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Citizen Kane is quite an anomaly when you think about it. Or at least its reputation is. Can anyone agree on the best novel ever written? If asked, someone might throw out Joyce’s Ulysses, but another might immediately counter with Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Even if you limited the question to novels written in the English language, you’d be faced with devotees of Dickens, Eliot, and Melville, as well as those of Nabokov and Twain, but to name a few. Hamlet is the classic example of great play, but not the universal answer for "greatest play." Putting aside those who would campaign against Shakespeare, you could still find Bard enthusiasts who would argue that the man’s (yes, one man) greatest work is King Lear or The Tempest. Subjects as seemingly limited as “the epic poem” find a clash between the mouth of Homer and the pen of Milton.

Yet, Citizen Kane is “the greatest movie ever made.” It tops every big critical list and anyone who makes a case against it is not simply making an argument for the greatest movie ever made, but distinctly marking themselves out as challenging an accepted truth.



And oddly, so many people who have seen Citizen Kane do not like it or even understand what makes it great. Furthermore, the strangest part of that situation is that, unlike a person’s reaction to disliking almost any other great movie, in this case, they actually accept the blame. I have heard countless people challenge everything from The Godfather to Vertigo to Sunrise to 8 ½ to Star Wars. I myself will piss on most Kurosawa films like they were freshly laid snow and I had an uncontrollable desire to see my name. But the standard reaction for Citizen Kane is, “I probably don’t know enough about film to fully appreciate it.” The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the film, but in ourselves.

So the film sits upon its throne, loved by a few critics and film buffs, unappreciated yet revered by many and unwatched by even more. It is a treasure the masses can never comprehend.



As one of those masses, I was not content. I could not figure out what was worse: being denied a marvelous piece of art or being denied the ability to bash a treasure with all the iconoclastic fury I could muster. But reading a book on Citizen Kane would not be enough. I wanted to see, not simply hear, what a marvel it is.

Thus, the great mission was born. The original plan was this: create a list of essential movies to watch made which were made before Citizen Kane and, for a month or two, only watch those movies. Anything that could possibly use post-Kane techniques was to be avoided like electricity on the sabbath. Naturally, this task was not one I could or should tackle single-handedly. I needed a partner, someone with whom I could share thoughts, reflect, and, most importantly, turn to for impetus after a particularly boring film. I immediately turned to Nick, my oldest friend and another budding film geek. I say “film geek” since neither Nick nor I consider ourselves “film buffs.” There are two types of “film buffs.” The first group is those who think that seeing a few foreign films and renting movies made before 1980 on a decently regular basis makes one a film buff. The second are the real film buffs: those who really just know their shit. Nick and I lie somewhere in between the two; we know just enough about film to know we are not buffs.

Upon reflection, perhaps this mission would have made a great Julie and Julia-esque blog. Too bad Julie and Julia came out after we were two months into it. And I console myself with the fact that, knowing me, only the blog or the mission itself could be of true importance. Were I to keep the blog, the mission would be a reason for the blog and, thus, lose its true purpose and my true understanding. I would be watching movies, taking notes on them for quips to make and so forth, instead of allowing them to envelope me. Though, I admit, I would love Amy Adams to play me in a movie. Meryl Streep could play Roger Ebert or Žižek. Is anyone in Hollywood reading this? You're sitting on a gold mine!

But I digress.

We quickly ruled out the isolation approach. After all, Nick was off for the summer and needed to do something to fill his long days; not watching post-1941 films would be an issue. Also, we both needed to catch up on Mad Men. Of course, with this rule eliminated, the list was able to grow, unconstrained by the necessity of a month or two lifespan. What was once 50 films burgeoned to 120 or so. Soon, we were not only getting the best of the best, but a fuller sense of films at the time. We knew not only the high points of aesthetic value, but the cultural points such as the gangster film or talkie-powered musical.

And, in these “extra” films was where the true value of this mission lay. Sure, it was great in finally getting us to watch such classics as It Happened One Night, Rules of the Game, Battleship Potemkin, and Gone With the Wind. We certainly had a better appreciation for them by watching them in the context of their time (very few people nowadays probably have our absolute thrill at Sunrise’s camera movement). But, ultimately, as fledgling film geeks, we probably would have encountered these greats at some point or another in life. However, there are other films that, while we knew enough about them to put them on the list and therefore might have seen them eventually, might not as certainly made their way to our DVD players in life. They could have languished in our Netflix queue for years, always hanging around spot 73 as newer or more important films took precedent. Man with the Movie Camera, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, My Man Godfrey, Scarlett Empress, Le Jour Se Leve, Strike!: I’m looking at you. Hell, even films like Greed (i.e. those that are deemed among the top, but just seem too long or boring to wallow through) make me more indebted to this list.

