MY MOVIE SHELF, An Epilogue

That picture, above, is what my shelf looked like last year as I embarked on this endeavor to examine and explore each of these movies I own with a fresh viewing and a personal essay. A lot has happened in that time, not the least of which was an opportunity to cull from my collection a few dozen films that were deplorable or that I just didn’t want to own anymore, as well as an excuse to purchase a whole bunch of new titles I either used to own or have always wanted. So long The Crush, good riddance Any Given Sunday, hasta la vista Taking Lives, and hello my gorgeous Best of Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection plus quite a few more. And for the first time in maybe ever, none of my movies are still in their shrink-wrapped packaging; I’ve opened every single one.

At this point, I feel a little lost to be honest. After so many months of putting into words all the thoughts and feelings and memories I’ve associated with these films that I (mostly) love, it’s like I can hardly think of anything to say anymore at all. On the other hand, I feel almost driven to revisit all these posts I wrote and analyze their connection with my life even further. What were the ones that most influenced my understanding of the world? Which ones spurred my sexual development?

Or, sick of navel gazing, I could simply write a taxonomy of time displacement. What different categories are represented, and how do they differ from one another? What are their constraints? But I’d still probably be compelled to try to figure out why these stories in particular are such a draw to me.

Ultimately, I guess my goal for the future is just to keep writing, to keep setting goals and pushing myself to reach them, and to find something to say that people think is worth reading. I hope what I’ve done here fits that bill, even if it was self-centered by nature. I’ve appreciated everyone who’s read along with me, whether sporadically or on a regular basis, and I hope my self-discovery has inspired you all in some way — even if it’s just the inspiration to watch a movie or two you’ve never seen before.

It’s been a long year, and as I close out My Movie Shelf, I leave with a new picture of my shelf, completed and newly organized. It’s so pretty, I honestly can’t wait to add to it.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Zombieland

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: ZERO, WITH THREE DAYS TO SPARE!!!!!!!

Movie #440:  Zombieland

My son loves Zombieland, and has been counting down to this movie for the past two months. I’ve been counting down to it for a significantly longer time — just under a year, in fact — because this is the final movie on my shelf.

Zombieland is a fitting end to my project, and not just because it comes at the end of the alphabet. It’s is one of those hybrid films you’d consider an action comedy, with a touch of a romantic subplot (and obviously a horror influence), and that sort of wide-ranging variety is certainly indicative of my overall tastes. More than that, though, Zombieland is really creatively filmed and offers up a unique vision, which is something I almost always respond to positively, and between the lines of the zombie-killing road film, Zombieland is a movie about finding a family among the people you encounter in the world. It’s about making your way, becoming your own person, and finding a place for yourself. Granted, there aren’t many options to choose from in this particular dystopia, but the metaphor for real life remains intact.

Our narrator is known only as Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), as that’s where he’s headed. On his way there, he meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and two grifter sisters (The Grifter Sisters is the name of my fem-punk band) going by Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who are all on the run from the zombies, killing them in order to survive, and looking for a place where the infection hasn’t spread. The unique thing about Columbus is that he doesn’t fit the bill of a typical action hero. What he does have, however, are a specific set of rules he’s set forth as his keys to survival, and the movie has a lot of fun superimposing those rules upon the action in clever and sometimes silly ways, whenever they’re especially pertinent. (My favorite, I think, is “Limber Up” animated to look like the words itself are limbering up, though “Seatbelt” clicking together at the B is pretty great.)

On the other hand, Tallahassee absolutely passes for a dystopian action cowboy by the look of him, driving big trucks, hoarding weapons of all sorts, and rocking a classic tough guy uniform of the Marlboro Man variety. He’s got layers, though, running from his own personal pain, rampantly destroying property to blow off steam, desperate for the spongy, creamy goodness of a Twinkie, and fangirling like you wouldn’t believe over the unexpected appearance of Bill Murray. (A GREAT cameo as himself, by the way, incognito as a zombie so he doesn’t have to limit his lifestyle by hiding out all the time.)

