Eric Rohmer's Rayon of Light

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

Delphine gets a phone call one day early in July while she's at work. It's her friend Caroline calling her up to break some bad news to her: She has decided not to accompany her on vacation to Greece after all. So who's going to go with her now? Is she doomed to go on vacation by herself? Is it even worth going on vacation by herself?

For Delphine, this has all the force of a seismic shift; at least, she seems to treat it as such around friends who try to comfort her. But Eric Rohmer knows better. In his 1986 "Comedies & Proverbs" film Le Rayon Vert—released in the U.S. as Summer—the late, great French filmmaker  exposes her worries as overblown in the grand scheme of things, yet refuses to look down upon her plight.

Or it could just be that I so thoroughly understood her desperation on an intimately personal level that I couldn't help but empathize. In October of 2009, I visited Hong Kong for about a week, much of that time spent exploring the area on my own. I had a lovely time there, don't get me wrong, and there's something to be said for the freedom you have in exploring an unfamiliar area by yourself without the arguable burden of being tied down to other traveling companions' desires and expectations. For all the pleasures afforded by solo traveling, however, there were about as many instances when I found myself taking in a beautiful sight—say, walking along the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade overlooking Victoria Harbour (the source of the photo above)—or walking amidst a bevy of natives and fellow tourists, and feeling the full weight of loneliness, wishing I could share my excitement with someone else—or, at least, someone in the flesh rather than just online.

It's not the most pleasant of sensations, to say the least. So when Delphine responds in the negative to a friend's suggestion that she simply go to Greece by herself, I completely got where she was coming from. Not everyone can be Rainer Maria Rilke and treasure their solitude—at least, not all the time.

Rohmer, with the invaluable assistance of lead actress Marie Rivière (they are both credited with coming up with the script), gradually reveals, however, that Delphine's desperation as a result of Caroline's bombshell announcement suggests a far deeper malaise, one seemingly borne out of a broken-off engagement two years ago that she apparently still hasn't gotten over. The film doesn't get much into the particulars of this aborted engagement; it's simply a fact of her past, and it is still having an effect on her in the present, manifesting itself in occasional crying jags, denial, anti-social streaks and so on.

Clearly, whatever happened to her to get her to this point, she isn't as happy as she claims, especially when it comes to her love life. Throughout the film, though, Rohmer shows us situations in which Delphine has a chance to try to curb some of that unhappiness, but—through an elusive combination of pride, overintellectualizing and self-pity—is unable or unwilling to cross that bridge. Her more outgoing friend Françoise (Rosette) invites her to stay with her family in Cherbourg, but instead of venturing out and socializing with people, she mostly sticks around the house, playing with the kids and occasionally going off to the nearby woods to quietly mope. Back in the Left Bank, where she lives, a random guy eyes her while she's sitting on a bench; he follows her and tries to engage her, but she turns to him and flat-out refuses his overtures.

Perhaps, most tellingly, while she vacations in Biarritz—a town near the Bay of Biscay in France—she gets into a conversation with a Swedish woman named Lena (Carita) who is much more gregarious than she is (hell, when they meet, she's sunbathing while fully topless); while they both share a drink, Lena calls over a couple of guys and starts flirting with them. What does Delphine do while all this goes down? She just sits there, looking more uncomfortable by the minute, not even bothering to jump into the conversation even when Lena tries to give her cues to join in. Finally, she can't take it anymore, gets up and flees back to her hotel room, already thinking of leaving the next day.

I know what I was thinking when I witnessed this agonizingly prolonged scene: Come on, Delphine, just say something! Don't just sit there and wallow in your own misery! Take some action and do something to fix it! And yet...I understand the impulse to wallow all too well.

Change can be hard sometimes. You get locked into certain ways of thinking, however damaging or destructive they may be, and you become comfortable with them; they become almost a crutch, an excuse to stay complacent. Believe it or not, this can be the case with misery as well—especially that of the self-pitying kind. To actually have to change your whole outlook regarding a certain situation, to step outside of your comfort zone in order to try to effect that positive outcome you so desperately desire: For some, the prospect of doing so can be so immediately daunting that it's much easier to retreat to the idea that you can't change who you are, that there isn't much you can do to change the way things are going in your life in the moment. Retreating to such an arguably defeatist attitude can become perversely pleasurable in a way: It temporarily takes the load off of you actually having to do anything—at least, until the next situation comes along, as it inevitably will, and you're once again faced with the same choice.

Of course, then you may feel the need to come up with elaborate intellectual defenses of your defeatism, to reconcile it in your mind. Often you might say that you're just being "realistic." Someone tells you that it's all just a matter of "changing your attitude," and your immediate response might be to say, "People just don't change their attitude about things on the flick of a switch. That's not how one's mind works." But really, how true is that? Have you actually made an honest attempt at changing your attitude about something? I mean, on the face of it, it doesn't seem like such a hard thing to do, does it? And yet, as the well-known saying goes, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...

I'm no psychologist, obviously, but it's this kind of tentativeness that I see in Delphine. Not only do I see it in those many private flights of sustained moping, or in those long sequences in which she wanders around by herself; I hear it not only in her denials whenever friends suggest she's deeply unhappy, but in that aforementioned painfully revealing sequence in Biarritz, when she expresses to Lena her belief that if she really did have something special to offer romantically, guys would see it and act upon it. Does she truly believe this, or has she swallowed this bit of self-hatred so completely that, when pressed, she'll desperately repeat this as a way to excuse her stagnant love life? Maybe more to the point: Is she such a hopeless romantic that she believes that love really does just happen at first sight, like that? (If I remember correctly, there are hints in the film that this might have been one reason why she broke off her engagement two years ago.)

The title of Rohmer's film translates to The Green Ray in English, and it's a reference to Jules Verne's novel by the same name. At one point while wandering around in Biarritz, Delphine overhears a few elderly people discussing the work in detail. According to them, the Green Ray of Verne's novel is a super-rare meteorological phenomenon: a green ray of light that can only be glimpsed either after sunset or before sunrise. The characters in the novel are obsessed with finding it, believing that getting a glimpse of it will heighten their own perceptions of the thoughts and feelings of themselves and those around them. In that sense, the title could almost be interpreted as a kind of statement of purpose on Rohmer's part: Here is a film that will heighten the audience's perceptions of the thoughts and feelings of this one character, and maybe even do the same for your own. And while Le Rayon Vert is grounded in the specific details of this particular character, Rohmer leaves out just enough of her backstory, and maintains just enough detachment, for us to possibly see bits of ourselves in Delphine. Not everyone will attach the same intense personal identification that I found myself doing early and often in this film, of course; and it's quite possible that one's psychological profile of Delphine might differ from another's. I think that's just part and parcel, though, of an immensely rich and humane piece of cinema, one that I haven't stopped thinking about since seeing it for the first time ever early last week.

The more I think about Delphine, the more I realize that in many ways, I am Delphine. I leave it to you all, dear readers, to determine whether this post functions as an in-depth dissection of Delphine or merely a projection of my own neuroses onto her's.

For those in New York who missed the new 35mm print of Le Rayon Vert during its recent brief run at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Film Forum is screening that print from July 1-5. I highly recommend seeing it, obviously.

Best Laid (SXSW) Plans...Yet to Be Laid. Plus, A Video for the Day

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Sorry for the light amount of posting this week, dear readers.

Basically, I have devoted much of this week to figuring out my screening schedule for South by Southwest, which starts next Friday (I'll be flying out to Austin, Texas, on Thursday). That shouldn't be too difficult, at least on the face of it...but, as usual, I've discovered a way to overthink even a film-festival screening schedule and have found myself obsessing over it during my lunch breaks and during moments of relatively inactivity at work.

