I always enjoy the first few minutes of my drive to work: that's about the time I'm looping around downtown on the highway. It's like being a pinball: the play begins when you turn onto the entrance ramp and gather speed. High above, a series of bridges catch traffic together and gently bring them down and alongside to meet you. After a brief, harmonious joining, two lanes split away and drop towards a brightly-tiled tunnel. The tube curves down and sharply around, then up and ejects: you're released to a long, straight passage rolling in front of the downtown. Reaching the end of this channel, lanes suddenly split and tumble, bumping off into various exits or the tressel to Kentucky. My unlucky pinball always seems destined for the '75 NORTH - DAYTON' chute.

Glimpses of the skyline shoot by: on the approach -- the buildings crowd up against the river; and in the channel -- the upper decks of sports arenas gleam across from grittier corporate towers. A rhythm of suspended overpasses swoosh silently by overhead. If you're new to my blog, I am writing about where I currently live: Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is known for its conservatism, but in the last couple of years, national press has frequently focused on its racial problems. Very recently, the Queen City (ha ha) has been (again) in the national news. A video clip shows six (six!)white police officers wrestling to "restrain" one black man with night-sticks, who died during the incident. The autopsy stated an enlarged heart as the cause of death, and that cocaine and PCP were in the man's system. Was this a racially-motivated act of police brutality?

I have not seen this video. I don't watch much TV. I understand it leaves off lead seconds showing the man moving in on one cop and taking one bejesus of a slug to the side of his head. Regardless of your viewpoint: Can I just say how glad I am not to be a police officer?

But speaking of powerful visual images...
I haven't updated you -- my dearest and nearest! Since I hadn't indulged in my thrill for off-the-beaten-path flicks, I decided to attend a couple of movies put on by the Cincy World Cinema last weekend at Xavier University.

The unifying topic for the movies was the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1920s. I remember the case from a lurid two-page spread in one of those "This American Century" books I liked to read when I was a kid. (Yeah, what a geek!) But beyond the fact that this was the "crime of the century" of its time, I knew nothing about it. I did not know that Leopold and Loeb were gay and that Clarence Darrow (of that era's Monkey Trial fame) argued, successfully, against the death penalty.

The first was the 1959 film "Compulsion", and I went thinking it was an Orson Wells-produced film (wrong). As Clarence Darrow, Wells has some of the most dramatic parts of the movie where he argues for compassion in sparing the criminals' lives. The script was taken, verbatim, from Darrow's actual closing argument -- and it was moving. Actually, the whole film was: The movie's theme focused on the good and bad in each of the characters -- and thus in each of us.

CWC features discussion groups afterwards, and then I learned its mission is to bring films that promote diversity in the community. I stayed. I discussed. In response to someone's comment that the movie's message seemed "dated," I piped up that its message of compassion was just as valid if not more pertinent today. Later, I hogged the room's oxygen by speculating that the movie could never be made today because the public would have to replace Leopold and Loeb with an O.J. Simpson, Timothy McVeigh or Saddam Hussein.

The evening was so much fun that I pulled C, D and Choley Nan along the next afternoon to see "Swoon". This 1992 version focused on the gay relationship of Loeb and Leopold, and (according to the blurb) the homophobic nature of the case. It was definitely an art-house, Queer Cinema take on things, reminding me stylistically of "Poison" and "The Living End". Sinister and symbolic, it was no less impressive. We didn't stay for the group discussion (and we all wish we had), but we had our own animated discussion at The Dubliner afterwards over beer, wine and reubens.

I left "Compulsion" feeling that, even though individuals may do terrible things, humans are essentially good. On the other hand, "Swoon" seemed to lash out. Classic Queer Cinema: People in "Swoon" are not inherently good -- although I'm not sure if he wanted to make a point they're generally evil. I wonder if, since between the time the two movies were made, we as a nation have shifted in our outlook and lost the ability to forgive or see the good in anyone.

Can we look beyond acts of a racial divide and forgive? Can we show compassion for those who conduct acts of Terrorism? And now... must. finish. review. Ugh!

TILT!