(500) Days of Summer

Posted on by SkimShady

500_days_of_summer_romcom_poster_by_churchx-d4pesd4I’ve never been one to write on what could really be considered a personal level. Sure, I share my thoughts, feelings, or opinions on occasion in a blog post or in a text to console a heartbroken friend, but it’s just not something I feel comfortable doing. Maybe it’s because I have some fear that what I’m going through is insignificant or irrelevant. Or maybe I’ve just never found the right words to make letting my guard down seem like a good idea… I even started a blog that lets me use movies as a buffer between the world and my experiences and reflections that make up my life. Movies should be used as a reflective tool, but they can’t replace the real thing. Maybe I was hiding from something. But sooner or later we all have to realize that there’s nowhere to hide from yourself. I’m sure that I’m rambling at this point, so I apologize, but {cliche warning} if even one person reading this can relate, then it’s worth the potential discomfort I may have about addressing a personal topic in such a public manner.

Like every fifteen year old girl, I saw (500) Days of Summer when it was first released, and loved it instantly for its indie soundtrack, quirky storyline, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt -ness. I think part of me liked it half as much because it was the *cool* thing to do as I did because I actually enjoyed the plot and the message (I thought) it sent. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderfully original work, but I think appreciating (500) Days of Summer in the abstract is wholly different than appreciating it because you feel you have lived through your own (#) Days of __insert Ex here__.

I think we can learn something from every movie, just as we can learn something from every break-up. I also think, that with time and further reflection, we can realize that maybe what we took away from either at first glance, can be altered. The best movies stick with you and force you to reflect on your own life, and maybe I waited so long to go back and re-watch this particular film because I wasn’t ready to reflect on the break-up that I went through last year. But the best movies keep you coming back to them–whether its comfortable or not.

When I was fifteen and I saw (500) Days, I saw it is an alternative fairytale…boy gets girl…boy loses girl…boy doesn’t get girl back… but he finds another girl…and all is well (yay!). At twenty-one, I appreciated this movie probably more for the storytelling than for the story itself.

It begins “in media res” (that’s in the middle of things for those of you rusty on your latin or your AP English), just as life does. You begin the next chapter of your life while you’re still caught up in the last one, and before you know it, you’re in a place you never thought you’d be. You’re okay. You’ve reached day 500.

The whole film progresses out of order, and to me this was the perfect metaphor for a broken hearted memory. One that sifts back through the good times at first, with a sense of longing, and then through the bad times, as if looking for a clue to what went wrong. But in the end, memory fails us. Because memories can become warped or distorted with time or feelings of nostalgia, anger, or pain. In the end, it is honestly best to let the past live in the past. To not let the last 500 days keep you from living in the next 500.

I think I related to this film so much more this time around because I saw myself in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Tom. I saw myself as the one who cared too much, the one who risked more, and consequently lost more. And I wish I could just write something about how great it is to not have a fear of loving without limits, of putting yourself out there because it is SO worth it. Because there is something to that. But that’s not what I got from this movie.

This movie made me realize that there is a fine line between not being afraid to truly care and simply accepting less than you deserve. In so many relationships, there will inevitably be one person that “cares” more than the other (or at least feels like they do) … and that’s because those are the relationships that are, perhaps, not meant to be. So it is important for both parties in these “unbalanced “relationships to do the brave thing, and move on. Everyone deserves to receive as much love as they give, just as no one deserves to feel guilty for being in a relationship that their heart is not truly in. Enter Zooey Deschanel’s character, Summer. Obviously, it sucked for Tom that he had is heartbroken and all, but in the end, she did him a favor. She set him free because she couldn’t give back to him what he gave to her.

To quote another indie movie (slash book), “We accept the love we think we deserve.” We hold on to good things even once they’ve turned bad because we think we won’t find something “as good” again. But luckily, we are just silly humans, and we are wrong. We all deserve to be happy, and we all deserve to find a new kind of good.

If you haven’t watched (500) Days of Summer since the last time you went through a gnarly break up, I suggest you do. And maybe you’ll see for yourself how important it is to not only accept the love you truly deserve, but to also recognize that sometimes you simply cannot give back the love that someone else deserves.

 

My “Marley & Me” Moment

Posted on by SkimShady

“A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog doesn’t care if your rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he’ll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?”

