Volume 17 - Say Anything...and The Indomitable Dreamer

You might not realize this when you read my rambling prose, but I consider myself to be something of a perfectionist. I'm not the kind of perfectionist that wants everything in my life to be perfect - I'm no dummy, I know what the real world can do to us all - but when I set my sights on something I want it to be perfect. That's why it takes two or three or four weeks for me to write one of these ridiculous double features, because I'm not willing to do less than my best when it comes to movies I love.

In this double feature, we're going to talk about a couple of my favorite moves, and a couple of my favorite young heroes. They also have a perfect idea of what they want to do with their life. They both approach life from different angles, but they're both pretty lovable and work hard to overcome their flaws.  They're the kind of people I want to be when I grow up, with a couple of reservations that we'll talk about as we go on.

This double feature starts with a timeless love story - something that's far from my expertise or my personal experience - and yet still it's a film that says something profound to me. Let's check it out.

Say Anything...

1989, Directed by Cameron Crowe

The tagline for this movie calls it "A Lloyd meets girl story," which sounds incredibly stupid until you meet Lloyd Dobler. I'm not sure there's ever been anyone on film quite like Lloyd Dobler, a one of a kind hopeless romantic. He doesn't seem one of a kind from a distance - we've all seen a white boy who thinks this girl is perfect and he must have her - but when you get to know him you can see why he's so special

Lloyd Dobler, as played by John Cusack, is a high school graduate/aspiring kickboxer who decides he wants to go out with Diane Court (Ione Skye). Diane Court is also a high school graduate, but is not a kickboxer. She's the class valedictorian, set for a bright future, and Lloyd decides that he's destined to be a part of it. The catch is that Diane Court barely knows who Lloyd Dobler is.

One of the common misconceptions when people talk about Say Anything is that Lloyd is a loser or a nobody when he starts to reach out to Diane. Watching the movie closely shows that's clearly not the case. Lloyd has friends, he's welcome to hang out with most anyone he knows, he's a caring brother and uncle, and he's trusted and kind of admired by almost everyone he meets. If you could walk into the beginning of this film and walk up to any character that knows Lloyd, I don't expect you would hear a single bad word about him. Even star-crossed lovers like his friends Corey (Lili Taylor) and Joe (Loren Dean) are both on good terms with Lloyd. I can't picture a scenario where Lloyd is bullied for anything he would do, because he always seems to be walking around with his head held high and his mind made up. He's someone who accepts others as they are, who dreams about what he wants to be, and who is willing to be straight-forward, honest, and respectful toward anyone he meets. In short, he's a real great guy.

So then, the question becomes this - why doesn't Lloyd accept that he's great and move on with his life and just be happy? That's when the perfectionist in Lloyd comes in to play. The thing about someone like Lloyd is that he's not really happy being liked by everyone - he wants to be loved by someone. And he doesn't want just any someone, he wants the someone he's decided is perfect to him. 

I once sat in on a presentation about stalking behavior where one of the first quips the presenter made was "We see stalking in the media all the time, like in John Cusack movies." While I understand that presenter's perspective, I still think they missed the mark entirely. Lloyd Dobler certainly is presented as being enamored with Diane Court, and you could argue he becomes obsessed as the film goes on. But to classify his actions as stalking is certainly a discredit to how much he cares about Diane's wishes, not to mention a slap in the face toward suspension of disbelief. Movies are a dramatic medium, and the behavior of this fictional character should not be looked at as suggestion of real world behaviors. If the argument that horror movies make people more violent is unfair (and I believe it is), then the argument that John Cusack could make people become stalkers is unfair too.

Lloyd does make some dramatic gestures to get Diane's attention - the iconic boom box pose that you see on every single Say Anything poster represents the biggest of them - but it's worth remembering that the little gestures Lloyd makes throughout his relationship with Diane are the ones that stick out to her. He thinks she needs a man who makes grand proclamations and plays a love song (OK, it's the song from the first time they had sex and yeah, that is a little stalkery) outside her window, but the more we get to know Diane the more we see that she's interested in some of his smaller actions. When she has to explain what she likes about Lloyd to her father - played by John Mahoney, who does not get near enough credit for how good he is here - she mentions a moment where Lloyd points out some broken glass in a parking lot and gently guides her to a safe path around it. Other moments where we can tell she's totally enamored with him include his attempt to convince a group of senior citizens to watch Cocoon (Fox had to keep trying to sell their own movie, this was the VHS era after all) and when he checks up on her from across a crowded party. Diane sees how important she is to Lloyd as he does these things, and those are the moments that make her fall more in love with him as the film goes on

Lloyd thinks he needs big words and big actions to impress her, and when he gets too focused on trying to do this he does turn a little dramatic and even loses his cool at times. During the film's darkest scenes, when things aren't working out, he utters the now famous rain-drenched decree "I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen" and it's a moment where we could think Lloyd is being a dope. Yet we, like most everyone else he knows, can see that he's a great person. He just doesn't believe it unless the thing he is focused on is going well for him.

One of my favorite moments to observe Lloyd is when he's confronted by his school guidance counselor about his future plans and offers a fantastic reply about how he's looking for a "dare to be great situation" when he is pressed to make a decision about what he wants to do. 

"How many people really know what they want though?  I mean, a lot of them think that they have to know, right? But inside, they don't really know, so, I don't know.  But I know that I don't know."

Lloyd doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life, and that's fine. That's not Say Anything's concern. This movie's concerned with introducing us to Lloyd and Diane - who also deserves recognition as one of the strongest and smartest female characters in teen cinema - and how much Lloyd is willing to give himself to the idea of being with her. 

The film's title, Say Anything..., is kind of obscure as it applies to the story. The two characters who tell each other that they "can say anything" during the film are Diane and her father. That's one more part of what makes Lloyd such an endearing character, because once you get to know him you know he's the kind of person who never has to be reminded that he can say anything. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he needs to say and lives fearlessly as he attempts to win over Diane. He could have accepted the good life he had, but he saw someone he thought was perfect and he put his entire being into making it happen

If Lloyd Dobler is one of a kind - which I already said he is - then it seems like it would be pretty hard for me to find a double feature partner that meets the high standard he sets. But a lot of the things I love about Lloyd and how this film portrays him are present in a lot of other characters I love. Let's take a look at a few things about Lloyd and see if we can find those in another lead character.

• To simply sum up some of my thoughts on the character, I think Lloyd's biggest flaw at times is having a narrow focus. He's so interested in Diane that he lets other parts of his life - planning for his future and spending time with friends and family are two examples - slip to the wayside. This doesn't really effect Lloyd, because he's easy going and doesn't let it get to him. But you can see that others look at Lloyd a little differently because of his singular focus, and that makes his relationships with others and future prospects a little more difficult.
• That bigger picture is of little interest to Lloyd, and that's fine with him. To him, time spent with Diane is the enrichment he's looking for in his life right now. The flip side of the narrow focus problem is that Lloyd is happy with what he's doing. That's pretty admirable. His approach to life fits pretty well with the central philosophy shared by the lead character in the film we're about to discuss. 
• One thing that does have an effect Lloyd is his perception that Diane represents some kind of perfect or ideal being. Lloyd lets Diane define his world. If he's with her, he's happy. If he's not, he feels like he's failed.  This part of his character is what leads him to some internal conflict, because he won't accept anything less than what he believes she is. Lloyd's idea that anything less than perfection isn't good enough, makes it hard for him to understand the simple things that Diane already loves about him. This is a classic downfall of a dreamer, and one that shows up often for the lead character we're about to talk about

It's easy to find movies about high school dreamers who fall in love, but not easy to find ones with the same indomitable spirit that we see in Lloyd Dobler. The young man at the center of our next film is a little younger and a bit less stable than Lloyd - but he's got that spirit.

