My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - For the longest time, I've been intending to get published somehow in the newspaper for which I work. I've been pitching ideas, feeling a sense of triumph maybe two or three times, feeling utterly rejected many others.

But the last thing I expected was that my first-ever byline in the print version of the domestic paper would totally blindside me.

Last night, while hanging out with co-workers at a bar right across from our new office at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, I found out from someone that she saw my byline in the Money & Investing section of the Wednesday, July 8 edition of The Wall Street Journal. My eyes widened immediately; I had no idea. Naturally, I ask, "for what?"

Turns out that a routine minor story about CD yields that I plug in the numbers for every Tuesday---a little thing that usually gets no byline---got a byline this week. There was absolutely no reason for it, as far as I could see. Was it accidental? (Maybe that's just how much my superiors like me...)

In any case...it totally wasn't planned---I was recently working on another story that I was hoping would be my first in the print edtion---but hell, I'll take it!

Funny how things work out like that!

Here's the link to the story; if you hit the subscriber wall for it, just try searching, say, "kenji fujishima yield wsj" on Google.

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - On Twitter, quite a few of the cinephiles I follow have been tweeting their mid-year roundups of the best movies they've seen thus far. Being that I'm generally a trend-follower on the microblogging site rather than a trend-starter, I've decided to follow suit...though not on Twitter. I'm using this poorly maintained blog to post my midyear cinematic reckoning.

Here are my 10 favorites so far, in rough order of preference. There were plenty more I could have chosen---in my opinion, this half-year has been fairly rich in intriguing cinematic offerings, at least depending on where you looked---but for now, this will do. (I won't annotate this; I'll leave that for my year-end wrap-up. Seems more "final" to do it then than now. But feel free to comment and engage me on my picks!)

1. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
2. The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)
3. Birdsong (Albert Serra)
4. 24 City (Jia Zhangke)
5. Up (Pete Docter)
6. Moon (Duncan Jones)
7. Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
8. Two Lovers (James Gray)
9. Serbis (Brillante Mendoza)
10. Coraline (Henry Selick)

To future delights and revelations at the movies in the next six months!

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - After a month of dabbling---with, I will freely admit, a certain amount of exhilaration---in the world of Twitter, I've come crawling back to this here blog because...why? I dunno. Just because.

Well, there's a reason, I guess. Much of that reason is emotional. I'm pretty much feeling stuck again in my life (I could explain why, but it would take a whole book chapter to explain, and it might probably bring undue attention from people at work anyway, so I will remain discreet publicly unless prompted privately), and right now I feel like the only thing I can fall back on to feel better about the rut I'm in is, well, writing. The one thing that I feel like I know how to do, and the one thing I would really like to do for the rest of my life, in some form or another.

So I am writing right now. Do I have anything interesting to say? Well...why not talk about Twitter?

Cards on the table, then: I like Twitter. It keeps my mind and senses alert for things that intrigue me enough to share with the rest of the world, or at least the people who follow my feed. No need to worry about forgetting that precious thought that came to your head that you liked so much; just put it down as a tweet and see who bites.

Sure, it's exhibitionism. But you know what? I guess I've come to realize that I like a certain amount of attention, at least the right kind of attention from the right people. I like knowing people actually read and care about what's going on inside my head. ("What's going on inside my head"---a Hüsker Dü lyric, by the way. I actually tweeted that early on.) I like the interaction that Twitter can afford. And sometimes I just like the challenge of boiling thoughts and ideas down to 140 characters or less.

So yes, it's totally self-centered. But I do it for me, not really for anyone else. You're all free to join into entering my scattered mind, if you wish.

So yeah...Twitter. Maybe it's a fad, as some of my more resistant friends insist that it is. Well, okay, maybe. But for now, it's a fad I'm on board with...until, I suppose, I get bored with it. We'll see.

In the meantime, no promises that this update means that I will start blogging more. I really should, though. I don't know how many people actually read this damn thing anymore, anyway...but I really should just write these kinds of longer entries more. If nothing else, it might just take my mind off some of the more depressing things that are happening---or, more precisely, not happening---in my life right now.

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Well, I have finally capitulated to the supposed destruction of privacy in American society by creating my own Twitter feed.

