Away We Go (2009)

Writers:  Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida

The Quote I Quote Most Often:  “Burt, I love my babies.  Why would I want to push them away from me?”  ~LN (in regard to strollers)

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “Okay, that's it! That's it! You are a terrible person.

Did you know that? You are terrible people. And Verona? She is twice the woman that

you'll ever be! Because this whole thing... I just...I never... I'm sorry because...And this 

guy! Look at him!”  ~Burt

Character I Most Identify With:  Verona

I thought I would embrace my condition today and watch Away We Go, the story of Burt and Verona who are about to have a baby (“or in three months, thank you”) and are on a quest to find where they want to live and raise their child.  Along the way, they visit many different families with lots of opinions on parenting. My favorite of these characters is Lily, played by Allison Janney.  Everyone knows someone like this . . . .

I think Maya Rudolph is one of the most beautiful women on the planet.  Don’t you think?

And this is the most beautiful wedding scene of any movie I’ve ever seen ever . . . 

 

My favorite vow is …

Burt: And do you promise that if I die some embarrassing and boring death that you're gonna

tell our daughter that her father was killed by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand

combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850 Chechnyan orphans?

Verona: I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do.

In the “Making Of” featurette, Maya Rudolph says of reading the screenplay for the first time, “It was so incredible to me that someone wrote this that wasn’t me.”

I don’t necessarily feel that way about this film, but I’ve read plenty of novels, poems, screenplays, song lyrics that I felt that way about.  I read something and think, “How did I not think of this first?!”  or  “How does someone else walking the planet know exactly how I feel?”  I think it’s high praise to react to writing in that way – to tap into a human experience so completely that you are able to articulate what others can’t put into words.  And it’s gratifying when you can’t express something in your own words to be able to point to someone else’s words and say, “This.  This is how I feel.”

Michelle's Top 5 "Kissing in the Rain" Scenes

#5: Spider-Man

#4: Sliding Doors

 #3: Garden State

#2: Chasing Amy

#1: Say Anything

Chasing Amy (1997)

Writer/Director:  Kevin Smith

The Quote I Quote Most Often:  “Always some white boy gotta invoke the Holy Trilogy.”  ~ Hooper X

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “I’m happy my stuff gets read at all . . . If I sell two issues I feel like John Grisham.”  ~ Alyssa Jones

Blake’s Favorite Quote:  “YOUR MOTHER’S A TRACER!!”  ~ Banky

Character I Most Identify With:  Holden McNeil

Nod to John Hughes:  “Keep your unit on ya.”  ~ Jay

I love this movie.  Not only is it my favorite of Kevin Smith’s films, it’s in my top-five favorite movies of all time.  Because some of you seem to be using my reviews as a “to-watch” list, I feel obligated to warn you about the language in this movie. Whereas Clerks and Mallrats have a lot of dirty jokes and cursing, Chasing Amy’s language is a lot more sexually explicit.  Just so you know.

I love the raw emotion of this film.  I love that the story unfolds exclusively through dialogue (with the exception of that incredible scene in the rain.  Swoon.)   

And I love love love love Ben Affleck’s monologue in the car after they leave the diner.  Have you ever heard anything more heart wrenching in your life?!

Not only is this a romance, it's also a great story of what happens to best friends when one of them falls in love.

 

It’s so difficult to talk about this movie without spoilers, so I’ll stick to what it is that makes this movie so much better than the others.  Kevin Smith has admitted to this being a very personal story and I think that comes across in every single scene.  It’s also a theme in the movie; Holden McNeil is unsatisfied with the comic books he’s been writing and longs to write something more personal.

