The Florida Film Festival did not pay or ask me to write this post. I am writing about it to promote the festival and spread the word on Florida’s entertainment culture, which, contrary to popular belief, isn’t just police dash cams of people setting things on fire or news stories chronicling the adventures of Florida Man and Florida Woman.
Regrettably I wasn’t able to see as many films this year as I would have liked, but I still got out a couple of times. It was nice just being out among other filmgoers and seeing all the hullabaloo of people standing in lines at an event.
Go! Go what are you doing NOT going and seeing this movie right now? GO! It’s magnificent! I needed a 20-minute cool-down cry in the parking lot afterward to settle all my Feels.
If there is any justice in the world it will be the biggest movie of the summer! Ostensibly for children it’s really for the whole family.
BONUS: During the requisite pre-movie short film “Lava,” look for people in the audience sobbing uncontrollably or inexplicably enraged. These people are single. I’ll leave you to figure out which camp I was in.
[NOTE: This is not an angry, bitter post, so if you were worried about being dragged down into despair and being spattered with someone’s bile, don’t! I’ll do my best to be my usual, mildly amusing and daft self!]
Ahhhh, breakups.
The short of it is, they suck. And any helpful article you can google will tell you that things will hurt for a while, you’ll feel all the things, time will pass, and then suddenly you’ll realize you’re all right again. Life will go on, and you will meet someone new. It’s all part of the magical journey of life!
But in that process, one of the steps is kind of huge– momentous even– when you are going through it. Time will pass. It’s an understatement kind of like ‘beer is a popular beverage’ or ‘people sometimes disagree about religious matters.’
During that passage of time, you will need to face certain temptations, such as stalking your ex on Facebook (it’s a bad idea, trust me; just LET THEM GO!), drinking, doing drugs or self-medicating to escape the pain, banging anything that moves in a misguided attempt to reassert yourself or spite your ex, or withdrawing and wallowing in complete misery. These are all parts of the process of grieving a relationship’s end, but it’s important not to lose yourself in your grieving, and to occupy yourself in as many positive ways as you can. And what better distraction exists than watching films?
So without further ado, here is a small list of films ideal for viewing after a breakup! Hopefully they will help you as much as they helped me! NOTE: normally there is no order to my lists, but tonight these are ranked in order from least to best, with best being #1. Enjoy!
5. Silence of the Lambs – I know! Weird and random, right? But hear me out – it’s a classic, its central relationship is platonic, and it encourages the main character to do some deep soul searching in the dark corners of her heart – the kind that often occur after we are crushed by a breakup. It’s a powerful story whose central character, Clarice Starling, appeals to the viewer regardless of gender. At times both breathless and nailbiting, the hours will just fly off the clock!
It’s good to see you again, Clarice. Let us continue our complex and somewhat platonic relationship.
4. Charlie’s Angels – Either of them. It’s absolute girl-power fluff about friends and fashion and having a good time. If you’re unfamiliar, here‘s a review I wrote a few years ago. Not to be taken with any seriousness whatsoever. Really, it’s just a lot of fun noise, stunts, costumes, and makeup.
Although there is a relationship in this one, it just drives home at the end of the day that friends are more important than significant others.
I could barely tell you what the plot was, but still love this movie
3. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar – Another unsung classic, this one is about putting others ahead of yourself and your needs, a good thing to remember when you’re sinking into a pit of despair after a breakup. Get out! Do something for someone else! Enjoy your hobbies and live life to the fullest! At the very least, the adventures of Noxxeema, Vida, and Chichi taking a cross country trip and chasing their dreams of entering a beauty pageant might encourage you to chase a dream or two of your own: take that trip you’ve always talked about! Write that novel! Start your own food truck! You’ve got time and energy now, so get out there and do something with it!
And remember… let good thoughts be your sword, and shield!