And, of course, I love Wichita and Little Rock because of their strength, their ingenuity, and their independence. They rely on each other, just as they’ve been doing all their lives, and they’re incredibly good at it. That they wind up as sort of damsels in distress by the end is unfortunate, but I forgive it because it gives Columbus the chance to really step up to the plate (and out of his comfort zone) and be a hero for once. Because sometimes, you have to break the rules.

Honestly, I’m less upset by the damsels in distress ending than I am by the fact that Wichita was in middle school getting her first kiss in 1997, the year I met my first husband. Getting old is weird. But I guess it’s better than becoming a zombie.

And that’s the end of my shelf. I’ll be writing some closing thoughts in the next day or so, but right now I’d just like to say how much I’ve truly enjoyed examining my feelings on all these films over the past year and how grateful I am for everyone who’s read along. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

MY MOVIE SHELF: X-Men: Days of Future Past

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: 1 Days to go: 3

Movie #439:  X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past is where the two separate X-Men franchises collide, and it is masterful. The characters we know from the first three X-Men movies (or some of them, at least, as well as a few we’ve never met before) come together in the future to stop an event from happening in the past — where most of the characters from X-Men: First Class are still running about — that will eradicate all mutants (and many humans) from the face of the earth. It plays with time, it plays with space, it plays with inevitability and free will and second chances, and I love it a whole lot. If not for a few complaints, it would easily be my favorite, but the things I find fault with are also the result of Days of Future Past‘s enormous ambition, which should be rewarded even if it doesn’t quite hit the mark.

In this film, the future is a war-torn dystopia and what few mutants remain are constantly on the run from weapons called Sentinels — transformative robots made from non-metallic polymers that can adapt to a mutant’s power to more effectively destroy it. Determining that the Sentinel program came from a moment back in 1973, the Professor (Patrick Stewart), who revealed he was alive again in the epilogue of The Wolverine vis-à-vis some sort of squirrelly magic that isn’t really explained all that well, and Magneto (Ian McKellen) convince Kitty (Ellen Page) to send Logan (Hugh Jackman) back in time in order to stop that event from happening and change the course of history. (Logan is the only one who can make such a trip, since he heals as fast as he’s torn apart and this journey of his consciousness will wreak havoc on his mind.)

So Logan’s consciousness goes back and he has to enlist young Charles (James McAvoy) and Hank (Nicholas Hoult) into helping him, which includes breaking Eric (Michael Fassbender) out of a prison beneath the Pentagon. For this they go to Quicksilver (Evan Peters), which I mention simply because it is my absolute favorite sequence of this or any X-Men movie, and it is entirely too short. Slowing everything else down to show Quicksilver working in his super-speed at a pace we can actually see is amazing CGI at work, and I want so much more of it. Why he’s not invited along to Paris or even just brought back at the end for their D.C. showdown is beyond me. He’s so great! Why would you introduce him, blow everyone away with his playful machinations, and then forget all about him for the rest of the film? It drives me crazy.

Not that the rest of the film doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to contend with without adding Quicksilver to the mix. Peter Dinklage (who makes everything better, let’s be honest) is here as Dr. Bolivar Trask, the scientist behind those nasty Sentinel machines, and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) aims to kill him. Unfortunately, when she does (in the past) it sets off a chain reaction of events in which her actions are used as proof of a mutant threat and her DNA is used to enhance the Sentinels. Logan’s troupe goes to stop her, of course, but the movie brilliantly plays with images so that some of the things we saw in the image of the past are duplicated in this scenes Logan is supposedly changing, raising the question of whether this is all happening as it always did, as it always was meant to. Hank brings up that question himself, of whether time is immutable and unchangeable — a common theme in time-travel tales — so somehow, some way, whatever happens will always happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Naturally, Charles takes a different view, because despite his current (1973) disillusionment, in which he treats himself with a serum to give him back the use of his legs in exchange for losing his powers of the mind, he’s still the optimist. He still believes in Mystique as a good person. He still mourns Eric’s insistence of distancing himself from goodness. And he still has faith in the human (and mutant) spirit, believing good will prevail if he only choose it.

