Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Not every movie takes me to a certain place or scratches open an old wound or confirms something. Sometimes a good movie is just a good movie. This is an example.

Sam Rockwell plays Chuck Barris, the man who once hosted "The Gong Show," which was a weird variety show/game show sort of thing in the 1970s and '80s in which amateur, remotely talented people performed some sort of stupid human trick or talent for celebrity judges.

If the contestants did well, they were rewarded with points and eventually a small amount of cash and their 15 minutes of fame. If they sucked, they were "gonged," or rejected, and had to go away. Some celebrity literally got up and banged a gong to make the person go away, and that was that.

People mostly watched for the gonging. Or they waited for the regular performers, such as Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine. People did a lot of drugs in the 1970s.

"The Gong Show" is long gone, lost to the television graveyard, but we've not lost our taste for otherwise normal people doing stupid things on television. We have another show now that's a lot like this. We call that show "American Idol".

I don't remember much else about "The Gong Show," except the gonging, and occasionally Chuck Barris pleading with the gonger, "Oh, why you gotta do that to poor [gongee's name here]."

I do remember The Unknown Comic — a comedian who performed with a paper bag over his head. I thought that was a stroke of genius, even then, however creepy the idea. And I never did drugs.

I don't know many people with whom I can sit down and talk about "The Gong Show." This show was a contemporary of the dark-haired Bob Barker on "The Price is Right" and Richard Dawson's "Family Feud." If you're older than 30, you might remember the show.

Anyway, Chuck Barris wrote an autobiography about a secret life he led when his television career was starting out. In that secret life, he killed people for a living. That's this film.

That's Michael Cera as a young Chuck Barris. There's Drew Barrymore. George Clooney directs and plays a supporting role. Charlie Kaufman wrote the script. Look at all the names. This film is littered with cameos. That alone should make you want to see this, or see this again.

Game show hosts aren't right in the head, and that's one big reason why this film works. This is a darkly comic biopic about a former game show host who just might be crazy, or he might be a government assassin.

I watch this and I wonder what keeps Alex Trebek going after 20-plus years on "Jeopardy!" How come Pat Sajak hasn't killed himself? Ray Combs killed himself not long after his last show (skip ahead to 3:49 to watch Combs ditch the winning family and walk off the stage before the credits end).

Are other game show hosts moonlighting as paid assassins too? Maybe that's what keeps them sane after the repetition of spinning wheels and Daily Doubles and Plinko. Maybe that's what keeps game show hosts happy. Is anybody happy in Los Angeles?

Now Drew Carey, who has battled depression and attempted suicide in the past, hosts "The Price is Right." Will that last? I hope Drew Carey lives a long and happy life, but living the life of a game show host...

I mean, hosting a game show host has to wear on you, right?

Conan the Barbarian/Conan the Destroyer

We had a Disney animator at our school to talk to our students about the industry. He kept coming back to the same thing. You can be a great animator and know where to find and how to push all the right buttons, but if you can't tell a story, you're missing a big piece of the puzzle.

He pointed to Conan the Barbarian (not an animated film) as the one he comes back to often when he wants to watch a good story or just find his center. Some people giggled. A few others nodded. I was just surprised. That film? Really? I never thought about Conan the Barbarian as some sort of gold standard for fine storytelling. That one never comes up when screenwriters talk about writing.

He's not the only person who has mentioned this film as important. I had a student in one of my English classes who cited the Conan comics and the two Conan films as pivotal discoveries in his life. He felt sort of powerless as a child, and Conan was his escape. Conan stories made him want to read.

Turns out, several of my students are huge fans of this film. I did not see that coming. I remember watching this film on television when I was younger and finding myself bored. I tried when I was in college and still got bored. I could not get past the hyper-masculinity and outright Arnold-ness. This film is sloooooooow.

But I could not avoid this film. I kept hearing Conan the Barbarian cited as pivotal or important, or a real example of fine storytelling and a perfect three act structure. I'd heard enough. I decided Conan deserved another chance. I left work one night, picked up The Complete Quest on DVD, and watched both films that night.

This is decent storytelling, though the film is still pretty slow. The structure is a little out of whack and loose, which is probably the reason why this film is more than 2 hours long while the sequel, Conan the Destroyer is a much leaner and tighter 102 minutes.

Laugh all you want at Arnold, or the overall cheese factor, or the fake looking snake, but James Earl Jones owns the role of Thulsa Doom, and no other actor could portray Conan. Factor in a screenplay co-written by Oliver Stone and John Milius. This is a recipe for the manliest man movie this side of manliness and manly manhood, man.

As for the second film, the adventure is more interesting, but the plot is more forgettable. Something about a princess and a horn and some sort of Golgothan looking thing. There are all these set pieces and sequences that are memorable, but Arnold seems to be going through the motions a bit more. That's just one man's take.

Wilt Chamberlain is fun to watch lumbering around, and Olivia d'Abo is now 41 years old so I don't have to feel like a pederast if I think she's kind of awesome. (For the record, not as awesome as my wife, who is just as English and also silly enough to marry me.) The casting is a bit more interesting and there are more wizards, magic, etc., but the second film isn't the one I reach for first.

My main criticism of the Conan films is they tease you not once, but twice, that the Conan the King story will be told, but they never made that film. That doesn't mean they never tried.

