Make 'Em Laugh: How Graduating College Taught Me The Value of Entertainment

"Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin' to eat"
 -Donald O'Connor Singing in the Rain

Last night I watched Nora Ephron’s You've Got Mail and I absolutely loved it. Romantic Comedies can no longer be guilty pleasures for me, I unabashedly love them. Consequently, the “romcom” as it is and always will be is a critically derided genre. These are not Films, they’re Movies. Don’t expect heavy philosophical or moral themes you would find in a Bergman or Coppola film. Instead relish the escapism and social commentary on dating and falling in love. While I was watching the movie last night I realized that this was the kind of movie I actually really want to make, and I am heading in that direction. About a week ago I started developing a romantic comedy screenplay that will be as escapist as can be.  But realizing that I’m beginning my career with a romcom, I also realize that the “artist” side of myself who thrived in college is quickly fading away.

I’ll admit right now that I’m pretentious and snobby. I try not to be, but I just can’t help it sometimes. But I think since I’ve graduated from college I’ve gotten much better. It’s very easy to become a pretentious ass when you’re in college. You spend the majority of your time buried in a book and then spend class time arguing about Joyce or Faulkner. Then you go home and you argue with your roommate about Coppola and Scorses. And I was spoiled during my college career because I never had a job so all of my bills were paid by my parents (THANKS!) When there are no bills to pay and you’re surrounded by academically obsessed individuals, all your time is devoted to being the smartest one in the room.

In college I studied the film industry historically, critically, and from afar. I saw the sins of studios and success of individuals. As I was learning, the best films were created by the mavericks who rebelled against the studios, the corporations, nay! The Man. I thought, even I, the lowly Ryan Graves can make a great Film that will be revered by all! A film that will stand the test of time.  I won’t give into the studio’s demands, what do they know? After all, I’m the artist! But then I graduated, and I realized them bills needs to get paid!

You read That!?

Now that I work and live in Portland, I just don’t have the time to live like a student. I can’t spend hours reading Joyce or Forster or Austen. I need to read the books for my internship as a reader. I need to read the books that are popular so I can understand the entertainment landscape. I need to watch the movies that work; the TV shows that work, in order to understand what products would succeed in the film and television market. My entertainment diet still has a handful of Hitchcocks and Woody Allens, but they come after “The Hunger Games” and “The Middle” (Which are both really good! Honestly, check ‘em out!) In college I would always scoff at people reading or watching things that lay in the “Low Art” territory. Now low and middle art is where I live, work, and play.  

As a reader for a NYC based Production Company, I’ve been reading a lot of bad books.  But I learned very quickly that a bad book doesn’t mean it won’t make any money. Even if a book is poorly written, I can still see a TV show or film, so I pass it on to my boss for consideration. My college self would be horrified that I forgive certain writers for seriously bad stories, but the me of today realizes that this company needs to thrive, and very few companies can make purely artistic products. Not to say that the company I intern for is a sell-out. I’m just saying that a company has to make a profit, and if it’s in the red, it will not last. 

I’ve been studying the TV landscape, looking at shows that work, trends that pop up. I make my decision to adapt a show on whether or not it’s likeable by an audience, not the greatest story that can be told. The great artists whom I revere never seemed to have cared too much about audience expectation. James Joyce’s last book is almost incomprehensible, Terrence Malick’s latest film, Tree of Life floored me, but sent many audience members literally running. Romantic comedy filmmakers are intelligent and skilled but aren’t as indulgent as high artists. I’m sure Nora Ephron doesn’t see herself as Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen. She’s a filmmaker who wants to make entertaining movies, and most of the time she accomplishes that. And I realized that I won’t be James Joyce or Terrence Malick. I want to make movies that people will enjoy. I’ve accepted that I won’t be an artist. I’m going to be a filmmaker, who will tell a great story as well as I can. And if I can make an audience think for just a bit about whatever the movie’s about, then I’ve done my job.

Now I just need to shut up and just write the damn screenplay.   

