23: City of Angels

Blue Ridge Cinema

Raleigh, North Carolina

Fall of 1998

with: Carrie and Deanna

An email from Deanna in Japan!  I'm getting really good at email and the internet.  I know how to hook up the modem and get online without any help from anyone else.  I find my name and it says I have mail!  Cool! I can't believe she sat down at her computer, wrote me a letter, hit send, and then I got it in Raleigh less than a minute later.  What is next?  Maybe someday we will teach on the internet!  Ha, like that will happen.

Deanna is teaching English in Japan and is coming home for a two week break!  I can't wait to see her, I can't wait to see her...keep reading the email....Meredith is in the mountains, might come in for the weekend, Carrie is here got it...they have a plan.

and they want to see City of Angels...

Wammy!  Bleepy!  Seriously????

How do I get into these horribly atrocious dilemmas?

I don't do Meg Ryan.  The last time I paid to see Meg Ryan in a movie, I was twelve and at Emerald Isle beach for two weeks with my girl Christie and we saw InnerSpace.  I was finding myself then and I called that "science fiction comedy."

Friend home from Japan..Meg Ryan...Friend home from Japan...Meg Ryan.  Why this?  Why couldn't we have seen Lock Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels? or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Even Pi was being talked about....

Why was I going to wait in line and sit in the dark to hear that giggle that she couldn't get rid of - even when trying to be Pamela Morrison?

Is this a joke on their part?  Did they specifically pick this movie to see what I would say? That has been known to happen before-trying to get me to like somebody named Sandra Bullock.

What do I say?  I'm sick?  I know I won't see you again for I don't know how long, but I have the flu?

I can't do that.  This is my friend, coming into town. I have a short window of opportunity here.

It came to me, I don't know how, but the right words and justifications came to me and I was very proficient at clicking around and typing emails.  It was because I worked at a software company during the summers.

Hey D-  City of Angels works for me. I have been dying to see an example of how American Pop Culture can take a German masterpiece and butcher it to kingdom come... Love you, miss you, Sayonara -P.

Then I hit send.

Now see, fourteen years later, I am much more professional and thoughtful in my email writing.  But then, it was all new. Not just to me, but to everyone.

I have seen the great German director Wim Wenders and his Wings of Desire and Far Away So Close several times.  I even loved his movie bomb-Until the End of the World. Personally, I think everyone else misunderstood it. :0)  He is also brilliant with his documentaries-The Buena Vista Social Club!  I can't wait to see Pina.... 

My loophole was then there for me to take:  Even though I do NOT do Meg Ryan-(NO!!! NOT EVEN When Harry Met Sally!!!) I do do German cinema and Nick Cage-but only because he worked with David Lynch and the Coen Brothers. This movie was inspired by Wim Wenders' work, and he helped write the screenplay.  There you go.

 So, after all the squeals and kisses and tears at the sight of a friend home from a year abroad, off we went to the movies.

True to my words, I went. Also true to my philosophy that "Everyone has a right to their own movie opinions,"  I did not make any retching sounds during the more, Meg like scenes in the movie. 

The big question:  Was the fall to humanity worth it? Was the drastic change in his existence worth the short amount of time he had with her?  

You know what?  The minute I try to answer that with a deep film discussion,  I remember they cast Meg Ryan as a heart surgeon. I can't do it.

Shoot me an email if you want to debate it.