Category Archives: movies

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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, take two

In a post this past November, I argued that the John Hughes classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is about radical hospitality. I would now like to add that it is also about learning to be calm during travel mishaps. I mean, duh–but I’ve really come to need that lesson over the past few days. I’ll explain momentarily, but first, can I take a John Candy detour?

Okay. I watched The Great Outdoors for the first time recently. It’s no Planes, Trains; in fact, it’s basically just a loosely plotted series of sight gags related to the outdoors–waterskiing, racoons getting into the trash, comedic bear attacks, you get the picture. But what makes it a delight is the actors. Dan Ackroyd plays a horrible person, but he’s very good at it, and he comes around in the end. John Candy plays that character he’s so good at playing–an affable, long-suffering, optimistic on others’ behalf, Really Good Guy. I have no idea what he was like as an actual human being, but I have a hard time believing he wasn’t at least a little bit like this character type he made famous. I think we need more guys like him, in movies and in life.

Now back to the topic at hand. I was supposed to fly to Manchester, UK, last Friday for a week with my dad, who is working over there. When I got to the airport and tried to check in, I learned, to my horror (not an overstatement), that my passport was expired. It was devastating on a number of levels, perhaps the deepest being that it was a shameful mistake on my part. I take pride in being on top of the details of my life or at least appearing to be, but over the past few years, I’ve found myself increasingly absent-minded, whether because I’m getting older or because I have too much to keep track of (probably both). Often, I can get away with making a joke of my forgetfulness, but there was no humor to be found in this passport screw-up. I have no doubt that many of the well-traveled people I’ve told this story to over the past few days (including some of you reading this post) have been puzzled and silently judgmental over my failure to check on something so obvious. Thank you for keeping it to yourselves.

There followed a series of emotional phone calls to my dad, the US State Department expedited passport automatic scheduling service, American Airlines, Walgreens (to find out if they take passport photos all day), my mom (basically just to cry), the guy I’d met on eHarmony and had talked to for the first time that very afternoon (who was kind enough to call again and make sure I was okay after I texted him the story), and a friend I’d been meaning to visit. I came up with a plan: apply in person for an expedited passport in Detroit Monday morning (the closest and earliest I could get an appointment), reschedule my flight for June 26 (today), and try to distract myself over the weekend. I ended up traveling two hours south to the Michigan-Indiana border to spend Saturday and Sunday with my friend. She was a gracious last-minute hostess and even took me on a kayaking trip down the St. Joseph River that was as relaxing as anything I’ve experienced in a long time. (I mean the part where we were being carried downstream. Upriver was harder.) And, as it turned out, my friend lives less than half an hour away from my eHarmony guy, so I got to meet him Sunday afternoon, more than a week earlier than we had thought we’d be able to meet, and that was lovely too.

I got the passport on Monday, a story in itself that I won’t take the time to share here. Today, I was understandably anxious about checking in, so I showed up at the airport excessively early. (I won’t tell you how early because I’m embarrassed.) There were no mishaps.

Somewhere in the midst of my rushing around and hardcore crying on Friday evening, I came up with a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles mantra for the weekend: Be more like Del and less like Neal. Neal Page (Steve Martin) has many good qualities, but I simply meant that I should enjoy the adventure, mishaps and all. As I’ve written before on this blog, mishaps make good stories.

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stuff I’m enjoying right now

It’s time for one of those posts I do every once in a while about things I’m into, from no particular category, in no particular order.

1. The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden. The book club I was part of in Virginia (I keep in touch with these friends and try to read the books when I can) chose book one, The Bear and the Nightingale, as this month’s pick. I voraciously consumed it in a little less than a week, and now I’m on book two, The Girl in the Tower. (I decided to buy the whole trilogy yesterday in book form yesterday even though I already have two on my Kindle. They’ll look nice on my shelf.) I’m loving this historical fantasy about pre-tsar era Russia, with its beautiful descriptions, nuanced and mostly likeable characters, and a fairy-tale quality that comes through in unexpected ways.

2. Audm. This subscription app allows me to listen to long-form journalism pieces from some of America’s most respected publications. It entertained me (and provoked thought) throughout most of my drive from Michigan to Pennsylvania on Friday. I’ve listened to articles (just to name a few) about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, why most Americans don’t cheat on their taxes, and a man who got out of a white supremacist group in Britain and started working against them at risk of his life. I also listened to a profile of folk singer Rhiannon Giddens, which alerted me to her new album there is no Other, which I then looked up and listened to for the rest of my drive. (item 2.5) It’s a haunting, minimalist album that I’m not going to try to describe because I’m already using pretentious music review cliches. Two thumbs up.

3. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). My mom is working her way through all of Adam Sandler’s movies because she and I are going to see him live next week–another story for another time–and I joined her for this 2017 Netflix original featuring Sandler, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, and Emma Thompson, among others. It’s about an ageing artist who has a chip on his shoulder about his declining reputation and, more importantly, who’s made a mess of his relationships with his children. Then he collapses and ends up in a coma, and the kids and his flighty current wife have to figure out what to do. That sounds unpleasant, but the dialogue is fascinating. It’s how real people talk. I aspire to write dialogue like that. There were many moments when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And the ending was pretty hopeful, believe it or not. Two more thumbs up.

4. Dirty Turtle at The Meadows Frozen Custard. Last night I made my mom go with me on a sort of summer-kickoff mini-adventure. I wanted to watch the sun set from a spot where I’d never seen it before, visit a war memorial (in honor of Memorial Day), drive with the windows down, and eat ice cream. It was a cloudy evening, so we didn’t see much of a dramatic sunset–plus we were nervous that the community park was serious about closing at sunset and that we would get stuck in there overnight, so we just did a driveby of the war memorial and then drove to a nearby housing development where we parked by a vacant lot on top of a hill and watched what was left of the sunset. But we did get a delicious frozen dairy treat, even though I was envisioning hand-dipped ice cream rather than the soft-serve custard that The Meadows dishes out. That’s okay, though–I ended up really enjoying the Dirty Turtle my mom recommended: chocolate custard with walnuts and salted caramel. I’m not sure why places like this think it’s cute to put “dirty” in the title of their food and drink items; I think in this case it just meant that the ice cream was chocolate? I don’t know. But I could definitely eat one of those again. FYI, The Meadows is a chain of custard parlors (? is that a thing?) in Pennsylvania and Maryland only (I think); perhaps those of you in other locations can suggest this flavor combination to your favorite local ice cream joint.

Let me know what you’re enjoying in the comments!

 

 

 

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because I know you care what I think about Avengers: Endgame

Dare I add my voice to the swirling conversation? I dare. This isn’t a true review, just a list of some of my observations. There may be some spoilers–if you can figure out what I’m talking about.

I liked the movie! I didn’t fall asleep, and that’s no small feat when we’re talking about a three-hour movie that, for me, started at 7:00 pm. Although some of the most scene-stealing characters (Peter Parker, Peter Quill, Peter…no, I think that’s all the Peters) were among the disappeared (N.B. Did this scenario remind anyone else of the TV series The Leftovers?), this allowed some former background characters to step forward, and they carried this responsibility well. I’m thinking in particular of Don Cheadle’s character, whose relationship to Tony Stark I have given up trying to remember, like a lot of things in this cinematic universe. (Sorry, folks. I never claimed to be a true card-carrying Marvel geek.)

I didn’t understand why all the infinity stones came to Ironman in the end. Please do not reply to this post and mansplain it to me. If I really wanted to know, I’m sure I could choose from many different mansplaining websites and YouTube videos. But I don’t really need to know. It’s enough for me that the stones did come to him. It made sense with Tony Stark’s character arc (which was quite moving), and besides, I trust that Dr. Strange knew what was going on. Because of Dumbledore, I have a lot of experience trusting wizards even when I don’t understand their plans.

I want to spend the rest of this post talking about Thor because, as you may know from previous posts, he and his world are the only parts of the MCU that I really get into and buy the Blu-Rays of and write conference papers about. First, let me get my dreamboat Loki out of the way–I was actually pretty happy with the cumulative three minutes or so that he appeared in the movie. It was more than I expected. Thor, on the other hand, was not at all what I expected. I thought it was fascinating that the non-human Avenger was the one who basically dealt with a mental health crisis during this film, though his decline into physical sloth and mental inertia was played mostly for laughs. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing–more than half of good comedy is based on the truism that sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. Although I want to be clear that there’s absolutely nothing inherently funny about someone turning to alcohol to deal with grief, guilt, and regret, there’s no harm in audiences chuckling at Thor’s Norwegian bachelor pad shared with his interplanetary bros Korg and Meek. And I loved that we got to visit Dark World-era Asgard and witness Thor’s heartfelt (though, even here, rather funny) conversation with his mother, Frigga, who was always one of my favorite characters in this saga. I also appreciated the fact that when Thor reacquired his hammer, he didn’t immediately turn back into the svelte warrior of the previous films, ripped abs and all. (Though he did suddenly get a complicated braid in his beard when he started channeling lightning during the final battle–not sure how that happened.) I’m glad to see that Thor has taken passage on Starlord’s ship; those two characters (because of their fantastic actors) have wonderful comedic chemistry, and I hope we get to see them in another film.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I almost hesitate to ask, but I will: What did you think of Avengers: Endgame?

