The Green Mile
Mike and I in the airport before taking off to the Philippines. We were filled with both excitement and anxiety.
I thought that there would be only a few people at the movie theater this evening, since The Green Mile has been out for a few months and it quietly slipped from the top ten current films a few weeks ago with hardly anyone batting an eyelash. I didn't expect the theater to be as full as it was, and Christine and I were relegated to the third row. We were close enough that we had to crane our necks a little to get a full view of the screen. It was like The Matrix, but a little worse since The Green Mile is over three hours long.
The movie is fairly accurate to the book (I know it technically was six volumes, but I like thinking of it as a singular work. One book). It highlighted the major plot points and clearly carried the same message as the book, along with the same ability to invoke coversation about religion and messiahs and miracles. I find the piece extremely inspirational, primarily because it presents a way of life and living and treating others as the route to salvation or being a good person. I've always liked that message after I left formal religious institutions and started searching for the Truth. I like how Paul moves from a place where belief is associated with fear to a place where belief filled with happiness and simplicity and content and friendship.
Note: there is a spoiler below regarding The Green Mile. In order to read it, highlight the area below.
Some things were a little unexpected, so I think that they didn't occur in the book. Afterwards, I turned to Christine and said, "Didn't Percy have a more violent end?" Percy, the bad prison guard, became catatonic in the film. I thought that Percy died in the book -- had a run-in with one of the more violent inmates. But it's been so long since I've read the book, I could be mistaken.
Christine looked at me with, what I assume to be a mirrored expression of confusion and attempt to dig back into the memory and replied, "I think so."
When I came home, I pondered hunting for my copies of The Green Mile, but decided against it. I remember finding a solitary volume 2 a week or two ago, the other volumes missing. They are probably still unpacked in a box somewhere. Too many books, too little time.
Other than our neck-craning seats, there was another disturbance in the theater. There was a couple sitting in our row on the far end that could not stop talking throughout the film. I wouldn't mind occasional chatter during a film as long as it is about the film currently being watched. The couple was a man and a woman and the woman wouldn't stop talking about the trials and tribulations of her coworkers and friends.
"... and then he got arrested for drunk driving..."
"...is such a blabbermouth. I don't trust her no more..."
"...stop sleeping with married men but does she listen to me? No!"
The man wasn't particularly considerate either. He started smoking in the non-smoking theater and someone from an upper level came down during the film to ask him to stop smoking. He promptly threw away the cigarette, but 20 minutes to the end of the film, he lit up again. I considered getting up and saying something, then decided from the tone of her voice and her complete rudeness for the rules that she could possibly be the type to actively start a catfight or pull a gun on anyone that questioned her. I noted this to Christine later and she nodded in agreement, so perhaps I'm not being a complete paranoid.
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Today, on Dark Horizons, one of my daily reads (without fail!) I learned of an upcoming movie called The Virgin Suicides. I saw the trailer and was hooked. It looks like an absolutely fascinating story. I went out and purchased the book at the Borders right by the movie theater. I will begin reading it after I finish reading Dead Duck, a published unfilmed episode of The Avengers written by Patrick Macnee (the guy who played John Steed in the original British television series).
I recently finished Patrick Macnee's other unfilmed Avengers' episode, Deadline. It was very good plot-wise and Macnee is very effective in capturing the feel of the series, including the banter between Steed and Emma Peel. I find it amusing that he will occasionally refer to Steed as "the undercover man" because, although I recognize that is his job in the series, I don't think of Steed as "the undercover man". He classifies in my mind as a gentlemen, nothing more or less. The writing is adequate, but it isn't phenomenally good. I frequently find myself rereading passages because the wording isn't quite clear or the action didn't make sense in my mind's eye.
So far, Dead Duck isn't as good as Deadline. The premise, a bunch of people dying from eating poisoned duck, isn't as cool as the conspiracy story of the Brotherhood in Deadline. I like conspiracies and plots behind plots. There is something thrilling about turning over a newly discovered stone, not knowing what one will uncover. Fear. Excitement. Anxiety. Lust. The emotional high is better than the one I get riding a roller coaster -- and it lasts longer too.
