Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

It's "The Jared Show!"

For the past week I'd say my life has felt more or less like a series of episodes from a very formulaic TV show . . . For me it has been a reasonably entertaining show, but that's still what it is.

On Monday we watched Casablanca in what was supposed to be a reasonable facsimile of Rick's American Cafe . . . Well, as close as you can get in a Longview Hall classroom, that is. Which isn't very close, I'll grant you. They had small candles everywhere and a few bottles of sparkling grape juice and shot glasses for everyone.

Okay, so they weren't shot glasses. They were Shrek 2 dixie cups. That didn't do a whole lot for the ambience, I'll admit, but they had good intentions. And when the lights finally went down and the movie got started and we were watching by candlelight and Scholl and I found ourselves in possession of a mostly full bottle of sparkling grape juice (which we proceeded to polish off at a good clip) . . . Well, once I couldn't really see Shrek and Donkey grinning at me anymore, the atmosphere almost worked. And Casablanca is still a really great movie, of course.

Of course, Scholl has been playing with the candle throughout the discussion and well into the movie, dipping his pencil into the wax, forming a ball of it layer by layer. Then I glance over at him about a half hour before end of the movie, and he is dangling one of his hairs over the flame. And then it lights up and starts to burn. I shake my head, watch him finish burning it, and shrug. Then he gets another one. And starts to burn it. And now I can definitely smell burning hair, and I know it won't be long before Watson can smell it as well. So, Scholl got smacked and I complained of the stink and we finished watching the movie in relative peace.

But the Rick's atmosphere was decidedly gone.

Then on Tuesday there was High Noon, and that was fun. There were clear plastic cups full of peanuts all over the place, and we got IBC root beer. It almost felt like a saloon, once the movie was going . . . well, when you've got an imagination like mine, anyway.

Wednesday was our presentation, on Dr. Strangelove. I opened up (after the devo) with an introduction to the director, writers, and actors with the principle characters that they play, as well as a very brief look at the atmosphere of the period. I especially enjoyed the brief examination of Stanley Kubrick's filmography . . . but nevermind that. We then moved directly into the War Room, circa 1955.

We had Dr. Coppinger come in to play the President, Scholl was the National Security Advisor, Wayco was some General, and the other three were . . . other things. The idea was to give an "emergency late-night briefing" to get a better idea of the context of the movie. We had already set up the room beforehand so that everyone was sitting around it, facing the center of the room, and we had each brought along our phones, which were placed on the desks beside us. A few of the guys wore suits and ties. Scholl wore his pajamas. Wayco was dressed in combat fatigues. We had one guy talk about the Cold War, one do German scientists who worked for us after WWII, Ricky Morley did the fluoride conspiracy (sort of) and Wayco discussed the fine points of our B-52 strategy for waging nuclear war (in his best General Turgidson voice . . . a highly amusing and very well-done impersination). The other three dragged a bit, but Wayco livened things up in the midst of Morley's talk, taking a call from his secretary . . .

Scholl finished things off (after we had ended our little skit) with an in-depth look at the War Room scenes from the movie itself, examining the photography, lighting, mise en scene, acting, sound, editing, etc. It was quite good. And then, just before beginning the movie, we handed out bottles of natural spring water (no fluoride) . . . and donuts.

Dr. Strangelove was funny, as always, but Scholl and I had some trouble staying awake. We'd been up late, gotten up early, and watched most of Strangelove (in pieces) at least two or three times while preparing the day before. At one point, with me sitting to his right, and Dr. Watson on his left, Scholl started to snore. I saw Watson's head slowly turn to look at Scholl . . . right before I elbowed him. I think he was mostly awake after that. I discovered later that Watson had elbowed him from the other side at the exact same moment.

On Thursday it was Hitchcock day. We had a lady in who was apparently an English adjunct here . . . I think last year. And, I think, (I wasn't quite paying enough attention at this point) she is now studying film in graduate school. I didn't catch her name either, so we'll call her the Hitch Lady. She was quite enthusiastic and knowledgeable on the subject, which I could certainly appreciate, being a big Hitchcock fan myself. She handed out a list (which I was quite pleased to receive) of all his movies and exactly where he makes his cameo appearance in each one. I'll be hanging on to that. I made a quick count and discovered that I have seen 18 Hitchcock movies to date. I didn't know I'd watched that many. Cool.

Anyway, we had assumed all along, from the syllabus, that we would be watching North by Northwest on Thursday, but Watson had turned complete control over to the Hitch Lady. She showed us a brief clip from Notorious (one of the good ones!) as well as the shower scene from Psycho (another good one! . . . bah, they're all good . . .). And then we watched Vertigo, which I've only seen once all the way through.

I should note that it was rather a historic occasion, as well. Dr. Watson saw Psycho when it first came out back in 1960, and had stayed far away from it over since ("I didn't take a shower for months!" he exclaimed). So I was there when he saw the infamous shower scene for the first time in nearly 45 years. It was a very special occasion.

After the movie was over and everyone had filed out, we hung around and discussed the Freudian interpretations of Hitchcock films with Watson and the Hitch Lady. There're all sorts of bizarre things going on, let me tell you . . . Then we succeeded in talking Watson into watching The Seventh Seal with us (I'll be discussing it further in a later post). Scholl and I had seen it the night before, but I wanted to watch it again before we sent it back to Netflix, and Scholl just generally wanted to run through it once more because he had been very tired the night before. Watson had never seen it, and we were eager to hear what his take on it was.

So, we broke for lunch and then met up again and wandered down to Berry and settled in, Watson with his Diet Cherry Coke and Cracker Jacks in hand. It was just as good the second time through, and I think Watson liked it. We discussed it briefly of course, and then Scholl and I were able to draw some further conclusions on the way back to the apartment. There's just something inherently cool about casually watching some avant-garde 'fifties Swedish cinema with your Film prof . . . not for class, but just because you can.

Anyway, today we watched The Majestic, which is a pretty decent flick, if you like that sort of thing. It went way long, but of course we don't particularly care. Watson had spent awhile discussing Vertigo and then another while talking about the history of censorship in America, so we weren't bored or anything.

It looks like Goldeneye is definitely what we'll be watching on Monday. I've never actually sat down and watched an entire Bond movie from start to finish. They're just a bit too . . . You know. Well, whatever. We'll see what happens. Troy is definitely on the ticket for Tuesday afternoon. Which rocks because I get to sleep in.

Oh, yes, and tonight (as you'll notice if you look right) we went to see Shrek 2. Very entertaining, but not as good as the first one. I think they tried just a bit too hard . . . it was as if they felt that they just had to crack you up every 2.37 seconds or something. It was quite funny and I very much enjoyed it, though. They spoofed everything from Lord of the Rings to Ghostbusters . . . It'd take me a whole post to try and catalogue everything, but that would be boring and pointless and you can find such a list elsewhere anyway . . . I would like to mention one thing, however. As the carriage drives down the street in Far Far Away (passing such fine establishments as "Farbucks Coffee" and "Burger Prince") I was highly amused to spot an "Old Knavery" clothing store . . . Wow. Oh, yeah . . . And while I had heard about a particular casting choice sometime before seeing the movie, I had managed to forget (until I saw it listed in the credits) that they had Larry King voicing the Ugly Stepsister. *shudder* I never want to think about that again. Ever.

And with that, it's time to dive headlong on the weekend. Lord-willing-and-the-creek-don't-rise you'll see me emerge on the other side with two dozen completed writing assignments. Hasta la vista . . .

Posted by Jared at May 21, 2004 11:59 PM | TrackBack