No Lie: I'm Obsessed

It's true, I'm completely taken with the Smart Car. I've posted about it before and had literally dozens of conversations since returning from Europe in 2001 after a term abroad in college. Spending 14 weeks over in mostly Italy, I saw Smarts EVERYWHERE, and fell in love with their goofy small size, their fun and ridiculous paint jobs, and my perception of their must-be fuel efficiency. Anyway, this is the year of the Smart here in America, with the first dealerships opening stateside (they've been sold in Canada for over a year now) and the first Smarts rolling out onto US roads. A few weeks back I had a huge fit of envy as a little white Smart passed me on the Merritt Parkway headed north towards Middletown, and the fit was followed by days of dreaming up my purchase of my very own Smart (a plan still in the making).

This is all preamble to posting a little video I found on Slate today, their review of a Smart after driving it around San Francisco for a week. Here's the video:



And here are a couple of my favorite lines from the accompanying article:

"...Traverse the city for just 10 or 20 minutes in the Smart and the truth will hit you like a Hummer on its way to the repo lot. While just large enough to realize, on the inside, the comforts of a sedan, the Smart is perhaps the first modern, street-legal car small enough to completely upend your relationship with the city."

"At times it felt like cheating -- like I was the mayor or a diplomat or I had a secret key to every neighborhood, like a metropolitan god had blessed my weary soul. Seriously, it was heady."

You can read the whole article here.

Things That Don't Suck: King of California

So, at the end of my last post... earlier today, I promised my next post would be apolitical, and here goes. Last night I saw a pretty enjoyable movie, King of California. Evan Rachel Wood (open question: who names their daughter Evan?) plays Miranda, the 17 year-old daughter of an eccentric man who we see picking up her father, Charlie (Michael Douglas), from a mental institution in the first few scenes of the film.

Over an hour and a half we follow them on a treasure hunt filled with some goofy incidents, recollections of Miranda's youth, and exploration of a dysfunctional but interesting relationship between father and daughter. The journey is inspired and guided by readings Charlie found while he was in the loony bin. Wood plays an over-mature young woman pretty well, we meet her first at her job behind the counter at McDonalds. Her scrappy story of surviving while her father was locked away sets the stage for the distance she displays throughout the movie. Still, she can't resist following and eventually helping her hapless and goofy father, Charlie as he embarks on a garbled adventure.

I wouldn't say Douglas is brilliant, but his character sure is fun. The movie overall was enjoyable if not groundbreaking. It was relatively simple, smart but not preachy and inhabited by characters that were interesting enough to draw you in, accessible and fairly believable.

Some might guess I was drawn to the movie by its bright yellow box, given that a) I like bright colors b) I loved Little Miss Sunshine which also comes in a bright yellow box and c) I'm much like a moth... unable to resist visual stimuli. Even if these people are right, I enjoyed hanging out last night with the King of California and I recommend checking it out.