2. The Secret of NIMH – Mrs. Brisby had to deal with some serious shit. A widower, her little fieldmouse’s world was full of dangers, and yet to protect her family she risked life and limb, again and again. Sure, there’s a slight flirtation with Justin, the Captain of the Guard, and he does cheer her on at times, but ultimately she’s the one who gets things done. Note – this classic film bears only a passing resemblance to the book it is based on, so if you’re familiar with the book but not the film, be prepared for some changes. A LOT of changes. Also, there is apparently a remake in the works, and while I am usually optimistic in these cases, this doesn’t really fill me with confidence.
Nicodemus lays down some truth.
1. Elizabeth – Her Majesty had to learn some lessons about love – the HARD WAY. She starts out the film young, relatively innocent and trusting, and by the end has had to make some hard choices – just like us after a breakup. However, while our decisions might be things like which friends to delete from our Facebook feeds or who gets what dvd sets, her decisions were things like ‘have the conspirators who sought to undermine my authority put to death.’ It certainly put my problems into perspective. True, there is a romantic subplot, but that story is a crucial lesson that Elizabeth learns by the end: that she must put something much bigger than her own happiness at stake. At the very least, this most dramatic and heartrending film will keep you busy for a few hours. Watch it for the wigs, and for Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster.
Stay true to yourself!
So that’s it! Hopefully there’s something on this list to help you. These are some films I watched that cheered me up and helped me remember about the bigger world out there, so if you’re feeling down, hopefully a few hours with a great film will cheer you up. It always does for me, but sometimes making the choice on what to watch would get me bogged down forever.
12-year-old Brendan is the nephew of the Abbot at the Kells Abbey; his Uncle, Cellach, is obsessed with building a wall around the abbey that will protect the town and people from the Northmen (Vikings) who’ve been rampaging their way across Europe and drawing ever closer. Brendan is a sheltered boy, forbidden from leaving the abbey or handling a quill, and his duties are largely to work onthe wall and assist the other brothers. Though the abbey has a scriptorium, and Cellach himself once a celebrated illuminator (illuminators worked both to beautify the words of the Bible and just make them readable for the illiterate), little work has been done since he became obsessed with building the wall.
Complicating Cellach’s attempts to keep Brendan on-task is the arrival of Brother Aidan, a rock-star level illuminator whose works are legendary, carries the famous work of St.Colomba, and who distracts Brendan from his duties on the wall. Realizing the boy’s curiosity won’t be sated otherwise, Aidan encourages him to begin making his own decision, and even convinces him to leave the abbey and search the forest for an important nut used in the making of green ink.
No matter where the scene is set, everything looks this rich and detailed
The Secret of Kells, like many films, barely registered on the theatrical radar before it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It lost to Up!, but the fact that it rose through the arthouse ranks at all to be nominated, since it’s a story about a young boy who lives in an abbey in the 9th century, is entirely due to the beauty of the artwork and the fascinating story. It really should have won, since in an age of CG movies it holds its own among them while being largely-hand drawn, with some CG embellishments.
12-year-old Brendan is the nephew of the Abbot at the Kells Abbey; his Uncle, Cellach, is obsessed with building a wall around the abbey that will protect the town and people from the Northmen (Vikings) who’ve been rampaging their way across Europe and drawing ever closer. Brendan is a sheltered boy, forbidden from leaving the abbey or handling a quill, and his duties are largely to work onthe wall and assist the other brothers. Though the abbey has a scriptorium, and Cellach himself once a celebrated illuminator (illuminators worked both to beautify the words of the Bible and just make them readable for the illiterate), little work has been done since he became obsessed with building the wall.
Complicating Cellach’s attempts to keep Brendan on-task is the arrival of Brother Aidan, a rock-star level illuminator whose works are legendary, carries the famous work of St.Colomba, and who distracts Brendan from his duties on the wall. Realizing the boy’s curiosity won’t be sated otherwise, Aidan encourages him to begin making his own decision, and even convinces him to leave the abbey and search the forest for an important nut used in the making of green ink.
Although an understanding of the importance of medieval illumination is helpful, it is not necessary to enjoy the story.