Naturally, we also learned a lot about film. Such as the fact that camera movement is really exciting. And that, if a silent film is boring, the benefit is that you can talk through it. And “What’s the idea?” is akin to “What the hell?” whereas “What’s the big idea?” is more like “What the fuck?” And most silent Russian films are exactly the same, many of them being excruciatingly dull. And, over fifteen years later, Pinocchio is still as horrible as when I first saw it. And, while most famous for Intolerance and Birth of a Nation, Griffith’s true achievement is Broken Blossoms. Oh yeah.

We also learned a lot about camera and things like that, but you really don't want to hear that.

As time passed and the months went on (this whole trek started on June 8 of last year), a slight worry began to emerge: what if Citizen Kane was a letdown? While we consoled ourselves with the aphorism of a journey exceeding a destination (and, with over 100 films and 10 months of movie watching, there was no way it could not), we still wanted a big finish. After all, what is a great movie without a great ending, be it a line or a shot? Casablanca, Psycho, and every Wilder film seem to know this to be the case.



This past Friday was judgment day. Film Forum was screening Citizen Kane as part of their Newspaper Picture festival and we knew that nothing could rival a 35mm print on a big screen with an audience.

I can gush about Kane for pages now. But what’s the point? I’m now on the other side and either you’re on my side of the line and already know what I mean or you would just take my word for it. All I will say is this: mission accomplished. Sure, I could have read essays about Citizen Kane beforehand or listened to a film professor, but ultimately, I experienced it. From the opening shots, I saw Welles tearing up the rules of cinema and joyously creating a whole new vocabulary (or at least turning Middle English into early modern English). The whole movie was thrilling; I had goosebumps and a grin with every shot, every technique that seemed new because it surpassed and undid every expectation I had.

So this marks the end of a mission and an abnormal entry. I’m not pessimistic, not even all that thoughtful, but I thought I should share it all with you (and not just to end my two week hiatus). What’s the moral of this tale? Create assignments for yourself. Give yourself homework. And do it with a class or at least a buddy…because that’s the only way you’ll get it done.



Er, no, that’s not the best moral. Um, realize that to watch movies in the context of your time, you should create really long lists and –

No.

There is no moral. I don’t know if anyone would or could replicate this experience. For starters, you need a Nick to your Devin or Devin to your Nick, someone willing to sit through all those movies with you and set time aside for double features and marathons. Someone who can get high just off of a transcendent film experience and who is willing to laugh at Eisenstein’s October. Someone to whom you can comment on how crisp* a movie is or isn’t and note that the inevitable “everyone running” scene has come at the end of a silent movie.

One film we watched was Murnau’s Tabu. We hated it (except for an awesome dance scene). Watching it was the most fun I had that week and one of my favorite memories from last fall. Why? Because it was silent, and I already said what you can do during boring silent movies. Even my mom, who was in the other room, remarked that she was jealous of how much we were enjoying that dull film. A companion like that is hard to come by. I could continue rambling about how this story is less a story about a film or even one about a list of movies, but about a friendship, but this blog is called “Pop Culture Gone Bad,” not “Mass Bromantic.”

But if you want to try, let me know and I’ll post the list. But yeah, aside from that, just another day in the life of a movie geek.

*Have you ever watched an old movie (particularly a really old silent one) and found it almost impossible to believe that at one point, the action on screen was real life people in front of a camera, who looked and sounded just like real-life people? Our blanket term for the level of believability was crispness. A modern movie, such as The Hurt Locker, would be about a 10 on the crispness scale. It loses a point or so with 40s or 50s Technicolor or really, well, crisp black and white. Typical black and white loses another point or so. But, most cases, you can still imagine. As you watch though films from the early 30s or earlier, they tend to get more and more uncrisp (particularly when a silent film is tinted) and you find yourself less and less able to believe that 80 or 90 years ago, all these people looked quite crisp. There is a sound counterpart to “crisp;” we call it “crackly.” Though, whereas crisp increases with modernity, crackly decreases.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! While I could do an entry on favorite Irish characters or green stuff or best movies with carbombs, I have chosen instead to do something far classier and more appropriate to honor such a special day for my fellow Irish-Americans. Without further adieu, I give you the ten fictional places at which I would most want to get drunk!

