Great Things You Might Not Have Already Seen

I share with some of my FB friends a slight aversion to checking off a list of movies/books made by someone else. Also, while I suppose some of my friends my enjoy a "favorites" list of mine, I had another thought. Why not try to actually list a few "useful" recommendations? A lot of my favorites are, in fact, mainstream enough that most everyone will have already seen them. So, here is a subset of my favorites, which are at least a little off the beaten path, or were not big commercial successes, so there is at least a chance you may not have seen them. And my (very brief) comments. Combining movies and television here, music and books may come separately.

Harold and Maude
A delightful twist on the "May/December" relationship trope. Bud Cort's macabre, death-obsessed Harold plays wonderfully against Ruth Gordon's whimsical Maude. The rest of the characters are played as one-dimensional caricatures, but hilariously so, and that's part of the point--in a real love story, the rest of the world is just backdrop, right? Cat Stevens, way back before becoming a terrorist, contributes an alternately playful and wistful soundtrack.

Freaks and Geeks
A very short-lived TV series, and tragically so. The best thing I have seen about adolescence. Forget "The Wonder Years" or any of that, this blows them all away. I don't know how they found these kids, but they are as perfectly cast as I can imagine. (And the adult actors are also great.) The trio of young geeks is, for me, a special delight. The three boys do not map in any direct way to my own triumvirate from back in the day, but many aspects of the story line are very resonant. (Also, these characters are just about exactly my age, maybe a year older; there's a great vintage 1980 soundtrack.) Seth Rogen and James Franco star, in what I believe were their first major roles. Rogen is particularly hilarious. (Special warning/caveat: In the last couple of years, the Apatow/Rogen juggernaut has become so ubiquitous as to perhaps prompt a backlash. Yes, some of their shtick is getting a little overdone, or a lot, maybe. Do NOT be put off by this! This was one of the early Apatow projects, and it is fantastic.)

Repo Man
Generally, I don't care much for the Sheen boys, but Emilio Estevez is perfectly cast as obnoxious suburban teen punk Otto. A low budget, surrealist jaunt through a seamy, distopian Los Angeles. Mixes jaded cynicism and dorm-room philosophical bullshit with gratuitous violence, lots of foul language, and radioactive alien corpses. Oh, and a nice punk soundtrack. What's not to love?

Leila: Otto, don't go, what about our relationship!?
Otto: Fuck that.
Leila: You shithead! I'm glad I tortured you!

The Wire
After all the glowing things that have been said about this show, I no doubt have poor power to add or detract. All the superlatives you have heard are true. Jacob Weisberg's summary at Slate is pretty famous, and spot on, IMO. Seasons 3 and 4 are literature on the epic scale. My one bit of possibly useful advice: a couple of people I know who have not "gotten" The Wire have apparently seen episodes in isolation. If there is a "flaw" to the show, it is that it is a serial plot, and not episodically independent. You MUST start at the beginning and watch it through. (Not all at once, of course, though you may want to.) Get it on DVD and watch the whole thing.

Rushmore
This may not qualify as "obscure" enough for this list, I'm not sure, but I don't think it was a big hit. This is probably the funniest movie I've seen in the last 10 years or so. (Although I admittedly don't see a lot of movies. Lars and the Real Girl might be a close second.)

The Nightmare Before Christmas
Most of you have probably seen it, but it was not a commercial success (!!!???!!!), so I included it to cover the bases. Visually stunning. Wildly inventive. Score and soundtrack (Danny Elfman) are superb. My favorite animated film, and probably in my top five overall.

Stuff You May Have Seen, But May Need to Watch Again
All right, I can't quite resist, here are a couple of favorites that you probably have seen, but if they aren't in your favorites, you need to go watch them again.

If you have seen Raising Arizona fewer than five times, you haven't really seen it. (The Big Lebowski's only serious flaw is that it is not Raising Arizona.)

Unforgiven is the greatest western yet made. OK, I haven't seen them all, but I'll stand by this. ("Deserve's got nothing to do with it." My favorite quote, ever.)

The Muppet Movie. When is the last time you saw it? If it's been more than 10 years, this movie is probably better than you remember, even if you remember it being great. Henson, Oz, genius.

Spinal Tap goes to 11.

Nerd = Gay, A Post Script

A few items arose in the discussion of Nerd = Gay that seemed, collectively, to warrant a separate post.

First, while I certainly intended my tone to be light and whimsical, some of my themes were at least slightly serious and heavy, and I would hate anyone to get the feeling I was being whiny about some awful adolescence. Far from it, I was generally a very happy kid, and enjoyed the company of my (mostly nerdy) friends. I was, in fact, rarely picked upon. And not being among the very popular crowd, well that is most of us, after all, isn't it? The people who treated me with decency (or better) far outnumbered the meatheads, although the latter group can make a big impression. And, in fact, there were even some among the athletic, beautiful, and popular crowd who always treated this nerd boy with respect, kindness, and even generosity. I appreciated it then, and I still do.

Second, as my gay-nerd friend Heath discusses in an illuminating and entertaining confessional (note: a little "adult" in parts, but nothing too shocking by modern standards, IMO), there are many qualitative as well as quantitative differences between the gay and nerd experiences. I am absolutely sure it is true, and I really never meant to imply otherwise. I only stand by what I wrote in that the specific parallels that I cited do seem to me to be legitimate. In no sense did I mean to suggest that they were the whole story, or even the bulk of the story. I.e., I think what I wrote is fairly true and accurate, but it is certainly not a comprehensive description of the gay experience (or the nerd, for that matter), nor did I intend it as such. I suppose any confusion on this front may stem from the title "Nerd = Gay." It certainly seems to state an equivalence, doesn't it? The title was intended as tongue-in-cheek, and it seemed like, well, an awfully nerdy touch to put it in the form of an equation! (Heath responds, in kind, with a Venn diagram. Très magnifique, mon ami!)

Finally, to get back to the fun stuff, my friend Sharon suggested an addendum to define exactly what is nerdiness. Well, a comprehensive test matrix would be beyond the scope of this text, but I might leave you with a list of some of my own traits and experiences, as a member of the true nerd de la nerd. You can see this as a sort of "...you might be a nerd" list in the style of Jeff Foxworthy. However, each of these statements is factually true. I am NOT making any of this up.

Some non-random (stochastic at best) Nerdphemera vis a vis Ronald

I have, in fact, worn glasses held together with tape, paper clips, twist ties, and once, in sixth grade, a rubber band.

At age 20, I stood 5 feet eleven and one half inches, and weighed 120 pounds.

If there is a circumstance in life for which an appropriate quote cannot be drawn from either The Simpsons, Raising Arizona, or a classic rock lyric, I have not encountered it.

Late in high school, I did actually memorize all the elements of the periodic table, in order. (Yes, including all known lanthanides and actinides.) I forgot it fairly promptly. (This is as far as I can go now: H, He, Li, Be, B, C, N, O, Fl, Ne, Na, Mg... ouch!) I could not, however, sing Tom Lehrer's "The Elements," but my friend Heath could do a pretty good job, as I recall.

3.14159265359. That's all for me.

Once in college, I saw a girl wearing a sweatshirt with the following printed on it

ΣΚ

Upon observing this, I thought, "Summation of K... hmm, wait, what is K? Boltzmann's constant? No, that makes no sense. What are the limits of this sum? What the hell does this shirt mean?"

I still have my original paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings, purchased circa 1981-82, water damaged when my apartment flooded in 1988.

Also, my copy of Cosmos, purchased at around the same time.

Finally, returning to the Greek letter theme, I recently was amused when I encountered an onion ring that had formed a perfect lower case theta.


As always, peace out.