Victor and Chris and I saw Waiting for the Friedmans yesterday morning at the Empire, recently reborn as a pseudo art- indie- film house, and a good thing, as it’s only a hop skip and a jump away from Big Chrissy’s. The film made a point of showing how pliable and elusive truth is, even to oneself. I left wanting to believe that no crime had been committed, but feeling that the father’s clandestine desire for boys had perhaps produced an inner guilt that led to an acceptance of his fate.
Earlier, on the way to Chris’ I was unable to get out of my garage, because a dozen cop cars had surrounded my hill due to some guy a few doors up who was holding a gun to his old boyfriend’s head, threatening to kill him. How inconsiderate. I called Chris and asked him to pick me up. No one was murdered, and we made it to the show on time. Sadly, things like this happen all too frequently in my little corner of the Castro (Pacific Northwest or bust, anyone?). Since I moved to this house, in 1987, I’ve found a naked guy in my garbage can (they sent an all-female swat team to extract him from his new home), had 4 runaway trucks fly down the hill and smash into cars, 2 of which bounced into my side garden and smashed it to bits, been the victim of a stalker whose actions unwittingly led to an insurance-financed rehabilitation of the front of my house and new terrazzo stairs (!), encountered, but not joined, numerous people having sex in the side entry to my house (before I installed motion detector lights) where I have also found numerous spent condoms and needles over the years (I didn’t mind the public sex, but the needles and spoogy condoms were too inconsiderate), been burgled, robbed, and had my car and bicycle stolen. And this is a good neighborhood.
Anyway, it’s great to live so close to the Castro Theater. Last night I saw The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, for the first time on a big screen. The credits alone were like a rollercoaster ride, and then those huge faces filling the screen. It was really Eli Wallach’s film–he was great, broadly comic and only half menacing, and certainly not the “ugly” that he’s supposed to be, and the character that you spend the most time with. We were even treated to a flash of his ass as he gets out of the tub. Most spaghetti westerns seem to be sprinkled with those little titillating moments of briefly exposed dripping body parts. If I ever make a movie, I’m going to be thrown off of a horse by some guy, in the distance, run straight up to the camera so that my beautiful face fills it up, and spitting, scream “Youfilthyrat!” really fast. And do that petulant aspiration that actresses like Claudia Cardinale in One Upon a Time in the West do when the camera zooms in on their quivering lips as they’re forcibly but readily about to be kissed.