Finding a familiar plot

I haven't been to the movies in more than two years.

Oh, I've watched a lot of movies. I've lost untold hours -- OK, days, weeks or months maybe -- watching movies on cable. Some I've seen several times, some I missed along the pop culture highway.

But I haven't set foot inside a movie theater in more than 24 months.

I used to go to movies with some regularity, even alone. I had decided some time ago that I wasn't going to let being single, or having a weird work schedule, keep me from doing things I wanted to do.

Then for a while I had a significant other and we went to movies quite a lot. After the relationship ended it just felt lonely to even think about going to a movie alone. After I got passed that, there just haven't been many movies I was dying to see. I'm sure people would tell me I've missed some good cinema in the last couple of years, but off the top of my head I can't think of any films I really wanted to see.

Oh, wait, there was at least one film that I wanted to see and did go see: "Brokeback Mountain". So, I guess my whole not-setting-foot-in-a-theater line doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But the primary point is the same. I just haven't been going to movies, or had any real desire to go either.

But in the last few days I've been seeing some previews for a movie that has piqued my interest. It's called "The Lake House," which reunites "Speed" stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. But it's not the stars that is the draw. It's the story, or at least what I can glean about the story from the movie trailer and details on imdb.com.

Here's the plot outline as detailed on the Internet Movie Database site: "A lonely doctor (Sandra Bullock) who once occupied an unusual lakeside home begins exchanging love letters with its newest resident, a frustrated architect (Keanu Reeves). When they discover that they're actually living two years apart, they must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late."

The storyline resonates with me. I can relate. It sounds a little like a story my ladyfriend Brat and I have lived off and on for a long while. In our case it's not time, but distance, that has kept us apart. We've had a prolonged correspondence and conversation across time and space. Perhaps there is something profoundly intimate about corresponding with someone, whether in letters written with ink on paper or in real time with pixels on a screen.

I've long known that I am better at expressing many things, particularly emotional things, in writing rather than with the spoken word. But I suspected maybe I was just weird or verbally inept. But for centuries, lovers separated by distance or duty have writing to lovers and loved ones with stunning clarity and eloquence. Perhaps technology took that away from us. Or perhaps technology is now giving that power and purity back to us.

Oh sure, there is a proliferation of typographical and grammatical errors all over the Internet and blogosphere. But there is some stunning writing out there as well. People write about the things and people and events most important to them. They write with passion, wit, style and flare. People let us see their heart and that's a powerful, poignant thing.

Brat has let me see her heart, even though she has tried to hide it or protect it from time to time.

And isn't that what we are all looking for? Someone to connect with? Someone who we understand and appreciate and who gives us those same things back? In an exchange of embraces, emotions and bodily fluids, of course.

Movies
Writing
Long-distance romance

Not wooed by Oscar

So, did you watch the Oscars last night? I have to admit, I didn't see a single minute of it. Perhaps the fact that I only went to one movie in the last years affected my interest in this year's show.

"Brokeback Mountain" was the only movie I've seen in a theater in more than a year. But I do intend to see Reese Witherspoon's Oscar winning performance in "Walk the Line" now that that movie is available on DVD. The only other movie of the year I really wanted to see and didn't was "Good Night and Good Luck."

We'll see if I can get back onto the cinema bandwagon in 2006.

Movies
Oscars
Academy Awards

Award-winning ticket

I have to admit, I really wasn't aware that the Golden Globe Awards were taking place until yesterday. But if the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are good judges of quality cinema, it looks like I have spent my movie ticket dollars wisely so far this year.

OK, so as I mentioned in my last post the only movie I've seen at a theater in more than a years has been "Brokeback Mountain," which won four awards last night. I ended up watching part of the awards show last night, for whatever reason, and it further reiterated that I wish I had seen several of the movies that were up this year.

Among the movies that I wish I would have seen are "Walk The Line," "Capote," "Good Night, And Good Luck," and "Transamerica".

Oh well, eventually they will make it on to HBO, Cinemax or Encore, right?

But I've taken the plunge again, getting past whatever demons have possessed me of late that have kept me from venturing out as a single person to go solo to a movie theater again. Yea, the experience isn't as rich as it is to go to a movie with someone who you can talk about the performances with afterward. But then again, sitting home on the couch isn't real culturally or socially enriching either.

Movies
Golden Globe Awards

Back-breaking love

I just got back from the movies. The first movie I've seen in a theater in more than a year and probably almost 2 years. I never intended to go that long without seeing a movie. It just happened that way. One day passed and then another and soon the calendar had turned before I knew it.

