always play with their minds

-

I was going to watch Howl one more time, give myself another opportunity to rant about the state of the world or to wax poetic, or some combination of their two. But, we mustn't dwell.

No, not today.

We can't.

Not on Rex Manning Day.

That is to say, today is the day that Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield) visited Empire Records back in 1995. And, since Empire Records is old enough to drink, I've got myself a drink, and since it's Rex Manning Day, well, I'm watching Empire Records. I also saw Deadpool a second time today and watched and livetweeted a sweet little creepy doll horror film called Robert because I just couldn't pass that up.

And then, Lucas (Rory Cochrane) just had to drive past Trump Plaza... twice, because he wants me, twenty one years in the future, to rant about politics. But, I'm going to resist. Because it is 1995 right now, there's a lot of good, and definitely evocative, mid-90s music going on, and mid-90s, I was not that into politics because... Well, I guess it was because I was busy working and seeing movies. Hell, in 1995, I worked at a movie theater. I believe Empire Records was at the other theater in Old Town, but I still saw it opening weekend.... I'm pretty sure.

That weekend was also opening weekend for SE7EN and Showgirls. If I remember rightly, it was like this that weekend:

UA Marketplace (aka where I worked)AMC One Colorado (aka the underground)
SE7ENShowgirls
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie NewmarClockers
Dangerous MindsThe Usual Suspects
HackersBabe
BraveheartMortal Kombat
Batman ForeverAngus
Apollo 13
Empire Records

I'd seen all of those... Well, I'm not sure I ever actually sat down to watch To Wong Foo from beginning to end, but I had seen all of it. Nitpicker's note: we might've still had Casper instead of Batman Forever; they'd both been around a while, and I can't claim that I remember how long either one was around. (Or maybe Braveheart was gone and we still had both Casper and Batman Forever.) I saw Batman Forever at a midnight screening the Thursday night before it opened back in June, and this was when Thursday night openings were not yet really a thing. (Also, this was back when record stores were still a thing.) I saw Casper... I don't know, sometime that summer. This was September.

September 1995. I spent my time seeing movies, working at the theater, or watching tv. I wasn't writing daily yet. That would come in 1996 when I was working a desk job. Novels, short stories, screenplays... Eventually scholarly papers and this blog because you can't just write the same stuff all the time. Not that I don't still imagine writing fiction for a living...

 

 

 

 

 

And, I just noticed that Johnny Whitworth seems to be going for a Christian Slater vibe here. I had to look him up to see what happened to him. I knew he was in Bye Bye Love, out a few months before Empire Records, he was on Gun, but apparently he did a lot of TV work and still is. Not that anyone from this movie is huge today. Renee Zellweger was pretty big for a while, I guess. Liv Tyler, Anthony LaPaglia, Debi Mazar, Ethan Embry, Robin Tunney--they've all worked pretty steadily.

 

 

 

 

 

This was the year of Clueless and Mallrats, mid-90s youth trying to figure themselves out, or to be figured out. And, for a period when young people were generally doing okay in movies, it's surprising coming back to this movie and seeing how many of these characters have obvious damage they're dealing with.

America, right? Damaged people dancing the day away as if nothing's wrong.

And, I wasn't going to get into politics today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

la fille que j'aimera sera comme bon vin

-
Image
Phil Connors doesn’t speak French. While it might be reasonable to assume Phil does learn to play piano beyond the two songs we hear him play since this is at the point he is actually trying to better himself and affect the world around him in a positive way, the French bit is much earlier. It also comes from a bit in Rubin’s original screenplay, not with Rita but with “Tess Harper—Jefferson County Poetry Society.” Basically, it’s a clear example of Phil doing the same thing he does with Nancy in the movie; he makes stuff up to get what he wants. This is only Day 10 . He hasn’t gotten to the depression that arguably makes him realize he’s an actual human being like everyone else around him… I just realized, this also means he’s probably lying when he says, “Small town people are more real, more down-to-earth.” Later, he might actually believe it. But, at this point, each line is just a move to win over Rita. Anyway, in the original screenplay, Phil meets Tess like he meets Mary in
Read more

i've seen it over a hundred times

-
Image
As I write this, it’s Day 2 for Phil Connors on the DVD and my daughters are in the kitchen making a cake to celebrate Day 100 for me... photo should be below. The movie Phil had seen over 100 times (or so he tells Laraine) was Heidi II . It’s a “family classic” according to the Alpine Theater’s marquee. But, as I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t exist. Originally, the movie that Phil could see every day if he wanted to do so was It’s a Wonderful Life . Danny Rubin’s ego—and this is his suggestion, not mine—made him believe Groundhog Day “a timeless quality and had the potential to become a film that could work for audiences for a very long time.” So, he put another such film on the marquee. But, “even believing that Groundhog Day was a potential classic, [Rubin] never was thinking of comparing it to It’s a Wonderful Life “— (I’d say putting that title on the marquee was Rubin deliberately comparing the two, but maybe that’s just me.) . Rubin continues: “But the similarities bet
Read more

the wretch, concentred all in self

-
So, Rita thinks Phil’s defining characteristic is his egocentrism. At the point in the story that she quotes Sir Walter Scott, it’s Day 4 for Phil (See the previous entry for a list of Phil’s days) and I wouldn’t argue that he isn’t egocentric. He’s still a jerk, taking advantage of his situation for fun. He’s manipulated Nancy for sex, has gone out on his costumed date to see Heidi II with the woman in the French maid costume. He’s just figured out the whole lack-of-consequences side of things with the help of Ralph and Gus. And, he’s sitting around loading up on, well, probably every dessert the Tip Top Café offers. His focus at this point is very much himself. But, a closer look at the lines Rita quotes got me to thinking, is Phil the man unsung by minstrels because he’s too self-centered? What Rita quotes is some lines from Canto VI of Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The larger poem involves some clans at war with one another, but this particular section invol
Read more