I had another time-travel dream last night, but this time I simply went back to the 70s and 80s when 42nd Street in Times Square was full of sleazy adult bookstores! Store after store of magazines to browse, and full of interesting rare finds like men's mags from the 50s and 60s and sometimes even from the 40s! It was like the Smithsonian of Smut! How I miss it! Now it's full of wholesome entertainment, street vendors, and endless throngs! And t-shirt shops!

I saw a good DVD last evening--Inside Man, with Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer, and Jodie Foster. But Jodie was (unintentionally?) hilarious as a ball-busting high society "fixer"! She has great legs, all right, and a nice butt in tight skirts, but her acting was over the top! Tone it down, Jodie! Her self-satisfied smirk chewed the scenery as her character arrogantly showed how smart she was! But the movie was so interesting--it was a unique take on the bank heist theme--that Jodie couldn't sink it. Denzel was particularly good. But a new star appeared in Florina Petcu! She plays an Albanian babe in only one scene--but wow! Very sexy. A temptress is born! There's a scene where she lights a cigarette and blows smoke in Denzel's face. Well, she sure blew smoke in Sir Cranky's mug, figuratively speaking! And I loved it!

I'm feeling unusually burned out, and I don't know why. Maybe it's the residual effect of going back into heavy debt to pay off my self-employment income taxes; that dulls the senses, all right.

I've been watching movies, but other than that, not having much fun lately. Yet I don't feel much like going out, and would rather be alone.

DVDs have won out over strippers because I can't afford much stripclubbing, but I'm still left with the vague feeling of dissatisfaction that comes when entertainment is supposed to supplant reality. At least the strippers are real; images on DVDs are just that, images.

I dreamed last night that I took a trip to China, but I don't think it was the China of today; rather, the Hong Kong of the 1950s, the setting of the book The World of Suzie Wong, the story of a young artist who gets involved with a bar girl.

In my dream, I walked by the harbor at dusk, and it was lovely, vast and tinged with blue light. The next day (in my dream) I went down narrow and fascinating streets. They didn't seem like Chinese streets, though, because the language on the signs was strange and completely unfamiliar. I mean, I don't know Chinese, but I know generally what their writing looks like.

I wandered into a restaurant looking for a dinner party I was invited to, but never found it.

I was on the street and suddenly became afraid that I'd left my passport back home in the States, which was absurd of course, because you can't travel anywhere without a passport now.

I just wish I could have run into the pretty bar girl Suzie Wong in my dream, but suddenly I woke up, thirstier than hell.

I can't seem to blog anything tonight that I want to post. I well remember that University of Texas shooting back in 1966, and I had a feeling of desolation then similar to what I feel now hearing about the Virginia Tech tragedy. I guess I'll try to write again tomorrow. I just feel so sorry for all those people.

It rained continuously today with high winds. Very dreary. I stayed in my apartment except when I went out to get a bagel for breakfast and Chinese take-out for dinner...it was hunker down in the bunker time.

I stocked up on rental movies with a coupon from Blockbuster. Last night I watched 2002's Owning Mahowny, with Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's the true story of a banker who stole millions from the bank where he worked in order to fuel his gambling in Vegas and Atlantic City. Hoffman was quite good, as was John Hurt as a casino boss. It was nothing overwhelming, but entertaining enough. And tonight I watched 2006's The Bridesmaid, a French film directed by Claude Chabrol based on an exceptionally creepy and excellent suspense novel of the same name by Ruth Rendell, one of my favorite authors. It's the story of a passive young man who meets an unpredictable young woman who has some, shall we say, morbid ideas about how he should prove his love for her. It held my interest and was faithful to the book as I remember it (I read it a few years ago), although the novel felt more compelling in its portrayal of the girl's mental state and the young man's psychology. Let's put it this way; if I saw the movie first, I wouldn't have been compelled to read the book; but having read the book, I was delighted to know that someone had made a movie out of it. But I would only give it a B.

One thing that was especially good about The Bridesmaid DVD was the short featurette showing the directing techniques of the venerable Chabrol, who has been compared often to Hitchcock. It was revelatory to see how he emphasized a camera movement in a pivotal scene between the two lovers, and gave it an extra emotional texture that it lacked before he added the movement.

So I through the storm with a couple of decent flicks. Hope you had a decent Sunday yourselves.

I haven't made it to the new Salma Hayek/John Travolta movie Lonely Hearts yet, which I mentioned thinking about in my last entry...it was just too beautiful outside today to sit in a movie theater, and I don't feel like going this evening. Maybe tomorrow, when it's rainy (if the weatherman's prediction comes true), or even later in the week as a Salma treat after a day's work.

I was talking to a movie buff friend of mine the other day, a new acquaintance, and he said that as an experiment he clocked with a stop watch the percentage of dialogue scenes in 40s, 80s, and recent movies. In the 40s, he said, it was 93% dialogue, 7% action; in the 80s, 45% dialogue, 55% action; and currently, 25% dialogue, 75% action. Based on the results of his admittedly informal experiment, it's easy to understand why I have more affection for old films. You get to see people interact in more depth, and therefore get to know them better. For those of us, like myself, who watch movies not simply as entertainment but almost as a form of socializing (in the sense that I enjoy the actors' company, even if they're just on a screen), that illusion of intimacy is necessary but can only be achieved through the continual use of conversation and closeups.

To people who grew up on the more dialogue-heavy films and television of the past, action means little without character, and that's why some older folks tend to prefer vintage movies and tv, and go to the multiplexes less.

Speaking just for myself, and not generalizing, it occurs to me also that I use movies in the same way I rely on strippers, for a form of pseudo-intimacy. When I watch a favorite actress in a film, for example, it almost feels as if I'm in her presence; similarly, when I'm with a favorite stripper, it almost feels as if she's an actual friend. Both situations are forms of controlled intimacy which allow me to keep actual relationships, with their anxieties and uncertainties, at a distance.