It's become a recurring theme.

There have been several movies I've wanted to see, but some of the ones that were on my list aren't even in wide distribution anymore. I'm spending the weekend housesitting for family in Portland and was getting tired of sitting around someone else's house. So I opted to see "Brokeback Mountain" this afternoon. There's been lots of buzz about this movie, so I decided to see what all the murmur was about. Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking about seeing it, because the 4:15 p.m. showing was pretty full.

There are plenty of places on the 'net where you can read reviews or summaries of the movie, so I won't go into the plot here. But I will offer some commentary about the theme, or a theme, of the movie, and that is that sometimes we let life get in the way of love. Society's morals or values of what's acceptable or not can derail a lot of relationships. Time and distance do damage to many others.

The lead characters in the love story spent about 20 years seeing each other periodically. A few fleeting moments of happiness amid year after year of marking time earning a living and living a life of deception.

The timing was rather ironic. Last night, Brat and I had a rather serious conversation. For those of you who may not have caught the bits and pieces of our story scattered through this blog, Brat and I have spent the last 7 years, off and on, talking online, on the phone and through voice chat, but have never managed to get ourselves in the same place at the same time to actually meet face to face. During that time, including a couple of extended breaks, we have become friends and developed strong feelings through those long hours of talking. We struggle sometimes to explain, even to ourselves, what those feelings are and what they mean, but we know that they are real. And it sort of struck me that we are like the story in "Brokeback Mountain," watching the years slowly tick by at the speed of light and we are still pretty much where we were in 1999 or 2000.

In the movie, there was no happy ending, sadly a little too true to life. Fortunately for Brat and I, the climax of our drama has not yet been written. Let's hope -- no, check that, we need to make sure -- this isn't a case of life imitating art.

"Brokeback Mountain"
Long-distance romance

Now that's ironic

Earlier this week, I wrote a post entitled "Leaving Las Vegas," and now I just got done watching the movie by the same title. It was perhaps not the best movie to watch in my current frame of mind.

"Leaving Las Vegas" has to be one of the most tortured love stories every filmed. It's truly beautiful cinema and painful to experience at the same time. The movie and I have a bit of a dark history. It reminds me of some of the best and worst times of my life. And this is probably about only the second or third time I've ever seen it, even though I own it on DVD.

On the positive side, it is a beautifully shot and acted film. And Elisabeth Shue reminds me of a girlfriend from college -- similar facial features, figure, it's almost uncanny the resemblance. And Vegas is certainly a favorite place.

But on the negative side, it's a very dark story and perhaps not the best piece of cinema to watch when drinking your third glass of Oro Azul reposado tequila of the evening, given the fact that Nicolas Cage plays an alcoholic bent of drinking himself to death.

I think when I watch the movie before I felt sorry for Cage's character. Why couldn't he see the love Shue's character had for him? Why couldn't he pull himself out of his fatal dive and appreciate the person who was right in front of him. But after this viewing, I felt most sorry for Shue's character. So lonely. Just wanting someone to be with. Someone to love and care for. Men treat her so badly throughout the film and yet she years for that closeness and compassion of another.

Sometimes you just want to crawl into bed and have someone hold you, or have someone to hold. I simple thing, sometimes so hard to find.

M*A*S*H reruns may have been a better choice for viewing tonight.

Movies

Rebelling against 'The Dukes of Hazzard'

“Just the good ol’ boys,
Never meanin’ no harm,
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day the were born”
From the “Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol’ Boys)”
By Waylon Jennings

OK, I admit, when I was in junior high, I was a fan of the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Back then, my primary obsessions were pretty women and fact cars, because I had never experienced either. And “The Dukes of Hazzard” had both.

I mean Catherine Bach in those cut off shorts that are now known by her character’s name Oh my God. And those tied-up tops that accentuated her breasts. A boy could sprain something just watching her on that show.

Yea, the car was pretty cool too. Although I wasn’t a big Dodge Charger fan, and the fact that it was orange didn’t do much for me either. But hey, at the time I wouldn’t have kicked it out of the garage for leaking oil.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about the show. Even though I do, from time to time, break out my Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane impersonation when I’m happy about something. I do his little tittering, half laugh half cough thing that sounds sort of like “Kew, kew, kew. I love it I love it.” Eat your heart out James Best. Here is a link to an audio clip of Best, but it’s not quite the delivery of the line I was hoping to find, but you might get the idea.

Well, the impression doesn’t work to well in print, but trust me, I can nail it if properly inspired. Most people look at me like I’m fricking losing my mind if they are subjected to it, and truth be told, I may be.

