This is not how you watch a movie.

I have made a personal resolution not to watch movies with other people anymore, at least not for the first time. I go to the movies pretty much every week, often with friends and family. I prefer going by myself. Anytime a friend asks me to go to a movie, I always want to say no, yet almost always say yes. It’s simply a matter of manners. There’s never really a good reason for saying, “Yes, I want to see that movie, but by myself, if you don’t mind.”

For most people, seeing a movie is a perfect hang-out activity. As such, not agreeing to see a movie with a friend is like saying you don’t want to hang out with that person, which may not necessarily be the case. I just get so easily annoyed when it comes to the movies because they are my primary distraction in life. It drives me crazy to sit next to someone who is not paying attention, whether because they’re talking or texting or intermittently leaving. This is all an incredible distraction for me who is actually there to watch the movie without interruption. The annoyance increases if someone leaves by their own choice and then asks me to further delay my viewing enjoyment by asking what happened while they were away. And sometimes it can’t so easily be explained in a hurried whisper. Use the restroom and get refreshments before it starts and this will rarely be an issue.

There are other things people do at the movies that distract and annoy me, like fidgeting, eating, sniffling and breathing heavily. I understand these things can’t be helped and I hold nothing against the person doing them, but that doesn’t keep them from deterring my immersion in the movie. Again, when I go to the movies, I want to watch the movie. If I want to hang out, I’ll do it elsewhere.

Some people specifically go to movies with their friends to discuss it afterwards. I do not enjoy this. For one thing, I typically write my reviews the next day, to allow enough time for the movie to sink in and my thoughts to come together. Immediately after the movie is not a good time for me to give my opinion at any real length. This is particularly obnoxious when I hated the movie and my friend loved it, or vice versa. I usually avoid saying anything at all in these situations, and the whole thing can be so awkward that the experience is soiled. This goes for situations where you’re seeing a movie that contains content you know the other person doesn’t like, which results in spending half the movie worrying about it. It’s far better to go alone and bother just with your own opinions.

 In most cases, I watch movies alone in my room. Throughout the film, my door remains shut and my phone off, and I take as few breaks as possible. However, the benefits of seeing movies on the big screen while you still can are great enough to warrant my regular visits even when they’re aggravating. That is why I’ve decided to simply stop seeing movies with other people. Not to offend them and not to cut myself off from the world, but because I literally cannot enjoy a movie unless I’m alone, and it’s foolish to keep ignoring that. This all probably sounds very obsessive and silly to most, but it’s the way I feel about it and I wanted to explain myself before anyone started getting mad at me. Besides all my selfish intentions, I’m also helping my friends by not going with them, because they should be just as concerned about being annoyed by me as I am by them.

Look at it this way. When you’re reading a book, you probably don’t put up with someone sitting beside you talking, chewing loudly, nudging you, or asking what’s happening. If you don’t invest in a movie just as much, then you’re not fully experiencing it. All movies, even bad ones, deserve enough respect that we at least pay attention. That is all.

My Favorite Movies: Citizen Kane (1941)

Every ten years, the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine polls hundreds of critics and directors to come up with a list of the greatest movies ever made. This year was one of those years, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo ranking number one. Citizen Kane was number two. This is unheard of. If there’s one thing about Orson Welles’ masterpiece that is widespread common knowledge, it’s that it is the greatest movie of all time. Everybody says so. When the film was released in 1941, it was met with a great deal of hatred and envy and some quiet praise. Decades later, it crept into its throne as it became the king of film study and criticism.

If we must pick just one movie as the greatest, it may as well be Citizen Kane. However, this crown has done the movie a bit of a disservice. A modern movie-goer who never watches classics may watch Citizen Kane out of context because of its reputation and not see it as a cinematic miracle. In fact, I have heard just as many negative reactions to the movie as positive ones, because I have noticed a tendency for people to dislike whatever’s the most popular. Those who aren’t yet familiar with Vertigo will soon hate it.

