Rogerebert.com is highlighting each of the critics this week, and today my number is up. I am digging my avatar. I think that’s the first time I’ve even had an avatar.
Back in 2013, when I first started writing for Ebert, I filled out the Movie Questionnaire (we all did), basically to provide a meet-and-greet for the Ebert readers.
They’ve re-posted it along with all of my reviews for 2015. Unfortunately, I’ve reviewed some real crap this year, but also some really good ones.
Sheila’s got an avatar! Well the world is finally spinning in the right direction. It does my heart so good to know there are millions of peeps out there now who love and worship you as much as I do. Somehow it makes up for Pol Pot. xxx Stevie
// Somehow it makes up for Pol Pot. //
That is one of the nicest funniest things anyone has ever said to me!!
Love you, Stevie!!
… and any time I get to sing the praises of GI Jane is okay by me.
The avatar is great! I love your friend made you watch Forrest Gump a second time. My husband made me watch “Man Of Steel” twice for that very reason.
Ha!!! Man of Steel! Like: “Maybe you should watch it again and your mind will be TOTALLY changed!”
I definitely have had opinions that change over a long period of time – some films I wasnt ready for, some I didn’t “get” right away – but Forrest Gump, I knew right off the bat. When I hate (and it doesn’t happen often) I hate HARD.
So my friend and I watched it together, and she sobbed and I rolled my eyes. Luckily our friendship survived!
People feel very very personally about Forrest Gump. It’s almost a fundamentalist mindset.
It’s like the whole Richard Bach thing – I wrote some posts criticizing Richard Bach and I got a bunch of almost PAINED emails, begging me to read the books again (even though I had read them all a bazillion times and loved them – I just outgrew them). But it HURT them. It wasn’t like, “I hate you, you’re awful” – it was more, “Really??? WHY????”
I mean, I have things I love but I doubt I would send a pained email to someone because they thought Dean Stockwell sucked. As a matter of fact, I would write that person off as stupid and not worth my time! :)
But Forrest Gump definitely brings up that pained response from people who love it. They feel hurt somehow.
Ah, Richard Bach is like a cult. My grandmother gave me JLS when I was younger and wanted to talk about it, which of course freaked me right out. Such a disappointment to her that I didn’t get it, whatever it was that she got out of it. So evangelical, this need to convert you – “WHY? WHY DON’T YOU SEE IT? LOOK MORE CLOSELY. READ IT AGAIN.”
Paula – hahaha “Look more closely.”
BAH. Yes, that’s just what his fans are like. It’s crazy – totally a cult.
I so agree with you about Gump….my first thought after seeing it was Zelig was was so much better.
Ha. YES.
I get very very mean when I start going off on Forrest Gump, and my elitist self comes to the fore – and it can get ugly! I try to just avoid it, especially with people who adore the film.
But I prefer to admire people who, you know, have brains in their heads. (Sorry.)
I never talk like this – (or rarely) but Forrest Gump is an example of everything that is wrong in our relentlessly feel-good culture. Or at least in what we value, think is awesome, praise. Lowest common denominator. Elevating mediocrity.
Not to discount the rest of the interview, but that is a kick-ass avatar. People who can draw are like magicians to me.
I know, right? My avatar is cracking me up. I’ve never had one before. Now I can blame things on her. It wasn’t me, it was my avatar …
That avatar is pretty awesome. It looks like you could walk right into “Waking Life”.
I always love the “Dog Day Afternoon” story!
I now understand why you love “This is the End” so much:
Jay Baruchel ” No, I just… I don’t like Los Angeles. It doesn’t make me a hipster”
Craig Robinson” I’ll bet you hate movies that are universally loved. ”
Jay ” I don’t even…”
Craig “You like Forrest Gump? ”
Jay “No, no, it’s a horrendous piece of shit”
Craig “Life is like a box of chocolates, no?”
Jay ” Yeah, no, I’m familiar with it”
Craig “You never know what you’re gonna get”
// Yeah, no, I’m familiar with it” //
hahahahaha You know I felt vindicated by that exchange!!
