On the right day, in the right mood, it's weird how things hit you. I know a guy who saw The Break-Up with a group of people and found it devastating. He was weeping. I haven't seen the movie, I must confess, but my impression is that the movie was supposed to be funny. Am I wrong about that?
It happens to me too. I have to confess that I frequently find episodes of the British situation comedy As Time Goes By to be unspeakably affecting. Field of Dreams doesn't do it for me because I can see that it's trying to manipulate me, but I have a blind spot where ATGB is concerned. Why is that?
Incidentally, and this may be a digression, I can live with it when the dog dies in a movie, but I won't see a movie where the whole point of the damned movie is apparently that the dog dies ... even though the parent in me understands that death is a big part of why pets are important.
I used to show the film Grapes of Wrath when I taught film, but I wouldn't watch the film with the students ... from when Tom finds his family's home abandoned ("It's just an old shoe") onward, I'm pretty much a wreck.
Bruce Springsteen's "Ghost of Tom Joad" is here. Rage Against the Machine version here.
3 comments:
Yes, you are wrong about The Break-Up being funny; no you are not wrong to have the impression that it was supposed to be funny, as that is how it was marketed. I can see weeping through that movie, depending on how recently you've been through something similar.
Went down south for the holidays and was looking around Creek and Corner for property. Still unbelievably reasonable.
Peter Fonda!!!
Happy New Year.
(secret word: "undica.")
I feel the same way about ATGB, except for the episodes that focus on Alastair and Judy's boring-ass relationship.
BTW, my late brother-in-law once said that Lionel reminded him of Tom. I couldn't agree more.
Movies I've blubbered shamelessly at: _It's a Wonderful Life_, _Miracle on 34th Street_ (during the scene when Santa sings to the little girl in Norwegian), _Truly, Madly, Deeply_, and _ET_ (when I first saw it in 1982). Yeah, I'll admit it.
ET flying across the moon, yes ... ET dying, hmm. I thought it would have been a better film if it had ended before the resurrection.
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