But, I won’t be looking to relive my youth, and that crush on Daisy Duke by seeing “The Dukes of Hazzard” movie that hit theaters over the weekend. Not that Jessica Simpson isn’t crush worthy. And it’s not that I don’t think Willie Nelson would be a good Uncle Jessie, or that Burt Reynolds wouldn’t be a hoot to see as Boss Hogg. And Johnny Knoxville might even be able to pull off Luke Duke if there are any scenes that require the character’s scrotum to be stapled to his leg (or is that a Steve-O bit?).

No, I just don’t have any desire to see the film. One reason I don’t really want to see it is because of that damned rebel battle flag painted on the hood of the car. Back when the show was on TV I didn’t have any aversion to that flag. I probably even thought it was cool. Years later, when I was in college, on my first trip to the South, I even bought one of those Confederate flags.

I was on a road trip with a friend I met on a summer job. He was from Texas, and I rode from Corvallis back to San Antonio with him at the end of the summer. We stopped in one of those tourist traps along the highway and I stocked up on some authentic Texas souvenirs, including a set of horns, a Texas flag and a rebel flag.

The friend I was riding with gave me no end of shit for buying the rebel flag. I was stunned, and obviously naïve. I didn’t know what the big deal was. I thought it was a cool symbol of the South and my visit there. He attempted to inform me that it was a racist symbol and decidedly not cool to have.

To be honest I didn’t get it. It was many years before I would get it really. I grew up in a very small, very white, town. I didn't know many people of color. What I knew I learned from TV and from the stereotypes, jokes and stories told to me by friends.

I was as naïve as the came, and a real redneck. I fit the Dukes’ demographic to a T as a kid, and far too late in to my adult years.

My not seeing this movie is no grand boycott. I haven’t seen a movie in a theater in probably about a year, maybe even longer. So, Warner Bros. won’t miss my money.

I’m just disappointed that in the year 2005 the makers of this movie would choose to paint that damn flag, which is a symbol of hate and racism no less vile than a swastika or a burning cross, on the hood of a car for yet another generation to think it is a cool thing on a cool car.

I get annoyed every time I see some jackass, particularly here in the Northwest, or even when I was in Southern California, with a rebel flag on a license plate frame or a window sticker or any other type of decoration on his car. But then, I remember myself as a young man, and how naïve I was about what that flag stood for, and I hope that perhaps it is another unenlightened soul that will someday realize that it ain’t cool to support a symbol like that.

The flag itself is not the problem. It is the racist thoughts and actions that do the harm. If nothing else, that banner can sometimes make the assholes easier to spot.

If they’re just good ol’ boys who don’t mean any harm, that’s one thing. But if the intent is to proudly proclaim their desire to return to a time and a place where people owned other people as property, or who think one race is inferior to another, then that is a problem.

Sometimes I’m proud to be a good ol’ country boy. And sometimes I’m ashamed of it. Fortunately I’ve outgrown the Dukes of Hazzard, or at the very least the flag emblazoned on the roof of the General Lee. I wish Hollywood had too.

Dukes of Hazzard
Movie
Rebel flag
Racism

Agreeing to disagree

A while back I wrote a post about a movie that I had just watched called "Closer." Well, today, one of my favorite bloggers, Chick, wrote a review of the same film. And, I have to admit, we did not agree on the merits of this flick.

So, in the interests of offering an opposing viewpoint, I thought I would offer readers here a change to get a different perspective from mine, if they so choose to do so. Sort of a blogging version of a point-counterpoint.

I have to admit, in that spirit, I was tempted to start my post off by saying: "Chick, you ignorant slut..." a la Dan Ackroyd and Saturday Night Live. But then I figured I might piss off one of my favorite bloggers, and would definitely show my age by divulging to anyone able to decifer the Dan Ackroyd-Jane Curtain SNL reference that I was old enough to have watched that show in the late '70s (but I was quite young, I assure you).

So, instead, I'll leave it to the rest of you ignorant sluts out there to decide, who was right: Me in my commentary on "Closer" or Chick in hers?

Movie review
Blogging

Movie meme

I got tagged with this meme by Crystal. Ordinarily I avoid such things if possible, but this one was sort of interesting, and relatively painless. So here goes.

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video: About 72 (not counting the ones I recorded off cable.

2) The last film I bought: Closer

3) The last film I watched: Closer

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): American Beauty, Closer, When Harry Met Sally, Castaway and The Shootist.

