Yesterday I was at a movie marathon at The Egyptian Theater. The place is old. And has held a LOT of large events. It's a non-profit that shows motion picture film on film and sometimes digital. The building is beautiful. In the armpit of Hollyweird.
But as I was watching films like "Fatal Attraction" and "Misery" it dawned on me on how far we have left story behind for spectacle. Especially when these two bookended "Gone Girl."
Granted, at the time both "Fatal Attraction" and "Misery" had the people talking...like in the streets people would say to someone else "shit, dude, 'Fatal Attraction' there's a part in it where they fuckin' boil a fuckin' rabbit!"
And the friend would say "Oh man, that's sick...I gotta see it!" As with "Misery" there is the sledge to the ankles scene that I still cannot watch. The convo between two friends would be "then she takes a fuckin' sledgehammer and whammo!"
The friend would say "Oh fuck yah! This I have to see!" (I was this friend back in 1990, and that shot is still haunting.
Any way, the people who go to cinema these days don't have that reaction. I guess most things aren't so taboo anymore. I'm trying to remember the last time someone told me a crucial whammo! moment in a movie where I said I HAVE to see that. I think in a way, Quentin Tarantino movies are that. I would say "Then a flamethrower and people's faces get demolished..."
I'm not advocating that it needs to be brutally violent. Only that in context, it really sets people talking about how someone like that can exist or something like that can happen. Maybe, it's because we have experience so much weirdness and it's reported on that nothing seems to really rock our boat anymore. And that is sad.
When I think of our tragic tales that set us off in conversation, these are the moments I miss the most.
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