What all the understood praise doesn’t convey is that Citizen Kane is a truly great movie. Its production has become film legend. Welles was only 25 when he wrote, directed and starred in the film, the first he had been involved with and one of the only ones he’d ever have complete control over. The story of the rise and fall of an enormous newspaper tycoon was seen as a jab at William Randolph Hearst, who used his power to try to keep the film from release. He did succeed in temporarily burying it and guaranteeing that Welles’ future career would be overshadowed by studio meddling, for fear that his free creativity would only get everyone into trouble. The reason it became so well regarded later is usually attributed to the technological advances with deep focus and other camera tricks, the unprecedented addition of ceilings to the elaborate sets, and all the other notoriety.

What never seems to come up is how great Welles’ storytelling abilities were. I think the movie’s greatest strength is how disconnected it is. We were never meant to care about the man the story is about, but rather to care about the story itself. There are many clues, the most obvious of which is the revelation of just what “rosebud” refers to, that suggest that the point and moral of the film is that the man’s life we are witnessing doesn’t ultimately matter. As such, it is very cold and, therefore, very powerful. There are scenes that still give me chills no matter how many times I’ve seen them, and the fact that the movie always leaves me feeling drained proves that it did its job well.

The biggest danger in Citizen Kane’s famous greatness is the temptation to overindulge. Everyone falls back on it too much, studies it too extensively. If the movie was nothing but a textbook guide to cinematic trickery, it would be worthless. I do believe to an extent that Welles was probably more interested in perfecting than entertaining, but his film is great above all else because it actually is entertaining, as well as perfect. A movie can be great by being one or the other, but having both is what elevates it to the top of the ladder.

Citizen Kane was one of the first classic movies I ever saw. I watched it along with several other essentials many years ago with the intent of seeing the movies everyone ought to see. Knowing nothing about it, its greatness was a surprise to me and the impact was long-lasting. Even now that I am aware of its true place in movie history, I still see it and revisit it as a great movie that has been a part of my movie life since the beginning, not just as an object to be unraveled. I can also easily call it one of the primary reasons I became so fully interested in film from an artistic perspective. The movie has left a similar impression on so many others, making it one of the most influential movies ever made. Orson Welles was a great entertainer and artist, but was most valuable as a pioneer. There haven’t been too many individuals who had the genius to single-handedly change a whole medium. Welles was one of them and, 70 years later, Citizen Kane is still changing everything.

My Favorite Movies: Psycho (1960)

One of the things commonly lacking in the minds behind the film of today is perfectionism. Throughout the last century, many of the greatest geniuses of the movie medium have been acute perfectionists. One of the greatest of these was Alfred Hitchcock. He had every possible angle for his films carefully constructed in his mind, often put down on paper in little storyboards depicting all potential shots that could be used in the film. These would be altered and reconstructed and deleted until it was just the way he envisioned it should be. By the time shooting actually began, there was very little room for error. It had all been planned to the extreme and everything would be just right. The result being that the audience would be seeing only precisely what Hitchcock meant them to see.

Take the famous shower scene in Psycho. Most people who see the film, particularly those who saw it in 1960, think they have seen two things. First, they think they have seen a nude woman. This is nowhere near true, as none of the more than ninety shots used in the scene show anything below the shoulders, with the exception of a brief shot of her stomach. Besides, actress Janet Leigh was wearing a body suit. Second, they think they have seen a woman get stabbed. The knife never touches her. It is moved up and down in a violent motion, but never pierces any skin. It is an illusion. We are told to see things and we have no reason to doubt we have seen them. Most of the movie and its plot works in the same way.

The most marvelous thing about Psycho is its deception. The shower scene is just one example of how we come to believe things that are far from true. This is because the direction is so convincing and controlled that we have no time to question anything we've been told. This makes the twists and surprises when they arrive that much more surprising. I am sure that it is not a spoiler anymore to point out that Janet Leigh's character, Marion Crane, dies. She is stabbed to death while taking a shower at the Bates motel. A simple string of events lead her to this end. She has stolen a rather large sum of money from her employer and has attempted to run off with it and share with her boyfriend. When we are first introduced to Marion, we would not believe that she would become a criminal so easily. When she does become a criminal, we cannot believe that anything really bad would happen to her. Both things happen quite suddenly.

