Brrrrr...

We’re having a nice dose of winter weather today. Austin has finally plunged into the elusive “below freezing” range of temperatures. It’s 31 right now, and it’s supposed to drop down to about 27 eventually. But even when it’s this cold, the dreary gray clouds still seem unable to produce snow. Instead, we get this annoying mix of rain and sleet… and once the ground is cold enough, it’ll freeze into glassy sheets of ice. So far, though, it’s just really cold. (Well, it’s really cold, AND any car left outside overnight was encased in car-shaped ice this morning…)

I still think it’s amusing how weather like this is such a huge deal here. Half the city is already shut down, and if the precipitation continues, I’m sure the other half will be closed by afternoon. I just saw a weather update on the news, where they cut to someone “braving the elements” outside:

Newscaster in warm studio: So what’s it like out there Quita?

Quita Culpepper: Oh it’s definitely getting colder. I’ve already slipped on the sidewalk several times. And take a look at this: (camera zooms in to focus on a tree branch covered with ice) The trees are already covered with ice. It’s cold. Really, really cold. And icy.

Newscaster in warm studio: Wow. Thanks for that report Quita. You stay warm. Heh heh.

I mean, is it really “news” that the sidewalks are a little slippery and the trees are covered with ice? (Well, I suppose it IS when it only happens one or two days a year, if that…) My dad and I – ever-intrepid, brave explorers that we are – ventured out into the cold and the occasional drop of freezing rain to make the journey to Seattle’s Best. (Mom decided to stay indoors with a cup of tea. She just doesn’t understand the vital importance of morning coffee…) And for the most part, the roads were just fine. There was one bridge near the coffee shop that was starting to get a bit slick, but that’s why they put those big, yellow, “watch for ice on bridge” signs on the side of the road. My dad and I stood in Seattle’s Best, waiting for our coffee, looking out the window and watching the cars that were c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g across the bridge. There was one pickup truck that literally drove across the bridge at about 5 miles per hour. (That’s why you should put big bags of kitty litter and rock salt in the back of your truck – it not only weighs down the lighter end of the truck, but if you DO get stuck, you have kitty litter and rock salt for traction…)

It’s just funny how even the MENTION of the word “ice” shuts down this city. (Fortunately, the coffee shop was open…) And the worst of it isn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow morning – tomorrow is when all the roads might actually be icy, and the coffee shop might actually be closed. I’ll have to make do with home-brewed coffee. (But I wonder if I’ll ever be able to build a snowman again?)

And on another topic altogether – Rick and I went to see “Children of Men” Saturday night. I had high hopes for this movie, judging from all the rave reviews it’s been getting. And I love Clive Owen – ever since those great BMW mini-movie commercials (if you haven’t seen the one with Madonna, do a search on You Tube… funny…) – so it really pains me to say that I was quite disappointed in the movie. It was nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. It was “okay,” but that’s about it.

And it took me a while to really put my finger on what, exactly, left me less-than-impressed with the movie. Because it’s not like it was just outright horrible. It wasn’t at all. It was well-acted, it held my interest more or less, and it had great cinematography. (There was one scene near the end that was particularly fascinating, when Clive Owen’s character, Theo, was running through a war-torn neighborhood, dodging bullets and explosions and piles of rubble. About halfway through that scene, I realized they’d been using the same camera throughout the shot – the entire scene was shot in one, long, continuous take. Which was pretty impressive when I thought about the logistics of filming such a scene.) And it didn’t even bother me too much that the movie was rife with unanswered questions. I mean, so what if we don’t know for sure whether Theo died or just passed out… or whether the girl and the baby made it to the boat… or why everyone was infertile to begin with… or what happened to the midwife… or why there were a bunch of burning cows near Jasper’s house… or why Julianne Moore got top billing when she’s only in the movie for about fifteen minutes… or why all the illegal immigrants the government rounds up seem to be German… or why movies set in a bleak future always have a pot-smoking hippie in a safe house…

Like I said, none of that really bothered me too much, because I’ve seen plenty of movies with “unanswered questions.” No, there was something else about Children of Men that disappointed me, and I realized what it was after I’d had a day to think about it. A few years ago, I took a fiction writing class at St. Ed’s, where we had to write several short stories. I was so proud of the first one I turned in – it was about a girl whose car was stolen… it was set in New York City… it was funny and had great dialogue… and I was certain, of course, that it was well-written. So imagine my surprise when the professor returned it to me with this comment: “I know something happens in this story, but nothing happens in this story.” That was the day I learned about “conflict.” Conflict is NOT all the huge, crazy things that happen in a story to move the drama along – the girl in my story may have had a problem when her car was stolen, but it was a CRISIS, not a conflict – the conflict of a story is the more subtle moral/ethical/psychological problems and changes that occur in the characters of a story.

And that was what I finally realized about Children of Men – a whole lot of stuff happens in that movie, but not much actually HAPPENS in that movie. I guess it could be argued that the conflict in the story was Theo’s attempts to accept his son’s death – and I guess we’re supposed to assume he’s come to terms with it when the girl says she’ll name her daughter “Dylan” (Theo's son's name). But the “change” in his character is so subtle (if it’s there at all – I really didn’t get much of a sense of change in ANY of the characters) that the movie ends up seeming unfinished and rather senseless. The whole movie, I was waiting for something to HAPPEN… but nothing ever did…

But like I said, the acting was good, the cinematography was good – so I suppose as a “visual work of art” it might work. But as a STORY, it fell quite flat. I might buy the book and read it, to see if it’s better than the movie (which is usually the case, anyway). It may be easier to create subtle conflict in book form as opposed to onscreen. Just my opinion… plenty of people seemed to LOVE this movie, so to each his own…

Anyway, I’d better go get something hot to drink, before I freeze right here in my living room…