Sunday, December 10, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction

I saw Stranger Than Fiction last night. LOVED it! It's about facing mortality, about how embracing the fact of death actually enriches life. I left the theater thinking holy shit I'm going to die! You're going to die. We're all going to die. Better have some fun, take some chances, love somebody. Better make it count.

But I do have one bone to pick with the movie. Queen Latifah plays an assistant sent to a writer by her publishers because she's having writer's block. An assistant who moves in and dedicates her life 24/7 to helping the writer complete her book. Yeah right.

Unless the screenwriters know something I don't know? Is it possible that other writers have such angels? Makes me feel like one of the little boys in the Head Start where I volunteer. I asked the kids how many of them go to the library (it's a library program I volunteer for). And almost all of them raised their hands and spoke about how their mothers take them. This three-year-old who looked like the Buddha with cornrows looked around at all the raised hands and said, "Hey! My mama don't take me to no library!"

"Hey! My publisher don't send me no assistants!"

2 comments:

Tayari Jones said...

Actually, I wonder met a woman who held such a job. She would go live in a hotel or bed and breakfast and meet with the writer daily. She said she had worked with Saul Bellow and some other big people like that.

Carleen Brice said...

The screenwriters DO know something I don't know. Quavon and I have been robbed! :-)