Again with my meanness: If you think “life is a box of chocolates” is deep, then you need to put down the TED Talks on repeat and read some real literature because I guarantee it’s been said way WAY better by someone 400, 500 years ago. But that would take, you know, effort, and an attention-span beyond a 5-screen Power Point presentation. BAH. Forrest Gump is Philosophy for Dummies. Literally. Dummies.
(not talking to you, Todd – talking to the general “you”)
And speaking of Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon – I’m sure you’re aware of the doc that came out last year about the real guy. Can you believe I haven’t seen it yet?? My 12-year-old-self felt a thrill when I first saw the trailer.
I haven’t seen that yet either, but I should. Maybe your obsession has faded a bit, but it doesn’t change what it meant to you then.
Oh definitely. Talk about Roger Ebert’s quote about movies being “empathy machines.” That’s what happened to me seeing that movie – although I also had the consciousness to know that what I was seeing was also world-class acting. I wanted to know how those people did that. I knew “Al Pacino” was an actor. I mean, I had no idea who he was – I was too young for Godfather at that point – but I knew that it wasn’t a documentary, in other words. I couldn’t just Google the guy – I had to figure it out by library research, and asking my parents. That was how I figured out that he came out of the “Actors Studio” – whcih was also Kazan’s tradition – and it was right around the same time that I had discovered East of Eden – so, you know, my mind exploded.
And then, 20 years later, there I was, attending Actors Studio sessions at their space on 44th Street. It’s practically a direct line from Dog Day Afternoon to there.
Amazing, you have such clarity about that process! Yeah, not being able to Google Al Pacino, very different world back then.
Right – no biographies of him existed – he wasn’t featured in Tiger Beat, my favorite magazine – :) – He was in a never-never-land of Grown-Up-Actors. Had to really do some digging.
Sheila
Great interview! And one I read out loud to C. When it came to the music question I paused and he yelled out Elvis! And we just laughed about all the different Elvis’s listed. (He also said about Forest Gump, “that just made my day”)
I loved GI Jane! That shower scene with Viggo watching? I mean, really. That’s one of the sexiest scenes ever. But how can you go wrong with Viggo? I had taken my Mother-in-law to see it and thinking she liked it walking out I said, “So did you like the movie?” She said, “are you kidding me? They punch her out, put a bag over her head, shave her head, what did you take me to see?!” And congrats on the wonderful avatar, that is so great!
// That shower scene with Viggo watching? //
Rowr.
And the weird little details like his love for D.H. Lawrence. And how during the scene where they’re all taking the test, and falling asleep because they’ve been up for 48 hours – he’s sitting in a back room, drinking whiskey, and reading a novel by J.M. Coatzee. Like – what? This is a guy who makes his living shouting at recruits and being the toughest motherfucker ever – but honestly, he’s a book-worm. It doesn’t seem like a “quirk” – it seems like an organic part of the character. Lots of guys like that – warriors – are far more well-read than the general populace. They read shit like Herodotus to understand war tactics and history. You know? I LOVE that character – and the final moment where he has put the book of Lawrence poems in her locker …
Killer.
Viggo at his most movie-star-y. He’s not really a “movie star” type guy – he’s more of a chameleon – but in GI Jane he is flat-out a star.
// She said, “are you kidding me? They punch her out, put a bag over her head, shave her head, what did you take me to see?!” //
hahahahaha
And I am so glad to find other Forrest Gump haters. It makes me feel not so alone.
Sheila
Oh yes! All those details you mentioned brought it back, I was only retaining the shower scene, that was apparently enough. And yes, Viggo is definitely a character actor, who just happens to look like a leading man (like Brad Pitt, who is also a great comedian, I’m not sure if I saw Viggo in anything funny.) I do remember seeing Viggo in A Walk on the Moon and talking at the screen, “Are you nuts? Go with the blouse man!” That is so wrong.
Forest Gump, yeah, we had running jokes here about that stupid feather…..
// (like Brad Pitt, who is also a great comedian, I’m not sure if I saw Viggo in anything funny.) //
Really good point!
// I do remember seeing Viggo in A Walk on the Moon and talking at the screen, “Are you nuts? Go with the blouse man!” //
Oh my God, I know.
That was a great read! Thanks for sharing it (and everything in it) with us. And YES to hating Forrest Gump. Bleh, I didn’t even like typing those two words.