Tag: classics

Glorious Golden Blonde Entry: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

In the life of a film fan, there are only two times you watch a Marilyn Monroe film: There’s the first time you see her, in all her glory, and realize what the big deal is all about, and there’s the time you realize you’ve watched all the movies she ever made; that there are no more. Barring someone having some old home movies they release, or maybe some stills or cut footage from the finished films that were forgotten in someone’s attic for sixty years, there will be no more. I think this applies to any other actors and actresses who died young, but the first time I became aware of this phenomenon was with Marilyn.

You know who she is.

Growing up, you knew her face, even if you had never seen any of her movies. You saw her everywhere, on all kinds of products and in all kinds of places. You heard her name in movies, cartoons, songs, read it in books, magazines, and on billboards or perfume bottles. She has been written about, studied, photographed, filmed, re-imagined, marveled at, and explored literally more than the bottom of Earth’s oceans. And due to her untimely and mysterious death, she went from being simply famous to a legend.

Maybe, like me, you reached a point where you wanted to know just who the hell Marilyn Monroe was, and what the big fuss was about. WHY was Madonna trying so hard to be this person in the 80s? And why was everyone so skeptical about her achieving it? At the time, the similarities to me were more numerous than the differences: they were both blonde, white, and famous, both were beautiful, and both were paid vast sums of money for doing things that sometimes involved taking their clothes off. I readily admit that at 10, many nuances about life were lost on me.

When I was about 19, I worked in a retail video store called Suncoast. If you wanted to buy a movie that wasn’t on the top 10 rack at Target or the grocery store, that’s where you went. We had thousands of movies, including foreign films, imported anime (which was where you had to get it before places like Cartoon Network showed it), informational stuff, old tv shows, and softcore pr0n.

My boss was a man whose encyclopedic knowledge of film was nothing short of staggering. Did you see something once where a guy had a dangerous operation while his wife looked on and she was crying and wearing a red hat? That guy with the mustache was in it? I just made that shit up and Bill would have recommended a movie to me. A movie with that exact scene in it. SERIOUSLY.  He was that good. “Oh Bill, I saw this German made-for-tv movie that only played twice on one channel in Berlitz and it may have starred a man with two legs. It was about the history of the xylophone, but not really, it was all just a metaphor. There was a scene with a basket of figs. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

And he would. 

He only looked up things to get serial numbers when he ordered them for people. He often described himself as ‘The Jewish Geppetto’ (referring to Pinocchio’s creator) and was a retired phlebotomist. He and his boyfriend had been together longer than I had been alive, and they had a sulphur-crested cockatoo they referred to as ‘the chicken.’ I would like to look him up sometime to see how he’s doing, but I digress.

When I told him I loved movies,  but had never seen one with Marilyn Monroe, he told me I needed to do that. That it was important.

So I did. I didn’t watch one right away, it took me a little while to finally sit still and do it (I think of my late teens and early twenties as my fidgety years), but I did.

Man.

Who wouldn't want to be that flower stem?
A candid shot

In the life of a film fan, there are only two times you watch a Marilyn Monroe film: There’s the first time you see her, in all her glory, and realize what the big deal is all about, and there’s the time you realize you’ve watched all the movies she ever made; that there are no more. Barring someone having some old home movies they release, or maybe some stills or cut footage from the finished films that were forgotten in someone’s attic for sixty years, there will be no more. I think this applies to any other actors and actresses who died young, but the first time I became aware of this phenomenon was with Marilyn.

The first Monroe film I ever saw was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I was hooked.

Blondes is the story of diamond-hungry Lorelei Lee and down-to-earth Dorothy Shaw, the latter played with a charming brassiness by Jane Russell. The two are showgirls, and Lorelei is engaged to Gus Esmond, the son of a millionaire. She intends to marry him, but Gus’s father is opposed to the match, viewing Lorelei as a ‘blonde mantrap.’

Lorelei and Dorothy embark on a trip to Paris so that Lorelei and Gus can be married, but Gus’s father calls him at the last minute and prevents him from going with them. The girls go by themselves, with Gus promising to find Lorelei, and giving her a letter of credit to spend as she likes. Unbeknownst to them, following the two is Sam Malone, a private investigator hired by Gus’s father to dig up dirt on Lorelei.

