Let's all go to the lobby...

... to get ourselves a treat.

It's movie time, kids. After a rather nice day off in which I ran a mile, worked on my screenplay, cleaned my bathroom, spit at the Red Sox players every time they came on my TV screen, and still managed to find time to shower, I decided that I was going to cap the evening off with a nice and easy viewing of one my favorite movies. So, I stumbled over to my DVD rack.

I don't have a ton of DVD's. I don't have a ton of DVD's because, as fate would ironically have it, I'm not a huge fan of movies. Oh, sure, the movies that I love... I loooovvveee. And I love adding a new movie to that list. Yet I just don't enjoy taking time out to watch movies I've never seen, movies I'm not sure about seeing, movies someone else tells me to see, etc. Don't ask me why. I don't understand it. I'll go through stretches where I don't see a movie in the theaters for months upon months... even missing movies I've been waiting to see. People have loaned me movies and I'll leave the DVD on my desk for almost a full calendar year before handing it back to the owner and saying, "Oh, yeah, great movie. Loved that scene with the guy doing that stuff before the one thing blows up." They'll respond that it was a period piece drama with no explosions. I'll then run away. Once someone at work forced me to take a DVD I didn't want to watch. I put it in the trash.

So, that said, I only have a small amount of movies to choose from, but they all have some great meaning to me. 95 percent of the movies in my collection have great personal meaning to me. The rest of them are just mistakes or guilty pleasures. So, what movie did I pick?

I didn't pick.

I couldn't decide. I couldn't find any sync in my soul. I couldn't make a choice and stick with it.

So, I did the next best thing. I went on YouTube and watched the movie trailers for my favorite flicks. And when one gets lost on YouTube, that usually means one thing... a lazy blog full of links to those aforementioned trailers with a lame write-up of what it is about those movies and/ or trailers I love.

Sounds like a good idea. Here goes nothing:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

All the hip kids loved this motion picture of love and memory erasing. And, hey, look, there's Frodo and he stole Kate Winslet's panties. Well, I loved it, too. Like many quiet, shy loser dudes of my ilk, I was hooked when Jim Carrey's character wondered why he always fell in love with every woman that looked at him. There was a time... 1988 to 2005... when I did that every other day. The trailer gets points for being quirky, enticing, and... short.

About a Boy

I'm a Nick Horby-phile, so you would think it was a no brainer that I would love this version of Hornby's second best book. (Behind High Fidelity, of course!) Yet the book carries a somewhat different tone and focus than the movie (Set in 1993/ 94, a major subplot of the book is based around Kurt Cobain's suicide.) and the pages never affected me in the way the film did. Despite this somewhat underwhelming and sappy trailer, the movie struck a deep chord with me as I had begun to pull up my emotional stakes and pull out of love and life. I had moved back to the emotional island I first inhabited around 1988. (See above.) This movie, with its main character's isolation boiling over after one final failed attempt to love, was my collective theme song for a long stretch of time. And, seriously, didn't Rachel Weisz capture that "so hot in that please be my girlfriend and then marry me" sorta way?

Shopgirl

Along the same vein is Steve Martin's ode to his own romantic troubles. (I'm sure he'd deny that, though!) The book was good. After a second reading it was really good. The movie draws mixed reactions from even the most loyal of Steve Martin fans. I honestly can't judge the movie because I was so immediately drawn to all three main characters. I've spent time in the emotional shoes of all of them, but, at the time that this movie's release, I was firmly entrenched on the same path as Steve Martin's character, Ray Porter. Despite any good traits, he (I) refused to let himself love or be loved. It is the easier path to shelter than to possibly face pain. I cried in the theater at the end of this movie because I saw it as a warning shot across my hidden heart. To my credit... yeah, MY credit... I listened. The trailer captures the tone of that sparse emotional landscape rather well.

Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe's masterpiece. Say what you will about "show(ing) me the money" or holding a boom box above one's head to woo a girl, this movie is Crowe's best because it is his life story. Young kid magically becomes a music journalist at the tail end of rock's greatest era. Like any Crowe movie it wears it's heart on it's sleeve. Just the way I like 'em. The trailer is straight forward, but epic in nature... plus it allows one a peak at a pre-Office Rain Wilson. And for trivia buffs, this picture is the first time many of us nerd-like dudes said, "Who's that?"

Love, Actually

Yep. I like it. I bought into it. I like it when Hugh Grant stumbles and bumbles his way into love. I loved the cheesy nature of it. I love when the kid ran after the girl. I like when Rowan Atkinson returns to save the day. I liked the lovey-dovey-ness of the whole thing. I'm sorry!

Collateral

Fine. I'm done with the romantic comedies. How 'bout a ruthless sociopath meets a failed dreamer of a cab driver? Oh, that's right, you don't like Tom Cruise. He's crazy, jumps on couches, worships aliens. Yep, yep. I'm with you, too. He's nutty. Don't care. I love some of his work and this is the best for my (color of) money. He made the killer just sympathetic enough that you started to root for him. (This and Alec Baldwin in The Cooler are the text book lessons on doing that.) I am forever drawn to this movie because I am both Cruise's killer and Foxx's cabbie. Bonus clip time.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Let's keep the gunshots going... Oh, yeah, now you all love him. Iron Man! Iron Man! Whatever. For my money, RDJ "came back" in this 2005 picture. Funny and suspenseful with some of the best commentary on the H-Wood/ Los Angeles scene you can find. If you don't like this movie, I'll probably stop being friends with you. For at least a few days.

Magnolia

After Roller Girl and before he taught you all to "drink your milkshake," Paul Thomas Anderson sent this gem into the world. I was mesmerized by this trailer. I honestly think it's as epic as the film itself. There's something about the Ricky Jay voice over and ominous Jon Brion score that roped me in back in ol' 1999. Some will live and die by Boogie Nights and I cannot take that away from those folks, but Magnolia affected the way I looked at screenwriting and got me hooked on stories about tremendously flawed yet redeemable characters. I actually have not allowed myself to watch this movie for years because I want to one day put it in and have it affect me all over again. And, hey, look, more Tom Cruise!

The Royal Tenenbaums

Either you love Wes Anderson films or you think they're boring, aimless, and pointless. If you're the latter then go enjoy Transformers 2 and be done with you. Rushmore is "technically" my favorite film of the Wes Anderson universe, but I have actually viewed Tenenbaums more. From the funniest non-funny lines around to one of the most haunting suicide attempts on film and from the quiet but powerful testament to family ties and the drive for redemption, I can only hope to write something this complete when I grow up.

OK... let's lighten it up a bit. Let's take on something light and fluffy like the end of the world due to the construction of a hyperspace bypass and the search for the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Is it as good as the book series? Probably not. But is the book series as good as the radio series? You tell me. I started with the books. Is the radio series as good as what was in Douglas Adams' brain? We'll never know. I have no misplaced hopes that non-Hitchhiker fanatics will ever love... or even like... this movie. On it's own, it failed to strike any chords. But, I contend, that taken as just another version of Douglas Adams signature work, this was the film we fans waited for. It stayed true to the roots of the book. (Read: Arthur remained very much British and the whale scene was peeeerfect.) It was a quirky yet smartly textured commentary on human-kind. And that controversial love story between Arthur and Trillian? Douglas Adams' himself had added that into the screenplay, so shut up about it. Regardless of the what the film did or did not do for you... the trailer stands alone as a funny piece.

All right... enough of this blog... it's wasting my night. I've decided on a movie to watch. It's the one that started it all for me. It set me on a path in life that I can never turn from. It defined my humor, my interests, my dreams, and my heart. What? You think I'm weird? Well...

I know you are, but what am I?