I can’t quote it exactly and I don’t remember who said it, but there’s a quote from a writer that says roughly, if something comes up in your writing that scares you, that’s the stuff you need to pursue.  Just the idea of this scares the whiz out of me.  I find it extremely hard to put my raw emotions on the page.  I am always thinking about what people will think if they read it.  I find it very difficult to put aside the daughter/wife/mother/teacher parts of myself while trying to write something true and real.  I must learn how to do this if I ever hope to have my Chasing Amy.  I might be able to pull off a funny book or an insightful book, but if I ever hope to write a truly good book, then I’ll have to go much deeper than I ever have before and share those parts of myself that I like to hide most of the time.

Alyssa: [about Holden's new comic, "Chasing Amy"] Looks like a very personal story.

Holden: I finally had something personal to say.

Mallrats (1995)

Mommy Update:  Do I feel a little guilty lying around on my couch while most of the world is at work or school?  Yes, yes I do.  But, you guys, I have a full grown baby in my belly.  Really.  I had an ultrasound on Monday and this baby is over seven pounds.  He has chubby cheeks.  I’ve seen them.  And every time he moves, it makes me seasick.  And it hurts to walk around.  And I have to eat tiny little portions of food very frequently.  You should see me on my couch surrounded by cheese, crackers, grapes (and okay, okay, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia).  Still, I do feel like a slacker, so what better movie to watch next then Mallrats?

Writer/Director:  Kevin Smith

The Quote I Quote Most Often:  “That kid is back on the escalator again!” ~ Brodie

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “What kills me about you is your inability to function

on the same plane of existence as the rest of us.  Piss off.”  ~ Rene 

Blake’s Favorite Quote:  “Fly, Fat Ass, Fly!”  ~ Jay

Character I Most Identify With:  Willam – I can never see those 3D hidden pictures either.

Mallrats is the second in Kevin Smith’s “Jersey Trilogy.”  Chronologically, it takes place one day before Clerks.  It deals with different characters, but there’s some story overlap, which I enjoy.  Traditionally, the second in a trilogy is always my least favorite (that include Empire, sorry Star Wars fans), and this one is no exception.  It’s funny; I enjoy it, but it’s my least favorite of Smith’s movies.

I have learned a lot more from watching the commentary and the “Making Of” featurette on the tenth year anniversary DVD than the actual movie.  As I wrote in my review of Clerks, Smith wrote and made Clerks on his own.  It was a break-out sensation at the indi film festivals and was picked up by Miramax.  Smith had no expectations for the film and was pleasantly surprised when it did very well.

On the heels of Clerks, Mallrats was expected to be a blockbuster hit.  They made it with a studio, had a much bigger budget, got great feedback while they were making it, and then it flopped.  (It found a cult following on DVD).  Because they were given a budget by a studio, they felt obligated to take notes from the execs who had a lot of opinions about how much cursing, how much nudity, and how much plot line should go into this movie.  It seems as though Smith and Mosier took every note given to them and compromised their own ideas for the film.  For example, they regret taking out some of the profanity and they regret including some of the nudity.  For the most part, they agreed on the changes in plot and generally the editing decisions that were made.

This gives me a lot to think about as I begin to receive professional criticism on my own writing.  Criticism is good.  It can help your story become better than you could ever make it on your own.  There is, however, a point where you have to take a step back and think about the criticism being given and whether or not you agree with it.  Will changing your work make your work better or it will it compromise what you are trying to say?  Smith and Mosier talk a lot about whether or not they “sold out” on this movie.  Ultimately, they decided they learned a lot from making it, but for their third movie, they went back to making the kind of movie they wanted to make and worried less about trying to make a popular movie that would make money in the theater.  I think it’s no mistake that their first and third movies both made more money than the second – the one they tried to make into a blockbuster.  Some people can get away with making a movie or writing a book solely to make money, but it’s hard to pull off.  What you really need to do is make a story that’s honest and if it speaks to people, they will pay to hear your story.

