June 18

I had hoped to contribute more to this blog over the past 11 months, but I must admit an internal struggle took place - does anyone care what I write? Do I care what I write? I believe it was the latter that gave me the most trouble.

However, I'm making an exception tonight due to the appearance of Toy Story 3 in cinemas tomorrow. I haven't been this moved during a film since Up last year. That's how good it is. I was bawling, people. See it, if I'm particularly excited and compelled I may start contributing more regularly to this blog.


So long, pardner.

Why?

The real reason I've started this blog today is that I've been thinking a lot about that essential question of any rabid movie fan:  Why Do You Love Movies?

I could write a book the size of War and Peace in response, but I will attempt to summarize as best I can in this post and all future posts.  It is my sincere hope that this blog will reveal the answer to that question every time I write a new entry.

Okay, here goes:  Gabe, why do you love movies?

To begin with:  everything.

I can't recall the first movie I saw - who can, really?  That's a dumb thing to say. Great start. I remember the films I loved as a child, many of which I've added to my DVD collection out of nostalgia.  Some I had to add because I'd worn out the VHS copies from so many viewings.  I could write whole entries on each one and my history with them, so for now, a list:  Little Women (1994 Winona Ryder/Christian Bale version), Newsies, The Rocketeer, Shipwrecked, Willow, Speed, True Lies, Batman Forever, Little Nemo Adventures In Slumberland, all three Aladdin films, Treasure Island (1950), Sinbad The Sailor, The Goonies,  I'm sure there are more. So not exactly Great Films 101.  Yet I love them still.

The Godfather is my all-time favorite film.  Don't ask how many times I've seen it - trust me, you don't want to know.  For Top 10 or Top 5 purposes, I mash Part II with it as the top slot, because if I had to choose one, I'd pick the first, but I always watch them together. They both occupy a large space in my filmgoing heart, the largest in fact.

So, Top 5 is The Godfather/The Godfather Part II, Vertigo, GoodFellas, Raging Bull, and Atonement.

Narrowing my other favorites into a numerical ranking is futile, simply because at any given hour, the ranks will change.  So I've instead created a "tier system," because there are only a certain number of films that will always be in that top ranking, though the ranks change often. To give you an estimate of why it's so difficult to make even a "top 100," consider that last year I watched an average of three films per day, and the total for the year was somewhere around 1400.

I don't really know how many films I've seen in my short lifetime, but at if I had to guess, it would be somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand.  I guess. I really have no idea. But it's a lot. So narrowing all of that down to 100 is hard, because the gaps between each number rank are so thin that again, it really serves no point.  The order doesn't ring true. That's why I like the tiers.

Anyway, other films in my top tier include:  The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, Citizen Kane, Almost Famous, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life, Rear Window, Notorious, Schindler's List, E.T. Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Searchers, Paths of Glory, When Harry Met Sally..., Road To Perdition, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Singin' In The Rain, The Shawshank Redemption, Two For The Road, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Lion King, Bambi, Cinema Paradiso, Heat, The Red Shoes, The Natural, Jailhouse Rock, and some of the ones mentioned above. I think that's actually pretty concise for the top level. I could watch any of those movies on any given day, at any time. That, for me, defines the top level.

My favorite director is Martin Scorsese.  I will need another entry for that one.

My other favorites:  Hitchcock (The Master), Spielberg, Kubrick, Truffaut, Powell and Pressburger, John Ford, Stanley Donen, Vincente Minnelli, Sam Mendes, Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, David Lean, Cameron Crowe, David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar.

But back to the question.  See how easy it is to get lost on these tangents?  Anyone who has ever spoken to me about movies knows how treacherous it can be to navigate the waters of Movie Conversations With Gabe.  It usually ends in the other person's blank stare after I make references to obscure movies or recite unnecessary dates and facts.  I can't help it.  It's like my version of Tourette's.  

My movie obsession really began with the publication of AFI's original 100 Best Movies List in the summer of 1998.  That was the summer my family moved to a new house, across the river from my old one, and looking back on it now I can see a lot changed.  It's been 11 years since then. Jesus, really?  And I was born nearly 11 years before that.  So that was the midpoint of my life just about. Fitting, really.  

I remember packing boxes with my dad and talking about what should be included, and later, what was left off.  I had seen 26 at the time the list came out, which, when one looks at the list, is quite a feat, but at the time I was ashamed I hadn't seen more. Typical.  

I made it my goal in life to see all 100 films. I achieved that goal on October 26, 2003, when I saw Pulp Fiction for the first time. That was the last one, which I hadn't been allowed to see until that time.  Sure, I could have sneaked it with my friends and probably finished the list a lot earlier, but I'd like to take a moment to explain why I didn't.

My dad. Long before the list, long before the first time I saw The Godfather, my father had started a Bucsko family tradition of renting classic, usually B & W films to watch on New Year's Eve.  Thus was born my love of film history.  At the age of 8 and onward I was exposed to such films as Holiday Inn (FAR SUPERIOR to White Christmas, that shameless...nevermind), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938 - Errol Flynn!), Going My Way, High Noon, many more. We also had VHS copies of Marx Brothers movies, Charlie Chaplin movies, the Sean Connery James Bonds, all kinds of stuff.  He set the rule that there were certain films (the others were A Clockwork Orange and Midnight Cowboy) I wasn't allowed to see until a certain age.  Out of respect for him, I obeyed.  To watch one without him would have violated the sanctity of the list.  Every time I saw a new one and checked it off, I did it with him at my side. It's something I'll always treasure and tell my kids about.  In my wildest dreams, I hope to go through the list with my own kids someday.  If they aren't already movie-hating rebellious Michael Bay-worshippers by that point.

