Raising Kane

"Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far." ~Jean Cocteau

What is the greatest movie ever? If you answered The Big Lebowski, you would be wrong. If you answered Magnolia I would have sex with you, but you would still be wrong. If you answered Casablanca, you would get a B+, and i would accuse you of being a kiss-ass. And if you answered Twilight: New Moon, I might just have to dropkick you in the fucking throat before ripping out your little glitter-infatuated heart and eat it. 

No, according to film historians, academes, scholars, and other smug dillweeds whose opinions I shouldn't give two shits about, but actually do is Citizen Kane. Some might even call it the Citizen Kane of all movies.  

Wait, that's redundant. 

The story revolves around the death of a newspaper tycoon, Charles Foster Kane, played by Orson Welles. Upon his deathbed, his dying words were "rosebud," and the dirty rotten newspaper scoundrels go out and interview everyone who knew Kane to find some insight into who or what rosebud was. That's it--the plot of the Best Movie Ever. 

SPOILER ALERT

I could marvel at the technical perfections of CK. At the way the timeline jumps forward and backwards non-linearly, to make you constantly question what year you're really in. Imagine a Tarantino movie, except all the characters are rich, all the weapons are replaced with newspapers, and instead of talking about madonna songs (cuz, you know, she's still 40 years away), they talk about . . . NEWSPAPERS!

~"You gonna bark all day little doggy, or are you going to talk about our editorials on dog bites?"~

The cool part about this movie is the controversy behind its creation. See, Charles Foster Kane is really . . . drumroll please . . . William Randolph Hearst. Just the most important newspaper man to probably ever live in America. He invented yellow journalism, almost singlehandedly creating the fervor behind the Spanish-American War. Hearst went out of his way, spending millions to try to stop the production of this movie. He was able to smear Welles reputation, or exacerbate Welles own destructive habits, and able to have him almost blacklisted in Hollywood. Ironically though, Citizen Kane has survived the test of time, and Hearst's story has been deduced to a grumbling rich man-boy spending his whole life masturbating to the memory of his fucking sled.  And that my friends, is the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL FUCKING TIME!

~"Where's my sled, Mama?"~

Family System

"Death ends a life, not a relationship." ~Robert Benchley




Ordinary People (1980). Extraordinary movie about a family coping with the worst of tragedies, losing a child. Conrad (perfectly played and worthy of the Oscar, Timothy Hutton) is the little brother who, after witnessing the death of his brother, tried to commit suicide. His mother Beth (a cold Mary Tyler Moore) is rejecting all emotional connection while trying to save face in front of all the country club friends and neighbors. Calvin (Donald Sutherland) is a patriarch torn between the two people he has left.

At first I was a little iffy about this one. For starters, the movie begins AFTER the death of Buck, and we only learn about his demise through the flashbacks of Conrad. A good rule for movies is flashbacks don't work. In this one though, It helped us reveal the guilt and resentment he was fostering towards his much cooler older brother. 

Why, even mother Beth liked Buck better. Mary Tyler Moore, you are great at being an emotionally-stunted, cold-hearted, money-grubbing bitch.

~"Of course I loved your brother more. He was cool."~

And poor Conrad. Unable to connect with any of his old pre-suicidal swim team friends, he quits the team (only to get ostracized more), he confides in an old hospital friend (only to have her kill herself), have to describe the pains of suicide on a date (only to have her break out in awkward laughter), and find out he hates his mother from his new shrink. Well, that's one positive. 

Robert Redford made a strong directorial debut with this intricate, heartfelt mosaic about the fragility and strength of the family unit. Honestly, I never would have watched this movie had it not been on this list, and for that, I am truly grateful. 

The Downward Spiral

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live." ~Charles Bukowski




"People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden." So began Fight Club (1999), quite possibly the most quotable movie. Ever. Period. Our protagonist (Edward Norton), whose name is never given, is an insomnia-stricken automobile recall specialist who finds inner peace (and sleep) when he begins frequenting support groups. A good cry equates to a good sleep. All is swell and proper until Marla Singer (an exquisitely crazy Helena Bonham Carter) invades the support group circuit.

