From a two-year-old interview with Quentin Tarantino:
“People discover North by Northwest at 22 and think it’s wonderful when actually it’s a very mediocre movie. I’ve always felt that Hitchcock’s acolytes took his cinematic and story ideas further. I love Brian De Palma’s Hitchcock movies. I love Richard Franklin’s and Curtis Hanson’s Hitchcock meditations. I prefer those to actual Hitchcock.” And Tarantino also prefers—passionately defends—Gus Van Sant’s meta art-manque shot-by-shot remake of Psycho over the original Hitchcock film.
I always knew my sensibilities were incompatible with this guy’s, even if he does know how to compose a nice shot.
Man, if you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d someday be nostalgic for the 1990s… well, let’s just say I would’ve found that highly improbable. But then, the idea that the ’90s were 20 years ago seems pretty damn improbable to me as well.
I was in my twenties during that decade and, at the time, things didn’t seem to be going so well for Mrs. Bennion’s golden child. I’d graduated from college without the slightest idea of what to do next. I didn’t know how to search for quote-unquote grown-up jobs, or even what sort of job I wanted, and so I spent more years than I should have working low-paying, demoralizing temp gigs. While my friends were out there beginning careers and starting their lives, I was feeling stuck and beginning to have my first real battles with depression. In addition, I was feeling increasingly alienated from the one thing by which I’d always defined myself, popular culture. I’d also become politically aware just in time for our politics to begin their devolution into nasty, scorched-earth-style partisanship. And my love life was a source of never-ending angst, naturally. Basically, my twenties were pretty shitty. At least… they seemed that way at the time.
But time is a tricksy devil. It has a way of knocking off the rough edges and sanding the surface smooth. When I look back now on the decade of my twenties and the crazy era they occupied, I don’t see all the anxiety and self-loathing. Well, not much of it, anyhow. What I see now is a moment I wish I could recapture, honestly. I see a lot less responsibility and a lot more free time than I have now. I see energy and possibilities in quantities I wish I still had. I see the excitement of new love and of early travels, the joy of discovering things — discovering everything, really — and the confidence that comes from not yet knowing how hard the world can really be. I see a world that was curiously naive compared to the morass that surrounds us now. I see golden-hour sunlight and open roads, and I feel soft breezes in my face that are rarely so balmy now. Mostly, I just see myself young, more handsome than I believed myself to be and stronger than I knew.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that era the past few days, so here’s a song from back then that I liked. No particular reason, no specific associations. I just liked this one. I still do.
“Can’t Cry Anymore” was the sixth single from Sheryl Crow’s smash debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club, which was one of my favorites back in the day. The song was released in May of 1995, nearly a year after the album itself, and although it only rose to number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was Crow’s third top-40 hit.
I’m a couple days late with this, but I’m a sucker for these silly quizzes that used to be so popular in the old days of blogging, so here’s a thingie I stole from Facebook:
? How long have you and your significant other been together? 24 years (!)
? Do you have any children together? Nope.
? What about pets? Our kitty boy Evinrude, plus various feral and semi-feral cats that include ‘rude’s mother and a sad-eyed, scruffy-looking bugger we’ve started calling “Stuart” because he reminds me of the pathetic comic-shop owner on The Big Bang Theory.
? Who said I love you first? I don’t remember… probably her. Girls are mushy like that.
? Who is the most sensitive? Depends on the subject. We both have our Big Red Buttons.
? Where do you eat out most as a couple? Geez, I don’t know… probably Five Guys.
? Who’s older? Me, by a year and a half.
? Who has the worst temper? Well… I’m more prone to spontaneous flare-ups, but she has this thing where she can simmer for hours that’s far more frightening than my passing storms.
? Who is more social? Me
? Who is the neat freak? Me, although I’m not extreme about it. In other words, I generate plenty of clutter too, but I usually break and start to tidy before she does.
? Most romantic? Her.
? Who is the most stubborn? We can both be pretty hard-headed about things that matter to us.
? Who wakes earliest? Her during the work week; me on the weekends.
? Who’s the funniest? We make each other laugh pretty often and pretty hard, so I really can’t say.
? Where was your first date? Squatter’s Pub. Anne is convinced I was trying to get her drunk. I just wanted to introduce her to good beer. (She hates beer. Sigh.)
? Who has the biggest family? Her — I’m an only child.
? Do you get flowers often? Occasionally, when she’s trying to butter me up. 😉
? Who was interested first? Her, no question.
? Who picks where you go to eat? We tend to play the “I don’t know, where do you want to eat?” card a lot, so… both?
? Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? Her
? Who wears the pants in the family? Who wears pants?
? Who eats more sweets? We both have pretty demanding sweet-tooths. (Sweet-teeth?) Anne probably gives in to hers a little more often…
? Married? Um…well… somehow we never got around to that…
? More sarcastic? I don’t know… her, maybe? Depends on our respective moods, I guess.
? Who makes the most mess? Her
? Hogs the remote? We’re pretty egalitarian with that.
? Better driver? I’d say we’re both pretty decent drivers.
? Spends the most? Um… well, I am the one who just ordered that coffee table book of classic Star Wars newspaper comics…
? Who is smarter? I’ve got more book learnin’, but I let her do my taxes, so you tell me…
? Did you go to the same school? Yes, but I didn’t know her until after I graduated (she’s younger)
? Where is the furthest you two have traveled to? Scotland
? Who hogs the bed? Her — sorry, ducks.
? Who does the laundry? Her… but I help with the folding.
? Who’s better with the computer? Me. Which is scary because computers hate me, and I hate them right back.
? Who drives when you are together? Depends on whose car we’re in.
“People change over the years, and we hope that the we that is us never changes. Yesterday we were kids, and tomorrow we’ll be old, and we think we’re the same people we were, despite all evidence to the contrary.
“But sometimes we play music that lets us be us then and us now and us still to come, and it’s all worth it, every minute, every aching second, every gaping now.”
So, I don’t know about you, but I’m just sitting here this morning watching that new trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story on a continuous loop, like this:
