-- MOVED TO A NEW APARTMENT -- After my rent went up $100 per month, I decided to send my landlord a message. I ended up moving to an adjacent apartment building which had a little more space, was better maintained and was slightly cheaper. My new address is: Dean Oman, 1523 North 16th Road #1, Arlington, VA 22209.
-- VISITS BY OLD FRIENDS -- I met both Peter Coldwell and Rick Nacius during my first world tour. Peter is the founder and director of Volunteers for Peace, an organization that promotes international short-term voluntary service. I attended several of these workcamps in Europe and the States back in the late '80s. Peter came from his VFP office in Belmont, Vermont to stay with me for a weekend in February. We caught up on old times, checked out some of the local nightlife, and promoted VFP at an International Travel Fair at the Washington DC Convention Center.
Meanwhile, that same weekend, Rick Nacius dropped by from New York and spent several hours with me checking out local sites and downing brew-pub beers. He and I coincidentally ran into each other a half-dozen times while travelling in Tibet, Nepal, India, Burma and Thailand. I guess it would be stranger if coincidences didn't happen. Rick teaches English as a second language in New York City, and has done so previously in Nepal and Saudi Arabia.
-- LUNCH WITH HILLARY -- On January 22, several friends and I had a luncheon engagement with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Omni Shorham Hotel in DC, where she spoke to a crowd of 1000 gathered to observe the 26th Anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion. She's a good speaker, but will have to hone down her message if she wants to run for office.
-- MISCELLANEOUS -- Otherwise, it's been a rather uneventful winter for me. I spent Christmas with local friends, Leonid and Tanya, and then later with Nina and Alex. I didn't do anything on New Year's Eve.
I continue to volunteer at Zero Population Growth and National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. At ZPG, I've lately been appreciating their new web radio station, called ZERO24-7, which transmits around the clock and around the world playing a very broad range of alternative and eclectic music without commercial interruption, except for brief and infrequent ZPG blurbs. It's fun! Check it out. Just download a free G2 version of RealPlayer, install it, and then listen.
-- MOVIE REVIEWS -- While I haven't done much else lately that is special, I have seen quite a few movies. As I do each year, I try to check out all of the Acadamy Award nominees for Best Picture. I'm not as pleased with this year's crop as last year's. Although I found each of the five to be entertaining and generally quite good about keeping my attention, there is not one of them that I would recommend whole-heartedly to every person.
Saving Private Ryan is extraordinarily intense, particularly in the first half hour, and although Steven Spielberg has always been good at spinning a story and great cinimatically, I find all of his pictures to be lacking in depth. Some of the plot of Ryan seems to be a formulaic remake of Shindler's List. Although the movie seemed to me at times gratuitously gory, I heard an interesting debate among some of my more liberal acquaintances about whether it did more to glorify war and to celebrate duty, honor and country than to paint a balanced picture of the horrors of war. I would recommend this movie to many folks (although I might discourage others from seeing it), and it is probably the best of the five nominees for Best Picture, but it doesn't get my highest seal of approval. ***1/2
The Thin Red Line is supposed to be the "thinking person's" Saving Private Ryan, although I found it to have even less depth. I had heard that the movie asks more questions than it answers, and I thought that it would be good for me since, as an agnostic myself, I like to ask more questions than I can answer. However, I found that the questions it asked were not very interesting. The movie dragged. It's climax came 45 minutes before the end, and then the movie fizzled out altogether. I wouldn't recommend this movie to hardly anybody. *
Before I went to see Life Is Beautiful, acquaintances had built it up so much that I was expecting more from it than I think I got. It indeed has a very strange mixture of humor, irony, tragedy and horror. At times it is very touching, but it also has a number of weak moments when, at a late afternoon viewing, I almost fell asleep. This movie gets my okie dokey, but don't expect a lot of Charlie Chaplin humor in a concentration camp, nor expect the gravity of such surroundings to be very movingly portrayed. Pay attention to rapidly passing subtitles. If Saving Private Ryan doesn't win Best Picture, this is probably runner-up. ***
Elizabeth is probably the most tightly written script of the lot and I enjoyed this flick, although the lives of British monarchs are never very happy stories. Most folks I know wouldn't really enjoy this kind of movie. ***
Shakespere in Love seemed much too contrived for me. It's romantacism, at times, got in the way of continuity for me. Although these days, there always seems to be some part of any movie that makes me teary-eyed, I came away from this movie feeling cheated by the impression that 13 Oscar nominations had given me before showing up. Unless you are a truly hard-core romantic, in every sense of the word, and have a very high tolerance for disjointed fables requiring huge leaps of faith, don't see this movie. Nice costumes though, and Gweneth Paltrow is beautiful and gives an excellent performance, although I give best actress to Kate Blanchett's Elizabeth. **
Other movies I've seen lately that weren't nominated include:
Central Station, in my humble opinion,is a truly great flick, although it's rather slow pace may not impress the typical jaded American movie goer. There is a good chance that it would have gotten my vote for Best Picture this year had it been nominated and had I actually been eligible to vote -- but alas, it wasn't and I can't. A touching, though mostly believable story line (unlike most American flicks these days) is also an eye-opener for folks who lack exposure to the kinds of choices poor people face in developing nations such as Brazil. I'd give the movie four stars if I wasn't afraid that some folks might wonder what planet I'm on. Fernanda Montenegra gives a great performance, although unfortunately, she lacks the glamor and star appeal of the other Best Actress nominees, and Oscar selection seems corrupted by money, American bias and backroom dealmaking. (In Portuguese, with English subtitles). ***1/2
Waking Ned Devine is also among my favorites of the movies I've seen lately. It's a simple but fun picture set in the beautiful Irish countryside. Seeing it at a time when the President Clinton's Impeachment trial was in full swing, I couldn't help but see irony in how the audience of this movie seemed to appreciate and celebrate the telling of lies for personal gain. Of all the movies I've seen lately, this is one I'd recommend to just about anybody. ***
Rushmore is a rather strange and eclectic comedy about a rather unusual love triangle. I felt a little cheated again by too much contrivance. The best part of this movie is Bill Murray who, while playing a mostly serious role, is nevertheless thankfully very hard to take seriously. He makes maximum use of his dead pan face, and I had a hard time not laughing at it. **
Pleasantville is filled with symbolism both for our own era and for the era of the '50s and early '60s, but one has to be able to make an enormous leap into fantasy to appreciate this movie, and it probably helps to be old enough to remember the era being skewered. Failing to make the leap is curtains, and if you don't think you can make it, you may as well stay home. **
COMING UP NEXT QUARTER:
Trips to Boston, Seattle, Vancouver, and Boise.
Happy springtime to all! Check in and let me know what's up with you. You can contact me by clicking on this E-mail address: mail@deanoman.com.
Review previous newsletters:
Dean's News Vol 2, No. 2, 12/01/98 -- Germany, Poland and Czeck Republic
Dean's News Vol. 2, No. 1, 09/01/98 -- A summer romance
Dean's News Vol. 1, No. 4, 06/01/98 -- New York City and Minnesota trips
Dean's News Vol. 1, No. 3, 03/01/98 -- Arizona and Colorado trip
Dean's News Vol. 1, No. 2, 12/01/97 -- Venezuela and Trinidad
Dean's News Vol. 1, No. 1, 09/01/97 -- Toronto and Niagara Falls
Best wishes to all,
Deano