movies

Six Movies That Changed The Way I Watch Movies

man-of-steel-flagI saw Man of Steel on the day it opened and absolutely loved it.  I found myself quietly cheering in a few scenes and actually got choked up in a couple of others.  It wasn’t a perfect Superman movie–it could have been maybe 10-15 minutes shorter, a few more jokes would have been nice, and someone needs to confiscate Zack Snyder’s copy of the Singles soundtrack–but when I walked out of the theater I had a big smile on my face and was all, “YES!”

Then, I went on the Internet.

My liking Man of Steel in the midst of a serious backlash over a variety of things (and I’ll keep it spoiler-free for those of you who haven’t seen it) made me feel like I was stupid or had done something wrong.  Reading through last week’s Entertainment Weekly made me feel even dumber–they had a fun cover story on Superman’s 75th birthday but then did what’s a typical fake-out for them where the critic destroyed the movie in his review.  This week’s issue didn’t help matters much, with Supes appearing in the outer rim of their back page “bullseye” feature with the caption, “Man of Steal–as in, you stole two and a half hours of our life, and we want it back.”

Now, I don’t know why I am taking this as personally as I am taking it.  After all, this is only a movie, right?  I guess some of it is rooted in the psychological trauma of high school, where I often found myself ridiculed for my musical tastes (among other things–I took a lot of shit from my “friends” in high school, who were actually quite cruel).  But I graduated from high school almost twenty years ago and am pretty much over all that crap, although I sometimes wonder if you can be completely over it, especially when you develop reactions to certain behaviors in such a way that they almost become reflexive.

Anyway, this post isn’t meant to be about the shit I went through in high school, it’s meant to be about movies, and it’s not meant to be a defense of Man of Steel, either, because there are plenty of people out there doing that.  What led me to writing this post was that in the midst of all of the hand-wringing and Internet-bashing (some of which I am pretty sure is of the “It’s fun to hate on something” variety) about the movie, I began to think about why I like what I like and how I came to have the movie collection that I have.  I’m sure there’s enough for an entire book, let alone one blog post, but in thinking about the experience of seeing Man of Steel and then feeling weirdly hurt when the media I read has the complete opposite reaction to the movie that I do, I thought of other times I’ve watched movies and they’ve either changed my tastes or changed the way I view the moviegoing experience.  I narrowed it down to six, and since lists are fun, here they are in chronological order. (more…)

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 9: Your Cure for PCSD

pop culture affidavit episode 9 coverIn 1985, Joel Schumacher directed a seminal film that perfectly captures the angst of youth having been unleashed onto the world after graduating from college. Okay, that’s giving this movie too much credit, but St. Elmo’s Fire is still one of the best illustrations of Post-Collegiate Stress Disorder, or PCSD. So let’s go back to the Eighties with one of the ultimate Brat Pack movies!

You can listen here:

iTunes:  Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download 

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

 

 

 

 

 

Being Michael Grates

stillerrealitybitesAbout a week or two ago, I came across a few articles filled with emotional hand-wringing on the part of the generation often referred to as Millenials.  I read about how there is a generational conflict between this younger generation, which seems to be dismayed that the world doesn’t think they are entitled to anything; and older generations, who wish these kids would get over themselves.  It’s accompanied by talk about the uphill battle this generation faces as it enters a very touchy employment situation–the job market, after all, is terrible–and will have an enormous amount of student loan debt.  There is also the sentiment of “You created this mess and we inherited it.”

I found myself thinking about how Millennials need to get over themselves and how they’re all entitled brats, but then I couldn’t help but be reminded of two decades ago when Generation X seemed to be facing the same problems.  I am sure that your average Millennial will tell me otherwise, but it seems that there is something universal here:  the up-and-coming generation takes crap from the older generation. And I also couldn’t help but watch Reality Bites, the 1994 Winona Ryder-Ethan Hawke film that attempted to capture the struggle that particular group of twentysomethings was going through at the time.  Watching it again–and I watch it every once in a while–I knew that I would have a slightly different perspective and perhaps even view at least one of the characters a different way.  Not surprisingly, the character I seemed to sympathize with more than I did when I first saw the movie as a teenager was Michael Grates. (more…)

Hating Lloyd Dobler
lloyd-dobler

Despite what I’m saying in this post, this scene still is awesome.