I think what I'm obsessing over is trying to strike a balance between my inner journalist's obligation to take chances on previously not-buzzed-about world premieres—in the hopes of discovering, say, the next Tiny Furniture—and my inner cinephile's excitement at finally seeing some of the films screening at SXSW that have generated buzz at previous festivals (films like Werner Herzog's 3D Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Miranda July's The Future and Susanne Bier's recent Oscar-winning In a Better World, among others). So far, I have come up with schedule after schedule, never satisfied that I was striking that balance enough to my liking. (Plus, my SXSW partner-in-crime, fellow House Next Door contributor Jonathan Pacheco, had already come up with his own tentative schedule earlier in the week, so I'm also trying to settle on a schedule that doesn't overlap too much with his.)

Last night, though, as I sat at a McDonald's (drinking a Shamrock Shake, by the way—because I was craving one yesterday), played around with SXSW Go—the festival's official app—on my iPhone and contemplated my schedule some more, I decided upon this approach: I would spend the first five days of the festival focusing more on catching as many of the world and North America premieres as I could, and then—because the SXSW Film Conference technically ends on March 15, even though screenings go on until the 19th—spend the rest of my time there filling in whatever gaps I wish to fill in.

Now I just have to nail down which films to see each day. Of course, even if I do figure out my day-to-day screening schedule, I'll probably need to allow for the possibility of last-minute changes—in case, for instance, buzz begins to generate around a certain world-premiere film that I haven't seen up to that point and I feel a strong need to see it as soon as possible. And then there's that dreaded fatigue I keep hearing about from seasoned film-festival attendees: If I decide to try to squeeze in, like, five films a day, including midnight screenings, I may well find myself dozing off through some films as the week drags on and the sleep deprivation accumulates. (Maybe you could consider my current mildly sleep-deprived state a practice run?)

However it all shakes out, at the very least I can take heart in the fact that, even before SXSW has started, I feel like I'm already getting the kind of film-festival experience that I was hoping to get out of this first foray into covering a festival outside of New York.

***

All that, then, has taken up my thoughts throughout this past week; thus the light blogging. I suspect next week will probably be the same story, as I pack, smooth out details and finally, on Thursday, fly out to Austin.

In the meantime, enjoy the following clip:



This is apropos of nothing, really, except that a) It made me laugh, and b) It comes from a well-regarded film from 1969 that I finally saw this past Monday at IFC Center: the late Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant. Though it certainly plays as a fascinating time capsule, the film is still a deeply moving experience in the way Penn mixes empathy with a palpable critical distance from the hippie lifestyle it depicts with such warmth and detail. That devastatingly lengthy final shot, of Alice standing alone outdoors as the camera pans slowly, behind trees, to the left, still haunts me, especially shorn as it is of any non-diegetic music to punctuate the moment. Did Penn, however unintentionally, foretell the loss of idealism that would hit many Americans in the 1970s? Whether it did or not, for all its (deliberate, I assume) roughness, Alice's Restaurant, as a film, feels like more of a deeply personal and heartfelt effort for Penn than even his previous film, the epochal Bonnie and Clyde.

And to think a film like Alice's Restaurant got major-studio backing! I doubt a film as daringly plotless and exploratory as this would inspire such confidence these days...

A Cautionary Journalism Tale About Reneging on Interviews

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—Even during a time of ill health, you manage to learn some lessons.

Last Monday, I was scheduled to do a phone interview with Aaron Katz, the bright young independent filmmaker whose entertaining third feature, Cold Weather, opened at IFC Center this past Friday. This was to be published as a blog post on The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. But then I got sick Saturday afternoon, and that sickness extended to Monday morning and beyond. And because I thought I only had equipment to record a phone conversation off a land line, and because I didn't have a land line in my apartment, I figured the only thing I could reasonably do is to ask the film's publicist to put off the interview for another day and see how I felt the next day. So that's what I did...and the publicist kindly obliged.

The next day, I turned out to be no better health-wise than I was the day before, and I made the same request: to see if I got better enough by Wednesday to be able to go to work and conduct a proper phone interview. Again, the publicist consented to this.

And then, Wednesday morning came and my cold had not abated; in fact, judging by the 101.7°F temperature I had when I woke up, it seemed to have gotten worse. By this point, I figured that if I hadn't been able to get an interview down on my digital recorder, I probably wouldn't be able to transcribe and edit the interview down quickly enough for it to be published either Thursday or Friday, in time for Cold Weather's official theatrical release. So, unfortunately, I felt I had to let it go—and when I asked one of the Speakeasy editors whether or not I should continue to pursue this interview, she agreed that it was best to drop it at this point.

Of course, these publicists weren't willing to let this opportunity for extra exposure go until they were absolutely sure they weren't going to get press from me. So they persisted in trying to coming up with alternative solutions. At one point, one of the publicists suggested an email interview. I ran this by the aforementioned Speakeasy editor, and, as I suspected, the editor said that was not acceptable.

But then this editor dropped this line at the end of the email:

"But for future reference, if you agree to an interview, you should try to do it [emphasis mine]."

Here's an approximate summation of the infuriated thoughts that swirled through my brain immediately after I had read this: You gotta be fucking kidding me! Could that be, like, the WORST thing anyone could say to anyone in my situation? You think I didn't TRY??? I could barely get out of bed Monday morning, and you honestly expect me to rouse my feverish, near-bedridden ass up to go to an office all the way in midtown Manhattan just to conduct a mere 20-minute interview that I will probably end up having to cut down to a mere 800-1,000 words just because you stupid blog editors impose some stupid word count on ONLINE blog posts in some misguided attempt at trying to affect a light, superficial (and completely uninteresting to me) "infotainment" style? And oh yeah: I don't actually get PAID for my stupid blog contributions, do I? So why the fuck should I bust my ass for you if you're not going to PAY me a little extra for my contributions, like you do with all the other OUTSIDE FREELANCERS you allow to contribute?

As you could guess, I was not happy to read those words at all, which reeked of a complete lack of sensitivity and empathy.

But then I got a valuable second opinion from a co-worker of mine who is also a news assistant at the Journal. She assessed the situation this way:

"It's definitely not your fault you got sick, but I guess in the journalism world--unless you're dead you're supposed to do an assignment (even if not in office). It's a sad but true fact of the culture."

And then I started reflecting on this situation more, on that day and on the next day (when I actually went into the office)...and I began to realize all sorts of ways that I could possibly have pulled off doing this phone interview even while sick. For instance, I could have done a Skype conversation and found some software to record off of my computer. I also could have conducted it through my cellphone and simply put my phone on speaker so my recorder could pick up both my voice and Katz's. Or, at the very least, I could have asked my Facebook friends/Twitter followers, many of whom are fellow film critics/journalists, to offer their own solutions to this unexpected problem; judging by the bevy of responses I got when I tweeted about this whole situation on Thursday, I would have gotten a lot of helpful responses, too.

However I did it, it most likely would have been a far more pleasing and effective resolution than the one that ultimately came about: with no interview to speak of and a lot of regret and frustration directed at others and especially at myself. Where is that intrepid, by-any-means-necessary mindset that actual journalists are supposed to have? Do I even have what it takes to be a good journalist, or was I just never cut out for this line of work in the first place?

I guess the takeaway from this story of an aborted interview is...well, I guess it's what that editor flat-out told me directly: "If you agree to an interview, you should try to do it." By any means necessary...because that's what is expected of you in the journalism world. Not even illness, it seems, is considered a legitimate excuse for reneging on an interview. Imagine if it was an exclusive with a prominent world leader! That would look really bad.

