Slow News Day Tuesday: The Movie Edition

Discover a Director for the first time, get addicted, then absorb everything they’ve ever created. Scorsese (Mean Streets), Kubrick (Clockwork Orange), Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon), Tarantino (Reservoir Dawgs), Fincher (Seven), Nolan (Memento), etc. I guess the theme in those initial viewings would be savage violence… but hey, better to watch it than act on it I suppose.

As far as availability , thats simple enough. If it wasn’t for a more wide availability, I never would have had the opportunity to pursue the farther reaches of some of these oeuvres. The UGA library (7th floor I believe) was essential in developing some of these appetites as their laserdisc collection made it possible to view some of these films during my formative years (the early Kubrick stuff in particular).

I grew up in Atlanta, and my family wasn’t well off. Most of my movie watching (being in Atlanta) was TNT channel 17. What Ted Turner watched, I got to watch. This is how I managed to watch a lot of movies from the 60s and 70s. I wouldn’t have otherwise. So tonight, I am watching Pawn Stars and they are checking out a bike that belonged to Steve McQueen…..

I got to thinking about the car chase in the movie Bullitt that was famous, and I loved it. Having watched our amazing special effects now for most of my life, when I watch Bullitt (I have it on Blu Ray, I am that serious about it) it doesn’t have the same magic anymore. I started thinking “Have we ruined movies by over doing it?” We look back at a classic car chase now and yawn, when as a kid I watched Cool Hand Luke and Bullitt every chance I got.

Your friend has a great point, we used to have whatever was playing, and now we have a choice, but it’s like porn creep, what once was showing us a little, is now full blown overkill. We have 4 super hero flicks this summer, harry potter, Transformers, have we desensitized ourselves with so much F X?

My favorite movies are the ones that make me think. I love great visually stunning cinema, but if that’s all it is i don’t enjoy it as much. The movies that i love have well developed characters with a well written plot-line and keep me thinking. If you have great visuals that complement it appropriately instead of cheapening it, i’ll really love it.

I’ve always enjoyed a well-made movie, especially one with great acting, no matter the genre. For this reason, I love movies like The Shawshank Redemption, The Princess Bride and American Beauty. I’m not into big-action, bloody movies in general, though if it’s a well-told story that has gore and blood, I’m cool with that.

Also, I think that Morgan Freeman playing the role of God is not that big of a reach for him, from an acting-ability standpoint.

Maybe it’s because I’m Irish.

And for the record, the greatest role ever performed by a actress in the history of film-making is Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan in the 1982 version of “Annie.” She’s not the best actress ever, but she is one damn funny woman, and was made for that role.

as most (but apparently not all) are aware, I am of the female persuasion. I suspect that plays quite a role in my movie preferences. For instance, I think Driving Miss Daisy, Erin Brockovich, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Gone With the Wind are all fantastic movies. Of course GWTW takes the cake and the book is better than the movie, but I digress. All 4 of those movies have one thing in common – Strong Female Characters. In each movie, there is at least one woman who will kick your backside first and take your name down later. I find I follow the same pattern with TV shows – Law & Order SVU, The Closer, Army Wives, Covert Affairs & Drop Dead Diva also all feature at least one woman who will kick your backside first and figure out the details later. So mostly I identify with characters & story lines.

I never have understood the HD & Blu-ray stuff. I guess my eyes are bad enough that I figure it won’t make that much difference to me. People keep telling me how much more awesome it is, but I’m not there yet. Visually Stunning scenes are great and at the time GWTW was in the elite of the elite in this area, but things have improved dramatically in the last 60 yrs. Fortunately for me, this does not diminish my enjoyment at all.

The hardest part for me is finding a well-acted, good story line, with a strong female character.

I like in the films of Kevin Smith a lot of what I like in the novels of William Faulkner. Each stands alone, is stylistically different from the others, and may be appreciated independently, but they all tie in together, so that one’s familiarity with the whole canon enhances one’s appreciation of any discrete element of it. Smith also interests me because, even though he’s from New Jersey (and his movies confirm that art, like politics, is inherently local), he’s also basically my age, and he and I clearly listened to the same music, watched the same movies, and read the same comics as teenagers. “Chasing Amy” is vastly underappreciated.

Quentin Tarantino interests me for similar reasons. It’s appropriate that a director named for a character in The Sound and the Fury would take liberties with storytelling out of chronological order, which preserves the element of surprise in “Reservoir Dogs” and deepens our appreciation of the Bride’s story in the “Kill Bill” movies. Just as the first two “Godfather” films were re-edited for television to air in sequence (first the parts of “The Godfather, Part II” featuring the young Vito Corleone and Robert DeNiro, then “The Godfather,” then the parts of “The Godfather, Part II” featuring Al Pacino), though, I’d be interested to see “Pulp Fiction” re-edited to occur chronologically. I understand why it doesn’t—-knowing the different fates awaiting John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson makes the final scene in the diner more resonant—-but I’d be interested to see it that way, beginning with Christopher Walken explaining the history of the watch, moving forward chronologically from there, and ending with “Zed’s dead.”