Basically, without places like the abbey, we wouldn’t have many of the classical works of history; scriptoriums acted like libraries and publishing houses, both keeping books safe in their vast collections and copying them for transport to other abbeys, or just reproducing books that were on the verge of crumbling away. They might have been working from a manuscript written by Julius Caesar or Plato, and that was 800 years old. Without that one dude sitting on his chair and working, we wouldn’t have the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Solon, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Heron. And that’s just the Western stuff; they had books from Arabic theosophers and historians, too. Abbeys were literally the last bastion between intellectual chaos and order. If you’re interested in learning more about medieval abbeys and what they did, you might read (or just watch the movie) Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose; it’s the consummate film of the last 40 years dealing with medieval life.
When Brendan ventures into the forest he meets Ashling, a faery, who watches over the forest and basically lives alone. Wild and untrusting of adults, she takes a liking to Aidan and shows him the wonders of her forest. His talk of the book excites and fascinates her.
The book itself is just awesome, when you finally get to see it. The real Book of Kells was an illuminated Gospel manuscript that contained the four gospels, and is considered one of Ireland’s great treasures. When people joke about how the Irish saved civilization, one of the things they’re talking about is the preservation of the book from the raids of the vikings. No one knows how it survived, and the film explores a fanciful possibility. Beyond the importance it represented to Christianity, its preservation at all costs by the people who believe in it is a moving and inspiring tale, which shows the dedication and courage of humans in the face of a rapacious foe. Think about it: this is a time period where few people had enough to eat, or even clothes to keep them warm, yet they’re willing to sacrifice their lives for something they may not have even been able to read.
The only thing about the movie, I thought, was that Ashling didn’t feel as well-written as some of the other characters. She is non-human, part of the older world of Ireland, and yet she helps Brendan and puts herself in danger to do so. Why would she do that? What has he done to earn her trust? I am totally reading more into this than I should, but since the movie has no other female characters I can’t help but wonder what little girls watching the film (it’s pretty safe for kids, there’s some scary imagery from the Vikings but it’s a lot less creepy than say, Coraline) might take away from it. Again, the little boy’s agency is more important than anything that the little girl might have going on. She does control the wolves of the forest, a badass pack who are stylized in red and black, but otherwise she doesn’t seem to connect the dots between the advent of Christianity and the extinction of her own people. I am totally reading too much into this and am the first to say so.
Here’s the trailer; everything the critics say is true.
If you’re looking for something for your kids to watch, and you’re a cool parent who wants to broaden your child’s worldview a little, you cannot go wrong with Kells. It might not be too good for very small children, since it’s dialogue-heavy at times, but you know your child’s attention span better than anyone.
The Secret of Kells is available on Instant Watch.
Iron Giant is set during the height of the Red Scare in the 50’s, when the U.S. is bitter over the success of Sputnik and the Russian space program, and paranoia is everywhere. Suddenly the world was much smaller, and there was much less elbow room for the bigger countries, and worrying too much about what your neighbor (on a global and personal scale) was doing was just what folks did.
“You are who you choose to be.”
The Iron Giant is one of my favorite movies, easily. And yet I didn’t see it until about a year ago, probably for the same reason a lot of people missed it–the marketing campaign.
Here’s the imagery of the original ad campaign:
Seriously–great retro design, but definitely leaves a ‘stuff blows up!’ taste in your mouth.
It’s a great design–the retro styling has the 50’s sci-fi movie poster artwork down pat, and even directly quotes it with that most seminal of 50’s sci fi movies, It Came From Outer Space.
With the excitement of the action shot, and the robot dodging tracers from fighter jets, its easy to miss what he’s actually doing–he’s carrying Hogarth, the film’s human protagonist, as he runs for his life. The white lines made by the tracers draw your eye to the giant, but its easy to miss Hogarth clutched in his hands on a fast glance. This image is really the heart of the whole movie.
