3 posts tagged “movies”
January is always a bad month for me. I'm usually so work-stressed during the holidaze that I don't get depressed. In January? After the stress goes away, I end up in the Abyss for a month.
I always know it's coming, so I can handle it. Key is avoiding situations that would add unneeded stress, and thus I spend a lot of time alone. This weekend, I've spent a bunch of time watching movies. They are (in order of appearance):
- The Silence of the Lambs I saw this one in the theater when it opened, and it was amazing. Jodi Foster's performance is so rich and powerful, I was hoping she'd win the Oscar, even just a couple years after winning for The Accused. One of my favorite go-to character actors--Scott Glenn--was great as Jack Crawford, and Jonathan Demme's film was wonderfully dark and creepy. This one is aging beautifully, and I love it each time I see it. (Oh, and Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter rocks, of course). Grade: A (DVD)
- L.A. Confidential Another one I saw in the theater. Great ensemble cast, led by Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and James Cromwell. Kim Basinger was good. Oscar-worthy? Eh. I probably would've gone with Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights," but I have a thing for redheads. Danny DeVito provided a nice comedic counterpoint, even when getting the shit beaten out of him. I thought this was the best picture of 1997. Too bad it was up against Titanic. Grade: A
- American Pie I was so ready to hate this film when first I saw it, but I loved it. It's not art, nor does it aspire to be, but it's also so much better than other films of the teen sex movie genre. Jason Biggs was the main character, but I liked the supporting characters more. Funny movie, but with a surprising amount of heart. And the part where Allyson Hannigan (the "flute-toting band dork," Michelle) throws Jason Biggs on his back, slaps him and says, "WHAT'S MY NAME, BITCH?" still makes me howl. Grade: B+ (DVD)
- Monty Python's The Meaning of Life I loved this movie when I was younger. It's irreverent and funny in parts. Over time (and repeated viewings), it's lost some of its appeal. It's basically a bunch of 7 minute sketches cobbled together. Some of them are brilliant (Birth, the "Every Sperm is Sacred" part, Mr Creosote puking, Death); others are uneven and not funny (The war part, middle age, the waiter explaining things). When it's good, though, it's very good. That's why God invented the "skip" button. Grade: B- (DVD)
- 21 Grams The title refers to the weight of the human soul. When we die, it seems, we lose 21 grams of mass. Three characters' lives intersect after a traffic accident. This film is dark, intense, and depressing, with the narrative all out of sequence. This is one of those movies I wouldn't really recommend to most people, but I loved it. Amazing performances, too, by Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and (especially) Naomi Watts. Grade: A (hulu.com)
Analysis:
I don't own a lot of DVD's, but I love most of the ones I do. There are some films I can just watch repeatedly ("Hot Fuzz," eg, or "South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut"). Others, I keep around, just for when I need them. Movies are weird that way for me.
Judging from the above selections, I'd say I like dramatic films, serious films about seriously bent people. I also like silliness and fart jokes. Oddly enough, I get as much catharsis out of Hannibal Lecter's gleefully polite insanity as I do from hearing band geek Michelle say she pleasured herself with a flute.
I guess there's too much seriousness and drama in day to day life. It takes somebody over-the-top like a Lecter or Captain Dudley Smith to break through my callouses, or something so deliciously wrong as a huuuuuuuuuuuge man projectile vomiting all over a flouncy French restaurant to crack me up.
Either way, I escape.
What are five movies you love far more than you probably should?
(Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Casablanca, et al, are on lots of people's favorites. Name five movies that just work for you, even if critics hate it and your friends roll their eyes)
1) Brighton Beach Memoirs. My ex-Jenny and I watched this one about 500,000 times. It has so many great lines--"Where am I going, to a nightclub?" "THERE ARE NO BONES IN LIVER!" "The whole world whacks off."--and I always end up laughing before they say them.
2) Tommy Boy. Critics hate this one, but I laugh my ass off every time, especially the scene with "Superstar". Total guilty pleasure movie.
3) Tombstone. Kurt Russell is okay as Wyatt Earp, but it's Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday that steals the movie. Powers Boothe, Sam Elliot, and Michael Biehn are also fantastic. And I love Dana Delaney.
4) The Cotton Club. I love the music, the tap-dancing, the 19 year-old Diane Lane, and some really well-drawn characters: Dutch Schultz, Bumpy the gangster, and Owny and Frenchy.
