Film Studies

May142013

I Knew I Liked This Guy…

Frank Darabont, who wrote and directed three of the best cinematic adaptations of the curiously difficult-to-film work of Stephen King — The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist — said something the other day that made me smile.

Following a film-festival screening of The Mist, an audience member asked the movie’s star, Thomas Jane, and Darabont about the movie’s incredibly bleak ending, specifically whether there was any right choice Jane’s character could have made under the circumstances. Darabont’s answer went like this:

“Whatever your interpretation is, that’s the right one. That’s why I made the movie. What do you think? Guess what, that’s the right answer. … Except for anyone who thinks that Rick Deckard is a replicant, they’re … wrong.”

I love it when a pro validates my opinion. Especially when it involves one movie director calling out another one for not really understanding his own damn movie.

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you must not be much of a Blade Runner fan. Ridley Scott, the director of that film, has long been pushing the notion that Deckard — the film’s protagonist, played by Harrison Ford — is himself a replicant, i.e., one of the synthetic people Deckard spends the movie hunting down and killing. But that interpretation completely invalidates the whole bloody point of that movie. Blade Runner is about empathy, about learning to put yourself in the shoes of somebody else and see the similarities instead of the differences. Deckard gradually comes to understand that the “skin jobs” he’s “retiring” are as human as he is, so he has no moral justification for murdering them, and in the end, he throws in his lot with the last of them by running away with Rachel. It’s a very humanistic movie… assuming that the lead character is, in fact, a human being. If Deckard is just another replicant, he experiences no moral growth, and the movie’s subtle, sensitive theme gets sacrificed for a cheap Twilight Zone-style twist. At least that’s how I see it.)

May032013

It’s Like We’re Living in the Future, Part XXVIII

The movie Blade Runner seems to be one of those polarizing flicks that either works for you or it doesn’t. Despite its wide reputation as a classic that rose from the ashes of its initial failure at the box office, I know a number of people who just don’t understand the fuss that gets made over this one. And you know, that’s perfectly valid. I feel the same way about Pulp Fiction myself. It’s immensely popular, critically acclaimed, massively influential… and it does absolutely nothing for me. In fact, it actively repelled me the one and only time I actually watched it. So, yeah, Blade Runner critics, I hear you. But I don’t agree with you.

Personally, I find Blade Runner endlessly fascinating, especially its incredibly dense production design. The first time I saw the movie when I was about 13 or thereabouts, I didn’t understand a lick about its themes of weary existentialism (“tears in the rain”) or its defiant romanticism (“it’s too bad she won’t live… but then again, who does?”), but its depiction of a 21st century Los Angeles mesmerized me. Even now, when I watch it, I sometimes find myself slipping into a kind of reverie, not paying attention to what’s happening on-screen so much as where it’s happening. There are so many details in every shot, everything from brand logos to buzzing neon signs to weirdly menacing technology to plain old dirt and grime to that insane, dazzling blimp floating through shots as it shills for the Off-World Colonies. All this stuff builds on itself, layer after layer, to finally accrete into — in my opinion — one of the most realistic futuristic environments ever presented on screen.

One little detail I particularly love is the lumbering juggernaut of an automobile you can see in one of the street scenes, an early-Sixties something I’ve never quite been able to identify — you get a pretty good look at it in this clip, at about the 0:32 mark — mingling with all the bubble-topped Spinners and boxy utilitarian transports of the imaginary year 2019. Growing up around old cars and the people who love them, I understand and believe in the idea that some folks will never let go and will find a way to keep their beloved old beasts on the road as long as possible.

I found myself thinking of that scene this morning as I drove to the train station. I got stuck, as I so often do, in the middle of a morning convoy, a two-lane-wide “Mormon blockade,” as we call them around here (because they so often consist of mothers taking their multiple children to school). But today, right there alongside all those boxy, utilitarian SUVs and aerodynamic, bubble-topped sedans and hybrids, was an Edsel station wagon from the late 1950s.