Ultimately, the movie takes this view too, as it shows us Mystique changing her path and gives us a star-studded happy ending — incredibly, like, nearly EVERYONE is back and alive and awesome for this tiny little closing scene. At the same time, it also opens the door for ALL NEW STORIES about Mystique, about Jean (Famke Janssen), about Logan, et cetera. There are honestly not that many movies that can pull off something that impressive, and I give it a lot of credit. Meaning I forgive it a lot of its blurry areas — where things are most glossed over like LA LA LA DON’T ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE — even though they annoy me personally. I choose for goodness to prevail.

MY MOVIE SHELF: X-Men: First Class

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: 2 Days to go: 4

Movie #438:  X-Men: First Class

From what I understand, comics get rebooted all the time, with a new set of stories that can have little connection to whatever came before. Movies about comic book characters do this too, with every new director’s vision of Superman, for example, or Batman or Spider-Man. These franchises often, in fact, tell the same stories over and over again, such as the hero’s origin story. What makes X-Men: First Class interesting, therefore, is its attempt to reboot the series while also a) telling a whole new set of stories about these characters, from a completely different time in their lives, and b) keeping a connection to the earlier series.

In X-Men: First Class, we meet Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Eric Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) as children (played by Laurence Belcher and Bill Milner, respectively) and then as young men. Likewise, we meet Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) as a little girl (played by Morgan Lily) who grows up with Charles in his home after he catches her alone and hungry and looking for food. These people who were linchpins to the original series of films — power players with clearly alluded to long and significantly linked backstories — are getting, in essence, their origin story. We’re introduced to their very different histories, and we’re shown how they grew together and apart in the span of a very critical time in world history.

There are things I really like about the film, and things I don’t like so much, putting it actually on par with perhaps The Last Stand with regard to my preferences. The mutant villains, for example (because the film is truly about mutants versus mutants, in the long run — humans are sort of incompetent bystanders to the whole thing), are lacking in the kind of charisma that makes Magneto himself so compelling in later films (and in this one, too, as Eric shares a lot of their beliefs and even converts Raven to embracing her Mystique self), making it incredibly lopsided. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) is despicable, and he doesn’t make a good leader. He tells Emma Frost (January Jones) that they don’t hurt their own kind, but he spends a lot of time doing just that — especially when he kills Darwin (Edi Gathegi) for no good reason. Beyond that, his superpower just makes him look gross, like when his head and hands get inordinately big as he absorbs energy. It’s not attractive. Emma Frost herself is also disappointingly bland, and she’s the only one of Shaw’s minions who does anything interesting. The rest don’t even have lines, I don’t think. And Angel (Zoe Kravitz) doesn’t even bat an eye when Darwin is killed, so forget her.

What it gets right, though, is awesome. The performances of McAvoy and Fassbender (and Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult as Beast) are phenomenal and moving. Fassbender and Lawrence, especially, bring every ounce of emotion necessary to their character arcs — all the pain, all the anger, all the frustration and isolation they’ve felt over the years. It’s essential to developing who they are and who they become, and both actors are incredible. Beast has a similar, if not as deeply developed, history of feeling like a freak, and Hoult delivers on that. Xavier’s past is not as fraught with hardship, as his life has been filled with financial privilege and his mutation is a strategic advantage in most situations, explaining his much more positive outlook on humanity and reinforcing his desire to work with it instead of against it. I’m also a big fan of Rose Byrne as Moira, not only because she’s an undervalued member of the CIA — being a woman — but because she’s not afraid to use her undergarments to get her into a club for some good old American spying.

The time period also lends itself well to the tale of potential mutant uprisings, I think, as the Cuban Missile Crisis was indeed a very tense moment in our collective history, and one that is taught to have been resolved as if by a stroke of luck, at the last moment, almost out of nowhere. There’s an air of mystery to it that, to be perfectly frank, a secret mutant storyline fits squarely into. It’s kind of brilliant.

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the cameos by Hugh Jackman (as Wolverine) and Rebecca Romijn (as older Mystique), because they are awesome. Like, I literally clapped my hands with glee the first time I saw them. And I maybe still do for Wolverine.