There are numerous hijinks and some glorious musical numbers, as well as some really hilarious jokes. The writing for Dorothy especially is great, as is Russell’s performance as a sultry, sharp-witted brunette to Monroe’s wide-eyed ingenue balances the movie well.

What I especially like about this film is how my appreciation of it has grown over the years. In the beginning, I was mostly enjoying the songs and the banter and the clothes. Now, I look at Lorelei’s somewhat pragmatic approach to life by marrying rich with a new perspective. I’ve struggled to make ends meet, and I know what it is to be panicked that you have six dollars to your name, barely any food in the house, and another thirteen days to go until payday. I had a lot of fears and nightmares in that situation; for example, what if my cat got sick? Or worse, what if my parents became ill or were in an accident and I flat out didn’t have the gas money to drive the 85 minutes to see them? My friends would have helped me out, and I am fortunate for that, but I can’t help but feel that it would be failing as an adult to find myself in a situation like that, and not be able to do anything about it, especially when the amount of money in question is so little.  I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have an ill spouse or child and find myself in the same circumstance.

“If a girl spends all her time worrying about the money she doesn’t have, when does she have time for love?” is her logic, and it’s not entirely as warped or materialistic as it sounds; most relationships and marriages break up in times of financial crises, showing that the strain of financial straits isn’t to be dismissed. It’s one thing to never have any money because of your own bills and spending habits; it’s quite another when you’re broke because of someone else. So, while it might not seem to be the most altruistic rationale, it’s definitely realistic. It’s better to have money and not need it than need it and not have it, as the saying goes.

Granted, I’m not talking about supporting a Kardashian lifestyle, here. Just covering the bare necessities with a bit left over for savings and the occasional trip or present or meal out is my idea of having made it, financially.

Anywhoo, I digress.

WORK. IT.
Lorelei and Dorothy in the dining room

Watch a Monroe movie, any one, maybe not even this one. Although it is WORTH it to see this one, just for Lorelei and Dorothy strutting through the middle of the ship’s dining room, Lorelei in orange, and Dorothy in shimmering dark green. Especially the ones in color… Marilyn’s ruby lips and sapphire eyes are a special effect unto themselves!

Ultimate Children’s Movies: The Iron Giant

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:

It Came From Outer Space to Learn Stuff About Having a Moral Compass
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.

Big Drunk Posts – Babe: Pig In the City

Read this. Don’t skip it. You’ll be thankful you did.

Mrs. Hoggett learns Horrifyng Lessons

When the original Babe movie came out, a young cousin of mine insisted on watching it over and over again. Although I loved the movie when it came out (I was in high school at the time) watching it ad nauseum turned me off to the notion of the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, when it appeared in theaters.It seemed like a shameless attempt at cashing in on zeitgeist.

It sort of fell off my radar after that.

In 2008, The Onion did a New Cult Canon review of the film, and in reading about it and watching the clips I realized I might really be missing out on something. I put it in my Netflix queue and sort of forgot about it.

Then one of my dad’s closest friends died.

I found out the night before, was up most of the night crying, and decided to call in to work the following day.

While at home, I saw we had movies, and being a person who likes movies in a time of emotional upset, I decided to watch whatever the hell was near at hand. It turned out to be today’s entry.

As a children’s movie, Babe: Pig in the City is somewhat wanting. There are a lot of bizarre plot twists, characters with shady motivations, disturbing characters, and downright twisted imagery.

Things get weird. So, so weird.

As an affirmation of remaining true to oneself, throwing off the expectations of others, the benefits that may come with risk, and continuing to struggle in the face of impossibly bleak odds, it is a goddamn masterpiece.

That’s right: the truth gets typed in bold.

Between horrible Rube Goldbergian accidents, geriatric clowns, licentious chimpanzees, art deco/steampunk architecture, rampant species-ism, brutal life lessons, and animal violence, Pig in the City seems more like something one of the Davids (Lynch or Cronenberg) might jot down in their Bad Dream Diary and forget about. It’s easy to see why it failed as children’s movie, when it was really the next City of Lost Children.