Our real-world 2015 doesn’t much resemble the dystopian 2019 of Blade Runner — at least, not yet — but that doesn’t mean that life doesn’t imitate art! At least closely enough to make a fortysomething nerd smile and write a blog entry about it…

Apr042013

In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

When I heard Wednesday that Roger Ebert’s cancer had returned and he was being forced to curtail his activities, I figured he probably wasn’t going to beat it this time. But I didn’t expect to hear of his passing the very next day. Especially considering that he was still talking about writing and various other ventures in what turned out to be his final blog entry:

My intent is to continue to write selected reviews [for his website, rogerebert.com] but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review. … And I continue to cooperate with the talented filmmaker Steve James on the bio-documentary he, Steve Zaillian and Martin Scorsese are making about my life. I am humbled that anyone would even think to do it, but I am also grateful. …

At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.

I’ll also be able to review classics for my “Great Movies” collection, which has produced three books and could justify a fourth.

For now, I am throwing myself into Ebert Digital and the redesigned, highly interactive and searchable Rogerebert.com.

Those don’t sound to me like the words of a man who expects to die within the week. Perhaps he was in denial. Or perhaps, like so many of the rest of us, he just figured there was still time, at least a little more time, enough to do at least some of what he wanted. And then quite suddenly, there wasn’t. Dream’s little sister came calling sooner than anyone expected.

I often have emotional reactions upon hearing of the death of some celebrity that I admire… a sense of loss, a momentary twinge of sadness. But right now I’m feeling like I’ve just been punched in the gut. I don’t think I realized until about 20 minutes ago what a hero this pudgy, pugnacious, erudite, eloquent man was to me. I can’t recall feeling this degree of shock and, yes, actual pain over the loss of a public figure since DeForest Kelley became the first member of the original Star Trek cast to die way back in 1999.

***TEXT MISSING***

Mar242013

Wherein I Commit My First Act of Fanfic…

I’ve engaged with my various media-related obsessions in lots of different ways over the years, but I must confess I’ve never had much use for fan fiction, better-known in geeky circles as “fanfic.”

No offense if fanfic is your thing; it’s just never been my thing. As far as writing goes, I’ve always thought my time and energies ought to be spent working on my own original ideas rather than playing in someone else’s sandbox. And when it comes to reading fanfic… well, I haven’t delved very deeply into the scene, but what I’ve encountered by chance has been all over the map in terms of quality, with the low end being really astonishingly painful, and often the themes or scenarios being explored do not speak to my interests, assuming they don’t outright contradict my understanding of the parent property. (For instance, so-called “slash” fiction — which I understand is a common subcategory of fanfic — offends my sensibilities not because it depicts same-sex relationships, but because the characters involved are usually not defined as homosexual in the original source material. Kirk and Spock, the stars of the earliest documented slash stories that I know of, are not gay; there is no on-screen evidence anywhere that they have same-sex attractions toward anybody, let alone each other, so stories in which they get together don’t pass muster with my suspension of disbelief. They’re just not plausible in my mind.) So, yeah, not into fanfic.

Which means that I am rather chagrined as I announce that I have, in fact, just written a piece of it myself.

I didn’t really intend to… and I don’t know that I ever will again. It’s just that I had this idea a while back, and it’s steadfastly refused to leave my imagination alone, even after months of neglect. So I finally gave in this morning and banged out the little tidbit that follows in about 20 minutes. It’s the first time in a very long time indeed that I’ve felt that ecstatic gushing sensation when the words and the story seem to almost tell themselves. I haven’t written any fiction in longer than I care to admit, and in recent weeks even blogging has becoming something of a chore. (You may have noticed recent entries lack a certain spark… although I hope you haven’t!) Whatever value this fanfic trifle may or may not possess — and I’m not going to pretend it has much — it’s at least demonstrated to me that something I’ve lately been fearing was lost forever is still there, somewhere deep down. I can still write, and I can still experience joy when I do it. Writing this was… reassuring. And I had fun while I was doing it. Surely that’s worth something, even if the result itself is lame, right?

