#165 - lars and the real girl

well, i think i may have found my movie niche. because of netflix i've been watching a lot of movies this summer (well, some movies and mostly all of reno 911 and bones), but now that summer's over i'm think i'm gonna cancel netflix, number one because i've got no more movies in my queue and number two because i just can't watch so many movies all the time! then sometimes i find myself feeling burdened by all the movies that i've gotta watch and some nights i spent just trying to get through all the dvds on the table just so i could finally mail them out again. my parents have the blockbuster movie pass and i swear they get new movies almost daily, by mail or in the store. at last count they were well past 600 movies (they keep a list, haha). but i can't do that... it's too much. i need real life.

anyway, so i saw "lars and the real girl." i really liked it, and it got me realizing that while i find most mainstream movies extremely boring (i find myself fast-forwarding through a ton of horror/adventure movies, i can't stand heavy over-dramatic dramas, and can't find enough worth in most comedies or romance or whatever else types of movies there are to actually sit down and watch two hours of it), i am completely intrigued by movies like this one... simple, character-driven, with some weird disorder. i think i like the quiet movies, i dunno, i feel like i can relate somehow, even though some of the premises seem completely wacked.

in this one, a painfully introverted guy experiences delusions with a fake girlfriend, but that's just what moves the plot along, it's not really about the doll. the real great stuff (like any good movies) was in the protrayal of pain! haha, don't mean to sound like a masochist, but c'mon, all the best storylines showcase pain. and how hard life is. but not in a depressing way, in a cathartic way. in a "wow, watch how these people work through their pain" kinda way. right? look at that those other movies that i've blogged about recently... "year of the dog" and especially that TBI one... "the lookout." showcasing the contrast between pain and happiness makes for great stories. i really like shows by joss whedon (buffy, angel, firefly), and one thing that he's a fan of is giving his audience just a glimmer of happiness and then slamming them with pain. it's a great story device. of course, it's good to try and get back to happiness at some point, but i think a lot more people can relate to pain/sorrow in movies than they can to happiness (just because somehow painful or sad experiences become so much more memorable in perception).

anyway, i thought it was a cool movie.