I don’t think they have a term for what I have. I guess I have to make it up. What do you call an addiction to the movies? Cineaddiction? That sounds like Sinaddiction. I guess we’re all addicted to Sin, it’s our depraved nature isn’t it? Anyway, I’m not writing about Sin (directly, at least) but my addiction to watching movies. 

I love movies. I know what that’s called. Cinephilia. But, oh. That sounds disgusting doesn’t it? “He had a terrible case of the cinephillia. Eeeeyuck. Or maybe Kinetophilia. No, that’s the love of movement. You would have to say, Kinetographophilia. That’s too damn long. And I’m rambling. On to the main attraction, ladies and gentleman. 

When I was in junior high, my first group of friends (who I’m still good friends with now) got together every Saturday night to have our weekly movie night. They were usually at my house, in our basement. Pizza was ordered, soda consumed, and the movie was chosen. Which film we picked was always very random. It was usually whatever stupid comedy that was popular around then. You know, the best work Saturday Night Live Alums were doing at the time. “Corky Romano” and “I Spy” are two films I still vividly remember watching at one friend’s house. ANYWAYS…

Every once in awhile there would be a random new girl who would show up, invited by anyone of us. Back then, I was a very passive romantic. I pursued women by either ignoring them, or smothering them. (I tended towards the latter, unfortunately).  Either way, these new girls showed up every couple of weeks, and I quickly developed crushes on them. But as I said, my romantic skills were stunted, and I was incapable of, oh, how do you say “makin’ some moves”. In my stead, my male counterparts were indeed able to “make some moves”. 

FLAMING JEALOUS RAGE! Did they not know my innermost secret desires? Were they unaware of such passion I treasured deep in my heart! Come on, they knew I had a crush on her, didn’t I call dibs?

No, I didn’t. So with raging junior high hormones, these Saturday evenings became very fiery for me. In the midst of my jealous rage, I had to distract myself somehow. I would be glaring at the girl cuddling up to my friend, and I would be screaming in my head “What the hell do you see in him?! What about me? Huh? I’m cuddly! Come on!” So I turned on my tunnel vision, and I stared directly into the TV screen. I soaked up whatever movie we would be watching. Who cares if it was starring Eddie Murphey or Mike Meyers, I was involving every fiber of my intellectual being into that movie, and truly escaped into the world of that movie. Anything was better than sitting next to the girl you just lost. 

Well, as we grew up, our taste grew up as well. We just started watching good movies. No, we weren’t watching Bergman or Coppola, but we were watching what teenagers should be watching. John Hughes, Steven Spielberg, and others. My passive romanticism stayed intact. I never developed in the world of dating. At first, I would pour all of my jealous energy into watching whatever movie was on. But then Saturday night just wasn’t enough. Soon, I began to watch many more films. Nothing intensive, but popular, critical films soon caught my eye, like the Coen brothers, or the Godfather films. By the time I entered college, I was a decent film buff. 

By the time college came, I was still in my shell. When I should have been out chasing girls, I was watching movies. Loneliness drives people to act. If you want to be with a woman, you get out there, you flirt, and you date. But I had learned (incorrectly) that any girls I take a fancy to will be snatched by some other guy I know. But it’s ok, I won’t be lonely. I’ll have the movies to keep me company. 

As college progressed, I slowly came out of my shell, and tried dating. I was not good at coming out of my shell. I didn’t know how to date, just passively fall in love with the girls I was already friends with. So the little bit I tried, I failed, and into the arms of cinema I ran. That’s where the escapism really comes in handy. It’s lonely to be 21 in Spokane. But I can escape to LA in 2017, and involve myself with the adventures of Rick Deckard in “Blade Runner”. And I would always feel better. I would forget that I had no girl, and I vicariously lived the life of the character on the screen. It was like every time I watched a movie like “Blade Runner”, I could get what Rick Deckard gets, I too would win the heart of Rachel, she would fall in love with Me. 

Well soon enough, I was watching a movie a day. All of my energy was poured into watching movies. It wasn’t all melancholy loneliness. I didn’t shack up in my room saying “Oh, woe is me, a man who suffereth from the single life, oh movies, deliver me from this sadness.” No, it was just how any addiction works. The substance of cinema feels essential to living. The more you do it, the more satisfying to your being, but the more you consume, the more you need. 