So let's talk about a young man named Max Fischer.

Rushmore

1998, Directed by Wes Anderson

"The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore."

When you're fifteen years old and in 10th grade, you don't necessarily have to be popular to be a big man on campus. That's the case for Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), who has very few friends but is involved in almost every extracurricular activity offered at the Rushmore Academy, including a number of clubs he started himself when bored with the school's other options. Max is not one of the cool kids - he's bullied by some and ignored by most - but he's someone who walks like he knows where he's going. Max thinks he's found the thing he loves most in the world - a school that lets him chase any dream that comes to his overactive mind - and he's happy to be a part of that.

There are some obvious barriers that hold back a 15 year old from achieving all their dreams. Max got into Rushmore because he was a child prodigy who wrote one of the best essays that the school's head master (Brian Cox, giving a wonderfully grumpy performance) has ever seen, but now he's failing most of his classes and on probation with a stern warning that one more failed class will lead to him being expelled from the school he loves. One would think this would light a fire under Max - except he's currently enamored with a teacher (Olivia Williams) and more focused on ways to show her how impressive he can be and win her heart. 

That's creepy, of course, because she's a teacher and he's a 15 year old, but don't try telling that to Max. He's living in his own reality, where pursuits like saving Latin courses and building an aquarium on the school's baseball field are achievable goals. Max's determination helps him work toward making these lofty goals come true, despite the wishes of the teacher or the school he is a part of. Much like Lloyd Dobler, Max is someone who won't take no for an answer. Because his goals are so outlandish, this gets him into some trouble. 

It would be easy to present a character like Max Fischer, who clearly doesn't understand major parts of his life, as a joke to the audience. Lloyd Dobler's goal of dating Diane Court is a reasonable, albeit lofty, one in his reality. Max's goal of winning the affection of a grown woman while getting through school on extracurriculars alone is clearly not going to happen, which is fine because Rushmore wouldn't work as a movie if it allowed those goals to come true. Wes Anderson's film had two options - become a pure comedy by making fun of Max for his failure to understand life, or show us how he grows and uses the good parts of his personality to become a better young man than he was at the beginning of the film.

Thankfully for all of us, Anderson chose the second option. The choice to present Max as a mostly harmless dreamer - or, as a young man who's simply fighting through a life where he doesn't fit in with the big crowd - makes Max Fischer one of my favorite film characters and Rushmore one of my favorite films. Max struggles to make things right as he goes through his time at Rushmore and beyond, but he's a kid and even when he's wrong we know that his aim is true and his goals are noble. We can see how much he cares about doing what's right, and that matters a lot.

Neither Lloyd or Max really "gets it" when it comes to the big picture of life, but who among us - outside of fictional character's who've been edited and rewritten until they're perfect - really does get everything life throws at them? Neither film ends up with a clear picture of where life may take either of these young men, yet I've never really stopped to wonder about what happened to them down the road. I trust that they both are on the right path to working out their issues, and that their hearts will guide them in their pursuits as they move forward.

I identify so much with both of these young men, and I mentioned earlier that they're the kind of people I strive to be in my life. But I don't want to be the versions of Lloyd and Max we see in these films, I want to be the better people they grow up to be. I want to be the version of Lloyd Dobler who has learned that he can't just focus on Diane, but can give her love and attention while still succeeding in his dreams. I want to be the version of Max that has learned he has to focus on meeting the needs of others sometimes, and who is able to balance that with his own pursuits for enrichment and achievement. I want to be the best things about both of these men, and live with the same confidence and vigor that they possess.

Some might say it's unrealistic to try to be the perfect version of two fictional perfectionists, the same way people said it was unrealistic for both of these men to work toward the goals they have. I get that. But I think Lloyd Dobler and Max Fischer would be proud of me, or any person who views their films, for being willing to tackle life with the same confidence and spirit that they show.

There's a saying out there that suggest that "if you shoot for the moon, you'll land among the stars." Iconic football coach Vince Lombardi summed that up differently by saying "Perfection is unattainable, but if we strive for perfection we will catch excellence." Lloyd and Max might not have known that was what they were doing, and dreamers like me or any of you readers who have an adventurous heart might not know it either. As we head into a new year, as everyone is striving to better themselves and meet new goals and change their lives in a positive way, it's nice to have characters out there who show us what we can do if we don't allow ourselves to be defeated as we chase our dreams. 

Lloyd and Max might not be perfect, but they fight for what they want. Those of us who want something better out of our life could do much worse than following their lead. That's what this double feature represents to me, two people who won't put anything less than their best into the things they love and two people who won't stop fighting for what they want out of life. I truly love that about them, and I think you will too.

Volume 16 - Conan the Barbarian and the Heroes of the Past & Future

I want to be a hero when I grow up. I know that's a ridiculous statement, considering I'm already old and the heroes we see in books and comics and movies aren't realistic examples of what we can be in the real world, but I can't help it. I like some people, and I want those people to have someone who can help them when they need it. In my mind (and Bonnie Tyler's, so I know I'm not alone) that means they need a hero.

Growing up in the 1980s, there were a lot of heroes to admire in books and comics and movies. The most admirable of those, to me, is now and has always been Arnold Schwarzenegger. His first major starring role of that decade, though not as highly regarded as some of his later work, might be his most heroic role. It's one I love dearly, and it's the perfect starting point for this double feature.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Conan the Barbarian

1982, Directed by John Milius

Conan the Barbarian seems like a simple movie on the surface. A youngster, trained to believe in a god and a sword, sees his loving father and mother killed by a vicious cult leader. He grows up with vengeance in his heart while slaving away on the aptly named "wheel of pain," which makes him big and strong and angry when he sets out on his own as an adult. 

He's trained as a fighter, and famously indoctrinated that the answer to the question "What is best in life?" is "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women." In a drunken stupor, he sees a bunch of women of the night against a wall and blurts out "Sluts!" like it's the funniest thing he's seen in his life. He's...not perfect. Stay with him, though. He's going on a journey here.

Conan acts like a brute - because that's what he was raised as - but as he sets out on his own we start to see his character as he meets others who recognize that his heart is still that of the innocent child who had the life he wanted taken from him. These companions - a sly archer named Subotai, a female warrior named Valeria, and a playful wizard who has no name - are crucial in helping Conan work toward his goal, even if his background has made him far too stubborn to ever acknowledge it. He has meaningful conversations about religion with Subotai (allowing Arnold to chortle as he spits out one of the best lines in fantasy history, "Crom laughs at your four winds!") and ends up befriending and loving Valeria, yet he rarely allows himself to show his feelings. When he does, it's hard not to fall in love with him and his cause.

If my opinion of Conan sounds a little different than the consensus, that's because my experience watching the film is a little different too. The first time I really watched Conan the Barbarian in its entirety was on DVD, and I didn't realize at the time I was watching an extended director's cut. When the times changed and I watched the film for about the twentieth time, now on blu-ray, I noticed something odd...my favorite scene between Conan and Subotai was missing from the film's theatrical cut.