I still stand by what I said about my not getting paid, though.

P.S. I did see Cold Weather last year at Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAM CinemaFest, and wrote down some initial impressions here. I actually saw it again recently, and while I generally stand by what I wrote before, I admit to finding it a more pleasurable experience the second time around, especially knowing in advance the zigzags the plot would take. It's a problematic movie, but it's warmhearted and emotionally generous—very much worth checking out.

Diseased

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—I know I haven't been nearly as prolific with posts on this blog as I had been before, oh, December...but this week, at least, I have an excuse!

That excuse, in this case? Illness.

In the midst of seeing—fittingly, perhaps—Fritz Lang's The Big Heat at Film Forum on Saturday, I started feeling a chill throughout my body that had nothing to do with the film itself (although, make no mistake, for those who haven't seen that classic film noir, the film has plenty of bone-chilling moments). That chill persisted even as a friend and I made our way to Jersey City that evening to check out the still sexually provocative Baby Face (1931) at the dazzlingly restored Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre. You should have seen me sitting in that theater, wearing my beret and a scarf to keep me warm while watching Barbara Stanwyck sleep her way to the top of the business ladder.

Despite still feeling some aches in my leg muscles the next morning, I foolishly decided to work anyway...and was then promptly sent home by my boss, who told me not to come back until I felt better. The next three days have seen me basically either lying in bed, sitting slack-jawed in front of my computer, making occasional trips to the nearest bodega to buy some soup and just basically wasting away, torn by a desire to be productive and the knowledge that I should probably rest as much as possible. During those days, my body temperature varied from 99.4°F on Sunday, to around 100°F on Monday, up to 101.7°F on Tuesday, then back down to 99.5°F on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I woke up and checked my temperature, and hurray: 98.6°F! Could it be? After all this time, and a certain amount of frustration, could my fever have finally dissipated? I felt good enough this morning that I figured I probably could come into work, and my boss told me that, based on what I described about my conditions, it was probably safe for me to come in. But I am by no means back to 100% health; a cough still persists, as does nasal congestion and a sore throat. I still sound pretty sick, most people in the office told me yesterday. And I still felt some of those chills. It's making me wonder whether I should have come into the office in the first place.

In any case, it's looking as if the better option for me this coming weekend—a three-day weekend for me, because I decided to take off for Superbowl Sunday—is to just lie low and recuperate. And since that means I probably won't be going out much, I figure I might as well just go back to my parents' home in East Brunswick, N.J., to regain my strength.

So I haven't been able to work up much energy to do a whole lot this week, including posting stuff on this blog. Hopefully I'll be back to some kind of healthier form next week...because, really, there is a lot of exciting stuff for me in the horizon that I'd like to share with you all.

Until then, though...well, happy Chinese new year! It's the year of the rabbit!

From Inland Empire (2006). I know I know: not Chinese. But hey, it's a rabbit! In a gorgeously framed and lit shot! It's all I could think of at the moment; indulge me, please!

Look At Me, Ma! I'm in a YouTube Video!

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—On Friday night, I was in Brooklyn celebrating the birthday of a friend of mine who lived just around the corner from me in East Brunswick, N.J. back in the day. We hadn't seen each other in many years, so this was a reunion of sorts.

Since I last saw her, in high school, she has, it seems, become a pretty well-known celebrity on YouTube, with a comedy/vlogging channel she maintains with a dear friend from her college years. And on Friday night, she was filming her birthday party from her computer's webcam and live-streaming it on Ustream.

This partly explains how I found myself making a brief cameo in their latest video (see 1:16 onward):



I know, I know: big deal, right? I'm in it for about five seconds, if that, and am not really doing anything special other than just standing around. But hey, if being active on social media like Facebook and Twitter have taught me anything, it's that any kind of exposure—well, maybe more positive than negative—helps, and that you might as well promote it as much as possible.

Plus, this might give some of you faithful My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second readers an idea of where I've been the past few days, and why I haven't been as prolific with the blog posts as I usually am. I guess you could call what I've been doing "living it up." In any case, I've been doing things other than sitting alone in the dark watching movies all day long...and honestly, I've never been happier. (I still managed to squeeze in two films this past weekend, though—Zhao Liang's sprawling but effective and enraging documentary Petition; and The White Meadows, the wondrous recent feature by Mohammad Rasoulof, aka the other Iranian filmmaker to be jailed recently, along with Jafar Panahi—so it's not like I'm in the process of swearing off the cinema or anything. Far from it!)

Oh, and speaking of promotion: By all means (and take with a grain of salt, perhaps), feel free to check out the rest of the 200-some videos on the GracenMichelle YouTube channel. Their personalities are bubbly, and their videos generally quite enjoyable. I guess you could say, to borrow their parlance, it's "totally t1tz." (They even have their own website, here, for further exploration.)

Quotes of the Day, Courtesy of Asian Mothers

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—From "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," an essay by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School professor, that was published on Saturday in The Wall Street Journal's Review section:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

This, to a certain degree, was my mother's reasoning for pushing accounting on me during my first two years at Rutgers: that despite my vocal and emotional resistance to spending my four years of college studying something I had no passion for, eventually I would "learn to like it" (her words) if I kept at it.

Of course, why did my mother think the study of accounting was the best path for me in college? Chua suggests it in the last paragraph of this article:

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

One of the reasons my mother often cited as her justification for foisting accounting on me was that becoming an accountant right out of college would keep me financially secure, in contrast to all those others out there desperately living paycheck to paycheck—a state in which she dearly wished never to see me. In her highly practical mind, this was a "right" major, in contrast to "wrong" majors like, say, English.

In spite of my frustrations, I always tried to give her credit for good intentions. That, I think, is why I struggled for so long—to the point where I became an emotional wreck during the spring of my sophomore year and actually had to see a therapist for a bit—before deciding to pull the plug on my Rutgers Business School accounting studies just before my junior year began.

But you know what? All of that is in the past, and while it has taken years for me shake off all the resentment that built up from not only this accounting-major disagreement, but from plenty of smaller annoyances in my younger years (like not being allowed to watch any movies except during lengthy school breaks, and even then rarely in a movie theater), now that I live away from home and don't have to be reminded of all those resentments on a daily basis, I'm not inclined to dwell too much on all that anymore.

And then comes this rather gloating essay, which managed to bring back back some not-so-fond memories of the kind of "tough love" that I suffered through during my years at school—not to such an extreme as what Chua recounts about herself, but nevertheless, there are aspects of the parenting style she describes that I recognize in my own personal experience. The only thing this essay made me wonder, in the end, is what Chua's own kids really think of her strict parenting style: whether they are swimming in gratitude or secretly hating her guts.

Surprisingly enough, even my own mother found Chua's model to be, well, a bit much. When I forwarded this article to her, this is how she responded via email (I've made only minor edits to this, by the way):

Regarding that article, this is a very extreme case. I do not agree that some mothers have the right to deprive the kids completely of the intrinsic right to pursue happiness.  There is no right or wrong; if the kids are happy and have no complaints being scheduled and manipulated as instrument machine, so be it. This is nobody's business. If the kids enjoy playing, enjoy the ensuing success, why not. The mother is the hard pusher. You know what they said, "Behind the success of a man, there is a successful woman (or women)." Some kids are pushable and can be helped. Most are not. If you try to push, you are looking for trouble. You are fighting against gravity. You have taught me a lesson. I have learned my lesson. I have also learned that the parents should inspire, not manipulate. You know and you witness too many pushy parents. There are pluses and minuses. How to balance is a real challenge to the parents. To be an excellent instrument player is not the only way to measure success. It also does not guarantee happiness. I start to realize the golden rule: to do what please you and be pleased what you are doing and have fun and happiness. Know who you are and maximize your potential. You will be a winner in life.