I digress. I don't go for Conan the Destroyer first because I'm more apt to watch both films as a double feature, like I did this week, and wonder if the third great Conan story will ever be told. Somewhere, Crom laughs at the thought.

Collateral

For all the preaching I do about structure and establishment/payoff in my storytelling classes, and for all the writing I (try to) do, one would think I'd see the twist of Collateral coming a thousand miles away. Nope.

Not even an inkling when I saw Tom Cruise's character, Vincent, pass Jada Pinkett-Smith's on the escalator at the beginning? Nope.

I blame Jason Statham. What? Yes, Jason Statham is in this film for less than a minute, right at the beginning. He plays an unnamed bag handler who literally runs into Vincent at the airport and surreptitiously exchanges bags with him. Statham's character is never seen again.

If Michael Mann will use an action star like Statham for a blip of a part, never to return, who's to say he can't use Jada Pinkett-Smith for the same purpose? Who else makes weird cameos in this film or plays supporting roles? I was looking for other people. Mann must've been using a big name as some sort of red herring. Get people thinking that Statham might show up again, or give people the impression that there's an even bigger fish waiting to be revealed.

If that's what Mann was doing, then he got me.

Let's talk plot holes. When Max calls for help, four guys see him and approach. One of them sticks a gun in Max's face and robs him while one of the others stands and watches. Vincent returns and caps two of the robbers for trying to take his briefcase. Where'd the other two guys go?

After Max destroys Vincent's research, Vincent forces Max to pose as the hitman and go visit his client. What are the odds that Max can actually act like a hitman? Hard to buy this. I bought anyway.

This movie wrapped me up in the tension between Vincent and Max, and I stopped paying attention to much else. I turned off my inner critic. I'm such a sucker.

This film has lost something since my first viewing. I'm much more critical now. I'm still not ready to write this one off, because I'm trying to figure out how this film tricked me. This isn't a great film. This isn't even Michael Mann's best film (Heat, followed by The Insider). This is pure formula, but they got me. And worse, I can't figure out how.

What's he doing with the coyotes? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Mann explores some great themes here. Max is stuck as a cab driver, paralyzed, unable to move forward with his dreams. Vincent is the kick in the ass he needs — someone to show him the fragility and impermanence of time so Max can move forward with his dream. Max starts adapting Vincent's lines and demeanor. Slowly, Max and Vincent become more like each other and less like they were before they met. The old two-sides-of-the-same-coin gambit. I know this one. You can get a lot of mileage out of a middling plot if you have great characters.

I don't pick up a lot of soundtracks anymore, but I got this one. Groove Armada & Richie Haven's "Hands of Time" ended up on the first mix I ever made for my wife, back when we started dating. So what if Max erroneously refers to Groove Armada as "classic"? For my wife and I, this song might as well be. There's that theme of time again.

The rest of the soundtrack is all over the place. Techno, hard rock, Latin music... and Tom Rothrock's instrumental work make for a great little collection, sort of like listening to the soundtrack of one night in Los Angeles. I wonder if Michael Mann intended as much.

I don't know what Michael Mann intended. But I'd love to know. Not knowing is what makes me want to re-watch this film. Even if I see the ending coming now.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I grew up seven miles north of Muncie, Indiana, a shrinking post-industrial city northeast of Indianapolis. I spent the first 24 years of my life there, and a few more scattered years since.

I've been thinking a lot about Muncie lately. Last week, I discovered a Facebook group called "Lost Muncie," which has more than 1,000 pictures of the places and people of Muncie from throughout the 20th century. I clicked through every single photo, hoping to find pieces of my history — any image that would make me feel more connected to the past.

I saw stores and buildings that haven't stood in years. I saw restaurants that no longer exist, and I could smell the food again. I could smell the upholstery in my parents' truck and feel the metal of the door against my skin as we drove around town with the windows down.

I've felt uprooted from Muncie for years. I left out of necessity. Several of my friends stayed behind and got jobs, but there aren't that many opportunities in Muncie, so most people leave. Since I left, I've felt untethered, even though my wife and I tell each other that home is where we make our home, not where we grew up. We can visit. We're only an hour away.

You'd think we'd visit more, but we don't. I've probably spent a total of 72 hours in Muncie in the last four years. I don't know why. I've spent more time in England, my wife's home, in that same span. I miss home.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a part of Muncie's pop culture lore, and in a small town where nothing much ever happens, a film like this can thrill people. Not only do we get alien life, but we get to see our home on the big screen too. Double the thrill, you know?

I still get chills when the film cuts to the farmhouse and the title reads, "Muncie, Indiana." When Richard Dreyfuss is talking fractions with his son, a Ball State University paddle and a BSU ring binder are clearly visible over Dreyfuss's shoulders, and there's a pennant hanging on the wall in his living room. Dreyfuss wears a "Ball U." jersey later in the film.

You spot stuff like this when you spend most of your life in a place.

I've driven on Cornbread Road many times over the years, and often at night, but of course, I never saw any lights in the sky. I never saw any scenic overlooks either. There are no elevated, winding roads in or around Muncie. There is no "Harper Valley" anywhere near Muncie. There are no tollbooths leading you to Ohio. East Central Indiana and West Central Ohio are a flat, great big empty.

But the Ball State logos are here. There actually is a Cornbread Road. I've had plenty of milk from Miller Milkhouse over the years. Mom had the same Corningware (still does as far as I know).

