On my way out of the movies, the rain, which had been alternately dripping and spitting in a not-so-threatening manner all day, finally opened up into a downpour, and though I had no umbrella, I think I was the only one who smiled. I like driving in the rain, even though you're not supposed to, enjoy the feeling of slight uneasiness and disconnection from firm traction with the road, the less than perfect vision, even more so in the dark, wipers beating frantically to clear a path... in control and yet I must be careful, look, here, slowing down but turning up the volume of the Radiohead cd some more, not bothering to adjust the air conditioning to fight a pyrrhic battle against the rising humid quality of the air in the car that accompanies driving in a rainstorm. Why do I find this so comforting? Isolation, perhaps. No one on the streets, everyone confined to their cars, few cars even out and their features indistinguishable except for the blur of red headlights in front of me. The world has an added cinematic aspect to it when you drive in a rainstorm; I'm not sure what it is, maybe the limited range of focus, accompanied by the natural cinematic quality of driving, the limited screen and smooth pace of transitions... I wonder if filmmakers would think the same if everyone walked to get where they were going. Probably not. What am I doing here, driving in the rain, searching for something meaningful to be thinking on my way back from the movies to an empty apartment where I'll do god-knows-what, probably just get back on the computer...

I shouldn't, perhaps, have gone to see that Hugh Grant movie, though I had a decent reason, and it wasn't exactly a Hugh Grant movie in the sense that all other movies with Hugh Grant are... It was, however, a combination of several other movie types, and though it tried hard to break out of any particular mode by throwing a variety of things into the mix, London accents, a soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy and some cool cinematic tricks couldn't save a plot based on a theme that headed it to a near-inevitable conclusion of improved lives for the whole lot of mildly screwed up individuals (both of the title Boys included). Too bad.

It wasn't painful to sit through, though... the soundtrack's decent, of course, and Grant's character has an awesome flat (I've pick this up from Dan, this shifting attention from a questionable plot to an awesome setting; he's the one who went and saw Hannibal and only wanted to talk about the incredibly beautiful mansion people got killed in...), and I had the enjoyment of knowing exactly where the ducks in a gratuitous St. James' Park scene were located. Woo.

On the other hand, what was I thinking going to see a movie that revolves around a single guy and his growing realization that his life is meaningless if he keeps on trying to function as an island? Should I consider it a bad that I find myself trying to justify his pleasant, solitary, meaningless life before going off to try to help some poor son-of-a-hippie dork twelve year old? Naaahhhh.... Silly trying-not-to-be-a-romantic-comedy/story-of-kid-with-unhappy-single-parent-flick. Meh, I say. If only Minority Report hadn't been all sold out by the time I got to the theater...

Ah well. Later. I've got the time.

There's all this other stuff that I was writing, which I might be able to continue with tonight... we'll see. I think I'll post this first and then go back to that old stuff... as usual I'm struggling with the [oft-used but accurate literary theme] inability to express myself clearly, and there's something (though rather trivial) that it would please me to get down adequately in words, at some point. Anyhow. More later.