So now, I’ve identified the root cause of the addiction. And since I’ve moved out here to Portland, I’ve actually come out of my shell. Sure, when it comes to social activity with a woman, a movie is involved. But, come on, dinner and a movie? Classic date…I don’t know what to do about my addiction to cinema. I understand now how it all got started, but now I’m just truly addicted. If I go a few days without watching a movie, I get edgy, depressed. After I watch a movie, I’m always in a better mood, no matter how dark the movie was. My need to know more about movies than my peers is turning me into a certified ass. But I guess I’m just writing this out as a confession. If I knew how to fix it, then I’d do it. Of course, I’m frightened that the answer is a fast from movies. But I was born for movies, how could I step back from it?

Show & Tell-How I Try to Look Smart and Why You Believe Me

My roommate was getting coffee with our former professor, Leonard Oakland, this past weekend. Leonard has been teaching Literature for 43 years. That’s quite the history of experience. They were talking about being 24 years old and he told Kelly, “24-Scary! But a great time!” Oh Leonard, Ain’t it the truth.

I’ve been living on my own now for about five months and I think yeah, scary is a good word to use. I work for minimum wage, in a city I barely know, and I spend all of my time on developing skills that may never pay off in the end. If I’m not reading a book, I’m writing a screenplay which may never get produced. And if I’m not doing that, I’m selling tickets in a box office. At the end of each day, what do I have to show for it?

The home library is where I do most of my intellectual cheating. My roommate and I combine our books into one massive library, intimidating all who enter our hallowed grounds of literature, philosophy, and film. But I know that I haven’t read half the books on those shelves and I probably never will. But you don’t know that, and when you see all of my Charles Dickens books you can’t help but think, “kid knows his stuff.”  

I tell many people I meet that I’m a filmmaker, which is true. Yes, technically I’ve made three short films (and a few shorts for classes). But I’ve only made a whopping 75 bucks off of my movies, and that doesn’t really pay the bills. But I know how impressive the term FILMMAKER sounds (especially to single women) and I can’t resist the look of an intimidated peasant averting their eyes from the celebrity that is me. I could say ASPIRING filmmaker, but come on. Where’s the fun in that?

The act of working on a screenplay is incredibly frustrating, because a finished screenplay, as in greenlit and ready to produce, is still just a screenplay. Until it’s filmed, produced, edited, and released, that screenplay is just a bundle of paper with words. I envy the short story writer. If they want to write a story they can do it in a day and be done, and the whole world can consume it immediately. Once I finish the short script I’m working on, I still have to film the damn thing. I don’t know how professional screenwriters sleep at night, waiting for their next written work to be skewered by some hotshot director. I’m getting away from the point a bit so let me be perfectly clear when I say—working on a screenplay leaves little to show off with.

It’s scary to be in your early twenties because you work damn hard at your craft and you just don’t have much to show for it. But that’s because you’re in your early twenties. What do you expect? A 60,000 dollar salary plus benefits? Living on my own and working minimum wage is forcing me to get creative and get good at what I want to do. It’s annoying that I can’t prove that I’m stretching my intellect and talent every day, but at least I can say that I read James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Sole Searching: How a pair of shoes changed my life

"I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man's shoes?" 

-Red  

The Shawshank Redemption

Remember the joy of Lego’s? Thousands upon thousands of pieces for your disposal. You, the eternal god of Lego creation, were the architect of mystical lands. It’s by far my favorite childhood toy. But there’s a curious thing about Lego’s. I don’t remember actually playing with them.  I built them, and designed some amazing ships and buildings, but I never wielded them as my action figures. What I did was set up grand tableaus. That’s where story came in. I had one dungeon island set that kept my attention for days upon days. I’d set up the opposing pirates, the treasure chests, the boats. And I would set them in a scene. And that was it; there they would lay frozen in time. For me, it wasn’t the action that I was interested in but the image. I had a certain look I was going for, a certain feeling that my tableau of Lego’s meant to evoke. I liked the control. I was meticulous in how the Lego’s were set but I never played games, I never assumed characters, I never acted out my world. I merely created the world and looked in from the outside. For it was the look of the world that felt real to me, not playing the scene out. 

