The Netherlands 1, Ecuador 1; 1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 57: Walking and talking
Ecuador dominated the Netherlands. The teams drew, but it felt like the famous headline: “Harvard Beats Yale 29–29.”
The Netherlands took an early lead, but Ecuador fought back and scored at the end of the half. I yelled and celebrated. Samuel and Daniel cried. Then the goal was disallowed because a static player in an offside position was adjudged to have “interfered with” the goalie. (He didn’t.)
When Enner Valencia scored the tying goal, a little after halftime, I didn’t yell or celebrate. I don’t think I shall, anymore.
The final score barely mattered. Ecuador was breathtakingly good. I was very, very happy and proud.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
This is what the World Cup has taught Samuel to say:
“A Visa card.”
“Adidas shoes.”
“Dior.”
“Westin.”
“Hilton. For the stay.”
“Medio tiempo presentado por T-Mobile.”
“Only on Peacock. A Peacock original series.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Karin put on a couple of Beavis & Butt-head YouTube videos, and now Samuel goes around asking to watch “Beavis and Buff-head.”
“Maybe when you’re older,” I tell him. “Maybe when you’re twenty-five.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Walking and Talking
This review is a nod to Anne Heche, who died this year. She and Catherine Keener play lifelong friends in their early thirties who stumble through relationships with men and with each other. “Bleak,” Karin kept on saying, and then in the second half of the movie she laughed a lot.
The funniest situations are carefully built up over many scenes. One first-class joke is about the removal of a mole. (It struck a chord with Karin & me: early in our marriage, we worried about a particularly suspect mole.) In another remarkable scene, the Heche character dreams or hallucinates or has a vision of the mole, leading to a pointless quarrel with her boyfriend.
Physical insecurity is treated with shrewdness. The theme recurs in other movies directed by Nicole Holofcener, e.g., Lovely & Amazing and my favorite, Please Give. Her characters worry about everything from skin blemishes to general ugliness to cancer and dementia. The women are touchy about these things, but so are the men.
It’s good to have movies like this, with not-that-much-better-than-average-looking people whose attitudes about their bodies are true to life.
The director John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful, Blue Crush, Into the Blue) is good at making his actors look really, really hot. His movies are masterpieces. But it’s good of Holofcener to provide an antidote. Man cannot live on eye candy alone.
The key to dealing with insecurity, Holofcener demonstrates again and again, is self-respect. This is different from thinking yourself beautiful, which can be a trap because (a) beauty fades, and (b) you end up worrying whether you and your friends are beautiful enough. Rather, if you are self-respecting, you have no truck with people who are willing to denigrate you because of your physical appearance. Paradoxically, self-respect is outward-, not inward-looking: it has to do with not selling yourself short in your comportment with others. The self-respecting character in Walking and Talking is a nerdy video-store clerk (Kevin Corrigan). Most people would write him off as a loser, but he is a mensch.
The other characters are more fragile, and they are often thoughtless and even cruel. But there is hope for them. They are learning.
This is a funny and good-hearted movie.
The Netherlands took an early lead, but Ecuador fought back and scored at the end of the half. I yelled and celebrated. Samuel and Daniel cried. Then the goal was disallowed because a static player in an offside position was adjudged to have “interfered with” the goalie. (He didn’t.)
When Enner Valencia scored the tying goal, a little after halftime, I didn’t yell or celebrate. I don’t think I shall, anymore.
The final score barely mattered. Ecuador was breathtakingly good. I was very, very happy and proud.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
This is what the World Cup has taught Samuel to say:
“A Visa card.”
“Adidas shoes.”
“Dior.”
“Westin.”
“Hilton. For the stay.”
“Medio tiempo presentado por T-Mobile.”
“Only on Peacock. A Peacock original series.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Karin put on a couple of Beavis & Butt-head YouTube videos, and now Samuel goes around asking to watch “Beavis and Buff-head.”
“Maybe when you’re older,” I tell him. “Maybe when you’re twenty-five.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Walking and Talking
This review is a nod to Anne Heche, who died this year. She and Catherine Keener play lifelong friends in their early thirties who stumble through relationships with men and with each other. “Bleak,” Karin kept on saying, and then in the second half of the movie she laughed a lot.
The funniest situations are carefully built up over many scenes. One first-class joke is about the removal of a mole. (It struck a chord with Karin & me: early in our marriage, we worried about a particularly suspect mole.) In another remarkable scene, the Heche character dreams or hallucinates or has a vision of the mole, leading to a pointless quarrel with her boyfriend.
Physical insecurity is treated with shrewdness. The theme recurs in other movies directed by Nicole Holofcener, e.g., Lovely & Amazing and my favorite, Please Give. Her characters worry about everything from skin blemishes to general ugliness to cancer and dementia. The women are touchy about these things, but so are the men.
It’s good to have movies like this, with not-that-much-better-than-average-looking people whose attitudes about their bodies are true to life.
The director John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful, Blue Crush, Into the Blue) is good at making his actors look really, really hot. His movies are masterpieces. But it’s good of Holofcener to provide an antidote. Man cannot live on eye candy alone.
The key to dealing with insecurity, Holofcener demonstrates again and again, is self-respect. This is different from thinking yourself beautiful, which can be a trap because (a) beauty fades, and (b) you end up worrying whether you and your friends are beautiful enough. Rather, if you are self-respecting, you have no truck with people who are willing to denigrate you because of your physical appearance. Paradoxically, self-respect is outward-, not inward-looking: it has to do with not selling yourself short in your comportment with others. The self-respecting character in Walking and Talking is a nerdy video-store clerk (Kevin Corrigan). Most people would write him off as a loser, but he is a mensch.
The other characters are more fragile, and they are often thoughtless and even cruel. But there is hope for them. They are learning.
This is a funny and good-hearted movie.