Coincidence is a strange thing.
I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I’m terrible at keeping them. Despite the best of intentions the exercise bike becomes a clothing rack, The Brothers Karamazov gets bookmarked around page forty, and the cap stays tight on my oil paints for yet another year. But every so often I manage to stick to one.
Years ago, damn near a decade, I kept a daily blog about crime fiction, which at that time was my newest obsession thanks to a discovery of Lawrence Block. My initial goal was to post once a day for an entire year and despite my own tendency towards entropy, I managed to do just that. For close to sixteen months I posted reviews, movie trailers, artwork etc. each and every day. The reward for doing so went beyond the occasional interaction with a crime fiction heavyweight or my name on publishers ARC lists. I felt a greater understanding of the genre, the artists who worked within it, and most importantly, more about myself. Specifically, what engaged me with that particular shade of darkness.
It felt good to have some insight and self-reflection brought on by something I enjoyed instead of therapy.
Last year for my birthday, which falls in December, my oldest friend Tom gifted me a rather special t-shirt. Those who know me recognize my endless love for the simplest of garments, especially when adorned with something unique and nerdy. I wear my geek cred proudly on my chest and do so with roughly 150 different shirts. This particular gift was laden with meaning for me. It simply printed a list, in release order, the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. In that moment, it sparked a rather achievable goal for the coming year: Watch all of PTA’s films in order. The only film I didn’t currently have sitting on my shelf was Hard Eight, but that was thankfully available on Amazon Prime. (As with t-shirts, I’m also a collector of DVD/Blu-ray, and Imprint out of Australia recently released Hard Eight on an all region disc. It’s gorgeous.)
It seemed too easy though. Was watching eight films really a challenge or more of an enjoyable weekend? The more I ruminated on it, the bigger it became. If I was going to watch all of PTA’s films, why not add David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, or Wes Anderson? It wasn’t long before a common link appeared between my choices. Most of the directors whose films I love began their careers in the 1990’s, a decade when I was absolutely immersed in films thanks to my childhood cable subscription to HBO and my eventual employment at Front Row Video/Movie Gallery.
My new goal went beyond the focus of my highlighted directors, zooming out to films I hadn’t thought about in two decades. Why stop at those directors when I could concentrate on an entire decade of films? Why not watch 100 films from the 90’s?
I was well on my way to completing that particular goal when the world came crashing down. The COVID 19 pandemic hit hard and quarantine began. Forced to stay home (luckily the fiancé and I had just finished moving into our new home) I had nothing to do but play with our puppy, surround myself with movies, and wrap nostalgia’s arms tightly around me so that I could be immersed in what I remembered as simpler times as my younger self.
With each film viewing, I sat not only with the story inside the movie, but also my story, who I was at the time I first saw it and where I thought I was going with my life. Movies triggered long forgotten memories and vice versa. I remembered what it was like to call in two hours late for my shift because I needed to catch a Noon showing of Eyes Wide Shut before it left the theater or nervously trying to hold the hand of a girl who, I felt, was way out of my league during Evita. Much like Rob Fleming in the 1995 Nick Hornby classic High Fidelity, I could chart much of my autobiography by the art I was consuming at the time.
It feels coincidental that he and I happen to share the same last name.
I strongly believe that we are products of the world around us, particularly of the art we consume the most, which for me has always been movies and books. For the sake of time consumption and my own sanity, I’ve chosen to focus solely on film, and much like Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese’s excellent documentary A Decade Under the Influence, I’ve chosen to stick to a particular decade.
Unlike the universally lauded 1970’s, I’ve chosen to stick with what I know best. Despite having some great books written about the subject of 90’s films (Down and Dirty Pictures to name just one) I feel that the 90’s have gotten a raw deal, identified only by the superstar directors that came out of it. For every Pulp Fiction or Boogie Nights there are countless films that are well deserving of attention, which is part of my goal, as well as movies that those of us in Generation X would rather not be identified with. (I’m looking at you S.F.W and Reality Bites!)
I wanted to put this decade under the scalpel and determine which movies meant the most to me and taught me lessons, for better or worse. So I dove in head first and searched for meaning in my life, much like Renton dove into the filthy toilet in Trainspotting for his drug of choice. Much like him I found bliss and sometimes found myself covered in shit. Before the clock struck midnight yesterday I’d managed to watch over 250 films from the 90’s, many for the first time since they were released on VHS and some for the first time ever. A handful were like welcoming home an old friend where the sharing of stories and memories came easy. It wasn’t long before I knew which films I’d need to talk more about.
That’s where we are now. Over the course of 2021, I will be here each and every Tuesday (new release day for home videos) to take about a movie that had a profound influence on who I am. Some will be well known high grossing Oscar winners while others will be smaller art house flicks, but all will be me. Like that new release wall that I used to tend, I contain multitudes of genres. I’ll pop in other times with reviews, Top 10 lists, and who knows what else, but for the next year you will find me here sharing stories.
I ended 2020 by watching Charlie Kaufman’s newest film I’m Thinking of Ending Things on Netflix. Like much of Kaufman’s work its challenging and a bit of a puzzle to figure out. But as I watched, I did something I do in real life whenever I’m invited into someone’s home for the first time. I checked out the shelves to see what movies and books Jake (played wonderfully by Jesse Plemmons) hung onto. I won’t spoil anything for those who haven’t seen it, but on those shelves sat the Rosetta Stone to not only learning who Jake is as a person, but to decoding the movie itself. His childhood bedroom book and movie shelf contained all the information you’d need to know.
Coincidence is a strange thing indeed.
Dan, you really have a way with words. I’m so glad to see you writing about something you are passionate about! I still believe there is a novel inside you. I may just pick up some of these movies unless it’s from a book then I’d read the book. It is interesting when the movie is based on a novel, I generally like the story the author told best. It’s difficult to condense a book/story into 90-120 minutes!
So far Goodfellas is based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi and Alive was based on the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read. Both can be ordered from a locally owned Maine bookstore at http://www.briarpatchbooks.com
Pump Up the Volume was an original screenplay.