An older dad, a grandfather, maybe an uncle, with gray, thinning hair, calling his three male charges--the oldest was maybe eight--over to ask which DVD they should buy. The kids had already seen the old man's first pick, Jason And The Argonauts, but weren't familiar with his backup choices, The Thief Of Bagdad or 20,ooo Leagues Under the Sea.
So summing up: These kids were familiar with Ray Harryhausen, but were about to get an education in early Michael Powell or Richard Fleischer. Young cinephiles in the making.
Which does my heart good, especially since my own enthusiasm seems to be waning. This coming fall and winter season sees a number of new films by some of my favorite directors--Brian DePalma, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Benton, Noah Baumbach, The Coen Brothers, Todd Haynes, Tim Burton, David Cronenberg.
And yet, I'm not really excited by the prospect of most of these.
Partly, it's that the films themselves don't necesarily sound that great. Though I long to be pleasantly surprised, Benton's Feast Of Love and Cronenberg's Eastern Promises sound kind of blah, the Coens' No Country For Old Men seems like the kind of thing they should have outgrown, and DePalma's documentary-style take on the Iraq war, Redacted, and Haynes' Bob Dylan bio I'm Not There are the kind of ambitious, semi-experimental projects that have the potential to be absolutely dreadful.
Partly, too, it's the knowledge that about half of these pictures may not even make it to Des Moines, and if they do, it will frankly be a chore to see them. They'll either be playing at the local arthouse, noted for its dim picture and soupy sound, or worse, will be at one of the googleplexes. A screening at a commercial theater is proceeded by a half hour or so of ads and previews, after which any belief in the art of cinema (or joy of life in general) has been killed. Honestly, if I have to sit through that trailer for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium one more time, I'm slitting my fucking wrists.
The messiness of day-to-day existence gets in the way, too. I used to live for and through movies and music, and though they haven't lost all meaning to me--how many times in this space do I go on about Vincente Minnelli or Richard Thompson?--they don't mean, can't mean, what they once did. Too many other things compete for my time, attention and energy, necessary things like job searches and dates.
(Dating...Man, I thought I thought I was done with that. No that I'm back into that scene, it usually means going out to a movie with someone you don't know too well, so you let her pick and she chooses some godawful romantic comedy with the likes of Kate Hudson or Mandy Moore, and before hand there's THAT FUCKING TRAILER FOR MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM, and, Jeebus no, she says she thinks it looks "kinda cute" and you wonder how you can even stand to look at someone who would say such a thing, even though you know you'll probably wind up sleeping with her anyway...)
On the other hand, I just finished my umpteenth viewing of Joe Dante's Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and I still feel the same slightly demented high Dante's movies always give me. If only one of these new films gives me some of the same pleasure, it could result in a crazy joy that can last for days.
Or, hopefully, a lifetime.
