Michael Jackson

The first day of 7th grade was in the fall of 1984. Science class was in 4th period, and my two lab partners were Simon and Tracy. At that age, it still seemed appropriate to talk about music, and so when it came time for me to say who my favorites were, I said, “Michael Jackson.” It seemed like a safe choice at the time. My best friend, who was mormon, was a big fan. But my lab partners said, “oh, you like Michael Jackson? He kinda sucks, if you haven’t noticed.”

I was shocked. At this point in my life, I had an innocent love of all the great music from the early 80s: Cyndi Lauper, Hall and Oates, Men at Work, the Police, and so on. It never occured to me that you might not like these groups. Simon was into heavy metal, so obviously he couldn”t like Michael Jackson, and I don’t know what Tracy was into, but I guess Michael Jackson was out by this point. Maybe she was into Tears for Fears or something like that. But basically, the lesson was this: Michael Jackson was out. It was the first time I was forced to realize that tastes change, and stuff that was cool last year won’t necessarily be cool this year.

It’s weird because, at this point, it seems fairly obvious that this was the point when Michael Jackson did, in fact, lose it. When “Bad” came out a couple of years later, it became evident that “Thriller” had been his last good album. Simon and Tracy were right.

Christian Themes in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

This is a great movie that gets better every year, because it expresses real Christian values in a way that everyone can understand.

If you don’t remember the plot, here is the part I’m thinking of: at the end of the movie, Steve Martin is about to let John Candy go off and have a depressing Thanksgiving by himself. However, as he’s going back to meet his family, he realizes that if he doesn’t do something, he’ll be responsible for another man’s misery. And so he goes back and invites the John Candy character to meet his family.

This is hard for him to do, because he’s been calcified by the rat race into someone who seems nice, but who is really kind of self-centered. Throughout the movie, Steve Martin tries to think of himself as being different than John Candy. But at the end, he realizes that, if he had been brought up differently and lived under different circumstances, he would be a fat guy selling shower curtain rings. It’s this realization that causes his change of heart, and causes him to do something he wouldn’t normally do.

In a way, Steve Martin is sort of like Jesus Christ, because in the end, he gives up his identity to help a fellow human being. He doesn’t exactly nail himself to a cross, but he does sacrifice his image of himself. What leads him to do this? Altruism? Guilt? Religious belief? It’s hard to say.

A side note is that the Steve Martin character is not dissimilar to Ferris Bueller, a person that everyone likes, but who has a callous, unfeeling side. Come to think of it, the pairing of Steve Martin and John Candy is similar to that of Ferris and Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. While Steve Martin is the protagonist of the movie, the John Candy character is the moral center of the film, and this is a similar duality that we find with Ferris and Cameron in FBDO.

Trainspotting

To me, Trainspotting is about the codes of loyalty that go along with friendship and being part of a gang.

One thing I love about this movie is that the characters often seem to have no compassion. For example, Tommy is the most respectable member of the gang, but when he dies, his friends are strangely aloof. On the evening of the funeral, they are already talking about a plan to sell heroin in London. And then, at the end, Mark Renton takes all the money from the skag deal, betrays his friends, and never sees them again.

It’s really a kind of tragedy, because the characters in the movie had all been friends since they were kids, and they assumed that the intensity of a teenage relationship would carry through for the rest of their lives. When Renton steals the money, that’s him admitting that the codes of loyalty binding him to his friends is holding him back.

It’s him breaking away from his childhood friends and establishing himself as an adult.

Michael Mann

Why is Michael Mann such a great director? So many of the techniques he uses, like really obvious color filters, pretentious camera angles, pretentiously vague dialogue and so on, usually lead to movies that are boring and forgettable. But somehow Mann is able to put real feeling into his movies. Maybe he is like Ed Wood or John Waters in that he has such a strong personality that it cannot help but be expressed in his movies.

Also, many of the actors he uses aren’t that great. Colin Farrell wasn’t very good in “Miami Vice” and I didn’t think Tom Cruise was right for “Collateral.” The cheesiness of the acting seems to go along with the oversaturation of the style. Mann pours style onto his movies like you would pour endless amounts of syrup onto pancakes. But somehow, when he does it, it comes out really good.

I was also thinking that Mann should do a biopic of Robert Moses. That would really be fantastic.

Ferris Bueller

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was an iconic movie of the 80′s. Whereas the 70′s were focused on spirituality, the 80′s were overtly materialistic, and focused on “the real world.” In movie screenplays from this period, this translated into screenplays that got to the point quicker, with a minimum of fuss. The “Ferris Bueller” script is remarkable in that every line hits the mark. There’s not one bad line in the whole film. The script is hermetic.

I really like the museum scene, because it’s a welcome release from the non-stop comedy of the film. I remember watching that in the theater, and wondering whether I could really swallow such sensitivity in the middle of such a seemingly silly movie. But you totally can, and it’s proof that you actually care about the characters, despite their seeming superficiality.

Well, one cares the most about Cameron, and then one cares about the others by association.

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