Two days ago I bought a pair of shoes from the Goodwill in downtown Portland. This is a picture of a brand new shoe.

I bought them barely used for 40 dollars. Brand new they would have cost 325 dollars. I don’t mean to brag , but wait, no I’ll just brag for a little bit. 40 dollars! I am the newly crowned king of shoe thrifting! OK moving on. I love the shoes. It’s not that they are super comfortable or anything, they’re just…professional. I would walk to work with my eyes looking at my shoes the whole time. I loved hearing the click-clack-click-clack of the shoes hit the pavement. I looked like an adult. 

I’m not one of those Portland twentysomethings who is desperately clinging on to their youth. I know I’m young, but there is a yearning to be an adult and take on great responsibility. Not in the “start a family” way but “become a film director” way. And in the past five months since I’ve graduated there has been nothing that felt like I was validated as the epic man in search of profundity in his new life, abandoning his youthful ways for the life of the artist. So I got an urban apartment, big woop. I got a job at a premium cinema, who cares! Not even the internship with the NY based production company made me feel like a responsible, mature adult in the pursuit of his passion. It was the shoes.

The shoes I had before this pair were the ugliest puppies in the history of footwear. I had to have this specific pair for my job at the last theater I worked. Two weeks later I got a job at the Living Room Theaters. Every day I walked to work in those God forsaken shoes (that after 2 weeks were already falling apart).  I felt like a fraud. At the bottom of my outfit lay the true value of my life’s pursuit. I was worthless, how could such a slob be capable of any profound work of art? How could an artist fill those shoes? He has no aesthetic outlook for his own self, how could he have an aesthetic outlook in the world of celluloid? Under the surface of my wardrobe was the intellect and hard work of a young artist. The requisite reading and writing (I hope) is being done so that I may be a competent and skillful artist. But none of you know that, because my shoes didn’t reflect that.

Director Ingmar Bergman
looking so...Cinematic

Everything changed when I got the shoes, of course. My walk to work the first day was glorious. Here down the avenue was Ryan Graves, aspiring film director, intern for a production company in NYC. He may have the humble task of selling tickets in a box office, but it is the box office for the Living Room Theaters, the premiere art house cinema in all of Portland. Here was the man, the myth nay, the legend.

Obviously the shoes got me carried away, but you get the point. The shoes validated everything I was doing. All along I had the content of the artistic life, but now I had the image, and the image was everything for me. Like the Lego’s of my childhood, I had latched onto the image, and the shoes were the beginning of the successful image, and thankfully, I caught myself before going headlong into superficiality.

Because come on, they’re just a pair of shoes. In my childhood I was obsessed with the image. I didn’t play with my toys-I set them up so it looked like I did. For me, it was more entertaining to look the game rather than live the game. It was easier, I had more control because I was on the outside looking in. But I’m not a child anymore, I don’t have the luxury of looking from the outside in, that’s left to God alone. It’s time I stop obsessing with the image of success, and begin living the successful life that I desire.

Did You Read?: Why God Probably Cares About What You Read Next

James Joyce

Since graduating college I’ve been slowly building in my mind the ultimate reading list. Everyone’s on it. DeLillo, Rushdie, Woolf, Dickens, and on and on. I know it will take forever to read these authors, but I know I’ll eventually get to them.  I’m a lazy completist. When it comes to films and literature, I claim being a fan of many artists, but only a handful of them have I actually studied their entire collection of work. So this reading list I’ve been storing in my head is an attempt to cut out my pretentious critical review of many authors and actually do the required reading. But while I was in the midst of rereading my favorite novel, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, my reading habits changed completely. 