 

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India in Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair

Over the weekend, I watched Mira Nair’s 2004 adaptation of William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. I had seen it several years before, and even before I rewatched it, I remembered that the movie left me feeling more affectionate toward the characters than the notoriously satirical novel did. I tend to have this experience in general with adaptations–it’s usually easier to like a character I am seeing portrayed by a flesh-and-blood actor as compared to a character described by a (sometimes vicious) narrator and perhaps, in the case of a Victorian novel, illustrated in a cartoonish style. But I think there’s an additional reason why Nair applies a more charitable interpretation to the characters, which is simply that she’s a woman. This is no doubt why main character Becky Sharp, while every bit as strong and smart and (a little bit) ruthless as in the novel, appears less like a shrew and more like a woman who has spent her life striving to overcome the disadvantages of poverty and orphanhood.

I also remembered that India, a distant backdrop for some of the plotlines in the novel, takes a more prominent role under the direction of the Indian-American Nair. But not until this latest viewing did I realize the extent and nuance of India’s presence in the film. Unlike some other movies of the last few decades, such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel (which I have to admit I really do enjoy), Vanity Fair does not carry the message that if British people (or white people in general; I think this message is also implied in Eat Pray Love) go to India, they will have a magical experience and all their problems will be solved. While Vanity Fair celebrates the music, cuisine, and clothing styles of India, it doesn’t slap a simple, single symbolic meaning on the entire nation or its culture. For example, in one scene, India seems to represent heartwarming family values (when the lonely Dobbin, who has escaped to India to nurse his unrequited love, watches the happy parents and child), but in a later scene, Indian music, dance, and costume are associated with moral degradation in Lord Steyne’s creepy-sexy “ballet.”

The connection with India is, I think, the reason for Nair’s significantly more positive portrayal of Jos Sedley, a British colonial bureaucrat home on leave from India and also the first man who makes a bit of a fool of himself over Becky Sharp. In the novel, Jos is a minor character who is regularly mocked by his fellow characters and the narrator–for being fat, for being nonconfrontational (or cowardly, as Thackeray seems to present him, but I think it’s a good thing to have a peaceful young man in a novel full of hotheads and warriors), and for having, in the eyes of his hidebound friends and family, nearly “gone native” in his affinity for Indian clothing and cooking. Although Jos is part of a colonial machine whose purpose is to impose British rule and culture on India, as an individual he seems to be doing more absorbing than imposing. Whenever he appears in the film, he is portrayed as a respectful and delighted fan of Indian culture, which he (again respectfully) tries to share with the folks back home. Although he remains a minor character in the movie, he does not, as in the novel, finally and ignominiously drop out of the story about halfway through, fleeing from the Battle of Waterloo. Instead [SPOILER], he shows up at the end, after Becky has lost her love and many other things, and we learn that he’s been looking for her and hoping to take her back to India with him. The film ends with the two of them riding an elephant in what surely looks like a wedding procession. And while the scene looks a little bit like an India tourism commercial, I love that Mira Nair found a way to celebrate her family’s ancestral land and set Becky Sharp up with the man who’s loved her all along. Thackeray purists may have a problem with the ending, but I think it’s lovely.

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Loki the attention-seeking son, part 2

As promised, here are some thoughts I added to my conference paper, after doing some significant cutting of rabbit trails on interesting but unnecessary topics from Othello to The Dark Knight. Read the backstory here.

At the end of Thor: The Dark World, like another famous trickster, Tom Sawyer, Loki essentially attends his own funeral and enjoys hearing the eulogy that Thor believes he is delivering to their father.  Even more stunningly, Loki, in the form of Odin, speaks in praise of himself. The praise is restrained, necessarily so as not to destroy the illusion that Odin is speaking, but in essence, Loki uses Odin’s mouth to speak the affirmation he has always wanted to hear from Odin.

