Leah and I finally got around to watching There Will Be Blood last night. It got me thinking.
When I was 14, my grandmother took my mother, brother, and me to Hawaii for a vacation (of course for a vacation; what, would I be going on business as a 14-year-old?). The Summer Olympics was going on in L.A., and I was torn between lying on the beach under the sun and sitting in our hotel room to watch Carl Lewis. I was in awe of him. I was into track at the time, and if you were into track in 1984, you were into Carl Lewis. He was amazing to watch, the way he hit his stride in the last 50 meters of that 100 yard dash was astounding, like the other runners never knew what hit them. Watching him run, it was clear that this is what his body was made for. Every part of it, from his legs to his arms to his lungs. He was, literally, the perfect running machine.
As I watched Daniel Day Lewis last night, I was similarly impressed. You don’t get the sense that this guy ended up as an actor because he couldn’t make it as a shoe salesman, you know? Leah wasn’t as taken with the movie as I was, which is pretty par for the course in our house. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. I think she had a difficult time getting past the soundtrack, which is, I have to admit, “challenging.”
We still have to get through The Kite Runner before we can get our next Netflix disc. In fact, I think our four-month subscription will be up soon. Bummer.