I just watched this scene four times. I couldn't stop. Man, it makes my heart soar. If you're not at a video watching location right now, here's a transcript. Yes, I'm THAT in to this scene.

"I remember days like this when my father took me to the forest and we ate wild blueberries. More than 20 years ago. I was just a boy of four or five. The leaves were so dark and green then. The grass smelled sweet with the spring wind...

...Almost 20 years of pitiless cumber! No rest, no sleep like other men. And yet the spring wind blows, Subotai. Have you ever felt such a wind?"

"They blow where I live too. In the north of every man's heart."

"It's never too late, Subotai."

"No...It would only lead me back here another day. In even worse company."

"For us, there is no spring. Just the wind that smells fresh before the storm."

First of all, I think this is one of the very best acting moments of Schwarzenegger's career. And I generally adore the man with all my heart. It's so human. So accessible. Sure, he says "other man" instead of "other men," but he sounds so sincere in the realization that he's spent his whole life on a ridiculous quest that has taken away so much from him. It ISN'T too late - even as he prepares for the battle in which he utters his famous prayer to Crom - and he could just walk away and try to start over. His heart has been broken for too long, and he realizes at the end...he has to face the storm that he's brought on through his choices.

I get why this scene was cut from the film originally - there's a tone shift that doesn't match the character's lack of emotion at other moments. In one of the film's best scenes, Subotai cries at the expense of another character and when asked why, he laments that Conan, the Cimmerian, can not cry. This deleted scene doesn't feature tears from Conan, but it's as close as we can get. It hit me so hard when I first heard it. I probably watch this scene on YouTube more often than any human should; I just love what it represents. The hero who's trying to take on the world realizes, as he prepares to put his well-being on the line one more time, that he's been fighting his whole life and has left the simple things that bring him peace long behind. And Subotai, who's been portrayed as Conan's heart for much of the film, just chuckles at Conan like he's a doofus. He knows what the man means, and he wishes it was that simple.

Conan's journey in the film is long and winding, which is appropriate when you look at the journey to the big screen that the character took. Conan was created by author Robert E. Howard, and first appeared in a story in Weird Tales magazine in December of 1932. It would be 50 years before he made his debut on screen, and opinions on how well John Milius' film represents the character - who had been adapted by numerous other authors throughout those years - are varied.

Having not read the stories that Conan originated from, I tried my best to find sources that compare the film to what the author created. You'll find kind words about the final product on sites like Wikipedia and IMDB, alongside admissions that writer/director Milius took liberties combining elements of different Conan stories. On the other hand, I found a couple of fans of Howard's stories to ask them their opinion about how well the movie captured his character, and their answers were less positive. One admitted to liking the film for what it is, while pointing out that things like the importance of Conan's sword and the role of Thulsa Doom are sharp breaks from Howard's legend, while another simply thought that the film was an embarrassment compared to the author's work.

The film opens with a famous on-screen quote from Friedrich Nietzche, stating "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," and I think that's a fair statement to sum up how I feel about Conan the Barbarian as a film. The film has some problems as an adaptation, but they're covered up so well by all the things I love about it. The cast is perfect for their roles, and behind the brawn and muscle there's a sweet heart reminding us that Conan's fought hard to get to this point in his noble quest. Though his goal is revenge, he seeks it because he needs to heal his heart. I really love that about him, and this film.

It would be easy to stick with the swords and sandals as we pick a double feature partner for Conan, but taking the easy route is just not what he would want us to do. We're gonna take a leap to another place and time with our next film...but we're also gonna talk about one of the original Conan's contemporaries. Let's take a look at the reasons I picked this double feature.

• Conan may not resemble the details of his 1930s origin tales in this film, but the set up of the film does. Much like modern super hero films, Milius used his film to introduce the character and build him through an origin story, tacking on narration at the prologue and epilogue that would set up a series of films. Only one direct sequel ever got off the ground (so far), but the serial nature of the film feels like something from the era in which Conan was born.
• At the same time, Conan the Barbarian also is at home in the excessive style of early 1980s cinema. In the wake of Star Wars, studios were doing their best to create grand universes that could cover several films, and the sci-fi and fantasy genres were homes to many of them. (In fact, Star Wars creator George Lucas tried to buy the rights to adapt the character we're about to discuss, and only after he failed at this decided to create his space opera.)
• As I noted above, Conan's quest wouldn't work without the cast around him, a diverse and eclectic group of characters who light up the screen when the hero - who was still working on his English - was unable to carry the film's dramatic and comedic load. So I want another supporting cast that lifts the film to new heights.
• Conan the Barbarian's greatest strength might be it's musical score. Basil Poledouris' score for this film...might be my favorite musical score for any film of its type. It's a jackhammer, and it's also got these beautiful interludes that feel like what I think the spring winds in that scene I talked about above would feel like. None of this makes sense because I don't understand music, but I'm still looking for a double feature where the music elevates the film to another level.
• Above all else, we - and by we, I mean you, and me, and Bonnie Tyler - need a hero.

That hero's name is....

Flash Gordon

1980, Directed by Mike Hodges

There's a pretty fundamental difference between the movies Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian, just like there are major differences between the characters each of the films are named after. We'll get to those in a minute. First, let's take a look at a rather obvious connection between them.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis, wanting to capitalize on the success of Star Wars on film and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century on TV, brought Flash Gordon to motion picture screens in December of 1980, just over 18 months before Conan was released. De Laurentiis also backed Conan into existence, though he let his daughter Raffaella be the on set producer of that one. The Italian producer gained a level of cult fame with his 1976 remake of King Kong; waxing romantically in an interview with Time magazine that "when the monkey die, people gonna cry." That film has gone down in the history of cinema as something of a miss, but the producer's romantic and kinda charming ideas on what audiences are looking for from big budget spectacle paint a picture of the kind of properties he we would try to create with both Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian.

Like Kong and Conan, Flash Gordon was born in the first half of the 1930s, first appearing as a comic strip character in January of 1934. A polo player turned space traveling hero, Flash is kind of an anti-Conan. Where the Cimmerian is pushed into action because of the troubles that plagued his life, Flash just kind of stumbles into a hero role in his journeys by getting caught on the wrong plane and, subsequently, the wrong rocket ship. If Conan represents the everyman hero who has to fight through life, Flash - who the film updates from polo star to "quarterback, New York Jets" - is the white collar hero who's been given all the tools he needs.

Though the real world well-to-do are usually quick to stomp on the little guys, Flash Gordon is fictional, and is thus the rare "pure" rich hero. There's no real motivation for him to act heroically to protect Earth from Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow, who would also make a brief appearance as the good King Osiric in Conan the Barbarian), he's just a good guy who stands up for us because he wants to. He's a naive and simple character, and the actor who brings him to life, Sam J. Jones, doesn't inspire much applause for his depth as an actor, but looking at him as a product of the 1930s that has been brought forward to the 1980s helps us understand why he is the way he is.

Like Conan, Flash is able to maneuver through his journey to defeat Ming with the help of a unique group of friends. The biggest standouts are Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen, a boisterous bearded character who seems to enjoy challenging Ming because it's humorous, and Prince Barin, the suave ruler of a forest planet who has his eyes on Ming's devious daughter, Aura. They're played by two very different British actors, Brian Blessed and (future James Bond) Timothy Dalton, who play perfect opposites easily. Aura, played by Ornella Muti, is the film's most complex character - which is a low bar to hurdle - because she gets to balance on the line between helping her father and falling for the handsome spacemen who come into his kingdom. The other major standout in the cast is charismatic Israeli star Topol, who's performance as Earth scientist Hans Zarkov is cheeky and winning and full of pop culture references.

