Dear readers,
All you non-baseball fans are really missing out on
something special.
Anyway, to be completely honest, I haven’t had much to talk
about lately other than baseball, and I’m sure you guys don’t want to hear me
gush about that anymore. Last Saturday, I went to see The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson’s follow-up to the feverishly
praised (albeit, in my opinion, overrated) There
Will Be Blood. It was my first trip to the movie theater since I saw The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX over two
months ago. You might say, “WordMaster, there are so many things to discuss.
Why don’t you talk about something that actually matters for once?” Well, true; I could talk about politics, society, real life or
any of those things that most normal people find fascinating. But, as you guys know, I’m not normal.
I’m that weird person whose existence revolves almost entirely around an
endless string of pop culture obsessions. So when I realized that (1) I hadn’t
seen a movie in theaters in two months and (2) I didn’t really care, I felt
like I was having a legitimate identity crisis. If I wasn’t devouring movies
and TV shows with an enthusiasm that bordered on mania, what was I even doing?
What was the point of my life?
But
then, I saw the trailer for the now-released movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
It was the second half that got to me, the part accompanied
by Imagine Dragon’s infectious pop hit “It’s Time”. I’m not sure exactly what
it is about this trailer that I love so much. Maybe it’s because I had next to
no idea what to expect; maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for montages played
over a perfect song choice (see: Crazy,
Stupid, Love, The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Where
the Wild Things Are) or because I’m happy to see Emma Watson finding
good projects post-Harry Potter. Or
maybe it’s because it’s rare to see a movie about high school that seems so
refreshingly free of irony and cynicism, so bursting at the seams with joy. I’ve spend a long time searching
for a cinematic depiction of high school that feels truly real, rather than a compilation
of hackneyed stereotypes and self-conscious quirks (*ahem* Easy A *ahem*). Some, like Clueless
and Mean Girls, have their share of
sharp observations and resonant truths (they may not be my experience of high
school, but they feel like someone’s
experience of high school), though at the end of the day, they’re still
grounded in satire, not realism. Other than Judd Apatow’s funny, poignant and
tragically short-lived TV show Freaks and
Geeks, I’ve never been able to relate much to the media’s portrayal of high
school and adolescence.
Still,
I don’t think that’s quite it, because later that day, I had an epiphany – or as
close to an epiphany I’ll probably ever get. I’m the kind of movie buff who
makes Oscar predictions and keeps track of reviews coming out of the Sundance
and Toronto film festivals, who gets depressed or enraged when critics disagree
with me about a certain movie, as though that somehow invalidates my opinion.
But these past couple months, as I mentioned, I’ve more or less avoided any
news about movies, current or upcoming, so when I watched the trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I felt
a rush of something I haven’t felt in a long time: ignorance. Complete,
blissful, glorious ignorance.
I liked the first one as much as the next person, but
seriously, Hollywood. Please
fucking stop.
More than anything else, movie-watching
has grown so predictable. Months before a film even gets released, I can guess
the public’s reaction to it with almost pinpoint accuracy. Take The Dark Knight Rises, for instance. The
audience was going to be divided into precisely three camps: those who adored
it without reservation (aka “fanboys”), those who thought it was okay but
nowhere near as good as The Dark Knight
and those who dismissed it as unrelentingly bleak and self-serious camp. You
could also take virtually any lighthearted, emotionally-intense movie (say, The Artist or anything directed by
Steven Spielberg), and at least half the people you ask will call it “maudlin
bullshit”. Add this to the spoiler-centric culture of the Internet, the media’s
need to release not only trailers, posters, promotional stills, in-depth cast
interviews and pictures from the set but also trailers for trailers and every single mundane tidbit of information
they can get their hands on, and it becomes extremely hard for any movie, no
matter how good, to take you by surprise.
Swooning over the trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I
realized what a beautiful thing ignorance can be. At last, I can say this with
complete sincerity: I don’t care what critics or anyone else thinks. I don’t
care if a movie is awards-worthy or thematically complex or falls into whatever
predetermined category it’s supposed to fall into. I just want to be swept up
on the wings of a story, to soar through the air with no clue about where I’m
going, to be immersed in a universe more thrilling and awe-inspiring than our
own, to be transformed, inspired. You know those movies that remind you why you
fell in love with movies in the first place? Off the top of my head, I have maybe
six of them: The Lord of the Rings, Singin’ in the Rain, Casablanca, Inception, Super 8 and Up in the Air. They’re not all my
absolute favorite films, but when I first saw them, reality seemed to melt away
until nothing remained besides me and the flickering images on the screen. For
me, that’s the best feeling in the world: it’s the feeling of stepping inside a
dream.
One last random thing – The Perks of a Wallflower trailer has already
given me a contender for my favorite lines of the year: “I know there are
people who say these things don’t happen. I know these will all be stories
someday. But right now, we are alive. And in this moment, I swear we are
infinite.”
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