Just like last week’s post, this is another that was an old post that I’ve updated and revised for this blog.

I think that if I ever actually met him, I would hate Lloyd Dobler. This is a lot coming from me. Say Anything … is one of my favorite movies of all time, so much so that I have the framed movie poster on the wall of my office at home. But with my tendency to over-examine everything I read, watch, or listen to (just like a good English teacher should) and with the film more than twenty years old, I’ve been thinking a lot about Lloyd and Diane Court and I have come to the conclusion that if I ever had to interact with Lloyd, I probably wouldn’t like him.

It’s not like I think he’s a bad guy or anything; on the contrary, there is something genuine about Lloyd and how he pursues and is devoted to Diane throughout the film that makes him great. John Cusack’s portrayal and Cameron Crowe’s writing and directing don’t hurt, either, because he clearly is the hero in the teen romance story and when he is finally with Diane at the end it feels right. But I still can’t help feel some sort of resentment because Lloyd is pretty much every guy I’m not, or ever was; furthermore, he is one of the types of guys who often proves to be the bane of my existence as an educator.

When I was in school, I was not in the clique that included guys like Lloyd. If I was in a clique at all, that is. I kind of simply existed, floating through the lower echelons of the social scale among the dorks. Guys like Lloyd were guys who showed up to school when they felt like it, took general-level classes and probably screwed around but more or less floated by on their way to graduation. They weren’t stupid by any means, but when I was in high school I probably would have assumed he was unintelligent in that way that every honors student with no life looks down anyone in a lower-level class as a way to compensate for having little or no social status. I didn’t have Corey or her 65 songs about Joe to occupy me on a Friday night; I had whatever was on television, video games, and maybe a few rounds of pool with my friends. Lloyd was cool, the dude everyone relied upon, and who didn’t give a crap. I was high-strung, rarely took risks, and should have left the house more.

Of course, he was also my competition.

Let’s consider Diane Court for a moment. Whereas I’d probably hate Lloyd if I met him, if I ever met Diane I wouldn’t hate her, I would have fallen in love with her and this, in turn, would have made me hate Lloyd more. I know this for a fact because I went to a high school with so many Diane Courts. Bright, beautiful, but kind of unaware. Not a snot, but so focused elsewhere that even she doesn’t know how good she would have it if she played into the school’s social status games. In fact, it’s wonderfully appropriate that Heather Chandler herself says that she wouldn’t have pushed herself so hard if she didn’t feel like she was competing with Diane. And if Heather Chandler is the queen, then that makes Diane an Athena of sorts, someone who is not even known until she leaves the halls of Lakewood High School and actually attends a graduation party with Lloyd, after which, they share this exchange:

Diane: Nobody knew me before tonight

Lloyd: They knew of you. Now they know you.

Of course, it makes perfect sense that Diane winds up falling for Lloyd. Even on the surface it works. Girls like Diane fall for guys like Lloyd all the time. Some would say it’s a “sowing your wild oats” type of thing or an “opposites attract” thing. But there’s so much more to it than that. When a drunken partygoer asks Lloyd how she agreed to go out with him, as in “Who are you,” Lloyd replies, “I’m Lloyd Dobler.” Because he is. He’s normal. She’s not.

And that pisses me off. (more…)

Sympathy for Richard Vernon
Two months, Bender. Don't mess with the bull, young man, you'll get the horns.

Two months, Bender. Don’t mess with the bull, young man, you’ll get the horns.

A quick editorial note:  This is an update of an old post from an old blog.  But I was watching The Breakfast Club the other day and thought about it so I dusted it off and posted it here.

Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062.

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us…in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at seven o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed.

So begins what is arguably the best teen-oriented movie of all time, John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club. I have, in past lives, written what seems like volumes on this movie and just about anyone under the age of 40 who watches movies is familiar with its story, so I won’t bore you to death with the details of the plot. Instead, I’m going to focus on the one teacher character in the school, Mr. Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason).

Vernon, of course, is the overseer of the five students central to the plot, a veteran vice principal who’s been putting kids in detention probably for longer than he can remember and makes sure that they’re behaving and on task, at least for the first part of the movie before the kids sneak out of the library to get a bag of pot from Bender’s (Judd Nelson) locker. Bender’s the main source of grief for Vernon; he’s a detention regular and the group’s resident “rebel.” Vernon fills the authority figure role well when he comes down hard on Bender for talking back, assigning him two months’ worth of detentions and expels him from the library when he catches him in the gym.