The rules:
1. The place has to be fictional (not a real place that appears in a fictional context).
2. There has to be some precedent of alcohol readily available at it – enough so to get one drunk (so while getting schwasted in Wonderland would be pretty awesome, that’s not an option…and I don’t think Vizzini had enough wine on that mountain top to get all parties past the point of tipsy).
3. These are not in any real order. Not a top ten, just ten.

Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency (from the television series Mad Men)

One hand clasping an old fashioned, with the other one busy slapping a secretary in the rear. A lovely blend of alcohol abuse and sexual harassment, straight from the sixties (it was a simpler time). I feel cooler just from watching Mad Men; I can’t even imagine what a boost (no matter how unjustified) to my ego it would be to knock a few back with Don, Roger, and company. I’d probably be under the table while most of them were still capable enough to make multi-million dollar deals, but as long as no one takes out any piece of John Deere machinery, I think I’d be okay with that.


Rick’s Café American (from the 1942 film Casablanca)

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, this one looks like one of the best. It has awesome live music, from “Knock on Wood” which always seems to be a crowd pleaser to the duet of the “La Marseillaise” and “Die Wacht am Rhein” to special forbidden songs. There is a delightful cast of characters (even most of the Nazis are a hoot!) with whom to converse. And if you provide enough of a sob story, you can get the owner to turn the roulette wheel in your favor. The only thing that would worry me is that I might stumble into some stray bullets if I have a bit too much “Vichy water.”


Mos Eisley Cantina (from the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope)

Grab a Blue Russian (or whatever you make out of the late Beru’s blue milk), brush aside that severed arm, and enter Nerd Heaven. And don’t worry – in this cantina, Han always shoots first.


Moe’s Pet Shop (from the episode “Homer vs. the 18th Amendment” of The Simpsons)

Moe’s Tavern usually seems quite dreary, dirty, and unappealing. It only serves deviled eggs and one draft of American beer that I suspect is not the epitome of gustatory arousal. However, Moe’s Pet Shop is the best damn pet shop in town! Everything is more fun when it’s illegal and, in a perfect world, every bar would be a speakeasy! This establishments provides not only the draw of secretive spirits, but puppies, turtles, and all sorts of mechanical contraptions as well!


Hogwarts (from the, er, movie (?)Wizard People, Dear Reader)

If you haven’t listened to/watched Brad Neely’s brilliant Wizard People, Dear Reader, go out and do that now. Then get back to me. Because his Hogwarts kicks the Cruciatus Curse out of Rowlings’s. Wine-out-nowhere spells, cognac by the fire as you speculate on Valmart’s next move, and swigs of peach schnapps amidst a tense game of Wizard Chess: this place sounds like a lot more fun than that half-decaying castle with a goblet of fire and a few broomsticks. My one caveat: if you’re starting to get beer-glasses, stay away from that wretched Harmony or the hideous Snake. You’d regret it in the morning.


Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory (from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

Candy may be dandy, but liquor is quicker. Aficionados of 70s cinema (or Gene Wilder films) will remember that part of the film with butterscotch and buttergin, which makes this a-okay with Rule #2. I’m just curious to see what this sucrose savant has dreamed up in his marriage of the two best vices known to man: candy and hard liquor. Gin that will make you fly? Vodka that will take you through time to meet Catherine the Great? Bourbon that tastes like a whole weekend in New Orleans? Oh, the possibilities are limitless!


The Walker Dinner Table (from the television series Brothers & Sisters)

Not only would I get to have superb wine in abundance, but I’d be treated to a show like no other. Every Walker dinner party inevitably ends in disaster and I’d love nothing more than to be able to sit in the epicenter of the chaos as it unravels! Who’s been sleeping with whom? Who is whose father? Who isn’t a Walker anymore? Can I grab Justin in middle of the commotion and ferry him off to the pantry? What better way to spent a Sunday night than guzzling down Walker Landing’s pinot as family secrets inevitably come out and this week’s rivalries boil over to a histrionic catastrophe! And don’t forget Sally inevitably breaking down in tears and cursing her late husband! Dinner, drinks, and entertainment! Sign me up.


Jay Gatsby’s Mansion (from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby)

This locale is like Moe’s Pet Shop, but with a splash of Ke$ha (“Oooh-oooooh-oh-oh-oh, it’s a party at a rich dude’s house!”). It provides all the fun of drinking illegally but with the extra benefits of hobnobbing with the elites of the fictional 1920s, not having to pay a cent for any of the hooch, and exploring the grounds of an opulent mansion that only a generation both jaded by war and unheeding of economic depression can create! And if you like a twist of symbolism in your martini, there’s always that green flashing light across the water.