Basically, my whole life I've been compared to my dad.  People say we look alike - I usually roll my eyes, though I definitely see it.  I've inherited many of his traits and mannerisms, so many that I've been trying to separate myself from his shadow for years.  I'd never say this to his face, but it's his birthday today, and it's time to put it out there.  I would not be the crazy "movie encyclopedia" Gabe I am today if not for my dad's love of old movies.  Just because he's ultimately not as obsessed with them as I am (music and sports share equal passions in his heart, but I'm mostly a movie guy) doesn't mean he wasn't the one that lit the spark.  The man showed a seven-year-old me the Rudolph Valentino silent version of Blood and Sand, for God's sake.  Because he was taking a silent movie class in grad school.  I knew who Valentino was at that age.  I can't ignore stuff like that.  He showed me Shawshank when I was 9.  That's in 1996, way before it was ranked on the IMDB top films list and everybody decided to jump on that particular bandwagon.  My father is undoubtedly the person who has most influenced my life, especially my love of films.  If I ever win an Oscar, or any type of accolade related to films, it will be because of him. I owe my passion for Scorsese, Cagney, De Niro, James Bond, gangster films in general, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, John Garfield, Elvis, Bogart, The Natural, Jimmy Stewart, Brando, Gone With The Wind, pretty much everything that set me down the road in those early years with the AFI List, to him.  So Happy Birthday Dad, and thank you. For everything.

Okay, enough sappiness.  I love movies.  I don't really know why I was chosen to inherit such a passion, an unquenchable thirst to see more and more films, but somehow it happened.  I don't really know another me.  I would be scared to meet one.  And sad.  The first thing I'd say to that person would be, "I'm sorry you have no life." I'd give them a hug. It's not a pleasant thing, to be unable to go more than 24 hours without watching a movie.  To be unable to spend more than a split-second of your thoughts not engaging in some type of affection for cinema.  To wake up each morning thinking "what am I going to watch today?" It is what it is, an obsession.

I love so many things about movies.  Some that come to mind at this moment:

The last shot of The Searchers.

The big dance number/barn-raising in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

Al Pacino's performance in The Godfather Part II.  

The final scene of Paths of Glory, the most heartbreaking evocation of the tragic existence of humanity I can think of.  I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it.

The first ten minutes of Up, a recent revelation.

The "Dancing In The Dark" number from The Band Wagon.  Without dialogue, Astaire and Charisse convey the ups and downs of a love affair solely through dance. Magic.

Three scenes of Atonement:  THE SHOT, the restaurant scene b/n Knightley and McAvoy, and the scene in the hospital with Nurse Briony and the wounded French soldier, Luc Carne. During a particularly difficult production class at USC last fall, I watched these three scenes every night before I went to bed.  That's what got me through the toughest days of missing reels and hairs-in-the-gate.  Don't ask.

Mescagni's Intermezzo Sinfonico from Cavelleria Rusticana, played over the opening credits of Raging Bull and the final montage at the end of The Godfather Part III.  My favorite piece of music ever.

The diner conversation between De Niro and Pacino in Heat.

Almost Famous.

Road To Perdition.  I love me some Thomas Newman. And Sam Mendes.

Billy Crystal's climactic speech in When Harry Met Sally...

Anton Walbrook in The Red Shoes.

Sean Connery's James Bond.

Rediscovering Vertigo on the big screen in Drew Casper's Hitchcock class at USC, the best class I've ever had to date.

Falling in love with Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, and Kate Winslet onscreen.  

Watching all of the The Lord of The Rings back to back, a summer tradition I'm due to repeat this weekend.

The moment I watched GoodFellas for the first time, at age 12. Thus began the true love affair of my life, with the films of Martin Scorsese.  

To wrap this one up, I haven't even scratched the surface of my filmic passion, but I knew I wouldn't.  That's what the blog's for.

I believe there is one film, and one scene in particular, that articulates why I love the movies better than I could ever write or express verbally.  

The film:  Cinema Paradiso.  The scene:  the kissing montage/final scene.  If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.  If you haven't, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  

I'll leave with a brief explanation of the blog's title.  Well, mostly the use of "uncool," the rest is evident from the above prose.  

In Almost Famous, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character relates an "honest and unmerciful" truth to his young protege:  

"We are uncool.  Women will always be a problem for guys like us.  Most of the great art in the world is about that very problem." 

Couldn't have said it better myself.  One day I hope to create great art.  For now, I'll settle for writing about it.

This Has Been Coming For A Long Time.

So after all this time, I've finally decided to write about movies.  For years friends have asked me to start some sort of column or blog about my movie thoughts, and I used to just tell them I didn't have time. Why? Because I was watching stuff. But I'm bored today at work, and I feel the stirrings of passionate writing within me, so time to let it all out. Only time will tell whether this becomes a regular thing or only a brief obsession.

Before I post my first real entry, let me take a moment to introduce myself.  My name is Gabe, short for Gabriel, and I'm currently a college student in California.  I originally hail from Pittsburgh, PA (City of Champions!) but I was born in Evansville, Indiana.  My family now calls Minnesota home, so I haven't been back to Pittsburgh in a while, though I hope to return sometime soon.

I can't really think of anything else to say about myself besides movie stuff.  Friends have called me "The Movie Encyclopedia" and "A Walking IMDB" because of my extensive knowledge of the most minute details of film history and random dates and facts.  But by no means do I know everything, nor have I seen everything, contrary to popular belief.  People will look up the most random movies or pump their fists in the air when they find out they've seen something I haven't.  That's about it for the introduction. Time for the first real entry.