7ToF: the sun's so hot I forgot to go home

1. The weather. We are having August weather already. It's hard to complain, because it has been gorgeous--sunny and clear with a bit of a breeze. But we've had record-breaking or -tying highs for the past three days in a row and I have turned into a heat wimp. Oh, my. 95 and no air conditioning is not fun. Thankfully tomorrow (which will be today when you're reading this) it is supposed to get back to our regularly scheduled June weather.

2. So yesterday I went to the movie theater, where the A/C was turned down so low that I nearly froze--which I would normally hate, but it felt fabulous compared to the heat wave outside. I've done this a couple of times over the past few months, after never going to a movie by myself ever in my entire life. It's kind of fun if I can find a free afternoon for it. It's a cheaper way to see a movie that I want to see but Dean doesn't, and there are usually half a dozen or so people in the theater who are there by themselves, so I don't feel too weird. Yesterday I bought myself popcorn and a diet coke and called it lunch. And BONUS: new Star Wars movie trailer. It was pretty fabulous, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up (I'm looking at you, so-called Episode One).

3. The movie was Tomorrowland. As a kids' movie, it's a lot of fun. Gorgeous CGI, just enough plot to keep it interesting, and everything turns out well in the end. But the dialog is awful, and the moral is driven home with a sledgehammer. So for adults, it's barely watchable. Without Clooney and Hugh Laurie, it would have been a complete loss--the two of them manage to turn clunky, stilted dialog into something that you can at least sit through.

It's too bad it wasn't done in a more subtle way, because some of the ideas behind it are worth thinking about. But you do wonder how it could possibly be a good idea to skim all the dreamers and creators and geniuses off the top of the world's population and ship them off somewhere else so they're not doing anybody any good at home. A much better movie with some of the same ideas is Meet the Robinsons, an under-rated Disney flick from 2007.

4. The basic premise of Tomorrowland is that we (as in the global population) are in a negative feedback loop where we imagine how horrible everything is, and so it's no surprise that everything turns out so horrible. The most interesting line in the entire movie is when Hugh Laurie (or was it George Clooney?) says, "And you know why? Because if you imagine that the world is going to hell anyway, then you can sit back and do nothing." (I'm sure that's not an exact quote.) I've become less and less of an idealist as the years go by, but I still have enough of it in me that I found the basic idea of the movie to be cool.

5. Also, they nailed the comparison between the attitude toward the future when I was a kid in the 60s--when everything was all about progress and how great new inventions and technology are, etc--and now, when apocalyptic visions are eveywhere, and we don't seem to be able to even imagine a future where the world hasn't been utterly destroyed. I remember when I was a kid and double-knit polyester was a miracle fabric--nobody wanted stupid cotton anymore. Then we went through the backlash when nobody would wear polyester anything, and now we've come out somewhere in the middle, where "technical" clothing is a high-tech mix of cotton and synthetic materials, or all synthetic that has been engineered to feel like cotton. Possibly a model for the way we could handle other pendulum swings.

And just for the record, George Clooney and I are the same age and he was not eleven in 1964, he was three, just like me. Not that I would be confusing the real-life George with the fictional character in the movie, because I would never do that. (I wrote this paragraph purely so that I could include the phrase "George Clooney and I" in a plausible context.)

6. And speaking of movies and post-apocalyptic dystopias, last Saturday Dean and I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road. I appreciated the amazing special effects, and the even more amazing stunt work done by people up on tall bendy-poles in vehicles being driven at high speeds, but I have to say that I could barely watch this movie. Three minutes in, Tom Hardy is already been tortured and enslaved, and the entire movie is one long catalog of ways that human beings can be horrible to each other. There were endlessly creative methods of killing, maiming, dismembering, and every other possible horrible thing you could do to someone.

I hate that kind of movie. I get that there was a great positive ending, and strong, smart women with agency and integrity, but I still don't like to watch that stuff. Fortunately there was no one sitting near us, so I did Seven Little Words on my phone during the battle scenes and looked up to watch when it was quiet. I think I watched most of the good parts. If that sadistic stuff doesn't bother you, it's a great movie and you should go see it. But if you can't sleep after watching two hours of squalor (like me), skip it. I made Dean take me out for ice cream after. :-)

7. ...... I'm a little surprised that I just wrote five Friday Things about movies, because we almost never go to the theater. So let's see, what's something totally different I could tell you about? My summer reading list? (People of the Book, All the Light We Cannot See, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Saint Anything, State of Wonder, The Ocean at the End of the Lane--got any other suggestions for me?). My search for the perfect pillow? (got any suggestions for me?) My course list for the fall (which is due this week)(got any suggestions for me?). I can't do a recipe because this has been a Costco Food Week to avoid heating up the kitchen.

*spends three minutes on Google* OK, here you go:

7. Interesting Things Around the Internet Dept: have a look at this slideshow of strange and gorgeous public art. Love. and have a great weekend.

(also, p.s. if you only check in on Tues and Fri, I snuck in an extra post yesterday about long marriages.)