So Very Meta

I just saw State of Play. In the theater in Chinatown in DC. At one point, a car in the movie DRIVES PAST the theater.

Woah.

In terms of the DC on film part - I was happy that they made the weather so unattractive - though it could have been windier. And the season clearer. But it showed both Mt. Pleasant and Adams Morgan as residential neighborhoods. And it made Crystal City vaguely sinister- which I've always found to be true. In terms of the day's lesson in the death of newspapers, it was all too real (in the most obvious ways). In terms of liberal anticorporate diatribe - so-so. In terms of choices for a way to spend a hot afternoon - pretty good. It makes DC look good in that it makes DC look dramatic, even if there's a little bit heavy-handed, and I only spent about 10 minutes hiding my face in my hands - it's PG-13. Yeah, I know.

Also - there's a preview for a movie about John Dillinger that's coming out in July - Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, Christian Bale is an FBI agent. There may or may not be a re-creation of a shootout between Dillinger's gang and the FBI that took place at Little Bohemia (and Bohemia as in region, not as in free love or beat poetry), which is a restaurant in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, which has a) preserved the bulletholes and b) has the tale spelled out in pulpy detail on the placemats. From the preview, it appears that this IS the case, but since Dillinger got into trouble all over the midwest, who knows if it's the serene lake and pine forest where I've eaten so many helpings of wild rice soup (or at least - half-helpings - it's made with cream, and a touch heavy). The only part that I'm not that excited about: it appears to have been shot on video. If ever there were a time period or subject matter worthy of film stock, I feel like gangster movies set in the 20s and 30s were it. Men in hats deserve more color saturation than video can provide.