LSAT

Three weeks are over. The LSAC guaranteed the LSAT scores by Monday, but were kind enough to send them out yesterday. I had heard rumors that this could happen, so I was obsessively checking my email all day at work. At this point, I was still calm. Something in the back of my head told me I would be doing this on Monday, so there was no point in getting too worked up about it now.

But, it wasn't until I got home and looked at the LSAC website that I saw they had changed the status of my score email date from the 19th (Monday) to 16th (Yesterday). And panic set in. Had I given them the wrong email address? Had I typed it wrong somewhere and my score was out in the unreal reality of the web bouncing around off of porn sites and hate group message boards, dirtying up my pretty score? Do I lose my score if I don't open it soon enough? Or do they just not want to tell me my score? Was it so bad they just want me to have one nice Friday night with my family before I find it out and join a cult or start liking teeny-bopper music and dressing in pastels?

These all seemed reasonable for a while, though I think I was outwardly calm while the wife and I did laundry. When the day started, I was so excited to get the laundry done (no, I really was), but now I wasn't folding my shirts with the passion. I was just thinking about my poor lost score.

Just before going to bed to read (10.30!), I decided to check one last time and hope the prodigal score came home tomorrow. Except this time my score was there. Right at the top of my email box next to a note my father had written about how he had been sick.* I stared for a second before I took control of the suddenly unwieldy mouse and opened it up.

And there, under some words that I still haven't really read was my score.

After the test I didn't feel great about it. I thought, "Okay, that was fine. Not great". And I talked myself into being happy about that. It would have been fine. I would end up going somewhere nice and getting a good financial aid package. Probably. But this score. It's not that many points are such a move up in the percentile, but it feels huge. Law school feels more assured now, which is a nice feeling that I expect to fade in the not too distant future as I think about shoring up my personal statement, drafting up my resume, explaining my speeding ticket and waiting for them to get back to me.

But. For now it's a win. A big win. And one that I really feel like I earned with the many hours of time at the library, being the first one in as the library worker who looks like a hefty and cross-eyed Jeff Daniels let me in. The many different guidebooks I read through and worked in. The practice tests. The stress. The anxiety. Yeah. This one definitely goes in the win column.

*Note 1. Something about his age, maybe, but he likes to go into detail about having the common cold. His woman friend makes good soups, apparently. This was the only thing I learned, though his descriptions of his days watching TV and not feeling any better did paint a picture.

The Eclipse

The Chicago Film Festival started last Thursday. Dinah and I have been going for the last few years. Generally the films are all really good, though there are few clunkers in there.* But last night I saw one of my favorite films. Possibly ever.

The Eclipse.

It's and Irish film directed by Conor McPherson (pictured), who is clearly a genius.

Now, I studied in London my Junior year of college, which was an amazing time. One of the highlights of the time there was all the theater I saw. I saw some amazing plays. The Invention of Love (which was also amazing. Tom Stoppard is also a genius), Oklahoma (with Hugh Jackman, hell yeah!), Phedre, Coppenhagen, and many others. My favorite play I saw, though, was McPherson's The Weir. This play is amazing. The acting was solid. I'm a generally emotional person, but not one who cries in front of others a lot. This play definitely made me cray. (Though, I am unsure if the people I was with really knew it.) From then on, whenever I'm near a book store with a section devoted to plays, I look up McPherson to see if there's a new play of his out. I've pretty much bought everything of his I've run across. And I've really enjoyed everything. So, when we saw a fim he directed was coming to the festival, it was a given I would see it somehow.

Something McPherson does really well is incorporate the otherworldly into his plays. In The Weir, this is done through ghost stories. Other plays it's the devil, or vampires. And, while this may seem to make his plays horror-affairs, the strength of them comes from McPherson's ability to tap into the feelings and emotions of the people who are dealing with the otherworldly. Whatever the phenomona is that the characters deal with, their emotions are the focus of the story. McPherson wrote the screen play with Billy Roche, who has a small part in the film. McPherson also directed the film, as well as helped arranged some of the music, which is very haunting.

I tell you this, because The Eclipse is similar in that way. The film festival guide described the film as being about two men who are after the same woman, who is a writer of supernatural things. Or some such. And the movie is about that, but only in a supporting way. This movie, in my eyes, is really more about a man and his family getting over loss, and the supernatural plays an important part in telling the story. I don't want to give too much away, because I think everyone should see this movie if they can, but I do want to say the lead actor, Ciaran Hinds, was absolutely brilliant. It's a part that required a lot from an actor and Hinds really delivers. Every scene is pitch perfect.**

And the way the camera is used throughout the film is very interesting. Horror films, and in some ways this is a horror film, have long been places of innovation and interesting camera shots and I think that tradition can be seen here. From the way the camera pans, to the angles chosen and what's shown to the viewer in almost every shot--the cinematography was outstanding.

I say this movie is in some ways a horror film, because this movie was really scary. But the frights come not only from the appearance of something frightening, but also because of what that something represents. In other words, it's more than just about being slashed by a sports-apparrell wearing nutbag who kills because he's never been loved. The movie delves into emotions more frightening than that. It's like a mature horror movie. I really cannot overemphasize how great it was.

Please go see it.

*Note 1. Like La Mustache, which was an overwrought French film where a man, after seeing old pictures of him on a tropical island without a mustach, shaves his facial hair. It's a dramatic scene of shaving and I guess it's some sort of transformational moment or something, but guess what? None of this man's friends notice his new lack of facial hair. He become obssessed with wondering why no one notices. He eventually goes insane, moves to a tropical island and guess what? His picture is taken. And the picture is the one he saw before. What a mind fuck! Seriously, it was the worst film I've ever seen. Of course it won the fan award that year. So, I know nothing about film and the genius it takes to write a circular story. You are warned.

**Note 2. It looks like Mr. Hinds has been cast in the final two Harry Potter films. Good for him.