fflo | They're getting ready to sentence the manipulative texting fake gf who was destructive ...

... in a particularly obvious way, with the dead guy she encouraged to kill himself.

I confess I found her trial really absorbing. The whole sordid horribility of it. I have gawked.

I suppose today my curiosity is just partly wanting a break from Trump news. But probably also it's some hangover of having been so strongly absorbed by the experience of following the news of it, and looking at pictures, trying to absorb what was absorbing me so. I'll tell you this much: it's not got anything to do with arcane points of law and precedent and newfangled formations of culpability in court, with legalities, etc.

Last night I was gonna go see Fast Times at Ridgemont High, in Livonia, the closest cinema showing it, but there was slow traffic on every route there, and, I dunno, it was hot. So I flipped a mental coin between Atomic Blonde (which I'll see soon) and A Ghost Story, which I thought might kick my ass but didn't think wouldn't really be a good film, the way people are going on about it. I caution you: despite the raving reviews, it's not good. I say this as someone who can do "really slow" at the movies, and as someone ready and generally able to key into subtle emotional shit and big philosophical stuff, and willing to let a film be a film on its terms. It is striking and unusual in a lot of its style and moodiness, and memorable, and not exactly boring (with a few foot-tapping exceptions), and it has guts and it aims big and it has some really nice touches and a kind of remarkable courage, BUT: it's not good, as a film, after all.

I'm convinced that at least some of the people praising it must be trying to be appreciative of its artsiness and originality, maybe letting those things and its seeming intellectualism and/or its butting into Big Themes of Loss and Life and Such and/or the desire not to look like they don't "get" it and/or WHO KNOWS WHAT convince them it doesn't somehow have to work, be good, etc.

Full disclosure: I also say The English Patient and Rain Man sucked. I suppose A Ghost Story isn't quite as sucky, but I was a little shocked, after seeing it, at how great the reviews have almost all been. Not recommended.

[ETA: Walking out of the film, from the screening room at the Mich, all "eh" about it, I saw that The Big Sick was still playing in the main theater, and went in there to catch the last reel, since I'd seen it before. THAT was a good movie. Recommended. :) ]

In other news, I got my crank desk/table delivered today. The dining room should be coming together soon. Finally.