I see that nose of yours

I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.
- Othello

So, I've gotten back into movie watching. Not to the level I was in my hayday, but still, watching movies nonetheless. In my Pebbleman fashion, I have a habit of it. I watch the three movies from Netflix over the weekend, send them back in and get the next three by the next weekend. In the past couple of weekends I have seen some truly awesome movies, and as such, I'm going to share them.

A recent spate of awesome movies I have seen:

Othello

No, not O, but Othello from 1995. I remember wanting to see it when it came out way back when, but I'm kind of glad I didn't. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it back then, I think. It would've been more like "I'm watching Shakespeare, aren't I awesome and mature." Which is of course, dumb.

Now, despite the fact that this is a Shakespeare film and it has Kenneth Branagh in a large role, it is not a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare film (though perhaps unsurprisingly, a ton of the actors in this film made it into Branagh's Hamlet a year later). It was actually directed by Oliver Parker. Somewhat poorly I might add. He used a number of cinematic tricks that I would have to call juvenile. What he should've done is gotten out of the way of the true beauty of this film: the acting.

Now, I'm a fan of Laurence Fishburne, but I must admit that in his roles he sometimes can be hit or miss. Not here. He was on target the whole way. It was beautiful the way he played a Shakespearean character but filtered in Moor-ish habits in very subtle ways. He was the first black man to be cast in the lead in a film version of this play, but he downplayed the race. It wasn't a huge thing, which was beautiful. But it wasn't absent either. It was woven into the context. A slight gesture here. A little accent there. It was sprinkled into the character, not over the top, but not missing. It was perfectly played into the overall character. It was genius! He didn't let the race get in the way of actual points of the character, which is just how the part was written. I am in awe.

The acting in the film was almost uniformly amazing. Irene Jacob as Desdemona was meh. Michael Maloney did a surprisingly poor job as Rodrigo considering how awesome he was as Laertes in Hamlet, but that might be more the fault of Shakespeare writing a fairly weak character. Other than that, everyone was awesome. This is a film to watch for the acting. I was astounded at how good it was.

Edward Scissorhands

Burton and Depp, need anything more be said? No, but I'm going to say it anyways.

I read this film described as a fairy tale. That really is the best way to describe it. But this ain't no Disney fairy tale. This is an old school Hans Christian Anderson/Brothers Grimm fairy tale. There ain't no happily ever after, it's a warning. It teaches a lesson.

This film is about, and I can't believe I'm going to use such a pretentious phrase, the duality of man. It's about humanities desire to create something beautiful and its seemingly inability to prevent itself from destroying it. Or, in a more general sense, mankind's ability to lavish dreams and wreak horrors at the same time. This is personified in Edward, a man that is capable of creating such lovely works of art, but is an accidental danger to himself and others. At first, people are entranced by his creations (the people being the denizens of a pastel NIGHTMARE of suburbia, honestly, I'd rather live in the creepy mansion than that neighborhood). But they quickly become disenchanted with Edward as they either fail to utilize him to their own demands or became afraid of his destructive nature. And therein lies one of the major messages in the film, the inability of people to either recognize or come to terms with their own duality. They accept the creativeness, but reject the destructiveness, not recognizing that they go hand in hand (or hand in scissor, haha, I'm so funny). Burton does a stunning job mixing the stark, gothic black and white nature of Edward (thereby boiling his person down into black and white, in essence making him...simplistic? No, wrong word. He becomes the symbol of the duality, black and white, yin and yang, creation and destruction) with the more colorful "real" people. Plus there is the secondary message, that of Edward being a gentle soul unable to find his place in a more cynical world (see the theft section and the ethics conversation).

Good fucking god, did I really just write that? Can you tell I've taken a film class or two? That's pretentious sounding as hell. But oh well, it's better than writing IT WAS AWESOME LAWL.

Secretary

It's hard to describe exactly how much I love this movie. It was amazing. Here is the plot synopsis from the imdb.

"Lee Holloway is a smart, quirky woman in her twenties who returns to her hometown in Florida after a brief stay in a mental hospital. In search of relief from herself and her oppressive childhood environment, she starts to date a nerdy friend from high school and takes a job as a secretary in a local law firm, soon developing an obsessive crush on her older boss, Mr. Grey. Through their increasingly bizarre relationship, Lee follows her deepest longings to the heights of masochism and finally to a place of self-affirmation."

This is a movie about needs and weaknesses. And it questions both. What is really weakness? Is the submissive in a sado-masochistic relationship weak? As the film shows, no. The submissive actually has a position of strength in that they allow themselves to be dominated. No, as the film shows, the truly weak person is the one that does not know themselves. And this is a message that plugs DIRECTLY into my personal philosophy. Temet nosce. Know thyself. This is seen in the relationship between Lee and Mr. Grey. Lee is a bit of a flibbertigibbet with a penchant for self mutilation (aka cutting). Eventually she enters into said sadomasochistic relationship with Mr. Grey, whereupon she gains an extraordinary level of self-confidence. I'll try not to spoil anything for those of you who will watch this movie, but the level or personal strength Lee gains after she realizes she enjoys the submissive lifestyle is astounding. She becomes a strong, self-willed person, even though she is a submissive. The real weakness is seen in Mr. Grey, a person unwilling to come to terms with his dominant nature. And there, between them, we see that how a person lives does not determine their weakness, but who they are.

The film is wonderfully non-judgmental. I'm going to quote a line from near the end of the film, it's one of the best things I've read/heard in some time.

"In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him."

And the film also pulls back from the over-the-top SM stuff. There's no leather and whips and chains and all that business, which I imagine is just window dressing on the true nature of an SM relationship. The tonality is conveyed without the graphic images that would offend many people. It wouldn't offend me personally, I've dwelt on the dark side of the internet too long, but it's a subtlety in craft I have to admire. It gets the feeling across without being cliche.

Yeah, back to the nonjudgmental-ness. I love it. As if there is a right way and wrong way to live life. If you can find someone to live you life with that makes you happy, and makes them happy, then the particulars of it don't matter to me. I shall close with the lyrics from a Ramsay Midwood song "Grass'll Grow" that have been running through my mind for weeks now. They are apt to this message, and a larger message in general, and I'm half tempted to get them tattooed on my body.

Well there ain't no straight line on God's green
Least none I've ever seen
Even the bullets wobble and spin
There ain't no latitude, just a trade wind