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 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 6 - Marty and the Struggle to Believe in True Love

Last week we talked about having faith in aliens or God or the devil, so this week we're gonna talk about another topic some people don't believe in: true love. There are some people who found true love, and I'm so proud of them for it, but there are also a lot of people who are struggling with it. And I get it.  I understand how easy it's to give up on the existence of true love - If Chris Pratt and Anna Faris can't make it work forever then how the hell can anyone else? - and I understand more than most how difficult it is to keep the faith in love. But I don't care. Tonight, we're gonna try to believe in it.

The thing that nobody tells you about love when you're growing up is that if you don't end up finding it, you also don't end up learning how to do it. I guess you learn things from people like Cary Grant or John Cusack in the movies, but sometimes those people don't give the best advice for the real world. Especially if you're not as good looking as Cary Grant or as tenaciously romantic as John Cusack or if you just have any of the other problems that us humans are susceptible to. If you're like me, you might run into these problems, stumble through a few attempts, get dispirited, and then just build your own little world and miss the opportunities that are right in front of your face because you're too scared to do it again.

Building your own little world works for some people, so why would they continue to believe in true love when failure is so damaging? I'm not sure, but I think there are reasons to believe. Thankfully for those who don't want to hear much more about my failures - that last paragraph got a bit too personal, Michael - there are a couple of movies I was thinking about this week that help me remember that there's still a chance for people to find love, even if they never learned how. They just gotta believe.

This one goes out to the lonely lovers out there, wherever you are...

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!

Marty

1955, Directed by Delbert Mann

When it comes to down on their luck folks looking for love, it's possible that no one on film has ever ended up luckier than Marty. A brisk 90 minute romance starring Ernest Borgnine doesn't sound like the kind of film that would win best picture at the Academy Awards, especially in the middle of the 1950s. Yet, in a year where Nicholas Ray and Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk and Billy Wilder were making films, it won not only Best Picture but also Best Actor, Best Director (Delbert Mann, remaking his own TV play as his feature debut), and Best Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). 

Why on Earth would audiences and critics flock to this little movie? Because they believe in true love, and that's what Marty is selling.

Borgnine stars as Marty Piletti, a 34 year old self-described "kind of a stocky guy" working in a New York City butcher shop and living with his mother. He's the only one of his siblings that isn't married yet. We know this right away, because every character Marty meets at the butcher's counter wants to know when he's getting married.

Marty is not immune to this. Marty wants to get married too. But he also feels like he's been passed over forever, and he's had enough of it. When his mother starts asking about why he's not going out looking for a girl on a Saturday night, Marty lets out a fantastic tirade.

"Sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he gotta face some facts, and one fact I gotta face is that whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased enough girls in my life. I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough. I don't wanna get hurt no more. I just called a girl just now, and I got a real brush-off, boy. I figured I was past the point of being hurt, but that hurt. Some stupid woman who I didn't even wanna call up. She gave me the brush. I don't wanna go to the Stardust Ballroom because all that ever happened to me there was girls made me feel like I was a bug. I got feelings, you know. I had enough pain. No, thank you."

Marty then goes to the Stardust Ballroom. No one makes him go, he goes on his own accord. Why? Because he's a believer.

Waiting for him at that ballroom is a young woman named Clara. He doesn't know it, and neither does she. She shows up to the ballroom having been set up on a double date with the kind of guy who makes people like Marty and I think that most men should be shot out of a cannon into the ocean. This guy apparently only has one Saturday off every three weeks, and he expected his friend to set him up with something "better." In fact, he offers Marty five dollars to help him walk out on Clara. Marty, because he's amazing, is upset and rebukes this offer. The other guy, who doesn't deserve to even have a name, doesn't care and walks out on Clara anyway.

There's no specific explanation given for why Marty ends up consoling Clara and asking her to dance, and that's one of the more beautiful things about the film. We already know that Marty is guided by his heart, we don't need him to explain it. We knew the intentions of the other guy (who I hope is slowly roasting over a flame somewhere) and we know Marty's mindset, so we aren't surprised at all when he takes the chance to do what's right.

What follows is, in the simplest terms, adorable. Marty starts to smile as they dance. He asks her to go get something to eat. As they walk, he talks. He talks a lot. He talks way too much. He talks about his whole life. He realizes he's talking too much, shouting "I can't stop talking! Isn't this stupid!?" and before Clara can get a word in he adds "You got a real nice face, you know? It's a real nice face." Marty's gone. There's no going back for him. He's fallen for Clara hard.

For the rest of the night, it's a whole new world for both of them. Clara is clearly enamored with Marty, who suddenly seems so alive and vibrant. She smiles from ear to ear as he tells stories about his time in the war and consoles him as he tells of some of the worst times in his life. He lets her talk about her life and clearly is attracted to her, and it seems like things are going to be just right for both of them immediately. But things don't stay perfect all the time, as both share their doubts and fears. The most frightening moment is when the night almost ends because Marty asks for a kiss and Clara isn't quite ready yet. Marty lashes out angrily, and while he's not right to do so, it's easy to see why he does.

After years and years of looking for an answer, he's got one in front of him. The mistake Marty makes is looking for an immediate magic answer, because he's been told so many times and felt inside himself so many times that he can't miss any more opportunities. This is one of the cardinal mistakes that lonely people make, and Clara is totally justified in her response to him. I'm thankful that Chayefsky and Mann are better at handling what comes next as filmmakers than I am, because we got real close to this being one of those missed chances for them. 

Marty, the film, only rides the roller coaster of new love for a couple of days in the life of Marty and Clara, but it sure does a wonderful job of hitting all the ups and downs on that ride. For someone like me, who's only visited the outskirts of true love, that's a lot of fun to see. It leaves me with hope. Now I gotta find another hopeful film to go with it. Here's what I'm looking for

• Marty works partially because Borgnine doesn't look like a romantic Hollywood leading man. Borgnine was 38 years old and had a reputation for playing "heavies" during his short time in Hollywood before this film. We want another film with a lead who we wouldn't necessarily expect to be the star of a Hollywood romance.
• There are a lot of obstacles that Marty faces, and one that sticks out to me is how he's a guy working an average job in a big city. The big city aspect really helps sell the drama of his quest for love to a small town guy like me, because he's facing a lot of competition and the window of opportunity for finding love seems that much smaller.
• Because of these obstacles, Marty feels like his time is running out. We need another movie where our fool in love is facing that kind of pressure.
• Like the guy in the opening, Marty doesn't really know what he's doing. He doesn't have the experience, and the advice he's been getting isn't always the best. So when he does get the chance to make an expression, he stumbles over his words and almost pushes things too far in desperation. Maybe I'm just rooting for the home team - aka, ME - here, but I want another film where things get a little awkward and mistakes are overcome.

It took more than 50 years of cinema for me to find a movie that meshes so well with these things about Marty, and the result isn't perfect. Then again, neither is the path to true love.

Stranger Than Fiction

2006, Directed by Marc Forster

Marty Pilleti is a man who assumes his time to find true love is running out. Harold Crick, the character at the center of Stranger Than Fiction, played by 38 year old comedian Will Ferrell, is literally told that his time is running out. It's literal because the person who tells him this is an author (Emma Thompson) who's narrating inside his head. I'm not being one of those teenagers who doesn't know what the word literal means, I promise.

Like Marty, Harold is a creature of habit. An IRS agent who lives alone in Chicago, Harold is obsessed with numbers and time. That makes it incredibly jarring when he starts to hear the voice of a narrator in his head on what would otherwise be an ordinary Wednesday, and provides a lot of confusion for Harold. Then, one day while he's winding his watch, the narrator says something -

"Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous event, would result in his imminent death."

- that obviously isn't what anyone wants to hear from a narrator inside their head.

The narrator has been right so far, so Harold does a bunch of things that a lot of us would do at the thought of death. He lashes out. He visits a doctor. He starts to learn to play guitar. He obviously starts to struggle to keep up with his day to day life. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because he's also suddenly not afraid to live his life. He stops counting his steps and meticulously tying his tie the same way. He starts to consider what's really important.

Harold ends up at the office of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman, who has a lot of fun talking about golems and other literary beings) who tries to help him make sense out his narrator. Along the way Hoffman's character insists that Harold could do anything he wants with the life he has left, offering "You could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted" as an example. But Harold doesn't want that. He wants to live. 

He also wants to love.

Harold's chance comes in the form of a bakery owner he's auditing, a rebellious young woman named Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She obviously doesn't like him from the start, which sets up more of a traditional movie romance than Marty's. But that makes sense, because Harold is trapped in a fictional work and trying to figure out who his third person omniscient narrator is and what kind of story his story is. 

Harold isn't as outgoing as Marty when he starts to become interested in Ana. He shows a quick wit and a willingness to banter with her, but he's still defined by the rules and routines of his life. After a long day of work he has to be forced to sit down and eat a cookie she baked, and he thanks her for this before realizing he can't take a gift from someone he's auditing. Only after an argument does he make the connection that she was trying to do something nice for him, and that he blew it. He makes it more awkward by vocalizing these realizations to her, but he also shows how badly he's upset by his own mistake.

Harold doesn't know what he's doing, but he's motivated. As we learn more about the relationship between Harold and his narrator his romantic life loses the spotlight to his actual life, but without the things he learns from his interactions with Ana we wouldn't have such a fulfilling journey with him. Harold wants whatever life he has left to be a complete one, so when he starts playing guitar for Ana and singing (singing with his eyes closed, which is the true sign of a romantic in love) Wreckless Eric's 'Whole Wide World' - which should definitely be the theme song of this double feature - we know that he's become a true believer.

The imperfections present in Marty Piletti and Harold Crick, two men in search of love who aren't above fits of lust and ogling and stumbling over their words, are obvious. It's the size of their hearts and their willingness to fight for true love in spite of these mistakes that really makes this double feature work for me. Neither film ends with anything certain in these relationships, but both leave us believing there's a chance that these characters have found their way.

There are people out there like Marty and Harold, who feel like they've had enough pain or who hide their pain by paying more attention to the minute details of their life. I can say this definitively because I'm one of them. Believing true love is out there hurts sometimes, and a couple of borderline fantasy films about middle aged guys who stumble into love might not be enough to make some of those lonely folks forget how much it hurts to try and find love and how crippling failure can be the next time you feel something about someone. It takes a lot more work for a real person to find love than it does for these guys in the movies - that's just one of the sad truths of life, folks - but if the movies can at least provide a little hope that keeps your belief alive, that's something.

If you're out there and you're tired and hurt and ready to give up on love - check out a double feature like this one. Marty and Harold's stories work for me, but you can probably find your own inspiration among the movies you love. Luckily for you, there are plenty of romantic stories out there.

The only way you're ever going to find love is if you believe in it first. I hope the movies can help you keep that belief alive.