First Crushes, First Tears: My Earliest Experiences with Movies

Lately, I've been racking my brain over what favorite film to write about next. My first inclination is to write about all of them in chronological order, so that is how I will start, at least in the beginning; after all, I didn't watch all of them in the theater when they came out. But there are a couple of problems with some of those earlier films: I don't have all of them in my library and I'm unsure if I will be able to write an entire post about all of them; my memory, good as it can be with movies, just isn't that good. Now, however, I have a solution. Those earlier films seemed to have one thing in common: I often had crushes on the main characters. Of course, all of this occurred when I was less than ten years old; I'm twenty-nine now, so those crushes have faded, but they nevertheless left an indelible impression on that small boy squatted on the floor, head tilted upwards, soaking in all those beautiful images. Oh, and there were a few tears shed in those days, more than are shed today.


First Crushes: The NeverEnding Story (1984) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

Obviously, at a mere two years old, I don't remember the first time I watched The Neverending Story, although for some reason it is connected in my mind with an old memory of mine. I believe my family was visiting my grandmother, or at least visiting my mother's side of the family. I was playing outside, the images of NeverEnding Story filled my young imagination, and I found my way back into the house and into the living room where my parents and grandmother were watching a "for adults only" movie. Now, don't think my family was watching some "X-Rated" kind of movie; no, they were just watching a movie that us kids were not supposed to watch much less imitate, which is exactly what I did. One of the actors yelled something and thinking it sounded cool I repeated what he said. I thought it had something to do with bombs, but apparently I said something more along the lines of an "F-Bomb."

Needless to say, my parents were not happy with me repeating what I'd overheard and so gave me a stern talking to. I really don't know how NeverEnding Story relates to the above experience other than it was what was occupying my mind at the time. Either way, it did open the door for a few other lessons as well. Aside from me learning that some words should not be said, especially by anyone as young as two or three, I also learned something else from The NeverEnding Story: Some people, mostly guys, could make my stomach take a flying leap up into my throat.

I was lucky with The NeverEnding Story, as there were two characters I had a young crush on: Bastian (Barret Oliver) and Atreyu (Noah Hathaway). Mostly, I loved Bastian, but apparently there was a little bit of love left over for the cowboy/Native American tough guy. Oddly enough, they are basically the same character.

What I love most about The NeverEnding Story is its concept: A bullied young boy finds courage and friendship in the pages of a story, which changes with each reader. So, Atreyu is just an aspect of Bastian's personality that hasn't been fully expressed in the real world. As a young boy myself, very conscious of my miniscule size, I related to Bastian's desperation, and it probably didn't help that I found Bastian to be attractive as well. And so, Bastian became my first screen-crush.

The second young crush I remember, and it was the one that revealed a lot later in life, was for Russell "Russ" Thompson Jr. (Thomas Wilson Brown) in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I don't have this film now (and I should get it because I remember liking it, not just for Russ), but this particular film holds a special place in my heart because my memories of watching it while in daycare were the first memories that helped me realized that my being gay was not a choice, but something natural. After all, when I had no concept of attraction, nor the struggles I would encounter later in life, I remember sitting on the floor in daycare during "movie time," watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. While the movie played I remember my stomach doing strange things every time Russ was on screen; a pit of nervousness welled up in me, especially at the end when Russ held hands with that blond girl on the screen. As with my earlier post over The Little Mermaid, I found myself wanting to be that blond girl, not because I really wanted to be a girl, but because she had the pleasure of holding Russ' hand.

First Tears: Short Circuit 2 (1988) and E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

A recent conversation with my parents reminded me of a story that my sister will never live down. My mother always likes telling this story because it just seems so indicative of my sister's inability to cry over anything in movies unless it involves animals and cute, funny little robots.

Apparently, while watching Short Circuit 2 at the theaters, when it looked as though Johnny 5 had met his demise, my sister burst into tears, not the kind that lightly roll over the cheeks, but the great, heaving kind that render many kids incapable of breathing properly for at least half an hour. Add to this the fact that my sister kept wailing and screaming, "Johnny 5!" at the top of her lungs, and my parents have a funny story to tell for the rest of their days.

This story got me thinking: What is the earliest film I ever cried over? This one is a bit hard because, while I was apparently a bit more sensitive than my sister, I don't remember a great crying episode quite like the one above. However, I do remember crying during The NeverEnding Story when it became clear Artax was not going to make it out of The Swamps of Sadness.

But the prize, I think, must go to E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, mostly because that damn movie still makes me cry. I may still tear up for Artax, but it's nothing compared to the rivers that come streaming down my face when E. T. places his amber glowing finger on Elliot's (Henry Thomas) forehead and slowly says, "I'll be right here." Just writing that gives me goosebumps.

