Almost invariably, I'm thrilled when I walk into a movie theater and disappointed when I walk out. At some point, I'm certain to regret every trip to the cinema, thinking, "What was I thinking? Why did I waste two hours and 7 dollars?"
But lately I've begun to realize that, before I go movie-bashing, expending what little time and energy I can muster talking about how moviegoing is a real waste of open-eye time, I ought to try and recognize the pattern of self-abuse here at hand, and how I've always already said that my film experience was a letdown, and that it's probably (nay, certainly) true that what we have here is self-loathing masquerading as disappointment, and that that my disappointment is really with my own personal selfish self for needing to watch movies in the first place. Film criticism is a prime example of emotional projection.
Almost invariably, post-film I take the time to imagine what I'd have done if I hadn't been at the movies, what the real world would have had in store, such things as going places, meeting people, cooking Balinese stews, making dioramas and darning my socks... What a sin it is to spend any fraction of our nasty, brutish, short little lives in a dark entertainment chamber. Or so I think to myself as the cycle begins again. In retrospect, of course, if I hadn't gone to the movies, for example, if I hadn't gone to see Mystic River, I'd have been home in my cell bored out of my mind staring at the walls with my finger up my nose. And let me tell you that's no way to spend an evening.
When you think about that, and when you really level with yourself, then movies aren't so bad after all. They're like patronage, and when I'm at the movies I'm Frederick the Great, composing little ditties and collecting musicians like baseball cards, all the while giving my serfs something to plow home about. Sure, I'm living in a vicarious fantasy world for two hours a day, glowing in the flicker, spending my prime time in a modern renactment of Plato's cave, just part of the great daze of eyeballs fixed on shadows, the Sun lurking in the back alley all the while. Just the other day I saw it, the Sun, as I walked out the cinema door. It asked me for my spare change, and I turned and looked at it. "What are you looking at?" the Sun said, before I walked away, feeling guilty. I don't listen, but my mother still tells me not to stare at strangers or the Sun.
Here's the irksome scene from the film, with notes:
A quiet Boston street, KEVINBACON, a plainclothes detective approaches SEAN PENN, a local kingpin, who is looking seedy in a leather getup with matching 'crime gloves.'
KEVINBACON: Why don't you tell me… When was the last time you saw Dave (TIMROBBINS)? 1
SEANPENN: [pauses. looks into distance.] It was 25 years ago, on this street, in the back of that car. 2
KEVINBACON: [also looks into distance.] Yes it was, wasn't it. 3
SEANPENN: In a way, he never left that basement. 4
KEVINBACON: Maybe none of us ever left that basement, maybe we're all still 10 years old, living in the dark, and everything since has been nothing but a dream. 5
SEANPENN: Don't get all sentimental on me, copper. You know you'll never get me alive. 6
KEVINBACON: [reaches for gun in holster.] Eat lead, crime lord. 7
SEANPENN: [pulls out butterfly knife, kills KEVINBACON, fries him with eggs.] Yummy. 8
Annoying notes section:
1 This movie had acting coming out it's ears. Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney were all uniquely convincing. Eastwood's directing was mostly annoying, as in the scene above or the climax of the film where it cuts from Robbins's death scene to Kevin Bacon's childhood intervention.
2 Referring to the opening scene where Dave (TIMROBBINS) is carted off to be sexually abused by a pair of cross-wearing father figures posing as cops. In this, the showdown scene of the film, Eastwood surrealistically shows the car and young Dave (TIMROBBINS) looking wistfully back at his childhood pals. So far, so good.
3 As if we viewers couldn't figure out that Dave (TIM ROBBINS) had still repressed his past, as if his vampire speech and frequent flashbacks, as if crazed stare and chiascuro lighting weren't enough to convince us that we never forget some experiences, here KEVINBACON and SEANPENN state the obvious.
4 Now KEVINBACON and SEANPENN really lay it down in black and white for us, the viewers, explaining the moral motivation for everyone in the theater who didn't get it yet. Is it really necessary to literally state the moral of the story? Can't we assume that the audience is savvy enough to pick up on the basic theme: the balance of good and evil, and the cyclically connected nature of vioence? I think so, Clint.
5 You know, Clint, that reminds me of when you were a cowboy. Sure Sergio Leone was heavyhanded and melodramatic, but in all those spaghetti westerns you didn't have to pause the gunfight and explain exactly why you were shooting all the bad guys and wreaking havoc on the lawless desert town. Instead Clint, you were a wordless nomadic vigilante. Enough said.
6 There we go. That's what I'm talking about.
7 And this was my favorite part of the film, when KEVINBACON tried to pull the gun. Though he should have been chewing on a cigar stub. That would have been nice.
8 Okay, so I made this last part up. I just hope that the book was a bit more subtle. Mystic River was still one of the best films I've seen recently, and I happen to know for a fact that Clint Eastwood is a huge John Coltrane fan, so he's still okay in my book. Oh, and Sean Penn is built like a truck. I wonder if those were his real tattoos?
Princess Mononoke
Speaking of bad endings, this is how Princess Mononoke ends…
PRINCESS and PRINCE wake up after saving the world from certain destruction, narrowly escaping with their lives. They are lying in a field, joined by love, surrounded by flowers. All around them, stretching to the horizon, the landscape has been renewed with life.
PRINCESS: Huh… Where am I?
PRINCE: The forest spirit is dead.
PRINCESS: Yes, the forest is gone. It will never return. You know I can't forgive the humans, don't you? I'm going back to the forest to live with my wolves.
PRINCE: [chipper] And I'm going to help the townspeople rebuild Irontown! But I'll come visit you every other day, and we'll collect pinecones and bake a pie.
PRINCESS: Okay. See ya.
PRINCE: Bye-Bye.
THE END
Princess Mononoke is a beautiful film, but what's with the stupid ending? Is Miyazaki trying to tell me that (1) Prince Whatshisname isn't going to try and return to his home village after he gets healed and saves the entire world from the gooey plague? And that (2) he's going to stay in Irontown instead of going off and living in the woods with the wolf people? And that (3) Princess Mononoke is going back into the now-decripit woods and live with a couple of wolves that probably don't speak English anymore? What is she going to do there? Eat sticks? There's no more Forest Spirit, no more big momma wolf, no more little tiny tree people… I bet the antedivulian forest is going to be boring.
Nutritional Equivalent:
Ebi Maki Sushi
I really not a love story kind of guy, but but this ending is quite the anti-climax. Miyazaki should have killed one of them off, either the Prince or the Princess, sink one of them to the bottom of the Atlantic or something. They've got nothing to live for anymore anyway, so the best posible scenario would be that they both die, giving their lives so that others may live on, martyrs to the last.