Each of these supporting performers help make the film far more light-hearted than the operatic tone of Conan the Barbarian, which is where Jones and Melody Anderson (who plays Dale Arden, his romantic interest) come back into the picture. I made a backhanded comment about Jones' depth earlier, yet he's perfect for reprising a role that was initially played in serial films by Olympic athlete-turned-actor "Buster" Crabbe. A couple of more famous actors were near landing the part of Flash Gordon in the film, including Schwarzenegger(!) (who was rejected due to his strong accent) and Kurt Russell (who rejected the film because he thought the character lacked personality), and though they're two of my favorite stars in the world - I'm kind of OK with Sam Jones ending up in this role. Russell is probably right that he's not right for this role, because the wooden nature of the hero only boosts up the performers around him. Kurt Russell movies are best when he's allowed to be the charismatic scene-stealer. That's not who Flash Gordon is, and Sam Jones is able to slide into the movie, be heroic, and let everyone around him shine without stealing their spotlight.

Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon are both films about 1930s heroes made with 1980s mindsets, and it's the difference in those 1980s tones that really makes this double feature pop for me. For example, I mentioned how much I love Conan's booming musical score, and I also love how the musical score takes Flash Gordon to another level. The difference is that the film that keeps its swords and sorcery on an earthly plane has music by an orchestral composer, while the film that takes its swords and sorcerers into space has a musical score by iconic future rock band Queen. (Yes, I believe Freddie Mercury and friends are from the future and that we haven't seen the last of them yet. Don't stomp on my dreams.)

Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon are a perfect pairing in how they represent the hero's journey and do so in such dramatically different ways. With a few omissions, you can boil both films down to the same idea - an honorable hero, alongside those who will help him, tries to take down a ruthless oppressor. But unless you think about that point specifically, you'd never think to put Conan and Flash in the same sentence, because the worlds and the tones are so far apart.

Yet here they are. Created less than two years apart during The Great Depression, and brought back to life by a rich producer at the beginning of a decade of excess. They're odd partners - I don't know how Conan and Flash would get along in a time-traveling crossover project, but don't you kind of want to find out? - but they represent the same things. They stand for honor, valor, and love. They stand for the little guy who can't stand up to the oppressor themselves.

Though they stand in different times places, they come from the same kind of hearts. And, as Queen's theme song points out about Flash, they're "for every one of us." That's the kind of hero I think we all need to be, wherever and whenever we are.

Volume 15 - Event Horizon and Being Blinded by Science

I'm not good at science, you guys. I paid a lot of money for a piece of paper that says I'm a bachelor of it, true, but the reality of the matter is that my talents more resemble another meaning for the acronym B.S. Heck, I don't even like science.

I'm not saying I don't like science like how a Republican doesn't like science; I acknowledge that it's out there. I'm just not the person to deal with it. Other people are better at science than me, and that's fine. Those people probably haven't played as much Tecmo Super Bowl as I have. Let's call it even and move on.

Despite my oppositional stance toward it, I spent a lot of time thinking about a movie with science in it this week. So, in the name of science - kind of - let's take a look at that movie and talk about how much of a non-sciencer I am.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Event Horizon

1997, Dir. by Paul W.S. Anderson

I'm not gonna say Event Horizon is an incredibly smart sci-fi movie. But it's got enough science in it to confuse me. Perhaps I should be embarrassed when I admit that, and maybe I am a little. I'm not to proud to admit it.

There are definitely people out there who understand Event Horizon much more than I do. One such person is a great writer named Elbee, who recently wrote this wonderful article celebrating the film's 20th anniversary over at the fine site Cinepunx. I've read this article, which spells out some of the film's science and some of its theory with great detail, a couple of times now. It makes me want to be a smarter person. It makes sense, which is something I gotta fight through like four edits to get to, and it even shows an understanding of the influences and themes at the heart of this deceptively tricky piece of pulp sci-fi horror. It's the kind of insight you readers deserve, yet it's not the type of insight you will get from me when we talk about Event Horizon. I have no tongue for it.

Event Horizon is the tale of a space ship named, you guessed it, the Event Horizon. It was sent to explore the edge of our solar system in 2040 - a place I thought had already been explored when the film was released in 1997, because science and I don't talk much - and disappeared. Then, in 2047, a rescue named "Lewis & Clark" (I understood that reference! It's not science!), is sent to rescue it when its distress signal appears. Accompanying the crew on their journey is the man who designed the Event Horizon, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill, who apparently was heading to space to avoid dinosaurs), and he's there to explain exactly how much science the movie wants us to think about. My buddy Elbee makes a great point in her article that bears repeating here - you would assume that a bunch of astronauts understood something about science. But what Event Horizon presupposes is - What if they didn't?

I'm fine with that presumption, because I struggle to understand it. I like to think I'm smart, but the more technical terms Neill and friends throw at the screen the more I get a blank stare on my face. You know when your friends are all talking about that TV show you don't watch - in my case, we'll say The Bachelor, and you're not trying to be rude and just leave the party so you just sit there and nod and do one of those "huh" or "ohhh" noises every 27 seconds? That's me when dude starts talking about the physics of space travel...if that even is what he's talking about.

(Off topic, but the 27 second interval is the key to this method of polite disinterest. If you make it 20 seconds, someone else who's not paying attention is gonna be counting and they're gonna notice that it's an even number and they're gonna call you out on it. If you wait for 30 seconds you're gonna seem out of it for too long, and people will know. Trust me - 27 is the perfect number. Try it out sometime. You'll thank me.)

The things we learn when the Lewis & Clark gets to the Event Horizon are:

• Everyone on board is dead.
• The ship is creepy as hell.
• The ship has been to another dimension.

I understand the first two items there pretty well and then all of a sudden WHOA ANOTHER DIMENSION? If this was Twitter I'd throw some cutesy gif about my mind being blown into this paragraph, but this is the real world and I have to use words for my feelings. Apparently, as I understand it, The ship named Event Horizon (inside the movie Event Horizon, naturally) was just chilling out by Neptune, looking around, having a good time, when POOF IT WAS GONE TO SOME PLACE ELSE. And not some place else like Kentucky, but some place else that's not even on the same plane of existence as Kentucky. And not a plane that you fly on either.

When I put it that way it's not too hard to understand, but the more Weir and the confused crew, led by the super fantastic Laurence Fishburne as their no nonsense captain, talk about black holes and how things work with physics...the more I start to doubt myself. And then I see little details in the film that make me question the science even more. At one point a character gets jettisoned out into space and I look at all the little white lights behind him and the only thing I can think is "There's no way there's that many stars grouped so close together out there! It looks like something I would have drawn when I was five and just had my first Mountain Dew and couldn't stop putting dots on the paper so it looked like I used all the space and actually drew something!" Clearly, at this point I'm letting Event Horizon get the best of me and my science-resistant brain.

But, here's the good part. We learn pretty near the middle of the film that this other dimension the Event Horizon (the ship) went to - might just be Hell. And that's good for me. It can't be proven or quantified. I like that in my horror, and I like that in my sci-fi. That's where Event Horizon (the movie) - which has just as many creepy and gory images as it does arguments about physics and other sciences I don't get - works so well for me. 