Obviously loving and hating so many different things about it means X-Men: First Class isn’t my favorite of the X-Men films (that would still be X2), but I applaud its ability to create a whole new franchise inside an existing one, and I really do love where this new line can take us. As the next one will attest, most anything is possible.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Wreck-It Ralph

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: 3 Days to go: 5

Movie #437:  Wreck-It Ralph

It’s not immediately obvious — in fact, I wouldn’t have guessed it at all — but Wreck-It Ralph is a Disney animated feature. There’s even a new Disney princess introduced, and yet I kind of doubt we’ll see Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) included in any princess features any time soon. She definitely doesn’t fit the profile. Vanellope, though, is delightful regardless, and even though the movie is ostensibly about Ralph (John C. Reilly), she’s the one who steals my (and his) heart.

Vanellope may be made entirely of code, but she’s one of the most authentically kid-like kids in any Disney cartoon, second only to Up‘s Russell. She’s precocious, incorrigible, annoying and an innocent. She’s playful and likes to trade insults, but only with the ones she loves. Vanellope is representative of all outcasts, of all kids who don’t fit into the cool clique, but who have it in them to be really great. (And Mindy Kaling, by the way, is fantastic as head Mean Girl Taffyta Muttonfudge.) She just wants to be given a chance, and she fights for her opportunity to make it happen, even when she has to build her cart herself out of scraps.

Vanellope is also a metaphor for anyone who is differently-abled or has a chronic condition that can be limiting. She’s a glitch, and sometimes her glitches get in her way, but other times she finds a way to use them to her advantage, to make the most of them, and to not let them hold her back. Her glitches are a part of her, but they don’t make her incapable of reaching her goals, of racing and winning, and they don’t make her unlovable or unpopular. I’m a person who thinks Sarah Silverman is a genius and an awesome comedian in general, but Vanellope transcends even that to be just an all-around amazing, fun little girl. I adore her.

As for the rest of the film, I have to admit I don’t think Ralph is entirely off-base for being angry and hurt by the Nicelanders of his game. They are pretty rude and dismissive of him, even if he is an unwieldy, hot-tempered menace most of the time. It kind of goes both ways and falls into a vicious circle of mistreatment and resentment. That said, he does make a mess of things and almost costs Sugar Rush its entire game environment because he acts rashly and in his own interests. So I don’t begrudge Calhoun (Jane Lynch) chewing him out at all.

Calhoun is pretty badass and awesome herself, as female video game characters go, even with her impossibly small waist and comically huge boob armor. I also love her romantic subplot with Fix-It Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer), just for being goofy and mismatched and fun. And to round out the rest of the major characters, King Candy (Alan Tudyk) is kind of a great, unexpectedly terrifying, maniacal villain. Don’t let the fungeon fool you!

Wreck-It Ralph is just a really fun, inventive and creative movie that understands video games of all genres and lovingly pays tribute to them. It’s also incredibly rewatchable, and, if you’re looking for a Disney princess to break the princess mold, it definitely fits the bill.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Winter’s Bone

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: 4 Days to go: 6

Movie #436:  Winter’s Bone

Winter’s Bone is an interesting film. It’s a small, confined study of a particular kind of life and a particular kind of society. The film is so small, in fact, that had it not collected a slew of critics’ and movie awards and nominations after winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered — culminating in four Oscar nods, including Best Actress for Jennifer Lawrence (her first in a string of three in four years) and Best Supporting Actor for John Hawkes — you wouldn’t be able to find more than a dozen people outside of New York or Los Angeles who had even heard of it, much less seen it. You might not be able to find that dozen now, even with all the acclaim. Winter’s Bone is a dark film, and a lonely tale, but it’s incredibly compelling, mostly for its specificity.

Winter’s Bone is striking, for its subject matter and its performances, both, but what is most striking about it — what draws you in and really makes you take notice — is its setting. The film takes place in a very poor, very isolated part of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. It’s an area that is never explored by Hollywood, its people and its culture never examined. This is not the Middle America we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on screens. There are no strip malls or Applebee’s. This isn’t the suburbs. There are no soccer moms or minivans. At the same time, though, this isn’t the poverty we’ve been sold either. These aren’t happy-go-lucky poor people, cracking jokes about what bills are due or how many jobs they have. This is a teenage girl named Ree (Lawrence) chopping wood and cooking dinner out of whatever she can hunt and teaching her little brother and sister how to shoot and fend for themselves. Her mother is mentally ill and her father cooks meth, so he’s often in trouble with the law, and now he’s gone missing. She has no prospects of a better life or even a different life. She’s going to have to take care of her family and that’s the end of the story. Even the army’s promise of $40,000 for signing up does her no good, because she’s seventeen and because she wouldn’t be able to take her siblings with her. She’s stuck. Just like her friend is stuck at seventeen with a baby and a husband who tells her what she can and can not do. Just like they’re all stuck. This is their life, and there’s no getting around it.

