This past weekend i checked out the uber-indie flick Mutual Appreciation. At first, i was completely bored, but then i began to notice that the film has some real brilliance.
The movie is about kids in the 20-30 year old post-college trying-to-figure-it out stage. The dialogue and self-awareness of the characters in the movie are dead-on. Most movies today over-narrate or even have voice-overs telling you exactly what’s happening every step of the way. This film instead builds scenes using awkward pauses, glances by the characters, and body language which is much more authentic and real.
The movie is about a recent college grad, Alan, who is a musician and leaves a busted-up band for New York. He tries to stay focused and fends off all types of distractions, including the attraction to his good friend’s girlfriend. There are some great scenes in the movie and some of the things i particularly liked are:
There is a strange series of events that occur when Alan stops by a party well after it has finished and hangs out with 3 drunk women. Normally this would result is a bizarre series of events that’s pretty funny but instead this film portrays how current gender relations have shifted and in today’s post-feminist era women end up completely dominating tentative males- The songs played in the film are really good. The first song, “Things are what you make of them” by Bishop Allen is a great tune. I tried to find out what the other ones were, but couldn’t. If anyone knows. please drop me a line (or comment below)
- The movie is just raw and it is in a good way.
- The dialogue is extremely accurate to what guys and girls age 22-30 would talk like. There are about 4 scenes in this movie that are exactly the same as my experiences in NY – the awkward and pompous dialogue of the over-educated and under employed sitting around acting sophisticated while drinking wine and staying up late.
- In places you’d normally expect something to happen – like an event – nothing does. Instead, you see someone get verbally rejected or visually stimulated. This isn’t a movie about events but rather emotions. Depending on what type of movie watcher you are, this could be a great thing or a horrible thing.
(also, here’s a link (here) to an interview with one of the stars from the movie)
I’m trying to make a point to blog about books i’ve read, so here goes….
First, it was really interesting to see what college life was like in the early 1960’s because of the emergence of rock n’ roll and the absence and importing of women at/to the school. Chris was really into rock and roll, which was new on the scene. Rock and roll at the time was played exclusively by African Americans and was not universally listened to. When rushing a frat, he remarked that most of the frats didn’t even know about Rock at all. AD back then fully embraced it and most of his stories either revolved around the music or at least discussed what what music was playing. The management of women at colleges in the 60’s is amazing. Women would train up to dartmouth for a weekend and be paired with a date for the entire time which would transform the entire campus. For the guys, it was like going on a 2-3 day blind date. As someone who’s been on a bunch of blind dates, i can see how this would be painful (both for the men and the women) and could lead to some social madness. I can also see why there was so much alcohol involved. Further discussion with my parents about this time has shown that travelling to schools and finding the right guy/girl was one of the main mechanisms provided at the time to find a suitable husband. Keep in mind that no sex before marriage was believed to be normal and there weren’t many options for birth control. After reading this, i’m very happy that i came through 40 years later when women were on campus and many of the dating conventions have been changed.
I recently found a little gem on XM radio. Every week, for an hour, 
Living in DC, we get our fair share of circles to drive around. On many of them there are statues of war heros. I rarely check out who they are and what they did, but ever since i read this little fact i’ve been much more interested:
ed him to win the critical Battle of Chattanooga in 1863. Grant put him in charge of cavalry for the Army of the Potomac in 1864 and he led the raid on Richmond that ended in the death of Confederate general Jeb Stuart. He became commander of the Army of the Potomac in 1864. In this capacity he led the army to battle at Appomattox and, with Grant, compelled Gen. Robert E. Lee to surrender, ending the Civil War. In 1884, he succeeded Sherman as commander in chief of the Army. Not too shabby.
I played with Methembe my freshman year at Dartmouth and beyond being one of the nicest guys ever, he was a truly amazing soccer player. Called as “the Mayor” on the field ever since his youth when he tore up the Zimbabwe youth league, he also become known as “Captain Hook” to Chris Pedrick and others who liked to watch. I never forget when Methembe rolled into preseason my freshman year and was marking me on defense. He pretty much dominated my every move and walking off the field one of the players mentioned to me that Methembe was a few days late to preseason because he was playing the World Cup qualifiers against Nigeria and i should be too upset that he crushed me on the field b/c just a few days later he was marking Amochaci and Kanu. Yeah, that’s quite a switch – world cup qualifier to Ivy League preseason. Anyway, i bring all this up b/c i wanted to post the latest of Methembe’s accomplishments in Zimbabwe and with Grass Roots Soccer which is a great program:
of community service dorm. As I wandered about taking pictures, a student approached and asked politely, “Excuse me, who are you?” Instinctively, I turned around and yelled menacingly, “Who the f*ck are YOU?” The girl scurried off, but the incident made me introspective. Here I am, twenty-seven-years old, with a relatively successful career, regular car insurance payments, and pillowcases that match my comforter. Yet at the same time, I can’t drink one beer without drinking twenty, I can’t converse with a girl without trying to take her home, and I can’t even step foot in a fraternity house without immediately regressing into an asshole. While college is many years behind me, vestiges of the experience remain deeply ingrained in my personality. Welcome to the world of a recovering frat guy.
only to the naked eye. Take my friend Mike, a successful software developer in New York whose downtown apartment has actually been passed down for years to successive generations of graduates from his fraternity like an off-campus party house. Or my buddy Justin, a writer here in LA who is looking to move to a new place – but has yet to find one big enough to fit hisbeer pong table. Unfortunately for him, “Hardwood floor quickly soaks up cheap beer” is generally not an amenity typically found on craigslist.