At base, it’s about getting separated from one’s protector/parent/comfort zone and the inherent fear of needing to fend for oneself, as well as other less-articulated fears like fierce dogs, strangers, liars, clowns, and even the police:  in a particularly frightening scene where the Health Department conducts a Swat-style raid on a hotel full of animals in hiding,, many animals are brutally subjected to cages, choke-poles, nooses and just rough treatment. There are so many facets to the film it’s almost trite to try and name them all. What Miller was attempting was something less like Bambi and more like ET, but unfortunately the timing was wrong–a film like this would have cleaned up in the 80’s, when children’s fare tended to wander into the dark more often.Unfortunately, the late 90’s was more geared towards the sugar-coated, Nerf-encased products of today.

Do not, do NOT, be frightened away from seeing this movie because of this image. It's worth it, believe me.

An important factor differentiating the first Babe from its much darker second is that the second was largely scripted by George Miller, who directed (but didn’t write) the first. Miller began his career as a trauma center surgeon in Australia, putting back together people who had grievously damaged themselves in traffic accidents, and it was this constant exposure to youth bike/racing culture that brought him to write and direct the films he’s much better known for than Babe:

The Mad Max films.

The man who directed a movie about a sweet little pig who refuses to conform to barnyard stereotypes also wrote Mad Max. He wrote THUNDERDOME for Christ’s sake.

Here’s a fun little gratuitous jaunt in the Wayback Machine, about a woman named Entity and her little Raggedy Man:

Yeah, I feel like watching it again RIGHT NOW, too. Mel Gibson may be a crazy ass ranty mysogynist, but that movie isn’t just Mel Gibson. It’s George Miller, Tina Turner, Angry Anderson, giant trucks, chainsaw battles, and everything else.

Pig in the City is a rightful entry into the new Film Canon: as mentioned above, it makes an abysmal children’s movie, and an amazing affirmation of keeping one’s moral compass amid unrelenting social pressure.

On the screen, I finally saw the sorts of things I believe in being displayed: respect for others and their rights and beliefs, understanding, reciprocal altruism (the concept that the good you do may be returned: karma, sort of), and most of all, optimism.

The first two-thirds of the movie are brilliant, but it begins to break down in the 3rd with an extended ‘zany party bungee’ scene. I can see why such a strangely lighthearted sequence would fit, if only it had been a little more underplayed it might have netted the Babe movies another Oscar nod.

There are rumors that Miller is writing a 3rd installment to the franchise: they may come to nothing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a 3rd Babe film. I hope it’s as good as Babe 1, if only so it makes decent money and is a delight for children, but secretly I’m hoping for another installment of the wondrous weirdness that is Pig in the City.

Happy Pig! See it for the happy pig!

Pig in the City is not available on Instant Watch.

4 Badasses You Never Saw Coming

The Man With No Name, James Bond, Dwight McCarthy, Lara Croft, Indiana Jones, Marv, Al Swearingen, Titus Pullo, Tony Soprano, Han Solo.

Badasses are in no short supply these days–you could come up with probably five off the top of your head, and hands down everyone would agree ‘Yup, pretty badass.’

But what about unexpected badasses? Those badasses who don’t come immediately to mind but nevertheless can ‘tho down’ when necessary? What about badasses that come at you sideways?

Today’s entry is all about 4 Badasses You Never Saw Coming.

4. Princess Leia.

Way more than a steel bikini no matter what a Google Image search says, Princess Leia is more than capable of Throwing Down when necessary.

Just a small girl and her Big Gun

To wit: We meet Leia when she is running from the cops–that might not sound so badass, but consider what running from the police got her: dropped like keys into a storm drain.

Storm Troopers don’t know the meaning of the words ‘civil rights.’ That’s why the Galactic Empire is evil–because they do whatever the shit they damn well please, which is why rebels are even more badass in this situation: breaking the rules gets you zapped with lasers. And lasers are HOT. They burn through things. Sometimes those things are meaty, because they are people.

Consider also that Leia fed the Imperials bogus info concerning the rebel base–knowing full well they’d figure that shit out. Then she WATCHES while her home planet/family/pets/house/neighborhood/wallet/everything in her entire life, gets blown to hell. She’s definitely upset, but she also WATCHED HER HOME PLANET GET DESTROYED and still didn’t give up the real rebel base. Leia knows what the stakes are–keep silent and one planet gets destroyed, talk and LOTS of planets get destroyed. Considering that the death star’s main purpose is, you know, destroying planets.