5) tie: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, and Monty Python's Meaning of Life. SP just killed me, especially the songs ("Uncle F*cker", eg) and Cartman's exultant torrent of profanity that zapped Saddam Hussein back to hell. MPMoL had some great songs as well ("The Penis Song", eg), but it was just so wonderfully silly as it made fun of everybody that it cracks me up, regardless of my mood or blood-chemistry.
Sure, I love the "classics," too. But I'll watch these five (six, actually) whenever they're on, and love every minute.
(Thanks to Kelly the Culture Maven for the inspiration)
I had a strange thought the other day. I wanted to go into a Hollywood editing room, collect all the scenes from the proverbial cutting room floor, and splice them together to make my own movie.
Life is like that. Over the course of my life, I've wandered through courtroom dramas, romantic comedies, hospital stories, wilderness adventures, road-trip movies, romantic comedies, romantic tragedies, even, alas, pornography. I drank plenty of beers and things in various "Cheers" environments, spent a few appalling seasons with "The Bad News Bears," and I've spent many moons working in a combination "FM" and "WKRP in Cincinnati."
In most movies, you have your protagonist who lives through a situation, then there's a tidy resolution, and the credits roll. Reality is rarely so neat.
I've looked at my own life, as well as the lives of my friends--proximal and Interweb--and it's rare that we play one role at a time. The Tom who had to go to traffic court in "The State of Florida vs. Tom" is only marginally related to the Tom who sat in The Fern Bar, playing the trivia machine, while Deanne the Sales Assistant put a quesadilla in my mouth and her tongue in my ear. The Tom who won an extra-inning game with a key walk-off single one foggy Little League night is quite different from the Tom who ended up crippled by depression a few years ago. The Tom who walked home from the bus stop giddy after his first kiss with Kristen K back in 8th grade shares little with the pessimistic Tom who was bitter for years over breaking up with the Devil Bitch.
And yet they are the same Tom. I suppose it's analogous to seeing Bogie as suave Rick in "Casablanca" then the decidedly unsuave Charlie in "The African Queen." Same Humphrey Bogart, different roles, different circumstances. In real life, we play different parts depending on what life throws our way. Helena Ekdahl--the grandmother in "Fanny and Alexander--had a wonderful soliloquy about having played different roles during her life: the new bride, the mother, the grieving widow, the grandmother. Some of my friends are celebrating anniversaries tonight. Others are falling in love. Others, still, are heartbroken as they endure breakups, that sad denouement in which there are no true winners. Some friends are in limbo, unsure of where their relationships are going.
In the past few months, I've had two close friends die suddenly, and I very nearly joined them. I've also had moments of pure giddiness and joy. I've had bouts of fear and depression, and episodes where I've felt amazingly loved, safe and contented.
Life isn't a single journey, but splices from various journeys. In "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," Ferris and pals are in the museum, and Cameron stares at the pointillist painting, ""Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte". He locks on the image of a little girl with her mother. The camera zooms in, showing that this beautiful image is just a bunch of paint dots. Our lives aren't just snapshots for others to examine, but pastiches of various roles we've played.
Ana-Sofia (aka, Kitten) was just sitting out on the balcony, giving somebody the business. I went out to see what was annoying her so much. There was a white bird, skimming in long graceful circles, just above the water. Periodically, the bird opened its beak, and scratched a line along the lake's surface, hoovering up bugs for dinner. The quarter-moon was reflecting on the water, and--in a fantastic movie cliche--the bird beaked a line right through the moon's visage. To the cat, the bird was an affront, a pain-in-the-ass interloper in her quiet night tableau. To the bird, it was just the search for food--a simple act of survival, the only way it knows to eat. To me, with a lovely Boston Market dinner digesting happily inside me, it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen.
As characters in our life movies, we all react, participate, and observe, often simultaneously. Today, I worked, played, read, wrote, ate, slept, laughed. While I worked, I did two crossword puzzles while half-watching a documentary on the C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. A few miles away, a crew of Coast Guard aircraft mechanics listened to my show while working on their C-130 Hercules cargo/search plane.
We do our best with the lines and situations we're given. I like my movie so far, jumbled menagerie that it is. When I die someday, I'll be interested to hear the Director's commentary, and to see how all these unrelated dots--flying birds, late night tv shows, Boston Market meatloaf, voicing Florida Orchestra commercials, driving in traffic, petting my cat--emerge as a salient image. I'm not expecting a blockbuster; I just pray it's better than "Bonfire of the Vanities."