I don’t want to ruin any surprises, so I won’t say any more by way of introduction, except to note that what I’ve created here is in the form of a screenplay. You’ll understand why as you get into it, I think…

Mar112013

The Mystery of the Moon Tower… SOLVED!

I read the other day that Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklater’s rambling cinematic ode to his own teenage life in the mid 1970s, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Twenty years… holy crap. There are some pop-cultural landmarks that feel like 20 years (or more) really have passed, and then there are others that make me think I must’ve been frozen during a routine deep-space probe and blown into an orbit much more vast than originally planned, because surely that event just happened a couple weeks ago. Guess which one Dazed and Confused feels like to me? Maybe it’s some kind of psychosomatic effect from all the pot smoked in that film.

For the record, I wouldn’t call Dazed one of my favorite movies. I don’t have any particular memories, fond or otherwise, associated with it, and I don’t think it made any extraordinary impact on me. But I did enjoy it when I first saw it, and I’ve actually found it even funnier and more endearing on subsequent viewings, a genuine rarity when it comes to comic films. Like George Lucas’ American Graffiti (which Dazed and Confused resembles in many ways), the movie is essentially plotless, a series of vignettes that follow several groups of young people around during a very long summer night as they party, get into (relatively minor) trouble, and struggle to figure out what it’s all about as they near the inevitable transition into adulthood. Also like Lucas’ film, Dazed‘s real strength is less rooted in what happens than in the way it seems to authentically capture the textures and mood of a very specific and forever-gone moment in time — 1962 in Graffiti, 1976 in Dazed. (Personally, I think it’s kind of fun to imagine that the kids in Dazed are the children of the kids in Graffiti… the timing almost works.) And it’s one of the very few movies in which I’ve actually enjoyed Matthew McConnaughey’s performance. His delivery of that infamous line about liking high-school girls because they stay the same age while he gets older is pitch-perfect, just the right combination of eyebrow-waggling sleaze and good-natured cluelessness. It never fails to crack me up. (My appreciation of this joke is probably helped, in part, because I went through a similar phase in my own life. Yes, it’s true: I was one of those losers who continued hanging around my old alma mater for a time after I graduated. Most of my significant girlfriends — including The Girlfriend — were a couple grades behind me in school…)

There is one element of Dazed and Confused that’s always mystified me, though, and that’s the setting for the big kegger that fills the back half of the movie, a place the characters refer to as “the moon tower.” As seen in the film, the moon tower is a big metal structure in the middle of nowhere, with incredibly bright lights mounted on top of it. I’ve always assumed it was a radio or TV transmitter tower like we have around here, even though it looks nothing like the slender red-and-white columns with red aircraft warning lights blinking away to the west of my house, and the term “moon tower” was just a nickname bestowed by the local kids.

Totally wrong.

It turns out the moon tower seen in Dazed and Confused is a historical relic from the early days of electric lighting. Before the modern paradigm of incandescent (or, increasingly, LED) lamps at street level was worked out, many American cities experimented with placing large carbon-arc lamps on high towers that resembled oil derricks, so a relative handful of lights could illuminate entire neighborhoods from above. The effect was something like the light of a full moon, hence the structures became known as “moonlight towers” or “moon towers.” An elegant idea, but sadly, one that came with unforeseen problems, including animals being completely discombobulated — to the point of death, in some cases! — by the sudden and near-total banishment of nighttime. (The details are recounted in an interesting Atlantic article I ran across the other day.)

The age of artificial moonlight passed quickly and is hardly remembered today. But curiously enough, 17 moon towers still stand in and around Austin, Texas, where Richard Linklater went to college and where Dazed and Confused was filmed. Their light sources were long ago updated to common mercury-vapor lamps, but it makes me happy that such unique and oddball treasures survive somewhere. If nothing else, they’re useful reminders that we shouldn’t take for granted the way things are done, especially mundane things nobody thinks about anymore, like street lighting. It seems like our current system should’ve been the obvious solution to illuminating a city, but it wasn’t; it fascinates me to think what other ideas were tried out and abandoned…

(Hat tip: As with so many of the interesting links I’m finding these days, I spotted that Atlantic at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.)

