cinema
I've had a very odd cinematic education. Up until the age of 7, I watched all the normal kid movies and a bunch of grown-up ones I probably shouldn't have seen. Between the ages of 8 and 15, conservative religious morés dictated my viewing, and I watched hardly any non-Disney movies at all. Even Disney movies with "occult" overtones (i.e. Escape from Witch Mountain,) were banned. At 16, I took it upon myself to investigate all the pop culture I had been missing, and made a fair bit of progress for the next few years. I managed to become current on mid-90s culture, catch up on the 80s stuff, and start to backtrack from there. Then, at 21, I rediscovered school. Between working full time and going to school full time, I didn't have much time to continue my cinematic education. I've kept up as best I could with current film (which means middling results), and never really gotten to many of the classics. This is compounded by the fact that the more theory I read, the more I want to watch truly stupid movies to balance things out.
Mister Boyfriend, who devoted his teens, twenties, and thirties to All Things Cultural, is understandably mortified, and has taken it upon himself to educate me. This has also had middling results, based on the varying factors of my crankiness, my busyness, and my ability to stay awake. But whenever there's a break in school, we usually watch movies every night.
That meant that this week, one of the darkest weeks of the year, one of the weeks of most intense cabin fever, we watched Gangs of New York, Taxi Driver, The Aviator, House of the Flying Daggers, and The Last Picture Show. Tonight was Requiem for a Dream. Great films, all. And also gut wrenching, all. Many violent, many sad. I am never watching Requiem for a Dream again. Ever. I can't take it.
I am watching Finding Nemo now as an antidote, and I have declared myself in charge of household cinema for the next bit. Let there be Zoolander! Legally Blonde 1 and 2! Pootie Tang! No more cinema, I want movies!
And then I want to watch Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, because I've never seen those either.
Comments
Ooh, you need to throw Good Fellas into your harsh mix. I found Gangs of New York a gut-wrenching film but historically informative (from its base) and who knew Cameron Diaz could be so tragic. And Daniel Day-Lewis is one of my favorite actors and his horrific performance for such an excessively violent character was right up there with the unparalleled.
I took T&G to see Finding Nemo at the theatre, of course, when it came out. Don't you think that Ellen DeGeneres's portray of Dory made that movie work.
Legally Blond I is great. II sucks.
Posted by: michelle | January 7, 2005 10:54 PM
Wow! Neither Maltese nor Casablanca? This could be the beginning of a beautiful cinematic experience. . . . .
Posted by: AKMA | January 8, 2005 11:09 AM
Maltese Falcon is a great film. Casblanca's cool, too, but I don't watch it nearly as often. If you get a chance (and haven't seen them already), someone has recently released a film noir series on DVD that is really fantastic.
I had the exact same reaction to Requiem for a Dream. Great film, but I never want to see it again.
Posted by: Chuck | January 8, 2005 11:59 AM
Just consider me that little devil dancing on your shoulder -- jumping up and down with glee, rather -- chanting, "Movies! Movies!"
I highly recommend Envy starring Ben Stiller and Jack Black (Amy Poehler is in it too). It's hilarious. "VaPOOrize!"
See also The Big Bounce.
Posted by: Clancy | January 8, 2005 2:13 PM
Funny, I had the same reaction to Requiem, at first, but when it came out on DVD something inexplicable possessed me to buy it, and I quickly overcame the near total shock it caused the first time I saw it. It's a great movie, and though harrowing at first, has a really high repeat value.
Posted by: Peter | January 8, 2005 9:29 PM