Alright, it's that time again. I choose to make up a new rating device for my (Thursday)Friday writing. Here it is:
I’d like to talk with you today about something that is very dear to my heart. Ever since I saw Aladdin in the rinky-dink old theater near my house when I was four, I have been fascinated by the art of movies. The gen-pop thinks of movies only as entertainment and th
e people who are way into film think of them as art. I know both of these factions are wrong. Obviously, film is both art and entertainment. Every movie lies somewhere on the spectrum between the Mona Lisa and Dogs Playing Poker. No, that’s not right either. Let’s use the “horizontal” and “vertical” ideas from class to classify movies better. If entertainment value can be seen as a horizontal scale and the artistic nature as the vertical scale, every movie has a distinct x and y value (this is what happens when you take a former engineering major and turn him into an English major). If the x value is negative, the movie is no fun to watch, but if it’s positive you are gonna get some kind of pleasure out of it. If the y value is negative there is no art to be found, but if it’s positive you’ll see something original or perfectly executed. Allow me to give you some examples.Recently, there has been a stint of what some people call “comedies” but I like to call “crap”. These are the Date Movie, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie endless stream of ______ Movie “spoofs”. If I were to assign these films a coordinate on our art/film graph, they would have something like a (-100, -10000). Please take my word for it. I have seen them so you don’t have to.
Let’s now examine a good movie. Last year a French(ish) film called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was released. It’s the story of the then editor-in-chief of Elle magazine who becomes paralyzed and can only move one of his eyeballs. The first fifteen or so minutes are shot from the point of view of that eye and it is breathtaking. There is a scene where his other eye must be stitched up and we see that from the POV of that eye and it is nerve-wracking. This movie is the perfect example of art and entertainment because not only is it technically marvelous, it is also a touching, funny story. There is a flashback to the main character shaving his father’s beard that made me cry. I would give The Diving Bell and The Butterfly a (80, 99) coordinate on my newly created scale.
Of course, there are films that are extremely well made but horrible to watch. The recently remade Funny Games is a perfect example of this phenomenon. It’s a story about a family on vacation who are basically kidnapped and tortured in their own house by two seemingly nice young men. This isn’t torture-porn of the Saw or Hostel variety, though. None of the violence is onscreen and the movie breaks the fourth wall several times. It is incredibly well made, but made to make you feel bad about wanting to watch movies that are entertaining because of their violence. There is no joy from watching the perfectly executed treatise on violence in movies, but you cannot deny that it is precisely planned to be that way. It would get about a (-50, 80) on the scale ‘o’ artertainment (I made that word up. I’m a regular Dr. Seuss).
I hope you have enjoyed your education. Now you know how to properly view films, or at least how to properly think about a film afterward.
We're 1/4th of the way there!
Blade Runner
I'm going to confess something that may shame me for forever and a day. I only saw Blade Runner this year. I know, I'm a 20 year old movie nerd who enjoys sci-fi and I haven't seen what is considered to be one of the best of the genre until I was 20. But I got the four disc DVD at Christmas and it is amazing.
Blade Runner is a noir-ish detective story focusing on a Blade Runner (the ever-awesome Harrison-get off my plane-Ford) who hunts down robots that look and act like humans. It's an age old story. Director Ridley Scott has made a sci-fi movie that still looks good today, a feat not so easy to accomplish. So watch it.
Here is the trailer for those who have not seen it:
and one of the best monologues of all time for those who have (SPOILER)
First of three films from this director to make my list, it's
Punch-Drunk Love
I watched Boogie Nights first, then Magnolia, then this, all in anticipation of There Will Be Blood in the second half of last year. Needless to say, Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA from now on) rocketed into my must-follow list. He is the best director working today.
This movie is like an Adam Sandler film brought down to earth, then spun around a bit and painted by a three year old. It's amazing. Take your typical Sandler character and make him a real person. He is child-like but not immature, at least not in the fart joke way. There is a girl and a harpsichord-thingie and a Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What more could you need. And it's beautiful.
