Areas of Unrest

30 June 1999 - Movie Binge

Most people seem to attend movies either regularly or not at all. For example, I know a woman at work who hasn't seen a movie in a theatre since 1957. On the other hand, Robert typically sees at least one movie a week, partly because he is always afraid that people will be talking about a movie he hasn't seen and he won't have anything to contribute.

My approach to movie going is a combination of the two. I don't go to see anything for months, then I see 2 or 3 movies a week for a few months. In addition, I apply the same approach to renting movies, so the movie binge periods tend to include a certain amount of catching up on what I missed. I have no idea how or why I started doing this, but it seems to suit me well.

Anyway, I've already mentioned seeing two movies this month (Notting Hill and Limbo) and then I've seen two more in the past three days. Monday night I went to see Free Enterprise. This one is fairly obscure, I suspect, but it's the funniest movie I've seen in nearly a year. You probably need to be a bit of a geek to appreciate it, since the premise involves two guys who are devoted science fiction fans approaching their dreaded 30th birthdays. Their lives are pretty pathetic, until one day they meet William Shatner. The best thing about the movie is Shatner's willingness to make fun of himself. But there are several very funny scenes that have nothing to do with Shatner at all. For example, one of the main characters meets the woman of his dreams in a comic book store and they have a date which involves a sort of 50's monster movie fantasy. A familiarity with classic science fiction movies will help in appreciating the whole thing - and do make a point of staying for the credits.

Then, tonight I went to see My Son, the Fanatic. This one is a British movie about a Pakistani taxi driver whose son turns his back on everything Western and becomes a fundamentalist Moslem. Overall, it held my attention, largely because of an impressive performance by Om Puri, as Parvez, the driver/father who is sincerely confused by how a son he loves so dearly could have become so alien to him. The fundamentalists are less well-drawn. We can understand why Farid (the son) turns to Islam as a response to British racism, but he still seems to make this decision too abruptly. We see what he is running away from, but we never get any particular insight into what he is running to.

I also noticed that this was a BBC film. Why aren't American television networks producing anything as provocative?