[I called this next section of my paper “The Little Blue Frost-Giant Baby Finally Chills Out.”]

In Thor: Ragnarok (2017), directed by Taika Waititi, one of the best-reviewed and certainly the funniest Marvel film to date, Loki’s character undergoes yet another transformation. Although he persists in his deceptive and treacherous ways, he no longer seems to crave a throne. When we first meet him in this film, he is still impersonating Odin and enjoying a stint as Asgard’s ruler, but this scene is played for laughs, and when Thor brings this travesty of a reign to an end, Loki doesn’t put up much of a fight.

Later, during the bizarre interlude on the waste planet of Sakaar, Loki seems content to stay in this galactic backwater and wield such influence as he can as a right-hand man to the Grand Master. He no longer desires the throne of Asgard. There are many possible reasons for his resignation—one is that Asgard is being taken over by the seemingly unstoppable villain Hela—but I believe the real key to Loki’s significantly more relaxed behavior in this film is the early scene in which Odin, who has been living in retirement on Earth, passes out of this world. Flanked once again by his two sons, Odin speaks words of equal love for Thor and Loki, and this time, they are words of simple acceptance, with no talk of thrones or inheritance. Perhaps Loki has come full circle and really believes, once again, that his father loves and accepts him.

There is also an interesting scene immediately after this, in which Thor and Loki meet their evil half-sister Hela. She says to Thor, “You don’t look like Odin,” and then to Loki, who is attempting to negotiate with her, “You sound like him.” This apparent throw-away comment by Hela may confirm to Loki that he is truly Odin’s son—perhaps even more so than Thor.

At the end of Thor: Ragnarok comes probably the biggest departure these films have made from Norse mythology. Traditionally, Loki fights with Asgard’s enemies in the apocalyptic battle of Ragnarok. But in the film, Loki fights alongside the gods of Asgard. Although Infinity War calls Loki’s motives into question once again, his choice to fight on the Aesir’s side is significant—and may have happened simply because he finally got his father to look at him.

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Loki as an attention-seeking son

A lot of people seem to have Marvel movie fatigue right now; I know I do. (The exception, of course, is the freshness of the recent Oscar nominations and wins of Black Panther.  Let me just go on a rabbit trail for a second and say that as a movie music geek, I was excited to see the baby-faced 34-year-old Ludwig Goransson accept the Best Original Score award for that film. We need some fresh blood in that category, and Goransson’s musically eclectic and emotionally on-point score deserved the win.) Anyway, although many of us are getting tired of keeping track of who has what stone and why, I’ve noticed that my students’ eyes still light up when I mention my favorite Marvel character, Loki (and I mention him more often than is strictly necessary in any college English class). So I trust I will not try your patience if I use this post to test out some ideas on a paper about Loki that I am editing for presentation at a conference this Friday. I originally wrote the paper a few years ago as a chapter, which was ultimately not selected, for an edited collection. It’s 15 pages long, and I need to cut it to almost half that length–while also including some observations on Thor: Ragnarok, which hadn’t been released when I wrote the chapter. So in the next few paragraphs, I’m going to see if I can sketch out my main points briefly and interestingly. Any feedback would be appreciated.

My primary premise is that Loki, as he appears in the Marvel movies (not in traditional Norse myths, where he is quite a different character), is motivated primarily by his desire for respect–or, at bare minimum, attention–from Odin, the adoptive father whom he claims to hate but whose opinion he clearly cares about. My secondary premise is that Loki’s craving for attention manifests itself in his performative behavior. This is where the Marvel character does align with the Norse sort-of-deity: Loki is a shape-shifter, and in the movies, his shape-shifting demonstrates that he will try anything in order to gain an audience. (And although Odin is his primary desired audience, any audience can fulfill his need to some extent.)

This relational dynamic is established in the first film Loki appears in, Thor, which draws from the quasi-Shakespearean world of the classic The Mighty Thor comics and plays to the strengths of director Kenneth Branagh. In its storytelling and staging, this film establishes what I call a Shakespearean inheritance triangle, in which Thor–even during his period of exile on Earth–is consistently portrayed as the biological, legitimate, and/or older son, to whom the kingship legally belongs, while Loki is consistently portrayed as the adopted, illegitimate, and/or younger son. Literally, in terms of the story, it’s unclear which brother is older, and Loki isn’t actually illegitimate, but all of these tropes come into play in the character’s portrayal. With his sardonic humor, intellectual arrogance, and dread of humiliation, Loki fits perfectly within the tradition of the Shakespearean bastard. At the end of this movie, the “triangle” is broken when Loki lets go of Thor’s hand and falls into the abyss, and from this point on, he is “out” as an antagonist.

