Really confused by the mass appeal of golf, even though golf courses are immaculately maintained which is at least some sort of benefit and there is the occasional golf course in the middle of the desert, as in the PGA Tour when it moves away from either coast and into the "Golf Heartland", as deserts become the big ticket item of 2011. I mean obviously I like deserts as much as the next person, those evocative scenes in "Leaving Las Vegas" when they, and by they I am mostly thinking about Nicholas Cage as I am at all times, leave Las Vegas were real powerful, and you know The English Patient was all extremely evocatively desert based in the film which was probably it's major selling point as the male lead in the book looks like "some sort of burned saint", but in the film looks like a severely prostheticised so that he looks like a burnt Ralph Fiennes, not so much "saintly" just mostly similar to his makeup in the Harry Potter series except less mobile and more charred fleshy looking - as if Chris Columbus (who incidentally has a real great name but questionable as well, I guess at some point the temptation in the Columbus family grows too much, probably every third generation) prior to casting was watching the English Patient and solved his casting issue right there and then, but who knew the book "The English Patient" would be so po-mo about the desert? The desert becomes some sort of ocean they traverse across, swimming in sand. Ondjate is so zany. It sort of works I guess. Not so sure that Golf should really be played in the desert, especially considering that they are diverting rivers to water grass in the desert that is ostensibly only for retired wealthy people to play a game that is only marginally interesting; interesting from a well maintained grass and well groomed cream slack wearing, argyle jumper wearing, expensive cologne wearing male identity projected onto the landscape as a sort of pinnacle of masculinity sort of way. Currently I feel casual a lot of the time, casual shorts, Kevin Kline's south of France/nice retreat outfit in "French Kiss" (inescapably mediocre, one star); and I enjoy autochromes, and I enjoyed Xerxes and Beethovens Piano Concerto in Cm, and I am really thinking of Trapped in Paradise as the next Nicolas Cage movie night movie- even though I feel anxious about it, and I felt anxious about Birdy which was only sort of justified.
Niccy Nic Cage plays Al, the best friend you always wished you had, in this evocative and Peter Gabriel scored (?!) - and by Peter Gabriel scored we are talking Gabriel 3 and 4, not So which is a shame but you know if you are all over the Fairlight synthesiser you are going to be falling in love with this 1984 Alan Parker film, who you know, two years before had directed Pink Floyd's "The Wall" which was ruling, and probably better than Birdy, well definitely featuring more animation and if animation is the arbiter of what is great in a film then The Wall is better, but then so is Balto and Anastasia and both those films were crappy and thats not just a subjective opinion that is plain fact. Anyway Cage is best friend to Matthew Modine who was a contender in the eighties, sort of like Josh Hartnett, Modine now currently slumming it on prime time in "Weeds" and in Transporter II,Harnett, now currently weeping somewhere and thinking long and hard about pearl harbor and what "could have been"; in saying that Cage has his periods of being down and out- that Witch Mountain thing - inexpressibly bleak. Modine is a war veteran who believes he is a bird or something, Cage is going to be all supportive. Film got the Grand Jury prize at Cannes, which is more than Kick Ass which was probably not as bad as some Cage, but certainly could have had either Modine or Hartnett in a title role in the film, it was you know "not very good"
Where as I know Trapped in Paradise is going to be unrelentingly awful, like French Kiss. At least Majed maintains his unbelievable level of sensitivity and emotion in his Facebook messages to me, concise but so poignant. He wrote "I miss that life with you" on a photograph of my mother, but he is probably riding horses now in the Arabian desert. Because most Saudis that I have met have a real great relationship with the desert.