Sure, it's basically Alien without an Alien (and with a far too spastic electronic musical score), but it does a good job of being that while freaking its characters out in unique ways. I can dig a movie like that, even if I don't feel like I'm smart enough to really understand what it thinks it is smart enough to tell me.

At this point I've said about all I can say about Event Horizon without sounding too stupid. (Well, maybe I'm already there.) So when I thought about explaining what I'm looking for in a double feature to go with it, i thought it would be best if I focus on the things I understand about Event Horizon, and how I can build off of them.

• The characters in the film and the things they are up against belong in two separate dimensions. While I don't quite understand the physics of that, I'm a big fan of movies that pit our reality and the expectations we have about it up against another place that's...to put it simply, quite different. 
• Outside of the seemingly all-seeing Weir, the characters in Event Horizon are kinda normal people who, despite being trained for the predicament they're in, are always playing catch up against the unknown forces they face. They try really hard, and I like that about them. I kind of wish they were more open to the things around them though, but they do their best.
• When things get really icky for the characters in Event Horizon, they come across some creepy black goo. There's something about horror and sci-fi movies with creepy black goo that just makes me smile, so I'm looking for another creepy black goo movie. (I probably won't talk about this again, but I felt like mentioning it here because typing "creepy black goo"is so much fun.)
• When in doubt, the crew of the Lewis & Clark have one of my favorite theories for attacking the evil they can't understand: burn it down. You can science me all you want, but most of the time fire is a great answer. Let's look for people who take on another dimension that way too.

The film I'm about to recommend to you certainly doesn't live in the same world as Event Horizon. But it's a movie that embraces the things I understand about movies like Event Horizon, and it's a movie that challenges reality while not relying on that pesky ol' science that I don't want around. We're making concessions for my inadequacies as a learner with this double feature, I admit it. 

Please stay with me. Because we're gonna have some fun doing it.

John Dies At The End

2012, Directed by Don Coscarelli

Don Coscarelli is my kind of director. When he wants to go to another dimension, he throws the science right out the window. The man made two of my very favorite horror movies - Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep - both of which challenge reality in playful ways. Yet his most recent film, John Dies at the End, might be the wildest thing he's ever made. Inside it, alongside two fantastic leads (Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes) and two iconic character actors (Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown), is a character that understands the whole "other dimensions and evil" problem in a very similar manner to myself.

His name is Detective Lawrence Appleton (no one will ever convince me he's not named after Mark Linn-Baker's iconic character from Perfect Strangers), he's played by Glynn Turman (who starred in an underrated '70s gem, J.D.'s Revenge and deserves much love), and he easily gives my favorite performance in this insane, dimension-hopping, drug-induced vacation from reality. There's a moment in the middle of the film where he confronts the film's central character, David Wong (Williamson), about what's going on in this bizarre situation. His explanation of what he thinks is going on, quoted below, is pretty much the perfect representation of how a non-sciencer like myself thinks when faced with the kind of situations these two films offer up.

"You know, everybody's got a ghost story, a UFO or a Bigfoot story. Now what I think is that stuff is both real and not real at the same time. I ain't no Star Trek fan and I don't know about other dimensions and all that. But I am an old school Catholic and I do believe in Hell. I believe it ain't just rapists and murderers down there. I believe it's demons and worms and vile things; the grease trap of the universe. And the more I think of it, the more I think it's not some place 'down there' at all, that it's here, all around us. We just don't perceive it. Just like how the country music radio station is out there, in the air, even if you ain't tuned to it."

Take out the Catholic part - in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, "It ain't me, babe" - and Detective Appleton just described my understanding of other dimensions and the evils in the world to a T. Which is pretty amazing, since we've never met. I guess Detective Lawrence Appleton and I are (you guessed it) PERFECT STRANGERS.

Like Event Horizon, John Dies at the End is a movie I've seen at least a handful of times - it's a young flick, but it is incredibly rewatchable - and could not explain to you without using the phrase "AND THEN THINGS GET NUTS!" But while Event Horizon tries really hard to explain the science behind its madness, this one embraces a sort of lunatic philosopher role. As the film starts the narrator poses a conundrum, a rambling logic puzzle about undead beings and axe repair that has nothing to do with the rest of the film's plot, and this kind of logic (or lack there of?) never stops coming at the viewer as the characters face some of the most bizarre encounters you'll find in a horror film.

It would be unfair if I didn't list some of those bizarre struggles, so here's a quick run down of just a few of the things we encounter while following these characters:

• Meat monsters
• A flying insect moustache
• "Eyes Wide Shut World

If any of those things make sense to you based on any science class you ever took - God bless that teacher. If you have their number, send it on over to The Mike. I have so many questions.

Another major departure from the first film in our double feature are the two lead characters, Dave and John. Everyone on the Event Horizon - aside from the doctor, who obviously knew more about the titular ship than them - is hesitant when faced with the reality-altering visions they see throughout their film. On the other hand, Dave and John are carefree and open-minded. This horror comedy's best joke might be the presentation of how level headed these two ordinary guys are in the face of shapeshifting monsters and gateways to other worlds. There's very little fear shown by either character, and their calm approach to such a bizarre series of events keeps the viewer smiling throughout the film.

It might seem like a disservice to pair Event Horizon with a film that throws out any of the logic and science that it works very hard to incorporate, especially as I explain just how far the second film's tone deviates from the focus on terror that the first was built around. I'd argue that those departures are what makes this such a fun double feature, because Event Horizon is so effective in its use of science to create terror (even if I don't understand it) that following it up with another film with the same goals would maybe be a bit too heavy for even a horror loving viewer like me.

By the time you see the alternate dimension that John and Dave travel to late in their film, you'll understand that John Dies at the End is not interested in painting the same picture of Hell that Event Horizon did. And that's quite fine. Both of these films are nightmare scenarios that challenge reality and make things pretty gross and gory at times, but some nightmares are just weird and wacky and not as terrifying as some other nightmares. I think we've got room for both kinds of nightmares in horror cinema.

Both of these films will make you think, will make you squirm, and will surprise you. One will scare you more than the other, and one will make you laugh more than the other, even if it relies on a few too many dick jokes. If you want to see some science go wrong, but don't want to spend too much time trying to understand that science, try out this double feature and enjoy the ride through a few unique nightmare dimensions.

Volume 14 - Jackie Brown and the Inconvenient Criminal Romance

Welcome back to the Double Feature Picture Show, and a double feature that's probably the easiest one I've ever come up with. And yet - people don't really talk about these two movies together. In fact, I don't think people talk about both of these movies near enough, because they're two of my favorite movies of all-time.

So, here's two films from the late '90s, by two of the most acclaimed directors of the last 25 years. What's our common theme here, you ask? Aside from some obvious connections, I think it's that crime can be pretty romantic.

Yeah, that's a weird thing to say. But let's take a look at a couple of films and see what happens.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Jackie Brown

1997, Directed by Quentin Tarantino

There are people that think you're a snob when you say Jackie Brown is your favorite Quentin Tarantino film. It's the hipster answer to that question, they say. I don't like those people very much. I forgive them. It's not like there's a bad answer to that question. Dude is pretty talented.

That said, Jackie Brown is definitely my favorite Quentin Tarantino film. I could list a lot of reasons for that, the simplest of which is that the characters in the film are just so beautiful to me. There are a bunch of great characters played by great actors here, but the two characters at the center of the film - Pam Grier's Jackie Brown and Robert Forster's Max Cherry - are two people I truly love.

