Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

16 September 2003

Matchstick Men

2003, U.S.

director: Ridley Scott

Movies about con men usually have too little conning, and movies about people who twitch usually have too much twitching. I love to watch the con man's side of a telephone conversation or be a fly on the wall of a high-pressure sales office, but a few obsessive-compulsive tics go a long way. Ridley Scott finds a nice balance with Nicolas Cage as Roy, a neurotic "con artiste" in Matchstick Men. Cage is funny when he tries to convince people to give him his meds, but I'm always glad when he gets those meds and calms down. Sam Rockwell plays his hipper, messier partner Frank as if he's Chuck Barris, if Chuck Barris were a different sort of con man. They work in the late-morning glare of southern California where they lie to people who they think deserve it, carry bundles of cash in briefcases, and always choose the right eyeglasses for the job. Thrown into the middle of this odd mixture is a third element, a dollop of cuteness: a 14-year-old daughter that Cage didn't know he had. After Thirteen and Lost in Translation, Matchstick Men is the least serious in a string of recent movies about how adults relate to young women, even though the movie makes sure Cage learns a couple of lessons about life and pharmaceuticals before it's over. More enjoyable than those lessons is the way the disparate elements combine into some lightweight high jinks and the way a few moments of real suspense remind us that Ridley Scott knows what he's doing.

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