            Beginning Portrait was actually the beginning of the end for my agnosticism. My Mom urged me to buy Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Actually, I think she gave me birthday money for it. Anyway, I bought the book and started it when I started Portrait. But most of my reading was done in the box office when it got slow. And you can’t read the prose of James Joyce in a Box Office when the phone keeps ringing and silly customers come and bother you for a ticket for a movie that’s in three hours. No sir, the attention required for Mr. Joyce is just too much at work. But not the prose of Donald Miller. I don’t mean to insult Mr. Miller, he chooses to write simply so that his message can be received for the better. 

Donald Miller

I traded out Joyce for Miller, and I finished the book within the week. The book is about Miller’s efforts to adapt his book Blue like Jazz into a film. The book makes the argument that the cinematic life we see in the movies is desirable because they are a culmination of our wishes and we ought to live the adventurous life that we crave on the screen. I was tracking the whole time with Miller, but still on the outside as an agnostic. I think in the postmodern world a problem we all have is understanding how our lives should be now that we are inundated with too much art. And it was the starting point for the understanding of my life’s purpose as a filmmaker and follower of God. So unenthusiastically but quietly intrigued I bought Blue Like Jazz on my lunch break, a gamble in its own right, my bank account was already embarrassingly small. 

I had read Miller’s book, Blue like Jazz in high school, but it meant little to me then.  This time around the book acted as the catalyst to my rediscovery of God. The book illuminated in me the religious life I had and showed me the spiritual life I could have. That man was supposed to write that book, and once I realized that, I understood that I was a man who has his own work to be done, and I knew that that task was from God, and deep in my heart I knew that God has great plans for me. There were many other factors that were a part of my rediscovery, but when it came to the intellectual understanding of God, Blue like Jazz got me thinking about God in a brand new way. 

I felt guilty that I was ditching James Joyce for a Portland Christian writer (No offense Mr. Miller). And I really wanted to get back to Portrait. But there was a tug inside me to read Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis. The only thing I remembered about that book was that it was about the writer’s life as an atheist and how he came to faith. I’m not sure how Lewis’s book came up, but somehow I knew I had to read it next. So I forwent Joyce again and read Surprised by Joy. And again my bank account took a hit; Powell’s is making a fortune off of my coming to faith. Lewis’s claim that he’s no theologian is infuriating because of course everyone is. He may not be an Aquinas or an Augustine, but his thoughts in this book profoundly shaped my newfound faith in God. 

C.S. Lewis

Lewis’s one fault as a writer is overwriting. There are many stories in this book (and others) that can be completely cut out. They do not contribute to the whole message of the book. But I can’t complain too much, they’re interesting anecdotes. The most important passages in this book were about his coming to atheism and his coming to Christian faith. He lays out many philosophical and personal facets to these stages of life, of which I have no time to comment on. But I will say that his arguments prompted me to ask more questions about my time as a Christian in high school and my time as an agnostic. I realized that there were even more factors that affected and shaped these two identities, and I found that I had to undergo a similar introspection like Lewis.

No, I’m not going to write an autobiography. But I am going to work at exploring my life further, so I can understand myself emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and spiritually. If there’s any good thing a person ought to do, it’s examining the self. If you don’t know yourself, how can you know the other? Through the past few books, my coming of faith was greatly impacted by what I read. So I can’t shake the feeling that God has had a hand in what I read. That seems obvious since they are super popular Christian books, but all the while in my reading I still wanted to go back to Joyce. But, my choice in reading these books felt innately important, as if the Holy Spirit was choosing the books for me. 

They say write what you know, and after encouragements from family members, I will explore my agnostic period through screenwriting. A character transforming from a blind follower of the herd to a dynamically spiritually liberated person makes for good drama. An autobiographical film you ask? Maybe not, but certainly there are elements from my life that would transfer well to the cinema. A writer must do his research, and I can advance myself both personally and professionally writing this screenplay. By doing the research and work that comes with writing the screenplay, I will attain a thorough understanding of myself that I would never previously understand. In the process I will write my first film that would explore how different environments imprison a character, and how that character can break free and be his own person—tried and true screenwriting elements that have worked. I know that I have to do some intellectually challenging research if I am to understand myself and write authoritatively on the problems that come with existing. So now my adventures in literature have brought me to the inevitable: The Russians. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky

I’ve never read Dostoevsky, but I hear he’s pretty good. He is the forerunner on existentialist literature and is preoccupied with ethics and religion, among many other things. I know his literature will not mirror my history in any profound way (or it may), but he will get me thinking about problems that have permeated my mind that have yet to be articulated. Or so I hope. He may just be a hack who is worthless to my own writing and reading. But there’s only one way to find out. Read, read, read. 