When the man whose money she steals waves the cash around in her face, she is surprised. She spends the remainder of the scene behaving in as nonchalant a way as expected. Yet, the next time we see her, she is stashing the cash. I don't even think she thought this through very well. Something worth noticing, is the color of Marion's undergarments. Before she steals the money, they are white, and afterwords, they are black. Hitchcock has planted subliminal signs of character even down to mere clothing. With Norman Bates, we get signs through things like posture, nervous grins, and random lashes of anger. One of the best segments in the movie is when Norman takes Marion to the back of the hotel office, which is filled with large stuffed birds, and they vaguely discuss the future. She makes allusions to what she plans to do with her new fortune, and he laments his future stuck with a failing hotel and an invalid mother. When she suggests, very innocently, that he send her to a home, he gets angry.

This is the first time we notice something wrong with this guy, and it's all about the mom. His life revolves around her. In fact, he has no life outside of the old hotel. "A boy's best friend is his mother," he argues. I have great respect for Anthony Perkins' performance in this movie. It is, like everything else in Psycho, perfectly crafted. Perkins became Bates for this movie (and continued to play him in cheap sequels, which I shall not mention any further), a role mostly played from a presence. It is a very awkward presence that would make most acquaintances uncomfortable around him even if he didn't go a little mad sometimes. Yet, most of the time, there doesn't seem to be anything truly wrong with him. It takes more than half of the movie before we get full proof of his insanity, with only hints prior. This is the way it should be. There would be no proper mystery to the proceedings if we seriously knew he was bonkers from the get-go.

Besides being arguably the most thrilling movie on Hitchcock's resume, and indeed one of the most thrilling of all time, Psycho was important historically as a breaker of taboos, and not necessarily in the way you would think. For one thing, yes, there is visible bra-wearing in this movie, which, no, was not common at the time. However, that was not exactly news, since most advertisements for the film were graced by a partially-unclothed Leigh, warning viewers that this was for MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. The biggest problem for most was the strong nature of the violence, although it would not be considered very harsh today. As I said earlier, nothing actually happens onscreen, and there is only very briefly any blood. The black and white cinematography helps along those lines a bit in making daylight scenes scary that would not have been as frightening in color. Another big taboo broken here is in the showing of an onscreen toilet. Not only is a toilet actually shown, it is flushed, which was absolutely unheard of, and extremely shocking. Such were the 1950s.

When Psycho was first released, it was done in an unprecedented manner. Only four screenings were shown each day at any theater. You would have to be careful to buy tickets ahead of time because of the popularity, and to ensure the utmost secrecy of the climactic surprises, the doors remained shut for the duration of the film and could not be opened. Audience members were requested to not share the finale with friends. In an age where spoilers abound on various movie and social networking sites, a movie like Psycho could have never succeeded. It's true that the ending isn't really a secret anymore, but there is always the off chance that someone may not have seen the film before, so I always try to keep my mouth sut when discussing it.

I can say, though, that even after multiple viewings, Psycho remains one of the most exciting films of any era or genre. It is a masterpiece that can only add enjoyment with repeat viewings, because works of art were meant to be enjoyed more than once. And I truly do consider this horror movie to be a real work of art, something that can't really be said about many others of its kind. Such superb cinematic trickery could only be pulled off by a handful. It helps to be a perfectionist.

They can't all be winners.

(Originally written for my other blog a year ago.)

There is an expression that is used to explain the large followings of certain cult films: "It's so bad, it's good." Troll 2 is so astoundingly horrible, it's great. Troll was a cheesy horror movie from a few years earlier about this troll that possesses a little girl and so on. Troll 2 has nothing to do with that movie. There aren't even any trolls in it. It is about goblins who look like midgets wearing burlap sacks and cheap Halloween costumes, because that's exactly what they are.