By rule, when your name is in the title you're probably the center of the film. That's true of Jackie Brown, a 44 year old stewardess for a small Mexican airline who lives in Los Angeles and moonlights as an employee for a gun-running crime lord, Ordell Robbie. Ordell is played by Samuel L. Jackson who, with all apologies to Pulp Fiction, might give his most vulgarly Samuel L. Jackson (that's the verb usage, as in "He Samuel L. Jacksoned the hell out of that profane rant") performance here. One of the major complaints about this film when it was released is how willingly Tarantino and Jackson were to fill the script with racial slurs - a criticism that would return with a vengeance when Django Unchained happened - but it's the profane portrayal of Ordell that really sets up the viewer to support Jackie. Her participation in his crime operation is never fully explained, however it's clear that she needs to take these actions to make ends meet.

Jackie is a criminal - she willingly runs money for Ordell - but she's never portrayed as a bad person. This is especially true in the eyes of Max, the bail bondsman Ordell hires to pick her up from jail after she is caught bringing in a package for him. Forster's Max is a person who seems to be in tune with everyone he meets, something of an empath who doesn't judge the people he meets while being careful about who he trusts based on his perceptions. It's clear from their first meeting that he knows Ordell is not to be trusted, and also it's clear when he sees Jackie that he's enamored with her.

Max has always appealed to me as a character because he's caught up in something he didn't really intend to join - the world of Ordell and his criminal enterprise is surely outside his professional comfort zone - yet he never really wavers in his emotions. He's a calm, introspective character, and he always keeps his emotions close to his chest. We can see by his approach that he's intrigued by Jackie, but there are no grand proclamations of love from the stoic man. When they meet in her house one morning - Max had to stop over because Jackie borrowed his gun without permission, naturally - a song she likes draws his attention. To me, that means he's in love.

The song Tarantino features here, Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) by The Delfonics, is a soulful ballad that sounds a lot more romantic than it is. It's the kind of song you'd expect a woman who grew up in the 1970s to play, not the kind of song you'd expect a bail bondsman to be into. He asks what it is, she tells him, and he heads straight out to a music store from the '90s to buy the cassette tape for his car. (Man, that scene is a glorious time capsule when you watch it today. If you lived through the '90s like I did, you knew that store.) I can't confirm this is the only song Max listened to for the rest of the time he knew Jackie, yet every time we see Max in his car he's listening to it. And that just makes my heart smile. I like to believe he listened to that song on repeat for weeks. 

I can tell you, as a stoic hopeless romantic myself, there's nothing better than a soulful ballad that sounds a lot more romantic than it is. Especially if it reminds you of someone you can't stop thinking about. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Forster's Max tells Jackie "I'm 56 years old. I can't blame anyone for anything I do." - yet we know deep inside that he's just enamored with the opportunity to be in Jackie's life at this moment. He made the choice to follow her into a tricky con game with Ordell and the choice to buy a cassette full of soothing melodies. He never really chose to be caught up in Jackie the way he is though, that just happened when he saw her.

The heart wants what the heart wants, even if it's the heart of a 56 year old bail bondsman. Robert Forster got an Academy Award nomination for this role, and even though Burt Reynolds and Robin Williams were great that year I'd vote for him to win that statue every day. Though it's Pam Grier's movie, and a great tribute to her reign over exploitation cinema of the 1970s, the reaction she gets from Max is what gives Jackie Brown the biggest heart of any Tarantino film. Viewers might come for the catchy crime plot and the snappy dialogue that the director made famous, but for me it's the meaningful platonic relationship between the heroine and her friend that really makes this film soar.

If you know anything about Jackie Brown's cast, the source material that it was adapted from, or the time period when it came out, you've probably got an idea where I'm going with this double feature. For those that don't let's take a look at the reasons for the double feature I'm about to offer up.

• Jackie Brown is adapted from a novel, Rum Punch, by one of the great crime writers of the late 20th century, Elmore Leonard. Leonard had already been a force in Hollywood for more than 25 years by the mid '90s, with plenty of his works being adapted and several screenwriting credits. He experienced something of a reappraisal in the mid '90s, and from 1995-1998 three of his more recent novels were adapted into successful Hollywood crime flicks.
• Tarantino made Jackie Brown with Grier in the lead because he wanted to make a movie for her, despite the fact the lead character in Rum Punch was a white woman named Jackie Burke. (The name change is a nod to Foxy Brown, one of Grier's most famous roles.) The next adaptation of Leonard's work also starred a minority woman in a role that the author had written as white. Two major Hollywood productions that cast women of color in white roles? That's something we don't see every day, and it's very double feature worthy.
• And, of course, I'm looking to expand on the theme I mentioned in the introduction - the romantic aspect of crime. Jackie Brown succeeds because Jackie, a criminal, is presented as a complex individual in a complex situation. Max, who seems like he should be a straight arrow kind of guy in his line of work, is portrayed as someone who sees the bigger picture and is willing to consider multiple sides of the story. These are the kind of characters that a lot of movies and books don't understand, yet Leonard and the two fine directors working on these films were willing to blur the lines between right and wrong when feelings get involved.

So, let's jump ahead almost six months to the day from the Christmas 1997 release of Jackie Brown to June 26, 1998, and the summer release of a very different, yet very romantic, Elmore Leonard adaptation.

Out of Sight

1998, Directed by Steven Soderbergh

You're not wrong if you think the relationship between Jackie Brown and Max Cherry is sexy; they're two of the most beautiful souls I've seen in film, and the movie leaves plenty of opportunities for the mentally adventurous to write some fan fiction about their love. The next major Leonard adaptation out of the gate in Hollywood, Out of Sight, is a far more direct attempt to get your knickers in a twist. And it's a pretty good - and pretty tasteful - one at that. More on that in a minute. We can't get right down to the sexiness without setting the mood, can we?

(No. We can't. I'm not like that, you guys. KEEP YOUR EYES UP HERE.)

(Thank you.)

If Robert Forster and Max Cherry are the men I want to be when I grow up (Spoiler alert: They are.) then George Clooney and Jack Foley are the men I wish I was when I was younger. Jack's a bank robber - and not a very good one, at that - which isn't a quality I wish I had. What he lacks in criminal prowess is made up for in pure coolness. Sure, he got busted robbing a bank because his car wouldn't start. But his plan to trick the teller into thinking a random dude was an associate with a gun was pretty clever. And he walks around like he's the man, and because of that...people kind of think he's the man. You gotta respect that confidence. My dad used to say "Walk like you know where you're going!" when I asked him why we were doing things like sneaking into Lambeau Field on a Friday afternoon, and I think Jack Foley's dad - or someone else in his life - might have taught him the same thing too.

Like Jackie Brown, Jack meets someone on the other side of the law when he gets out of prison. She's Karen Sisco, played by Jennifer Lopez, and she's a U.S. Marshal who's trying her hardest to be taken seriously in the predominantly male world of law enforcement. The problem she runs into when she meets Jack is that she's not supposed to be picking him up from prison - he just happens to escape into a parking lot that she's waiting in. She becomes a hostage of Jack and his partner Buddy, played by Ving Rhames (another role the author wrote as white that was changed during casting), and ends up riding in the trunk of her own car, playing little spoon to Jack while he's still filthy from his underground prison escape.

