Posts tagged with "movies"

Show Me Which Constellations You Know, A Denouement

Eternal Sunshine 1

Eternal Sunshine 2

Eternal Sunshine 3

People always say that this song or that book or some movie is a sto­ry about them­selves in some way. One of my friends is tru­ly deter­mined that his life has been proph­e­sied in the eight and a half minute rock-opera Paradise By The Dashboard Lights. My sto­ry was told in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but it was­n’t any­thing with as much grandeur, it was sim­ply about a girl.

Interestingly enough, it’s not the sto­ries them­selves, but the details of each sto­ry that give them such relat­able con­vic­tion. In Paradise By The Dashboard Lights, Meatloaf sings about a coerced com­mit­ment lead­ing to an even­tu­al eter­ni­ty spent with the wrong per­son because of a stub­born, but more impor­tant­ly moral, refusal to break a promise. The prog­nos­ti­ca­tion of these par­tic­u­lars sends my friend sweat­ing when­ev­er he hears the song.

For me, it took the form of pangs, from the details of Clementine’s char­ac­ter. The fucked up girl look­ing for her own peace of mind, who applies her per­son­al­i­ty in a paste. A per­son who keeps you off bal­ance, always guess­ing, and con­stant­ly frus­trat­ed. A girl who sends off sirens in your brain telling you to run as far as you can before you get burned, but you stay any­way, against all log­ic, resigned to the even­tu­al fate.

And here I was, wait­ing to be saved, think­ing she’s a con­cept, or she’ll com­plete me, or she’s going to make me feel alive. When it did­n’t work out, I used to say that it was for the best, that I was in it to have no regrets, but it was real­ly because I could­n’t leave. I was drawn mag­net­i­cal­ly, inex­plic­a­bly, to the last per­son to deserve even the effort of all the torn up thoughts.

To the one that got away.

On the week­end, I dis­cov­ered that I could final­ly watch Eternal Sunshine with­out those pangs when I had felt them for so long, even when I already knew how impor­tant it is not to for­get these expe­ri­ences, as Joel fig­ures out while hid­ing Clementine in his sub­con­scious. All the resid­ual emo­tions have passed, and now I can talk, and laugh, and think, and share the expe­ri­ence like an embar­rass­ing ado­les­cent mem­o­ry. It only took two years.

Everybody’s got­ta learn some­time.

Ghost World

I usu­al­ly have to be in a very spe­cif­ic mood to watch Ghost World, but some­thing about it is strik­ing a chord with me right now, and this time it’s not just SJs sullen voice. The humour is dri­er than Rushmore, which says some­thing about the skills of Terry Zwigoff’s as a direc­tor. The risk of unsat­u­rat­ed humour is that it very eas­i­ly goes unrec­og­nized, espe­cial­ly with­out a laugh track. The last time I watched Ghost World was before I ever saw Mr. Show, so it’s only now that I can real­ly appre­ci­ate David Cross’s cameo per­for­mance.

Seymour is my god, cause it’s obvi­ous­ly him and he does­n’t care.

Pieces Of April

I real­ly don’t know what I was expect­ing from Pieces of April, but its doc­u­men­tary-style direct­ing and well thought out script made it an effec­tive movie nonethe­less. In the end, Peter Hedges presents the last few scenes in still pho­tographs, let­ting the audi­ence come up with their own reac­tions and dia­logue. All one is sure of is that every­thing is resolved, and every­one is hav­ing a good time. And for a movie like this, that becomes the most impor­tant thing.

Movie Review: Troy

Troy end­ed up being a mediocre movie, that did­n’t have much plot, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, or any good action scenes (save one, maybe two). I’m sure there was more in it for the girls than the guys. I mean, Diane Kruger is hot, but much bet­ter with­out all the make­up and frills. I was pleas­ant­ly remind­ed about Odysseus’s lit­tle part in the sto­ry, although they got Sean Bean to por­tray him, the actor who also tries to kill Frodo in Lord of the Rings, betrays his part­ner in Equilibrium, screws up a weapons deal then throws up in the get­t­away car in Ronin, and tries to destroy England in GoldenEye.

After see­ing Bean in these fuck-up, bad guy roles, it’s hard to imag­ine him as the great Greek hero, espe­cial­ly since Odysseus has always been my favourite Greek char­ac­ter. He’s the guy who’s total­ly bal­anced; a brain, an ath­lete, a host, a war­rior, an artist, famous for his clev­er­ness and cun­ning. He’s the guy who stayed faith­ful to Penelope while being pur­sued by Calypso and Circe, the guy who dared to lis­ten to the sirens sing, the guy who came up with the idea of the Trojan horse, the guy who tried every­thing in his pow­er to get his crew home safe­ly through every obsta­cle imag­in­able, but the only one with the tenac­i­ty to make it. If Odysseus was alive today, I’d give him my props.

A Few Movies...

School of Rock was very well done and very enjoy­able.

Lost in Translation was great. Everything about the film was suc­cess­ful, but I espe­cial­ly enjoyed the sub­tle­ness. The direc­tion was per­fect, in how under­played and min­i­mal­is­tic it made every­thing seem. I was­n’t tru­ly impressed though until I found out that Sophia Coppola wrote the script as well. Bill Murray was made for the part, but every­one else was sat­is­fac­to­ry. The entire movie felt to me like a sim­ple glimpse into the chance inter­ac­tion of two peo­ple, and it began as gen­tly as it end­ed. The audi­ence is left as an observ­er, which made every­thing all the more believ­able to me. I inter­pret­ed the sto­ry as the inter­ac­tion of two peo­ple, who are at two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent points in their lives. As a result, their com­mu­ni­ca­tion becomes jum­bled. Lost in trans­la­tion. They dis­cuss the same things, but they’re not quite say­ing the same things. The res­o­lu­tion came from the end, when both peo­ple rec­og­nized the rela­tion­ship they had, and it was as far as it should have gone. Anything else would have seemed ridicu­lous. I think it was an over­rat­ed movie, but def­i­nite­ly one that deserves a healthy, gen­er­ous amount of praise.

As for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I’m at a loss for words. The entire expe­ri­ence was almost com­plete­ly inef­fa­ble. I laughed. I cried. I got goose­bumps. I melt­ed. A com­plete mas­ter­piece, and the one of the most poignant films I’ve ever seen, although I’m par­tial­ly biased due to my cur­rent cir­cum­stances. Where the Gondry/Kaufman duo failed in Human Nature due to an unsup­port­ive script and result­ing super­flu­ous direct­ing, this film has com­plete­ly suc­ceed­ed. A movie I will be buy­ing. A movie I will be watch­ing over and over again. A movie that would have changed my life had I not already come to the same con­clu­sion a few months ear­li­er.