In the movie, a family of four go on vacation to the little town of Nilbog (Hint: it's goblin spelled backwards.) where the pesky vegetarian goblins who reside there repeatedly attempt to turn the newcomers into plants by forcing them to eat moldy food or drink bad milk. Then they eat them. Thanks to the help of the Magic Stone, goblins can also turn themselves into anything they want, so throughout the movie they appear as crazy humans. The only way they can be defeated is apparently with a double-decker bologna sandwich. I don't know why.

If the above paragraph made sense to you, you should be applauded. In all seriousness, Troll 2 is so bad it transcends the word "bad." I mean, what would we usually describe as a bad movie? Crappy dialogue, terrible acting, or a general misunderstanding of the simple logic of film-making, perhaps. Troll 2 has all three, but I don't think any of the crew had any idea that they were making what would later become known as one of the worst movies of all time. In the wonderful documentary Best Worst Movie, a fan describes it as being like a movie that aliens made after watching human movies for a few years. It can't even be described as a movie. It is a confusing, ridiculous, and somehow beautiful object at which you can't help but marvel.

The biggest production barrier was that the director, Claudio Fragasso, was Italian and spoke very little English. He and his wife wrote the screenplay based on what they believed Americans talked like and insisted that the lines be read exactly as written. This produced some of the most hilariously absurd moments in film history. The most famous being the scene in which one of the young male stars, after watching a girl get turned into green goo, states in a monotone voice, "They're eating her.....and then they're going to eat me. Oh my Gooooooooooooooo...." It trails forever in the most undramatic, least scary, most uncomfortable way possible. The video clip of this scene received over two million views on YouTube and sparked countless imitations and parodies.

There are too many other similarly horrible scenes to mention, including the numerous scenes featuring Michael Stephenson (the young boy in the family)'s dead grandfather showing up and saying heroic things before disappearing again for no reason. Equally hilarious is the seduction scene that involves corn-on-the-cob ("All we have to do is heat it up.") and the awkward conversation between a young couple with unintentional gay implications.

The star of the film, George Hardy, is a dentist who appears in the aforementioned documentary along with the rest of the cast and it is nice to see him recognize how truly terrible his ninety minutes of fame really were. Some of the other cast members took it a little too hard; the girl who played the daughter refuses to include it on her resume and will not appear at fan conventions, and the woman who played the mother became a recluse. There is one part of Best Worst Movie, when director Fragasso is jokingly asked by a fan why it is called Troll 2 if there aren't any trolls in it. He angrily responds, "You understand nothing!"

He seems so earnest in his belief that Troll 2 isn't bad that it almost makes you wish something was just lost in translation and that it isn't complete crap. Though he is obviously frustrated that the film gained popularity because of mockery, he does say at one point that it's just as much an honor to have made the worst movie of all time as the best. In the same way, it is vitally important that there be a worst movie of all time and other terrible movies. How else could we appreciate the good?

It's been an average year.

It seems like every time I walk outside, that hint of cool air gets stronger and stronger. In just a few days, summer will be over and autumn will begin. This means nicer weather, the beginning of preparations for the year’s biggest holidays, and, of course, good movies. I typically refer to the last few months of the year as the second half as far as movies go, because studios typically save their best films for the fall and early winter, in the hope of being remembered come award season. Whether or not you care about all the silly lists and ceremonies that fill up the first few months of the year, the simple truth is that it’s more fun going to the movies every week when most of the movies are actually worth seeing.

 Therefore, at the end of every year, film critics are so busy praising all the new stuff that they forget about most of the first nine months. This year has not been deprived of memorable movie experiences. In fact, it’s been a fairly decent year, considering that I’ve only truly hated five of the forty-six movies I’ve seen. There were also only six I truly loved. That leaves thirty-five that were in-between, which isn’t really a bad thing, but if a movie is simply average, that means it is unfulfilling in one way or another. I think I was in the same boat as most film-goers when I didn’t feel very strongly either way about most things I saw.