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Marley & Me is a movie I have seen before. It is a book I have read, and a story I know well. As a child that grew up in a house with dogs, I devoured this tale of a lovable, ill-behaved pup turned into an uncontrollable (albeit, still lovable) force of nature. I cried both times I read the book, and again when I saw the film. As with the Titanic, I never sat down to watch Marley & Me without being fully prepared to bawl my eyes out.

 

Before this week, I had known the loss of two wonderful, beautiful, loving dogs. I was seven years old the first time I experienced that overwhelming sense of grief and despair that comes with losing a great dog, and eighteen the next. It doesn’t get any easier with age. If anything, it gets harder. But nothing, not even Marley & Me could have prepared me for what it is like to lose a dog that means more to you than anything in the world.

 

I know it’s not a film of the highest repute, or the most complex themes. But to someone who has just lost a dog as remarkable, ill behaved, stubborn, spastic and enchanting as Marley, this movie is a blessing in disguise.

 

No one knows what to say to make someone feel better after a terrible loss. No one knows how to make the hurt go away. This movie accomplishes neither. In fact, it forces you to relive every happy memory, every sad sign that your furry friend was getting older, every realization that you will never do this thing or that thing with your beloved dog again. It is emotional waterboarding for those who have just lost a treasured member of their family. To watch Marley & Me in my situation is nothing short of self-inflicted agony. I’m not sure why I did, to be honest. There was no shortage of tears when I got the news that it was her time to go. I certainly did not need this movie to release my pent up emotions. But I am so grateful that something inspired me to watch it, regardless.

 

If you knew my dog, Max, you know she was, to put it nicely, a handful. She had two ACL surgeries and a hip surgery within the span of four years. She refused to give up on her chance to make The Great Escape any time you dared to take her on a walk or open any un-gated door. If you thought you had a chance of catching her on foot, you were deluded. If you were going to chase her, she was going to make it a game, and she was going to win. Only the chance of a car ride after a long run could lure her back home prematurely. Otherwise, she’d find her way back when it damn well pleased her to do so. It didn’t matter if you were staying in a strange cabin in Who-Knows-Where, Arkansas: she’d find her way back. And she’d wait patiently while you cut the burrs out of her matted fur, panting happily with a tongue that put Gene Simmons to shame. She never really learned how to doggie paddle correctly. She preferred to splash as much as possible so as to have adequate drinking water while she made her laps around the pool. At six weeks old, she chewed $3,000 worth of damage into the molding around our fireplace. By 6 months, she had learned how to climb up both our tree-house and the slide attached to it. Before that, she had mastered my brother’s bunk bed ladder, as well as a not-so-graceful dismount off the top bunk. She certainly gave off the goofy, dimwitted vibe (and I definitely watched her sprint past the open car door, slide across the floor and collide with the garage door on more than one occasion), but she was no simpleton. She knew what she wanted, and she usually got it. If she really had to, she’d sweetly rest her soft black chin on your knee at the dinner table, but usually, all it took was a wiggle of her two brown eyebrows to get you to acquiesce and feed her whatever it was you were eating. And eat she did. It’s a miracle that she lived to be thirteen, in all honesty, because by the time she was six, she weighed upwards of 85 pounds. Her mother, a petite Border collie mix, weighed maybe forty-five pounds. In the end, as her health deteriorated, she shed the weight, but for over half a decade, she ate her food, half of our older dog’s food, and whatever scraps she could guilt you into feeding her from the table. She was, like Marley, a force to be reckoned with.

 

Watching the on-screen Marley wreak havoc on everything from his giant bag of kibble to the living room furniture and everything in between made me smile. It made me tear-up, and release a little sad half-chuckle into the pillow I was clutching with white knuckles, until it finally moved me to booming, trembling, ugly sobs. Seeing how one dog became the happy, if not unruly, center of a growing family made me realize that Max was my Marley. Now I know that everyone looks back fondly on their cherished childhood pet, and that for John Grogan, Marley came later in life, but for me, Max was not just a beloved family dog. She was a beacon of unremitting joy, excitement, loyalty, love and mischief. She was not just a childhood pet…she was my childhood.