In order to evoke this poverty and this culture and this isolation, the costuming and production design are exemplary. Clothes are clearly old and worn out. They’re either hand-me-downs or bought at Goodwill. Outfits are cobbled together by whatever is available. Garments are tattered and sometimes ill-fitting More consideration is given to warmth — working outside on their land as most of these people do — than to appearance. And their surroundings have that same sense of whatever works. Dogs are everywhere, chained in the yards, constantly barking, used for protection and hunting, not companionship. Sheets and blankets are horribly mismatched and piled one on top of the other to provide the warmth of a single actual bed quilt or comforter. Again, items are incredibly old and acquired from who knows where or by what means. Details like Ree’s waterbed, makeshift stairs up to the porch and the trampoline, and old, thin patches of carpet blend into the environment seamlessly but tell a bold and immediate story about who these people are, where they come from, and what their lives are like.

Class structure is also something that is starkly exposed by the film, largely through dialogue and costuming. The sheriff (Garrett Dillahunt) and the bail bondsman (Tate Taylor) are clearly more of the middle class. They have traditional jobs, drive nice cars, have a clean appearance. But of the friends and family Ree goes to in search of her father, it’s an entirely different society and an entirely different structure. Here everyone looks up to the head of the family and everyone is subject to his rule. Moreover, women are openly subjugated in a way that’s so ingrained nobody even seems to question it. When Ree tries to get a word in with someone in charge who might know where her father is, his wife (Dale Dickey) shoos her away, asking outright if she doesn’t have a man somewhere who can make these inquiries for her. This is not the business of a woman. Even though Ree is fearless and smart and determined, not being able to break through these walls in her way  is not only frustrating, it could cost her family everything.

The ending of Winter’s Bone is similarly vexing. It’s not happy ending — it’s not a happy movie — but there is a small reward for Ree, at least, that will allow them to keep their home and stay together. However, it’s an absolutely certainty that regardless of Ree’s fierce spirit, perseverance, and morality, she is never going to get out. She has too much other weight on her shoulders, and it’s a weight you don’t get out from under. It’s always going to be exactly the same as it’s always been, and Ree’s just going to have to keep making do, just like she’s always done.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Whip It

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: 5 Days to go: 7

Movie #435:  Whip It

There was nothing to stop me going to the theater in October 2009 when Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It was released. A movie full of awesome chicks kicking ass? I’m in. And as my now-husband and I watched it together, what we experienced was a lovely, fun film — a coming of age tale for girls, which so rarely gets produced — full of super exciting roller derby to boot. Immediately, we believed the eight-year-old girl in our household would be perfect for the sport. Wild and lively, and a little bit reckless, she was a girl with a joyful ferocity. And she was pretty good on skates, too. How wonderful it would be to see her speeding along on a track, an athletic powerhouse. I even came up with a name for her on the spot. It was devastating to think she’d have to wait thirteen years (assuming the minimum age was 21, as the movie suggests). Oh, well.

In the almost six years since the film came out, naturally a lot has happened in that little girl’s life, not all of it good. For a while there she fell victim to the kind of self-doubt and loathing that plagues so many little girls in their tween years, and as much as we could tell her we loved her and were proud of her and thought she was smart and beautiful and amazing, it doesn’t always sink in. There are other influences in kids lives, and some of them are malicious and demeaning. Sometimes it’s the voices in your own head that hurt you the most.

A lot of times these sorts of things are phases you go through and grow out of, and part of them is no doubt due to hormonal swings common to all kids at this age, but she needed a change, so we made some. And through a series of serendipitous events, she found herself at a skating clinic where she met a junior roller derby coach, and that ignited a spark.