Mom, after all these years, I think I can honestly say that I agree with you 100%!

And yet...there may be more to Amy Chua's essay than meets the eye! It's apparently an excerpt from a new book of hers that will be published tomorrow. Go take a look at the front cover of the book, on its Amazon page. It says, "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old." Maybe this essay is not telling the whole story about Mrs. Chua's relationship with her children. In which case, then why publish that particular, and perhaps misleading, excerpt from it???

Happy Thanksgiving...to My Dad

NEW YORK—I hope you are all having a happy Thanksgiving so far!

If you're spending it at home with loved ones feasting on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and all that usual holiday standbys, then right there you are already having a better Thanksgiving than I am...being that I am currently at my place of employment working. (Hey, Wall Street Journal papers needed to be put out tomorrow!) But then, I've worked on Thanksgiving this three years in a row for News Corp., so I'm used to it. At least I get fed. And at least I get holiday pay out of this. Extra money: always a good thing!

There's much that I'm thankful for, of course. And really, I paid tribute to the most of the important stuff in my life in this post, written last Thanksgiving; not much has really changed since then, even with the recent change in living locale.

My dad at the Toyota factory in Tokyo last year

This year, though, Thanksgiving coincides with my father's 61st birthday. For the occasion, my mother came up with the idea of commissioning each member of the Fujishima clan to contribute an essay to commemorate this milestone. As she wrote to me via email:

Since we will get together for the turkey feast, I have suggested and requested everybody writes an essay of the personal feeling about your Dad.  I keep asking Dad what he wants.  He keeps saying "nothing special".  I think if we all tell him how we feel about him, this shall touch his heart and make him feel special.  Shiiii.  I want to keep it a secret-giving him one essay for his birthday present from each one of us.

Here is what I came up with (essentially a reworking/expansion of this earlier Father's Day post, since I seem to be on a self-referential streak these days):

Well, it's Thanksgiving. And this year, it seems, Dad's birthday falls on the same day. This is not only coincidental but very fitting.

Though I consider myself a pretty passionate person inside, I'm admittedly rather sparse with the loving gestures outside—as are you, Dad. But really, there's a lot that makes us both similar, even if we don't say it out loud. Philosophically and personally, I've always felt more of a kinship with you, especially on matters of how to live one's life. So, for instance, during that particularly agonizing time in college during my sophomore year when I was torn between practical fears and my own desire to pursue something I was more deeply interested in, you were the one I went to for advice and support. In general, I feel far more comfortable talking to you about personal matters than I do with Mom.

Of course, I realize that most of the time you end up hearing more about what happens to me from others than from me directly. Maybe that needs to change, and I need to let you in more. But in my own bid to keep this as short and sweet as possible—because I think you, most of all in this family, would appreciate both a lack of sentimentality and brevity of gesture—for now, I'll just offer you this: I'm thankful for your wisdom and, simply, your presence when I've needed you most.

Now, if you would consider at least taking some steps to giving up smoking, then that would make this all the nicer.

Still Out There, Looking: Errol Morris's A Brief History of Time

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

A lot of journalists I know complain about how bad they are at mathematics, but for me, math was actually not the subject that I struggled with most in high school; throughout most of my algebra and geometry studies, I found myself having a fairly easy time understanding the various ideas involved in both subjects (calculus, though, turned out to be an exception to that rule). No, science, in fact, was the subject that often confounded me the most. It didn't matter whether it was biology, chemistry or physics; there was always something about scientific concepts that seemed so abstract to me that I often found myself experiencing great difficulty relating those concepts to what I observed in the real world. (Physics turned out to be the subject I had a relatively easier time with in high school, mostly because of the greater amount of mathematics involved.)

Maybe this difficulty had something to do with my approach to studying these subjects; I have a sneaking suspicion that, as a high school student, I was always more interested in memorizing facts than grasping concepts when it came to math and science. But maybe my struggles in science classes were rooted in a deeper cause: sheer indifference. What many of my peers were grumbling about history classes—questioning what the point of learning about all these past events and dead people ultimately was—I grumbled about science. You could say that, even before Clive Park uttered those now-famous words in A Serious Man, I was already "accepting the mysteries" of the natural world and preferring to bask in those mysteries rather than digging underneath them.

And yet, is that all there is to scientific study: simply understanding how nature works? As I watched Errol Morris's 1991 documentary A Brief History of Time on Saturday afternoon at the IFC Center, I found myself beginning to develop a more intense appreciation for science, a fresh way of looking at it that verged toward the religious.

For those of you who don't know much about Morris's documentary: Yes, it is based on physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking's bestselling book of the same name. But while it is partly about some of the theories Hawking posits in the book, the film—as is also the case with the book, so I'm told (I haven't read it yet)—also focuses on Hawking's personal biography: how he was a fantastically smart yet undisciplined and underachieving student even in his undergraduate-college years, and how his neuro-muscular dystrophy paralyzed him physically but also helped him develop the intellectual and emotional focus to be able to conceive of his theories about black holes and the possible limitlessness of the universe. That may sound like a potentially unwieldy approach, but the mixture of science and biography ends up fusing nicely in A Brief History of Time, with the details of Hawking's own life up to that point running parallel with his theorizing about the beginnings of all life.

One of the more unsettling implications of Hawking's work is the idea that, instead of there being a fixed point in time at which life began, the boundaries of space and time are infinite, and thus our universe is not as closed as we may prefer to think. On the basis of his theories (as explained in the film, at least), one could say that, in his work, Hawking is trying to understand just how much we don't know about the world around us. And as discomforting as this knowledge—or, more accurately, lack of knowledge—might be, it is this kind of awareness that makes us, well, human.

And yet, even as answers to such profoundly immense questions are far from easy to pin down, Hawking, paralysis and all, seems far from deterred. With his mind still intact, he insists on searching for answers to questions about how our universe began, where it may be headed and what may lie beyond it. In a way, Hawking's quest feels spiritual, if not downright religious, in nature (and, as he and his family members note in the film, Hawking, for all his analytical proclivities, was far from ignorant of religion in his youth). Much of what he had offered up by the time he wrote his book and participated in this film was theoretical in nature; I mean, how can one definitively prove the existence of black holes if, by definition, they cannot be so easily observed? Though there has been plenty of evidence amassed over the years that could be interpreted as proof of the existence of black holes, physicists/cosmologists like Hawking and John Wheeler—the scientist who coined the term "black hole," and who appears in the film—basically continue on with their research on the belief, buttressed by mathematical and logical evidence, that there are indeed such bodies to be found. It's almost as if, for such minds, looking for black holes and investigating the concept of a boundary-less universe were the equivalents of, well, looking for God. Could science in general be considered a kind of secular search for higher powers? Who knew science could also be considered something of a religious pursuit?

Some of this conflation of science and religion is briefly elucidated by Hawking and the other talking heads in the film—ranging from physicist peers to family members—but Morris suggests just as much of this spiritual aspect visually and aurally: through the imaginative visual correlatives Morris uses to illustrate Hawking's theories, through the evocative (God-like?) chiaroscuro lighting John Baily and Stefan Czapsky employ during Hawking's interview segments, and especially through Philip Glass's hypnotic score, which itself suggests a striving for order and structure through its myriad repetitions of motifs.

