Hi there. Yeah. Here I am. Been gone for a few weeks, I know. It hasn't been anything deliberate. It's just been that I've been living in this mini-personal Hell, and I guess I'm at one of the lower circles because I've had a very hard part getting out. I've had plenty to write about the past couple weeks -- James Bond/Daniel Craig, anyone? believe me I'll get to it! -- but I just haven't been in the mood. I've had these ongoing responsibilities to Gothamist, so if you've been reading that site, you still would have seen the final bits of my New York Film Festival coverage plus I continue to do the Weekly Film Guide, of which there will be another one tomorrow afternoon.
Plus, yesterday I interviewed filmmaker Marc Levin whose fantastic new documentary Protocols of Zion opens on Friday in New York and LA, and tonight will screen at the Walter Reade Theater followed by a discussion. The interview is today's Gothamist Interview and wow, does he have a lot to say, especially about how surprised and disappointed he is by the reaction of much of the mainstream organized Jewish community to his movie and their desire to actually suppress it.
I have definitive opinions at that subject being Jewish and growing up in a very pro-Israel and pro-Jewish family, but the simple fact is I can't write about it right now. This apartment search has been all encompassing. I have now expressed interest in over half-a-dozen share situations for which I've been passed over. I can't even tell you how many places I've actually seen in the past five or six weeks, and I mean I actually, literally can't. I'd have to go over my calendar and count. This past weekend I saw 10 places -- four on Saturday, six on Sunday. I caught a terrible cold in the process, which actually isn't so abnormal for me since I always seem to get sick during the abrupt climate changes like the one we recently had here. Sunday was a particularly ridiculous exercise in futility as I went from my apartment on the Upper West Side to Williamsburg to Park Slope (which on the weekend when the subways are all fucked up is a three-transfer, four train adventure) to the East Village to Carroll Gardens to the Lower East Side and back to Gowanus, near Park Slope. If I wasn't in an apartment, I was on the subway. There wasn't really any down time. I got home nearly nine hours later.
Anyway, I don't want to sit here whining and moaning about all the intricacies of my search. Suffice it to say, it's been awful and painful, and I have seen places I wanted but for one reason or another I haven't gotten them. I basically spend all day reading Craigslist and responding to ads and going to see everything I can. Blogging, blog reading and even seeing movies has fallen by the wayside. In fact, I got so sick over the weekend that I had to cancel going to screenings of Prime and Stay. Not only that, I had to cancel doing an interview with Stay director Marc Forster, which would have been very interesting and challenging because I'm not really such a fan of his. I think he tends to overdirect his films, using a visual style and camera placement that gets in the way of the story rather than propelling it. I found Everything Put Together to be really dull, and I actually hated Monster's Ball (with the exception of Halle Berry's performance) with a passion. In fact, the people who saw it with me still make fun of exactly how agitated I was for blocks after that movie. Finding Neverland was better even if it was over-sentimental and blatantly manipulative, but even that film showed some of Forster's unnecessary tendencies. (Always stuck in my head is the one dog's eye view shot that served no purpose other than to create a -- I suppose -- cool-looking moment.) It's always interesting to interview somebody and try to make it interesting without being overly challenging or antagonistic. And I don't know -- Stay could be awesome. But still, I was looking forward to an interesting conversation. But I basically couldn't talk without suffering from major throat pain.
So I'm still here, and I'll try to at least post a little notice when something goes up elsewhere, and hopefully if I can just find a new place to live soon, then I'll be able to return my focus to other things, like, I don't know ... finding a new job again. (Sigh.) Until then, bear with me. Thanks.
Speaking of apartment search it is exhaustive thing. You don't believe me but i have an apartment search site but i can't find apartment myself. I'm like shoemaker without shoes.
Posted by: california | Thursday, November 24, 2005 at 04:16 AM