I didn’t know there was even such a thing as junior roller derby, obviously, but here it was, showing up in our lives right when we needed it, and through roller derby we’ve watched that girl thrive. She’s more confident, she’s more comfortable in her skin, she’s more athletic and she’s more fit. The roller derby I’ve experienced isn’t nearly as flashy or composed as Whip It would have you believe, but it’s been an absolute godsend in our lives, and when Bliss (Ellen Page) tells her parents, “I am in love with this,” it brings tears to my eyes.

The movie has a lot of joy with regard to all the derby, from great names like Smashley Simpson (Barrymore) to Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) to Rosa Sparks (Eve) to Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor, who is a goddess and should be in everything), to a hundred more. (Plus it really feels like the food fight scene is something Barrymore has wanted to be able to orchestrate for years.) All the hits and the jumps and the checks are brutal and exciting, and supporting turns by Jimmy Fallon (as Hot Tub Johnny) and Andrew Wilson (the OTHER Wilson brother, as Razor) bring a lot of comedy to the thrilling competition. But the movie is about so much more than that.

Bliss doesn’t just learn to find herself in derby, she also learns to find herself in general. She learns that even though she doesn’t agree with her parents on things — she thinks her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is living in the 1950s and her father (Daniel Stern) is oblivious to anything that doesn’t concern him — that she can find her own way without being a jerk to them and hurting their feelings (thanks to the stellar, gentle advice from Kristen Wiig’s Maggie Mayhem). She also learns that boys can disappoint you but that she, too, can disappoint her friends when she abandons BFF Pash (Alia Shawkat) as the derby warehouse gets raided by police. It’s a huge growing up moment for her, because she seems to hold herself to a higher standard after that point, and she doesn’t suffer fools either. To earn her time, you’re going to have to treat her with respect, which is a stance everyone should take but so many people forget. Plus she manages to really make her parents proud, because as stressful as that relationship can sometimes get, they aren’t her enemies and they want what’s best for her always. As all good parents do.

I don’t know how much Whip It really gets right about roller derby — I know for a fact that typical derby scores way more points than these bouts do, at least from what I’ve seen, and I don’t think there’s any way Bliss could’ve kept it secret as long as she did — but it gets a whole hell of a lot right about being seventeen, about wanting to be grown up, about thinking you know everything but being wrong because you’re still very much figuring stuff out. And it gets right how empowering derby can be, and how freeing, and how important it is to find the thing that makes you happy, whether you’re seventeen or in your thirties.

And it’s a sentimental favorite in our house, for obvious reasons.

MY MOVIE SHELF: West Side Story

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: 6 Days to go: 8

Movie #434:  West Side Story

My mother-in-law bought me West Side Story three Christmases ago because she thought I would like it, and I haven’t watched it even once until today because I am an awful person. I knew stuff about the film, of course — more than I realized I did, it turns out — but before today my only first-hand experience with West Side Story was the backyard garden hose-assisted performance of “Jet Song” in Sleeping With the Enemy. “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day.”

[At this point you should be really disappointed in the internet for not having this clip readily available anywhere, because it is fantastic.]

I had heard at one point or another that West Side Story was a modern (in the ’60s) remake of Romeo and Juliet, but it would be obvious even if I hadn’t known it going in. The warring gangs of Jets and Sharks are very clearly Montagues and Capulets, with the cross-boundaries love of Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) being the equivalent of the unlucky Shakespearian lovers, bound to their respective sides by blood, but with neither the heart nor the interest to partake in the pointless rivalry. They fall in love at first sight but are kept apart and have to keep their meetings quiet. There is even a secret wedding ceremony, of sorts, as Tony and Maria role play what it will be like. Then, at the rumble, everyone’s come with weapons hidden on their person just in case, even though it was supposed to be a fair fight — because neither side trusts the other. Tony tries to break things up but Bernardo (George Chakiris) taunts him. Then Riff (Russ Tamblyn) slugs Bernardo and the switchblades come out, which ends when Bernardo accidentally stabs and kills Riff and, lashing out, Tony accidentally stabs and kills Bernardo with Riff’s knife — just as Tybalt killed Mercutio and Romeo killed Tybalt. There is even the misinformation of Maria’s death given to Tony, leading Tony to seek out his own death at the hands of Chino (Jose DeVega), who has vowed to kill him as revenge for his killing Bernardo. And when Tony dies in Maria’s arms, she does, for a moment at least, entertain the thought of taking her own life. It’s an incredibly true homage to the original, decrying the pointlessness and futility of hatred and revenge, and I think anyone familiar with the Shakespeare play would recognize the correlations. West Side Story, though, also brings a lot more to its story to coincide with its modern setting, and it addresses themes that are not just relevant to fifty or sixty years ago but are still pertinent today.

