Thursday, August 09, 2007

Weekend with Parker Posey and Alice Walker

This new post mean the cartoon avatar gets scrolled down a little. Oh darn. I actually enjoy watching her levitate. I hope everyone has as much fun with their avatars as I had creating mine. It's quite addictive.

Also, go check out Kim's vignette as well as her cauldron-boiling Meez avatar.

I'm taking this Friday off work for a long weekend. Just felt it is time for a Mental Health Break again.

I intend to spend the long weekend reading and doing yoga of course. And maybe I will find the time to catch the recent Parker Posey film, Broken English.Still from 'Broken English' Directed by Zoe Cassavetes, Broken English is one of those "30-something questioning their state of existence" indie movies. Parker Posey's character is 30, unmarried, and one day she decides to do something about it. She dates, meets weird people. Then enters this French guy, Julien, who might just be The. One. For one reason or another, he goes back to Paris - and she goes after him - because sometimes, you just have to run after love.

I've read some snarky reviews on the movie online - several of them commenting on the ending that seems like a rip-off from Before Sunset. That is not going to deter me from the film, because I'm watching it for Parker Posey.

Parker Posey as Danica Talos

Parker Posey is one of those people that always manages to delight me as both a dramatic and comedic actress. With her strong features and sense of style, she deserves a higher profile in the industry. But because she chooses to stay with the indie film circuit, she will never be the next Halle Berry or Lindsay Lohan (thank God for small favours!) Instead, fans can always rely on her fleshing out quirky roles that are fun and endearing in that Posey-seque way. I love her as the the party girl who becomes a librarian in Party Girl (oh that Dewey system, so sexy!). And who else just chuckled at her appearance in Blade: Trinity as Danica Talos, the sadistic vamp whose fangs are located in her vagina? Her torturing Hannibal King was one of those moments to savour in Blade: Trinity. That and Jessica Biel with shapely biceps kicking ass to her iPod tunes. Hee.

But what else might I do in the long weekend?

I was reading a little more of Alice Walker's The Way Forward Is With A Broken Heart this afternoon and I am slightly in awe of her smooth, contemplative prose. 2007 seems to be The Year of Alice Walker for me. I read The Colour Purple for the first time and I loved it. I think I am falling deeper in love with The Way Forward. Somebody save me.

Actually, no - don't do anything. Let me skinny-dip in the pond of adoration for Alice Walker.

There is one part in the beginning of The Way Forward that makes me curious. Walker begins with a letter to her young husband - the man she married, not the older man she ended up divorcing. She ruminates on the time when their love was strong and pure enough to resist the racism, the irrational hatred against their inter-racial marriage. She wonders how things changed, how they arrived at this current state where they no longer speak.

Walker wrote:

Over the years we shared Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy. Orwell. Langston Hughes. Sean O'Faolain. Ellison. But you would not read the thin paperback novel by this black woman I loved. It was as if you drew a line, in this curious territory. I will love you completely, you seemed to say, except for this. But sharing this book with you seemed everything.

I wonder if you've read it, even now.

Our Child was conceived. Grew up. Went to a large Eastern university. Read the book. She found it there on the required reading list, where I and other labored for a decade to make sure it would be. She tells me now she read it before she even left home, when she was in her early teens. She says I presented it to her with a quiet intensity, and with a special look in my eyes. She says we used to read passages from it while we cooked dinner for each other, and that she used to join me as I laughed and sometimes cried.

I'm not sure - is the unnamed author Zora Neale Hurston? If it is, Their Eyes Were Watching God is now on my reading list.

6 comments:

Mailyn said...

Days off are always a good thing so have tons of fun and take care of yourself.

Parker Posey sounds familiar but I can't place her.

Oh and NOBODY in the world should be compared to Lohan. That's just too cruel. LOL.

Anonymous said...

that sounds like a great weekend! its so nice when you have a good book and a cool film to look forward to!

Anonymous said...

Ooh I had no idea she had a new movie out. I love Parker Posey! I'm definitely going to look and see if this is playing around here.
Enjoy your day off!

Carl V. Anderson said...

Parker Posey is one of those actresses that I just love and I don't think she's gotten near enough good roles to play. I would love to see her do more regular but quirky romantic comedy as I think she is both beautiful and quirky and could really pull it off. I cannot believe I haven't seen Party Girl. Must correct that. She was fantastic in Blade Trinity, I love her brief role in You've Got Mail and her bad girl role in Josie and the Pussycats. This new film is one I'll have to check out as well.

jenclair said...

I loved Walker's prose in In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, a series of essays. This one sounds really good, and I love letters.

Checked the link for Broken English and have put it on my must see list.

Enjoy your day off!

darkorpheus said...

mailyn Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears - two teeny boppers that just became very sad. Karmic guilt about me making fun of them now. :(

jean pierre Er - just found out the cinema stopped screening Broken English. I think they're replacing it with the Bourne Ultimatum. D'oh.

Alice Walker is great though - but I just checked and realise the book was due for return to the library on August 12th. Heh.

iliana Parker Posey also has a new tv series out - with that girl from Six Feet Under - Lauren Ambrose(?) (Is that her name?) The trailer looks bad though. It's supposed to be funny, but is not.

carl vYeah, Parker Posey just pops up in the most unexpected places - like Superman Returns, Blade Trinity - what kind of a name is Danica Talos? And she's sometimes disgusted how well-paid she is for the commercial stuff she does. :)

jenclair I'm only half-way through the Alice Walker - it starts off as a series of letters, but halfway it became a series of short stories - fictional exposition on love, sex, race and marriage.

I'm loving it still. :)