Looking back, I find a spiritual through line to my recent reading. Out of practicality I start reading Donald Miller, which leads to rediscovering God, which then leads to more books that contribute to both my spiritual and professional wellbeing. I’ve abandoned my reading list of canon completion, and I’ve left it up to God to decide what’s next. Don’t worry; I’m finishing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But then it’s on to Notes from the Underground and the Brothers Karamazov. Audacious I know, but I think God has some big plans with these books that will affect me in ways I’ll never quite fathom.

Home, Sweet Home: Why Movies Can Feel More Comforting Than Mom’s Home Cooking (No Offense, Mom)

The other night I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, critically agreed to be the best in the Jones series. I’ve been watching this movie since childhood, originating in my Grandparents bunkhouse where I watched a taped version of it on a TV that was probably 20 years old. I’ve watched it so many times in so many places over the years that the film has developed a familiarity with me. I’ve never studied the film in a theoretically intense way, so I don’t know the film intimately in an intellectual way, but I do know it in a more personal way, I notice its characteristics, its faults, its nuances, its goodness. It hasn’t been long since I last watched the film, but this last time the film gave me a nurturing presence, a warm feeling that only an old friend or family member could give me. The experience helped me find that the movies in my life have a power that transcends its original utility as a piece of entertainment and can become a work of art that can do work in your life that you may never full fathom.

            I think the strangest feeling is homesickness. I get it time to time. It’s always the little things we miss. The smell of your house. Your neighborhood. The smell of your old bathroom. Of course you miss all the people that inhabit your past home. But when you get a whiff of something that reminds you of home, a rush of nostalgia hits you, and suddenly this new place that you chose to go seems less welcoming. And the true sting to feeling homesick is that the instant you need to be back home you hopelessly cannot return, home is there, you are here. Everyone has a way of easing the pain of missing home. Mom’s cookies. That tea you always drink at home. And for me, it’s the movies. 

            During College, coming home for break was probably more significant than I ever understood. For four years, I always went home for all my breaks, save for a few in my senior year. Break is what you look forward to at the end of your semester; it’s what you’re working to. It’s not just the break from school for three weeks. It’s home. There’s a strange rejuvenation when you’re home. You see your family, you see your friends. But it’s being in that familiar place. Your hometown, your old house. Being in that place gives you a new energy, it heals all the stress that built up over the semester, and it empowers you to go and accomplish another term in school. 

            This past week has been tiring. My work week went seven days in a row. You would think an extra couple days of work wouldn’t be too much given that I just sell movie tickets. But once that seventh day just won’t end you eventually want to strangle every customer who wants to see Fright Night (I’m kidding, I would never strangle a customer, even if they were seeing Fright Night). So I was pretty exhausted by work, and in the midst of my work week, my friend Jaime broke her ankle falling down some stairs. I’m the classic worrier, think a young George Banks from Father of the Bride. So when I heard she broke her ankle I rushed to her apartment, and with other friends took her to the hospital. I was so worried that I never left her side, making the entire hospital staff think that I was her concerned husband. 

            So the past few days I’ve been doing what I can to help her. Buy her groceries, get her coffee. And I’m not saying in any way that I resent her for doing all this work. But subconsciously, I think I’m worried that I haven’t done enough to help her out. I love doing what I can for a friend who could use some help, it gives me peace knowing that I’ve helped her out, it makes me happy. And I don’t want to toot my own horn, and I know if I keep defending myself, the pretension will just grow-so suffice it to say, with great pleasure but with a wearied sense of duty I have been doing my best to help out a friend. 