And he plays this antagonist role with great relish in his next film, The Avengers, in which director Joss Whedon clearly sets up Loki in the role of the supervillain even as he blurs the line between good guys and bad guys. This is the film in which Tony Stark refers to Loki as “a full-tilt diva,” and if I had time I could offer a detailed analysis of the ways in which Loki uses New York City and even the world as his stage (hey! another Shakespeare reference).

I’m going to stop here because this post is getting really long. I may do a Part 2 later this week. I just this moment had a great thought about the scene at the end of Thor: The Dark World in which Loki takes on the form of Odin. And I have some thoughts about the poignant scene in Thor: Ragnarok in which Odin passes from this world with equally loving words for both of his sons. But more on that later. Tell me your thoughts so I can steal your ideas! (just kidding about the stealing)

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my take on the 2019 Best Picture nominees

I watch the Academy Awards every year and have blogged about them several times over the years, but this year I decided, for the first time, to see all the Best Picture nominees before Oscar night. Since there are only eight this year and I had already seen Black Panther (probably the only nominee that many people have seen), I was able to do this in one weekend. I did watch the rather inordinate number of five movies in my local cinema last weekend, which means that I saw the trailer for Isn’t It Romantic no fewer than three times. (It still looks pretty funny.) I rented one of the nominees from my local Family Video (yes, we still have rental stores around here) and finished up last night by watching one on Netflix.

Instead of writing a separate review of each film, I thought it would be more interesting–and less wordy–to make some lists of themes and motifs that appear in two or more of the films. Think of this as a textual Venn diagram that shows where the nominees overlap and thereby shows, perhaps, what was on Hollywood’s (and America’s and the world’s?) mind this year.

Let’s start with the obvious: Films that have the word “Black” in the title. Okay, maybe too obvious. Let’s move on.

Films about lonely musicians who abuse alcohol and/or drugs: Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born

Films about political intrigue and insiderism that have zero likable characters: The Favourite, Vice

Films that deliberately hark back to older styles of filmmaking: Vice, BlackkKlansman, Roma

Films that incorporate multiple genres: BlackkKlansman, Vice (editorial note: Vice takes the cake in this category, using Shakespearean blank verse, restaurant menus, a helpful narrator who’s also sort of a character, historical footage, and even a fake credit roll in the middle of the movie in order to explain concepts. Also, a side note: BlackkKlansman and Vice have another feature in common–really cool, sometimes funky, sometimes epic scores by composers I’m not familiar with but whom I hope to hear more from in the future.)

Films in genres that traditionally don’t get nominated for Best Picture: Black Panther, A Star Is Born (And remember, a monster movie won last year. And the year before that, a musical won. Oh wait, no, it didn’t. Never mind.) I almost put Bohemian Rhapsody here because I was thinking of it as a feel-good movie/sort-of musical, but the Oscars do tend to love musician biopics (c.f. Ray, Walk the Line). Green Book somewhat fits into all of the categories I just mentioned as well, except that the focus is not so much on the musician as on his driver/bodyguard/friend.

Films that address contemporary issues: Oh wait, that would be all of them.

Films that felt like they were trying to out-weird last year’s weird period costume drama, Phantom Thread: I guess The Favourite is the only one that belongs here.

But perhaps the average filmgoer who doesn’t want to spend the equivalent of a full-time job in the movie theater will be most interested in these three categories.

Films that made me feel good: Black Panther, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody

Films that made me feel sad but okay: BlackkKlansman, A Star Is Born, Roma

Films that made me want to become a cynical world-hating hermit: The Favourite, Vice

That’s all for now. If you’ve seen any of these, let me know what you think. And if you happen to know why Roma is called Roma, let me know that too, because I’m pretty sure I missed something.

 

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thoughts while watching The Return of the King

I’m watching The Return of the King right now, and I thought I’d blog about it. (Excuse me while I do a 20-second plank because I just saw the Eye of Sauron; I’m doing a LOTR workout I found on Pinterest.) I just heard the line that I blogged about a few months ago–“I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you”–so I’m nearly at the end. Here are just a few observations.

