Best Documentary Ever

I went to the movies this evening. Movies plural, yes.

This was my reward for taking a day off work to not have fun.



Well, some fun. Took Mo to her neurology appointment, and on some level that's hanging with my kid. There were a lot of people in the waiting room and she did a lot of loud singing to cope, so it's not like a trip to Ren Fest or something. Costs as much, it's just not as much fun.

Mo did have fun with my camera. I took pictures of her, which she demanded regularly, to try and keep her anxieties under control. Then she wanted to take pictures, and right when the doctor walked in she pointed the camera at him.



Gotta love a pediatric neurologist who instinctively sticks his tongue out for a picture.

The other thing that made my inner child cry out for compensation was getting my car tags renewed. I fucked up and forgot again, and once they're overdue the online option quits working. I realized after I got there that I didn't have a current proof of insurance and had to drive over to my insurance agent's office to get a fresh printout of that.

The agent tried to sell me life insurance. Sort of. I was going through underwriting for a big term policy six years ago when I went into cardiac arrest mowing Mom's lawn. The good news is I survived with far fewer complications than I had any right to expect. The bad news is having a heart attack before you're 40 is Kryptonite to life insurance underwriters. It's not that it makes the premium go crazy, they just won't write the policy.

And it's not like I could handle much in the way of premiums these days, but I decided to humor him. At least I'd know if it was a thing I could theoretically buy.

Nope. Nothing doing.

Then back at the DMV, it's the end of the month. Meaning a wait. A huge wait.

I was number C330. And they were calling on C700's.

But they mix it up. They'd call 700s for awhile, then 500s. Then 400s, then 700s again, then 800s.

No way to tell where you stand. The system must have been inspired by that other great state institution, the lottery. Everyone loses, but you get them to participate anyway.

After all that, and filling a couple of prescriptions for Mo which ended up being more expensive than I anticipated, I got the message that the massage therapist I'm addicted to couldn't keep my appointment this evening. I could still go and get 'adjusted' by my chiropractor but the massage therapist would be a person who does more harm than good. Like the person who tickles you by hovering, insisting 'I'm not touching you,' this therapist is gentle to the point of being counterproductive. Even if the insurance pays for it, it's not worth my time to be present on the table.

So I went to the movies instead. Chuck Palahniuk's Choke was showing, and I was psyched. Probably my second favorite of his novels, second only to Survivor, I'd thought for years that I'd adore a movie based on the novel. And I enjoyed it, but not as much as I'd hoped.

I think the problem is I'm far too intimately familiar with the novel. I've read it a couple of times and listened to the audiobook read by the author a half dozen times, minimum. And as usual, there were things changed for the movie that shouldn't have been, and scenes that should have been included that weren't. Unlike Fight Club, where Jim Uhls actually improved the story writing the adaptation, this reverted to the rule of thumb that the book is always better. It's a good movie, but read the novel.

So anyway, I did something I don't normally do: I snuck in to a film. By snuck in, I had a ticket. The ticket was for Choke at 5:45. I bought a soda, too, which I got the 'free' refill on. Then I went in to the new Cohen Bros. film, Burn After Reading.

This was the movie I needed to see. The brothers Coen did a great job adapting No Country for Old Men, but in terms of their original material, stuff they co-write, this is a masterpiece. It's on a par with Fargo.

And while they don't claim, as in Fargo, that this is a true story, it really is. This is how wars start. For that matter, the top CIA man in the film looks an awful lot like Secretary Paulson...