Here’s the recent dvd release cover art:
Thoughtful, much more slower-paced, lots of blues and greens
Very different, No? Leads you to memories of ‘E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,’ which is a much more apt comparison for this movie. Imagine if E.T. had been fifty feet tall, was a deadly walking weapon, and had the mind of a child.
Which is a shame, because what the filmmakers had on their hands (and probably knew it) was the E.T. for the Internet generation.
I may be biased because I am a huge fan of the film’s central message of personal accountability — the giant has been constructed as a weapon, a conquerer of worlds, but when he crash-lands on earth his memory is reset and he has amnesia. Enter Hogarth, an imaginative loner and only child, who finds the Giant and after a few bumps, becomes friends with him. Hogarth teaches the Giant that he is not what he is made to be, but rather, he is who he chooses to be.
I am a huge fan of personal accountability, in life. I think it’s up to every person to be the best person they can be, to try. The reason is because through that continual process of self-improvement, a person will find things out about themselves that they may have never known otherwise. How can you know your limits if you don’t push them? How can you know what tempts you if you’ve never known temptation? I guess I am making a big positive assumption about my fellow man–after all, a lot of people are capable of doing quite horrible things, but the point of all this is knowing yourself so that you know what harm you are capable of doing to others, and then not doing it. I know it’s convoluted, but it’s simple once you get down to the bare bones of it–Know Thyself. Just like the Greeks had over the doorway of the temple at Delphi, it is your responsibility to know yourself and be responsible for yourself, to take ownership of both your flaws and your good qualities.
This philosophy is also illustrated by the Giant himself–he’s 50 feet tall, and can do some SERIOUS damage if so motivated, or even if he’s just talking a walk. If he isn’t aware of his own movements he could easily crush Hogarth, or someone else, or even wipe out the whole town.When his weapons array is triggered later on, you see how easily he could dominate the whole earth, or worse, how a small force of Iron Giants could do the same.
Iron Giant is set during the height of the Red Scare in the 50’s, when the U.S. is bitter over the success of Sputnik and the Russian space program, and paranoia is everywhere. Suddenly the world was much smaller, and there was much less elbow room for the bigger countries, and worrying too much about what your neighbor (on a global and personal scale) was doing was just what folks did.
One wrong move, and a splat, a weird smell, and no more Hogarth.
Another great thing about the film are the supporting characters – a grab bag of 50’s tropes that could have been really shallow and one-dimensional, but who were so well-written that they really are worth a second look. There’s Hogarth’s mom, a single mother and waitress; Dean, the local beatnik scrap metal-artist (voiced by Harry Connick, Jr. in a really nuanced and great performance); even Kent Mansley, a pain in the ass G-man out to expose the giant and destroy it is well-fleshed out. He’s a man with ambition but no morals or concern about others or the ramifications of his own actions, and is essentially the polar opposite of the giant. Even General Rogard, a second-string character has unusual depth–aware of his responsibilities to the WHOLE nation, he must consider the potential risk in the idea of destroying a town of Americans in order to destroy the giant, and finds the idea horrifying and distasteful.I liked how the military wasn’t shown to be a bunch of single-minded drones; even though this film came out on the heels of the 90’s, when government plots were usually hand in hand with Sci-fi, based on the success of the X-Files.
What’s additionally interesting about Iron Giant are the questions that aren’t answered–and really, it’s a stronger story that way. It doesn’t matter, after all, it’s what he chooses to be that is the point.
Any way you slice it, Iron Giant is an instant classic, to borrow a phrase that has been overused to the point of cheapening its meaning–the movie really is a spectacular film for children, although maybe not very young children, given a few scary, intense moments. It’s literally a movie for all ages, since even at 32 years old I found it wonderfully intelligent, moving, and exciting at once.
Additionally, it was directed by Brad Bird, the genius behind The Incredibles and Up, and used to be involved with the Simpsons. Vin Diesel voices the giant (this was just as he was hitting it big), and there are a host of recognizable voices in the background of the story, all lending considerable weight to what oculd have been throw-away characters.
The Iron Giant is available on Instant Watch. You should go watch it RIGHT NOW.