What I really didn’t expect from West Side Story — despite going in knowing it was in part a conflict between whites and Puerto Ricans — was the intense examination of racism in their community, in the police force, and in American society as a whole. Without being preachy or stepping outside of its structure, it reflects how institutional racism is, how it’s tolerated and encouraged in the way we operate and the things we put up with. The police in West Side Story decry the hoodlums, but they clearly favor the Jets, who are white. When they’ve all been fighting, the police ask only which Puerto Ricans are responsible. When whispers of the upcoming Rumble abound, Lieutenant Schrank (Simon Oakland) openly offers to conspire with the Jets to destroy the Sharks, making him a bigger threat and a more destructive force to the neighborhood than either gang, even if it is the gangs who destroy each other in the end.

I also didn’t realize going in how many of these songs I was familiar with already. I knew “Jet Song,” of course, as I previously established. I also had heard “America,” no doubt from any one of a dozen Oscar tributes to the movies, to musicals, to Rita Moreno, or to some combination of the three. It’s a really great song — and also more about race relations than I’d realized. Beyond that, though, I also knew “Tonight” and “I Feel Pretty” (no idea why Dirty Dancing‘s Lisa would choose this to perform now, though) and “Somewhere.” These are all wonderful songs, and I’d never realized how great Natalie Wood was before now. (In Rebel Without a Cause she doesn’t sing, and I’m way too caught up with how goofy these supposed rebels are to pay much attention to her.)

The gangs in West Side Story definitely start off as rather laughable, with the snapping and the dance fighting and the silliness of it all, but the film actually does a great job of making you forget all that as it goes along, and the conflicts carry real weight throughout, so Maria’s pain at the end is authentic and moving. My mother-in-law was right; I do like this movie. I’m sorry for not watching it earlier.

MY MOVIE SHELF: WALL-E

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: 7 Days to go: 9

Movie #433:  WALL-E

My toddler likes to play robots. She marches up and down the hall saying “beep-boop, beep-boop” and articulating her wrists forward and back. It’s adorable, and not just because she’s my baby and I’m biased. When WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) does his eye-goggle adjustments, it reminds me of her (or she reminds me of him, whichever), with its sort of basic robotics aesthetic. It’s very old school, and that’s a theme that repeats pretty often in WALL-E, in the most wonderful ways.

The first third of the movie is reminiscent of an old silent film, with this lonely little trash robot wheeling through the barren wasteland that is the abandoned Earth finding curiosities among the trash and delighting himself with simple items like Zippos and sporks and light bulbs. And he has a very special place in his heart for Hello, Dolly! Then an incredibly modern robot — EVE, voiced by Elissa Knight — shows up and turns his world upside down. She’s sleek, powerful, pristine and she flies — completely different from anything WALL-E has ever known or seen before. And his developing crush on her plays out in delightful dialogue-free scenes with physical comedy and sweetness in the style of Buster Keaton that positively warms the heart.

When they reach the Axiom, however, it becomes an action comedy. WALL-E has to navigate the scary and rigidly automated structure of the space community in order to stay with EVE, wreaking all kinds of havoc along the way, including inciting all sorts of little rebellions by knocking John (John Ratzenberger) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) off their automated traveling lounge chairs, forcing M-O (Ben Burtt) to leave the pre-determined travel lanes in order to clean up WALL-E’s mess, and teaching any number of robots how to wave. And once the captain (Jeff Garlin) discovers the plant missing from EVE’s storage unit, EVE and WALL-E are launched into a slew of obstacles they have to overcome in order to find and retrieve the plant and get the Axiom back to Earth. They’re labeled as rogue robots and are hunted by practically the ship’s entire robotic fleet. It’s funny and thrilling and really romantic in places. There are dozens of romantic comedies I could list that aren’t anywhere as lovely and effective as WALL-E is.

