Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Quantum of Solace: the review

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One Thanksgiving holiday tradition is that a whole group of the family goes to a movie and leaves the kids with other family members who don’t mind watching them. This year the tradition got changed a little: now all the kids go to a kids’ movie with their watchers, and the rest of us go to a non-kids movie. And this year that movie was Quantum of Solace.

Let me start by saying: this movie is a lot better than you think…however, you have to go in thinking it’s going to be bad.

It isn’t bad, exactly. The worst thing about the movie is that it thinks it’s smart, and wow is it ever not smart. There are movies that can get away with letting you fill in the details—Syriana, any of the Bourne movies—and you feel smarter because the movie didn’t lead you by the hand through every last bit. Then there’s Quantum of Solace, which lets you fill in the details to the point where you go, “That doesn’t make any fucking sense!”

Too much handwaving, and what you have is an action movie where you’d better not think about anything for more than a moment. It has to have a story, or you’re just watching nice explosions and amazing fight choreography. Mind you: it doesn’t have to be a good story. I’m not expecting Shakespeare. I am expecting something where A –> B –> C, instead of A –> 76 –> @ –> Y9.

For example: why does Bond go to Haiti? It’s the initial start of this adventure, and the explanation given by the MI-6 guy makes no goddamn sense, no matter how you look at it. It sounds very intelligent, but it’s complete gibberish. Bond has to go to Haiti because if he doesn’t, there’s no damn movie.

On the way home we decided our favorite moment of the movie was (spoilers!) the bit involving Miss Fields. Miss Fields is sent from the embassy to babysit Bond in a hotel room and make sure he doesn’t get into any sort of trouble (like killing everyone he comes across, or destroying entire hotels, or any of the things we’ve seen him do up until this point). Bond of course does what he usually does with a pretty girl in a hotel room, and then he leaves the hotel room to get into trouble…and when he finally gets back to the hotel, Miss Fields has been cruelly dispatched (as seems to happen to Bond girls so very frequently). M then chastises Bond, saying that Miss Fields was murdered because of her connection to Bond and it’s all his fault.

Uh, lady? Who in the hell decided that it was a good idea to send a pretty girl to babysit Bond in a hotel room the first place? Sorry, but that responsibility goes straight to the top, so get over yourself already.

There are some incredible action scenes, and I can see why Daniel Craig is clearly going to die filming one of these movies some time before he finishes his contract. But if they don’t work a wee bit harder on giving us a story, no one’s going to freaking care.

Shopping frenzy

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I’ve had to rediscover shopping lately, because I need some new clothes. I either a)hate the clothes I’ve been wearing and desperately want a new style, b)need new clothes because nothing I have fits at the moment, or c)have discovered a secret need to wear high heels. Okay, I don’t much understand (c) either, but ever since Nina brought over a pair of her Guess for Marciano spiked Mary Janes I’ve been wanting to wear heels like that. Only I have to practice, having been a strictly flats girl up until this point in my life, so I need to start with mid-range heels and work up to 4 1/2 inch spikes.

(She brought over the heels to try on with this dress

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which I completely loved and coveted so much I went out and bought this dress

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only because the red wasn’t available and because I need some kind of Little Black Dress, right? Now, of course, I need somewhere to wear this dress and whatever shoes I eventually find to go with them. I’ll leave that as an exercise for Darin.)

So I’ve been doing a lot of shopping recently. Or trying to, at any rate. I was completely unable to get into the mall at all last weekend, because of the flood of cars.

Okay, weekends are out. Yesterday I went to Valley Fair first thing in the morning, a Thursday morning, to the best of my knowledge not the first shopping day of the Xmas season or anything. And despite my intention to hand the Nordstrom shoe sellers as much money as I possibly could (at least, as much as one or two or maybe three pairs of good heels would set me back—as I have literally* have not bought anything but running shoes for years, people), I walked out of there empty-handed. Because as soon as one associate helped me, he or she disappeared to wait on the four or five other women on nearby couches buy as many shoes as they possibly could. Yes, several of them were better dressed than I was (see above, “needs new clothes”), but still. I’ve bought lots of shoes at Nordstrom over the years and never been completely ignored before.

Certainly not at eleven in the damn morning.

I finally went up to the lingerie department, where the associate was more than happy to tell me that I had gone down a band size and needed to buy several new bras.

Then I went to Macy’s and gave up on the shoe department—tons of shoe buyers, two or three very harried shoe salesmen.

I stopped in Sephora, where I was set upon by quite possibly the most hilarious queeny—his word!—makeup artist from Urban Decay ever. And the second I was out of his makeup chair, someone else was in it.

As far as I can tell, things are hopping, shopping-wise.

Then I read something like Kevin Drum’s entry today about real consumer spending, and it’s like, Whoa.