Jan032013

Movie Review: Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher is the kind of movie I rarely encounter these days: a tight, comprehensible action/detective thriller with both a heart and a brain, as well as some unexpectedly snappy dialogue that occasionally rivals the great exchanges of a classic 1940s noir. Tom Cruise plays the title character, a former military policeman who now exists as a vagabond, roaming from place to place in search of an understanding of what it is he spent his former life defending (i.e., he’s looking for America, as they used to say), and although he doesn’t invite trouble, it tends to find him anyway in the form of crimes to be solved and innocents to be protected. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this film is yet another variation on the theme that defined so many of the 1970s and ’80s television series I’ve always loved, a dude wandering around helping people, and I thoroughly enjoyed it every frame of it.

In large part, that’s because I was given the opportunity to actually see every frame. Jack Reacher eschews the hated shaky-cam cinematography and Cuisinart school of editing that has ruined other recent action films for me in favor of a more old-fashioned look. Fight scenes make sense, action is sequential and easy to follow (although no less visceral or brutal), and a car-chase scene between Reacher in a vintage Chevy muscle car and some Russian-mobster baddies in an Audi R8 is pure adrenaline-soaked pleasure, with no apparent CGI or editorial trickery, just two actual cars battling it out on real streets.

The movie is adapted from the ninth book in a series of novels by the author Lee Child. In an echo of the controversy when Cruise landed the role of Anne Rice’s Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, many of Child’s fans have been grumbling about his casting — the literary Reacher is apparently a very different physical type — but I thought Tommy-boy inhabited the character well. In fact, this is the most I’ve enjoyed his work in a very long time. The slightly creepy blankness he’s displayed in most of his recent films is absent here, and I was reminded of the talented, charismatic movie star I used to think he was before he became the Church of Scientology’s couch-jumping poster child.

Honestly, I’d love to see him play this character again. I never really got into the Mission: Impossible series, but I wouldn’t mind Jack Reacher becoming an ongoing franchise…

Dec072012

Quick Take: Moon

I’m a few years behind in seeing Moon, the 2009 indie science-fiction film directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie!), but wow, what a great little movie. Sam Rockwell, perhaps best known for Galaxy Quest and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, turns in a bravura performance (or is that two performances?) in a virtual one-man show about the lone occupant of a lunar mining base who’s beginning to question his sanity as the end of his three-year tour approaches. It’s essentially a character study wrapped up in a mystery story that brilliantly expands on some of the ideas explored in my beloved Blade Runner — specifically questions of identity and whether we can trust our own memories, and what a person might go through emotionally when those things turn out to be… unreliable. I feared for a time that this was going to turn into one of those “mindf**k” stories that I have so little patience for, but in the end all is explained and logical and satisfactory. It’s a moving, very human story with plausible sci-fi underpinnings. And honestly, I think Moon looks every bit as good as this year’s Prometheus in terms of production design and FX, and it was done on a fraction of the budget using old-school miniatures instead of CGI.

Highly — and I do mean highly — recommended.

Dec032012

J.J. Abrams Isn’t Winning Me Over

If my Loyal Readers will recall, I didn’t hate J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise, but I wasn’t especially wild about it either. I thought it was a superficially exhilarating popcorn flick, but really pretty dumb at its core. Also, for all the ballyhoo about the way Trek 2.0 (as I like to shorthand it) created an alternate Star Trek timeline in order to free the filmmakers from the accumulated continuity of five TV series and 10 previous feature films, its plot about a vengeance-seeking madman with a doomsday weapon struck me as, well, let’s call it overly familiar. And we won’t even speak of those damn lens-flares.

