he says he loves the unknown
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I saw Rocket Science, by Jeffrey Blitz who made Spellbound, on HBO and liked it a lot. A stuttering high school boy, Hal Hefner, allows himself to be recruited into the debate team in the name of love. The soundtrack is made of Violent Femmes (tangential: check) and Clem Snide (displacing: check) a.k.a. Eef Barzelay who also scored, aptly.
The movie could use getting a little less carried away, fine line little, but musing from somewhere pure trumps imperfection. A mostly well-written voice-over, an adult self who refers to Hal in the third person, puts forward "the voice that speaks its heart" that we all try to find. I liked that Blitz made the V.O. say things like, "It was ridiculous but he did. He sprinted."
As the debating coach resigns him from the team, Hal tells her, pleadingly, that she could not ask anything without his head filling up with retorts. This struck me as true about why I pretty much suck at conversations of the verbal, face-to-face, real-life kind. It is brain chaos but, also, the substitutions are endless: we write down, talk around, sing over what we don't say. It's maybe out of wanting to do something more impenetrable and less terrifying than speaking plainly.
When I think about it, if the plainspoken are offensive, then I can contend that the opposite -the euphemistic, the politically correct, small talkers, big talkers, (the cryptic, yes)- are being defensive. Resolved: we can really talk like we're afraid to be understood sometimes.
Do You Love Me? by Clem Snide (originally from the Moment in the Sun EP, 2002, spinART)
Girls Don't Care by Eef Barzelay (also from Lose Big, 2008, 429)
Comments (16)
I Love the Unknown by Clem Snide (originally from Your Favorite Music, 1999, Sire/spinART)
About the movie:
A stuttering boy, Hal Hefner, is pulled into debating because of love. The girl, Ginny, is a talks-fast-says-little career debater who recruits Hal, a questionable candidate, to the team and then transfers schools, killing the team's chances. The twist, Ben, is her former debating partner and object of love who had walked out on last year's states finals after having an existential epiphany, showing retrospectively that Ben had hurt Ginny the way Ginny was hurting Hal.
In his own revenge plot, Hal invites Ben to compete together, where they resolve that Hal would work around his stuttering by singing his speeches. Hal's type of stuttering is that only certain words stump him. A recurring example is "pizza", the cafeteria preference he could never utter, even after rehearsing spiels on the school bus, so that the lunch lady would keep tossing him the slow-moving other choice amidst the fast-moving hungry queue. It all happens in Plainsboro, NJ. Release date: 2007.
Hey, poeby! Hope u r well. I liked "Rocket Science" (that manipulative girl-rival was right on the money), but prefered the all-too-similar "Thumbsucker," which was released first - and not just because it was released first. Mega-good musical adornments though.
And then....Geeks Ruled the Earth!
miss you miss poe.
Wow, Plainsboro is only about 10 minutes from where we used to live. It's an unthinkably banal, therefore perfect, place to set a movie....
Wow!! You talk great!
A reading from the book of Poebegone....
When I think about it, if the plainspoken are offensive, then I can contend that the opposite -the euphemistic, the politically correct, small talkers, big talkers, (the cryptic, yes)- are being defensive.
.....you crystalize thoughts so well. You toss off these glowing gems with such ease......and let us not forget
....A second reading from the book of Poebegone...
"Time, of all things, allowed me to accept that none of these was ever going to outlast the present, which keeps happening."
.....so yeah, you talk good.
Hey, there, Ilay! (haven't seen the movie, don't have much to say at the moment after a long day, but wanted to return the hello from last time. Miss you, but glad to see you're still popping in from time to time.)
Mike, my thoughts, (almost) exactly. i saw the much rawer Thumbsucker back when it was new.
i agree, the girl-rival totally channeled the intellectual motor-mouthed trophy whores of the world. ;d
Cody, we always have, secretly, and you know it.
this year, i have new-found respect for anyone who can Mog regularly without having internet at home. pulling it off is harder than physics!
Bill, the writer pokes fun at that when he makes the boy who had the epiphany drop out, leave Plainsboro and move to "the big city" of Trenton, all accompanied by banal-nowhereland shots.
genderblender, thanks, i am _honestly_ working on talking ordinarily, which i worry i'll forget. (8
Jeff, you're onto something there. in an alternative universe, it'd be nice to have "readings from the book of" at my funeral.
it turns out Bon Iver said something similar but more sharply: "It's just like the present to be showing up like this."
Chuck, aw shucks, there's nothing like a pleasantly surprising "hello" to make my day. don't work too hard now, you might succeed. {:
Took a peek at this last nite on your rec...God, I love your taste in movies! Like Brick, there is a timlessness in construction that's riveting. The "Blister in the Sun" cover sequence made me feel rather old... :)
Oh, and thanks for the way back alert on Brothers Bloom...top notch as well! I'm MOG-drowsing....
goshdarn, Scotty, i still haven't seen Brothers Bloom. so i guess it's good...?
yes ma'am, seems not a critical fav, but it won me over. Though the charaterizations verge on caricature, from the outset it never left me expecting more than to be entertained. Brody's self-loathing plays well against Weisz's naive (or-is she?) enthusiasm. Can't say too much without spoiler clearance. Would say it's my fav new movie of the year, but then I've only seen 3...
I do love me some Clem Snide. I haven't seen the movie, but I'm sure Eef did a fine job scoring. CS are playing in NYC this Tuesday, I really should try to get to the show.
Poe, nice to see you here!
:j
'ey, j! Clem Snide should get more props in Mog. Eef, too. hope you get to catch 'em over there, lucky duck.
btw, good to read ya. when and where's the next vacay? ;d
Poe, I didn't get to the Clem Snide show. I just can't stay out so late anymore! I will be going to a Merge Records reading for their new book, so that should make up for something!
Next trip is to Paris for the end of November. Should be lovely! We spent July in the Baltic States which was amazing! If you are want for something to do here is a link for the pics... http://picasaweb.google.com/hellorobreese
I hope you, your family and country recover from the typhoon quickly. :j
thanks, j. too bad about CS, but the Merge Records thing sound awesome. aw i sure would love to return to Paris some time. have a blast on your trip, and Happy Halloween!