They were removing the last of the Christmas lights downtown yesterday. I guess that means Christmas is officially over now. For me Christmas ended on Boxing Day, when I got back home to my apartment. Sure, I went out to my folks again the next day for dinner and more Christmas cheer, but after I unloaded all my gear I sat down to watch In the Company of Men on one of the Swedish channels and that pretty much put an end to the season to be jolly, so to speak. Swedish television is a lot like Danish television, but they have better music programs and once in a while they'll put on a great movie or comedy special, which'll have you wonder why Danish television always has to be so damn boring?

But even I have to admit that showing a Neil LaBute movie on Boxing Day is pretty sick. But I hadn't seen it before, so I figured I might as well get it over with. If you haven't seen the movie it's basically about two guys, who have to work on a project out of town for eight weeks and decided to ruin a young woman's life. They find a blind woman and decided to make her pay for all the misery women have put them through by leading her on and then eventually brutally dumping her. Things don't quite go according to scheme, so the end result is actually even more devastating than originally planned.

The film reminded me of Business Strangers, which came out several years later, because of the subject matter, but also because of the use of airports, conference rooms, and hotels as scenery. I actually liked Business a lot better and must say I was a bit disappointed in Company. I thought it was going to be a lot more brutal and unpleasant. I thought the relationship between the men and the woman would have gone further, gotten deeper, which would have made the ending a lot more powerful. Business had more interesting characters, better acting, was shot in a nicer way, and rapt up its story more effectively, which all in all made it a much better movie.
I liked Nurse Betty, but didn’t think it was brilliant. However, I was blown away, when I went to see Bash at the Almeida Theatre in London a couple of years ago. I was in town for a reading by Douglas Coupland and went with some friends to see the play without knowing what it was about.

The play consisted of three short stories. The first was about a woman (Mary McCormack), who's giving a statement to the police about how she killed her child. She is sitting at a table talking to a tape recorder and is the only one on stage. Her statement is actually more her life story than an actual statement and as she explains how she ended in this tragic situation it very much felt like she was talking directly to the audience.
In the second story Zeljko Ivanek is a travelling salesman in a motel room, who sits reclined in a big chair with a drink telling the story of how he let his daughter die, so he would have a tragedy in the family, which would then prevent him from getting fired.
And in the final story a couple (Matthew Lillard and Mary McCormack) tells of the time they went to New York with a group of friends to celebrate. While the girls were getting ready the boys walked through Central Park and decided to assault a homosexual in a public bathroom. Once again someone dies and others are scared for life.

The play originally starred Calista Flockhart, Ron Eldard, and Paul Rudd, when it was put on in New York, which seems like really odd casting choices compared to the three actors I saw.
I thought the play was extremely riveting and shocking, so I guess that's why my hopes were a bit high, when I sat down to see In the Company of Men.

After the show we stood around talking outside and saw Ralph Fiennes arrive to pick up a friend. Then Matthew Lillard came out and my friend Anne insisted that I have my picture taken with him. I had mentioned that my brother is a fan, so she thought it would be fun if I could bring home a picture of the both of us, so she asked Lillard if she could take our picture. He was hanging out, signing stuff anyway, so he agreed. The picture's been lying in a drawer for ages, but I dug it out and stuck in on my fridge after I saw Company. So now I have Matthew Lillard looking weird at me every morning, when I'm making breakfast.