 

From New Year’s day 2003, when I held her pudgy four-week old body in my equally chubby, eight-year-old hands, until the last hug I gave her bony, weathered frame just before I flew across the Atlantic a few weeks ago, I loved Max as hard and as much as I could. Just because she is no longer here to bark obnoxiously at passersby, or insistently nudge me with her latest gnarled, smelly toy, that does not mean that I have lost her. I will always love her more than anything (and probably anyone… sorry, future husband), and I will always be a better person for having grown up with her. Like every good dog, she made me feel rare and pure and special and extraordinary. She taught me so much, but to name a few…

 

Things Max taught me:

 

Just because you’re bad at something, or you do it differently than everyone else, that’s no reason to stop doing it.

Never stop looking for adventure.

Don’t be afraid to be the loudest one in any room.

Having a huge schnozz makes opening doors that much easier.

If you feel the need, keep running because the ones that love you will always chase after you.

If you have expressive eyebrows, use them.

Brown eyes are the most soulful.

You are never too old for toys.

It’s okay to cheat at tug of war because sooner or later everyone does–it’s a fool’s game.

Every day is a chance to play, in one way, or another.

Sometimes getting older is less about aging gracefully, and more about refusing to act your age.

 

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She distrusted most dogs, and loved all people. She was my spirit animal in so many ways, and I never even saw it.

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To Max, Marley, and all the other dogs in heaven, thank you for putting up with us silly humans, and for teaching us about the power of truly unconditional love.

 

 

Why I Watch Movies

Posted on by SkimShady

For a film major, this one’s a biggie. From day one, we are asked why are movies so important? Why do you love movies? What makes you watch them? What is the *function* of movies in society?

And there are always several answers, and each time it is more of the same. To those of us who have chosen to dedicate our life’s work (in some way or another) around the cinematic arts, it is important to ask why.

I’ve always tried to contribute something meaningful to these conversations, and my answer has evolved over the years, but it wasn’t until earlier this evening, during a Netflix binge session of Chelsea Handler’s Netflix Documentary series, Chelsea Does, that it hit me.

Watching her go through the experience of doing ayahuasca as part of her “Chelsea Does Drugs” segment, I realized that to me, film is more than just an escape from reality. It is more than just a way to appreciate culture or be entertained for an hour or two. It is my way of “experiencing” and being exposed to that which I will definitely (or probably) never get to experience–or  otherwise be exposed to– in my own lifetime.

I named this blog “Life Through Movies” because I thought I would be drawing parallels between movies and my own life or the common American experience as I perceived it. In many ways, I’m sure I will continue down that path, but I must now admit, that sometimes, it’s going to be impossible.

There are some things, that I will never get to experience. I am young—only twenty one– with my whole life ahead of me. But even now, I realize that you really should *sometimes* say never. Some things are better left to the imagination, or on the silver screen. And that’s okay. Because not all experiences are good. And not all experiences are possible for every person.

My generation has this collective fear, the fear of missing out, or #fomo, as we call it. We are so busy, worrying about all the things we will never get to do, that we often fail to appreciate our life as we are experiencing it. As I am beginning my semester abroad, this fear of missing out weighs heavily on my mind more than ever.  I am a hugeeee offender of failing to live in the “now.” But I don’t want to be. I want to be grateful for what I have the opportunity to do, and for who I have the opportunity to be.

So, if I watch a half a dozen rom-coms in a row over a lazy weekend, it’s not because I wish I could be swept off my feet by the Ryan Goslings of the world (ok, maybe I do just a little). What it really is, is me admitting that that fairytale is not MY life. But that’s okay. Because unlike DVDs, digital HD copies don’t get scratched, so I can live vicariously through The Notebook an unlimited amount of times. Or… some other movie that makes me sound like less of a stereotype…

Being exposed to new things can be enlightening, but maybe how you are exposed to those new things is the key. I think I watch movies to experience things I feel I can only dream about–like jetting off to outer space or living the elegant and glamorous life of a 19th century aristocrat. But I also now realize I watch movies because they expose me to stories, real stories, I would have otherwise never learned.

Take, The Imitation Game. I would have most likely never learned about Alan Turing’s awe-inspiring and tragic story had it not been for that film. Without The Big Short, I would still mumble “something about mortgages” if a Professor asked about The Great Recession. I know that without Will Smith’s impressive performance in Concussion, I would still think football was more or less roughhousing in spandex.

Without my avid desire to consume movies, I truly believe I would be a much less educated, less interesting, and overall lesser individual. It’s not to say you have to love film to be interesting, educated, or a good person. I just know, that for some of us, it takes a good movie to get us to pay attention to the smaller, more serious, or less palatable stories.