I don't really have a good reason for joining the ranks of Twitterers---just curiosity, I suppose. And maybe a bit of narcissistic attention-seeking.

Mostly, though, I see this as perhaps a constructive way to keep my eyes and my mind alert to things throughout a normal day---to find something Twitter-worthy to share.

We'll see how far I go with this. Feel free to enter into my head with this Twitter thing!

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - At last! A follow-up to my Wall Street Journal---or, rather, wsj.com---debut a little over a month ago! It is here: an interview with Paolo Sorrentino, the director of the new film Il Divo, a lively postmodernist look at the mystique of longtime Italian politician Giulio Andreotti. Enjoy!

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Just wanted to let you all---or at least, all of you without Facebook accounts---know that yes, I am still alive, and that hopefully you will be hearing from me soon...if not with an actual substantive post (haven't been in much of a mood for that recently, a lack of motivation perhaps stemming from a David Bordwell-inspired crisis of confidence), then at least with, well, something cool and interesting to share with you all. Heck, maybe even something with ideas.

Here's an idea: Maybe I should just start a damn Twitter account already. Sure, I only get 140 characters to say what's on my mind---but hey, I suppose it's better than nothing, and people who actually bother to check in on this blog can at least be connected to me on certainly a more consistent basis than they're connected to me here. And theoretically, if I really do think something I feel like expanding upon in more depth, I'll have this as a back-up of sorts. But no, I wouldn't be posting about my trips to the bathroom or a whole lot daily routine-related. I may be self-centered, but not that self-centered.

Anyway, what say you, readers? To Twitter or not to Twitter? (The big question plaguing my generation...)

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Aside from seeing my first byline on wsj.com last week, the biggest change in my life in the past couple of weeks has been a change in work hours. I'm working slightly later hours at The Wall Street Journal now, roughly 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. compared to the 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. shift I was working previously. One of my superiors approached me a couple of weeks ago about the shift change, saying that one of the news pods needed some extra help with its news assistant moving to a different floor—and so, trouper that I am, I said, sure, no problem, if you need the help, I will gladly help.

What the shift change does, however, is pretty much take away the one personal perk I found in my more-or-less 9-to-5 schedule: If ever I was so inclined, after work one day I could walk to an MTA subway station, hop onto an A, C or E train and, a few stops or so later, be at one of New York's fine art-house theaters, be it Film Forum, IFC Center, Angelika Film Center, or even the really edgy Anthology Film Archives. Basically, I could catch a movie that may never find its way to my neck of the (New Jersey) woods, and be home at a relatively reasonable time at night—and I wouldn't always have to make a special trek on a Saturday for it.

That convenience is pretty much gone now, barring any further changes down the road. And frankly, as much of a cinephile as I may be, I guess I just am not enough of an obsessive one to make a habit of commuting for about 1¼ hours or so each way just to check out a flick in New York every week.

So you may not be seeing a whole lot of writing from me about the more obscure current releases for a while—not, at least, until I finally do decide to make the break from living at home and finding a place of my own closer to New York, if not in it. (There is hope on that front, actually, but that hope probably won't have a chance of becoming a reality until the middle of the year, I would say—still a few months away.)

Yes, I'm cutting back on my moviegoing habits somewhat. I blame the difficult economic times we're living in. Isn't everybody?

★★★★
So I might as well play some brief catch-up on some of the recent mainstream stuff...though I wish I had something exciting to report on that front.

Regarding Zack Snyder's much-hyped Watchmen adaptation: I was about to say that it was a disappointment...but considering the director at the helm, was anyone really expecting something with the deeply personal, feverish passion of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' celebrated 1986 graphic novel? Forget the ads proclaiming Snyder as a "visionary director"; vision is more or less what the movie lacks—or, more precisely, a vision that could be said to be the director's own, rather than merely a lifelessly faithful rendering of the notes behind Moore/Gibbons' own excoriating deconstruction of heroism and heroic images. Snyder's only real contributions are a few interesting music cues (Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to illustrate the alternate version of history that highlights its admittedly inventive opening credits; ironic uses of "The Sounds of Silence," Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower," and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"; and, most hilariously, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" during a sex scene that looks right out of softcore porn) and some exaggerated instances of ultraviolence that, for me, pretty much give the game away. Snyder, like most skilled Hollywood hacks, is more interested in "kewl" action and gory violence than in exploring the moral shadows that lie behind it. And what better way to emphasize all that coolness than with his lame slo-mo-then-fast-mo visual signature dragging out the action scenes?