In this rare exception, it might have been better for Alderaan to run from the police.

3. Babe The Pig

Who’s a good piggy? WHO’S A GOOD PIGGY?

ANSWER ME DAMMIT! I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO'S A GOOD PIGGY!

Babe the Pig is, and by and large, he’s a bonafide hero.

After all, on the one hand, he saves the farm (twice!), stands up to feral dogs and disapproving orangutans, faces a terrifying elderly clown and saves a bull terrier in one of the most moving and humane moments in film.

Some day I’ll get drunk enough to post my semi-hysterical and embarrassingly earnest review of Babe: Pig in the City, but today is not this day. Today is for Babe, and our other unsung badasses.

Watch this clip and tell me this pig doesn’t have guts.

Could YOU turn around and face an oncoming bull terrier bigger than you?

2. The Mad Hatter

Back in the Old West, you judged how ridiculously badass a gunfighter was by how outlandish and insane their outfit.

This would be the equivalent of holding a Desert Eagle and many shooting trophies in your hands at all times.

The logic went that if someone was fool enough to dress like a pretty pretty princess, they were the walking equivalent of an apocalypse.

From Doc Holliday to Wild Bill Hickok, who never met an ascot he didn’t like, nature’s maxim of  ‘the brighter the plumage the more serious the danger’ was for a brief time, applied to humans. What had been true of insects and poisonous plants for millions of years finally, and gloriously, applied to mammals.

Enter the Mad Hatter, Alice’s long lost friend and guide to the weirdness she finds through the mirror in the recent Tim Burton adaptation.

'At My Signal, Unleash Hell. And Cucumber Sandwiches.'

The statement his outfit makes is nothing short of a declaration of war on every living being on Earth.

There are alien satellites observing this shit and transmitting this declaration back to their home planets, and in about five thousand years a bunch of Lovecraftian horrors will land and demand to know where the BeHatted One is so they may kill him and bring order to the galaxy, Dagon Style.

But consider also the weapon the Hatter shows up with at the third-act battle:

The Hatter Comes Heavy.

That is a CLAYMORE. The folks who used them were called Highlanders, and the only thing that differentiates Highlanders from Vikings is that they wear plaid. Nothing else.

Here is a demonstration of what Claymores can do. It is worksafe and very entertaining, if by entertaining you mean HOLY SHIT LOOK WHAT THAT SWORD CAN DO. Please also note the hefty fellow waving that pigsticker around–if a weedy little fellow like the Hatter is using one, then it means his eyes probably got that way through a constant and consistent application of Angel Dust. Not the man you want to be facing on the battlefield.

1. Mr. Faun Tumnus

'Would you like to walk back to my house? I seem to have misplaced my big white molesty van!'

When first we meet Mr. Faun Tumnus in the recent Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, he’s a timid little fellow who drops his shit and screams when surprised by the terrifying countenance of a small girl.

He gets wild by breaking into the sardines, and making hot tea. He is adorable, except he has goatlegs and entertains children without wearing pants. Or maybe for some folks, that’s a plus. It’s a big world out there.

Anyhoo, we realize this is all a big act. Later on, once all the statues have been brought back to life, Tumnus is more than ready to plow furrows across the White Witch’s ass and he heads down to the battlefield to do it…

…in nothing but a fancy red scarf.

There was a name for the guys who used to go to war without clothes on: psychopaths Berserkers.

Mr. Tumnus hasn’t brought armor, or even a weapon. He IS the weapon.

I have figured out the secret of Faun Tumnus, and it is that he is a Berserker. He doesn’t have the spear and the wolf pelt, but just give him a few minutes and he’ll have a pile of them–taken from the enemy and dumped on the field.

You only see a brief scene of him running towards the battlefield, but it’s because ostensibly this is a children’s movie and watching a goatman tear monsters apart with his bare hands and then eat their organs would incur at least a PG-13 rating.

No more child molestation jokes. Seriously.

Additionally, Mr. Tumnus has HOOVES. Which are hard little pointy things.

It’s bad enough being kicked in the face by a human foot, imagine taking a hoof to the face–it be like being bludgeoned.