This is an uncomfortable predicament for her, but that cool confidence that Jack has been showing us made its way into the trunk too. Too calm to fight in a no-win situation, Karen begrudgingly accepts small talk with Jack, which turns into talk about movies that parallel their situations like Bonnie & Clyde and Three Days of the Condor. The latter film, in which fugitive Robert Redford strikes up a relationship with hostage Faye Dunaway, is a clear metaphor for their predicament and an inspiration for the film's approach to it. Even though Karen knows that Jack Foley is a criminal, there's something attractive about him. Because he looks like the guy who was voted Sexiest Man Alive in 1997, and also because he's cool in the face of such a unique situation.

He's a far different person than Jackie Brown, yet Jack Foley fits into same criminal profile in many ways. He's doing what he does because he can, because he's trying to get ahead. He's not violent, and when faced with a more savage criminal (like Ordell was to Jackie) he always seems to be on the side of peace and sanity, using his wit to keep himself afloat. He's less aggressive than Jackie, but they're both cunning and easy to root for.

Karen isn't necessarily rooting for Jack - after all, she's professionally obligated to get him back behind bars - though she is willing to give him a chance. The first time she sees him after their initial split, she pauses when the chance to bring him back in arises. Jack is shocked at her inaction, and sounds dumbfounded when he tells Buddy "She just sat there, looking right at me." To the outside viewer it's almost like Karen is in a trance when she sees him, but we've seen the thoughts she's had about him since they last met. She later describes wishing that they "could take a time out," and it becomes clear that she's taking things in stride the same way Jack is.

When they meet again, in a Detroit hotel bar with a snowy view of the seemingly peaceful city behind them, the result is one of the sexiest not-really-sex scenes ever put on film. Moments of Karen and Jack explaining their feelings are intercut with what happens when they make their way to her hotel room. The scenes in the hotel room are stunning, mostly because the film chooses not to show us what happens when they get to bed. 

We see them having drinks quietly, gently touching each other, and moving into the bedroom where they watch each other undress from opposite sides of the bed. David Holmes' musical score beautifully punctuates the whole sequence, leading up to the moment when they jump in bed with gleeful looks on their faces. The camera pauses on their embrace and kiss, and that's as far as we need to go. We've seen how much excitement they have to be in this moment, showing any more than that would actually make the whole thing less sexy.

Out of Sight and Jackie Brown both do a perfect job of showing us characters who come together despite the different paths they are on, and through all the films' similarities - I haven't even mentioned the fact that Michael Keaton plays the same character, ATF/FBI agent Ray Nicollete, in both films, placing them in a shared universe - that's the tie that really brings them together for me. Max, Jackie, Karen, and Jack all seem to be living in the moment despite the odds against them - and it's their willingness to accept their place in that moment and enjoy what they have that feels so pure and romantic to me.

We don't always get to choose how and when we meet someone in life, and circumstances that are outside our control may doom a romance from the start. It's worth taking a look at the characters in each of these films and the peace and happiness they find in their situations. None of them necessarily end up where they want to be, but they each come out of their situations with a hope that was missing from their life before and experience happiness they didn't expect to find during their brief moments together.

A nice thing about the world is that you don't have to be a criminal or the person responsible for their freedom (or lack thereof) to take the same approach to your life. Crime is an easy backdrop for these relationships in Leonard's stories, yet any of us could adapt the attitude of these characters to our relationships. The best scenes between these characters are fantastic reminders of how beautiful the moments we spend together can be, as long as we're willing to take chances and challenge ourselves to be open to the opportunities. 

Maybe it's not how we all should live our lives - fortune favors the bold....patience is a virtue....it's all so confusing! - but I like watching these characters do what they do for each other. So if you feel like watching foul-mouthed crime dramas that are led by some open minded romantics, this is the pair of films for you.

Volume 13 - Carrie and The Powerful Young Woman

We're running deeper into October with a very different double feature this week. In fact, when I came up with this double feature I decided it was "the best worst double feature" I could think of. It was pretty much a joke double feature; one that I thought would be a silly twist on some horror themes. But after I thought of this idea, life kept happening around me. As I read the news, and as I kept up with people in my personal and professional lives, I started to realize there might be a more important meaning to this double feature that I didn't catch when I first thought of it.

So, take this double feature as you will. Maybe you'll agree with my assessment of the themes of these films, maybe you'll just appreciate the different tones about people in the same kind of situation. Either way, I'm glad you're reading.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Carrie

1976, Directed by Brian De Palma

Does everyone in the room know how Carrie ends? I feel like everyone in the room knows how Carrie ends. It's one of the more iconic final acts in horror history, if you ask me. Well, JUST IN CASE YOU DON'T, THIS IS A WARNING THAT THERE WILL PROBABLY BE SOME SPOILERS IN THIS POST. Hence the all caps. I don't like to talk about spoilers, but I kinda think I have to this week.

If you haven't seen it - just go watch Carrie. Get the original. You'll be alright. I appreciate you reading this far.

"If only they knew she had the power."

Being a teenager is pretty rough, we all know that. But I also think it's rougher for young women. Some would say that's a generalization, but I think it's a fact. If you don't want to accept that, this post might not be for you.

If you know Carrie, you know it's the story of a seemingly ordinary young woman who has extraordinary powers. Carrie White is her name, and her power comes in the form of telekenesis, which allows her to move objects with her mind. Unfortunately for Carrie, the power seems to manifest the most when Carrie is upset. Like her first menstrual experience - which we see in the film's opening credit sequence, she's not prepared to deal with these powers when she recognizes them.

I emphasized the tagline from the film's poster above, because it gives us an important warning - no one knows that Carrie has this power. So she doesn't have a lot of support to deal with them when she realizes what she can do. The only person she seems to feel connected to is Tommy, a boy she's attracted to romantically (due to his gigantic curly hair and his poetic talent, obviously), and her feelings toward him are somewhat confusing to her. The reason for her confusion is obvious to the viewer - Tommy is partially being nice to Carrie because his girlfriend feels regret for bullying Carrie and wants Tommy to take her to the prom as a kind gesture - but Carrie only knows that one of the most popular boys in school is the only person who seems to be interested in being nice to her. Based on her past experiences, it's easy to see why she doesn't trust that.

If you're one of the people who knows how Carrie ends, you know what the biggest tragedy in the film is. But I'm of the mindset that this aspect of Carrie's existence - her inability to trust anything because she's so used to being treated poorly by the people around her - is a strong candidate to be the saddest thing about her story. It stems from the bullying she deals with, but more than that it comes from her overbearing mother, whose religious fanaticism blocks Carrie from her right to expect good, rational guidance from her mother. Her mother obviously cares about Carrie, but her care is based around what she wants Carrie to be, not who Carrie is. And that sets Carrie up to fail, despite her power.

Also involved in Carrie's misfortune are the educators responsible for preparing her for life, most notably Miss Collins, the physical education teacher at her school. Miss Collins is probably the most heroic character in the film; she does try hard to support Carrie. But she never really stops to ask what's going on with Carrie, she just tries to build Carrie up her own way and then focuses on punishing the bullies that are making Carrie's life difficult. That's not a bad thing - again, Miss Collins is certainly trying - but you have to wonder if things would have turned out differently if she had tried to understand Carrie more personally and find out what is actually going on in her life.

