighs. This is where it will appear. We are close now. Can you feel the anticipation? The moral rot? It is a great thing to feel these things communally at a movie theater.

9. Lo, it appears, in the bottom-middle of the frame, emerging briefly from behind Affleck’s thigh like Tom Cruise’s similarly curious dong in All the Right Moves! We have dick! We have the Affleck dick! Pop some Champagne!

Picture of Ben came from his appearance last night on Real Time with Bill Maher. Ben and Bill (and author Sam Harris) got into a rousing debate about Islam. 

Movies I've seen recently. Two ends of the movie spectrum.

"Soylent Green" was a 1973 movie that I somehow missed and knew absolutely nothing about until last night when it showed up on TV (I've always liked the name though -- the words "Soylent Green" roll nicely off the tongue and suggest something just a little unpleasant; now that I've seen the movie I know why--see crackers above). And the movie "The Artist" is simply spectacular. I could feel myself smiling virtually from the first moment the screen lit up. No violence, no blood, no abuse, no horror, no suspense, just pure pleasure.

This is what Tina Brown said about the movie:
"....the audience was so enchanted and uplifted they applauded at the end and skipped out into the cold January night smiling dreamily like an audience in the ’30s finding a dollar in the street."

Brown's review was in a short article with a funny (I thought) title: Fix Economy, See 'The Artist' First.

Ma-REE-ah! Ma-REE-ah! Ma-REE-ah! I just met a girl named Ma-REE-ah.

Katia will miss our coast, thanks to Tropical Depression Lee, who is dumping many inches of water on us now. But here comes Ma-REE-ah! And by the way, what ever happened to Richard Beymer who sang Maria in West Side Story? These days you can't ask those questions because of Wikipedia, the best website ever. Richard Beymer performed in a few other movies, and most notably (to me) had a role in Twin Peaks -- I loved Twin Peaks, bring back Twin Peaks! bring back Twin Peaks! -- and he even wrote a book called Impostor: Or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer?
So there you go: that's what happened to the guy singing Ma-REE-ah! Oh, and he wasn't even singing. That was someone named Jimmy Bryant. And if you're interested in what happened to him you'll have to check Wikipedia yourself.

King's Speech was very good. The wallpaper was the star of the show.

A documentary that was made for me. Can't wait to see it.

From the Sundance Film website:

Waste Land is a wonderfully resonant documentary that chronicles [Brazilian artist Vik] Muniz's journey to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, and photographs these inspiring characters as they recycle their lives and society’s garbage. Walker gains fantastic access to the entire process and, in doing so, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the dignity that can be found in personal determination.

Saw Fair Game yesterday. Good movie.

Movie made me mad all over again. Today I discovered that this exact feeling was mentioned in the opening sentence of the 11/8/10 New Yorker review: "'Fair Game' ...is an effective political melodrama that induces a peculiar emotion--the bitterness generated by an old anger that has faded into dull exasperation and now flares up again."

But more important, I think I found a continuity error, which I think is the right term. Near the middle of the movie, Sean Penn (playing Joe Wilson) is sitting on the stairs in his home in his tee shirt. The camera cuts to him 3 times as he sits there. In the first and third shots, you can see a little of Sean's (not Joe's) tattoo on his upper right arm. Joe Wilson doesn't strike me as someone who would get an arm tattoo.

If anyone watches the movie try to check this out. And let me know if I'm right. (It's really annoying to be a former editor who gleefully points out irrelevant errors wherever she sees them. So childish.)

Photo from Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/fair-game-reviews-naomi-watts-sean-penn/)