by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
An early Wednesday evening at home. Walk in the door, open a bag of chips, check e-mail. Nothing interesting, much. Change clothes, put on running shoes. Walk outside. Raining too hard. Walk back inside. Decide to wait and see if rain stops. Turn computer monitor back on, pull up game for a few minutes. Rain gets heavier, thunder gets louder. ZOT!!! Power goes off. Power stays off.
Hunger builds, dinnertime approaches. No microwave, no oven, no refrigerator, even. Dry cleaners close at seven. Walk to car in driving rain, start engine, get to dry cleaners five minutes before close. Still hungry. Stop by Chuy's, get chicken enchiladas in green chile sauce. Have to stop eating like this. Diet starts soon.
Rain stops on drive home. Check mailbox on way in. Get electric bill. Chuckle at irony. Get dry cleaning out of car. Rain stops. Walk in door, power still not on. Open window, read paper until too dark to read anymore. Power still not on.
True Crime starts in twenty minutes at dollar theater. Clint Eastwood stars and directs. Better than sitting around in dark room.
Drive to movie theater, arrive as previews start. Trailer for The Mummy looks cooler than expected. Never Been Kissed trailer looks stupid. Wonder who would ever want to go back to high school.
Movie starts. San Quentin Prison, exterior scene. Didn't know San Quentin was on the Pacific. Scene where warden talks to condemned criminal. Blah sort of scene.
Here is Clint, at a bar, with a young girl. Clint drinks a tall drink with a stalk of celery in it. Wonder how much celery a bar goes through in a week. Clint chats up the girl, tells her he stopped drinking, hits on her a little. Girl feels uncomfortable, leaves bar, drives away.
Girl is driving drunk in the rain. Worse yet, girl decides to change radio stations. Girl comes up on Deadman's Curve, spins out, dies in horrible preventable car crash. Yet another innocent life sacrificed to make a corny plot point. Wonder when we will ever learn from these tragedies?
Clint is needed to replace girl on story about imminent execution of condemned criminal from first scene. James Woods and Denis Leary talk bad about Clint behind his back. Woods actually looks like he's doing a Denis Leary impression. Denis Leary glowers a lot, not wanting to upstage Woods while he's doing his Denis Leary impression.
Clint comes into newsroom and is shocked and horrified over girl's death for about two minutes. Clint starts to investigate story, asking questions about murder that the condemned man allegedly committed. Clint stops to light up cigarettes over protests of co-workers and to have a boring conversation with his secretary about sexual harassment. Wonder if anybody ever told Dirty Harry Callahan to stop smoking.
Clint also calls his wife, who is Diane Venora, who was pretty good in The Jackal, which was otherwise pretty bad. Clint's wife reminds him to take his daughter to the zoo. Clint intersperses investigation into innocence of condemned man with family life, doing neither well. Dirty Harry Callahan never would have stopped to take anyone to the zoo that he wasn't feeding to the tigers.
Scenes go in in prison in the meantime. Michael McKean plays a smarmy-looking prison chaplain who gives a bad name to chaplains everywhere. The warden and the prison guards are nice enough people, doing their jobs. The condemned man shares some awkward moments with his family. He decides to have steak for his last meal. Would choose some more of those chicken enchiladas myself.
Clint drives around Bay Area, confronting people. Eventually, he confronts the condemned man (Isaiah Washington), who explains why he is not guilty. Clint believes him, so he must not be guilty. Can Clint save him before time runs out? Remind self that Clint is the director and the producer and Clint can pretty much do what he wants.
Finish watching movie. Marvel at silliness of ending. Wonder if this is just a potboiler for Clint to make other, better movies. Hope that this is indeed the case. Respect the quality of Clint's acting, and the good work of the supporting cast, but wonder what the screenwriter was thinking. Ask self if this was really better than sitting alone in a dark room waiting for the power to come back on.
Leave theater disappointed. Drive home. The power is back on! Write review, reset clocks, go to sleep.
-- Curtis D. Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
"First, you show up. Then you see what happens."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
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