sometimes you’re just a potato

Do you know what I mean? Not a couch potato, per se, but you’re just a potato. You feel like a starchy blob. All bound up. Like everything you are is packed so tightly under this thin skin of yours that you can’t move or make sense of it all. You’re a tuber. Yes, a tuber. You become a total tuber.

I am a tuber.

I love that word — it is plump with ridiculousness.

So we’ve established that, the last several days, I have been a tuber. Starchy in the head and buried under a dirty heat. It makes sense to my starchy head, if no one else. It’s hot here and I hate hot with a white hot hate — which is why living in southern California is, you know, so perfect for me. I hate feeling like I need to run through the neighbor’s sprinklers or take a shower every five minutes.

Maybe I’ve been watching too many movies. Maybe it’s sensory overload. I process things slowly — in a kind of savoring way — so if there’s been too much, voila, tuberino.

This is going nowhere, isn’t it? Yes, Tracey, it is going nowhere.

Okay. How about a list of the movies I’ve seen over the last several days — movies that I’m still processing, to some degree. That’s a start. Or something.

Here we go. My list — all of which I’d never seen before and perhaps a basis for my lingering tuberosity:

Mamma Mia
The Dark Knight
Five Easy Pieces
The Darjeeling Limited
Feast of Love
The Bank Job
Moliere

I liked all of these movies — to greater or lesser degrees — but again, I mull; I wait for things to sink in. It takes me a while. Maybe I just ain’t that bright. Whatevs. You gotta play the cards you’re dealt. For now, though, to try to break through my starchy head block, I’ll share some random thoughts, impressions, stuff, about Mamma Mia — and maybe the other ones later.

Mamma Mia — Okay. Look. Meryl Streep is hilarious. She is a rollicking good sport and I am now in love with her forever. You know, I think people forget how funny she can be as an actress. (Postcards from the Edge, anyone?) She gets put on this “great dramatic actress” pedestal and everything else she has to offer is treated like chopped liver or … or .. tubers or something. She’s so FUN in this movie — except for her 27-minute version of “The Winner Takes it All.” If anyone could nearly make that work, it’s Meryl Streep, but it was just too dang long. Some of the verses could have been cut and the song would not have lost its impact. But I loved her in this. She frolicks — believably. It’s adorable and endearing and I can’t picture any other movie actress in this part, really. I love that she so obviously has a sense of humor, doesn’t take herself as seriously as everybody else seems to. She’s reason enough to see the movie.

— Amanda Seyfried is luminous as Streep’s daughter. My second favorite thing about the movie. Plus she can sing. I loved her. She just glowed.

— Pierce Brosnan cannot sing. I’m sorry; he cannot. It’s more of a rhythmic growling set to music. People in our theatre laughed when he started singing. However, I find him so attractive, I forgive him everything. And so did the audience. The same people who laughed at his singing were clapping and cheering at the end of the movie. There’s just a feel-good vibe about the whole thing. Despite its flaws, it’s just plain ol’ fun. Some of it produces, well, inadvertent fun, unintended fun, perhaps, but it’s just damn FUN. And I’ve been working out on my trampoline to ABBA music ever since, so it does that to you, too.

— Colin Firth is a better singer than Pierce. Perhaps he should have had that part?

— Julie Walters and Christine Baranski as Streep’s girlfriends. Now, I love Julie Walters. Rita from Educating Rita? Mrs. Weasley from all the Harry Potter movies? Come on. She’s got a comedic flair and she’s basically adorable — USUALLY. But …. she’s a total goblin in this movie. This is not hyperbole. I mean, I could barely look at her. During the movie, MB leaned in to me and whispered, “Good Lord. She’s repulsive.” Hahaha. She cavorts around awkwardly, sporting what My Beloved labels the “dreadful lesbian” haircut. She actually looks exactly like a gay guy I know. Of course, this was discussed in frantic whispers during the movie, so, perhaps unfairly to Ms. Walters, we had this whole separate runaway subtext going on for her. I basically COULD NOT DEAL WITH HER IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. Near the end, there’s a musical number that features her prominently — and I was gone, GONE, shaking with laughter because I had this whole “dreadful lesbian” storyline for her going on in my head. I could not hold the two opposing ideas in my head any longer and I’m sure I disturbed the people behind us. I was shaking that hard. I was afraid I’d actually start shrieking. I shook for the rest of the movie. It was very aerobic, really and good for me. Christine Baranski — little Miss Broadway — has a musical number that, well, is kind of cringe-inducing for me. I think she’s supposed to be sexy, which she empirically is NOT. Her costume in that scene doesn’t help matters. Her bony cleavage made me squirm. Ergh.

— The location itself is a character in the movie. Actually, it may be the main character, if looked at in a certain way. The whole “Greek Isle” thing: turquoise water, bleached sand beaches, whitewashed buildings, winding hillsides — so much vibrancy and life and beauty just there to be looked at, reveled in, you can’t help but feel joyful from the get-go. The movie wouldn’t work anywhere else, I don’t think. It is intertwined with its location. It invites, lulls. There’s something — I don’t know — unfettered about the crystal beauty of the island here that calls you to cast your cares aside and just enter INTO it all.

— I think the quirky genius of the movie is this: Despite the seeming incongruity of pounding Swedish disco music in a shimmering Greek locale, despite the threadbare script, despite some iffy singing, the actors are just having a grand ol’ time — well, maybe not Stellan Skaarsgard — and the whole experience makes you feel young and free and hopeful again. I don’t know how it does it, really. It just does. You drift out of that movie humming ABBA music — for better or worse — and feeling like anything is possible. I don’t know about you, but that adds up to a good movie to me. It’s a movie greater than the sum of its sometimes-wispy-weirdo parts. Laugh with it, laugh at it, whatever, you WILL have fun. Guaranteed.

Okay. Now, shhhhh. Back to being a tuber.