All of this leads up to its moving final image, one that sums up the film's view of both Hawking and the study of science. It circles back to the film's opening image, of a starry void in space...except this time, instead of the head of a chicken foregrounded in order to accompany Hawking's posing of the classic "chicken-or-the-egg" dilemma in the context of space and time, Morris superimposes an image of Hawking's wheelchair, seemingly traveling through that starry void. Hawking may not (yet) have the answers he—and perhaps all of us—seeks to all the questions he has about the universe...but at least he's still out there, looking.

(A Brief History of Time is currently unavailable on Region 1 DVD; a Region 2 DVD looks to be out of print but available in used copies.)

Tweeting To My 16-Year-Old Self

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—A more-interesting-than-usual new meme hit Twitter yesterday, this one bearing the hashtag #tweetyour16yearoldself.

A primer, first, for those who don't know how memes on Twitter work: Basically, they revolve around a certain topic that eventually spreads throughout the vast Twitter community as more people join in and add their voice, or in this case tweets, to that topic. Users participating in the meme mark their tweets with a hashtag—a word or phrase preceded by a # sign—so other users can just click on that tag and see what has already been tweeted in regard to that topic.

Most of the time, these Twitter memes are usually more in the spirit of silly time-wasting fun than substantive discussion. Lord know I've gotten sucked into many film-related memes; early on in my Twitter usage, I found myself sucked into coming up with a bunch of #nicerfilmtitles—alternate titles of existing films that soften their supposed surface harshness (example: There Will Be Blood turning into There Will Be Bodily Fluid or something like that). This latest one, however, felt different—possibly more serious in nature, and maybe even profound in its own way. (Profundity on Twitter? Eh, maybe I exaggerate...a little...)

Essentially, the #tweetyour16yearoldself meme revolved around the idea of sending tweets to yourself at 16, which opened up the possibility of being able to look back and advise your 16-year-old self on things you might have done or thought differently if he/she knew what you know now. Thus, it's a topic that invites reflection, and while I was seeing just as many lighthearted #tweetyour16yearoldself responses as these exclusive-to-Twitter trending topics usually inspire...well, I for one took it a bit more seriously than that.

To wit, some of my personal contributions to the #tweetyour16yearoldself meme:

"You should go out and socialize more. Don't be so studious all the time. And that acne? Treat it early."

"Oh...and maybe you really should do more of those things they call extracurricular activities at school."

"And stop wallowing in your insecurities! You may not believe it yet, but you do have gifts that will someday flower."

"Carrying a grudge against your mom might sound heroic in the moment, but really, she won't give a shit. Let it go."

"You know, Mrs. Maier was cool and all, but maybe I should have just taken Humanities rather than AP Euro."

"Were you actually ever serious about mastering the art of playing piano or violin? Or were you just [fooling] around?"

"You can't please everybody...so really, you shouldn't even try. And also, work on developing a thicker skin."

"Badminton seems to be the thing you're the best at in your gym classes. You should do something with that."

And so on. If any of you were at all interested in what I was like at the age of 16...well, these reproduced tweets will give you an indication. I'd like to think I've made some progress since then, but who knows? (Have I developed any thicker a skin since I was in high school? My irritated overreactions to my boss jokingly blaming me for our editing/publishing system's many, many glitches might suggest otherwise...)

P.S. For those with sharp eyes: Yes, I am blogging this from my home in East Brunswick, N.J., where I stayed last night and will be staying for much of today. I'm basically here for a doctor's appointment (I figured I was close enough to my primary-care physician that I could afford to stick with him for the time  being), but I have to admit, for once it has been a pleasure to briefly catch up with the family; it's nice, for instance, to actually be able to talk to my mother without feeling on edge all the time. Also, I figured I'd come back to collect some more supplies for the apartment.

Oh, and apparently I'm going to be seeing the new Todd Phillips/Robert Downey Jr./Zach Galifianakis comedy Due Date with a hometown friend this afternoon. Due Date, really? Well, I'll try to keep as open a mind as I possibly can...

Spontaneous Combustion...of Fun in New York

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—One thing about living in New York that I'm really enjoying so far is that I find it easier to plan my days—my weekends, especially—in a far more spontaneous manner than I was able to do having to commute back and forth to central New Jersey.

Every time I came into New York on a weekend while still living in East Brunswick, I always felt a need to immaculately plan beforehand: what I was doing, where I needed to go, when I needed to get to certain places, and (perhaps most importantly) when I needed to leave in order to be able to get back home. Sure, there was always a bit of room to maneuver even within such a carefully worked-out schedule...but most of the time I always felt constraints hanging over my head preventing me from being able to fully enjoy everything the city had to offer.

It's a different ballgame for me now as a New York resident...and this weekend was a case in point.

At the beginning of the day, my Friday looked to be a fairly humdrum one: one trip to the movies in the works, but otherwise not much else in the way of friendly gathering or even flat-out partying. But then, that morning, an old friend from East Brunswick posted a status update on Facebook alerting her friends that she would be at a bar in the Meatpacking District to celebrate her (super-belated) 25th birthday, and I decided it would be nice to make some time to reconnect with her there. And later in the day, thanks to a friendship I had struck up recently with someone who works at Brooklyn Academy of Music, I found myself in possession of a free ticket to a performance at BAM that evening of a new opera by composer Evan Ziporyn entitled A House in Bali. If I wasn't living in New York, there was probably no way I could have attended that House in Bali performance on such short notice. (The opera is fascinating musically, a bit less electrifying literally, but overall totally worth my time.)

In short, a quiet, sober Friday night suddenly turned into a far more wide-ranging, adventurous (and fairly drunken) one. Oh, and thanks to the free ticket as well as a couple of people at the birthday party being nice enough to pick up my tab on the drinks I consumed, I ended up spending only about $17 that evening ($7 of which was spent on a ticket to see Olivier Assayas's wonderful 1991 feature Paris at Dawn, also at BAM).

It was a similar story on Saturday. After a thrilling double-bill of Rififi (1955) and Touchez pas au grisbi (1954)—both of which I had never seen before, at least in full—at Film Forum, I met up with a friend at a bar on 28th and 7th, and we ended up going up to Central Park to check out the new Tavern on the Green, now reconfigured as a more modest visitor center and food court. Then, during our dinner, my friend mentioned a place even further uptown that served good dessert, and so we ended up spending some time there as well (I gorged on gelato and a piece of super-chocolate cake). Everything that happened after the two films was planned on-the-fly. And whereas, as a New Jersey resident, I probably would have been careful not to spend so much money on subway fare, now that I finally have a reason to purchase an unlimited MTA fare card, I feel free to explore all over the city with abandon. (I spent a bit more money on food than I had hoped on Saturday, but I think the $6 I spent on that double feature made up for things at least a bit.)

Earlier this year, when I was still deciding whether to take the plunge and finally move to New York, a co-worker of mine said to me, "You of all people need to be here." Boy, how right he was. The possibilities, the convenience, the seemingly endless sense of discovery: Maybe one day, my romance with New York City will end...but for now, we're still in the honeymoon phase, as far as I'm concerned.

P.S. Perhaps later in the week, I will find time to say more about the films I watched this weekend. For now, though...I have a phone interview with legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman to prepare for later today.

Living In—and For—the City: My First Month in New York

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—

The doors to my apartment building, on the left

It's been a little over a month since I moved into my new apartment here in Crown Heights, and thankfully, I have survived that first month with my well-being fully intact.

I say "thankfully" because, for a day or so after I officially moved all my stuff into the apartment, I suddenly found myself seriously questioning my decision to live in this particular neighborhood. That brief bout of self-doubt came as the result of a message I received from a friend of mine on Facebook after I officially changed my location on my profile to "Crown Heights, NY"; in that message, she not only informed me that she had just recently moved out of the area after two years, but also proceeded to recount horror stories about things that she witnessed or heard about: people being robbed and mugged; young kids shooting guns in the air, etc.

