MRIs, PT, Movies, and Waiting
MRIs, PT, Movies, and Waiting
Woke up this morning to find that my empurpled chest and arm are now surrounded by a lovely yellow-green nimbus of further bruising. The effect is quite spectacular. When I went to my physical therapy appointment this morning and took off my shirt the therapist said, “Oh my God!” And after that she didn’t have much to add that was of any use, at least right now. Last night, I went for my MRI and discovered that I really don’t enjoy being slid head-first into a narrow metal tube that proceeds to emit lots of clicks and whirs and eventually a sound that is something like a very loud busy signal. I had to lie there for about forty minutes or so, and I really felt a bit panicky at first. Deep breathing calmed me down, and I gradually learned what to expect (mainly the various noises) and got used to the experience. Today I’m waiting to hear from the orthopedic surgeon, and may have to have surgery next week, depending on what he sees in the MRI image.
Over the weekend I kept myself distracted with some movies from the local video store:
The 40 Year Old Virgin—Quite funny, with some moments that qualify as pretty hilarious, including one where the virgin in question is faced with an inescapable barrage of sexual imagery, mostly in the form of advertising. Reminded me of Something About Mary in its mix of “offensive material” and sweetness, though it’s much raunchier at times than Mary ever is. There is an interesting arc whereby most of the raunch comes early and then the film works up to a silly, funny, but also—after a fashion--sincere “Age of Aquarius” ending.
Better Off Dead—I’m a John Cusack fan, and I was in my early twenties in the mid-eighties when this film was made, so how did I possibly miss it? Coming before the great Cameron Crowe-directed Say Anything, this one is working its way up to the Cusack formula of "smart outsider loser eventually making good," though I guess in this one his character is not really all that smart. The humor is way broad, and sometimes more goofy than actually funny, but it has its moments, and also gets credit for a strange, slightly surreal edge—a kind of proto—Repo Man feel of alienated suburbia. Also a few bursts of odd animation, as with the talking hamburger that pops up during the Cusack character’s inevitable humiliating stint as a grease jockey at the local burger joint. Definitely one for all you Cusack completists out there.
Jarhead—Excellent and disturbing, with the extremely watchable Jake Gyllenhaal (I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, but I really liked him in the cult fave Donnie Darko). Paradoxically, this is a war movie where very little actually happens, and it may be the most extreme version of the military “Hurry up and wait” mentality ever filmed. With props to Camus, it captures the estranging, deranging experience of hanging out in the desert waiting for a chance to shoot someone (when mostly those "someones" are getting blown up by devastating air power instead). Ultimately, it puts the viewer in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the Gyllenhaal character Swafford, a sniper by training, to “make a kill,” since that seems—at least in the “jarhead” perspective the movie carefully frames-- to be the only thing that would give meaning to the whole bizarre, frustrating, and boring ordeal. With a good deal of sympathy and understanding for the experience of the soldiers, the movie brilliantly renders the nearly sublime form of brainwashing that goes into “making a marine,” a.k.a. “jarhead” (note the term’s suggestion that the head in question is not only jar-shaped but also empty). Burning oil fields turn out to be oddly beautiful.
Woke up this morning to find that my empurpled chest and arm are now surrounded by a lovely yellow-green nimbus of further bruising. The effect is quite spectacular. When I went to my physical therapy appointment this morning and took off my shirt the therapist said, “Oh my God!” And after that she didn’t have much to add that was of any use, at least right now. Last night, I went for my MRI and discovered that I really don’t enjoy being slid head-first into a narrow metal tube that proceeds to emit lots of clicks and whirs and eventually a sound that is something like a very loud busy signal. I had to lie there for about forty minutes or so, and I really felt a bit panicky at first. Deep breathing calmed me down, and I gradually learned what to expect (mainly the various noises) and got used to the experience. Today I’m waiting to hear from the orthopedic surgeon, and may have to have surgery next week, depending on what he sees in the MRI image.
Over the weekend I kept myself distracted with some movies from the local video store:
The 40 Year Old Virgin—Quite funny, with some moments that qualify as pretty hilarious, including one where the virgin in question is faced with an inescapable barrage of sexual imagery, mostly in the form of advertising. Reminded me of Something About Mary in its mix of “offensive material” and sweetness, though it’s much raunchier at times than Mary ever is. There is an interesting arc whereby most of the raunch comes early and then the film works up to a silly, funny, but also—after a fashion--sincere “Age of Aquarius” ending.
Better Off Dead—I’m a John Cusack fan, and I was in my early twenties in the mid-eighties when this film was made, so how did I possibly miss it? Coming before the great Cameron Crowe-directed Say Anything, this one is working its way up to the Cusack formula of "smart outsider loser eventually making good," though I guess in this one his character is not really all that smart. The humor is way broad, and sometimes more goofy than actually funny, but it has its moments, and also gets credit for a strange, slightly surreal edge—a kind of proto—Repo Man feel of alienated suburbia. Also a few bursts of odd animation, as with the talking hamburger that pops up during the Cusack character’s inevitable humiliating stint as a grease jockey at the local burger joint. Definitely one for all you Cusack completists out there.
Jarhead—Excellent and disturbing, with the extremely watchable Jake Gyllenhaal (I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, but I really liked him in the cult fave Donnie Darko). Paradoxically, this is a war movie where very little actually happens, and it may be the most extreme version of the military “Hurry up and wait” mentality ever filmed. With props to Camus, it captures the estranging, deranging experience of hanging out in the desert waiting for a chance to shoot someone (when mostly those "someones" are getting blown up by devastating air power instead). Ultimately, it puts the viewer in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the Gyllenhaal character Swafford, a sniper by training, to “make a kill,” since that seems—at least in the “jarhead” perspective the movie carefully frames-- to be the only thing that would give meaning to the whole bizarre, frustrating, and boring ordeal. With a good deal of sympathy and understanding for the experience of the soldiers, the movie brilliantly renders the nearly sublime form of brainwashing that goes into “making a marine,” a.k.a. “jarhead” (note the term’s suggestion that the head in question is not only jar-shaped but also empty). Burning oil fields turn out to be oddly beautiful.
posted by Steve Shoemaker at 2:30 PM
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