First, zombies. A little while ago, I saw an orc who looked like a zombie. I think he’s only in the extended edition, in that scene where Sam and Frodo dress up like little orcs to blend in and then start a (rather unconvincing) fight to cause a distraction and get away. The orc in question had a missing nose (but not Voldemort-style; it looked like it had been burned off) and a generally ravaged face, his one working eye was a milky pale blue, and the first time he opened his mouth, he roared rather than spoke. He looked like he could have blended in just fine on The Walking Dead. But this was not the first time I had thought about zombies while watching the movie this afternoon. When Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli take the Paths of the Dead and meet those glowing, ectoplasmic ghosts, I was thinking of what an unfortunate special effects choice this was and how the army of the dead would be much cooler–and more threatening–if they looked like zombies. And it occurred to me that if this film had been made ten years later, this scene probably would have taken more inspiration from The Walking Dead and less from Pirates of the Caribbean; The Curse of the Black Pearl. (Not that the ghosts in Pirates were badly done at all. They fit better in that movie than in Return of the King.)

And now, a more serious observation. I’m far from being the first person to have noted this, but it really struck me this time. Okay, so in the tower on the edge of Mordor where Sam is reunited with Frodo (you know, the one with an orange light at the top but that isn’t the Tower of Barad-Dur–I wonder how many people thought it was and were totally disappointed when they found out that Frodo and Sam still had many more miles of stumbling dirty-faced through Mordor)–anyway, in the upper room of that tower, Frodo is in a panic because he thinks the orcs have taken the Ring. When Sam hands it back to him (with a slightly cocky little flourish that he totally earned by being absolutely kickass for the past fifteen minutes of the movie), you can see the instant relief in Frodo’s eyes and his whole demeanor. But when he puts the chain back around his neck, you can almost see a physical weight descending on his shoulders. The Ring is keeping him alive, and it’s killing him at the same time. That’s why, of all the symbolic meanings that have been suggested for the Ring (and I know, I know–die-hard Tolkien fans say it’s not a symbol at all), I think the most appropriate is that it represents the object of addiction, or perhaps addiction itself. Frodo needs the Ring at that moment, but in the long term, it’s the last thing he needs. Just like drugs, or lies, or whatever we keep going back to even though we hate it. Elijah Wood portrays this descent into psychological prison extremely well throughout the trilogy. And of course, Andy Serkis as Gollum masterfully shows what it looks like when you’re so deep in that prison you forget who you are.

Okay, now the hobbits are all cleaned up and looking adorable and giving bittersweet toasts in the Green Dragon. I’m going to go enjoy the last few (30?) minutes of this movie. Let me know your thoughts on The Return of the King.

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planes, trains, and radical hospitality

This past weekend, my family watched the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987) like we do every Thanksgiving. This movie works so well because the two main characters, played by Steve Martin and John Candy, subvert stereotypes that are often present in run-of-the-mill comedies. Martin’s character, Neal Page, is a twist on the workaholic dad character so common in 1980s and 90s family comedies. Unlike most of those characters, Neal desperately wants to get home to his family, but can’t because of a relentless series of logistical mishaps. He also embodies the tightly-wound neurotic character type, but whereas that type often appears as an antagonist or as merely the butt of unkind humor, Neal, as the point of view character of the film, is utterly sympathetic. Candy’s character, Del Griffith, (SPOILER ALERT–but seriously, you’ve had 31 years to see this movie) is a homeless widower, a character who might be a tiresomely pathetic victim in a lesser movie, but he’s also that annoying guy who sits next to you on an airplane and talks your ear off. But as we, through Neal, get to know Del, we are led into sympathy with him as well, and we come to understand that he talks because he’s lonely. He is vulnerable not only because he is a homeless widower but also because he is a traveling salesman–someone who, like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, survives by the good will of others–but he is also incredibly savvy and resilient.

I realized this year, more than ever before, how much I relate to Neal Page, especially in his very physical and verbal displays of frustration. I really see myself in the scene where he throws an almost acrobatic tantrum–and literally throws his car rental agreement–in the remote parking lot where he gets stranded after he gets dropped off at the alleged parking space of a rental car that doesn’t exist. Co-workers probably think Neal is a calm, mild-mannered guy, but he has high standards for himself, other people, and the universe at large, and when those standards aren’t met, he doesn’t know what to do. So he explodes, and sometimes he hurts people. I can relate, so very much. (I gave a major character in the zombie apocalypse story I just finished writing, Adrian Fallon, this same flaw. I also realized after watching the movie on Friday how much the road trip elements of my story had been influenced by Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.)

