The View From Scranton

Crush and Crash

I could sit and watch Rachel McAdams for the rest of my life. I could sit and watch her walk, sit and watch her talk, sit and watch her watch. I could sit and watch her sitting and still never get bored. She's exquisite. The smile in her eyes; the sway in her strut, the sparkle in her laugh. She knocks the wind from me.

This weekend was the first weekend that I've had more than three hours to myself since forever. Instead I had five. Five hours to do with almost as I pleased. Since I'm in Scranton, and since I'm in a halfway house, there really wasn't much pleasing to do. I did what I could. The library. A movie. A movie. The library. It was at that first flick where I first saw Rachel.

Talk about firsts. It was like a first crush. A first kiss. The first time. I couldn't keep my eyes off her. Or my hopes or my dreams or my fears. She was that much. Not too much, but much. Just enough much to slay me.

Yeah it's corny, yeah it's cliché, and yeah I'm cracked. That's the beauty of it all. When a fella cracks with corny clichés he's on to something primitive, something primal, something organic. Essential. She's got the kinda got that gets you. Gets to you. Gets.

I better shut up before I start to walk the stalk. She's far too very for something so mundane; and if anyone dared -- and I do mean anyone -- well, I'd just have to knock the mundane right outta them.

Ahem.

Oh yeah, the movie. The Wedding Crashers delivered as reported -- a hefty dose of dumb adult fun. Vaughn & Wilson were ridiculously adroit, the script emphatically ridic, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Mostly I enjoyed Rachel, but I think I've already well covered that.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't been in a cinema for four years. Four years since I'd sat alone in the dark with my eyes on elsewhere. The cool, the color, the volume. Just the coming attractions were a delight to rebehold. I even dug Kanye West's semi-sacred soundings over the quick-cut clips to the coming Jarhead and I do not dig Kanye West. But there, then, he was appropriate. I bet it's the only time he's ever been accused of that.

Sunday's Four Brothers returned to me the city grit that I've so long been missing. The dirty, ugly, dangerous side of a dirty, ugly, dangerous place. In this case the place was Detroit, and I dug deep all the dirt and the ugly and the danger. It's not that I wanna go out and play with guns; but it might be nice to once again be gliding through places where there’s a little gunplay. There's a sense you get in such places, a knowing, a mortal feel that's about as close to the gods as we get. A sense that can't be felt or known elsewhere. Something singular.

On third thought, I'll opt outta that action. Been there. Done that. Paid for it. Dearly. From here on out I'll leave my slinging to words. Maybe find a way to spell the feel that can't be known. Or something. I will though be tracking down The Notebook. And this weekend I'll be taking Wes Craven's Red Eye. There's no way I'm gonna opt outta Rachel.

posted by John Hood. @ 9:34 PM