Our weekend video rental was ABOUT SCHMIDT. Rosie & I are both big Jack
Nicholson fans. We loved this movie, though we both agreed the ending
didn’t quite come off. (Had Schmidt found peace and understanding? Or just
reached the end of his tether?) And I thought the imagined children’s
voices in the tire store were a bit poshlust. Still, 100 times better
than the average movie.
Watching ABOUT SCHMIDT stirred the following thought. For all the moaning
we conservatives do about Hollywood and its lefty/trashy/dimwitted values,
American moviemakers are extraordinarily good at what they do. Of course,
they put out a lot of garbage; but once in a while everything works, and the
result is simply superb. ABOUT SCHMIDT is actually about nothing
much–guy retires, wife dies, daughter marries a loser with an obnoxious
family. It’s just a slice of ordinary dull life, illustrating the truth
that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Yet it manages to be
gripping. The acting, the staging, the shooting–it’s all terrific. Nobody
makes movies like we do. (Though a decent runner-up in the “slice of life”
category is Zhang Yimou’s brilliant SHENG ZHE — called “Life,” “To Live,”
“Lifetimes,” or “Living” in English, depending which version you get.)