A synagogue at the intersection of the Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue

For a couple of days, this Facebook message positively haunted me. I was fully aware of the racially charged riots that took place between the black and Jewish communities in Crown Heights in 1991 before I looked at the apartment in which I now reside, so I certainly had my misgivings from the outset. But then, on a sunny Friday evening in August, I and one of two potential apartment-mates met with the resident who had put up the listing in the first place (she was still going to be living there, but she needed to fill the three other rooms in the four-bedroom apartment, since the rest of them were moving on); sat in the park right across the street; talked to one or two of the residents in the building next door; and in general found myself liking what I saw and heard. I mean, it's across from a park, I reasoned to myself. There are lots of families here. Surely it can't be that bad. And then, when that one potential suite-mate dropped out of the apartment hunt and the other took a look at the apartment on his own, he came to the same positive conclusions. If two people like this same potential living space so much, I reasoned, then there must be something special about it... (Did I mention the $700-a-month rent?) 

But then, with this friend's Facebook warning, I began to second-guess myself: Was I naive in making such assumptions? Did I fail to do enough research before agreeing to this? For about a day afterward, I obsessively searched for information about living in Crown Heights on Google, and I was not encouraged by much of what I read. Based on various online forums and articles I encountered, Crown Heights seemed to be placing fairly low in "safe-to-walk-at-night" rankings (right alongside its neighbor to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant, in that regard), and some of these respondents openly expressed disbelief that people would even think about living in the area. What had I gotten myself into? was the question that kept ringing my head that day, and the feeling in my heart was heavy.

Walking down Kingston Avenue

As you can see, though...it's been a little over a month, and I'm still alive and kicking. I keep to myself while walking home from the subway, I don't carelessly flash money and valuables around, and I certainly don't try to invite trouble by associating with shady-looking people I might see on the street. That is not to say that trouble might not present itself to me in the next 11 months living in this area...but I mean, what can I do now, right? The only thing I can do is be careful, or at least as careful as I usually am when walking on any city street at night.

My room. Purty, ain't it?

Besides...it's all a part of living on one's own, isn't it? Handling such troubles, or potential troubles, by yourself? So far, I really am enjoying this whole living-on-my-own thing: making my own decisions on finances, doing my own grocery shopping and laundry, and the like. It's been years since I've felt this kind of liberating independence. Even at Rutgers for my undergraduate-college years, I still felt like I was on training wheels, so to speak; my parents were paying most of my tuition, and I was so close to home that I often found myself just going home most weekends. Well, for the most part, the training wheels are off here in Brooklyn, and I'm flying solo: no parents paying rent for me, no close proximity to home (though admittedly, home still isn't that far away). For once, I find myself perilously close to feeling like a real adult!

And I don't think I'm doing too badly for myself so far. Sure, I probably spent far more money last month than I should have...but I figured I'd be spending a lot in my first month getting whatever supplies I needed to help settle myself in, and that, starting next month, I'd make a stronger effort to budget myself as much as possible. Because of my desire to save as much as I can, I've been less intense about keeping up my usually rabid moviewatching habits on weekends; I have errands I need to take care of every weekend, so if such sacrifices have to be made, I will make them.

That said, I'd like to think I haven't completely cut myself off of high—and low—culture here in New York because of my newfound frugality. My first Friday night as a New York resident, for instance, found me at, in this order: a housewarming party thrown by the residents on the first floor of my apartment building; a horror-movie-themed bar in Park Slope witnessing two pole dancers gyrating while I knocked down a mug of beer with a fellow film critic; and then, also in Park Slope, the birthday party of a friend of one of my roommates', at which I knocked down more alcohol and got fairly buzzed from the experience.

On the higher end of the cultural scale, however, I did visit Brooklyn's Light Industry for the first time ever to see a couple of little-seen Maysles Brothers documentary shorts (one about IBM, the other about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood); and a couple days later—pretty much on a whim, actually—I finally witnessed a very fine live performance of Gustav Mahler's majestic Sixth Symphony, with Alan Gilbert directing the New York Philharmonic, at Lincoln Center. (Thanks to a membership to the Gustav Mahler Society of New York that I had completely forgotten I had, I was able to save quite a bit on rear-orchestra seats.)

Oh, and now that I don't have to worry about getting picked up by family members every night to get home, I can stay out late even on weekdays if I wanted to do so! And I've taken advantage of that. Just last night, I decided to go check out Michael Mann's 1981 debut feature Thief at Film Forum—playing as part of the theater's "Heist" series—at an 8:30 p.m. screening after work; I probably wouldn't have even bothered to try to see such a late show if I was still living at home in central New Jersey. (It was totally worth the time, too. Judging by the film, Mann had mostly solidified his vision in his creative game; the seeds for his 2006 Miami Vice, with its swooning romantic fatalism, were planted way in advance.)

The fact that I now live close enough to be able to take advantage of all the New York City has to offer culturally is enough for me to conclude that I made the right choice in moving...whatever dangers my neighborhood may pose.

***

Oh, and also, there's this:

To my surprise, my mother—who had been skeptical of my decision to move from the outset—has not been calling me constantly to see how I'm doing. In fact, she's done the opposite: She has embraced email and (to a lesser extent) text messages, and is keeping in touch with me electronically, sending me about one email a week to keep in touch.

In one of her more recent emails, she dropped these lines:

I miss you. I have learned to let you kids go for you to grow [emphasis mine]. I hope you eat your 3 meals properly. It is important to respect your body. I know you are learning to do so. Hope everything is going smoothly with you. God bless you.

I have to admit, I felt a sense of vindication at reading that, at least for the moment. That is exactly what I've been trying to get her to understand.

That said: Sorry, Mom, but I have a feeling that saving $500 a month, as you (constructively) challenge me to do, might be near-impossible right now considering my salary...

This Is What I Will Be Doing All Weekend...

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—

This is it: my last day as a regular East Brunswick, N.J. resident.

By next week, I will be situated in an apartment in Crown Heights and thinking about the upcoming New York Film Festival, which I will help cover for The House Next Door for the next few weeks.

Until then, however: I will be doing box-loads of packing. So I will likely not be taking in many, if any, movies this weekend, theatrically or at home.

Wish me luck, everyone! Considering how much I've packed as of the publication of this post—not at all, really—I will most likely need all the luck I can get.

To end this week, then...naturally, some Billy Joel is in order:

Clash of the Generations, or First Exit to Brooklyn

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—I was thinking a lot about generation gaps yesterday, and the reason for this has something to do with that second major development in my life that I alluded to in this recent post.

The development (which I announced on Twitter and Facebook during my vacation, but which of course I will repeat here)? In about a week and a half—and after I sign the lease and pay first month's rent—I am officially moving to Brooklyn!

Yes, folks: After all the complaining I've been doing in person and on Twitter and Facebook about my mother, about my increasingly agonizing commute and about just generally feeling too spoiled and sheltered at home, I finally got off my lazy/hesitant ass and did something to, as Michael Jackson famously sang in "Man in the Mirror," "make a change."

Most of the people I interact with either in person or online support my desire to fly my parents' coop and try to make it on my own. And when I told some of my friends and acquaintances about how much I'll be paying a month to live in this four-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights—$700 a month, plus approximately $50 extra for utilities—just about all of them agreed that that was a pretty reasonable monthly sum for living in New York.

The only dissenter (or maybe not the only one, as you'll see below)? My mother, of course.

