MY MOVIE SHELF: That Thing You Do!

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 157  Days to go: 113

Movie #281:  That Thing You Do!

How do you make a movie about the rise and fall of a fictional band and their fictional one-hit wonder? First, you have to write a hit pop song, which, regardless of how you may or may not feel about the landscape of popular music in this country, is not an easy thing to do. It gave me a whole new appreciation for Tom Hanks.

The title song, the hit song by our rising stars, has to be heard over and over (and over) (and over), so it has to be palatable. The flip side of that, though, is that it has to be catchy. It has to be an earworm. It has to be able to stick in your head for hours and days and weeks on end and not get old. It needs clever, winking lyrics. I needs a good beat. And for the purposes of the story, it also needs to read as a potentially slow, sad song of heartbreak. That’s an incredibly tough order to fill, and yet “That Thing You Do!” (the song) hits every mark exactly. Just in writing this piece, I’ve listened to the chorus on a continuous loop for the past however long after watching while the DVD hangs out on the menu screen. It’s completely infectious, but in a good way, and I have yet to get tired or sick of it.

The song isn’t the whole of it, though. The story also has to work. If you’ve watched enough Behind The Music , you know the basic makeup of a band that won’t go the distance: there’s at least one band member who doesn’t take it all that seriously (perhaps because he’s too busy partying), one that maybe takes it way too seriously, and, for added drama, perhaps one who wasn’t an original member but is nonetheless instrumental in the band’s newfound success. In short, that band looks a lot like the Oneders (pronounced oh-NEE-durz — “Hey! That’s oh-NED-urz.”).

Jimmy (Johnathon Schaech) is the lead singer, who is all about his “art” and his “principles.” (“Oh there he goes off to his room to write that hit song ‘Alone in My Principles.'”) His girlfriend Faye (Liv Tyler) is sweet and supportive and way too good for such a d-bag. Lenny (National Treasure Steve Zahn), meanwhile, is a fun-loving guitarist who just wants to be famous and meet girls. And he gets every single laugh-out-loud joke in the film. The bass player (Ethan Embry) is a nice guy and all, but he’s not going to be in a band the rest of his life. He joined the Marines before they even got famous, and is due to ship out at the end of August. And Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) is our hero the drummer, filling in for regular guy Chad (Giovanni Ribisi) after Chad breaks his arm in a tragic parking meter jumping accident. Guy’s the guy who loves music, loves to play music, and has a real feel for music. He’s the one who turned “That Thing You Do” from a slow, somber, whining Jimmy special to a bona fide dance hit. He’s the one who made them stars.

It’s a meteoric rise for the band — thankfully renamed the Wonders (“As in, I wonder what ever happened to the Oneders.”) after Playtone Music executive Mr. White (Tom Hanks) gets a hold of them — that starts with a manager “in a really nice camper” and the dream of one day playing in Stuebenville (I’ve been to Steubenville, by the way. Nobody dreams of there.), to flying out to California for a TV spot and a small movie appearance. Can the band withstand the drastic change in their status? Turns out, no they can not. Tensions break when some TV guy indicates that Jimmy and Faye are engaged, Jimmy blows up, Faye dumps him, and then Jimmy quits the group with a snappy song I always sing in my head any time I’ve had enough.

It sounds like a sad end, but all is not lost for our pal Guy. Despite losing his girlfriend Tina (Charlize Theron) to her dentist when the guys first go on tour, he realizes there’s someone better right under his nose. He finds out the last time Faye was good and kissed was 1961 and he rectifies that oversight post-haste. The closing title cards indicate the two were married on April 30, 1965. Who needs a flash in the pan, when everlasting contentment is at hand?

MY MOVIE SHELF: Cold Mountain

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 304  Days to go: 293

Movie #69: Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is almost two different movies altogether. At first, it is a slow, mournful tale of the delicate beginnings of love being snatched away from two shy, quiet souls at the start of the Civil War. Inman (Jude Law) goes off to fight, as all men of a certain age must. Ada (Nicole Kidman) waits for him to return. Things fall apart for both of them, and they can no longer bear this separation, even if they barely know what it’s like to be together. The movie — this first part — is an embodiment of sorrow and longing. It wrenches my heart with each sweeping vista and soaring note of its score. When Ada begs, “Come back to me,” I can feel her need as if it were my own. And then, suddenly, Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) shows up and breathes life and hope into the whole wide world. It’s such a dramatic shift in tone, as I said, it’s hard to believe the two halves exist in the same film.