             Since coming back to be a Christian, I feel that God is going to use me in a variety of ways in the city. I meet people, in random ways that don’t feel coincidental. Just a couple of nights ago I met a guy who just needed someone to talk to. He was dealing with alcoholism, and so I told him a condensed testimony of my Agnostic life and how my love of film helped me find God, and I encouraged him to pursue what he loved (and prayed it wasn’t alcohol). He said that I made an impact on his night, and he was glad he met me, I just feel so nervous that I could’ve done more. Lately, I feel like I’ve been doing a crappy job of whatever I ought to do, because I know that I want to help everyone in my life, but I know I will -and have- let them down. (I know the pretension is creeping back, just bear with me) God hasn’t given me more than I can handle, I just feel, tired.

            So last night, my roommate Kelly, Sky, a new friend from work, and Jaime, all watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was really great because we got Jaime over to our apartment, the farthest she had been from her apartment for many days. The film was exactly what I needed. It’s a fun film, filled with adventure, humor, and heart. The action scenes gave me a solid amount of catharsis. I think I’ve been so mad at the universe for all the bad luck it’s been shelling out to some people in my life that I just wanted to punch something. Indiana Jones punched for me. The film has such a thought out world. It’s not a hyper realistic portrayal of WWII-era Europe, but it’s a world that is consistent across a slew of films, and it makes for a world that I can escape into. Most films aren’t as thought out, but with Indiana Jones, there is a certain consistency that you easily can latch onto for hours. 

            I had a blast watching the film, and so did my friends. The film was just like home. Not to say that it emulated the power of home, but it was home. It was that familiar thing that I grew up with. If I could, I would have taken the first train home, and spend a week drinking café Ladro and hanging out with my friends and family in order to de-stress from the past week. But I couldn’t. Luckily, I had Indiana Jones. I was delivered home through the movie. The stress that had been weighing me down had left me. Like a good winter break that heals the wounds of your last semester, the film relieved the stress of the past week.

 Watching Jaime watch a movie is almost as good as watching the movie itself. She interacts with the movie, she talks to it, but somehow, it’s not annoying. And I saw that she was happy, and out of her apartment, which had been her prison lately because of the damn broken ankle. I got to rest up from the past seven days of work. Maybe any other movie could have done a similar effect, but truly, watching a movie that has been so embedded in me gave me a comfort only home could give. And when it comes to my responsibility to my fellow man, well, I realized that there is only so much we can do, even Indiana Jones can stumble, and I need to let go of thinking I can solve all the problems of life, forget that I may be able to grab the cup of Christ in order to save everyone. At the end of the day, I just need to let it go. 

(P.S.-Other films that I grew up with and now feel like home include the Star Wars films, the Back to the Future trilogy, and the Wayne’s World films)

Meetcute, meet Cute: How the Snob Took a Detour Through Cinema's Weakest Link

RomComs, Chick Flicks, whatever you want to call them, this is not manly territory, and certainly not a territory for any self-respecting cinephile. Not by a long shot. Yet, I confess the romantic comedy is my ultimate guilty pleasure. I confess it so much though that the guilty part is rapidly fading away. I can’t help but love every bit of a damn good RomCom: the contrived meet-cute, the leading actor and actress, the quirky screwball comedy, the romance. Oh and the requisite gallon’s worth of Velveeta cheese that tops it all off. I used to pride myself in a refined taste when it came to cinema. Hitchcock, Godard, Kaufman-These were the filmmakers that were meant talking about, so why the grand detour down Sandra Bullock lane?

I think the simplest explanation for my newfound cinematic preoccupation is intellectual exhaustion. I started falling for RomComs last January, after about a year and a half of intensive cinema and literature studies. In a passage of six months I took survey courses in the history of British and American literature, Literary theory, and the British novel (including the studies of Dickens, George Eliot, Mary Shelly, and others). I had studied the films of Hitchock, Truffaut, Godard, Coppola, Powell & Pressburger, Scorsese, Kubrick, and literally dozens of others. I was steeped in intellectual artistry. My brain was exhausted. My love of film needs constant care and attention, and I think the diversion with RomComs satisfied a few things: 1. Light reading-These films do not require a lot of mental attention, and my brain really wanted to take it easy. 2. New material-These were films that I knew very little about, I learned all about the tropes and traditions of a RomCom, and there are a lot of elements a filmmaker employs to make a RomCom good (really, I could write a book about-Ooh, I should write a book about it.) 3. I’m a hopeless romantic. There is something about these films that satisfies the romantic who is dying to go on a date this Friday (I’m free btw, give me a call). 

