praising leo and feeling grown up
lynn and i saw blood diamond this evening, and it was a sobering experience. first and quickest, there is the disconcerting feeling that comes from seeing leo play a character that is so firmly an adult, and therefore being forced to admit that he, and consequently I (since we are close enough in age that i can say things like it seems like just yesterday he was competing with kurt cameron for the charming badboy title on growing pains), are now firmly in the ranks of the grown as far as the cultural machine is concerned.
another reminder of this occurred the other day while i was washing dishes in the sushi bar where i worked for a couple of weeks to make some spending money before leaving the country, when the ‘safe but stylish’ pop mix on the intercom played nirvana. i know that the beatles and the stones were piped into department stores and arranged for cello and bassoon as soon as their principal audiences acquired enough purchasing power to merit such undertakings, but it still felt a little weird to be reminded that the cycle was continuing by learning that smells like teen spirit can now be lumped in with mack the knife for marketing purposes.
but i digress.
blood diamond, while still in the cloud of first impression, was quite impressive. a fair measure of predictability, sap, and emotional manipulation was surely to be had, but it was deftly executed as such, and the characters succeeded in convincing me that they knew that they were a bit cliched but still believed their story worth telling despite such hindrances, and that is an attitude that i can respect, particularly with a story as important as the abuses of the diamond trade. ed zwick, whom the poster can tell you was the director of glory and the last samurai, and my own early-nineties geekdom can tell you was also the director of legends of the fall and one of the key producers behind my so called life (in case there aren’t enough references to cultural icons of my youth in this post already).
jennifer connelly’s character was a bit too clearly there to fill the love interest gap, but she had some good moments of her own nonetheless, and i think that i am coming to like her.
djimon hounsou was very good, but i feel bad that i know him only from this and amistad, because important as the stories both are, i feel like his africanness is inseparable from my image of him as an actor, and i feel bad about that, though perhaps it’s only
and leo
acting grown up
no diamonds for vday
at the oscars?