The next step is to wash the empty jars and other glass containers that have gotten very greasy on the shelf high over the stove. What was I thinking, putting them there? It was no doubt one of those final, desperate moves — There, that’s done! These last steps are never satisfactory, but they can’t be otherwise, because by the time you get to the end you can’t really think anymore. I will give the shelf space to some Creuset dutch ovens.

The real question is what to do with the jars when they’re clean, and lined up on the table with all the other empties. The real question is which ones to discard. I must be strong, because the correct answer is almost certainly all of them. I must seriously evaluate, for example, the three Hellman’s mayonnaise jars — glass jars, among the last sold. They certainly come in handy for soups and whatnot, but how many times have I retrived a mayonnaise jar from the rear of the refrigerator to find that its contents, however delicious they might have been once, are no longer edible? Too many times! Too many times! I know that I ought to put the mayonnaise jars in the recycling bin. It’s been grand. Let’s see if I do.   

***

I didn’t write about Zero Dark Thirty the other day, because I didn’t have time and I couldn’t think what to say. Some random thoughts: Jessica Chastain is almost as superb as Jennifer Lawrence at playing an unappealing person. She doesn’t have to work as hard at it, because she doesn’t have Lawrence’s creamy-gorgeous, camera-loves-you features. Chastain’s character, Maya, is determined to capture Osama bin Laden. Some would say that she is obsessed, but that’s just a dismissive medicalization. Maya is utterly sane, “a real killer,” according to one CIA report. She works very hard; she is almost never seen not working very hard, although it’s not exactly clear what she does, what her deskbound sleuthing consists of. I should have liked to know something about her immersion in Arab and Islamic cultures; the movie manifests but does not demonstrate her expertise. This kind of exposition might have gotten in the way, though.

It’s hard to believe that the film covers such a long period of time; without any outward sign, we’re slipped from the Bush terms into Obama’s first. I for one felt immensely proud (and lucky) that the capture occurred on Obama’s watch.

I was going to ask what “zero dark thirty” means, but then I remembered that that’s why there’s Wikipedia. It is a military mystification for “12:30 AM.” It’s not meant to mystify soldiers themselves, of course, but I suppose the creation of special lingo is useful to the creation of special bravery. If you’re living among people who say such things as “zero dark thirty” and “heelo” (for helicopter), then you know that you’re not in Kansas anymore. In any case, the special operation to capture bin Laden is hard to follow in the film, as I suppose it ought to be — and can afford to be, given that everyone knows how it’s going to come out. The narrative complexity might even be taken as an invitation to further reading; the movie certainly raised my interest in what actually happened that clear and starry night.

I was thrilled by the sound effect of the “heelos,” which in reality are fitted with “anti-decibel” devices that muffle the racket when the copter is not directly overhead.

Jennifer Ehle is a most favorite actress. Even with bangs and a Southern twang. When I knew that her character, Jessica, was going to come to grief, I covered my face until it was over. Jessica and Maya argue about the power of money to bribe al Qaeda operatives. Maya thinks that it’s nil — this isn’t the Cold War, she insists — and Jessica proves her right.

Hollywood is so strange. I really like Joel Edgerton — what could be more versatile than a career that comprises outstanding performances in films as different as Kinky Boots and Warrior? He’s certainly very good in Zero Dark Thirty. But screen time? Do we see him for as much as five minutes? Would his dialogue fill more than two pages of script? And yet he gets something like top billing, over Jennifer Ehle and Kyle Chandler and Faras Faras, the last an unknown (to me) actor whose brooding presence throughout the film gives Zero Dark Thirty a haunted feel. Not to mention Mark Duplass and Mark Strong and James Gandolfini. Is this what happens when a female star really owns a movie, and there’s no love interest? (Jason Clarke very much deserves his top billing.)

What do you do after you’re through crying after having captured your big target? What’s next for Maya? A corner office at Langley, I suppose — if they have such things.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2013 at 11:06 am.