Spielberg featured these markers so prominently in the film, I can't really fault the geographical issues. Let's be honest: Muncie isn't pretty to look at, and Spielberg had to know this. So the Muncie markers he does include seem so intentionally well-placed, they seem like concessions, as if Spielberg truly wanted us to believe that he tried to get Muncie as right as possible.

I do wish Hollywood would make something truthful about home. Close Encounters wasn't even shot in Muncie — not one scene. That's the biggest error I see, but I'm biased.

The film is excellent despite obvious flaws, most of which have taken on a charm. I love that no one can hear a helicopter approaching, and that all these scientists can't recognize repeatedly transmitted global coordinates until a cartographer shows up — and then they need to go steal a globe rather than just, you know, ask the cartographer. How come the map maker can't just rattle off that location? "Oh, I know where that is." I guess a bunch of scientists rolling a globe around is more dramatic?

Close Encounters of the Third Kind reminds me of home in many ways, though not in the way you'd expect. Sure there are the obvious Muncie references, and I feel a weird sense of pride. Most of the time, I don't feel anything about Muncie except the desire to get away. That is until someone taps a nerve. No one picks on my hometown but me, you know? I know the place sucks. I can't help where my parents raised me. I can't help where I spent my formative years. There is something strangely comfortable about going home and finding everything the same. I'm jarred (pun intended?) when I come home to find things different. I want home to stay as I left it, so I can come back and pick right up. Nothing works that way.

Putting all nostalgia aside, let's face facts here: When Hollywood sets a major motion picture in your podunk hometown, that's pretty cool.

So is this.

Clerks II

Getting older isn't easy, but it doesn't have to suck.

At the end of Clerks, Dante appears to have his romantic situation sorted, and we're left with a shred of hope that he might get his life together. Randal and Dante appear to have patched things up, and though they both have to work the next day, we still get the vibe that their station in life is temporary.

At the beginning of Clerks II, Dante pulls in to the same old QuickStop, steps out of his car wearing pretty much the same outfit and sporting the same goatee, and finds the store on fire. Then Randal shows up. He still works there, too. As the store burns down, reality dawns on them: after more than a decade behind the counter, Dante and Randal are forced into the world. They end up down the street, flipping burgers. The complacency just relocates.

I know about lost time and complacency. I taught at my alma mater for five years after I graduated. I don't consider those years wasted because I wrote a ton and got loads of teaching experience, and I really (re)discovered how much I love both. However, I often wonder how five years went by so quickly. I finished my undergrad degree in 1999. I was 24. I finished three grad degrees before I turned 30. Then what happened?

I got comfortable teaching at my alma mater. I knew the campus. I knew the people. I liked the students. I had my own office with an actual door, window, and mini-fridge. I was 15 miles from the house where I grew up. I wasn't really working toward any goals, though, and I was banging on a glass ceiling. Contract faculty are second-class citizens in a university.

I got some writing done, but as far as moving my life forward, I barely moved at all. Each academic year was a rerun of the previous year, with different faces and similar departmental drama. I came home mad almost every night.

Every day at Ball State was a reminder of how far I never went. My friends were in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago. I was in Muncie. I couldn't bring myself to attend graduation ceremonies because I couldn't leave town with the graduates.

During this phase, there were two women on my radar who were more successful than I, and I had a hard time reconciling my station in life with their successes — not because of some sexist baloney, but mostly because I was holding myself up to other people my age and feeling inferior. (I did the same thing with my friends. I couldn't get past the fact that my friends grew up without me. I mean, they were right here, and then they were someone else. I still can't get my head around how fast everyone moved, even if I'm catching up.) Anyway, both women read me the riot act about how life wasn't going to come to me and that I had to do something to improve my situation. My response was to lose interest in them and keep doing what I was doing. Go figure.

Not long after, my wife and I started dating. Things with her made sense. They moved at the right pace. We soon figured out some goals, but we weren't in a hurry. Four years later, I'm out of that job, out of that town, married, and a homeowner, and I'm writing, which completes the picture. Life is never perfect, but this is pretty good compared to five years ago. I no longer feel like a failure when I see my students graduate and I can't follow them. I'm in a better teaching job — one that affords me more opportunities and a future. I no longer envy my friends or feel terribly alienated from them in the same way. I still feel like I lost a lot of friends in the last few years, but I feel more certain about my own thing now.

Thing is, getting older sucks, and you do lose friends along the way as people move on with their lives. You think you'll be friends for life, but shit happens. People move. People get resentful and petty. People bail on you. People have kids and forget all about you. We're left to figure out things on our own. That's life. Not everybody is along for the whole ride.

Clerks II came along right in the middle of that evolution. I had crazy thoughts after watching this film. "Maybe there's nothing wrong with being a 'lifer.'" "Maybe if teaching doesn't work out, I could open a record store in Muncie." I would've been perfectly happy staying in my hometown, running a little record shop, and writing.

Wait, what? No. I would never want to do those things, no matter how good they sound. I hate my hometown (even though I love my hometown). I don't want to be there, but I always feel pulled back. Such is the duality of the southern thing.