Then, he crosses a line. After throwing Bender in a storage closet, Vernon threatens him …

Vernon: That’s the last time, Bender. That the last time you ever make me look bad in front of those kids, you hear me? I make $31,000 a year and I have a home and I’m not about to throw it all away on some punk like you. But someday when you’re outta here and you’ve forgotten all about this place and they’ve forgotten all about you, and you’re wrapped up in your own pathetic life, I’m gonna be there. That’s right. And I’m gonna kick the living shit out of you. I’m gonna knock your dick in the dirt.

Bender: You threatening me?

Vernon: What are you gonna do about it? You think anyone’s gonna believe you? You think anyone is gonna take your word over mine? I’m a man of respect around here. They love me around here. I’m a swell guy. You’re a lying sack of shit and everybody knows it. Oh, you’re a tough guy. Hey c’mon. Get on your feet pal. Let’s find out how tough you are. I wanna know right now how tough you are.

[offers Bender his chin]

Just take the first shot. I’m begging you, take a shot. Just one hit. Come on, that’s all I need, just one swing…

[Bender pauses, staring]

That’s what I thought. You’re a gutless turd.

On some level, you can take this as the scene where we all see Vernon as a symbol for all of the overbearing horrible authority figures that keep teenagers from doing anything they want; after all, the most memorable line from The Breakfast Club  is “When you get old, your heart dies.” But if you follow Vernon after the incident, you get a sense that he’s not proud of what he just did and his subsequent conversation with Carl, the janitor, reveals that he’s more than just a caricature of an ineffective authority figure (which is what Mr. Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off  is). Carl and Vernon have a pretty standard conversation about “kids these days” and how they don’t respect anything. Carl calls bullshit on that sentiment, saying that Vernon has changed just as much as he thinks the kids have. (more…)

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 7: Well, That’s One Way to Spend a Grand

Can't_Buy_Me_Love_Movie_PosterWhen you’re a total geek and you’ve got a ton of money to blow, what do you do? Well, you spend it on getting a popular girl to go out with you! At least that’s the premise of “Can’t Buy Me Love,” a 1980s romantic teen comedy if there ever was one.

So take an hour or so and go back to 1987 and all of its bad hair as I talk about this Patrick Dempsey classic as well as dive into my own personal review archives, all in the name of love. And getting people to listen.

You can listen here:

iTunes:  Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download 

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 2 — We All Float Down Here (or, Why I Hate Clowns)

In the second episode of the Pop Culture Affidavit podcast, I take a look at Stephen King’s It, both the 1986 novel as well as the 1990 TV movie starring Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise The Clown.  It’s a Halloween treat that will remind you why demonic clowns dwelling in sewers will make you swear off the circus forever.

You can listen here:

iTunes:  Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download 

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

And, for your viewing enjoyment, here is a scene from the TV movie version of It:

Introducing … Pop Culture Affidavit: THE PODCAST!!!

It’s the very first episode of the Pop Culture Affidavit podcast!  Each month, I’m going to be offering a “deluxe-sized” version of my blog posts … mainly stuff that I have really wanted to talk about but that I consider “special” enough to warrant about an hour’s worth of time in an audio format.

This first episode is all about the summer of 2012, including movies, comics, and my trip to the Baltimore Comic-Con.

You can listen here:

iTunes:  Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download 

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

Below are the pictures I took at Baltimore Comic-Con, including people I saw as well as comics and TPBs I had signed.

The line to get into the Baltimore Comic-Con. It moved quickly, which was a pleasant surprise.

“Doom says that this line is too long! Doom shall not wait in line with Loki! Doom shall cut the line!”

 

I do love anyone with the thought of attending a con as Darkseid.

 

The new Captain Marvel. A GREAT costume.

(more…)

Self-Righteous

The watershed moments in your life rarely come with a script.  Oh sure, you have your major milestones and accomplishments but the moments of true epiphany are the most random, often happening when you least expect it.  One such moment in my life came before a club meeting during my senior year of high school.  I was helping pass out agendas and had left my backpack on my seat.  A friend of mine, Jim, was a fellow officer in the club happened to see my Walkman and out of curiosity, pulled it out of my bag and gave it a listen.  I returned to the table in time to see a look of complete confusion make its way across his face.