Lucille Bluth’s Apartment in Balboa Towers or Señor Tadpoles (from the television series Arrested Development)

I could not decide between these two Bluth-haunts. Señor Tadpoles does seem tempting, especially as there would be quite a lot of people there right now for Spring Break (WOO!) and I could probably get a glimpse of some girls with low self-esteem (and maybe get into a drinking contest or two). However, Lucille’s apartment provides me with a unique opportunity: getting absolutely smashed with Lucille as we trade barbs. She’d probably win in the battle of words and drink me from there to Wee Britain without winking an eye, but the experience would be worth it.

Noonan’s Bar (from the comic book series Hitman)

This place seems like the quintessential Irish pub in a bad part of town (practically the realized platonic form of that concept), which is already a decent enough reason to want to go. Now just make that town Gotham City and add in a demon bartender named Baytor and some awesome assassin patrons (and maybe a visit by Batman or Green Lantern now and then) and I think I may’ve found my dream place to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

What places did I forget? Where in fantasy land would you love to destroy some brain cells? Where's a prose-portal when you need one?

The past month, I had a few dreams that have been parodies/homages of The Wizard of Oz. Naturally, I mean the movie, not the book, as the dreams tend to be Technicolor spectacles and involve me skipping down the Yellow Brick Road (since, ever since Judy Garland did so in 1939, there really has not been an alternate, acceptable method of travel along such an itinerary). Upon reflection, I realized that the best part of these dreams were that, in a way, they were just as valid as the “original.” After all, Garland’s Dorothy only dreams she goes to Oz and, upon waking up, I too can say to my friends, “I had the most wonderful dream. And you were there. And you were there,” etc. The whole idea of dreaming that one is in the dream part of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz is actually quite post-modern if one thinks about it.

I then had the good fortune of seeing The Wizard of Oz again, on a big screen, at The Film Forum in New York City. I went there with my friend anticipating to marvel at the Technicolor and some of the aesthetic choices, and maybe the acting, but that would be it. I would appreciate Oz as many do: a brilliantly done fable that has withstood the tests of time. I would see the movie as a masterpiece so elegantly simple, a tale with such a universal appeal, and the quintessence of imagination on celluloid. Hell, even the furthest Roger Ebert goes with glorifying the cranial aspects of the film is to say:

``The Wizard of Oz'' has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them. As adults, we love it because it reminds us of a journey we have taken. That is why any adult in control of a child is sooner or later going to suggest a viewing of ``The Wizard of Oz.''

Upon revisiting the film, I was shocked to discover a movie with a tremendous amount of bite. In the act of creating an Oz perhaps more archetypal than that of L. Frank Baum’s novel, it still manages to parody and question the subject material. The Wizard of Oz is simultaneously the classic Oz and the classic Oz parody.



Before I go further, let me just add a few words to those of you raising Joan Crawford eyebrows right now. By the time the movie came out, the novel was already 39 years old and widely regarded as a “classic.” Of course, “classic” delivers both reverence and a propensity to be mocked. Furthermore, the film was at one point under the direction of George Cukor and eventually delivered to Victor Fleming to create. Both of these men were not simple-minded, idealistic artists who only wished to entertain children. Fleming had quite a few pre-Code sex comedies under his belt and Cukor, after leaving both Oz and Gone with the Wind, would find himself directing the bitchy catfight known as The Women. While none of these facts automatically prove my prior paragraph, they should at least quell any knee-jerk reactions that I am simply trying to fit the square peg of post-modernism into the round hole of 1939.

Now for the film…

As I have already said, the movie already feels like a parody of The Wizard of Oz, or at least an homage. Consider any parody/homage you have seen of the film. Most of them involve taking already existing characters and placing them in roles from the classic. One example which immediately comes to mind is Futurama’s. As we watch Leela go along Martin Luther King Blvd (the renamed Yellow Brick Road) she encounters Fry as the Scarecrow, Bender as Tin Man, Dr. Zoidberg as the Cowardly Lobster, Professor Farnsworth as the Wizard, and Mom as the Wicked Witch. We would never simply say she encounters the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lobster, the Wizard, and Wicked Witch. Furthermore, all of the choices are meant to fit the characters to the pre-made roles from the work and each side (for example the Cowardly Lion and Dr. Zoidberg) has a role to play in the ultimate product on screen.

