Movie review – Jana Bouc, Artist

Despite the rain I had a great walk to the Farmers Market at El Cerrito Plaza last Saturday. When the rain stopped I sketched and painted at an outdoor table at Peet’s Coffee across the street. Then I continued my walk to do half a dozen errands. One was to pick up the second disk of “Five Days” from the video store.

I’d rented the first disk from Netflix and couldn’t wait for it to go back and part two to arrive. I had to find out what happened. Five days is an incredibly suspenseful, well-written and perfectly acted British TV mini-series about a woman and her kids who go missing. I’d had this movie sitting around for two weeks when I finally sat down to watch it and then couldn’t turn it off. If you like suspenseful police procedurals with great character development, this one is great!

Rainy day, patient, meticulously groomed woman, riding BART.

Didn’t catch a likeness in this quickie sketch, but did catch a bit of her spirit.

The Big Lebowski: I Don’t Get It

In 1998 when the movie The Big Lebowski first came out, my father, who considered himself an intellectual, raved about this movie. So I went to see it on his recommendation but couldn’t figure out what he saw in it.

Now the star, Jeff Bridges, is in a new movie and people are again talking with great reverence about his role as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, which some critics rate in their top comedies of the past 25 years. My son even had this movie in his collection, so I borrowed it, thinking if its popularity spans that many generations, I should give it another chance.

I watched it. I still don’t get it. At the end, when “the stranger” (Sam Elliot) who begins the movie with his narration returns to the bowling alley for another sarsaparilla and concludes the narration, I decided to sketch him so at least I had something to show from spending two hours with these morons.

Is it a guy thing? Is this a movie that makes guys feel good because they’re not as bad of losers? Do people really think the Dude’s pothead approach to life known as “The Dude abides,” was worthy of worship (there is actually a church based on his character, called Dudeism)?

I loved the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo (mostly because of Francis McDormand) but even she couldn’t save their most recent movie, Burn After Reading, which, after renting it accidentally, I thought had to be the most pointless movie I’ve ever seen.

If only the millions of dollars spent on making stupid movies (much of which goes to already obscenely wealthy movie stars) could be spent on feeding people, funding education, the arts, or making the world a better place.