Now imagine that foot belongs to the mythological equivalent of Bruce Lee, and realize that Mr. Tumnus was the Narnians’ secret weapon all along. Aslan was just there to tell him where to go.

There are dozens, hundreds more unsung badasses to go, but I hope you enjoyed this little sampling. As always, there’s More To Come.

4 More Life Lessons from 80’s Movies

There is no saving Artax. He has reached his limit, and will not be moved. Atreyu can’t save his horse, because Artax doesn’t want to save himself–and when someone loses the will to live, even after the intervention of their friends and family, there’s little that will drag them back.

Every culture in the world will eventually produce a set of maxims for behavior; from the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, to the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, to basic Internet Etiquette, there are morals and suggestions for human interaction everywhere–you could trip over them and someone would be there to tell you what you did wrong.

Oddly enough, I noticed a lot of 80’s movies had such maxims, and have been collecting them and posting them as I think of them. The first part of the list can be found here.

4. The Secret of Nimh – ‘Crying doesn’t solve anything.’

Sometimes, your best isn't good enough--whatever it is, it needs to get DONE.

Mrs. Brisby has some serious problems.

Her husband was recently killed in an accident, one of her three children is desperately ill, and she needs to move her family (including her house) to a new location, otherwise they will be crushed by the farmer’s tractor when it is time to harrow the field they live in.

Lady has a lot on her mind.

So when the tractor starts up unexpectedly, she and her friend Auntie Shrew (who I always thought of as one hardass bitch–she either had some messed up stuff happen in her life or did some time in Vermin Jail), who are both about the size of a lemon, take it on.

A mouse and a shrew take on a tractor.

While all the other animals in the field are hauling ass from the path of the tractor, Mrs. Brisby and the shrew are running towards it, screaming warnings. They reach the tractor, clamber up a loose chain, and begin scrambling about its interior in search of a way to shut it down. Brisby, faced with the prospect of falling into the churned earth the harrow blade turns up, shuts down, and can only cling to the tractor and shake. The Shrew winds up tearing out a crucial hose (oil?) and the tractor shuts down.

Later, as the two gather their wits in the high grass, Brisby breaks down crying over the ordeal, but also the recent traumas she’s faced.

Coldly, almost hatefully, the Shrew snarls at her to “Stop it.”

You'd be surprised how many good pictures there aren't of her.

The Shrew is disgusted, not by the display, but because Brisby doesn’t have the luxury of being selfish right now, of thinking about her woes and weeping. She needs to get her shit together and figure out how she’s going to save her children–when Brisby plaintively weeps ‘I wish Jonathan [her husband] was here’ you get a sense that Brisby was overly reliant on him, that he would have figured something out himself, saving her the trouble. She wants to be taken care of again, to have someone else fix her problems, and she doesn’t have that option anymore–it’s up to her.

Brisby is now a single mother. The rest of the movie consists of her learning how strong she truly is, as she faces terrifying creatures and learns to trust herself to do the right thing. I can’t think of another movie in recent years that so elegantly explores the plight of a single parent and all that it entails. Not a children’s movie about talking mice, anyway.

3. Legend – ‘Trust People.’

Who is our Generation's Tim Curry? What actor in recent years could step into these pants? WHO?

With all the fantasy trappings surrounding Legend–unicorns, goblins, fairies, pixies, wild boys in shorts, princesses, giant castles, monsters,  and a certain giant red campy fellow–it’s easy to lose sight of what the film is really about: trusting people.

Jack is a recluse, living in the woods with his animal friends and relaxed dress code. There’s a reason he’s there and not in the city, and it isn’t to save money on production costs–he’s a hermit, he doesn’t trust people. Only Lily, a spoiled Princess, can get close to him.

Which is why, when Jack takes Lily to see the unicorns and she ignores him, breaking a major rule and actually TOUCHING ONE, he loses his trust in her. He doesn’t know that the reason the unicorn freaked out was due to the goblins’ poisoned dart, or anything about the machinations of Darkness and his goblins. He thinks that Lily touching the unicorn is what ruined everyone’s day.

So though he spends the rest of the movie trying to make right what happened, and save her, it is also about him remembering to trust her, no matter what she’s done or how she’s changed. Remember, when he left her, she was all ‘Disney Princess Barbie,’ with the smiles and the charm and the giggling. When he finds her again, she looks like this:

If it doesn't fit, you improvise!

