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Thursday
February 26, 1998

E. 70th St. Wed., Feb 25, 1998, on my way to meet John King for pizza, coffee, and a movie--The Ice Storm @ $3 theater on 49th b/t 7th & 8th. Catcher in the Rye meets Dazed and Confused in this mordantly funny and visually exact film directed by Ang Lee (no relation to Spike) based on a novel by (?) Moody. Taking place over Thanksgiving weekend 1973 in New Canaan, CT--the town's biblical name is no accident in this tale of a genteel suburban Sodom--sex and substance abuse are the means by which two affluent families try to fill the moral void created by Nixon, free love, and TV. The kids act like adults and the adults act like kids, with neither group finding satisfaction. It is by turns laugh-out-loud funny (a junior high oral report on molecules) and squirm-in-your-seat uncomfortable (men and women face off across a glass coffee table at a key party) with a redemptive ending which through death and tears brings a modicum of meaning back into these otherwise empty lives.



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