I don’t know whether the Silicon Valley is on the tail end of the dragon. Whether this ripple is spreading over the economy (starting in Detroit, maybe?) and is headed our way with a vengeance. But while there are plenty of sale signs in the windows, I haven’t seen anything like the sign one Tweeter I follow reported:

A local business is, as of today, 11/11/2008, displaying a sign out front which reads (& I am not making this up): AFTER CHRISTMAS SALE NOW

I did walk around the downtown area of my little town, and a couple of businesses are closing. But at the moment it doesn’t seem like a crazy amount. One storefront has been empty for a while—used to be a Sharper Image; remember not to go crazy with the gift cards this year—but it’s going to be an American Apparel soon. A couple of storefronts already have up signs about the next businesses moving in.

Then I read, via Hilzoy, an account in the Financial Times about what’s happened to Iceland. And how it’s spreading.

And I’m like, WTF?

I have no idea where this economy is going. I understand the need to bailout the automakers, despite the fact that they make crappy cars that no one buys. I don’t know what Hank Paulson is doing with that slush fund the Senate couldn’t wait to vote him a couple of weeks ago, and no one else does either. Oil is back down to the mid-50s, apparently because of the world recession. Or because of speculation. Or because…

Jesus, I’ve never felt this blog was so aptly named before.

The only thing I know is that I still need shoes. Of course, I don’t want to regret buying them a year from now when we’re trying to buy milk.

*It occurred to me a day after posting that in fact I did buy some shoes last year when I went to the writers and agents conference in November. But they totally f’d up my left foot and I never wear them any more. Management regrets the error.

Did you ever think

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Like everyone else, I am waiting for tomorrow to be OVER already. All Presidential elections are horrible, each in its own unique way. This one has stretched the limits of human credulity with its uniqueness—if you can’t remember for yourself, an artist has summed it up for us.

We haven’t had much to talk about this election. Actually, despite thinking for years I’d have been a Republican if Republicans were still like Ike, I’ve never ever liked any of the Republicans running for office that I can remember. I’ve always thought the other guy should win. It was years before I put two and two together and said, “Hey, there’s a name for someone who always likes the other guy.” I remember in 1988 my college roommate trying to decide between Bush the Elder and Dukakis and I said, “Supreme Court,” and that summed it up for me. Seriously, there was a choice? Please.

There’s only been one conversation my friends and I have had about this election, and it’s always pretty much begun the same way:

Did you ever think…

There’s nothing else to be said. We know which way that conversation is going. We’re all in our 30s and 40s and we all shake our heads. “Nope, we didn’t ever think it could happen. Not in our lifetimes.”

I remember thinking this election was over months ago, because there was no damn way the US was going to vote for the black guy. I was amazed for weeks as Obama stayed ahead. And the gap started growing.

(I know there have been jokes about movie Presidents like Morgan Freeman or TV Presidents like Dennis Haysbert preparing us for this moment—possibly the only good thing 24 has ever given us—but I would like to remind everyone that SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll actually prepared us for this much earlier, in a column he did about a million years ago. He said that one of the problems we have in the US is that our Head of State and Head of Government are the same guy. Other places they split them into President and Prime Minister, Prime Minister and Queen, Governor of Texas and Lieutenant Governor of Texas… so Carroll proposed we have a President and a Captainkirk, someone steady to guide us during troubled times, and he nominated James Earl Jones as the first Captainkirk. This was a column from pre-Web days—yes, children, there was such a time—so I can’t find a link. But he said this, he did.)

I don’t think any of the Republicans could have pulled this one out. (“Imagine the heads exploding if it had come down to the black guy versus the Mormon.”) Maybe it’s just the economy. Maybe it’s just Republican fatigue. But I don’t think so. It really seems people have been responding to a message of, “We’re all in this together,” and not “Aiiieee! The other is coming! Everybody freak out now!” which has been the standard Republican mantra for years now.

I’m not a big fan of Obama—one word: FISA; another couple of words: no Bush prosecutions—but the perfect is the enemy of the good and it’s not, in fact, all about me. I have plenty of Obamaniac friends and their enthusiasm will have to do. I indicated my enthusiasm with political donations. We’re all going to be in Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for the next couple of years, and in the words of the ancient Chinese urban legend, get ready for your heaping share of Danger + Opportunity galore.

Oh, and this tax plan Obama’s proposed? I plugged our family’s numbers into it, and we get a tax cut. Let me repeat that: WE get a tax cut. If we’re getting a tax cut, I don’t want to hear one goddamn whingeing word out of your mouth about fears of your taxes going up, okay? If your taxes are going up, trust me: you can afford it. So just shut the hell up, fasten your seatbelt, and thank your personal deity you have the money to be taxed.