First Word

We went and saw the wonderful and sad movie The Descendants with George Clooney that did not do well at the box office. It went out in limited release, and it was a very well acted and well done drama. When a friend of mine noted how great the movie was and how its box office receipts were weak, I said, "That's because it's not for 12-year-old boys." Did you know the core movie-going audience consists of mostly 12-year-old boys? So when you see a movie like Battle Ship that comes out May 18, and you think it looks like another version of Transformers only out out to sea; it's because of what I just said. Movies like Battle Ship or Transformers are what they call in the industry popcorn flicks. In the most literal sense of the word, these movies "sell popcorn" and they pander to a young audience. While the rest of us adults grumble about this reality and suggest there are no good grown-up movies out there, it's because we tend to stay home or wat...

As a writer, I always watch movies from that perspective. I watched the new movie  Melancholia last night, which is the newly released film by Lars von Trier, the outspoken writer and director. The beginning of the film was a beautiful surreal exploration of the character and situation in images. Strangely enough it reminded me of the beginning of A Space Odyssey  by Stanley Kubrick what with the music and processional of images. I felt like I had walked into a surrealist museum. I haven't thought of surrealism in years, but I used to have a Salvadore Dali poster hanging in my cubbie when I worked in corporate. It was my small rebellious artistic statement about how much I hated being in "drone" world, which thankfully I am no longer. The movie is an usual story about the end of the world told in parts. Part I: Justine is about her descent into depression on her wedding day. I was intrigued. The darker she got, the more unlikeable she became as a heroine in the story, wh...