5) Tag five people and have them put this in their journal/blog: I hate doing this to others, but that's the way the meme works. So if you choose to accept the challenge, Brat, Gene, MJ, 3T, and Kat you are the chosen ones.

Meme
Movies

How dare we love the people we like?

What is it about us, as human beings, that makes us seek love? Are we hardwired for it? Is it part of the root command on system's motherboard? Or have we been conned into it by previous generations? Do our parents think to themselves, "Yea, we've had our share of pain and misery, let's make sure or kids are just as fucked up as we are, let's tell them that love is the best thing ever."? Perhaps its too convenient to blame our parents, but I'm not ruling it out. Not yet.

You would think we would learn something from all of music, poems, books, plays and movies that document the pain and the heartache of love lost, thrown away, used, abused, abandoned or misplaced.

But we just keep going back. Moths at least have the decency to die when they get too close to the flame. Not us. Unless we pull some melodramatic Romeo and Juliet shit and off ourselves, or worse, get melodramatic and psychotic and whack each other. Sometimes we go back to the same person in the same circumstances and expect a different outcome. This time it will be different. But, is it ever really different, even with a different person? We may change roles from time to time, but someone is always the ass, someone ends up as the victim, and heartache ensues.

You may be asking yourself, what the fuck is up with The G-man? Did someone shit in his Cheerios today or what? Well, no not exactly. But I did just get done watching the movie "Closer" with Julie Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil the story for you. But it does not necessarily have a typical Hollywood ending. It has a real-life ending, where things are ambigious and unclear and we don't necessarily know where the characters lives go from that point, just like we've each experienced in our own lives.

I was compelled to buy the DVD of this film when I saw some promo piece about it prior to the DVD release. This is the first DVD I've bought in a long time, if ever, for which I had not seen the movie first. I like buying DVDs of films that I like, particularly movies that I find particularly moving. This movie, certainly fits in the category of moving. But I didn't know if I would like it or not before I bought it. I merely had to have it. Well, I also bought Apollo 13 too, so at least the trip to the store wouldn't be a complete bust in the event I had to chuck the "Closer" DVD into the nearest Dumpster. For the record, I won't be pitching it. And maybe I bought it in part because it was one movie of recent vintage that I had not seen with my ex. This movie watching experience would be mine and mine alone.

I don't think I could have watched this movie when it was released in theaters back in December. Although I like to think I was emotionally in pretty good shape back in December, I was probably still unduly under the influence of the breakup of my engagement just six months earlier. And maybe I'm still unduly under the influence of it, I don't know. But I do know that I was able to sit through this entire film, with all its depicted emotion of relationships growing and dying and did not shed a single tear. As unmanly as it may be to admit, last year there were a lot of tears. Little things could bring on big tears. Maybe the tears for this failed relationship are gone for good. In fact, I find myself looking forward to the next relationship.

I may already be in the next one as far as that goes.

I said I wouldn't give the story away on "Closer" and I won't but I don't think it gives too much away to say that one of the themes in the film is about relationships interrupted by other relationships. I could certainly relate to that theme, as this current relationship was interrupted, by me, twice, in order to pursue other relationships. Now, in my defense, this current relationship I speak of has never been consummated, in no small part because we live two time zones apart and have never got our shit together enough to fix that.

So, why do we put ourselves through the turmoil of love relationships? Because there is turmoil. The people best equipped to hurt us are those who profess their love for us and for whom we feel what we label as love. Oh, sure, harsh words from a stranger can cut, but it takes a lover or a family member to do permanent damage. Yet we still risk that pain. Time and time again. We see it in people of all ages, socioeconomic levels, sexual preferences. We seek this thing called love, like it is a drug that we've been hooked on and can't kick. Stopping smoking is less gutwrenching than giving up on love.

Are we all fools? Fools for love?

I think we are. It's fun to be footloose, foolish and falling in love. So fuck it. Let's all hop in. Group swim!

But the irony of it all is that we may only learn the depths of our emotion in that pain of loss, due to betrayal, breakup, separation or death. I don't believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it does tell us how much we miss our fix. We don't know we are hooked until we can't have it. So, here I just got one monkey off my back, which back in June and July felt like it had a deathgrip on my spirit. Now, there is only a slight twinge of phantom pain left on the heart. And what I learned was that I'm willing to risk that pain yet again for the boring drudgery of an average ordinary day in love and loved by someone.

Crazy shit Maynard, that's all there is to it, complete with straightjacket and staff shrink. Love is not rational. It's not logical. It is just sheer lunacy.

Where do I sign up?

Love
Movies