So after watching one more French film from 1961, I decided to give Hugh Grant and the like, a chance. May this blog teach you a bit about the great RomComs that are out there. Because know well dear reader, I continued to be a snob in my explorations of RomCom territory. So I started with arguably the greatest one. Annie Hall. Woody Allen’s masterpiece is the magnum opus for the genre. Alvy Singer (played by Allen) is the quintessential romantic comedy archetype-witty, quirky, self-deprecating and incredibly neurotic, the film follows his hyperactive musings on the silly preoccupations people hold in the world of dating, and Annie Hall is able to get so much right-the comedy, the romance, the drama that comes with love-I love the film, and it’s no wonder that the film remains one of Allen’s most cherished films. 

I stayed in the upper middle brow by continuing to Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally. Here’s another film that’s intelligently written without being snobbish or pretentious. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan work well together, and the film acts as a magnifying glass to the modern relationship. If it was any other actor playing Harry, I think I would have been nonplussed by the film. Could you imagine any other actor dry enough to explain the sexual preoccupations of men? If you don’t believe me, just watch-

After these two iconic films, the floodgates were opened, and the 90’s easily became the ruler of RomComs-Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings & a Funeral, French Kiss, While You Were Sleeping, As Good as it Gets, Notting Hill. These are some of my favorites, while the aughts have a few exceptional RomComs-Two Weeks Notice, Hitch, Miss Congeniality, the genre, in my opinion has homogenized to blandness (my critics will say blandness has always permeated RomComs, to which I say “….So?”)
I also unfortunately endured some true stinkers (UGH Practical Magic! My Best Friend’s Wedding! Petty, petty, petty-pretty people with problems). It became clear what it took to make a RomCom work. First, the film needs to be somewhat honest. It needs to stay away from pure escapism and actually work through an issue that arises in romantic encounters, whether it be love in the workplace, or falling in love with a close friend, the plot needs to be grounded in reality, even if everything else is contrived. Second, the lead actor and actress have to be ON. The reason why RomComs don’t work these days is partly because our actors are lame. We need another Tom Hanks, we need another Sandra Bullock. The best we can come up with is Gerard Butler and Ginnifer Goodwin. These people are pretty, not funny, sexy, not hilarious. And you know something is wrong when Steve Carrel is the best bet when it comes to seeing a new RomCom. (Or not, Carrel really is highly talented). 

There is one thing that worries me about my RomCom attachment. I may be replacing actual romance in my life with these movies. I haven’t really dated at all in my life, and as I grow up, the yearning in my heart to meet a girl grows and grows. My attachment to film can be at times unhealthy. To start obsessively watching these films makes me feel like I am filling that void with fake, artificial works dealing with love. Art has that problem for people like me who obsess over our medium of choice. We involve so much of ourselves in the medium, that sometimes we confuse art for life and life for art. However, the desire to meet a real girl still exists, and the awareness of film’s deception in my life is enough for me to understand how to keep priorities healthy in my life, and I understand that it’s far better for me to go out and chase a girl then watch Hugh Grant do it for me. 

I’m actually running low on critically acclaimed RomComs. On the shortlist I have You’ve Got Mail and Addicted to Love and that’s really it.  I hold the philosophy that every time I’m watching a new movie I’m looking for a new favorite movie. So there may be a lifelong favorite waiting to be found, but it’ll take work to get there. Soon, a new genre preoccupation will take hold. Kelly, my roommate, wants it to be the Western, and I’m open to the idea, but to replace Tom Hanks with John Wayne? I don’t know, do you think I could do it?