Obviously, since E. T. came out the year I was born, I didn't make it to the theater. If I had, I'm quite sure I would have given my parents an embarrassing story to tell. I wouldn't cry like that until many years later, watching Crash alone in my living room. Now, that's a post I'll save for later.

By the way, I had a crush on Elliot, too. Goodness, I sure was "boy crazy."

AFI Project Entry #2: The Graduate, Raging Bull, and One More, Just for Fun!

It has been a while since my last AFI post. The process of watching all these films takes a lot longer than I'd hoped, plus finding them is also somewhat problematic. Netflix is great in this, but I wish that all one hundred films were available for streaming. Unfortunately, this is not the case, so wait I must.

Either way, I have seen two more films on AFI's list: The Graduate and Raging Bull. Both are really good films, but for some reason I had a real problem connecting with the characters on an emotional level, which is why I'm also including a film I loved, Yojimbo. My last entry in this project was very women-centric, and so it is fitting that that this entry covers quite the opposite. All three films have a heavy masculine focus and perspective. Women do play an important role in all three films, especially The Graduate, but all three are decidedly more masculine films. It's good to be an equal opportunist, isn't it?

Once again, I do include spoilers for each of the following films. You have been warned!

The Graduate

Okay, so I'm hoping this entry won't quite as long as my last entry, which I'm sure wasn't all that much fun for most of you. However, this one might be just as long.

I'd heard a lot of good things about The Graduate, so I'd been looking forward to watching this film. It's a shame I didn't find it as engaging as others have. The film seemed to lose me in its second half, about the time when Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) falls in love with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine (Katherine Ross). This didn't make all that much sense in comparison to the rest of the film, and frankly turns Ben into.... well... for lack of a better term, a slut.

The real power behind this movie is not Benjamin, although his nervousness in the beginning and his inability to focus are endearing traits; the real story of this film is Mrs. Robinson herself (Anne Bancroft). From the very beginning of the film, Mrs. Robinson dominates every scene she's in, and the film's best moments are when she is clearly leading Ben to do what she wants. There's even a moving moment when Mrs. Robinson, drenched and wearing no makeup, asks Ben not to take Elaine out, which Ben does at his parents' insistence.

It is at this point the movie loses me. Not enough time is spent on Elaine's character, and Ben's abrupt shift in obsession is unsettling. Of course, this may have been Mike Nichols' intention all along as a commentary on adolescent rebellion. The final shot of the film is by far the most intriguing. After fleeing her own wedding with Ben, Elaine and Ben board a bus and sit in the very back. Laughter overtakes them for a a minute or two, but the laughter gradually subsides and we are left with both Ben and Elaine facing forward, unsmiling, seemingly unthinking, or perhaps thinking too much. Maybe this is the point they are beginning to consider an intriguing point (a point Roger Ebert raises in his Great Movie review of the film): What do they have in common? And really, who are these people sitting in the back of a bus? Neither question is answered by the film. The only character who shows complexity in the film is Mrs. Robinson and it is she who leaves the most lasting impression. Everyone else, including Ben, is merely a sideshow.

Raging Bull

 Martin Scorsese is one of those director's I've heard a lot about over the years, but somehow managed to miss most of his films, and the first I saw was not one of his better efforts, or at least not one I particularly enjoyed: Gangs of New York. While Gangs of New York has some beautiful shots and an intriguing storyline, it is completely overshadowed by the brilliant performance of Daniel-Day Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio just isn't a strong enough of an actor to hold his own against Lewis' powerful character. I wanted DiCaprio's character to fail, and that's not what the focus of the film, so in that respect, it failed. A better representation of his style was first seen a few years later when I got the chance to see The Departed.

Raging Bull is closer to The Departed in style, technique, and overall quality. However, as with The Graduate, I didn't feel an emotional connection with the characters on the screen. Yes, Robert De Niro is phenomenal as Jake LaMotta, as is Joe Pesci as his brother, but what I found most intriguing about the film is its technical brilliance.

Plenty of people have written about the ferocity of the fights, which were editing amazingly well, but what I enjoyed most was the more subtle (and not so subtle) parts of the film that lay the foundation for the brutality of the fights themselves. Take, for instance, the end of LaMotta's first fight in the film: After clearly knocking his opponent senseless, LaMotta is shot at eye level and then the camera shifts to a slight low angle shot, barely even perceptible. This is brilliant foreshadowing of not only the outcome of that fight, but how LaMotta will struggle throughout the rest of the film. A low angle shot, of course, indicates power and by shooting LaMotta from a slight low-angle Scorcese is indicating that LaMotta, while a gifted boxer, will not get the outcomes he so desires. And sure enough, the judges of that fight hand the victory to his opponent. This motif holds true throughout the entire film, all the way up to the film shot, where LaMotta is rehearsing how he plans to repair his relationship with his brother. The film ends without any type of closure: We do not know what happens once LaMotta leaves the frame, and we're not meant to know; LaMotta is meant to linger on in our consciousness, ever struggling, ever fighting.