Oddly enough, we never seem to take note that the exact same concept is at play in the MGM classic film. We do not simply meet the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, The Wizard, and the Wicked Witch. Just as we think “Oh, look! It’s Fry as the Scarecrow,” we also should think “Oh look! It’s Hunk as the Scarecrow!” Both are fitting matches, as Fry is quite brainless and Hunk had earlier been talking about a head of straw. Just as Mom’s inclination to evil deeds makes her an ideal choice for Leela’s Wicked Witch of the West, so does Miss Gulch’s cruelty make her an ideal choice for Dorothy’s Wicked Witch of the West. Mom’s choice of words colors her portrayal of the Witch; Miss Gulch’s hatred of Toto makes her green-skinned counterpart threaten “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too!” (a line absent from the source material).

I could list the differences between the film and the novel for quite some time. But let me just sum up this argument by talking about how each of the actors uses his or her position to play to his or her own acting and comedic strengths. We are watching a classic vaudeville routine as much as we are watching a recreation of Baum’s classic.

I could argue that Dorothy’s Kansas is more akin to our own than to that of L. Frank Baum’s and that, in fact, Dorothy herself has read The Wondeful Wizard of Oz. Encountered with a similar situation and a need to sort out problems, she is taken by her mind into a world very similar to a book from her childhood. The characters of the novel are replaced with familiar faces and situations are modified to become more pertinent to her own crisis. After all, in the original work, Dorothy truly travels to Oz and we know little about Kansas beforehand. The mirroring of her Kansas life to her Oz life is a device unique to the film. Just as I have had dreams about The Wizard of Oz that have reflected my own life (and have found myself not referencing the source material in my dream), so could Garland’s Dorothy have encountered such an experience.

But I digress. The whole dream sequence (i.e. the meat of the film) is conscious of its own theatricality. Every character is an actor playing a role. The movie rubs its Technicolor in the viewers face more than almost any other film had or ever will. But with this self-awareness also comes a self-awareness of the sinister nature of a children’s story, particularly the very one on which it is imbuing cinematic immortality.



This film is not a faithful recreation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s tale. Everything has an edge, a bite, and wink and a nudge to the audience. The whole celebration is Munchkinland is, indeed, quite manic, gaudy, and indicative of an acid trip. Most parodies will include some jab at Munchkinland. But look at Dorothy’s face during the event: she knows she is not in Kansas anymore and the film knows we are not in Kansas anymore. The entire transition to Oz must be anything but gradual. From sepia to Technicolor, from a world where the most action comes from falling into a pit with some pigs (twister excepted, as it is the doorway between Kansas and Oz) into a frantic celebration of nonsense and high-pitched singing. Whereas Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and earlier children’s movies seem comfortable in their spectacle, The Wizard of Oz both excels in such category and is at odds with its own nature.

Furthermore, there is Glinda. Most people seem willing to write Glinda off as an empty-headed character of insipid pink goodness. But actually, Glinda is quite sinister. Parodies have noted the danger she placed Dorothy in by not telling her how to get home immediately (again, a difference between Baum’s novel and the film, as there are two different good witches and Dorothy only meets Glinda at the end). Yet her dark nature only begins here. Watch again the first encounter between Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda pushes Dorothy towards the billow of smoke before pulling her away to “protect” her. Furthermore, throughout the whole exchange, she taunts the Wicked Witch of the West and practically paints a target on Dorothy. Even putting the ruby slippers on Dorothy by magic is a machination of the film. In this “parody” of Oz, the good witch is just as foul-minded and sadistic as the wicked one. At least the Wicked Witch is courteous enough to be ugly and to grimace.

I could again rattle off examples, such as the effeminate, queer natures of the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion or the changed nature of the Wizard’s gifts. All I will say about the latter subject is that whereas the novel emphasizes the fulfillment of the characters and how they had those traits all along, the movie appears more skeptical. After all, the Scarecrow doesn’t even give a correct mathematical equation. Instead, the focus on that scene is the movie seems to be the deception and ineptness of the Wizard and gullibility of the others. Their gifts are as much of a placebo to keep them happy as a kid’s movie is a placebo to make children feel at ease with a world on the brink of war (or a dream to make Dorothy believe there is no place like home).

And that sentence does bring us to the end. The end may be the most unsettling part of the film. Yes, there is no place like home, but there’s also no place like Alcatraz. We are ferried away from a tear-jerking scene where Dorothy says goodbye to the first characters we have seen display true affection and respect to her to the boring, sepia world of Kansas, full of claustrophobic shots and people who do not believe a single word coming out of Dorothy’s mouth. Is Dorothy’s final mantra the truth or merely a way to delude herself into happiness, even though she just abandoned her friends and the beautiful Technicolor world of Oz where she was a hero?