Since he dumped her, she’s been rooming and sharing clothes and makeup tips with Klaus Nomi Darkness, a red-skinned fellow with an infectious laugh and an even more relaxed dress code than Jack. They’re kind of like Mickey and Donald–Mickey (Darkness) wears pants, and Donald (Jack) wears a shirt–together they make a whole outfit.

Anyhoo, when Jack has to make his choice, he’s got a bunch of fairies yelling in his ear that Lily can’t be trusted, that she’s changed. His faith in her is an illustration of the pure goodness alluded to in the rest of the film–after all, being good means being good ALL the time, not getting to pick and choose when you follow the rules–the fairies hearts’ were in the right place but they don’t know everything, as is established earlier by Gump not being aware of Oona’s secret.  Jack trusts Lily–and the day is saved.

2. The Burbs – Idle Hands are the Devil’s Playthings

Dear Tom Hanks: Comedy misses you. Please take its calls again.

I miss the comedy films of Tom Hanks.

I haven’t seen too many of his dramas the last five years or so–no particular reason other than I already see more than enough dramas and have no interest in Dan Brown’s books.

But one upon a time, he made comedies. Fantastic, creative comedies the likes of which aren’t made anymore because of the lack of fart jokes and horrible people in them. Hanks took a middling comedy and elevated it to hilarity.

The Burbs is a comedy about a man who decides to spend his vacation lying around the house, drinking beer with friends and speculating on the new neightbors who have just moved in. He wants to garden, to vegetate, to putter, to wear his pajamas all day and relax.

But his bucolic rest is interrupted when he and his buddies begin inflating the importance of neighborhood events into something sinister–a missing neighbor, an errant toupee, the new neighbors digging in the backyard during a rainstorm in the middle of the night… conclusions are drawn and plans are made.

The lesson here (although it turns out that the neighbors WERE up to something unsavory) is that boredom can lead to invention the same way necessity can, the difference being that being bored usually gets people into trouble–boredom in a relationship can lead to cheating, boredom with a job leads to dissatisfaction and doing it half-assed, boredom with your life breeds a need for escapism.

Not only that, but The Burbs were one of those early movies that had the courage to suggest that maybe the good old days..weren’t so good? Like No Country For Old Men, it dared to present the idea that rose-colored glasses were a pretty poor medium for viewing the past.

1. The Neverending Story – When You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going.

This is the big one for me.

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Just looking at it breaks my heart all over again

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from The Neverending Story–about following your dreams, about courage, about trusting people–but the one that always, always, always jumps out at me when I am watching it is that no matter how shitty things get, you have to keep going.

Depression is a pervasive illness many people don’t realize they have. It’s insidious, it creeps in and ruins your good times, pushes you away from happiness, makes you hurt others (this numbness, where the things you usually enjoy bring no pleasure, is known as ‘anhedonia’) . Many people think of depression as being sad for a time, as a period with a fixed beginning and ending. Depression is not being ‘down in the dumps,’  it’s a chemical imbalance that can become more or less pronounced, but never really goes away. It can be medicated, and combated with therapy, but at best you will learn how to manage it and live with it.

Enter the nefarious scene with Artax the horse–Atreyu tries to drag the horse bodily out of the swamps of sadness, and when the latter won’t move he becomes angry, screaming, insulting the horse, then just pleading and begging as the horse sinks deeper into the black muck. ‘Move, please,’ still brings tears to my eyes, every time I hear that barely-teenaged boy’s voice.

There is no saving Artax. He has reached his limit, and will not be moved. Atreyu can’t save his horse, because Artax doesn’t want to save himself–and when someone loses the will to live, even after the intervention of their friends and family, there’s little that will drag them back.

It’s a scene that doesn’t get the cinematic respect it should–I mean, the movie isn’t Schindler’s List, but it’s no Battlefield: Earth, either. It’s a moving metaphor for depression: after all, it’s easy to stop moving, but sometimes nearly impossible to get going again.

More than anything else, depression is what happens when you forget the feeling of joy, of hope. Remembering it, rediscovering that warmth and happiness, can be one of the most rewarding moments in your life, but my god, getting there can be an uphill battle.

He Kept Going.