Despite a complacency that traps them in a convenience store for 12 years, Randal and Dante don't ever truly communicate until they're locked in jail together. Randal finally admits to Dante what makes the most sense: "I'd buy the QuickStop and re-open it myself. That's what I would do. That's what we should do." The idea sounds perfect. I find myself wishing them well through the TV screen, and wishing this place really existed so I could stop by and take comfort in the stability for a little while.

I love that Jay and Silent Bob give Dante and Randal the money to buy the store. I love that Randal drops his guard and begs Dante to stay. I love that Dante proposes to Becky at the drive-up window, the most unromantic place in his life — and to the woman who doesn't believe in romance — and that turns out to be one of the most genuinely romantic scenes Smith has ever put together. I love that the last time we see Jay and Silent Bob, they're outside the QuickStop again, where we met them.

But best of all, I love that Smith backs away from Dante and Randal behind the counter, goes to black and white as he pulls back through the store, brings up Soul Asylum's "Misery," and somehow still had the good sense to avoid an overly maudlin or pretentious ending with one last, loving joke — the milkmaid, ransacking the cooler, looking for that one gallon of milk that doesn't go bad for a decade. What a perfect ending. Just perfect.

More than a decade after spouting "I'm not even supposed to be here today," over and over on that truly awful day in Clerks, Dante finds himself exactly where he is supposed to be, and surprisingly, I feel good for him.

Clerks

[Note: I love that Clerks follows Citizen Kane on my shelf.]

The best part of retail is helping the few cool people you meet. Sometimes you meet someone, maybe someone attractive, and he/she stops and talks to you for a minute, and you spend the rest of your shift floating, hoping he/she will come back, even though you'll never see him/her again. Connection! Yet they never come back.

The worst is the asshole customers, who outnumber the cool people 10 to 1.

Dumb questions. People who can't read a sign. People who think "the back" is this mystical land where we always have more of something, if they just ask over and over and over again. Cherry pickers who come in, buy only the items that are on sale, and leave. Sheep who buy the latest Oprah book, Harry Potter book, Twilight book, and won't read anything else. People who think "The customer is always right" is carte blanche to be a dick.

I took a lot of abuse when I worked in retail. Ten years later, I remain convinced that sociopaths deliberately go to stores and restaurants and abuse employees to make themselves feel better for their empty lives. I hope they went home feeling better. I also hope they tripped.

In nearly 10 years of working in retail, from age 16 to 25, I never once had a customer apologize for being an asshole.

To this day, I treat service employees with a crazy amount of respect. I tip like 30 percent. I thank profusely. I apologize all over myself when I realize I've asked a dumb question. I very rarely argue. See? Working in the service industry is great character building. My kid is totally slinging groceries; that is, someday when I have a kid.

I saw Clerks in college. My old roommate Chris caught on to Kevin Smith long before I did, but he always caught on to things before me — Tarantino, Soul Coughing, MST3K, the list goes on. Chris somehow knew about this stuff, and was sort of the cultural maven of the household. He lived in the basement of our college house. He hung up a Clerks movie poster in that basement. I'm pretty sure he still has that poster.

Clerks came along at a time when I was dreaming of something better than slinging groceries and dealing with assholes all day, and even though I left retail ten years ago and never looked back, I've watched Clerks about once a year ever since.

I used to think working in a grocery store or bookstore was a stepping stone to great success as a writer, a comic, something. I love my career in teaching, but honestly, that's not really what I had in mind when I was 20.

However, I don't consider myself a failure now. I consider myself a failure then. At least now I have my shit together. I look back at that age and feel this overwhelming sense of self-loathing. What was I thinking? I don't just mean the goatee or questionable use of hair care products or the all-night emo rambling about women who wouldn't call back. I mean all the unfounded, unbridled pretension. Acting like my teachers didn't know anything. Furious at the world for holding back my talents. Livid because I had to waste my days and lose countless weekends dealing with assholes in a store while doing meaningless tasks, when I could be home writing my memoirs or changing the world or whatever the fuck. If Randal were there, he would've said the same thing he said to Dante: "You sound like an asshole."

A colleague once told me, "Your students don't know what they don't know." It's true. They know enough to be dangerous, and they're developing skills and harnessing their talents, but teaching gets really hard when students start to shut off and convince themselves they know enough, or don't need to know what you're saying, or if they just get complacent, like earning a degree is akin to imprisonment — just put in the time, do the bare minimum, stay out of the way, and they'll set you free someday. To do what?

I was exactly that way, and that self-awareness informs my teaching. (This is better than saying, "Karma is a bitch.")

Strangely, I did not like Clerks the first time I saw this (on VHS) in 1995. Although I was not great at recognizing bad acting then, I could tell Dante and Randal were reading their lines off the clipboard (that was Dante) and newspaper (that was Randal). I thought the dialogue was too talky, too precious, too contrived. The plot? What plot? I came away from this film with one question: What was that?

The '90s were a time of extremely talky, independent films that seemingly had no plot. I say "seemingly" because, really, the '90s were a time of talky, independent films with strong character arcs — character-driven films over plot-driven films — and they pegged the zeitgeist so well. This is how we used to talk, how we used to think, and what we used to do with our time. Our lives have no plot. We can only hope to evolve along an arc, better ourselves, better our station in life, and have fun doing so.

