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Community Theater
 From Dallas, this is The Dope Sheet... I'm guest Dope Sheet contributor and Filmspotting Message Board moderator Alex Knesnik
I usually employ my unending love of
"Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion"
to prove I'm not a film snob. In fact, I vehemently may be an
anti-film snob. I like to make myself stand out from people in the
boards* such as OldWest and sdedalus and m_rturnage. The ones who
LOVE to talk about the mastery of Wong Kar Whats-His-Name. The ones
who LOVE to discuss movies with thoughtful insight while my opinion
is mostly determined by the cuteness of the lead actor.
I bring up "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion" on the boards
for three reasons:
1) I like to imagine I can insight violence.
2) I think us Movie Joe Schmoes are under-represented among
Filmspotting listeners.
3) I sincerely love "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion."
I saw it on its opening Friday in a packed theater by myself
where the audience responded with infectious laughter.** I missed
most of the end ballet featuring Romy, Michelle, and Sandy Frink
because I covered my mouth and eyes to mask my shame-laughter, the
kind of squirm-in-your-seat laughter one reserves for the hair gel
scene in "There's Something About Mary."
Jerry, my partner, saw R&M with his friend on a weekend matinee
in an empty theater. They hated it; they walked out. Of the
hundreds of movies they've seen together, they walked out of this
one. I used to taunt them with my love of it, just so I could get
them to scream at me. I'm convinced that if I were with them the
first time I saw it, I would have hated it too.
I love the community aspect of movie-going. I love waiting in a
long seating line. I love pushing down people shorter than me to get
to a good seat. I love climbing over the latecomers on the ends of
the rows as I get Jerry and myself popcorn and KitKat Bites. I love
stepping over those same people on my way back as I spill popcorn in
their laps. I love everything about seeing a movie with a big group
of people.
However, pay attention to what I said about my first experience
with R&M. I went to the movie by myself. I didn't have to,
subconsciously or otherwise, seek the approval of my best friend by
agreeing with her. Jerry did. Jerry, after being forced to watch it
with me many times, has since admitted, "Okay. It's not THAT bad."
When Jerry and I go to the movies together, we mostly agree on
whether we liked or disliked a movie. I think that's because he's a
pushover and has no original opinions, but that's beside the
point.*** I see many movies by myself, where he would never. I like
the experience of being able to form my own opinion untethered to any
kind of self-inflicted pressure I might feel to make nice with the
person I'm with.****
Distributors, studios, and theater chains would have you believe
that to truly experience a movie, one must see it in a big theater.
I can't fairly disagree; there's nothing like being in a huge,
packed, stadium-seated theater, missing lines of dialogue because the
audience is roaring with laughter.
But I want to show you this scene. I am on my couch, in my
pajamas, in the dark quiet, throat swollen from the flu at three in
the morning, insomnious from fever, and I am smiling, with a cat
curled on my lap, as I watch on my 24-inch screen Lisa Kudrow say of
Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" ... "I just get really happy when
they finally let her shop."
Footnotes:
*If you don't recognize the strange board names, then you haven't
spent enough time there.
Get over there.
Now.
**This may have to do with the fact that I saw it in a theater
that used to be called, before they built the nearby Magnolia, the
gay theater. But I saw some Straighties laugh too.
***In case you're curious, I put that sentence in just for him.
As I said, I'm an instigator.
****I also like to waste away my life in the fantasyland of a
movie where Jerry likes to engage life and see the great outdoors.
Engaging life is overrated to me.
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Overlooked DVD Pick: "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81" ****
 If you appreciate quiet moments, there are a few to wonder at in Tim
McCanlies' directorial debut about four boys spending their last
weekend in Dancer, a fictional amalgam of every
don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it Texas cities. The boys are written as
types, but by the grace of their performances the young actors
demonstrate surprising depth in a movie that's interested in quirk.
Breckin Meyer leads the cast as a boy frustrated with his town
and its lack of. He and the other three boys have taken a
"solemn vow" to leave Dancer for Los Angeles the Monday after their
high school graduation; they've already bought their bus tickets.
Over the weekend they are forced to look at Dancer with a more
critical eye and figure out if they really want to leave. Keller
(Meyer) gets to know the characters that hide out at the grocery
store while the rest of the town is at church. He connects with --
if connecting looks a lot like
shaking one's confused head at -- his fly-punishing
grandfather who spends time fending off the kindnesses of the
"widow-ladies" that swarm around him.
Terrell Lee (Peter Facinelli) struggles with his severe-jawed
mother and amused dad who want him to step into the family oil
business. John (Eddie Mills) is the observer of those delicious,
quiet moments, the ones that remind me of Sophia Coppola but sweeter.
Squirrel (Ethan Embry), the comic relief, tries to hook up with two
of the only available girls his age while dealing with his drunk
father.
There are some who deplore the slow pace of this movie and the
lack of action, especially given that the age of the main characters
would seem to appeal to the young male demographic. I've read their
comments on IMDb. If you are likely to echo these criticisms, please
don't take my recommendation.
"Dancer, Texas Pop. 81"
is a very simple movie with a very simple premise, but (in my
opinion) it is executed near-flawlessly. I connected with each
character and, while I'm a dyed-in-the-wool City Boy, when I watch it
I want to move Jerry and me to the open vistas out west of Dallas.
I saw it with a group of guys (some of whom were from cities like
Weatherford and Ennis) and, as we left the theater, they softly
agreed that McCanlies perfectly captured the tone and characters of
Small Town Texas.
Alex Knesnik is a paid architect and unpaid writer living in Dallas, Texas with his partner and two cats. One of the cats is mean and the other falls down easily.
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Dope Links
Death Proof vs. Hot Fuzz
In the spirit of bringing together the Filmspotting snobs
(m_rturnage, et al.) and anti-snobs (Alex Knesnik, etc.), here's an
IFC blog "Fanboy Showdown" that takes two critically-praised films
and compares them "EW/pop culture" style.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
It's recently been rumored that Tabloid Queen Lindsay Lohan is
attached to an unearthed (and previously unproduced) Tennessee
Williams screenplay called "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond." And as
The Oxford American's Cintra Wilson observes, when you look at the
overwrought self-destructiveness of the young starlet's life, she
seems a perfect fit for the material. Still, whether she ultimately
lands the role or not, one thing is certain: if this is like a
traditional Williams script, its metaphorical title will be a literal
line of dialogue at least once (though the smart money is on multiple
uses).
Tribecalution
There are more influential film festivals in the world, but in
2007 Tribeca may have just become the most revolutionary. Where
else, for example, would you see DJ Spooky's 'remix' of "Birth of a
Nation"? The New York Sun's S. James Snyder gives us the scoop on
what De Niro's hometown fest is up to.
DOPE BONUS:
The Horror of Little Miss Sunshine
-- this must be the movie that Sam saw.
-- Jeff Huston, Editor
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