MISC.

Last night a few friends and I saw a Hong Kong movie called 2046 that was quite nice; a drama about a womanizing writer who never finds lasting love because he keeps acting the playah. Not the most original of topics, but it's developed with a novelistic discursiveness and visual richness that kept me excited, even though it suffers from what my friends call Blue Fairy syndrome (after the Blue Fairy in A. I., or D.A.R.R.Y.L.2 as I like to think of it) in which a movie goes on long after you think it should have ended. An important part of the film's visual scheme consisted of walls, doors and other barricades partially blocking the view of the characters (usually in tight medium shots) creating a claustrophobic and alienated feeling nicely balanced by the intimacy of the performances and voiceover narration.

Today I heard that the Vatican is about to unveil some new document forbidding homosexual priests. My policy on such things is: their clubhouse, their rules. If you aren't a het man and want to be a priest, join the Epicopalian church already. The only thing that bugs me is that the news bulletin I heard stongly implied that this was being presented as part of the Church's attempt to deal with the child-molesting priests thing. Gimme a break! The difference between a gay man and a boy-touching man is the same as the difference between a straight man and a girl-touching man. Besides, plenty of women came forward and announced that they'd been touched by priests, but you didn't hear much about that, which played right into the Church's sleazy attepts to reframe homosexuality as evil by linking it to pedophilia. My admittedly nominal understanding of the situation is that most if not all of the allegations of clerical abuse centered around priests who came along prior to a number of reforms in the priesthood training and selection process, which suggests that they've done a fine job of cleaning up the priesthood and bravo for that; now it seems the key thing is to make sure bad priests aren't protected by the old boys' network, which was a key part of the problem.

I'm reading Dawn by Octavia Butler, and it's exactly the kind of thoughtful science fiction I've been craving. She is the true heir to Arthur C. Clark's legacy; Gentry Lee my hiney!