It also takes a movie, to get me to realize the difference between fantasies about my life, and actual, real aspirations. To top that off, I’m sure my parents would be happy to know that I am perfectly content watching other people do potentially dangerous things on screen, rather than feeling inspired to go out and do all of them myself. (Even if Leo does make Jordan Belfort’s life look pretttty fun…before it all went to hell, of course).

 

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Sometimes it takes failure to know success

Posted on by SkimShady

I’m not a writer. I don’t put my thoughts into words nearly as often as I should, considering I have so many bouncing around all the time– keeping me up at night or preventing me from meditating during the “quiet time” of yoga. I’m not a writer, but this morning I chose to return to something I started three months ago and never finished, this blog. And it has less to do with quitting, and more to do with this idea of being “finished” at all.

How do we know when a movie is over? The screen fades to black and/or the credits begin to roll. It’s simple. But in life, when is something really “over?” We have arbitrary delineations like days of a  week, month, a season or a year (look at that I even incorporated it being New Year’s Eve today alright, alright, alriiight). But at 12:01am tomorrow, how different are we going to be than we were at 11:59pm? Do we really walk away from 2015 with a “message” like we walk away from a movie? I don’t know that we necessarily do, simply because life keeps on moving, whether or not we choose to stop and really reflect on what it has done to us.

Furthermore, if we can’t be sure when something is over, how do we define it as a success or as a failure? In America especially, we are OBSESSED with this notion that you are either a winner or a loser (looking at you, Donald). And this obsession is *paramount* in the movies that fill our cinemas and our Netflix queues.

In the past few months I have seen A LOT of movies. Of this, I am proud. What I am not proud of, is the fact that I have written exactly nothing about them. Don’t get me wrong, I have stayed up late musing about them to myself, but I never put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, mind you). Maybe I was lazy or maybe I was afraid of failing, of writing something no one other than my parents wanted to read. However, even though I failed to write about movies as I saw them individually, I did notice a trend that lead me to thinking about this dichotomy of success vs. failure.

I noticed how many “outsiders” were gracing the silver screen with their true stories. Whether it was Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs, demonstrating how true genius is often misunderstood, or Will Smith in Concussion proving that being “the other” makes it that much more difficult to tell people something they don’t want to hear, the characters (rather, real people) whose stories I watched seemed to “fail” much more than they “succeeded.” But in the end, what we remember these people for, (and the only reason we are watching movies about their stories) is their  apparent success. No matter how many times we see Jennifer Lawrence’s character in Joy bury herself deeper into debt, we know, without ever seeing the movie that she will succeed by the film’s end–not just because it is a true story, but because we know by now how most movies work.

steve jobs michael fassbender françois duhamel universal

No one makes a movie about someone who kept failing time after time and never succeeded. “There’s no story there,” or that’s what any sane studio  executive would tell her subordinates if such a film were brought to her. But that’s not necessarily true. There is definitely a STORY to failure, the problem is, that to Hollywood, and to America, it feels like there is not a proper ending to a film or to a story if it is one that ends in failure. Who wants to see a “rags to rags” tale? How much worse would Southpaw have been reviewed if Jake Gylenhall’s character had never won a fight again? The fact is, generally, for a story to be told by Hollywood and seen by the masses, especially a true one, it must involve some semblance of success.

Here is a quote one of my favorite film professors loves to remind his students of: “Hollywood Movies reassure us whereas Independent Films unsettle us.” Most of us only ever see Hollywood films, or if we see Independent films, we see them much less often, or only because we know they have been “certified fresh” by critics (oh look at that, we only want to watch successful movies, even if they are themselves about failure, hmmmm….).

We only want to watch movies that reassure us because the stories in movies, unlike those in our lives, feel like they have finite endings. We are uncomfortable when we feel as though movies do not tie up all the lose ends by the film’s completion. We are so set on defining things in terms of success vs. failure, that we fail to see that success itself is relative.

It is impossible to talk about success or about failure without again musing on the concept of something being finished, over, or ended. In movies, we deem a character successful if they reach their goal by the end of the movie, but in life you can become a failure even after you have succeeded. Pick up any tabloid and you’ll see at least three celebrities that demonstrate this. What motivated me to write all of this, however, was the notion that maybe, just maybe, we are looking at success and failure all wrong.