Now the marketing machine is cranking up again for the first of who knows how many Trek 2.0 sequels to come, Star Trek into Darkness. (Yes, I typed that correctly. If you haven’t been keeping up with this stuff, Abrams, et. al., has dropped the franchise’s long-established naming convention, i.e., Star Trek-colon-subtitle.) The first official poster design has hit the InterWebs and I’ve just got to say… I’m not impressed.

First of all, does it remind you of anything? It ought to, considering its obvious inspiration was well-nigh ubiquitous this summer:

Apparently, Abrams wanted to escape from established Star Trek lore so he could rip off Batman.

Okay, that’s not fair. A poster is just marketing, after all, and I’ve been following the movie biz long enough to know there’s often a huge disconnect between the marketing and the actual film, and the writers and directors rarely have anything to say about it. Perfect example: this year’s John Carter, a fun, swashbuckling fantasy of the old-school “planetary romance” variety and, in my opinion, the first adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs that came anywhere near to being faithful to the source material. (All those Tarzan flicks? Yeah, not much resemblance to the literary Tarzan, for the most part.) Carter should’ve been huge, in my opinion. But the movie was doomed from the start by a half-assed ad campaign that made the uninitiated think it was a turgid, deadly serious rip-off of Attack of the Clones, and also by the studio’s curious reluctance to accurately call it what it really was: John Carter of Mars. So I acknowledge that it’s far too early for me to write off Star Trek into Darkness as something I won’t like, and pretty reactionary to do so on the basis of one poster (not to mention the title, which, for the record, I also don’t like).

Nevertheless, I’m not seeing much in this poster that says “Star Trek” to me. Whatever happened to “the final frontier” and “strange new worlds” and “going boldly?” Where’s the wonder of the human adventure? What I see here is plainly Earth — specifically London, as you can see that weird Gherkin building in the skyline; apparently, it’s still standing in the 23rd century — and it’s dystopian and apocalyptic and, frankly, pretty damn pessimistic-looking. And that ain’t Star Trek. Not to me, anyhow. I don’t know what J.J. Abrams thinks Star Trek is supposed to be about, but I have yet to see much evidence that it’s what I — and generations of my fellow Trekkies — understand it to be about.

Fortunately, I’m getting better at compartmentalizing different aspects of the far-flung, decades-old media franchises that I’ve spent so much of my life’s energies obsessing over. I seem to have finally internalized the nasty truth: that as far as their corporate owners are concerned, these things are simply brands to be extended and diversified. And just as I don’t drink every product the Coca-Cola Company slaps its brand on, I’m not required to see, read, or buy everything that includes Star Trek in its name, either.

Nov242012

Quick Take: Cop Land

I missed James Mangold’s Cop Land when it was first released 15 years ago, but I recall being curious about it, because everyone was talking back then about Sylvester Stallone’s uncharacteristic performance. I finally managed to catch it this morning, and it turned out to be a good movie, if not quite an outstanding one. A story of corrupt New York cops and a small-town New Jersey sheriff who could’ve been one of them but for a chance act of heroism when he was a teenager, it suffers a bit from being somewhat familiar stuff. In fact, it reads like a second-tier Scorsese flick (the presence of Scorsese regulars Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, and Ray Liotta, as well as the grittily realistic East Coast settings, no doubt contributes to that feeling) with a dollop of High Noon thrown in for good measure. But don’t misunderstand: It is well worth your time if you haven’t seen it, a solidly entertaining character study and cop thriller.

As for Stallone, well… all the buzz back in ’97 was completely deserved. I’ve never cared much for the man, to be honest, but this film is a genuine revelation. In Cop Land, he proves that he really can act (and no, I’ve never seen Rocky, which is usually offered up as a counterpoint when I say that). Here he plays a man who is pretty much the polar opposite of his usual on-screen persona. Instead of a swaggering, macho cartoon superhero, Freddie — the New Jersey sheriff — is a regular guy who’s been almost completely beaten down by disappointment and the feeling that he just wasn’t good enough to get what he wanted out of life. He’s overweight, wounded, tentative, complacent, the kind of man who takes a lot of shit and just smiles his way through it, even though something inside him twinges every single time one of his so-called friends cracks a joke at his expense or asks him to look the other way. He’s immensely likable and sympathetic in this part — we all know somebody like this, and I think many of us can identify with him, too. In the memorable words of DeNiro’s character, he’s a man waiting for something to do… and of course we all know that in the end he’s going to rise to the occasion and do it. What a shame this movie didn’t propel Stallone’s career onto another path as a true character actor, and that he’s instead had to pump himself up on steroids and just keep doing the same old schlock…

