I've seen so many wonderful movies lately, which have all provoked much thought.

First: Control Room. It was so interesting to get a sense of how the Arab world viewed the war in Iraq, and how they reported it. I didn't realize that one of their reporters was killed in what looked to be a targeted attack...and that the press briefing which detailed Jessica Lynch's capture was a smokescreen for other information concerning the whereabouts of the American troops. The Al Jazeera reporters were also suspicious that the "Iraqis" who celebrated the U.S. Capture of Baghdad by toppling Saddam's statue were not true Iraqi's at all, but were Arab teenagers brought in by U.S. troops to provide pro-U.S. media images. I also didn't realize how the Israel/Palestine conflict was so present in the minds of most Arabs, and is inextricably linked to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Pretty fascinating and worth seeing. The U.S. Marine press spokesman, Lt. Rushing, won my heart by being open-minded enough to try to see both the U.S. and Arab sides. According to salon.com, though, the Pentagon has refused to allow him to comment about the film, and he has since considered leaving the Marines. Watching Donald Rumsfield with his tight little smile as he called Al Jazeera a bunch of propaganda-using liers, and then made statements such as "Truth ultimately finds its way to people's eyes, ears and hearts"...well, I almost went into convulsions at his sheer hypocrisy. Jesus.

Second: Fahrenheit 9/11. So much has already been written about this movie, and I don't have anything new to add, really. Most of what Michael Moore says is true, but sometimes the truth is presented in exaggerated or slightly skewed fashion in order to maximize its effect. This was especially true of the 1st half, which draws connections between the Bushes, the Saudis, and Bin Laden. There were a couple of parts which were ridiculous, such as his implication that Iraq was a happy and peaceful country before we invaded (he shows clips of children laughing and playing in the street, and then bombs to signal the start of the war), but I don't think that those should discredit the whole movie. The second half, which gets to more of the human stories through interviews of people personally affected by the war, is awesome. In my opinion, the movie shouldn't be swallowed down by the viewers without a critical eye; it should be a starting point for discussion. Hopefully it will get people to educate themselves more about what's going on. Because there is a lot of scary stuff happening with this administration.

Third: Before Sunset. I saw Before Sunrise on video at a sleepover party in high school. All the other girls had fallen asleep by the time the movie was halfway through. I was the only one awake until the end, and I was enraptured by it, utterly caught in its spell. I dreamed of studying in Europe some day, and having conversations like those in the film.

While in college, I studied for a semester in Paris, and had my own Before Sunrise-like experience. I met a guy there (another American, actually) and we wandered all over Paris talking nonstop about philosophy and dreams and love from 7 pm straight until 6 am, well after the Metro started up again in the morning. We didn't have sex (he was nursing a broken heart, and the vibe between us was too ambiguous for me to act upon it), but we were just as deep and earnest and pretentious as Jesse and Celine. It was one of the most amazing conversations of my life, but for whatever reason, we never took our relationship much further than we did that night, even though we were both very moved by our exchange. When I was at the Charles de Gaulle airport about to board a plane back home, and still had some time left on my phone card, I rather dorkily called him and left a rambling message about how much that night meant to me, until the card ran out and cut me off mid-sentence. I haven't communicated with him in years, but I'll never forget him.

I just got home from seeing Before Sunset, and all the memories and feelings, long buried and forgotten, came flooding back, particularly since the setting of this film is in Paris, not Vienna (where the first film took place). I'm only 25 right now, but I still remember how young and full of dreams I used to be when I was in Paris. I related so much to the older Celine, because I feel like I've lost so much of myself since I was that earnest kid sharing my thoughts with a guy with whom I felt such a powerful, yet transitory, connection. While I'm not a huge fan of Ethan Hawke's (okay, I find him to be a pretentious asshat and was disgusted by how he treated his former wife Uma Thurman), he did a fine job in this film, and I can't hate him completely now. I love Julie Delpy, she's still exquisite, although I preferred her appearance when she had a little more baby fat. Her face is so open and mournful despite her cheerful neurotic chatter and ever-present smile. I think that she, Ethan, and Richard Linklater did a bang-up job with the script. It was so very believable--at least to me, who is prone to such sort of thought and conversation.

The Shakespeare Book Company (which I visited quite frequently--I remember the loft upstairs where visitors sleep, and the cats), the cafes, the gardens, the Seine, the bateau-mouche...God, but I miss Paris. What a gorgeous, gorgeous movie. I'm sure that it's not to everyone's taste, but for someone who is a whore for pretentious self-conscious conversation, as well as an unrepetent francophile, this movie was heaven on celluloid. I'm all giddy after seeing it, and just for now, all seems right with the world. At least until I start to ruminate about how I've lost much of my idealism and overwhelming zest for art and self-expression, and no longer have conversations very often that are intense and challenging and make me shiver with delight. It's a strange thing that I was so often at a loss to do much else with a profoundly intimate and life-altering conversation. I've had such exchanges with several people, but somehow failed to create something more lasting with them. Then again, it's easier to have those sorts of conversations with people whom you barely know, before you start to share the day-to-day banalities of life instead. God but I miss those conversations, and the people who facilitated those conversations. I can think of four men who were like conversational soul-mates--we seemed to just fall into an intense and beautiful way of verbally sharing everything that came to mind, frequently dipping into philosophy and dreams and stories and whatnot. But again, not much happened with them, other than a mutual appreciation. The other parts of ourselves, the parts other than our communicative selves, were not as compatible, or circumstances somehow got in the way. Is this sort of communication overrated though? Inevitably one runs out of things to talk about, right? Perhaps there is a "honeymoon" period when it comes to conversation, like there is with sex. I don't know.

Okay, now to deviate from movies, I've been thinking about plastic surgery recently, with the onslaught of plastic surgery programming. I used to be completely against it, then very supportive of it (although I would never do it personally unless I were horribly disfigured), and now I'm ambivalent. I still believe that if someone is so unusual looking that it interferes drastically with his or her social life (e.g. cleft palate or extreme deformity), then I'm all for it. But when it comes to tweaking things to look more conventionally attractive...I'm not so thrilled with the idea. Of course everyone has the right to do whatever they wish with their bodies, and if changing their looks makes them a lot happier then I can't oppose it. But I hate conformity and worry about a day when we'll all use genetic engineering or plastic surgery to look like what's considered "ideal" beauty, instead of embracing diversity of appearance. I like unusual-looking people.

By the way, cute pro-Kerry swag can be found here. I'm not sure I'll actually shell-out for a t-shirt, but some of them are awfully tempting.