Wednesday Media Roundup

I saw Before Sunset last night and really, really liked it. The dialogue was a little forced at times, especially Julie Delpy’s, but that might just be an inevtiable feature of a movie that consists entirely of one conversation shot with a series of long tracking shots (and also because Ethan Hawke — and I can’t believe I’m writing this — is arguably the better actor of the pair). Hawke and Delpy are a little younger than me, but we’re clearly all of the same generation; a lot of the film’s appeal to me extended from the same sort of “hey, that’s us!” feeling that people one or two generations up the line felt when they watched The Big Chill. I don’t have a confining loveless marriage, but there are certainly times I’d like to run away to Paris.

Before I went to bed I tuned in to Hardball on MSNBC. I don’t know why, but I used to find the program almost unwatchable, and now I’m completely compelled by it. I used to find Chris Matthews brash and bombastic; I now find him delightful and bombastic. In any case, last night’s interview with bombastic turncoat Senator Zell Miller was amazing television; here’s Matthews blogging about the interview (there’s a link to a video of the internew on that page, but it’s only viewable in Internet Explorer).