To me, being a failure is not about failing to accomplish something by an arbitrary deadline or even by failing time after time. I think you are really only a failure if you stop trying… because unlike a movie, life goes on. We are sometimes lucky enough to get second and maybe even third or fourth chances, so we should take them. The end of a year does not mean the end of who you were trying so hard to be but couldn’t quite manage. The end of a year is just another trip around the sun.

Just because something seems to have ended, and it didn’t turn out the way you wanted, that does not make it a failure. We are so set on meeting deadlines and goals that we often forget life is not like a movie… there will be no credits and no usher coming in to sweep up the spilt popcorn and squished Skittles. Maybe we don’t always get that fairy tale ending, but we do get another tomorrow, another year, another beginning.

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading the thoughts I struggled to put into words, and I wish you a happy, healthy New Year in which you are, hopefully, not afraid to fail.

 

 

 

 

The Intern

Posted on by SkimShady

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The Intern, at first glance, looks like a typical feel-good Nancy Meyers movie, and in a lot of ways, it is, but it’s also wonderfully refreshing. Despite its high-concept, easily digestible plot, The Intern, is a rare original story in a sea of franchises and remakes. However, the novel idea of a “senior [citizen] internship” makes for more than just a few laughs and heartfelt moments about what we can learn from our elders. After watching this movie I felt compelled to do two things: binge watch old Hollywood movies and live my life with a renewed respect for all things “classic.”

Sitting outside on a perfectly breezy night, reflecting on what I had just watched while I dipped my feet into one of the eight fountains on campus, I found a sense of clarity. Dwelling on the Anne Hathaway-Robert DeNiro dynamic of learning not to miss your life, I realized just what made me fall in love with this film. It had everything. It was hysterical at times, poignant and critical of the working mom stigma at others, but in the end, still relatable and inspiring. As a typical college student I could obviously relate to that initial feeling of starting an internship and feeling utterly useless. What Meyers did, however, was take this experience and relate it to the same lackluster feeling that plagues so many retirees as they enter senior citizenship. In fact, she made so much of the film relatable on several levels. This movie was brilliant because it catered to absolutely everyone: it had crude humor, romance, heartbreak, empowerment, and issues ranging from marital problems to first dates and getting older.

As I appreciated the peaceful nighttime air and tried fruitlessly to count the few stars visible in the Dallas sky, I realized that The Intern brought together the old and the new in several obvious pairings (DeNiro/Hathaway, Phonebook Business/Online Shopping, Marital Problems/Stay at home dad). However, what made it so enjoyable, at least for me, was that it was centered around an appreciation of all that is classic. “Experience Never Gets Old” and classic never goes out of style.

In a world of fast growing technology and the feeling that everything is changing so quickly, it’s nice to have an appreciation for the things that stay the same. Hathaway’s character makes a comment on how men have somehow transitioned from the age of Harrison Ford to hoodie-clad, unshaven, hipsters and that’s just one iteration of how we should be longing for the good ol’ days and men with pocket handkerchiefs.

As a millennial, I can appreciate how little so much of today resembles the world Robert DeNiro’s character represents, and in a lot of ways it’s unfortunate. But the truth is, we can’t go back. We can’t undo the evolution (or devolution) of society caused by the internet and other technological forces. Things change, and sometimes faster than we want them to. All we can do is hold onto an appreciation for what’s classic.

It might be a shame that The Intern is one of so few movies out this year that is an original story, a sign of the changing times in the film industry, but it is certainly a reminder that the past isn’t gone. It’s always coming back, just like Marty McFly and his hoverboard (October 22, 2015 is fast approaching and the internet will make sure we remember…). The Intern, even if it has a predictably cheesy ending, still effectively reminds us that any new experience is what we make of it. We have to take the new with the old and somehow make sense of how they can coexist.

With an all-star cast, great chemistry, hysterical humor, and a story that mixes the optimism of old Hollywood classics with modern day dilemmas, The Intern,  is definitely a feel-good movie. But if you’re like me, it will leave you “feeling good” even after you’ve left the theater (and it may even inspire you to spend a day laying in bed watching black and white movies).