I did not realize at the time how clearly Kevin Smith's film articulated Gen-X ennui. Maybe I did, but "ennui" wasn't in my vocabulary at the time, so I couldn't have been that perceptive. We were overeducated, or thought we were (can you really be overeducated if you went to Ball State?). Regardless, I didn't want to "pay my dues." I ended up paying them anyway. The world is funny like that. Teachers can't teach everything. Sooner or later, the real world takes the baton.

I'm not sure Clerks helped me in the right way. If I came away inspired, then great. If this film just made me more pretentious and irrational, then that sucks. I'm pretty sure it was both. I can't tell you everything.

Smith's films gave me a ton of hope at the time and made me think I could do the same thing, but success like this? (Hartford? The Whale?) Happens once a generation, to one lucky schlub at random, and the rest of us get to watch. Still, I started writing screenplays, and I convinced myself that if Kevin Smith can do this, that maybe, just maybe...ah, hell.

Sometimes I think this blog is a productivity stopgap because I'm so blocked for a screenplay and/or paralyzed by whatever else is keeping me from writing more. I'm just saying.

How much different are things for today's 18-24 set? I'm around this age group five days a week. The mentality is pretty much the same, but with more gadgets, more Internet, and a slightly more pronounced sense of entitlement. I can't blame them. I can just try to help them, and try to keep my own thing going too. I may never get what I want, but I'm happy just to die trying.

Citizen Kane

Orson Welles was 24 years old when he made Citizen Kane. What have you done? For that matter, what have any of us done? Don't answer that.

Maybe we were the first person in our family to finish college. Maybe we were published at an early age. Maybe we were working, self-sufficient, paying our own way in the world. Could've had kids. Could've done a lot of things. Success is relative. I'm not here to indict anyone.

I started graduate school in screenwriting at 24. By 25, I'd written my second screenplay, which is a total piece of shit that I don't let anyone read. (My second screenplay is my "Star Wars Holiday Special" — like George Lucas feels about the worst Star Wars thing ever, I wish I could track down and burn every copy of that script. I'd say don't get me started but it's too late. I'll stop.)

Citizen Kane is a film that demands our attention, as many older films do. The dialogue matters. The camera movements, set pieces, transitions, and other visuals matter. This is a film for film lovers, for people who can appreciate the hall of mirrors shot.

Lots of people bash this film. Overlong, overdone...I've heard everything. Virtually everyone with a passing familiarity of film history knows about Citizen Kane and likely knows the meaning of "Rosebud."

I had seen this film maybe once prior to graduate school. I saw the film again during graduate school, picked up the DVD, and I've re-watched probably twice at this point. I love having this film on my shelf. This film consistently ranks at the top of people's lists of greatest films of all time. Sometimes you hear Casablanca instead, but mostly, you hear about Kane.

I know this film is good, but I like a lot of films more. I don't think The Big Lebowski is the greatest film of all time. Neither is Almost Famous. But those films are #1 and #2 on my list, respectively.

I do love me some Orson Welles. YouTube is littered with clips of Maurice Lamarche doing unflattering impressions of latter-day Welles, when Welles was reduced to schilling California wines and frozen foods to make a buck. I admit laughing. Welles became a caricature in his old age as folks joked about his weight, his lifestyle, his ego, and his failures. Welles even played a giant, planet-eating robot in Transformers: The Movie.

But you know what else is on YouTube? The Magnificent Ambersons, perhaps Welles' second-best film, the one RKO Pictures took from him and butchered -- the one that got away. That haunted him the rest of his life.

Kane is another film that, by turns, makes me want to just give up and makes me want to write more. Like Chrystal, the previous entry, Citizen Kane is a little miracle. Welles was given an unheard-of level of control: lead role, director, producer, and final cut. The results are powerful.

He did all that when he was 24. Miraculous, really.

Chrystal

I'm a huge Drive-By Truckers fan. Even wrote about them. They're one of those great American bands that don't get nearly enough attention. They sing these gritty southern rock songs and embrace the duality of the southern thing and all the beautiful, human contradictions. Chrystal is a film like that.

Chrystal stars Billy Bob Thornton, Lisa Blount, Walton Goggins, and Ray McKinnon, who also directs. Johnny Galecki and, holy shit, Harry Dean Stanton play minor roles. McKinnon, Blount, and Goggins make up a little production company called Ginny Mule Pictures, which apparently no longer has a web site. Unfortunate.

Virtually no one has heard of Chrystal. Only 14 people have reviewed the film on Amazon. Another 44 have reviewed the film on Netflix, which is somewhat encouraging. The film has an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Drive-By Truckers, Jay Farrar, and a bunch of other great musicians contributed to the soundtrack, which is comprised mostly of southern rock and folk music. That alone is reason enough to check this film out. Critics saw this, but that's about all.

Here's the trailer. After the first minute or so of Hollywood-formula-for-a-perfect-trailer, you really do get a sense of what this film can do, and when Jay Farrar's haunting "Dent County" starts at 1:54 in the trailer, well, that there is a song.

There is nothing particularly earth-shattering about Chrystal. This is just a quiet, independent film that made no money and told a story that is as true to the south as you'll find. Once in a while a film really gets it. The folks at Ginny Mule Pictures are all southerners who have defied the odds and made inroads for themselves in an entertainment industry dominated by beautiful, vapid tabloid fodder. They make films they want to make, exploring themes they want, casting supportive southern actors and shooting on location down south. They've squeaked out some meager independent success, but art is not about money. I wish filmmaking weren't — we'd likely see more interesting films. Films like Chrystal are small miracles because they get to exist.