In short, the entire movie seems critical of its own story and characters. It tinges “good” characters with hints of sadism, heroic ones with behavior not fitting their genders, and joyous celebrations with bouts of insanity. The very tale is a dark retelling of Oz despite being the iconic telling of the story. And, all the way, it manages also to doubt its own reality. The very novel is framed as a dream, not a reality, a world of fake sets and actors in make-up. Yet, would that make Kansas the reality? Are we comfortable allowing a world without color and with character actors on the loose in the vague pretense of being farm hands to be reality? I am not sure. After all, this reality is far less present than the dream and in the end, both are figments of the imagination.

I suppose reasons like this are what grad school is for. I have only scratched the surface of the Oz question, one that most movie critics seem terrified of even acknowledging. Which I guess I leave as my final question: why has no one written about this…or if they have, why has it not broken into the world of common critical knowledge? Are we so desirous of always having one piece of innocent childhood to return to that we will, if necessary, turn something that was never all that innocent into it? In the end, I guess we are like Dorothy: ready to ignore the reality of our situation and, no matter the circumstance, click our heels together and mutter “there’s no place like home.” We do not care what “home” is, as long as it’s “home.”

Sunday’s Valentine’s Day. You know what that means: every restaurant is booked. Dammit! In honor of the event and to spite everyone who is being wined and dined, I present 10 movies that fuck with love and show how love fucks with you.

Note 1: SPOILERS. If you haven’t seen a movie and don’t want it spoiled, skip to the next one.
Note 2: These are not the top ten movies that do so. Only 10 from across time and genre. Though, I admit that two are only a year apart.
Note 3: Any of these movies are DEFINITELY worth a look. Many of them are among my favorites.

The Little Mermaid (1989)

“So much for true love!” – Ursula

Things you will have to give up for love may include any or all of the following: your voice, your family/life-long friends/acquaintances
with whom you’re able to have decent conversations at the supermarket, your kingdom, and your life.

Yes, love makes Ariel go stupid to an exponential degree. She forsakes her family, imperils her people and her kingdom, and abandons her friends all to go after a pair of legs and a dick that she has only seen for the grand total of probably a minute. Well, she also has a statue of him, but that just summons up Pygmalion allusions, all of which do her no favors.

Imagine for a second that you’re a merperson living under Trident’s sovereignty or even someone residing in the coastal town of the movie. You’re sitting there, eating your seaweed salad, and suddenly it's the climactic battle of the film and an enormous fat drag queen with a trident starts causing storms and spreading desolation. All thanks to Ariel's sex drive. Your wife may be fried to a cinder by a stray trident bolt, your home may be annihilated by some eighty foot tall waves, and you may have permanent psychological scars that will never fully heal…but at least it all ended with the spoiled little princess getting her man.

And yes, it’s totally healthy to leave everyone you’ve known and who has loved you your entire life (except a fatuous seagull) all for the sake of getting married.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Betty Schafer: Come on, Joe.
Joe Gillis: Come on where? Back to a one-room apartment that I can’t pay for? Back to a story that may sell and very possibly will not?
Betty: If you love me, Joe.
Joe: Look, sweetie -- be practical. I’ve got a good thing here. A long-term contract with no options. I like it that way. Maybe it’s not very admirable. Well, you and Artie can be admirable.
Betty: Joe, I can’t look at you anymore.
Joe: Nobody asked you to.

Which relationship am I even talking about here? Norma and Joe? Norma and Max? Joe and Betty? Betty and Artie? Us and Hollywood? Whatever the case may be, none of these are healthy, fulfilling relationships. Joe is with Norma for money; Norma with Joe in a delusional attempt to feel young and attractive still. Betty is with Artie because it’s the “right” thing to do. Max is with Norma because of some misguided, blind devotion…or because no one wants to hire him as a director. Norma is with Max because right until the movie started, she needed someone to clean up all that chimpanzee poop.



Love is selfish. Love is a ploy created to get what you really want: be it money or fuel for your vanity or even just purpose. And even then, it still sucks. You get stuck in an old house with a crazy lady or worry that your lover is sleeping around or, worst of all, you can be Betty and Artie. They are the only couple who stay together at the end. Yet we know that Betty “loves” (or at least feels passion for and can get a good screenplay/job out of) Joe. Instead, she has to run off to Artie at the end – Artie who wants to get married for cheap and skip a honeymoon and probably whisk Betty away from the world of movies that she grew up in and loves and trap her in her own Hollywood mansion (albeit a tinier one). That’s the happy couple at the end.