Sep062012

Movie Confessions Quiz

Let’s blather for a moment on my favorite subject, shall we? It’s a movie meme, courtesy of SamuraiFrog!

Which classic movie don’t you like/can’t enjoy and why?
Gone with the Wind. I think this one is probably a victim of its own reputation for me; all my life, I’d heard what a great, important, landmark movie it was, etc., etc., so when I finally saw it at the age of 19 or 20, I was incredibly disappointed to discover it was essentially a soap opera populated by characters I really didn’t like very much. (I’m sorry, but Scarlett O’Hara is a selfish, shallow little bitch who deserves everything she gets; I occasionally encounter women who hero-worship her, and I just do not get the appeal. I also tend to watch these women very, very carefully…)
Which ten classic movies haven’t you seen yet?
Geez, I could list a lot more than just ten, and I’m somebody who actually likes old movies and watches them fairly often, and could probably be considered pretty well-rounded in my viewing, at least compared to the average schmoe. There are just so many movies out there after a century-plus of filmmaking.Also, I think answering this question depends somewhat on how we’re defining “classic.” Are we talking about stuff that makes the Sight & Sound list? (For the record, I’ve actually seen quite a few of those.) Do we mean the black-and-white and/or studio-era stuff? Or does the definition extend to what I think of as fairly recent films, like Reservoir Dogs and Fargo (neither of which I’ve seen, but which people talk about as if they ought to be considered classics)? What about cult classics and movies that are so bad they attain a sort of perfection? Also, what about foreign classics? I have to confess I haven’t seen many foreign movies aside from the handful I was exposed to in my film-history classes back in college, and a slightly smaller handful of things I’ve stumbled across on my own, so again, many of those that are talked about as great and enduring pieces of cinema have eluded me.Anyhow, here’s a completely random list of those titles that leap immediately to mind as ones I think I ought to see but haven’t gotten around to, not counting the two already mentioned:
1. From Here to Eternity
2. Blow-Up
3. The Usual Suspects
4. The Sound of Music
5. Raging Bull
6. The Magnificent Ambersons
7. Gilda
8. All About Eve
9. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
10. The Hidden Fortress
Have you ever sneaked into another movie at the cinema?
I can’t think of a specific occasion, but I’m sure I must have at some point or another. Hasn’t everyone?
Which actor/actress do you think is overrated?
Christian Bale. I know everybody loves him right now for being the “definitive” Batman, yada yada yada, but I’ve never been very impressed by him. There’s something about him I find tremendously off-putting and unlikable, almost a subliminal revulsion… and I felt that way even before his much-publicized prima donna tirade against some poor DP who accidentally wandered into a shot during filming.
From which big director have you never seen any movie (and why)?
Darren Aronofsky. No particular reason, except nothing he’s made so far has appealed to me very much.
Which movie do you love, but is generally hated?
James Cameron’s Titanic. I don’t know that it’s generally hated, i.e., I don’t have any real sense of what percentage of the population dislikes it, but I seem to find myself defending it in conversation pretty often. The thing that really amazes me, though, is the degree of dislike people feel for this movie. I mean, the people who hate it really bloody-well hate it, and they want to make sure you know they hate it, and exactly why they hate it, and then they want you to concede that deep down, you kinda hate it too, because apparently it’s the Worst Movie Ever (said in the perennially disgusted voice of the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, naturally). And I just don’t get that level of bile, I really don’t, because the movie works for me. I like Jack and Rose, I like Kate and Leo’s performances, I buy their romance, the dialogue does not make me cringe, I think the runtime is just what it needs to be… hell, I don’t even question Jack dying at the end because he didn’t climb onto the piece of wreckage. (Yes, there does appear to be room on the piece of wood for two people, but it’s not necessarily