Random Ruminations

Here's some random filmic happenings from the last week or so, in randomly numeric order...

1.  I watched How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, or Simon Pegg Gotta Eat as a friend described it.  The first twenty minutes or so were woefully mediocre, mostly because of the movie's willingness to go for the most obvious joke possible in any situation.  I was completely disinterested, even starting several conversations with friends while the movie played on... and then something happened (for the life of me I can't remember what) onscreen that silenced everyone for a moment, followed by hysterical laughter.  And that was pretty much how the rest of the film played out: long patches of mediocrity punctuated by gut-bustingly funny gags.  

I've loved Simon Pegg since Shaun of the Dead, and only found more respect for him as I went back and discovered Spaced, but here he impressed me more than ever by taking a not-very-good script and making it work extremely well.  Points also to Gillian Anderson, 1. For still looking that good, and 2. for being goddamn hysterical.  Never knew she was funny.

2.  Apologies to my friend Justin, who I told that Gillian Anderson had directed a movie called Death Defying Acts.  As it turns out, the director of that film was Gillian Armstrong, and I cannot read.  

2.5  Apologies to Gillian Anderson for the mistake also.  No apologies will be accorded to Ms. Armstrong.  

3.  Re-watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the past week brought back massive tonnage of nostalgia, in addition to some forgotten affection for the movies.  I was in high school when those were coming out, and it feels like so very, very long ago.  I remember hating on The Two Towers when it came out, spending a year trying to convince all my friends that it was lousy, then falling in love with the extended cut DVD the night before we saw Return of the King.  I remember complain when incestuous marching bandies/rabid Tolkien fans would talk about spoilerish plot details before all three films had been released, and being rightly told that the books had been out for 50 years and I ought not feel bitch until I read the books.  I remember Jamie and his impeccable Gollum voice, and how quickly it became grating.  I vividly remember walking out of the third movie past dozens of people in line for the next showing, all with terrified looks on their faces as though one of us might loudly blurt out some major spoiler from the movie, and thinking the only thing I could possibly say at that moment was "Can you believe that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father?"  And there was laughter in the land.  I remember my pretentious anti-populism kicking in as I argued with people about how unworthy Return of the King was for it's 11 Academy Awards, and some asshat online IMing me "Hah, your bitch lost" the moment Peter Jackson beat Sophia Coppola (and three others) for Best Director.  I remember thinking that anyone describing Rings as "the Star Wars of its time" was either an idiot or an asshole.  Mostly though, I remember seeing Return of the King four times in theaters, each subsequent visit hoping to recapture the emotional tide that made me weep uncontrollably through the second half of the film.  

Having now completed my non-marathon, the following occurred to me: 

• I regret my adolescent hatred of The Two Towers (theatrical)
• I still haven't read the books all the way through (or The Hobbit, and I own two damn copies of that)
• I kinda miss Jamie's now-retired Gollum voice 
  
• Not only do I think that Rings deserved all of its Oscars, but I kinda wish they'd won a few more.  
• Further, Lord of the Rings isn't Star Wars for a new generation, it's better.  
• I can't believe I spent $40* and 12-hours seeing one fucking movie.  

Also?  I cried again today during the last half of Return of the King.  I really don't 

know why, as the super-violent battle epic films typically have no emotional impact on me (certainly not the fantasy ones), but the battle of the Pelennor just breaks me.  Maybe it's because PJ's just that goddamn good at manipulating the audience's emotions. 

Or maybe I'm a sap when it comes to dudes getting stomped on by gigantic fucking war-Elephants.  

4.  Anybody who's been around me for the last year or so (yeah, sucks to be you) has had to endure, in one way or another, my epic hard-on for Stanley Kubrick.  I got the new Kubrick box set for Christmas last year and have since watched each of the films within at least twice, including the 2-hour long biography Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.  2001, however, I've watched at least five times in the last twelve months.  Having a blu-ray copy and a 42" Bravia at the store has only increased my obsession with the film: while my co-workers play Kung Fu Panda or Iron Man, I run 2001: A Space Odyssey every shit.

What's come up as a result of the film's frequent display in the store is shocking: most people don't know 2001.  Not just that they haven't seen it, as that's something I could understand (the movie is 40-years old and slow as fuck, after all).  But to not even recognize it when it's playing on an HDTV in front of you?  I mean, the movie has to be the most-recognizable picture ever made, right?  The monoliths, the apes, the spaceships, the music, HAL, the "Stargate" sequence, the Space Baby; these are all enormously iconic film images.  Shit, you could probably piece together a 20-minute version of 2001 just from references on The Simpsons.  So how do these people not recognize it?

Anyway, after two days of befuddled customers asking me what movie I was playing in the blu-ray, I had all but given up on mainstream movie-goers (er, renters) when this happened:

This little boy, not older than seven or eight, sat down on the floor and watched the last third of the movie.  The kid was mesmerized by the damn thing.  He inched closer to the screen when HAL used the Pod to kill Frank, and cocked his head repeatedly during the Stargate trip.  A co-worker and friend (who watched 2001 with me twice in as many days a few months back) said, "I bet you he gets freaked out and leaves when Dave gets to the room."  And so he did.  When Dave arrived in the mysterious white room, the kid got up, cocked his head again, and walked away.  

Despite his inability to withstand the film's mind-crushing finale, that little boy restored (some of) my faith in the movie-watching populace who frequent my store and those like it.

Then someone asked me where they could find The Love Guru, and all was right with the world. 

*Adjusted for inflation, obviously - tickets were only $8 then.