Saturday afternoon at the movies...

I had one of those marvelous encounters yesterday with an old friend. We met for lunch at the world's best Chinese restaurant and schmoozed our way through walnut pineapple prawns and orange sesame beef. Lots of catching up to do over the oolong tea. Then we mosied over to the theater, not the mega-multiplex where one can see Texas Chainsaw Masacre IV or Barbie's Dream Adventure, oh nonono. We went to the smart people's theater, where instead of your brain getting pumped full of fluff and feeling all cottony afterward, you actually get to think about what you saw, and you come out enlightened and enriched with a brain bursting with new thoughts. In other words, the theater that plays the independent films, or the ones the big studios make as acts of contrition for the rest of the tripe they produce. My choice, and I was really dragging my friend to see it, was Proof, starring the divine Gwyneth, along with Anthony Hopkins, Jake Guylenhall, and Hope Davis, who was less white-ratish in this film than I have ever seen her. It was about the fine line between genius and madness, a great cinematic subject in my book. Actually, I think it could have been a better work with better editing, more tension-filled, but all in all, it satisfied my need to feel that I can entertain and elucidate myself all at the same time. We walked out with smug smiles to the parking lot full of vintage Volvos and new hybrids, passing all the other smart people on their way for their helping of intellectual grace.