Darlings:
I haven't written in a couple of days because I have some sort of nasty sore throat that is making me feel very bad. I look at the beautiful, unseasonable weather outside my window, and cannot enjoy it because I feel lousy. I look at the news and it all seems to be the same. Iraq is still there, there are fires in California, which always happens, so what else is new?
I resort to my Netflix. I have seen Dreamgirls, and didn't like it. The music is a terrible pastiche of actually great black music. The extraordinarily talented cast (Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson) are all wasted singing bad songs and mouthing even worse dialogue.
The movie looks great but it bored me to tears. And as much as Eddie Murphy rocked, it looks like half of his performance was edited out of the film. A very frustrating movie. Quite terrible, somehow.
I also saw Venus, with Peter O'Toole, written by the great Hanif Kureishi (I confess: I fell in love with him when he came to the Pen writer's conference in NY like two years ago. I fell in love with his bile.)
I was surprised that Venus was so much better than I imagined. Directed with great sensitivity by Roger Michell and stupendously acted by O'Toole and the rest of the cast. It's a movie that sometimes tries to be spunkily comedic like those newfangled cookie cutter British comedies, but because it is written by Kureishi, it is much more poignant and darker and smarter than that.
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