If you listen to discussions about the making of the film, you'll hear a few rumors about why Miss Collins, played by Betty Buckley, faced the fate she did in the film. Most of these are based on behind the scenes issues between cast and crew, so I might be reaching when I assign meaning to her fate in the film. It's a departure from Stephen King's novel, which gives some credence to the idea that director Brian De Palma had his own reasons for offing the character. Still, I think the choice to show her as one of the adults who breaks into laughter when Carrie is at her weakest - and most dangerous - point, does at least partially justify her fate to this viewer. Someone with trust issues with deep roots, like Carrie, only needs the smallest provocation to lose their faith in someone, no matter how helpful that person has been to them. This is another one of the film's great tragedies, regardless of the director's intent.

Carrie works as a horror film due to King's marvelous story and Brian De Palma's iconic style, and Carrie works as a character because young Sissy Spacek is able to make her so vulnerable and meek in the face of everything she has to deal with. The horror film aspect is more than enough to make this one of the all-time horror classics, but it's the character and her tortured journey through the film that really makes this a movie worth thinking about today.

Which takes me back to that ominous tagline: what if they knew she had the power? What if someone - anyone - was willing to help Carrie White along the way? What if her mother wasn't a nut job, or what if her teacher really talked to her and listened to her and helped her learn more about herself? What if her classmates who were upset by how their peers treated Carrie - and there are a few we see in the film - stood up for her and backed her up? Maybe Carrie could have controlled her power and used it differently. Maybe she'd have joined the X-Men (not sure if they're in this time line, but it's worth a shot) or maybe she at least would have been able to lead a relatively ordinary life, while maintaining the ability to get a beverage from the fridge while staying on the couch. (Let's be real, that's an ordinary life any of us could get behind.)

None of that happened, and that's what makes Carrie such a tragic story. Which, despite how great the film is, sucks. Carrie deserved better in the hands of the people in her life. She had power. We don't know whether she was chosen for this power, if she inherited it from someone, or any other explanation for how her life became what it was. But she never got the chance to harness it, because she didn't have support and she wasn't given the tools to be strong enough to deal with it. Again, that's a bummer.

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Now is the point where we diverge from the normal format of The Mike's Double Feature Picture Show. Because I don't want to have another movie that's a bummer. I want a young woman to succeed. I want her to have the confidence and support to use her power in a positive way.

So let's talk about a movie where that happens. It's a horror movie too - one with a comedic tone, but still a horror tale - and one that's been overshadowed (possibly rightfully, but I still defend it with all my might) by a remake. That remake - one of the most beloved horror shows in television history - probably builds a case for a sort of Anti-Carrie better than the film does. Alas, my heart still beats for this one.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

1992, Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui

If you know this movie, you can probably understand why I initially thought pairing it with Carrie was a bit of a joke. It's a flawed horror comedy in a lot of ways, especially if you ask its writer, Joss Whedon, who hated the final product (but still had the opportunity to turn his idea into the iconic series five years later).

If you weren't there when Buffy The Vampire Slayer hit the big screen - and especially if you were there when she hit the small screen - odds are you agree with Whedon and might not have much affection for the first adaptation of Buffy's story. I get that. But I was there, in the theater, back in 1992 - and I fell in love with Buffy that day. Sure, that's partially because Kristy Swanson was a gorgeous sight to 11 year old Mike. (In fairness, I fell in love with Sarah Michelle Gellar as a 16 year old too - I have a type, apparently, and that type is VAMPIRE KILLER.) But I also fell for her because the character was unlike a lot of the women I was used to from the few horror movies I had seen before that point in my life. She was strong, she kicked butt, and she was definitely a slayer.

We can't forget, however, that Buffy wasn't always a slayer. She wasn't as clueless as Carrie White was before she learned of her powers - yes, in this universe slaying is basically a super power - but she wasn't empowered. She was just a cheerleader, a shopper, and a young woman who was adapting to her world. Those are three things it's perfectly OK for any young woman to be, but Buffy was chosen for a greater calling. Unlike Carrie White, Buffy was able to harness her powers.

One of the many differences between Buffy and Carrie is that Buffy has a lot of support and is given a lot of knowledge about her gift. Like Carrie, she doesn't get that support from her mother, who seems to be completely uninterested in her life. She also doesn't get much support in school, the only scenes we see with her teachers there only makes us wonder why anyone would ever consider going to her school at all.

Things for Buffy get a boost when we learn that the gift of being the slayer comes with a built in support system, in the form of a mysterious "watcher" (it's less creepy than it sounds) named Merrick, played by Donald (Freakin') Sutherland. Buffy isn't ready to embrace her powers when she first meets Merrick, but he's patient with her while being persistent in trying to help her realize her skills. Sutherland's Merrick isn't the most inspirational character you'll find in a horror film, but he's kind and consistent and does the best he can to convince Buffy that her skills matter and can be used to help people.

Also supporting Buffy is her love interest, Oliver (Luke Perry). We know that Carrie also had the support of the young man in her life, it's just that Carrie didn't have enough confidence to trust that support, and when she did it was too late for her. Buffy has had her confidence built up through the successes in her teen years and her popularity, but she still has to open herself up to different experiences to harness her powers as a slayer and meeting and being understood by someone outside of her comfort zone is one of the keys that motivates her to face the (actual) demons she must stand up to.

(I do find it a little bit problematic that Buffy's main supports in the film are both male characters, and do feel like Whedon improved greatly upon this in the television series. The last thing I want this post to say is that women need male support and male protection only, because that's incredibly far from what I believe. We'll talk more about this later, but it felt like a good time to point this out.)

Buffy isn't a perfect person, and you could argue easily that Carrie White is a more virtuous character at the start of each of their journeys. The sad reality of these films, and of life, is that it really doesn't matter what someone's intentions are unless they are given the tools to use their own gifts in a positive manner. Buffy shines in her role as a slayer, fights off a bunch of intimidating vampires (I'd hate myself if I didn't at least shout out to Paul Reubens and Rutger Hauer for their turns in this film, which are as entertaining as you'd expect turns from Paul Reubens and Rutger Hauer to be), and finds love. At the end of it all, we get the sense that she's ready to take on whatever happens next.

I wish so badly that these things would have happened for Carrie.

I also wish that these things would happen for all the young women in the world, even if they aren't telekenetic masterminds or super-powered vampire killers. This double feature was originally intended to be a comical look at two films with similar set ups - young woman with surprising power, struggle to understand and harness said power, high school dance - that tackle the issues in radically different ways.

But inspiration comes in the strangest packages sometimes. The more I thought about this ridiculous double feature, the more I thought about the women in my life. I'm blessed to know a lot of strong women, and I'm blessed to know a lot of young women who need help finding their strength.  When I stopped to process my thoughts on these characters and these movies in relation to the women in my life, I couldn't stop myself from thinking of these women.

At the heart of both films, despite their supernatural themes, is a simple message: these young women need support. They are powerful. They are warriors. They are everything we need to keep society running, and they can preserve the good in the world someday. It is possible that they can do this on their own. But the odds are they're going to need someone to be there for them at some point.

From the moment we realize that, the challenge goes out to all of us. To the fathers and the mothers, to family members of all kinds. To Teachers, and to mentors. To friends, and to strangers. Will you be there for them? Will you support them? Will you accept them, no matter what their gift is, and be there to help them find their way?

If your answer to the above questions is yes, you're on the right path. It's probably not going to be easy, but you never know how much it might mean to them if you are there with your support and acceptance. It might help them avoid the fate of Carrie White and it might even help them fulfill their destiny, just like Buffy. It might save their life.

The poster for Carrie pondered what it would be like if "they knew she had the power."

I'm wondering why we can't just treat all women like they have the power.

I'm thinking the time to start treating them that way is now.