Watch these two if you haven't seen it:
And this one if you have seen it to remember how amazing it is:
Ever since I watched Urban Legend on TNT one summer day, I have been afraid of seeing things while driving. It started just being afraid of driving at night in the rain while listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler after being stammered at by a guy with Chucky's (the murderous doll) voice. Turns out if all of those things happen to you there will be a guy in your back seat with an axe waiting to chop off your head at the perfect intersection between lightning flashes and the climax of the song.
So I took that song off my iPod. Easy solution, right? Well, then my friend John had to tell me what is perhaps the scariest story I have ever heard. One night he was driving alone down a windy Connecticut back-road at night. He saw something on the side of the road. It looked like a person hunched over. Upon closer inspection it looked more like a wolf-man hunched over on the side of the road. It was blacker than the night and looked very hairy. Then he got closer and it was just a trash bag. Unfortunately, both he and I have over-active imaginations and we forget about the last part and focus on how scary it would be to see a wolf-man on the side of the road in the middle of the night. So now I only drive with the lights off.
Another transportation based scare is the time I watched the Twilight Zone movie. Johnathan Lithgow (who was in one of my favorite shows of the time, Third Rock From The Sun) took the role of "Paranoid Plane Person Who Sees A Gremlin Tearing The Plane Apart" from William Shatner. This shot still scares me:
Next up...
The Incredibles!
Congrats Basil.
Not only is this the best Pixar movie (until Friday, at least), and one of the best animated movies (there will be one more on the list), it is also the best superhero movie. Better than Batman Begins, better than Iron Man, and better than 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
So here it is. A family of undercover superheroes, while trying to live the quiet suburban life, are forced into action to save the world. Awesomeness ensues.
Here, watch this.
It has Sam Jackson in it. So...
No update since Wednesday?
Using one of the oldest jokes in the book?
Saying "oldest joke(s) in the book"?
Not cleaning up my room?
Sacrificing play for pay?
Religiously watching the Real World, The Paper, Jeopardy, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles?
Wanting to see The Happening?
Giving up my moral high ground and watching an Ed Norton movie?
Having three questions about movies?
Doing a whole post of rhetorical questions?
Wow, I suck.
Well, I was close to what I said on Monday.
#19: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Like Shaun of the Dead, this is a genre movie with a comedy twist. And it focuses on two guys with a girl. And there are dead people, but they aren't zombies. The genre this time is noir with a little bit of the buddy cop dynamics thrown in for good measure.
Harry (Robert Downey Jr.) is a crook who is mistaken for an actor. He teams up with P.I. Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) to learn the ways of the detective. Of course they get wrapped up in a twisting murder plot.
Most importantly, this movie is hilarious. With dialogue like
Perry: Merry Christmas, sorry I fucked you over.
Harry: No problem. Don't quit your gay job.
and...
Perry: Did your dad love you?
Harry: Only when I dressed up like a beer bottle, how about you?
Perry: Well, he used to beat me in Morse code, so it's possible, but he never said the words.
you can't go wrong. You must watch this movie as soon as you possibly can. Here's a scene because the trailer sucks.
A lot of you guys know me from filmspotting, but I don't know if I have ever made a "definitive" top 20 movies list. So I'm gonna do it here. Good luck to me!
#20: SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Directed by Edgar Frost and written by Frost and star Simon Pegg, this 2004 horror comedy is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Not only is it insanely quotable (Shaun: As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in meat pie. Anagram of meat is team... I don't know what he was talking about. ), it is also a damn good zombie movie. Here is the trailer for your enjoyment. Enjoy.
Hello everybody! Nice to have you here. This will be my writing repository. Every time I finish a story or a draft of a story or have something writing related to say, I'll put it here. I welcome your feedback and hope you enjoy my writing.
A little about me. I am an English(?) major at the University of Connecticut. Other than writing, my time is spent taking pictures and watching movies. I have another blog, Ever Day A Photo where I post a new photo every day. It's pretty self explanatory. My favorite book is Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. It was given to me by my aunt at a young age and ever since I first read it I fell in love. There are stories that change the way you look at life and The Phantom Tollbooth was my first experience. It even gave this blog it's name!
Alright, enough about me. Have a peek around and leave me some feedback, if you please.