I am haunted by the south. I have southern roots, and sometimes I feel like I live in the wrong place. Chrystal makes me wonder.

Christmas Vacation

Watching Christmas Vacation in April is even weirder than watching Bad Santa in February. We rarely watch Christmas Vacation any other time besides, well, Christmas vacation, and that's okay. Thinking about it in April is nice though. Weird, but nice.

Holly and I spent a good part of our first Christmas Eve together at my dad's place, as has become the tradition since we got together. On the way home, we got hungry, but didn't get back to Indianapolis until after everywhere had closed.

We got home hungry and had to raid the cupboard, but we were so tired, and it was so late, who wants to start a big dinner? We ended up eating mac and cheese and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We also listened to the Vince Guaraldi Trio's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas — on vinyl — while we opened presents.

Nothing beats those two things on Christmas Eve. Nothing.

That started a family tradition for our household. Every Christmas Eve since, we've come home from Dad's, put on Vince Guaraldi, opened our presents to each other, eaten mac and cheese, and watched this film.

"You serious, Clark?" has become my catch-all phrase for when I don't believe someone (regardless of the time of year).

In fact, all of these are useful for a variety of situations the whole year:

"Kiss my ass, kiss his ass, kiss your ass, Happy Chanukah."

"Clark, that's the gift that keeps givin' the whole year."

"Real nice, Clark."

"The BLESSING!!!"

"Don't piss me off, Art."

"He's just yacking on a bone." (retch) "He got it up!"

...and about 200 other lines from this movie. My vocabulary is made up almost entirely of movie quotes. I don't care. It's a thing.

I like things. I like our Christmas thing. It's not just a movie. It's a funny dinner. It's presents to each other. It's our pet rabbit chewing on torn wrapping paper. It's Vince Guaraldi on vinyl. It's happy. It's just perfect.

Children of Men

[Warning: This entry contains spoilers, but then again, this film has been out for like 4 years.]

I wonder how many more times I can watch Children of Men.

I'm not sure that crossed my mind when I bought the DVD. This is solid filmmaking, and I'm not just referring to the extended, continuous shot near the end (which is more or less why I bought the DVD), but talk about bleak — this film just leaves me more exhausted and beaten than hopeful.

I try not to spend too much time justifying why I bought this film or that film, but sometimes I feel the need to explain (if only to myself) why. For me, this is a film strewn with little clues and little written flourishes that make me happy to want to write.

I love the hook — the news report of the world's youngest person dying (which is never news) rather than the oldest (which is always news), and the exploding coffee shop (like the world will miss one coffee shop, even in a dystopian future). (Man, I love using parentheses tonight.)

Michael Caine plays Jasper, a hippie-fied version of Michael Caine, which basically makes him look more like a creative writing teacher than Bruce Wayne's butler. Clive Owen plays Theo, a rather selfish, apathetic character who through the course of the story learns selflessness, making him rather like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

Theo goes to visit an acquaintance who can get him letters of transit (see what I mean?) for Kee, a stranger to him. Theo's acquaintance lives in a lavish "Arc of the Arts" — with servants — atop Battersea Power Station in South London, which must be living high on the hog in 2027. Indeed, you can clearly see a giant, floating pig outside the window. The year 2027 will be the 50th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd's Animals album, Roger Waters' screed against the horrors of capitalism and, one could probably assume, the downfall of man.

The first time I watched this film, I caught stuff like that and felt all smart and shit. Watching again, I'm realizing how much I've forgotten. I may be smart, but I can't remember anything. Maybe that's the reason why I buy so damned many DVDs. I need my own copy because my brain can't store all of this.

This film is hell at metaphors. Kee reveals she is pregnant to Theo while standing in a barn. Theo's reaction: "Jesus Christ." That's a bit on the nose for a Biblical parallel, but effective nonetheless. Kee cracks a joke later, telling Theo she's a virgin, but then admits the joke and that she has no idea who the father is because she's been with several men. Later, the first man to see the baby (besides Theo) says the same thing: "Jesus Christ." The baby is a girl. To get to the safety of the boat, they must walk through a parade of Muslims chanting the takbir: "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is the greatest). They emerge from a tunnel (birth metaphor) and escape to sea. Theo's last word? "Jesus."

As Theo dies, Kee names her child Dylan, after the child Theo lost. "It's a girl's name too." Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night. Bob Dylan: May you stay forever young. Pick a Dylan.

I'm not exactly cranking out revelatory information here. Much of this stuff can be found on either IMDB or Wikipedia. Other people caught this stuff too. I'm not the only one who noticed.

What's surprising is that I normally don't catch stuff like this on the first viewing. Oh, sure, occasionally something like The Truman Show will hit me just right and I'll catch all the silly metaphors, but then I'll find out later that everyone and his/her dog caught the metaphors because they were all too obvious. Children of Men is a bit more dense, so I guess maybe I can feel more smarterer. Not really.

People love Children of Men for technical reasons. That's great and all, but I just love the writing even though the film makes me feel like I've lost a fight. For me, the writing is reason enough to keep Children of Men on a shelf, regardless of how many times I might watch this again.

Chelsea Walls

Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls would've gotten by me if not for the soundtrack by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. This film requires a lot from the viewer, and generally speaking, people hate this movie. Much of the dialogue seems extemporaneous, and there is no real plot. But you don't need that, do you?

