My taste in movies is maddeningly, almost irrationally eclectic. I try not to talk about what’s best, just my personal favorites. Here’s one example. Back in 2015, my top two couldn’t have been more different—Carol and Mad Max: Fury Road. One of my all-time favorites is Godfather II. I thought Pulp Fiction was a one-of-a-kind film, and that goes for most of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. I didn’t like Chinatown that much the first time I saw it, but when I watched it a second time, I changed my mind—you know, flip-flopped. I was stunned by how artfully composed every scene was. I felt the same way about Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.
I was blown away in the theater watching The Silence of the Lambs, but not for the reasons you might expect. At the film’s end, we have Dr. Frederick Chilton casually walking away from the camera. You’ll probably remember that Chilton ran the prison where convicted serial killer Hannibal Lecter was housed. Chilton hadn’t done anything particularly evil. He did leer at Clarice Starling, and he was unpleasant to Lecter, the serial killer. But at the end of the movie, the audience gets the sense that Lecter is going to chase Chilton down, kill him, possibly eat him. And they cheer! I kind of get it—but that’s really, really crazy. And that’s probably why I’m addicted to movies.
I will never forget taking Jeanne Galleta, my girlfriend in high school, to see Psycho. Neither Jeanne nor I could sleep or shower for weeks after watching Hitchcock’s creepy masterpiece. The Psycho remake of 1998 had one of the funnier taglines ever: “The classic story of a boy and his mother.”
Sue and I just watched Something’s Gotta Give again. Diane Keaton is perfect in every scene, almost in every take. Where was her Academy Award? C’mon, Academy members, it’s time for a recount.
Sometimes I run into fans of mine in movie theaters (at least I used to, before COVID). A lot of people who read my books seem to go to the movies. They’ll come up and tell me that I got their kids or their grandkids reading. Many of them tear up—probably because it’s so scary when your kid is having trouble in school. There’s no better compliment I can get than “You got my kids reading.”
A few years back, PBS ran a vote-for-your-favorite-novel contest. Eventually, they announced the winner—To Kill a Mockingbird. What a shocker that was. Personally, I liked Mockingbird, but not as much as some people.
Anyway, Jimmy Kimmel covered the contest on his show. He announced, “Nobody reads novels anymore.” Then he proceeded to interview six or seven nitwits in LA. Each of them said something like “I’ve never read a novel. I don’t read novels.”
I know Kimmel was trying to be funny. He is funny. Maybe he was taking a sly poke at the PBS crowd or a few sunstruck idiots in LA, but when I watched the show, my response was “Screw you, Jimmy!”
I’m sure fewer people read novels than don’t these days, but making reading seem uncool—is, well, uncool. It’s also a tragedy for this ofttimes wrongheaded country of ours. Especially when it affects kids, which it obviously does.