buoyant enough to keep both of them out of the water, which is so cold that most people are freezing to death instead of drowning; in other words, if he’d climbed on too, they probably both would’ve died.) The only thing in the movie I really don’t like is Bill Paxton. Good lord, could that man ever act? So yeah, I like this movie, lots of people don’t, and much like politics and religion, there’s no convincing each other we’re right. I seem to have this same problem with the Star Wars prequels and the fourth Indiana Jones flick, too. I concede they weren’t great movies, but they also weren’t the soul-sucking disasters that so many claim them to be. There were aspects of all of them I found endearing enough to overlook their flaws. And I still like Dances with Wolves, too.
Have you ever been “one of those annoying people” at the cinema?
“Annoying people” meaning a distraction to others? Yes, I’m afraid I have. Once, back in that film-history course I mentioned, when I got a little bored with the featured film one week and started doing the MST3K thing with a friend. I figured it wasn’t that big a deal, since the movie was silent. It’s not like I was talking over the dialogue, right? Well, wrong. I was being an ass, and a woman sitting in front of me put me in my place over it by telling me to either shut up or leave. I was humiliated, I was angry, I had a not-very-nice epithet of the sort I usually reserve for Scarlett O’Hara on my lips… but she was right. I had no excuse, no defense. I still feel a deep shame when I remember the incident. And I don’t do that sort of thing anymore, at least not in public viewing situations.
Did you ever watch a movie that you knew in advance would be bad, just because of a specific actor/actress was in it? Which one and why?
Yes, a flick called The Man with the Screaming Brain. There was no way, realistically, that a movie with a title like that was going to be any good, but it starred Bruce Campbell, and he’s awesome, and a screening of The Man with the Screaming Brain was included with a book-signing event a few years back that offered a few seconds of actual face-time with Bruce, so I figured it would be worth it. He’s one of the coolest people you could ever have the fortune to meet (he even complimented me on the shirt I was wearing that night!) But The Man with the Screaming Brain was, not surprisingly, a horrible movie. Ye gods, was it bad. Not quite Alien Apocalypse bad, but still…
Did you ever not watch a specific movie because it had subtitles?
Nope. I’ve got no problem with subtitles, and honestly, little patience for those who do. They’re not that difficult, people.
Are there any movies in your collection that you have had for more than five years and never watched?
Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I do. The fact is, I tend to buy DVDs at a greater rate than I actually watch them, and things tend to back up. Especially now that I can buy complete seasons of television series for about the same cost as a feature film. I have probably hundreds of hours of TV and movie viewing sitting around that I haven’t gotten to yet…
Which are the worst movies in your collection and why do you still own them?
I have a lot of movies that generally get classified as “guilty pleasures” — a term I resist, by the way, because taste is subjective, and if you like something, you ought to feel free to like it without qualification — but I’d say the worst ones are actually ones I bought because I was swept up in a momentary hype situation but later lost interest in. Minority Report comes to mind… I really liked it when I saw it in the theater, figured I had to have it when it came out on DVD, but now doubt if I’ll ever have the desire to watch it again.
Do you have any confessions about your movie-watching setup at home?
“Confessions?” What, like I’m ashamed I don’t have one of those custom home-theater theme rooms that look like the bridge of the starship Enterprise or something? No, I don’t. I have an HDTV and an upconverting DVD player, as well as a still-functional VCR for the handful of things I can’t get in a digital format, and that setup is just fine for me. I got over the home-theater thing a long time ago; I’d rather spend the money on a trip to Europe or something.
Any other confessions you want to make?
Yes. You got me. I’m the killer. I did it behind the snack bar with a film splicer.