I think nearly everyone can relate to Neal–who, again, is the character through whom we experience the story–in one respect. The whole way through the film, we’ve been imagining, along with Neal, these idyllic scenes of what his family must be doing at home. Through him, we’ve experienced the gradual stripping away of comforts he has always taken for granted–money, transportation, warmth, privacy, security. (These are things, by the way, that Del, a perpetual traveler, cannot take for granted. I think the heavy trunk he carries around represents the burden of the constant stress of the road.) By the end, we, along with Neal, want nothing more than to go home, take a shower, eat Thanksgiving dinner, and go to bed. Yet (spoiler again) Neal makes the radical decision to turn around and invite Del to share Thanksgiving, one of the most intimate holidays, with his family. There’s a lot of talk today in the blogosphere, the publishing industry, churches, etc. about “radical hospitality.” Planes, Trains, and Automobiles shows us, profoundly, that tired, frustrated, flawed people are the ones who can best show such hospitality.

 

 

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getting psyched for NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month, not an official holiday but the flagship event of the eponymous nonprofit organization. If you complete a 50,000-word novel during the month, you can claim to have “won” NaNoWriMo, though it’s not a competition. I did this once, almost 10 years ago. I wrote a novel, heavily inspired by The Dark Knight and Harry Potter, about a man who goes around taking the punishment for other people’s crimes. I had also been reading a lot of George Eliot at the time, so my prose in the novel is very dense, and my narrator often breaks out into philosophy. Unless you already know a lot about guns and police procedures, crime drama is not a good genre for NaNoWriMo because there’s little time for research. So my novel, which I self-published as A Man of No Reputation, has a lot of problems, but it inspired a number of themes that continue to appear in my writing, such as loneliness, self-sacrifice, and a protagonist with a perpetually sad-looking face (he can’t help it; it’s just what his face looks like!).

This year, I’ve decided to use NaNoWriMo as motivation to complete the zombie apocalypse narrative I have been working on, slowly, for over a year. I won’t be able to claim to have “won,” since I have no intention of writing 50,000 words; I am at roughly 26,000, and my story arc is nearing its end. (I’m not sure what the finished project will be properly called–a long short story? a novella? I’m mainly thinking of it as the source text for a movie.) Since November starts this Thursday, I want to take a few minutes to look back on the changes my story has gone through and forward to how it might end up. (I really do mean “might”; I have a general idea but no actual outline. I am what they call, in writers’ group lingo, a “pantser”–I plot by the seat of my pants.)

Originally, although I was and still am calling my story a (dark) comedy, my main character was going to die. It was going to be a beautiful, self-sacrificial death, kind of like in my 2009 NaNoWriMo project. I maintain that a comedy can end with the main character(s) dying, like in (spoiler alert) Thelma and Louise, a major inspiration for my story along with Zombieland and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (yes, I’m writing a road trip story). But after getting a lot of feedback about how much people in my writing groups loved my main character, Sam Larson, I started to reconsider killing him off. Yes, I was partly trying to please my audience (not a bad thing), but it also occurred to me that perhaps I could better reinforce one of the themes of my story by allowing Sam to survive.

That theme is LIFE, and it’s a theme uniquely suited to a zombie narrative, which is permeated with a grotesque parody of life. Readers learn early in the story that Sam suffers from clinical depression and that about ten years ago, he attempted suicide. Although Sam has learned to live with depression and no longer wants to die, he constantly struggles to believe that his life has value, especially in this new world in which people tend to be judged by their physical prowess and survival skills. (I’ve written extensively on my blog about this issue in zombie apocalypse narratives.) I think I could still convey this theme with Sam dying a heroic death at the end, but I believe the theme will come through even more clearly if I show him living.

I’m also using a motif that is especially suited to the zombie subgenre: eating. People are constantly eating in my story, whether it’s oatmeal heated up over a fire on the side of the road or a full Italian meal in the safe house. Of course, zombies are always eating too, but they derive no joy or satisfaction from this meaningless activity. In contrast, I wanted to show my characters enjoying food as a gift of life and sharing it with each other. So the eating scenes are not throwaways but integral to the message of my story.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Are there any other themes and motifs you can think of that are particularly appropriate to zombie stories? Let me know in the comments!