I sort of like a film that nobody likes. I sat through Heaven's Gate one afternoon a couple of years ago. Chelsea Walls is half the length, and no roller skating!

Chelsea Walls is really just a collection of vignettes that follow a few characters through a day in the life at the Hotel Chelsea. Nothing much happens, but we get this window into life there, decades after the halcyon days. These are people who want to be artists, who talk like artists and live like artists, but they can't quite get there for whatever reason.

After watching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset recently, I remembered this film and the stellar soundtrack comprised mostly of work by Jeff Tweedy. I snagged a used copy with the express purpose of re-watching Chelsea Walls for this project.

I will admit, however, to being very frustrated with this film the first time I watched this several years ago, and I've not seen it since. The film jumps around a lot, and the low budget style (digital video, six figure budget, crap lighting, and talky talk talk talk) will put off a lot of people. I got impatient then, and I'm a little impatient now, but I'm looking for different things.

To be honest, this is exactly the kind of film I needed to follow Chasing Amy. Chelsea Walls captures this bohemian vibe, and yeah, this film is really pretentious, but come on. This is about artists who live at the Hotel Chelsea, as though living there is all it takes. That's pretension, folks. But the mood, the moments, the soundtrack, the performances...

Robert Sean Leonard shows some range here as a songwriter from Minnesota. He performs a couple of songs on the soundtrack, and his voice is thin but competent, as is his playing, but his performance is magnetic. Kris Kristofferson, here well into his seventh decade, turns in one hell of a performance as a shaky, emotional, drunkard writer type. Watching Kristofferson talk on the telephone is enough for me. Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Steve Zahn, Frank Whaley, and the late Natasha Richardson all make appearances here and turn in great little performances.

I wonder sometimes if I should just sit down and write a film like this, sort of as an exercise, sort of understanding that the script will never see daylight, but will satisfy me artistically. I wonder if artistic satisfaction is actually worth pursuing. What good is art if no one sees what you've done? Self-satisfaction? To thine own self be true?

Ethan Hawke had to know the risks of making this film. For me, watching this film is a kind of affirmation. You can make a film like this, a respectable, different little film, and fly above/around/under the Hollywood machine. Can I just do that?

Chasing Amy

I was so disappointed with Chasing Amy back then.

Bad '90s music. Bad '90s facial hair. Bad '90s PC education. I didn't want my perceptions challenged. I didn't need to know the answers to these questions. Everywhere I went throughout the '90s, there was some weirdo trying to get my acceptance. I didn't need the same thing at the movies. Where were Jay and Silent Bob? Where were Dante and Randal?

God, I didn't need this movie. I was tired of everybody's uniqueness. Let's all get to college, and before we unpack, it's time to experiment — hair, clothes, weird diet, smoking, sexuality — like sexuality was a lifestyle choice to lump in with the rest? Even then I knew that was bullshit, and I was the naive one.

I didn't want to see any more piercings. I didn't want to see any more people smoking. I didn't want to see any more fucking goatees. Of course, then I grew a goatee of my own and probably spent hours in some car or some dorm room trying to talk some girl into liking me. At least I wasn't smoking or chasing lesbians. I knew better.

Ben Affleck's endless monologue in the car didn't sit right with me the first time I saw this film. Joey Lauren Adams gets her own miles-long monologue outside the hockey rink. Both of them go on and on and on and on and on. Shut up!

I didn't need Kevin Smith to tell me how to think about gay people. I didn't care. Do your thing, I'll do mine, everybody's happy.

I know these things now: Life is not perfect. Life will never be perfect. You partner will never be perfect. You are better off knowing very little about your partner's history. Just love each other and get on with it and stop overanalyzing everything (in your relationship anyway).

What did I know then?

This movie hit really close to home because I was exactly the type of guy who would ask some girl about her "history" and then feel all terrible and angry once she answered. I was exactly the type of naive farm boy who didn't understand homosexuality and had stupid questions that I eventually got bold enough to ask (not before prefacing all of them with the whole "forgive me for being a naive farm boy" approach, and thankfully my friends were patient enough to answer without judging me). I learned a lot from those miles-long conversations with friends. I had to. I grew up in a corn field. How was I supposed to know anything about anything?

Maybe that's why I didn't think this film was very good. I got answers, sort of, but I also had to look at a reflection of myself asking those things, and I didn't like myself. I still don't think this film is a masterpiece. From a filmmaking and writing standpoint, this film is a mess. But because of the themes Smith tackles, he seems to receive a great deal of lenience. He should. Few filmmakers brought these kinds of themes into the mainstream. If not for Kevin Smith, we would have a lot more homophobic fanboys.

I'll never love Chasing Amy as much as Clerks or Mallrats. But this film changed me, maybe even more profoundly than any of his other films. Maybe. You don't need to know everything.

p.s. Banky wears Airwalks. I miss Airwalks. I told my wife I wanted my old Airwalks back. I even found Airwalks online (you can get Airwalks at Payless now?!?!).

Wanna know why my wife said? "Yeah, but you can't get 1994 back." It was 1996. Shows what she knows.

Cast Away

I'd almost forgotten about this film until I caught the last 45 minutes or so on cable one day a year or two ago. I got sucked in; I couldn't keep flipping channels. Then I wanted to see the film from the beginning without commercials.

