The last thing the world needs is another dickhead writing about movies on the internet. I’ve been telling myself this for a few years now, and it’s the primary reason why I’ve resisted the urge to blog for so long now. But all things must pass, and one can only fend off the siren song of self-indulgence for so long. So hello to the various internets, and the series of tubes through which they run: my name’s Danny Bowes.
I’m going to start at the beginning. A story has a beginning, middle, and end, not always in that order—the first of far too many Godard quotes—but I’m going to be boring and start at the chronological beginning. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Raiders of the Lost Ark. My memory doesn’t go back that far without help, so many of the highlights of my early years (running over Norman Mailer with my Big Wheel on Montague Street, almost getting kicked out of nursery school for pissing all over this wooden house in the playground, et cetera) are things for which I rely on the more wherewithaled. So I don’t know exactly how old I was, two or three, but whatever. The important part is that my mom was chomping at the bit to see Raiders of the Lost Ark, but my dad was worried about little two or three year old me being scared. He went to see the movie a day or two before we were all going to go, to make sure nothing in it would freak me out too much. He came back and reported that most of it was fine, but the ending might be a little questionable. However, because I suspect he smoked a joint before heading out to the movie, he came up with an idea: when Indiana Jones tells Marian to shut her eyes toward the end, my dad was going to tell me to shut my eyes too and keep them shut until he told me it was okay. I agreed that this seemed reasonable, and in any case was excited enough to go to the movies that a few compromises here and there were acceptable.
Years later when McDonalds was selling the Indiana Jones trilogy—and in spite of rumors that I’ve heard about a fourth one, it remains a trilogy—on VHS for $5 apiece with each meal, my mom brought them home, and I finally got to see what was so scary about the end of Raiders. All that pre-CGI face-melting seems a little quaint now, but I will concede that it could get to fucking with a two-year-old’s head. The thing that stays with me about the whole “close your eyes when Indiana Jones tells you to” business isn’t so much that my dad wanted to make sure I didn’t get excessively scared, though that was nice of him. It created the feeling that going to the movies was an event. That movies were special.
One could make a fairly well-founded argument that a bit too much of my attention has been devoted to movies. On weekend days with no football, no rehearsal (no girlfriend) I’ve been known to consider watching three movies. And I’ve been known to end up watching four. A few times when I was growing up, my mom and I hit the triple crown: catch a morning bargain matinee in the theater, come home to find something just starting on cable, and then watch a tape with dinner (or a DVD once I hit college).
This blog is going to be about some of the (many, many) movies I’ve seen. It’s not going to have a whole lot of “ZOMG AVATAR ROOLZ” or “ZOMG AVATAR SUX” posts, because I tend to like to let thoughts sit for a really, really long time before screwing up my face and farting them out. On that note, I’m going to go figure out what to write next, and will conclude with a list of my ten favorite movies from the decade that is (not really, but fuck off) coming to a close shortly. Explanations forthcoming.
TOP TEN 2000-09
1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry)—2004
2) City of God (dir. Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund)—2002
3) The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)—2006
4) Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuaron)—2006
5) There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)—2007
6) Lost in Translation (dir. Sofia Coppola)—2003
7) I’ve Loved You So Long (dir. Philippe Claudel)—2008
8) The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese)—2006
9) No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)—2007
10) Criminal (dir. Gregory Jacobs)—2004
Years later when McDonalds was selling the Indiana Jones trilogy—and in spite of rumors that I’ve heard about a fourth one, it remains a trilogy—on VHS for $5 apiece with each meal, my mom brought them home, and I finally got to see what was so scary about the end of Raiders. All that pre-CGI face-melting seems a little quaint now, but I will concede that it could get to fucking with a two-year-old’s head. The thing that stays with me about the whole “close your eyes when Indiana Jones tells you to” business isn’t so much that my dad wanted to make sure I didn’t get excessively scared, though that was nice of him. It created the feeling that going to the movies was an event. That movies were special.
One could make a fairly well-founded argument that a bit too much of my attention has been devoted to movies. On weekend days with no football, no rehearsal (no girlfriend) I’ve been known to consider watching three movies. And I’ve been known to end up watching four. A few times when I was growing up, my mom and I hit the triple crown: catch a morning bargain matinee in the theater, come home to find something just starting on cable, and then watch a tape with dinner (or a DVD once I hit college).
This blog is going to be about some of the (many, many) movies I’ve seen. It’s not going to have a whole lot of “ZOMG AVATAR ROOLZ” or “ZOMG AVATAR SUX” posts, because I tend to like to let thoughts sit for a really, really long time before screwing up my face and farting them out. On that note, I’m going to go figure out what to write next, and will conclude with a list of my ten favorite movies from the decade that is (not really, but fuck off) coming to a close shortly. Explanations forthcoming.
TOP TEN 2000-09
1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry)—2004
2) City of God (dir. Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund)—2002
3) The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)—2006
4) Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuaron)—2006
5) There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)—2007
6) Lost in Translation (dir. Sofia Coppola)—2003
7) I’ve Loved You So Long (dir. Philippe Claudel)—2008
8) The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese)—2006
9) No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)—2007
10) Criminal (dir. Gregory Jacobs)—2004
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