PeaceBang

Bad Title, "Bad Education"

July 18, 2005 on 10:41 pm | In Uncategorized |

I just saw Almodovar’s “Bad Education,” starring the delectable Gael Garcia Bernal.

Maybe it’s that I quit caffeine yesterday and my brain is about as effective as a 1973 Dodge Dart up an icy hill, but I don’t know what to think.

(SPOILER ALERT)
It may be that I never really recovered from the fact that my favorite character was killed off halfway through the film — or rather, the person I *thought* was the most sympathetic and endearing character wasn’t who I thought he was. There I was loving a fabulously gorgeous gay transvestite and it turns out he was … ick, hetero. And bigger ick… a murdering sociopath. And the biggest ick of all.. an ACTOR. {{{shudder}}}}

Just kidding, ya’ll.

In other news, I positively loathed Ellen Gilchrist’s 2000 collection of short stories, The Cabal, which read like the worst chick lit and was thoroughly unworthy of her.
Wait. I’ll pluck it out of the recycling bin so I can quote you some choice bits:

“Royals followed Caroline to the stairs, then watched while she walked up them to the landing. Her legs were long and finely wrought. Her hair was thick and wild. Her hips were thin and tight. Her mind was quick and interesting. She was a winner and plenty ruthless enough to be a mother and a doctor’s wife. The more he thought about it the more he wanted to f%&* her. If they knew what we thought about them they would slap us every time they saw us, he thought. He had heard a comedian say that on a late night television show. He had thought it was the most profound thing he had heard in years.”

(Are you barfing yet?)

“She raised her eyes and looked at Royals Connell. Death had made her bold. She was going after what she needed in the world, starting this afternoon, starting today.”

And I’m going after what I need, which is to throw this overwrought garbage back in the recycling bin and heat up some vegetable mushi and broccoli shrimp.
If it’s entertaining literary commentary you’re after, I hear that ChaliceChick is live blogging the new Harry Potter novel: http://chalicechick.blogspot.com/