206. American Movies

 

American movies are the best. I love going to a big screen cinema, dishing out more money than I should, and being captivated by an entirely different world. That’s something I have missed terribly over the past year and a half, having only attended one movie in all that time. It was Minari and it was really good in spite of all the subtitles.

Movies are funny, terrifying, heartwarming, or intensely sorrowful. Marlon Brando is the most handsome, captivating Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire as he screams out Stella’s name on the streets of New Orleans. Meg Ryan is hilarious as she mimics an orgasm for Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Who doesn’t get teary when Liam Neeson, as Oskar Schindler feels terrible that he couldn’t save more people at the end of Schindler’s List? Sure, they’re milking emotions with not only the acting, but the cinematography, but that’s what you’re paying for, never mind that you paid more than four times the amount of money that you should have for the greasy over-salted popcorn. You are sobbing when Bradley Cooper’s character is shot by one of the very PTSD victims he’s trying to help in the more realistic American Sniper. Chris Kyle’s book is more real than ever when you see and hear the emotions of someone torn apart by war. And yes, maybe too many of us are gullible enough to believe some of the hype added by cinema—certainly we all are in the viewing moment. But thank you for letting us escape the underlying fears of pandemics to be escorted with a Korean immigrant family to 1970’s Arkansas.

There are a lot of things in the world that can overwhelm and depress us, but just a few bucks, a dark room, and a flickering screen can momentarily let us forget all that. The movies can be thought provoking, helping us to approach daily life a little better. So many of them are just visual love letters to the world and we are their recipients. Some movies really stand out to me. I love certain actors also. Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Dustin Hoffman always make me laugh. Meryl Streep and Glenn Close make me think. Marlon Brando, Brad Pitt and Robert Redford have a way of making me simultaneously envious and enthralled. I love A River Runs Through It. It brings my own childhood and life into perspective. Franco Zefferelli has always been able to make Shakespeare seem like a close friend with his films Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. I already told you I love Elia Kazan’s Streetcar Named Desire. I don’t think Stephen Spielberg has ever gone wrong with any move he’s ever made from ET to Schindler’s List.

I’ve made do with my TV and DVD player over the past year and revisited some favorites but the small screen in the living room isn’t quite the same. I look forward to movie releases on the big screen because I’m not one to subscribe to every streaming service that comes out with a new movie that I’d like to see. There are so many old ones out there that I don’t need to be paying extra money for movies I’d prefer to see on the big screen. I really do love the cinema and American movies.