Garden State Dynamite
Garden State
Talk about your ironic epithets, for those of you unfamiliar, NJ is to NY what NV is to CA. It's where you go when you can't get in the other place. And it's portrayed beautifully, as it is in Napoleon Dynamite, two lush, gorgeous films. Napoleon had the easier time of it, with all the colorful 70's kitsch. To do that with rainy garbage dumps in NJ takes talent.
Then again, taking that Iowa farm stuff like cow udders and corporate chicken coops (definitely would not like to play the game there), into the mainstream, as Napoleon did, takes guts. These 20-something-slice-of-life-sensitive-boy films have been doing quite well, as Brothers McMullen did. Well, most of the movie audience is young male.
God knows, I'll be lucky to get my film sold to the O channel. But, I do like the fact that toned down films, without violence or much CG, are doing well. It opens the door for post-bust-valley-mid-slice-of-life films.
Garden State was written, directed & starred in by Zach Braff who must have gotten quite a leg up from Scrubs & found himself a nice rich sponsor (see my previous post). Seems like they had a nice budget. It's about a guy who, at 26, catches on to Daddy's game, confronts him, takes responsibility for his life, gets off the meds & guilt trip Daddy put him on & goes out to make his life. He even gets the lovely, yet, as she said in her own words on the commentary track "merely acting", Natalie Portman, whose film experience outweighs his tenfold.
I find it quite inspiring to watch people say, as the guy in this case did, literally, "This is it, this is my life." Personally, the actress in me always adds, this is not a fucking dress rehearsal. This is it, your actual life. The interesting part, to me, is that, you don't just do that once. In fact, I think many people never say that.
No game is ever won while you're still playing it. Until you cash in your chips, you are still in the game. As long as you're breathing you need to keep reminding yourself that this is your life and if you're not happy, change it. Yes, Zach & Natalie walk off into the glaring JFK sunset (sunrise?) at the end. But I think the young ingenues may realize somewhere down the line that, as Eminem would say, you need to keep cleaning out the closet.
I haven't learned an actual new lesson for a long time, yet, every day is a learning experience cause you meet new people, have new experiences (hopefully) and have to apply new stuff to the same structures to make sense of it. Here's a good example. I worked at a big law firm, lots of competition, the game, you know, the whole bit. Then, when I got to a certain point with the mommy stuff it was like, wait a minute, this is just like Wilson (except you don't see it coming till it's too late) except we have to cater everything ourselves and we don't get paid. Live and learn.
Talk about your ironic epithets, for those of you unfamiliar, NJ is to NY what NV is to CA. It's where you go when you can't get in the other place. And it's portrayed beautifully, as it is in Napoleon Dynamite, two lush, gorgeous films. Napoleon had the easier time of it, with all the colorful 70's kitsch. To do that with rainy garbage dumps in NJ takes talent.
Then again, taking that Iowa farm stuff like cow udders and corporate chicken coops (definitely would not like to play the game there), into the mainstream, as Napoleon did, takes guts. These 20-something-slice-of-life-sensitive-boy films have been doing quite well, as Brothers McMullen did. Well, most of the movie audience is young male.
God knows, I'll be lucky to get my film sold to the O channel. But, I do like the fact that toned down films, without violence or much CG, are doing well. It opens the door for post-bust-valley-mid-slice-of-life films.
Garden State was written, directed & starred in by Zach Braff who must have gotten quite a leg up from Scrubs & found himself a nice rich sponsor (see my previous post). Seems like they had a nice budget. It's about a guy who, at 26, catches on to Daddy's game, confronts him, takes responsibility for his life, gets off the meds & guilt trip Daddy put him on & goes out to make his life. He even gets the lovely, yet, as she said in her own words on the commentary track "merely acting", Natalie Portman, whose film experience outweighs his tenfold.
I find it quite inspiring to watch people say, as the guy in this case did, literally, "This is it, this is my life." Personally, the actress in me always adds, this is not a fucking dress rehearsal. This is it, your actual life. The interesting part, to me, is that, you don't just do that once. In fact, I think many people never say that.
No game is ever won while you're still playing it. Until you cash in your chips, you are still in the game. As long as you're breathing you need to keep reminding yourself that this is your life and if you're not happy, change it. Yes, Zach & Natalie walk off into the glaring JFK sunset (sunrise?) at the end. But I think the young ingenues may realize somewhere down the line that, as Eminem would say, you need to keep cleaning out the closet.
I haven't learned an actual new lesson for a long time, yet, every day is a learning experience cause you meet new people, have new experiences (hopefully) and have to apply new stuff to the same structures to make sense of it. Here's a good example. I worked at a big law firm, lots of competition, the game, you know, the whole bit. Then, when I got to a certain point with the mommy stuff it was like, wait a minute, this is just like Wilson (except you don't see it coming till it's too late) except we have to cater everything ourselves and we don't get paid. Live and learn.
posted by Intervision at 9:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home