The Apartment

Last night I went to see The Apartment (1959), starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. What a good film! C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) is a young climber at a big insurance firm in New York. A couple of years earlier a friend had asked if he could borrow Lemmon's apartment to change clothes between engagements, and it soon got out around the company that his apartment could be borrowed, and a number of middle managers now use it as a place to take their mistresses for a short, um... whatever. As a result, Baxter works late, often can't get in to his apartment, has given his neighbor the impression that he's a womanizer, and secretly pines for elevator operator Fran Kubelik (MacLaine). But it's all worth it, he thinks, if these fellows will put in a good word for him so he can be promoted to assistant.

Unfortunately, this at-first light story goes horribly dark when he learns that company director Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) himself wants to borrow Baxter's apartment to romance his latest mistress - Fran! And yet, Sheldrake himself promises Baxter a promotion of he plays ball... so he's stuck.

Lemmon turns in a performance somewhere between the outright mugging of Some Like It Hot and the youthful earnestness of It Should Happen To You, and the seriousness of the subject matter shows how his basically happy-go-lucky character deals with real adversity. It's quite a pressure-cooker, to see what sort of a man he turns out to be.

The rest of the cast is fine, but not outstanding: MacMurray plays a stereotypically sleazy cheating husband (you should have heard the boos and hisses from the audience at the audacity of some of his lines! To be fair, writer/director Billy Wilder seemed to be deliberately playing up the cliche, which I imagine must have been rather risque for the time). MacLaine is cute as a button, but seems to overplay her role, especially at downbeat moments. (I've only previously seen her in The Trouble With Harry.) She's certainly not bad, but Lemmon and the story are the real stars here.

This is a fine film, funny and peculiar early on, and deadly serious and touching in the second half. The ending is a little bit too pat, but overall I highly recommend it.

Today, my old team, WebObjects, had a party in Capitola (near Santa Cruz) to celebrate shipping WebObjects 5 last month. Since I worked on that product for over a year, I got to go even though I'm not on the team anymore. It was a relaxed affair, at a basic but okay restaurant right on the beach. We hung out and ate, and then moved down the beach to play volleyball and hang out some more. (I sucked less at volleyball than I'd expected. I've never played much and have never been particularly good. I do have a pretty decent serve, though, when I get the ball over the net.)

It was fun to see my old cow-orkers again, even if Tom didn't go due to illness.

I came home early afterwards, partly being fried from the party (it was hot and sunny, and my face feels like I got a tad burned!), but mainly because I wanted to watch baseball's All-Star Game. I have this strange enjoyment of the All-Star Game which many baseball fans don't share. The game means nothing, but it's fun to see the players and fans having fun in this particular game, and it's a nice once-a-year event. (Sometimes I invite people over to watch it, but this year I was on my own.)

The game resulted in a 4-1 American League victory (yay!), but was marred somewhat by the endless fawning over the game's two retiring stars, Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn. It's not like these guys don't deserve some adulation, but haven't they received that in many past All-Star Games? Shouldn't this game be used to honor guys who are stars now? Sure, it was neat to see Ripken hit a home run, but the truth is he's not a good player by a longshot at this point. And Bud Selig presenting the players with special awards was just kind of embarrassing. Play ball, guys!

Anyway, I'm a bit of a curmudgeon, I guess, but it bugs me that baseball is so wrapped up in paying attention to its living legends, every year. I'd rather see them talk up the great young players at the game. Some they did focus on, like Ichiro Suzuki, but others - like Albert Pujols - seemed largely ignored. A shame.

Couldn't they have a special ceremony during the World Series or something to honor the retiring greats? Or better yet, maybe they could induct them into a hall of fame or something...

Anyway, I had a good time watching the game. I always do, although the game is rarely great. I booed Roger Clemens when he came out to pitch, and wished the National League would whack him around (they didn't). But I enjoyed seeing three Giants starting for the team (Kent, Aurilia and Bonds). They deserve it - including Aurilia, who's been underrated for a couple of years.

Now two more days until real games start again... can't wait!