Media Consumption March-April: Movies

During our three months of free HBO we collected a strange assortment of movies, most of which we haven't watched yet. Some thoughts on the ones we did watch...

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
I hadn't seen this show in YEARS and I was excited to view it again to see if it was good or crappy. (Anyone who is wondering if The Pirate Movie is as good as they remember, it is not.) Joe (Tom Hanks) is a hypochondriac who works for a miserable company. The time and place are vague - it's more like a fable than reality. The setting forces you to forget about what could or could not happen and just get caught up in the story. Anyway, Joe has a doctor appointment on the day we meet him and the doctor tells him he has a "brain cloud" and therefore three months to live. That very night a rich old man comes to Joe's house and offers him an opportunity to go out in style. Joe can have anything and everything his heart desires for the next three months if he'll go to a remote island and sacrifice himself in the erupting volcano so that the islanders will continue to give the rich old guy something (I forget) that only grows on their island. Joe's dying anyway, right? And he hasn't really lived up to this point, right? Perfect. Meg Ryan plays the secretary at Joe's job and both daughters of the rich old guy. The prettiest version of Meg is the one who takes Joe, by boat, to the island. *Spoiler alert* Joe and Meg fall in love and Joe doesn't really have a brain cloud. Intrigued? You should be.

Quoteable
Joe's boss to the poor person on the other end of the phone, "I know he can GET the job, but can he DO the job." Pause. "I'm not arguing that with you!" Pause. "I know he can GET the job, but can he DO the job." Pause. "I'm not arguing that with you!" All day long. It's funny because it's not happening to me and because I had to listen to one-sided conversations eight hours a day in most of the jobs I had.

Everything is Illuminated (2005)
I've had the book by the same name on my To Read list for at least three years. Bah. I decided to just watch the movie instead. Elijah Wood plays a Jewish New Yorker, Jonathan Safran Foer, with cartoonishly large eyes (made larger with Coke-bottle glasses) who collects things. Wierd things. He keeps a fanny pack full of Zip-lock bags around his waist. When he finds something he needs for his collection, he pulls out the appropriate size bag, deposits the item, then pins it to his collection wall next to the picture of the person he got it from. For example, he takes his grandmother's false teeth after visiting her in the hospital. Jonathan's grandmother gives him a picture of his grandfather standing next to a pregnant young woman back in the Ukraine. Who is the woman? She's wearing the grasshopper pendant that Jonathan has in his collection. Jonathan has to know who this woman is because she isn't on any of his family group sheets.

Jonathan finds a Ukrainian family who take Jews on tours of the lands their ancestors lived in. Alex, a youngish man obsessed with American hip-hop culture, is his interpretor. Alex's grandfather is the driver. Grandpa thinks he's blind and that he needs a seeing-eye dog, a mut from the pound they named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. The four of them (Jonathan, Alex, Grandpa, and Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.) go on a road trip through the Ukraine. ROAD TRIP!

Even though Grandpa gives Jews tours of their homelands, he doesn't particularly like them - saying rude things about them behind their backs and etc. Throughout the road trip we're given brief flashbacks of a horrific scene involving nazis lining Jews up for a firing squad and it appears Grandpa was involved somehow. The gang miraculously finds a woman living in a house completely surrounded by sunflowers. The woman recognizes Jonathan because he looks just like his grandfather and his grandfather was married to the woman's sister. Ah-ha! And that's where I'm going to stop describing the movie because it's worth it to find the rest out for yourself. There is a beautiful sentiment toward the end of the movie - that our ancestors are seeing the world through our eyes. Loved that.

Say Anything (1989)
I'd seen parts of this show, but never the whole thing in one sitting. Lloyd Dobler, a loser - on the surface - asks out the valedictorian, Diane Court, on the last day of school. They go to a graduation party together. The date was mostly successful and they decide to hang out some more. Hmmm. Describing this movie is going to make it sound boring and it isn't. I really enjoyed it. Who can resist a young John Cusack? Old John Cusack? Totally resistible. But this is before the shine of his frenetic energy wore off. Sure Ione Skye has a dumb name and her teeth appear to be too big for her mouth to contain them, but she's very charming. I found myself rooting for these two.

Quoteable
Lloyd to Diane's father when Diane's father asked Lloyd what he wants to do with his life: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

U2 Rattle and Hum (1988)
There is a crazy channel we don't have anymore that shows classic music concerts and documentaries. I wasn't cool enough in 1988 to realize how cool U2 is. It took my always-cooler-than-me friends to introduce me to U2 when I was a senior in high school (1991-1992). The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum and Achtung Baby became the soundtrack to the next few years of my life. Watching this movie brought back a lot of great memories, but I saw something unexpected, too. The events were set up, but it was still fascinating to watch how the members of the band reacted. Passing a man on the street playing a harmonica, Edge slowed down and then stopped a respectful distance away to watch the man - really watch him. When they sing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with a Harlem gospel choir, the choir takes on a life of its own and U2 simply stops playing and watches them instead. The biggest band in the world stops playing to listen to a church choir. No wonder they've been around so long - they are slaves to the art they've chosen.

Must Love Dogs (2005)
Dumb. Cute Diane Lane and resistible John Cusack are totally blah. Worse, Captain Von Trapp and Rizzo embarrass themselves. The movie is all about Diane Lane using internet matchmaker sites to find a new boyfriend. In this movie's topsy-turvy world, the guy she meets on her own turns out to be a scummy jerk and the one she meets on the internet is a lovely human being. What a shocking surprise that the jerk is played by Dermot Mulroney. Toward the end of the movie Diane Lane pastes her face onto photos of women doing stuff like riding a bike and being a chef to create profiles on a bunch of different online dating services. Why? Every single man she runs into flirts with her. She doesn't need to lie about who she is. Besides that, the movie ends ten minutes later with her swimming across a lake to get to John Cusack so they can live happily ever after. None of it made any sense. I was embarrassed the whole time.