~Crazy never looked so good.~

Marla's lie reflected our narrator's lie and insomnia ensued. 

It was then we are introduced to Tyler Durden (pre-tabloid Brad Pitt). After our narrator's condo explodes, he goes to live with Tyler and the two of them start Fight Club. Oh the anarchy, the sweet anarchy. 

What started as an underground fighting club grew into an elite militaristic troupe of Space Monkeys causing chaos and mayhem all around, eventually leading to an intricate plan to blow up the credit card companies. When BitchTits Bob (Meat Loaf) is shot in the head trying to destroy a piece of public art, our narrator thinks it has gone far enough, and tries to stop Tyler. 

And this is where the movie gets really fucked up! Our narrator and Tyler Durden are . . . the same fucking person. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on 'roids.

~(and by 'roids I mean tea and crumpets)~

Fight Club is a satire of the consumerism of America. We are at conflict with our two halves everyday, our consumerist self (eating, working, spending) and our animal self (fucking, fighting, killing). Our homes are broken, our spirits are broken, our vision is broken. We are all misguided orphan bastards with spear in one hand and briefcase in the other. We don't know where are we and we don't know where we're going. This movie at least tries to find the hope in hopelessness, the faith in faithlessness, and the comfort in the fact that the bottom is only as far down as your imagination can go.

Again I Go Unnoticed

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~Confucius.

Look Closer. These words are not just the logline of American Beauty (1999), but also echo our own voyeuristic nature. It opens with a beyond-the-grave narration from our protagonist, Lester Burnham, (played exquisitely by Kevin Spacey, earning him his second Oscar in 3 years), foretelling his own death within the year. His lovely, yet highly anal-retentive real estate wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, Oscar-snubbed by gender-bending Hilary Swank) obviously wears the pants in the relationship, emasculating Lester on a daily basis. Daughter, Jane (Thora Birch) is dealing with body-image issues while saving up for breast augmentation.

New neighbors move into the empty house next door. homophobic Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper) his reclusive shell-of-a-wife (Allison Janney), and their drug-dealing videographer son Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), who has more than a modest crush on Burnham's Baby Jane.

Lester awakens from his comatose life when we encounters Jane's cheerleading friend, Angela (Mena Suvari), practically nutting in the bleachers. Oh, and just so we're on the same page here--Lester is 42, Angela is 16. Yep, our protagonist is a an ephebophile (yeah, I had to look it up too.)

 

So now Lester makes it his mission in life to bang Angela. Maybe not the noblest of goals, but a goal nonetheless. He blackmails his boss, grows a pair concerning his wife (who, might I add, becomes a gun-toting adulterer), and  starts a $2000/oz weed habit. 

Things get really bat-shit weird when Colonel Fitts throws Ricky out of his house after witnessing a drug deal with Lester and assumes his son is top-of-the-line cocksucker. Afterward, the Colonel visits Lester......for some man-on-man liplocking (WTF!......That explains SO much!)

Don't worry folks, when Lester is thrust into the itty-bitty titty committee, the father figure reawakens and the audience doesn't feel completely icky for rooting for the pervert. All seems to be well and fine in Lester's world until . . . 

~"I would like to thank the Academy."~

So the question still remains

Who killed Lester Burnham?

(My vote is the CIA, but I'm a conspiracy nut.)




The magic world of American Beauty is the brainchild of mastermind Alan Ball (who afterward went on to create the BEST SHOW EVER, Six Feet Under.) In this story, we are witnessing not only the sexual reawakening of a lonely, emasculated man, but also his rebirth into humanity. By the end of the movie, Lester has broken free from the chains that bind so many of us down. He finally knows who he is and what he really wants. It's true that none of these realizations are able to be brought into fruition, but tragedy is a part of life.

The message is a hopeful one--Embrace life tightly with both arms, because you never know who owns a gun.

 

I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)

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