Before I went to college, I watched a lot of TV. A lot. (This is one of the reasons I know more about American pop culture than Ross does. The other reason is that his parents did things like keep the existence of cartoons a secret from him until he was about six. Which, by the way, I think is a masterful accomplishment that I recommend to my sister.) During these dark days, Party of Five used to be one of my favourite shows. I thought Griffin was smokin’ (how did he turn into that fat priest on Seventh Heaven?), and I kind of wanted to be Julia, until I noticed the annoying way she half laughed whenever she wanted to express disgusted disbelief, which on this show was often.

When I saw Wild Things for the first time in freshman year, I realised that the toothy Ms. Campbell can actually sort of act, when she refrains from feigning righteous amusement. By the way, if you’ve seen the movie poster or the trailer for Wild Things, but not yet seen the film, you may be labouring under the impression that it is a dumb, trashy, plotless production with lots of gratuitous scenes of girls who are soaking wet. In fact, it is a clever, trashy production with lots of gratuitous scenes of girls who are soaking wet, but also a good number of intruiging plot twists. It’s fun. Come see it at my house.

Anyway. My point, finally, is that I saw Robert Altman’s film The Company this evening, and fell in love with Neve Campbell all over again. The movie is quite beautiful; nothing really happens and you don’t really understand the people in it, but it feels strangely real and intimate, like listening to a stranger’s conversation on the phone — you have only a few pieces of the story, but what you have is true. And the dance scenes are quite mesmerising. At first I wasn’t sure that Neve was actually doing them herself, but what do you know?

She is.

Guess my old Julia grew up good.