Last night I watched Dog Town and Z Boys, which is a documentary about the history of skateboarding. I should point out that I watched it on DVD. My cultural life out here, not counting reading books and magazines, is largely reduced to movie watching, specifically DVD watching. I joined Netflix, which is a service that delivers DVDs through the mail. So pretty much about four nights a week, I watch a DVD. My honey usually starts watching it with me, and falls asleep by twenty minutes into it or so. The thing is, I chose the movies, and I tend to chose movies she doesn't like. These are some great movies, but they aren't her style. Like A Walk in the Sun, the classic about the aquatic landing in Italy in WWII, or The Third Man, written by Graham Greene, the greatest writer in the English language, according to some. But generally thought to be one of the greatest movies ever made by film cognecenti. I've seen it a few times, but I thought she would like it. And she did, or so she said when she woke up at the end. Anyway Dog Town is pretty good, though it doesn't really say much. It just sort of hovers around the topic of how a group of about 12 friends in southern Los Angeles in the mid 1970s popularized skateboarding on a worldwide scale, and they innovated a bunch of moves like skating in empty pools. They also wore short shorts and acted like skateboards were surf boards.

I did go out to see a movie the other night. It was all my honey's idea. She wanted to see the Pianist, and I was dragging my feet, both because I don't really like Roman Polanski's directing and I don't really love Adrian Brody. If you don't count those two factors, it's a pretty solid movie. Incredible sets, great cinematography, nice lighting, and good costumes. But the narrative, which is a true story, flows along like a crime channel dramatic renactment. It just plods along, no real emotional tension or anything. This is partly Adrian Brody's fault, who mostly stares silently and looks mournful. He has a big nose, I'll grant you that. Its almost distractingly big, and I think it is kind of an anti-semitic typecasting move to have him play a jew. I think he's not jewish in real life. But he looks like a Merchant of Venice characture. Through the movie, he starves, so he gets totally gaunt, which is not much of a trick for a guy who is pretty gaunt to begin with. Plus he plays the piano, only without touching the keys. Air piano, kind of, so the nazis can't hear him. Anyway, as holocaust movies go, it's not the best. You're better off reading Maus. Oddly, Maus is a true story about an affluent guy named Vladek Speigleman being pursued through Poland to the camps with a love interest, and the Pianist is about an affluent guy named Vladek Speilman being pursued through Poland to the camps with a love story thrown in.