Skip to main content

To avoid fainting, keep repeating, 'It's only a movie'

I recently watched the theatrical version of The Exorcist (aka, not The Version You've Never Seen) with William Friedkin's commentary track on. Even with Friedkin's voice drowning out most of the dialogue and music, the film still terrified me. Those fast cuts, spooky lighting, and demonic images still make for one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. But I still think the movie is fantastic for its look at religion and good versus evil. Thus leading me to a weird spot: do I really want to watch a great movie even though it's rather unsettling to watch? I say yes, but with reservations.

The AV Club compiled a list of 24 films that, while great, are painful to watch again and again. For the ones I have seen (Requiem for a Dream, Straw Dogs, Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple and The Last House on the Left), I concur. Seeing the lives of protagonists worsen because of drug addiction, innocent women be raped and/or murdered, and hearing audio of people dying from poisoned Kool-Aid is not what I consider criteria for an enjoyable movie-watching experience. (There's a reason why Requiem is the only movie on that list that I've seen a few times.)

Yet I'm not someone who thinks movies should only entertain and make me to turn my brain off. Quite the opposite: I like movies where I feel something -- from sadness to happiness -- and not in fluffy, cotton-candy ways.

Jonestown in particular makes me wonder what scares me more: fictional horror films or tragic documentaries. I can suspend disbelief when there's an unkillable monster on the loose named Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees. I can't with seeing the few Jonestown survivors describe the final hours of the temple.

I boil my movie-watching down to movies that I can watch at any time and in any mood and those that I can't. Most of the aforementioned movies fall into the latter. For example, I can't watch The Exorcist at night with the lights out because I will have trouble falling asleep. In addition, I can't have much food in my system as I watch green vomit come out of a possessed child (not to mention that scene where the syringe goes into her neck).

The average movie-watcher does not want to feel challenged with a movie. I don't think that notion is something to frown upon; that's not how every movie is made. In my case, some of my all time favorite movies are Star Wars, The Muppet Movie, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Student Bodies, American Graffiti, American Splendor and Kevin Smith's movies. So I doubt this attitude will change in the foreseeable future.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J