L’Atalante (1934)

[I can’t find quotes online]

Roger Ebert calls this movie “poetic.” I guess it is…if you are alluding to a dreary, humdrum "way of life" poetry style that you can find in modern or post-modern works. Quite frankly, this movie is one of the most depressing movies ever made. We begin with a marriage (the traditional end to a narrative). But the movie only shows us that this coupling, this happy ending, is really neither happy nor the end. After the blissful union that is the typical “Hollywood ending,” what are we left with? Fights about feline hygiene and laundry. A husband jealous to the point of abusive and a wife who may be giving him reason to be. Marriage is like the ship L’Atalante, a small, claustrophobic world that we can’t wait to escape, if only for a few hours.

Sure this movie ends with the lovers reconciled and happy…but that’s just where we started. And there are many, many more trips on L’Atalante still in store for these two.

An Education (2009)

“You have no idea how boring everything was before I met you.” – Jenny

In this movie, Jenny, a nice British schoolgirl, meets David, a “bad Jew” who tries to indoctrinate her into a world of thievery, deception, and promiscuity. She is tempted, but in the end, good perseveres over not-so-good and Jenny leaves David. By the epilogue, we are informed that she’s met a nice British boy who has never been to Paris and who probably is a virgin and who will be Jenny’s rather darling husband.

YAWN. Yes, David may have been a shyster and an attempted bigamist, but I’ll be damned if he also was not one of the most attractive, seductive, and fun characters on screen in a long time. An Education manages to show us an actually “good romance,” but it also tells us that what is good for romance is bad for everything else. To have a happy life, you must choose the boring guy, the one you would never bother making a movie about. The only romance worth having is the one that can’t last and the one that will eat away everything else around you like corrosive acid.

David did not save Jenny from her boring life, he only showed her how boring the rest of her life would be. And the worst part is – that was the better of the two options she had.



Vertigo (1958)*

“Too late. It’s too late. There’s no bringing her back.” – Scottie Ferguson

Imagine the perfect mate; he/she’s stunningly attractive, magnificently cultured, and only has eyes for you. Are you imagining him? Good – because that’s the only way you’re ever going to see her (oh look at me being all gender-inclusive). In Vertigo, Scottie will for a few brief days get to know Madeleine, a woman so sublime and ethereal that he cannot help but fall madly and hopelessly in love with her. We ourselves can’t help but fall in love with her and want to see Stewart and Novak make mad passionate love on screen (since that would be the closest we’ll ever come to getting in on the action).

But of course, Scottie loses her. And then, thanks to an enormous (apparent) coincidence, he finds a girl who looks remarkably like her and tries to recreate his love. He doesn’t really care that he’s mentally tormenting a seemingly innocent woman and, really, neither do we. For love, sacrifices must be made.

Except there’s one problem: Judy, the girl off the street, was Madeleine. Which means that there was no “real” Madeleine, at least in so much that we ever knew her. Scottie’s dream girl was a lie. For all we know, the “real” Madeleine Elster farted constantly and got chili stains all over her grey suits. Of course, there’s no “real” Madeleine Elster since this is just a movie, but don’t think too hard. The more you think about Vertigo, the more you feel like you’re precariously holding onto the increasingly slipping ledge of your sanity.

In short: perfect mate = nonexistent. The best you can do is try to dress someone else up as him or her, but in the end, you’re being abusive or s/he’s deceiving you or you’re deceiving yourself. Love is a lie. A lie that hurts like a cold, blonde bitchslap.

*With eternal gratitude and apologies to my Hitchcock professor Lee Edelman. I’ve taken about 3 hours of brilliant lecturing and mutilated it into a few paragraphs in a blog and most likely did his whole argument a great disservice in the process.

The Sheik (1921)

“When an Arab sees a woman he wants, he takes her.” – Ahmed

Hurray for Stockholm Syndrome! This movie teaches us all that the best way to get the woman of your dreams (especially if she’s an independent free-thinking woman in the early part of the twentieth century) is to kidnap her and force her to live with you until she tries to escape and realizes that you aren’t the worst guy out there. Oh, and if she’s repulsed by the prospect of marrying a Middle Eastern man when she herself is white, simply inform her that you’re adopted and are as white a Klansman’s hood. True love truly is triumphant!

