Call Me By Your Name

Dave and I went to see "Call Me By Your Name" on Saturday night. (I know! Two movies in a theater in less than a month?! Insane!) It was a phenomenal movie, achingly beautiful, and incredibly romantic and sensual. The acting was so realistic, it stayed with me all day yesterday and left me feeling a bit bruised -- in a good way.

In case you haven't heard of it, the movie is about a 17-year-old boy whose father, a professor, invites a twentysomething graduate student to come and work with him for the summer at his villa in Lombardy. The boy, Elio, falls for the older student, Oliver, and they have an affair. All this happens against a stunning backdrop of sun-warmed stone and apricots ripe from an orchard and swimming and sunbathing. As I said -- sensual. But very well-made and not at all gratuitous or overindulgent.

I liked it partly because there wasn't an emphasis on "coming out" or defining any of the characters' sexuality. They were just humans, being in love. We aren't sure, for example, if Elio will eventually live as a gay man. He's also having a romantic and sexual relationship with a girl at the same time that he sleeps with Oliver, and deriving some satisfaction from being with her. (Although he clearly does not love her in the same way.)

His parents seem a little too good to be true, but they embody a sort of European openness that could be realistic, at least among intellectuals. Add to all this a touch of nostalgia -- the movie takes place in 1983, and there are no computers, no cell phones, and all the '80s pop music comes on cassettes or on the radio. Overall, I loved it.

Speaking of nostalgia -- and entirely aside from the topic of the movie -- do you remember Dynamite magazine? It was published in the '70s and '80s by Scholastic. I only bought an issue or two, at school book fairs, if I'm not mistaken.

I got to thinking about it the other day, for some reason, and I dimly remembered that I had an issue of Dynamite with Cher on the cover. Through the magic of the Interwebs, I was able to find a picture of it -- from February 1976.

I remember that magazine kicking around in my room for the longest time. I think it had an article about "Star Trek" in it, which is why I kept it as long as I did. It also had a memorable picture of Cher and her daughter Chastity (now her son Chaz) in matching mother-daughter outfits, if I'm not mistaken.

Weird, the things we remember.

I know you're dying to know what's happened with the water main break on West End Lane. Well, the road was still closed this weekend, but it looked like repairs were finishing up. Maybe it'll be open by the time I go to work this morning. (Addendum: Nope!)

Oh, and one of my photos got used on a West London local news blog. Woo hoo!

(Top photo: A random cat, seen on my walk Saturday.)