But I come here not to trash my mother—I've already done that too often this year, and I don't know if I can take any more guilt over it—but to try to understand where she's coming from. And the more I think about her reasons for believing this to be a bad move on my part, the more I'm convinced that this is probably yet another instance of a clash of generations at work.

***

In the mornings, whenever I'm waiting at a nearby bus stop for a NJ Transit bus to take me to New Brunswick, every so often I will be waiting next to a fairly feisty elderly woman, who looks to be in her 60s, if not older. We usually greet each other, and sometimes we even briefly discuss things pertaining to our lives as we wait for the bus to arrive. 

We saw each other again yesterday, and after I mentioned to her that I was moving to Brooklyn in about a week and a half, and that my mother was less than pleased about the decision, she told me right off the bat that she thought my mother was right in this matter. Even bringing up the $700/month rent figure didn't sway her. "That's a lot of money," she said. "At your young age, you should be saving money, not spending it away on rent. Why would you want to leave home and spend all that money away like that? Doesn't make sense to me."

This is more or less the stance my mother has taken on the matter. Unlike this elderly lady, though—who went so far as to say, "The biggest mistake young people make today is leaving their parents' home too early"—my mother takes pains to make clear to me that her disapproval is not about her wanting to keep me at home. Instead, for her, it's mostly about money: how I should be saving as much as I can while I'm young; and how she's worried that, based on how much money I bring home every two weeks from my job, I will end up like one of those people living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling.

Believe me, I grasp the parental concern underlying these reasons, and I would be lying if I didn't share some of them, to a certain extent. And I had always assumed that such concerns could be chalked up more to cultural differences than anything else: Asian people are often known (or is it stereotyped?) for being extremely frugal with their spending, as well as for being submissive to the supposed wisdom of their elders.

But if even this elderly American woman is agreeing with my mother on how youngsters should be approaching money and living...then maybe what we have here isn't just a clash of cultures after all. Maybe this difference of opinion can be explained in part by gaps in time, not just gaps in cultural understanding.

***

Coincidentally, the front page of yesterday's Personal Journal section in The Wall Street Journal featured a "Moving On" column by Jeffrey Zaslow discussing generational differences when it comes to how younger folk these days perceive and process advice offered by their elders. This one spoke to me with an especially powerful personal resonance.

As Zaslow writes:

Older people have always offered advice to younger people, with words of wisdom culled from their memories of youth. And, of course, in every era, young people have found advice from elders to be outdated and ineffectual. These days, however, given how fast the world is changing, there's been a clear widening of the advice gap.

It's rooted in a devaluation of accumulated wisdom, a leveling of the relationships between old and young. On many fronts, people from Generation Y—now ages 16 to 32—assume their peers know best. They doubt those of us who are older can truly understand their needs and concerns.

With my mother (less so my father, by the way, who, despite being born and raised in my mother's generation, seems to have a mindset closer to that of mine in matters of how someone my age ought to live), I sincerely wish I could feel comfortable enough to ask for her advice on matters of life and living. More often than not, though, I end up feeling frustrated by seemingly irreconcilable differences in worldviews. Like most other people I know, I consider living on my own and facing whatever difficulties one might have to face in doing so a natural rite of passage in adulthood; my mother, however, seems to be of the mindset that a parent's job is to provide enough for her children so that they don't have to face the same difficulties she might have had to face growing up. Thus I feel like I can't really talk to her about living on my own because all I'll get is disapproval that I'm even thinking about moving out in the first place. And that disapproval stings; she's my mother, after all.

Zaslow's article even features a quote from someone addressing generational differences regarding the idea of renting versus buying:

Dustin Borg, 28, taught English in Japan for two years and saw a culture in which older people are revered, and their advice remains unquestioned. He admired the respect young people showed their elders there, but wondered about the complacency among Japanese youth.

Now an actuarial analyst in Atlanta, Mr. Borg says he often challenges advice he receives from older people. For instance, they've counseled him to buy a house because prices are low. "Older people think renting is throwing away money," he says. "But I think owning a home is throwing away financial freedom. I couldn't pick up and move to a new city. I couldn't go back to Japan to see my old friends. I'd be tied to the house."

Having been pressured by my mother to co-own a house in Perth Amboy, N.J., with her—and going through with it begrudgingly, with the understanding that I would not actually live there—I sympathize with Borg and applaud him for sticking to his convictions. But, of course, his parents's advice isn't wrong or misguided. It just comes from a different set of values, one that perhaps treasures the permanence of a house over the transience of renting.

***

One of the things my mother seems to value highly is the idea of a family as a kind of warm respite from the outside world, a unit in which one can come home every night, have dinner around a table and talk about things that occurred during each member's respective days. This kind of tightly knit familial closeness is important to her, to the point that she will not only ask us if we will be home for dinner, but will give off a faint but unmistakable sense of disappointment if one of us tells her that he will not be coming home to eat with the rest of the family.

Of course, I myself don't really feel that same sense of disappointment whenever that happens (which, on most weekends, is quite often). This right here could be one classic manifestation of a generation gap: Whereas an older generation might have prized family above many other things in life, Generation Y feels less tied down to family roots. That, by extension, makes the idea of fleeing the family home in early adulthood to live on one's own seem natural to us but possibly naïve and foolish to our elders, as it seems to be with my mother and that elderly lady.

There is no right or wrong here. As frustrating as generational gaps can be...well, they are an inevitable part of life, a part of history. The only thing one can really do when faced with such major generational differences is to try one's best to understand the points of view involved and decide for oneself how to proceed.

Who knows? Sometimes those elders whose advice you pooh-pooh now will turn out to have been right all along.

*** 

Will my mother end up being vindicated in her skepticism over my impending move to Brooklyn? Will I end up struggling like crazy to get by? Will this end up being similar to the mistake I made in living in that overly expensive on-campus apartment-style housing during my third and fourth years at Rutgers—a mistake I'm paying for right now through monthly student-loan payments? All I know right now is, this move feels right for me at this moment in time. If it ends up being a mistake...well, at least it will be my mistake to learn from, whether my mother understands such a mindset or not.

Stay tuned, I guess.

Mikey and Nicky, and Films That Hit (Too) Close to Home

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—

Two of my favorite pieces of writing on Charlie Kaufman's 2008 film Synecdoche, New York—outside of Roger Ebert's definitive take—are Andrew "Filmbrain" Grant's two-part examination of the film's thematic and philosophical intricacies, and the review written by Film Freak Central's Walter Chaw (both of whom, by the way, appear in an extra on the film's DVD, along with two other favorite critics of mine, Some Came Running's Glenn Kenny and Los Angeles Weekly's Karina Longworth). I value both these pieces of writing because both dare to inject the personal element into them while also trying to take the film on in something close to an objective manner. For Grant, the film hit home so hard for him that he went on an alcohol binge the night after seeing it for the first time; Chaw similarly admitted that the film made him feel depressed for weeks afterward, and one of the conclusions he draws about Kaufman's work is that "the more it's examined, the more it's a dissection of the critic's own fears and prejudices."

Though I myself am more of a detached admirer than a passionate advocate of Synecdoche, I think I understand the film Grant and Chaw saw: the kind of work of art doesn't just mess with your mind, but has the power to possibly even scar you emotionally.

This past Saturday, at Brooklyn Academy of Music, I saw, for the first time, Elaine May's 1976 film Mikey and Nicky. For those who don't know much about this film: It's a comedy-drama about down-on-his-luck hustler Nicky (John Cassavetes) who calls upon his old friend Mikey (Peter Falk) in a moment of desperation: Nicky knows a crime boss has ordered a hit on him, and, fearing for his life, calls upon Mikey for help. Over the course of the night they spend together, they get into an aimless series of adventures, shooting the shit, baring their souls, getting into bitter arguments and generally bonding in their own way. Alas, Mikey, it is revealed early on, is in on the hit on his friend, and the film features scenes which suggest long-seated tensions in their friendship that eventually explode in a devastating conclusion that suggests limits to male comradeship.