Also, pay attention to the dialogue. It's repetitive and confrontational at every turn, rarely is it calm and understanding. The dialogue itself mimics a boxing match, with its repetitive jabs, blocks, breakaways, and undercuts. The quieter sections of the film serve only as a rest between rounds until the fighting starts again. Raging Bull is a boxing match that never ends.

Yojimbo

This next film is not among AFI's 100 Best Films for obvious reasons, but it is a film I have seen recently and a film I liked enough to put it up along with the other two films in this post.

Yojimbo is directed by a filmmaker I greatly admire, and one who is a huge inspiration to many of today's most famous directors: Akira Kurosawa.

The film itself tells a rather simple tale: A wandering samurai finds himself in a village overrun with gang violence; two rival gangs are fighting over control of the town. The samurai concocts a plan to pit both gangs against each other so they basically kill each other. Of course, the plot is a bit more complex than that, but the beauty of Kurosawa's style is that he can juggle a large cast (with many different alliances and motivations) and a complex plot without sacrificing the emotional elements of the story.

After Raging Bull, Yojimbo is a far more subtle film. It doesn't strive for wild angles or a quick, furious editing style. Instead, Kurosawa uses more naturalistic elements to help build the tension. Follow the intensity of the wind throughout the film; it grows more and more fierce, blowing dust all over the place, as the film progresses. And it draws heavily on a Western motif, or is it the Western motif that draws heavily on Yojimbo? After all, it inspired Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars.

Having not received a satisfactory emotional payoff from The Graduate and Raging Bull, Yojimbo provided plenty of emotional payoff, but maybe that's because it didn't have an enigmatic ending. Every loose end was accounted for and tied off, with the exception of the lone samurai of course, who continues his wandering as he must.

E.T. + Cloverfield + 1/10th District 9 + 1/10th Goonies = Super 8

Much has been said about the Spielberg connection in Super 8, and after watching it this weekend, the connection is hard to miss. Super 8 is a nostalgic piece of film-making, a love-letter of sorts for a time and place. For Spielberg and Abrams, that time and place is their formative years as fledgling film-makers, earnestly carrying their Super 8 camera around, recruiting all of their friends, and anyone else willing to participate, all for the dream of making a movie. I remember those years well myself, although I didn't have a camera to capture all the adventures I had, just my toys and a notebook, but more on that later.

The film itself centers around Joe Lamb, who has lost his mother in a work-related accident, and his friends. He and his friends are trying to make a zombie movie for a film contest, and each of them have his (and later her) specific role: Charles is the director, the one with the vision; Martin is the actor, and is fittingly more than a bit over dramatic; Preston does sound, camera, anything the director needs basically; Cary, the pyromaniac, is of course the special effects expert (good evidence that some children NEED creative outlets); Joe does makeup and miniatures; and the newest addition, Alice, plays the love the interest in the movie in order to "give the zombie movie more of a narrative flow." The rapport between all of these actors is very natural. There's even one scene at a diner that reminded me of the kind of back-and-forth from The Goonies, so much so that it many of its lines might have been improvised by the cast.

While the entire cast is very good (the weakest being Ron Eldard, who plays Alice's father), it is Joel Courtney in his feature film debut (and according to IMDB this is first acting gig) who is the anchor for the entire movie and he does a phenomenal job. If the audience didn't feel an emotional connection with Joe, then the rest of the film would have fell flat on its face, despite all the special effects work. Elle Fanning (Alice) also delivers a very good performance, and the relationship between Alice and Joe is treated with a tenderness that is quite touching. Kyle Chandler (Jackson Lamb, Joe's father) can show a world of pain or tenderness with the slightest alteration of his face; he's not in every scene, but he makes his scenes count.

The special effects are good, not fantastic, with the exception of the train sequence, but this film proves that special effects are the not the important part of any film, and an audience is willing to forgive sub-par work in the face of a good story (Just look at some of the shows on TV). Too often film-makers and producers feel that a special effects heavy film can run on autopilot, straight to the bank. Well, that may be true if all you're looking for is first-weekend sales. Super 8 is a film that remembers that good science-fiction and horror is never about the supernatural, but about the human. The appeal in sci-fi and horror, at least for me, is not in the aliens and monsters, but in how the human characters handle themselves in the face of fantastic circumstances. The supernatural elements are merely catalysts.

Indeed, this film brought back some wonderful memories. I was never a very brave person when it came to "putting myself out there." So, even though I wanted to create films I couldn't bring myself to do anything that would bring undue notice or criticism upon myself, which is why I'm not a good actor. Good acting requires a willingness to look stupid and I'm not willing. However, I did develop stories and movie ideas in the safety of my room with my action figures. The good thing about that scenario was if something didn't work, story-wise, I could go back and change it immediately. I played out whole movies in my bedroom. It was fun and liberating. When books and films weren't enough, or when I got frustrated because one or the other didn't go in the direction I wanted, I created something new, a story I wanted to experience.