The film is also a scathing indictment of waste, of not taking care of our planet, of brash commercialism, of mindless consumerism, of laziness and of needless automation, but it’s not harsh or preachy. It focuses instead on the positive moments and messages of taking control, of moving, of doing and building things from your own hands. Technological advancements are great, it posits, but nothing can replace our planet, and nothing is more efficient or better for you than physical activity. It doesn’t scold, but it does encourage taking a better path than the one these people have been on.

Pixar also does something in WALL-E that it’s never done before by using live video footage of Fred Willard as the Global CEO of Buy ‘n Large, providing messages from Earth in the Axiom’s archives. It’s striking and unexpected, but perhaps more stunning is how seamlessly it fits into the landscape of the film. With all the video messages flashing everywhere inside the ship, his is just another in the series — despite the others all being animated. As I prepared to watch the movie again, in fact, I thought maybe I was misremembering Willard’s character being live action, because it seemed so out-of-place in concept. But he is, and it’s not out-of-place at all. It fits, and it’s surprisingly great.

WALL-E is a beautiful film, and it might be my sentimental favorite of all the Pixar catalogue. I should watch it more. It really exemplifies enjoying the simple things, and I think everyone needs to remember to do that more.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Up

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: 8 Days to go: 9

Movie #432:  Up

One of film’s greatest love stories takes place in the first eight minutes of Pixar’s Up. When young Carl (voiced by Jeremy Leary) meets young Ellie (voiced by Elie Docter), it’s love at first sight. Ellie is exciting and brave and outspoken and adventurous, the way Carl secretly wants to be in his heart even if he’s too shy to get there himself. As they grow from childhood friends to newlyweds to an aging married couple, the pair share a lifetime’s worth of laughter, love and loss in the span of a few short scenes. It’s precise, efficient storytelling done entirely in images, and if you don’t cry at the end, you’re a stronger person than I.

After the death of his beloved Ellie, Carl (Ed Asner) wants nothing more than to quietly live out the remainder of his life in the house they shared, but developers are constructing buildings all around it, and want Carl’s property for themselves. When an angry, grief-stricken Carl unintentionally injures one of the workers, Carl is forced by a judge to enter a retirement community where he will be cared for, but Carl isn’t going lightly. He uses his expertise as a longtime balloon salesman to lift his whole house off the ground and fly it to Paradise Falls in South America, where he and Ellie had always hoped to go.

The sound effects editing is notable here for how excellent it is. A lot of these early scenes are filled with stillness, which isn’t the absence of sound but rather the presence of really small sounds you wouldn’t notice in an otherwise lively environment. There’s the distinct squeak of balloons rubbing together, but not loudly like they’re right next to you, quietly and far off, because they’re well above Carl’s roof. There’s also the hollow sound of wind that makes it clear they’re in wide-open, unrestricted space, but it varies slightly depending on whether they’re flying high in the sky or if they’re on the high cliffs of Paradise Falls.

The movie offers a lot of playful elements that appeal to kids — like Dug the dog (voiced by Bob Peterson), Kevin the bird, and especially Russell the Wilderness Explorer (Jordan Nagai), who is easily the most authentically kid-like kid in any of their films — but unsurprisingly Pixar manages to direct its message at older viewers. Carl is motivated by his fear that he let Ellie down in her life by never bringing her the adventures she always wanted, but then he finally looks in her adventure scrapbook and sees that she filled it with all the milestones, big and small, of their lives together. Up is saying that it’s important to follow your dreams, but it’s also important to appreciate the journey you’re on.

If I had my druthers, of course, there’d be far more Ellie available somewhere — not in this film, necessarily, because it’s perfect, but somewhere — simply because she’s such a great little girl character, and one you don’t see often. I’ve known so many little girls — including two that live in this very house of mine, even if one of them is not so little anymore — with wild hair and scraped knees and an eagerness to climb a tree or dig in the dirt or spin a hundred times until they fall down, and I wish more of them were represented in movies. We often try to restrict girls in ways we don’t do with boys, to be quiet and composed and pretty. I think we should try to celebrate the girls who make noise and get dirty. Ellie could be their poster child.