(Also, I just realized that this plot is a bit like that of Beauty and the Beast. Just changing “Middle Eastern” to “furry” and “white” to “not furry”)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

“I wish I knew how to quit you!” – Jack Twist

The typical reaction after seeing Brokeback Mountain is to bemoan homophobia and think, “Alas, alack, and Alaska! If only those two could have loved each other openly and gotten married in California without fear of their heads being bashed in!”* But can’t we also just say, “Man, wouldn’t these two have been so much happier if that incident never happened on Brokeback?”

Yes, it’s technically not the nice thing to think…but it’s true. Ennis seemed suppressed enough that he never would have succumb to his urges without some Twisting of his arm (and pulling of his fifth leg and…okay, I’ll stop now). He would have gotten married, probably not gotten divorced since his wife would have no infidelity to suspect and everyone would be happier and Daddy would just occasionally buy Men’s Fitness magazines and disappear into the bathroom with them every once in a while.

As for Jack, he might have just had a lot more hookups over the years before still being turned into a human piñata. Even if this were the case, he’d be better off. More sex and less angst makes Jack a content homo. And hey, without the emotional ties of Ennis, he might’ve even just decided to move out of Montana/Wyoming/whatever useless state they were in and head out to San Francisco instead. Then not only might he have lived, but he would have had the opportunity to guest star in another Oscar nominated film, Milk!

As the poster said, “Love is a force of a nature.” It’s a big fucking hurricane that blows you off course and makes you stupid and miserable and eventually kills you and leaves the other guy with only a shirt to cry over.

*Granted, homophobia is worth much bemoaning and gays should be able to get married without fear of cranial restructuring, but that’s not for this entry.

Love & Death (1975)

Sonja Grushenko: You were my one great love!
Boris Grushenko: Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm dead.

I know most people would say Annie Hall might be a better candidate, but as Alvie says at the end, “We need the eggs.” It might be one of the better defenses of love and the inevitable heartbreak. Love and Death’s title shows that while we put the love first in our mind, ultimately death is what matters. Sonja’s overly romantic remark, which would be the emotional triumph of most other films, is sarcastically and rightfully retorted with Boris’s reality-check. Love isn’t a great powerful force that can overcome all in this movie; it’s a distraction from the real force: human mortality. And, as you watch the movie, you see that people will get their distraction through any means necessary: power, deception, money, and guilt trips. One great love is like a very shiny penny – it’s charming but ultimately worthless. The only real, eternal coupling is between Boris and the Grim Reaper.



City Lights (1931)

The Tramp: Can you see now?
A Blind Girl: Yes, I can see now.

There really is no more touching way to finish a love story than with the uncovering a ruse and the realization that the man of your dreams is just a dirt-poor ex-con. I guess this is sweet; she finally sees him for who he is and realizes how much he sacrificed for her. But he also deceived her into thinking that he was well-off enough to support her and her mother and who knows what she turned down waiting for Prince Charming? Let’s not even get into the fact that these two probably aren’t going to have all that happy of a marriage as they struggle to get by and she brings up his chicanery whenever they get into a fight.

Imitation of Life (1959)

Steve Archer: I've been trying to do something with my pictures. It's meant everything to me. Every minute, for a long time now.
Lora Meredith: No, it hasn't. Or you wouldn't give it up to sell beer.
Steve: I gave it up for something much better, something right now: You.
Lora: But you're asking me to give up something I've wanted all my life, ever since I was a child, and I can't do it!
Steve: If you grew up, you could.

You know what I like? Having to choose between the man I love and my career plus all my dreams I’ve had since my earliest recollection! Once I find that relationship with a guy, I’ll be set for life! What? No? Not every girl dreams of being carried off by Prince Charming who will then tell her that her own ambitions are infantile compared to her responsibility to him and his need to sire an heir?

The particularly horrifying thing about this movie is not simply the fact that Steve does not stray from his position that a woman cannot have it all; no, the most disturbing facet of this movie is that it endorses Steve’s ultimatum and wants the viewer to both validate it and condemn Lora as self-obsessed for simply not surrendering to the throes of her libido. The rest of the movie after this confrontation will obsessively create a world where Lora must be wrong and must be taught a lesson.

Also, this movie shows another danger of love: falling in love increases your risk of having children. And children, as illustrated by the duo of the insipid Suzie and the prickly Sarah Jane, are ungrateful little brats who will not realize all that you did for them until you’re in a coffin being pulled by four white horses. Fuck children.

(Okay, don’t literally fuck them, but you get the idea)

So for those of you not going out to dinner on Valentine's Day, I highly recommend any of these 10 movies. They will make you feel better about your current lack of a significant other.