Dances with Wolves & things we claim we love…

Posted on by SkimShady

Dances With Wolves (1990) Directed by and Starring Kevin Costner (feat. Kevin Costner’s mullet)

This is one of those movies that, as a film major and an American history buff, I’ve had on my list to watch for years. I don’t know why it took me so long to finally see it…maybe because I knew so little about it, or maybe because in the back of my mind I wrote it off as another film about the frontier and all of the atrocities related to that bloody time in our country’s history. It’s always been my least favorite era to study…probably because it’s one of the most morally repugnant. I can only assume I waited so long to watch Dances with Wolves because I knew it would surely be depressing in more ways than one. But, three hours worth of bad Kevin Costner haircuts later…I can admit that I got more than I bargained for. More than just another story about the mistreatment of Native Americans by the US Government, to me, Dances with Wolves is the prequel to the unhealthy love story between Americans and the land we call our home.

“My country ’tis of thee…sweet land of liberty…” How many corny songs did we all learn in elementary school extolling the beauty and freedom of our homeland? I’m pretty sure I lost track when they started to all sound like they had the same melody…We’re taught to call her ‘America the Beautiful’ and insist that ‘this land is your land, this land is my land’…but if we’re so in love with our beautiful America, why have we destroyed her? And why are we so afraid to share her? If you love something, you’re supposed to treat it well…to respect it, to preserve it, and to fight for it…but the last time I checked whoring out the one you love to build Super Wal-Marts, frack for Natural Gas, and generally making her unrecognizable is a far cry from any kind of healthy love I’ve ever heard of. (That’s kind of like the boyfriend that insists you’ll be happier if you get breast implants and a butt lift…)

I’m not trying to champion any sort of Green Peace agenda here…I’m simply pondering the existence of this paradox in which our culture champions pride in a country we have more or less destroyed. As a nation we claim we love our country, but is it really love when you value change and progress over the preservation of natural beauty and a history that predates the arrival of any immigrants? What made me realize this blatant hypocrisy was the scene in which Kevin Costner’s character leads the Sioux tribe on a Buffalo hunt, only to find an entire herd of Buffalo mutilated for their hides and tongues and left to decay. The Sioux held the Buffalo in the highest respect, as they did the prairie lands they roamed. This gruesome sight tugged at my insides…I had known this was what white settlers did on the frontier…but one Google search later informed me this disgusting habit of mass slaughter lead the once 6 million strong population of Buffalo to dwindle to a now minuscule  population of 4,000 buffalo that are forced to live in the inadequate confines of Yellowstone National Park….

I know that the horrible treatment of the Native Americans by white settlers should be a more pressing focal point for this film discussion…especially since so many people in this country are still just as intolerant of people who look or sound different than themselves. It’s abhorrent. It’s repulsive that the news is filled every day with examples of gross intolerance. But the annihilation of the buffalo as seen in Dances With Wolves, at least in my mind, is not wholly unrelated to the mindset of intolerance that plagues so many proud “Americans.”

You see, I realized about halfway through this three-hour movie why this film is so brilliant and so poignant. It’s not just because it takes a white man and puts him in someone else’s shoes…it’s because it parallels how very differently Native Americans see America, their home, as opposed to American settlers at the time, and so many people today, see what they also consider to be their home. As a nation of immigrants, we are little more than invaders. We came here with  no understanding of the terrain, no appreciation for the natural beauty other than the resources it represented. When I was in Scotland and Ireland and the English countryside this summer…I was in awe that there was so much beautiful open space left to just exist and be beautiful. This is because I come from a country where if there’s an open plot of land…its price tag is more important than its beauty. Period. As a nation we have virtually no appreciation for what was here before our ancestors settled. So we buy expensive plane tickets and suffer through long flights with passive aggressive flight attendants just to witness natural beauty other countries had the restraint and foresight to keep from developing. We came here looking for new values and to escape harsh conditions or tyrannical rule…and somewhere along the way we lost what it meant to appreciate the world around us.

To be honest, I don’t think even the national park system can save us from ourselves…though it is a nice gesture. I came back from Europe with a thirst for travel and gorgeous scenery, only to realize so much of that has long since been paved over or dug up in the land of the free (market) and the home of the brave (investor). Maybe its too late to recover what we have already lost…and maybe that’s the point of Dances with Wolves. So much of Sioux culture, of our beautiful country, of our history is gone…and all that’s left now is to ask ourselves…why do we destroy the things we say we love?

Out of the Shadows

Posted on by SkimShady

Who I am, what I’m doing here and why you’re (maybe) reading this…

I am an (almost) 21 year old film and marketing student who, somewhere along the routine road of higher education forgot the very reasons I set out on this path almost three years ago.