On the featurette, Kevin Smith says, “I like the idea of a theater full of people and only four are laughing because they’re the only ones that get the joke.”  I like this, too.  I am rarely a fan of the blockbuster movies or the critically popular novels.  I like the ones that speak to those of us who hang out on the outer-circle.  The stories that appeal to the scruffy kids hanging out in comic book shops, or those of us who frequent the local coffee shop instead of the Starbucks.  When the counter culture set is your audience, you have to worry way less about what the critics say. (Jason Lee calls them “critics schmitics.”)  And at the same time, you have to be a little more patient to find the right agent or the right editor to fall in love with your book.

Clerks (1994)

Writer/Director:  Kevin Smith

The Quote I Quote Most Often:  “I’m not even supposed to be here today.” ~ Dante and “Salsa shark.” ~Randal

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “I don’t appreciate your ruse ma’am.”  ~ Randal

Blake’s Favorite Quote:  “My love for you is like berserker.”  ~ Olaf

Character I Most Identify With:  Dante, because in the movie that is my life I’m the whiney protagonist with the sharp-tongued, hilarious best friend, Randal.

Nod to John Hughes:  “PB & J with the crusts cut off.”  ~from “The Breakfast Club”

Disclaimer:  The movie really should have been rated NC-17.  It has the filthiest language of any movie I’ve ever watched.  If you’re offended by that sort of thing, you probably wouldn’t like it.

My brother, Blake, introduced me to this movie.  In 1994, I had been away at my first year of college and then spent my summer working at a camp in Colorado.  I was really out of the cinematic loop and hadn’t heard anything about this film before I watched it on video in my mom’s basement.  Blake and I thought then (and I still think now) that this is one of the most genius films of all time.  I just love the story behind it.  Kevin Smith, a guy from the ‘burbs of Jersey, had a dream to make his own film, so he got a bunch of credit cards and his friends together and did it.  He. Just. Did. It.  He’s said many times that he didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but through the process of making the movie, he learned how.  

Here are the things I love about this movie:

1.        I love the chapter titles and the fact that you need a dictionary to understand them.  One of the chapters is titled “Syntax.”  Hello?  I love that!

2.       I love that the movie is in black and white to simulate the surveillance camera.  So very very cool.

3.       I love the soundtrack.

4.       And the odd collection of characters, many of whom are played by the same people wearing different hats.

5.       I love that the movie is relatively plotless.

In fact, it occurs to me now as I rewatch this movie that it is because of movies like this that I have developed a serious problem with plot in my own novels.

Clerks is the story of Dante Hicks, a convenience store clerk who is called in on his day off.  In many ways, the day is routine, not far off from any other day in this guy’s life.  Through a series of conversations and events (some routine, some extraordinary), he reexamines his life.  Not a lot of plot.  But I love stories like this.  I love the realism of a routine day, in which the main character has a major realization, and the story ends, but you get the sense that tomorrow is going to be just a little bit different.  The protagonist is going to be more okay tomorrow than he was today.  Not super exciting – not a lot of action, but a whole lot of funny and a lot of heart.

The problem is stories like this aren’t very commercial.  They’re not blockbusters.  Movies like this and novels like this have a difficult time getting made.  That’s one reason Kevin Smith just did it on credit cards, and the fact that no one knew who he was.  

I have now written three novels that have received critiques by professionals (agents, editors, writers).  The consensus is: My writing is pretty good; I have interesting, loveable characters, and an ear for dialogue.  But everyone who has offered a critique has said the same: There is not enough happening.  There’s not enough reason to keep turning the page.

Clerks is a perfect example of what is enough for me: you give me great characters and great dialogue and I will go along for the ride with you.  But apparently, those who sell novels to young adults don’t think this enough.  They insist that the plot line be stronger to give the reader a purpose for reading.  I haven’t decided if they’re right yet.  Sometimes I think they don’t give young adult readers enough credit.  However, I’m still an amateur writer, so I’m learning to bulk up my plot – which doesn’t seem to be detracting from the good things I have going on.  In fact, strengthening my plot lines, so far, is only enhancing my stories.  Plot is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, but I still have a fondness for a story without a lot of plot in the way.