i forgot to mention, but i shaved off my beard last week. i decided it wasn't thick enough, and i felt like a scraggly bum when i went out in public. i'll try again next year.

saw a couple downers last night: Sunset Boulevard, and Requiem for a Dream. Sunset Boulevard was good, but I liked The Apartment much better. It seems like people consider Sunset Blvd as the better movie, but Norma Desmond is so melodramatic that it's annoying. Plus she reminded me too much of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. I know Sunset Blvd came first, but that's the way it is.

Reqiuem for a Dream is a whole 'nother story. "Fucked up" is the best way to describe it. I'm glad I saw it, and it was an excellent movie, but I never want to see it again. It's emotionally devastating, harrowing, and really, really fucked up. Probably the best depiction of drug addiction I've ever seen, which is amazing considering how many movies there are about drug addiction. Darren Aronfsky's style is amazing, employing his "hip hop montage" (or visual samples) that he used in "Pi," this time to much better effect. After watching the movie, as I lay in bed, and images from the movie kept flooding into my head, and I to put on my headphones so I could focus on something else and get some sleep.

I also saw the movie "Bartleby" over the weekend, and it was terrible. "Bartleby the Scrivner" is one of my favorite short stories, but I wasn't too disappointed because I knew it was going to be bad. Danny rented it, even though I told him not to. Anyway, the movie sucked, mostly because it's not a very good story to make into a movie, but also because they brought the story into the present day, while the original is based in the 19th century. Also, Crispin Glover isn't the best actor to be playing Bartleby. He did his usual nervous creepy guy, just like he did in Willard and a bunch of other movies, and it doesn't fit the character. I imagined Bartleby to be much more calm and deadpan, not twitchy and nervous. To top it off, it has the most annoying musical soundtrack that i've ever heard (although it was made on a really interesting instrument called a "theremin").

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