Diary Movies

Dear Diary,

Why is it when people write in their diaries in the movies, or when said diary is used as a framework to tell the story in that movie, why is it that the diaries are so well kept and with profound insight?  For example, a few weeks ago I finally saw "Benjamin Button" (yeah, late, I know).  Now, aside from the modern context given to that story (Hurrican Katrina) they give the story another context, and use Benjamin's diaries to tell the story of his life and all the people he met who died.  Okay maybe that's kind of reductive but that basically is the movie.  I'm not wrong.  He met so and so, they were old and died.  He met so and so who cut his hair, she was old and she died.  He went to war, all the people he knew there, died too.  And so on and so forth, ad infinitum.  Anyway, in each diary entry, he is able to speak with great perspective, hindsight, and foresight, even though we are to assume that the way people write diaries are in fact the opposite of that.  

Por ejemplo, when I write in my diary, I say something like this:  

Dear Diario, I had a crazy dream.  In it my sister was a pig and she was wearing a real fur jacket and my mother was telling her to get into the car otherwise we would never make it to lunch on time.  We lived by central park in this dream and the reason my sister was dilly dallying was because she was performing beautiful choreographed kung fu numbers in the trees on 82nd and Central Park West.  Oh yes and in this dream we were rich and my mother was white.  Weird.  Oh and also I can't get enough of Jeff Goldblum.  He is not replacing Steve Martin in terms of fuckability but I'd say they are more on an even keel these days because I saw a picture of Steve Martin in Malibu on the beach and brother is looking a bit saggy in the gut.  Til tomorrow, Love, Mrs. God.

My diary, as evidenced by above, is nothing like the diaries of films, which go like this:

Dear Diary, as I enter into these final years of my life I think it's important that I write something

that pretty much sums it all up. First off, I was born on a hot summer day when the wind was

so heavy you could have worn it as a blanket. And although my father died when I was just a 

kid, I could always hear him singing me to sleep. And then for a number of years I was young and 

banging lots of hot chicks. You should be able to glean this from the montage of me walking into 

fancy hotels and eating caviar with a lot of lovely ladies, but I'd like to reiterate that that is what 

happened. But of course a man tires of such things and so I married the prettiest girl in the town 

who may not have been pretty by Hollywood standards** but boy could she make a mean cherry pie. 

And So on and So forth.

So do you see what I mean? Why do diaries exist at all in movies? I guess they need to exist to catch

serial killers and child molesters and other socially unacceptable characters who keep very detailed accounts

of their devious behavior, but other than that, why on earth would someone's diary matter? With all

of the manuscripts in my home (thousands of pages, I'm sure) there are probably only five, coherent and

well thought out paragraphs.

In fact, when I have a child, I'm going to tell it to never keep a diary, and I'm also going to tell it to

burn all of mine. The last thing I want is for someone to make a biopic using only my diaries. God, can

can you imagine? A movie made entirely of thirty second dream sequences in which my sister (who

doesn't exist) has different animal heads and other dream sequences in which Jeff Goldblum and I drink

tea at the Huntington Gardens and discuss P.G. Wodehouse. Then again, maybe they should make that movie.

I apologize to all of you for not posting last week. Last week I really needed to drink a lot of whiskey

and fancy cocktails on Monday and when I returned I needed to feel queasy and nap instead of blogging.

But forevermore, there will be no excuses. I promise.

Love and Virgen Candles,

Mrs. God

**Don't think I forgot: this character will be played by Mary Stuart Masterson or Jennifer Jason Leigh.