This weekend I saw Adaptation. I had high hopes for it, but was a bit underwhelmed. I liked the film up until the end when Charlie and Donald go to Florida and things get bizarre.
The ending was completely disjointed from the rest of the movie, and I suppose that was the whole point. But I don’t know, I just thought it was a little dumb to completely scrap everything that had been established in the first 3/4 of the film.
I think I would have preferred if Charlie had just plugged along, discovered the book’s author was a perfectly ordinary woman, and eventually turned out a modest – albeit bland – screenplay.
Or if he had gotten up the nerve to talk to Susan in the elevator, formed some kind of camaraderie with her, and written himself into the screenplay then. Which would have been very Being John Malkovich-ish. But perhaps a little too predictable.
In other DVD news, the first season of Northern Exposure comes out today. Woo hoo!
I was in Philadelphia last weekend for several days for my brother’s graduation from Villanova University. For their commencement speaker, they had the puppeteer who played Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird on Sesame Street.
It was nice to see my parents and relatives who came for the occasion. But I did have an adventure on the way back to Indiana, however, that necessitated an overnight stay in the baggage claim area of Chicago/Midway airport:
Monday evening
6:00: Plane in Philly is 1.5 hrs late getting to airport.
7:30: Board plane, sit on runway for additional 1 hr.
9:00: Get a free Heineken!! This is my second free beer ever on an airplane.
10:15: Reach Chicago/Midway 2.5 hrs late.
10:20: Indy connection long gone; no more flights to Indy that night. &#*@!
10:30: Southwest customer service rep tells me (and 3 others) that they can put us on the first plane in the morning, but won’t put us up in a hotel or pay for us to take other airlines.
10:35: Decide to take 9am flight the next day.
11:00: Call work from cell phone, leave somewhat convoluted voicemail for secretary: “Hi! It’s 11pm on Monday, and I’m stranded in Chicago! I’ll be into work tomorrow around noon! Bye!”
11:05: Don’t want to spend $80+ for hotel room in Chicago; instead opt to sleep in airport baggage claim area.
11:45: Get leered at by many sketchy men, including security guard who tells me I have “nice legs.” So much for the security.
11:50: Go into bathroom, change into long baggy pants.
Tuesday morning
1:00: Sleep intermittently in various parts of the airport, moving when ratio of weirdos grows too large.
7:30: See airport staff person riding segway on concourse, which was rather interesting.
8:00: Decide my voicemail message to work from last night sounded stupid, call work again and leave a more coherent and less ditzy message.
9:00: Take flight back to Indy.
10:15: Land, retrieve car from long-term parking, go home, take shower.
11:45: Show up at work. Get made fun of by co-workers for the afore-mentioned sleeping in baggage claim.