Happy New Year to all!!! The top picture shows New Year's Eve Party and the bottom picture is of my sister and I on New Year's Day.
For the past couple of weeks, my partner and I have been setting up the studio. We plan to have it ready by Tues. Jan. 20.
I have also been on my yearly pilgrimage to theatres to see as many movies as I can before the Oscars. I have seen Doubt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Wrestler, Marley and Me and Synecdoche, NY. All good movies, many excellent performances. I have a list to see yet.
Synecdoche. Quite surreal in many ways, terrific performance by Phillip Seymore Hoffman. He also gave a great performance in Doubt. Can this man act? Yeah, remember Capote? I don't think he's capable of a bad performance.
I saw this movie in a huge theatre. I was one of 10 people (I did count) at this showing. At the end of the movie, all 10 of us sat there staring at the screen as the credits rolled by, trying to make sense of what we had just seen. I love movies that make me think.
Charlie Kaufman, the writer and director, was up to his usual craziness. The main character is a director of stage plays. He mounts a play about his own life and gets people to play him and the others in his life. Actors drop out of the play (one literally) and he has to recast parts. It was all slightly confusing trying to keep track of who was playing a role and who wasn't....oh, wait...they were all playing roles. Except me...I wasn't playing a role...I think. Well, what can one expect from the writer of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. He has made 6 movies now and I have seen 5 of them.
Anyway, this movie had me going to Wikipedia to read everything about Charlie Kaufman and going to my Oxford dictionary to look up synecdoche. Sin-neck-doe-kee, with the accent on the neck. I kid you not, that is how to pronounce it. I assume since the che is pronounced kee that the word is from a Greek word. Synecdoche means: extended acceptation by which when a part is named, the whole it belongs to is understood. The examples given by the Oxford: 50 sail (for 50 ships) and England beat Australia at cricket (England's cricket team and Australia's cricket team). So then I spent hours trying to come up with other synecdoches. The only one I am sure of is a Canadianism. The goalie stood in front of the pipes (for the net). I just thought of another one. Mickey Rourke plays in "The Wrestler." I guess we could call him the muscle of the movie. Let me know if you think of any others. No wonder darling daughter calls me a "word nerd."
And I am left wondering about how the meaning of synecdoche fits with the movie. The obvious, I suppose, would be that a biographical movie or a play is a part of a life that stands for the whole life. I want to see this movie again to watch if there are any synecdoches in the script.
A character in Synecdoche says: Everyone is the main character of their own play and there are no extras. Food for thought. I really need to see this movie again.
Tonight, the Golden Globes. Woo hoo. Is it the dress or the tech rehearsal for the Academy Awards? I don't know, but it is always interesting. The actors get free booze and many of them are a little snockered.
Much affection to the cast of my life.
My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot. ~Ashleigh Brilliant