The Hunger Games had very little to offer those who weren’t already members of the book’s enormous cult. Brave was a charming, but rather dry new attempt from Pixar that was almost overshadowed by the dark joviality of ParaNorman. Other animated movies fared far worse, with high-grossing clunkers like Madagascar 3 and Ice Age 17. Oliver Stone’s Savages was strangely captivating for falling so flat. Action adventures like Premium Rush and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter were simultaneously engrossing and empty. Die-hard action fans got the maddeningly pointless Bourne Legacy and the frustratingly sincere Raid: Redemption. Comedy fans got equally pointless, varyingly amusing pictures like 21 Jump Street, Ted, and The Dictator. Horror fans ate up The Cabin in the Woods, an interesting idea that wound up not knowing what to do with itself, while ignoring the scary and atmospheric Woman in Black. Even serious movies like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Hope Springs turned up empty-handed.

“Good golly, Beaux!” you may well think. “Was there anything you did think was worth bothering with? Tell me, please!” If you were to ask almost anybody else, their answer would be alarmingly bad. As of right this minute, the imdb top 250 holds three of this year’s movies. Two of them are The Dark Knight Rises at number 28 and The Avengers at 100. Everyone I know loved both of these movies and would heartily agree that they rank among the best ever. I am all for people having their own opinions and don’t even have a problem with them enjoying movies I don’t, but these people could not be more wrong. The Dark Knight Rises is not one of the best movies of the year, much less of all time. I’ll concede that it is a decent enough picture, but it’s popularity is incredible considering what a failure it is. It is successful in its familiarity with Nolan’s first films, but packs none of the same punch. The fans of the deserving originals are so passionate, they can’t stop and think about how tiresome the movie really is. I expect it will go the way of Spider-Man 2: critical blockbuster today, unexplainably hated tomorrow. (I agree with most people that The Amazing Spider-Man was a good movie, but I also have nothing against Sam Raimi’s trilogy.)

Even though I didn’t like The Dark Knight Rises, I left it with the same “blah” feeling I had towards the other movies listed above. I didn’t hate it like I did The Avengers, which I must confess made me quite angry. I was so annoyed with it and its rabid fans, that I wrote a ranting post about it in addition to my extremely negative review. That is one of the most unpopular things I’ve ever done, since I have yet to find anyone, in person or on the internet, who thought it was a remotely bad movie. This unanimous blindness isn’t making me as angry as it did a few months ago, but I beg the Avengers fans to let it go. I’ll stop saying bad things about it if you’ll stop shouting its non-existent qualities at me. Thank you.

The movies I really did like included Ridley Scott’s magnificent return to outer space with Prometheus and Steven Soderbergh’s surprisingly grounded action movie Haywire. My other favorites were a bit more controversial. I loved the little dramatic comedy Bernie, featuring an incredible performance from Jack Black, which somehow escaped mainstream attention. Lawless was an enjoyable tale of hillbilly vengeance, which seems to have rubbed most viewers the wrong way with its historically correct cruelty. The most shocking thing I wrote all year was a nine star review of Dax Shephard’s good-hearted comedy Hit and Run (Of all the nerve!). This was a wonderful movie that was widely hated, mostly because viewers expected an actual action movie, despite the advertisements clearly indicating its ridiculousness. Those people just need to see Expendables 2, which, by the way, is no less silly.

The best movie moment of the first half of 2012 was when Wes Anderson blessed us with his latest masterpiece, Moonrise Kingdom. I thought so much of this movie that I called it the best of the year back in July. Right now, it still is, and I doubt it will be topped as my favorite. I could, and very well may, write an entire book about its seemingly endless charms. I saw it a total of four times in theaters, a personal record, and will certainly watch it again before the year is out. It is such a miraculous thing that it remains fresh, inspired, and very funny even after so many viewings. I will not be surprised if it eventually holds out as one of my all-time favorites. My guess is it will. This probably would have been a generally unmemorable year if not for Mr. Anderson. However, there are still plenty of other things to look forward to in the coming months.

My past reviews can be found here.

Shoot an owl. Go to jail.

I work with some weird people. On Friday, one of my co-workers was in a particularly odd mood. She spent a lengthy bit of time discussing the various pros and cons of different styles of execution and how much she would prefer the gas chamber to the electric chair (Wouldn't we all?). She also relayed her desire to be a bonafide witch, although she seems more interested in just plain having mind control than having to learn a bunch of fancy-pants spells.