There's not much of a plot to speak of outside of those bare outlines; Mikey and Nicky is a series of episodes in which the two titular characters' friendship is tested, and it is all done in an unnervingly realistic, improvisatory manner that suggests the mold-breaking style of Cassavetes's own directorial efforts. May uses this loose structure to touch on all sorts of heady subjects: life, death, religion, friendship, masculinity, femininity.

It's a rich and almost unbearably poignant work...and, for this viewer, it's a film that truly hit close to home for me in ways I didn't even fully realize until the next morning.

There is one particularly painful scene in the middle of the film in which buried resentments between the two friends are thrust into the open, with Mikey accusing Nicky of, among other things, only being friendly with him when he's in trouble. Somehow, during this scene—which climaxes in a near-fistfight between the two—I began to think about some of my own friends, and whether I have been less than appropriate friendly to them in recent weeks.

I thought about one friend in particular: someone who I've known since middle school, who I've hung out with often over the years, to the point that we're considered a kind of unofficial couple among our circle of friends. Just about every week, we're usually seeing a movie together, to give you an idea of just how close we are. Recently, though, I've kept a certain distance from him. It's not entirely deliberate, mind you—other social engagements and weird work schedules have gotten in the way. But I've also come to realize that there are many other people in whose company I find more genuine pleasure than I do when I'm around him.

This friend had texted me earlier in the day asking me if I was interested in seeing The Expendables that night—and for maybe the third time in about a month, I had to turn him down because I had already planned to see Mikey and Nicky and then have dinner with someone that evening. Obviously, there wasn't much I could do about it at that point; plans had already been set. And yet, when I turned him down this time and saw that he didn't respond back for the rest of the day, I nevertheless felt a twinge of guilt, mostly out of the deep-seated realization that perhaps I was partly trying to avoid him. (I went to Los Angeles with him earlier this year, and as the week dragged on, the silences between us got longer and longer.) So when I saw this particular scene in Mikey and Nicky, some of that guilt started rushing back to me again, a feeling only intensified by the film's tragic final shot of a startled Peter Falk.

The last thing I expected, though, was to actually end up seeing my friend later that night...in a dream—a dream in which he verbally, and angrily, expressed to me everything I feared he was feeling after all these rejections: snubbed, jilted, ignored. He's not the type to get visibly angry, so to dream of him acting sarcastically bitter and wounded in front of me was, well, nightmarish. I awoke from that dream shaken, and that feeling didn't really leave me for the rest of the day.

That cannot be mere coincidence. Mikey and Nicky has had a more profound effect on me than I even realized upon exiting the theater Saturday evening. I'm still thinking about the film: about what it says about the sometimes tenuous nature of friendship and loyalty, and about how it pertains to my own life. Maybe I'm just not as good a friend to even supposedly "close" friends as I am to others. This film won't leave me alone. I have no doubt in my mind that this film is a masterpiece, but I'm almost afraid to revisit it. Do I dare feel that same sense of shame again?

I've detailed a mostly subjective reaction to this film, of course, one which probably won't apply to everyone. But I'd like to think my personal experience with the film is not exclusive to me, and that the film is universal enough in scope to touch others in a similar way.

If it ain't Mikey and Nicky or Synecdoche, New York, what other movies have had a comparably powerful effect on you? Comment away; I'd love to hear about your too-close-to-home movie experiences.

On the Road to Making Amends, or A Family Thing

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—I was supposed to go camping with my mother, my father and one of my younger brothers in Pennsylvania somewhere this weekend, thus making it yet another weekend with minimal exposure to the big screen (and maybe some exposure to the small screen). But earlier in the week, I decided not to go.

Why? For one thing, I've discovered this year that camping outdoors is a pastime that fills me with more dread than excitement. I hate how long it takes to pull down/prop up our RV; I feel no sense of accomplishment in putting up a tent; and while I have nothing against spending time in the great outdoors, I feel no particular pleasure in spending time overnight in it.

Really, though, there is one overriding reason I decided to follow the lead of my youngest brother and back out of this camping trip: I dread the prospect of spending an extended period of time with my mother around. Faithful readers of my blogs over the years will be fully aware of our history, so I won't bother to explain it all here (but if you want a primer, let me know in the comments and I'll try to sum it up). Suffice it to say: Every time I am in her presence, all I feel is tension and buried resentment, and more often than not, I act on it in mostly ugly and detrimental ways—and my awareness of said ugliness just makes me feel all the guiltier afterward. This become so prevalent in recent months that I am only now actively looking to finally move out from under her roof, on the theory that maybe our relationship will improve with distance. Because when I begin to feel a sense of dread even at the thought of spending a mere two full days around her, you know something needs to change...and that change isn't going to come from her end.

On Wednesday night, though, I came across this latest Viewing Log from Vinyl is Heavy, the fascinating and compulsively readable blog of film critic (and friend, though admittedly not a close one) Ryland Walker Knight. In it, among other topics, he discusses his experience watching and discussing Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (2008) with his mother, and also talks eloquently about the subtle aesthetics of home videos, a topic inspired by videos of his own family he recently revisited.

And a funny thing happened as I read this post: I suddenly found myself experiencing a change of heart toward my mother. Not only did I feel ashamed of my recently intensifying (I have to be completely honest here) hatred toward her, but for the first time in a long time, I felt a strong need to at least make sincere gestures toward improving my relationship with her. If nothing else, I crave the familial harmony the post exudes.

Look, my mother will most likely always be, to my mind, stubborn, exasperating, micro-managing and judgmental, and I don't know if I'll ever feel comfortable talking to her about deep personal issues. (When I first voiced my intention a few weeks ago to move, she freaked out, and I haven't really bothered to talk to her all that much about anything since.) But she is my mother; that will certainly never change. And she is a human being, as I am; no human being is perfect (Adam and Eve made sure of that). Does the good she has done for me over the first 24+ years of my life outweigh the bad? When all is said and done, I think the answer is "yes"—and certainly not just because she bore me in the first place. However insufferable she can sometimes be, everything she does comes from a sincere impulse, and I should probably recognize that more often than I do. Besides, it's the good I should try to remember when I'm around her, not the bad...even if sometimes it is very, veeery difficult to put aside the negative feelings.

All of this is just words, of course. But after reading Knight's Vinyl is Heavy post, for once I feel a great need to support that with some sort of action.

I've already made plans for this upcoming weekend, so I won't be able to start that process by going camping with her after all. At the end of next month, however, the whole Fujishima clan is planning to spend 12 days on the road driving all the way to Yellowstone National Park, camping there, and then driving back. I've been dreading it for the past few weeks, and I can't say I'm still all that enthused about spending such a lengthy period of time camping. Suddenly, though, I'm finding myself not dreading it so much. Perhaps I'm even feeling honest-to-God anticipation...?

Rest assured, though: This has not stopped me from looking for a place to live in New York. Not. One. Bit. That is just something my mother is going to have to live with, once it happens.

P.S. Knight's latest Viewing Log also features some commentary on Christopher Nolan's The Prestige—one of his better films, I think, and arguably his most visually distinguished—that is worth reading (as is pretty much everything he writes, really).

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And on that note of reconciliation: I wish you all a very fine, joyful weekend! Let Jonathan Demme take you there:

Rachel Getting Married (2008)