Mind you, the worlds of Ada and Inman — and Ruby, for that matter, and Sally (Kathy Baker) and Sara (Natalie Portman) and Stobrod (Brendan Gleeson) and nearly everyone else — is still swathed in misery after Ruby’s arrival. The war has ravaged the land, the population, and the whole society of the South. The people are at the mercy of the Home Guard and the marauding Yankees, both of whom viciously abuse the power they have over everyone else, acting solely in their own interests, to their own ends, for their own amusement. Ruby doesn’t change that. What Ruby does, however, is take action. She is not one to sit back and let life happen to her. She is a woman of strength and determination who will not abide foolishness or laziness or mistreatment. She saves poor Ada’s life, no doubt about it, simply with her force of will and take-charge personality. And she faces everything in front of her with integrity and verve. “I despise a flogging rooster.”

When Ruby discovers her father still alive, the first time, she is justifiably angry yet also thrilled. When she thinks he’s been foolishly killed again, she is mad and frustrated and heartbroken. When she finds him alive the second time, she is awash with relief and fear. Ruby is fully realized in this way, capable of experience a broad spectrum of emotions about a single event because of all that came before it. She has a past and a future and a strong presence equally matched by her point of view. I love Ruby. If I had another baby girl, I would name her Ruby in a heartbeat and sing to her all the time, “Ruby with the eyes that sparkle.”

The movie uses vignettes throughout to represent the passage of time, the changing conditions, and the various trials of both the folks back at Cold Mountain and Inman as he makes his way back there on foot. Like the dozens of letters Ada writes, we see a small sampling of events: the death of her father (Donald Sutherland), the continuing encroachment of the Home Guard, the crows in the well, Ruby’s firm and vital charge of the farm, Sally’s tragedy, and brief glimpses of happiness shared with Stobrod, Pangle (Ethan Suplee) and Georgia (Jack White). Meanwhile, Inman’s journey is long and arduous and fraught with danger. He encounters the Reverend (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) twice and is appalled how a man of God can be so full of sin. At Junior’s (Giovanni Ribisi) house, the inhabitants are dirty and debauched but rewarded for their dishonesty. Maddy (Eileen Atkins) saves Inman’s life and nurses him back to health, even though it could be a risk to her and even though she has very little herself. And the young widow Sara offers him shelter and allows him to comfort her, but shows no mercy to the Yankee soldiers who would show her none. All these people have been changed by the war, some becoming opportunistic and jaded, others becoming hardened but no less human, and Inman finds that he, too, struggles to keep his head above water and to still be a man worthy of someone like Ada waiting for him. All he wants is that peace and the quiet contentment of home. It keeps him moving forward, intent on fulfilling her request. “Come back to me. Come back to me is my request.”

The vignettes also work well in highlighting how Ada and Inman’s entire relationship is just a collection of moments — brief, stolen moments — and very few words shared between them. Their love, if they have one, is more idealized fantasy than reality, and yet it’s stronger and more compelling than everything else around them, as it keeps them both going — moving forward toward each other. Their reunion is similarly brief, similarly stolen. It’s the moment she realizes the man before her is him, the moment they talk by the fire, the moment they trade vows — “I marry you. I marry you. I marry you.” And it’s the sweet, fleeting moments of their lovemaking — the moment between marriage and death.

In 2004 I was in L.A. on Oscar night (of all Renee Zellweger’s performances, I’m so glad this is the one she got an Oscar for), standing outside the Vanity Fair party when Jude Law arrived. I fell in love with him as Inman — that quiet, simple longing and fortitude of his — and shouted “I marry you” three times across the throngs of photographers. But I’m not sure it counts if he doesn’t say it back. It’s just as well, though, because my husband now infuses me with that same feeling. Our lengthy separations (due to the nature of his job) keep me always looking forward to and longing for our time together, so much that I cherish it all the more. And every day I’m without him I fill myself up with all the things I’m going to say the next time we talk; I’m forever composing messages to him in my head. And if (God forbid) I ever were to lose him, I’d still be writing to him every day. That’s what love is, to me.

Cold Mountain is a film about the preservation and perseverance of love, about the constancy of it, even through hard times and tragedies. I carry that message with me, inside my heart, always. “I like that.”