I suppose enough of the book's emotional and moral complexity comes through that that some of its ideas might resonate, however punily, with both Watchmen newbies and fanatics. Rorshach's black-and-white worldview remains pungent—mostly thanks to a fantastically intense Jackie Earle Haley—as does Dr. Manhattan's icy aloofness and the Comedian's world-weariness. The graphic novel was nothing if not a gripping dialogue between wildly divergent points of view regarding a hero's place in a broken society, and some of that dialogue does make itself felt here and there. But Watchmen was hardly a mere philosophical thesis paper in comic-book form; Moore managed to create vivid characterizations to prop up his intellectual musings. Moore gave his superheroes flesh and blood; the movie basically reverts them back to lofty superheroes again, completely missing the cynical ironies Moore built into his story. Snyder seems to regard his superheroes with awe where Moore saw some rather disturbing and scary things in them.

Putting aside further movie-and-book comparisons, however, the fact remains that much of the movie felt rather rushed and, frankly, dull to me. It was a relief to turn back to the gorgeous hand-drawn panels in my copy of the book; there's infinitely more heat to those drawings than there is in most frames of Snyder's overly reverent film adaptation. His reverence flattens it out. Stick with the book—giant squid and all (and no, fans, I don't think the film's altered ending is necessarily an improvement on the book's).

★★★★
There is, believe it or not, more fun to be had at Tony Gilroy's Duplicity—or basically Michael Clayton, Gilroy's previous film, reimagined as a modern-day Tracy/Hepburn-style romantic/comic romp. Sure, its view of big business as ruthlessly competitive cutthroats is glib and certainly old-hat (whereas Gilroy put across a similar outlook in Michael Clayton more convincingly). But you know what? Call me a Coen-esque wiseass if you must, but Lord knows we might as well try to squeeze a good laugh at this kind of stuff, what with the sheer scale of the kind of fraud perpetrated by the likes of Bernard Madoff causing people like myself to chuckle with angry disbelief as more details came out. Does corporate greed have any limits?

Actually, there is a deeper emotional drama of sorts to be found amidst the jazzy cuteness of James Newton Howard's occasionally oppressive score and Gilroy's clumsy and gratuitous use of splitscreen effects (hey, are you having fun yet?). It turns out that the two main characters, played by Hollywood superstars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, are almost as screwed up as any of the Watchmen folk. Having played spy games for so long, Julia Roberts's Claire has become so immured from romantic feeling that, when love does hit her, she finds herself incapable of giving herself over to those feelings; instead, she keeps her emotional guard up, always trying to make sure she's not being conned—and Clive Owen's Ray find himself increasingly exasperated by her tests of faith, mostly because he's struggling to grow out of that kind of lifestyle. The dictates of Hollywood genre might suggest that their relationship grows out of a deep well of unspoken passion or something like that...but the central relationship of Duplicity is, if anything, more out of necessity than passion—the need for something honest and true.

If you look at the two characters that way, then, I think it makes a certain kind of sense that Roberts and Owen don't exactly burn up the screen with chemistry: burning passion is not what leads them back to each other. Really, they are the only ones who may truly understand each other in this crazy, twisted world of cutthroat corporate competition. And I can't say I agree with all those reviews that suggest that Gilroy somehow overdoes the narrative twists and turns. I say it's not about the plot: it's all about the feelings of disorientation and distrust that all those twists, thrown together, produce in the viewer. The plot is, in other words, an abstraction.

Duplicity is hardly a masterpiece, but it has some interesting undercurrents coursing through it, and Gilroy maintains an admirable focus on his two main characters even as he tries to distract us with his narrative tricks.

It's not bad at all; in fact, I found myself enjoying it more as it went along. Nevertheless, it just made me yearn for the art-house more.


P.S. Maybe this relatively minor lifestyle change will finally give me an opportunity to share more of what I'm watching through my Netflix subscription these days. If I do go down that route in my next entry, perhaps it will concern this: