If this clip from Fanboys is accurate, then the Star Wars-Star Trek rivalry would be considered the Duke-Carolina of the movie world.
Rocky Horror = Notre Dame?
If that’s so … then …
Rocky Horror is probably Notre Dame, you know, the classic, sentimental favorite that no one really roots for any more.
Twilight is probably Southern Cal, you know, all glitzy and good-looking.
Harry Potter would be Ohio State. Huge. Just huge.
The Big Lebowski … well … that’d probably be a party school somewhere, with a low retention rate (but it would be fun, albeit confusing, while you were there). Or a community college. Either way, it’ll tie your college years together.
Wes Anderson films would be some Ivy League school, you know, a little elite.
Coen brothers films would have a little of that elitist feel, too; probably an NYU.
Here are some others:
N.C. State: Smokey and the Bandit (a little redneckey, but fun);
University of Florida: You’ve Got Mail (all gooey and romanticey);
Florida State: Dukes of Hazzard (gooey and romanticey, but Southern)
Hmmmm … what about your favorite movie or college? Who would be the Magnolia (all drama), The Pulp Fiction (it’s a little out of order, but that’s why you like it), or Fight Club (probably a traditionally all-boys school like The Citadel).
Come on, movie people, as the college football season approaches, let’s not let the co-eds have all the fun. Let’s get our rivalries going, too!
In Nick Hornby’s About a Boy, main character Will says, “The thing is, a person’s life is like a TV show …”
Or a movie.
And if your life is a movie, how do you know what type it is? How do you know who’s making it
Here’s five ways to tell if you’re in a Wes Anderson film.
You are or you see a lot of Bill Murray. He’s been in all of Anderson’s movies except one … where presumably James Caan took his place. So, Bill Murray is a good indicator your life is in the middle of a Wes Anderson plot. (Note: This also holds true if you are or you see a lot of Kumar Pallana.)
Your soundtrack has 70s rock-n-Roll or other obscure music. Soundtracks are the thumbprint of movies, and Anderson’s print is distinctive, colorful, out-of-the-ordinary, and a little pretentious … which pretty much reflects his movies. So, if you own Seu Jorge …
Your surroundings are bathed in bright, distinctive colors (unless you’re going to make a suicide attempt … then it’s cool colors). If soundtracks are one thumbprint, this is the other. Especially if you wear greens and yellows or a range of reds and oranges.
At the end of the day, things go in slow motion. This holds true unless you’re running after a train; then it’s slow motion, followed by regular motion. So, #4 should read “At the end of the day, or in the next-to-last part of the end of the day …”
You have a strange relationship with a parent or parental figure. Especially if the strange relationship involves #1.
If more than 3 1/2 of these things describe you, smile, crank up your music, and slow down … your life, though crazy, is pretty good fodder for the rest of us.
I’ve watched Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited three times now and I like it more and more each time. It’s so intensely complex and moves at such an odd pace that it has taken me a few times to catch some of its beautiful subtlety.
I guess I’m slow like that. Then again, there is an intense pleasure gained from wading through thick texts and finding the beauty. In the book Everything Bad is Good for You, author Steven Johnson calls the increased complexity of textual development a part of what he dubs “the sleeper curve”:
The most debased forms of mass diversion — video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms — turn out to be nutritional after all. For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption thatmass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common denominator standards, presumably because the “masses” want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies want to give the masses what they want. But in fact, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less (p. 9)
One of the first times I noticed this happening to me was listening to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. When that album came out, it was so heralded that you would have thought the band re-invented rock-and-roll itself. My only previous experience with Wilco was the song “I Must Be High” from the A.M. album. Needless to say, I was unprepared for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I just didn’t get it. I didn’t make it through the first time. Yet, through time, I eventually began to notice the patterns and gems that fill the album. It’s not my favorite record of the past two decades, but I can appreciate it on a new level. The appreciation comes from my patient interaction, allowing the music to speak on its level, instead of me dictating what I expect onto that.
But, at the same time, I remember thinking: Should music be this hard to like?
The same could be said for Darjeeling, though as a fan of Anderson, I have admittedly given the movie more grace than I did Wilco. Still, the question remains: how open should our mind be when it comes to entertainment? One could argue that too much of an open mind will dull the critical part of the brain, yet too closed of a mind will cut the critical brain too short to be truly effective.
I don’t know. All I know is that my 10 minutes are up. Enjoy the videos.
