More Buffalo Than Buffalo: The Savages

Okay, guys. Prepare yourself for this movie. Remember how Buffalo '66 captured the Buffalo suburbs a little too well, especially that lump of a mother-zombie chanting "go! go!" to the Bills? That was nothing.

The Savages stars our fav, P.S. Hoffman, of course, and guess what? He's a lot like us. He teaches lit at UB (he's got the Ph D, but he's more like a TA; you'll see what I mean), lives near Tupper in a horrible apartment full of puke David Lynch green wallpaper--but nice wood trim, and gets distracted by the gloomy Buffalo skyline, the bare trees of winter, etc. His sister (Laura Linney) just assumes he's depressed BECAUSE HE LIVES IN BUFFALO. And when her illicit, married, lover visits her (chiming, "I've never been to Buffalo!"), but then barely checking it out and skipping straight to Niagara Falls, he drags her to the Days Inn where an attempt at sex fails. Why? Because it's Buffalo! She even says, "Look at us! We're at a motel--in Buffalo--it's such a cliche!"

Of course the whole movie is about how we're all going to die eventually. That and the fact that the two middle-aged siblings lie to each other and themselves about their "achievements." She writes plays; he's studies them. A student asks him in that Buffalo-Valley-Girl accent, "What's the difference between plot and narrative? You, um, wrote it on the board." Hoffman lumbers back and forth across the classroom floor and can't quite answer. You just know what he's thinking.

This isn't really a movie review--non-sequitor, now, sort of. I've been toying around with the idea of writing my autobiography and I asked my dad who should play grad student me; you know, the lumpy, torpid, sit in a chair all day me. Answer? Philip Seymore Hoffman. Thanks, dad. Thanks alot. Wait. Shouldn't I take it as a complement? My dad genuinely likes him and has seen him only in Capote and some other relatively "good" role--not Dear Liza or Happiness. So he knows not what he's said. Oh well. We are ALL Philip Seymore Hoffman.

Just briefly--the reason I may have to write my autobiography is because of this book. It features my mom and stepdad as anecdotal warm-ups to each chapter. You know. Sociologists always use "human interest" stories to put a humna face on their data and theories. The chapters start with my mom and then move outward to show her as an example of the larger picture, and then finally end by showing how hippie men were heteronormative, etc. It's everything I've always wanted to say about where I grew up as a kid, but I'm not objective enough. Finally, someone else has done it.

It's VERY WEIRD how it features me as the "preschool kid" who arrives at the Garden of Eden with a naive mother and a shy stepfather, both of whom so badly need an identity that for the rest of my life I will be fighting an uphill battle against their politics. I'm sure publishers will see the irony of all this and give my own story a chance. It's all so meta. That now means all of YOU will be in it, too. Okay, so what do you want me to call you guys in it? How about I just put dialogue in your mouths like, "Man, B, you should write this down! It's destiny."