Come to find out, you can get a used copy of the two-disc special edition for a few bucks. Done.

I have a book called The 3rd Act: Writing A Great Ending To Your Screenplay by Drew Yanno. Most screenwriting books focus a great deal on Act I and Act II, then seem to run out of gas with the discussion of how to write Act III. Yanno devoted a whole book to analyzing films with great endings (Cast Away), crappy endings (Minority Report), and controversial endings (Lost in Translation). In my dream seminar on screenwriting, Yanno's book is on the reading list.

From this point forward, I'm assuming you've seen this film. If you haven't, stop reading because I'm about to ruin the ending.

Yanno discusses Cast Away in great detail, paying special attention to the last few scenes, the first of which he calls the "Final Battle" (Chuck going to Kelly's house). Yanno's analysis is spot-on brilliant. The conversation is not a final battle in the traditional sense, but both of these characters must face each other before the story can move forward, and indeed, before either of them can move forward with their lives. What follows is the "Bridge" (Chuck visiting Stan in the middle of the night and having his moment of disclosure), which is needed to get at what Chuck is thinking in as short a span as possible so we can get to the resolution. Finally, there's what Yanno calls the "Ending" (little joke there). This is where Chuck personally delivers the last remaining unopened package from the plane crash and meets the recipient — the woman who makes the wings.

First, this ending is designed to break your heart but leave you with hope. Kelly is Chuck's reason for staying alive on the island, for wanting to go home. I mean, homesickness alone is one thing, but he didn't stare at a picture of his house for four years. He stared at a picture of her. Kelly gave him a watch for their last Christmas together, and Chuck set the watch to Memphis time — a sign of his devotion to her regardless of the time zone in which he found himself working. That watch stopped during the crash.

Time is a strong theme in Cast Away. Four years on the island. Chuck Noland's 1,500 days carved on the rock. FedEx packages delivered to beat the clock. But really, time is just some arbitrary measurement. Stripped of time, we have nothing left but everything else.

Cast Away does not have a traditional antagonist, and therefore does not have a traditional ending, but is all the more satisfying anyway. A true antagonist keeps the protagonist busy trying to solve problems. A true antagonist keeps the protagonist moving. Kelly, then, is every bit the antagonist of this film. She's not a villain. But she keeps Chuck going. Without Kelly, there's no reason for Chuck to try so damned hard to escape the island, to keep on living until the opportunity arose to return to her.

When I met Stephen J. Cannell in Chicago, he gave me the best bit of screenwriting advice: have a strong heavy. You need an antagonist, a compelling opposing force, to keep the plot moving. For Chuck, you can talk all about his toothache, or the storms, or starving, or injuring himself, or creating a fire, or getting off the island. But why was he doing all of that? Why did he want to survive? He kept looking at her picture. He flicked the light on and off, on and off, looking at her face. He wasn't looking at a picture of a steak. He wasn't looking at a bottle of water. Everything was for her.

I really could go on and on about William Broyles' script and Drew Yanno's analysis of the film. This is one of those films that makes me envious. I mean, the visual storytelling alone — Kelly opening the freezer door to get ice, which puts all of those new family's photos right in Chuck's face. The shot of Chuck's empty bed, accompanied by the light clicking on and off, because he's lying on the floor staring at her picture and blinking the light, as he did in the cave.

This film is designed to break your heart, like time does. But as long as there's some left, there's always hope, you know?

Casino

Back when my wife and I started dating, I had to take a work-related trip to Las Vegas. I took her along.

When we got off the plane and got the rental car, we didn't go check into the hotel or start gambling right away. Instead, we went to In-N-Out Burger, because that's what you do when you go to a town with an In-N-Out Burger. (This will have a point in a moment.)

Back up a bit. When we got off the plane, I noticed this weird, acrid smell, like tobacco and alcohol, but also cheap leather, cheap perfumes and after shaves, and industrial cleaner. Nothing smells like Las Vegas. Riverboat casinos kind of capture the smell, but fall short. Las Vegas has an odor.

When we went to the hotel, I was hit with the smell once again. The room was okay, but as soon as we stepped into the hallway, the smell was back. Buffets, casinos, sidewalks...smelly everywhere.

In-N-Out Burger was basically the only place in town that didn't have the smell. So next time you go to Vegas and get hit with the smell, know that In-N-Out Burger will be your refuge. Plus, those are some good burgers.

What movie did I watch? Oh, yeah.

Casino is not Martin Scorsese's best film. This one isn't even his best movie about mobsters, or even his best movie about mobsters and starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. But Casino has its own allure. Three hours just fly by.

With this viewing, I'm noticing a lot more humor than ever. Or maybe I'm just laughing at stuff I shouldn't find funny, like when they break the cheater's fingers — but only after they find out whether he's a righty or a lefty. Or maybe when De Niro and Don Rickles take off driving in De Niro's busted car. Or maybe I'm just punchy because I've been up for 20 hours.

When Casino was released, at the time the film contained more uses of the word "fuck" than any other motion picture, beating Menace II Society and Scorsese's own Goodfellas by more than one hundred F-bombs. You can also hear not one, but two Devo songs on the soundtrack. I mean, F-bombs and Devo? Why aren't you watching Casino right now?

Your only possible excuse is that you are going to get In-N-Out Burger.