Apparently, if she woke up with magic powers, she would continue living her life as she always has, but with the added benefit of forcing people to do embarassing things. Making people trip on nothing and fall on their faces is one example of the tortures this woman would enact. Others include having them say things like, "I eat poop," at inopportune moments and eating their own boogers. My office partner's imagination obviously knows no limits. And she's only a decade older than me!

I am not being serious. If I was handed unlimited supernatural abilities, I would pull money out of thin air, go back in time, make myself invisible, or teleport. I would not spend all day using them to trip people in the halls. That's what string is for. Moreover, I don't see much use in keeping it a big secret. Yes, logically, if I awoke one day with superpowers, someone else also probably got similar ones that they will now be determined to use for evil. At that point, the evil magic person would most likely get busy committing acts of mass terrorism, while I busy myself visiting Groucho Marx. My indifference to the sinister goings-on and the fact that I'd, like, never be around should keep me pretty safe.

This brings up many ethical questions. Would it be wrong of me to ignore the pain of my fellow era while I enjoy myself seeing the great sights of history? One of the most popular time travel scenarios is going back and shooting Hitler. Well, if I did that, what kind of lesson would I be teaching the kids? No, it is my belief that history should be left unscathed by my whims. If I could travel through time, I would do so with the utmost respect for the true outcome of events. If I could pull money out of thin air, I'd give at least thirty percent to charity. If I could teleport, I would still recommend airplane travel to my friends. Statistically speaking, it's still the safest way.

All of this talk is pure buffoonery, and I know it. Sometimes, though, asking these questions is a way to test our own strength of character. What would you do with a million dollars? If you answer pay off all my credit card debts, you're a selfish person. If you had only one wish, what would it be? If you answer a million wishes, you're a cliched person. Which animal would you most like to be? If you answer owl, you're an awesome person. Nobody hunts owls for sport. There's something to think about.

I'm not dead. I'm just resting.

Obnoxiously enough, I started a blog to write about stuff and then failed to do so with any regularity. I was called out on this yesterday, and told that I was an enormous failure. In this case, not just to myself, but to my readers as well. As it stands, I have let down no less than twenty people by my internet absence. What a depressing thought. And it's not for lack of things to say.

I could have written about my fool-headed puppy who bit off a chunk of my face. I could have commented on my disgruntled annoyance with the fans of Christopher Nolan. I could have expressed my overwhelming gratitude to Wes Anderson for making his film Moonrise Kingdom, which I have seen four times now and could gladly see it again. I could have perused the latest top ten movie selections made by the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound critic and director's poll, something that is only done every ten years. In fact, I have more to say about movies than anything else, because they are one of my two primary releases. The other is writing.

Truly, I feel that my gift in life is being able to combine words into comprehensible sentences and place those sentences into a logical pattern that becomes a complete thought. I can spell good too. I also genuinely enjoy writing about whatever may be interesting at the time of the writing, but typically only during the actual writing itself. Does that make sense? During and after a typing session, I enjoy what I'm doing, but before I ever write anything I don't want to. That's why it takes me so long between posts. I practically have to force myself to do it.

I suppose laziness is the only real excuse for that. There are few things I can do easier than what I'm doing right this minute, and it's hardly time-consuming. It just seems before-hand like something I don't feel like dealing with, which is a monstrous falsehood. I have therefore made a resolution to myself. I will write on this blog two or three times a week, and not let this instrument fall silent. It doesn't matter what I say, so long as I say it. I know I'm not one for chit-chat in day-to-day situations, but none of that applies here in the digital world. Besides, if I was mauled by a bulldozer tomorrow, nobody would have any idea how I feel about all those movies I haven't talked about yet or about, you know, politics and stuff.

Also worth mentioning, my series covering the ten classic movies being shown at the Saenger theater this summer will be interrupted by my skipping the 1951 Show Boat, because it just isn't that good. There's another one down.

Sincerely and with best wishes for your health and acheivement of aspirations,

Mr. B. Travis T.