I saw this movie with a gorgeous shiksa in a dark and empty theater and one thing led to another and we were groping each other in the dark like there was no tomorrow.
Pictures of the Holocaust do that to me.
I didn’t waste my time while I was groping her however. I kept my eyes on the screen and I saw the whole thing.
And at the end, I wondered, what was the point? The protagonist does not change. What kind of story is it when the protagonist does not change? This does not feel like a story to me.
On the other hand, this feels deeply real and moving to me and I can’t wait to go home.
Andrew Gumbel writes in today’s LAT: "I’d seen "The Pianist," Roman Polanski’s stunning, highly personalized story of survival in World War II Poland, and became convinced that granting top honors to any other film would be a travesty — especially at a time when the United States had just invaded Iraq and the horrors of war were on everyone’s minds."
I emailed my problem with "The Pianist" to Andrew and he replied: "For me, all the external events, and the images of them produced for the film, did the job of mapping the character’s internal development. In the same sort of way that Antonioni or Wim Wenders movies sometimes do. But I can see why that might not work for some people…"
I was deeply changed by the movie because I had taken my relationship with my girlfriend to the next level — public sex.
Nothing says I’ll love you forever like the act of love during a Holocaust movie.
On the third hour of his radio show Friday (before taking a ten day vacation to Kenya), Dennis Prager said that his friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach "romanticizes women… I have a dim view of both sexes. I don’t know what the statement means — women are more sexual than men. Can women experience more orgasms? Yes. It’s an odd measurement of the word sexual. Are women as preoccupied by sex as men? No. Men have sexual thoughts more frequently than women do and are aroused more easily."
Caller: "How did your musical tastes extend beyond classical?"
Dennis: "I developed a love of non-classical music as an adult… About ten years ago, my older son and I took this trip together. He said, ‘Dad, I have this soundtrack. You want to listen?’ I listen to whatever my kids want me to listen to, including music I hate. He put it on and I loved it. It was a wake-up call that there was other beautiful music out there. For ten years, I’ve immersed myself in jazz and in soundtracks."
"I was so alienated by my generation’s culture and values in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I almost excluded the baby with the bathwater. I’m sure there was beautiful music done at the time. I found a lot of it self-preoccupied, with people chanting their woes with their guitar. I’m not saying this is accurate. I’m just saying this is how I tuned out of that culture. I was so satisfied with classical, it spoke to every emotion I had in a deep way… I admit to being an oddball. I missed out on a lot of wonderful music."
A caller asks Dennis how he found time in his hectic schedule to find a wife.
Dennis: "If you have to date a lot, that takes up a lot of time. If you are lucky enough to meet somebody and not have to date a lot, the time factor is not a big factor. That played a role in my life."
California Attorney General Jerry Brown calls Proposition 8 "oppression by the majority."
Dennis: "Every law passed by a majority can be called ‘oppression by the majority.’ You might as well say that taxes are oppression by the majority. You have people who don’t pay taxes voting on how much people who do pay taxes should pay."
"Since Jerry Brown is higher than the law of the state since he has a more refined morality, he knows he is a better man, therefore he can say screw you to the people of California. He just knows he’s right. How does he know? Because he feels it."
"Every law passed has an oppressive feature. That’s what a law is. And anybody who disagrees with it is oppressed almost by definition."
"I stare out [when listening to a caller or guest]. To concentrate fully, if I look at anything else I am distracted, I prefer to interview my guests by phone. That way I am not even distracted by having to look at them. That’s a male-female difference. Women much prefer to look at the person. When I have female guests in studio, I tell them in advance, please forgive me if I don’t look at you while I respond. I want to concentrate 100% on every word a caller is saying."