“Give me that,” I said, snatching the Walkman out of his hand.  Jim didn’t respond, and I put my headphones on to hear what had prompted such a strange look.  Playing near full blast was “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”

Luckily, the meeting soon began and Jim didn’t care enough to mention it again or to anyone else, and needless to say that had me relieved because while I brushed the incident off, I felt the same sort of weird guilt you’d feel as if you’d been caught masturbating.  This was music I had been listening to when nobody was around, an act of musical self-pleasure that I kept hidden from the guys I talked heavy metal with at the lunch table where for all they knew, I was genuinely impressed that Jeff tracked down a Megadeth bootleg or that Brian finally acquired the studio version of “Breadfan” when he bought the Japanese import single for “One.” Had he mentioned it to the group of people we hung out with, I would have been mercilessly ridiculed, like the time they found my copy of Born in the U.S.A. and wrote “Nice ass!” on the cover.

I probably shouldn’t have cared, to be honest.  What’s wrong with having your own tastes?  Who cares what other people think, right?  But I was an individual with serious self-esteem problems and a need for approval that meant not only did I really want to seem like I was cool, but I was quite possibly the easiest target for ridicule.  I will spare you the vulgar nicknames, the perfume sprayings, and other jokes in my honor and say that though Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield’s glory years were a good thirty years behind them at that point, my listening to the Righteous Brothers tape I’d borrowed from my mother, especially “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” had a perfectly reasonable explanation:  Top Gun. (more…)

On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream

“The Book of Alien,” published in 1979, had me scared out of my mind when I was a kid.

I think of all the movies I’m looking forward to this summer, Prometheus is at the top of the list. I know that being a huge comic book reader I would probably be more excited about The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, but when I heard that Ridley Scott was making a movie that had ties somehow to Alien, something in my nerd past reawakened and I remembered (suddenly? I mean it’s not like I ever really forgot) that when I was about 11 years old, the world he created in Alien was the center of my universe.

Okay, to be fair, the reason for that was more due to James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, because up until the time I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I had only ever seen anything to do with Alien in the movie book–The Book of Alien–that someone on my bus had been passing around when I was in the second grade. Furthermore, what I had seen was a picture of the movie’s infamous “chestburster scene” (although at the time we called it “when that thing came out of the guy’s stomach”) and it scared the crap out of me.

I refused to watch Alien until I finally sat down and watched it during the summer before sixth grade–this was either the day before or the day of the incident where my father, who was wallpapering the living room–stepped on a razor blade and wound up with a few stitches in his foot. I don’t think I thought very much of the movie when I first saw it because it wasn’t as cool as Aliens, which I had already been watching on constant replay for the better part of a year.

Can you really blame me, after all? I was eleven or twelve and it was the middle of the “action Eighties” where I was into any movie that had large guns that shot lots of people, it quickly became my favorite movie. My friends and I would “play” Aliens (I was often Hudson to my friend Tom’s Hicks, although I think one time I actually played Ripley which I’m sure that some psychologist would have jumped on … but I have a feeling I just wanted to be one of the leads) when we wanted something slightly different than the “army” games we were used to playing after being kicked out of the house for watching Aliens way too many times.

But with anything from my childhood, my interest faded after a little while and I paid less attention to Ripley, Hicks, Hudson, Newt, and the other characters and more attention to things like baseball and the WWF. I would gravitate back toward Alien when I was in junior high after watching the original theatrical trailer while waiting on line to ride The Great Movie Ride at what was then called Disney’s MGM Studios in Disney World.  I knew I had seen the movie before, but trailers were hard to come by in 1990–you either had to have it as part of a commercial break on something you taped off of television or on another video tape that came out at that time, and considering that Alien was released in 1979 and then released on VHS for the first time by CBS FOX video in the early 1980s, that wasn’t likely to happen in my house.  The trailer blew me away and left so much of an impression that I remember trying to duplicate it as part of a computer animation project in my advanced computer graphics class in the ninth grade (I think it was a bunch of stills with quick cuts that wound up with no sound and a title in a really bad font … then again, it was 1991).

(more…)