10:46 p.m. - 2009-12-20
Ranting About Schmidt
i just finished watching About Schmidt.
Here's the rant:
Jack Nicholson has a psycho face. Maybe it's the combination of his arched eyebrows, cynical slit eyes and that hateful scowl. Like some special combination of numbers that, if you get it right, unlocks a metal vault that contains a demonic force of rage and destruction. He's just waiting to explode.
As am i. Waiting for something, anything, to happen in the movie About Schmidt. It is a very realistic movie, that i have to admit, it is like real life, with all the boring, insipid and undecipherable parts unedited and left free to run in its leisurely pace, like molten concrete melting down the street.
About Schmidt is about Schmidt who has reached the end of his life only to find that he has accomplished nothing meaningful much in his life, not a single difference in anyone's life, and he is really tired, too tired. The anger in him just simmers and dies, like a saucepan of tar. In the end of the story, and the ending is quite predictable, he cries in a scene, depending on how you see it, of supposedly redeeming salvation or stock sentimental hallmark fare, because he received a thank-you letter from a charity in Africa. Yes, the only thing that makes you care for ugly self-loathing Schmidt (and therefore to continue watching to see how his story pans out) is because he donates some money every month to feed and cloth a poor kid in Africa.
Another point sticking like an angry dwarf:
The movie does a disservice to the original book with the same title, changing many parts, subbing out the edgeyness for really sleepy subtle shit.
(This page lists the differences: http://tonymacklin.net/content.php?cID=51)
Cockles and frumples, mannn. All crumpled up inside like a lipstick stained tissue.
Maybe they wanted to make another film, something different from what i had in mind, and i just didn't get this one.
Then i remembered something important. A lesson for us all. Or for me specifically. Yes, very sudden. This is the message: It is easier to diss something and complain. Than to praise... Geddit geddit? OMG Hallelujah!
Sudden epiphanies don't get as corny as this.
So i do a mental backflip in the air and think about how hard it is to praise life. Without being pedestrian and flat.
How do you praise life? Remember this is supposed to be an ironic comedy. It's not a tragedy right?
Maybe a cunning rhetoric asked in the form of hardship, poverty, estranged relationships, broken spirits, battered self-esteems, childhood nightmares, adult defeats, crushed hopes, misplaced dreams... what have you. How do you live and rise above this shit?
Perhaps by doing something or believing in something.
Meanwhile play up the comedic factor. Not the silent scowl or hapless dead jowl. But laughter. That laughter in the seats of spectators, safe and comfortable in their positions.
Hopefully, for some beautiful reason, a child sees this man laughing so hard with tears in his eyes, the child can't help but laugh too. Then the whole family is laughing now, even the dog, he kind of laughs but it sounds like a bark, but you see his wagging tail so it's probably a laugh or approximately humourous bark.
Then everybody starts laughing for real, someone's releasing the gas in the theatre, and we all exit happier with smiles out the doors, like we've just been annointed by some holy touch while sitting there in the dark, to make us feel more humane and relieved about ourselves.
Ok this is it. Life. Praise it for its ability to laugh despite everything. Or to trudge on stubbornly. Playing to the laughs in the stands. Someone said it better: Comedy comes from suffering.
That's about it. I'm actually floating now.
so tired, must sleep.
this entry has been rewritten at least 2 times.