When you tell people you’re a film a major, they expect you to have a passion for making films…simple enough… but that was never what I wanted. Even in high school, while applying to schools like UT, USC and NYU with amazing film programs, I knew my passion for the silver screen lay not behind the camera or milling around sets… it lay somewhere in between “that’s a wrap” and “please silence your cell phones now.” I cannot count the number of awkward conversations I have had, trying to explain to well-meaning strangers what exactly I want to “do” with my unorthodox pairing of majors. “Marketing and film? Isn’t that an odd combination!” they declare with moderate interest. And instead of telling these people I’ve just met two minutes ago what I’m really thinking, which is almost always,”No. Not really. I’ve met at least three other people with the same double major. Films today generally don’t get made if they aren’t marketable….” I smile and nod. I smile and nod for two reasons: 1. It’s just easier to tell people what they think they already know and 2. Part of me is internally retching that the reality of my situation is I still don’t know exactly how, where or when I want to use my two majors…even if I’m confident they are indeed a logical pairing.

As a freshman in college, I would say, “Oh yeah, I want to do film marketing, obviously.” At the time, I thought this made me over-prepared for my post-college career: not only would I have a business degree from a great business school, I knew exactly what industry I wanted to work in. Sweet! It wasn’t until I actually started taking classes that were deeply entrenched in the industry side of film that I realized how very wrong I was. I thought I knew specifically what I wanted to do…but I was absolutely nutty to think “film marketing” was anything in the vicinity of specific.

Long story short, the more I learned, the more I realized how little I knew and the more I felt a massive weight begin to form in the space between my neck and my undoubtably hunched shoulders (this, for once, having nothing to do with my overstuffed backpack). Since this realization, I have been, unfortunately, on auto pilot. I came to college with a passion for watching, talking, and writing about film. But somewhere along the way I got lazy. Yes, I saw all of the oscar nominees and kept up to date on industry news. Yes, I even made the occasional effort to see a “classic” I had somehow never watched…but without realizing it, I ended up halfway through my college career, majoring in film, without once having a formative experience from watching a movie that actually made me stop and think about my life and what I wanted it to be.

It’s not that I haven’t watched great films in the past two years…although I certainly could have watched many many more (I’m looking at you, Netflix queue of guilty pleasure TV shows…). It’s not that I fell out of love with film. Now that I’ve come out of the shadows and taken a look at how my life has played out over the course of my film studies…I realize I got comfortable. I became too damn complacent, overly content to observe how impressed people were when I told them I was majoring in film and marketing, without ever stopping to consider what that meant. Or rather, what it should mean.

I chose these majors because I loved film. I loved discovering movies like The Godfather, American Beauty, and Saving Private Ryan for the first time and the way they made me feel like I was living a life outside my own. But more importantly, I loved talking about and writing about the films that I loved. I loved that during my junior year of high school I took a class that  gave extra credit for watching great movies and writing about them…and that class is the very reason I am where I am today. I wanted to turn my love for film into something purposeful. I didn’t want to just sell people a product—-I wanted to give them an experience of a lifetime…an experience of a life outside of their own. So when did I stop letting the films I watch resonate with me to the point that I felt an explosive need to share my newfound revelations with the world?

When did I stop letting films in?

I can’t be sure… and at this point it’s not relevant why or how it happened. All that matters, is I’m back. I’m back to writing and sharing films I love (or hate) with anyone who wants to listen. I’m not really trying to review films…good, bad, or awful…that’s what rotten tomatoes is for. All I’m trying to do, is let the films I watch over the next few months (or years) transform me. I’m trying to get back to what I love about films…their ability to start a dialogue, to shape and mirror a culture simultaneously.

So if you’ve made it this far, congratulations, you’re more patient than I would have been. It took me this much soul searching and rambling to basically say this is a blog by a person about movies. As of now, I have no planned schedule of movies to watch… and no intentions of limiting the era or genre of films to any one narrow category. I don’t even know if I’m going to write exclusively about films I have never seen…because in all honesty the best films reward you for re-watching. And to be frank, I could use a little rewarding at this point in my life.

So if you have a thing for good movies…stay tuned…I’ll be endeavoring to relate some top-notch ones back to my life, to life in America and to…well let’s just say the sometimes unfortunate condition of human existence.

(For those who are interested, the idea for this blog was inspired by a fantastic documentary, These Amazing Shadows, about the National Film Registry and essentially why films are worth saving).