Two films and a bolt of lightning

One of my favorite ways of escaping the heat is to hide in movie theaters. Hide from the heat, that is. Friday night I went to the Darkside to see The Sensation of Sight, and yesterday I saw Woody Allen's new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Both were excellent. Critics affectionally wrote that The Sensation of Sight is "typical indie filmmaking," and I suppose I won't argue with that. It was shot in, I believe, 18 days in New Hampshire with an estimated budget of a few thousand dollars. David Straithairn (who played Edward Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck) plays a troubled, retired high school English teacher. Straithairn's character, Finn, has left his family and moves temporarily into a bed and breakfast. During the day he passes his time attempting half-heartedly to sell an old collection of encyclopedias out of a Radio Flyer wagon. We're generally left in the dark about what, exactly, is troubling Finn, until late in the film as writer/director Aaron Wiederspahn slowly reveals the connections between his characters, using even the very last scene in the film to bring the story to an uncomfortable (sorry to be vague) but complete conclusion.

I love Woody Allen, and I'm not ashamed to say it. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is typical Woody (minus NY) with that funny-yet-embarrassingly-accurate-and-pointed dialogue that reveals how well Woody knows his audience and how well he knows what it's like to be at least slightly neurotic. He's making fun of himself and anyone remotely like him, which is most of his audience, and he does it in a way that leaves us feeling slightly challenged but okay with ourselves. Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, and Penélope Cruz make up Woody's love circle in Spain, and the film is narrated really well by Christopher Evan Welch.

Later Saturday night thunder started rumbling and finally a warm rain came pouring down around 12:30 or 1 a.m. At least, that's when I noticed it as I left the Crowbar with a couple of friends. The lightning was unlike any I've seen in Oregon since moving here three years ago, and two of us had to walk about a dozen blocks across town in the rain. We started by jogging a block or two but gave up, and really, it was one of the few times I've missed the Midwest and all its summer weather. The lightning was close, dangerously close by the time I got to my apartment. I was out back watching the sky when a bolt cracked four blocks away, shaking my apartment and setting off car alarms. (Earlier in the night we watched Usain Bolt break the world record in the 100 meters to win gold.) I slept well for the first time in weeks.