Super 8, as stated above, is a love-letter to anyone, young or old, whose desperate passion to create something new is all-consuming, even when others don't fully understand. And even though all of its pieces didn't always work, I got swept up in the story and the characters, enjoying every minute of it.

Because One Isn't Enough!

Okay, after some deliberation I have created two new blogs, each with it's own purpose. I will continue to write about life, film, and writing here on Funky Life, but in order for better organization, my creative projects (hopefully) will be better served with their own platform.

The first will include short stories (no poetry here as I have a terrible ear for it). At first, I will post some of my favorite older stories, and as I write new stories those will be posted there as well.

http://www.anunfunkywriterscollection.blogspot.com

The second blog may prove more interesting, I hope, as it is solely dedicated to my first book, Guardians and Dreamers. As of yet, I don't have an agent nor a potential publisher, and I would love some feedback on its potential, good or bad. I posted the first chapter already. Subsequent chapters will come later with just enough time in between each post to generate more suspense. :D

Warning: I love cliffhangers!

http://www.guardiansanddreamers.blogspot.com

Hope you all enjoy!

Tony

Favorites: The Little Mermaid

I have a horrible memory at times. No, all the time. I forget small things, mostly dates and names. Yet, ask me about a film, actor, book, or writer and can have some pretty good recall abilities, and so I remember my life in movies. When a film is attached to an event, I remember a lot more. And two of the earliest memories I have revolve around the movies I watched (another involves a glowing He-Man sword I got for Christmas one year, but that's television; I'm writing about movies here), and those two movies were The Neverending Story (1984) and The Little Mermaid (1989). The Neverending Story is still one of my favorite children's films, but I decided to write first about The Little Mermaid because it is the first film I remember watching in a theater, and it is the first film I remember watching where the whole story made sense: I understood everything. Call it my dawn of understanding.

Of course, where the movie was showing is a little vague to me, but I would always turn my head and look at a particular theater in Odessa with a kind of fondness. I believe it was the Scott Theater, but I could be wrong, especially since I found a website that informed me that the theater closed in the early 80's, before Mermaid's 1989 release. Nevertheless, it is the theater that somehow attached itself to the first movie I remember watching in a theater.


(Look, I learned how to add pictures! Go me!)

I know my family was with me (my mother still does a good imitation of Sebastian's kissing lesson, "You've got to pucker your lips, like this!" complete with exaggerated puckering sounds), but my eyes were glued to the screen. I was entranced by the colors and images on the screen, and even more so by the freedom of movement the artists captured. Ariel's world was so wonderfully conceived that I wanted to step into that world. I wanted to become a mermaid.

No, that is not a typo above. I wasn't all that thrilled with the mermen of the film, plus I didn't like the sound of that word, "merman"; "mermaid" sounds so much better. After watching the movie, I returned to daycare pretending to be Ariel. I wanted fins. I wanted to live in the ocean. I believe a part of me wanted to be rescued by a handsome prince. I think it was one of the first clues of a later revelation.

The moment in the film that still captivates me the most is Ariel's song "Part of Your World." It is a song of longing, of wanting something outside of a normal everyday existence. Ariel's grotto is filled with her human collections, a veritable library, each one another puzzle piece to be solved, each one telling a story that Ariel wanted to finish. On some level that longing resonated with me, long before I was smart enough to realize it.


(I couldn't find the picture I wanted, but this poster captures the same feeling.)

Another character that left a lasting impression on me is Ursula, my favorite Disney villain, with Scar coming in at a close second. Ursula is smart, driven, ambitious, and wonderfully despicable. She does evil things, but she has a lot fun doing them. Interestingly enough, according to Imdb.com Ursula was modeled after the drag queen, Divine, most famous for her roles in John Waters' films. There's quite a bit of drag queen in Ursula, which makes her fascinating, but it's what she does to Ariel that makes her evil. Ariel's voice is her talent, her sole form of artistic expression, and Ursula takes it from her. It'd be like taking away my ability to write. I just don't know what I'd do with myself if I couldn't express myself through words.

Either way, The Little Mermaid remains one of my favorite films, not just because of its beautiful presentation and wonderful story, but because it marked a special time in my life, a time when I was starting to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. I wanted to be Ariel: smart, passionate, beautiful, and fabulous. The fact that I'm a boy didn't seem to concern me at the age of seven; it was merely an obstacle to be overcome. No, The Little Mermaid didn't make me gay, nor did it make want to change my sex, but it did highlight an aspect of my personality that was just starting to emerge. I was different and The Little Mermaid demonstrated that being different was something to be cherished and encouraged. Ariel survived and so would I.