In Bruges
I’m a big fan of dark comedies. The darker, the more comedic (for me). In Bruges is a great example: our main character, Ray (Colin Farrell), is a hitman, and on his first hit, he accidentally shoots a child. Hilarious. He also does drugs with a cocaine addicted “racist dwarf” (the movie’s words) played by Peter Dinklage, and at some point he even punches a woman in the face. Yet, despite all this, Farrell is intensely loveable as Ray, who simply wants to come to terms with watch he’s done while he’s stuck in a “shithole” like Bruges. That’s what makes In Bruges so well written and memorable—I love horrible people in the movie for the horrible things they do, but I also get to see how every character is human and unique. Even the “bad-guy,” (a foul-mouthed Ralph Fiennes), is admirable and has a code of honor, even when he calls his wife an “inanimate fucking object.” The audience doesn’t even get a clear ending of what happens—how many comedies do that?—but it couldn’t have ended any other way. Written by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (author of The Pillowman and the movie Seven Psychopaths), the inseparable drama and meta-comedy of In Bruges is unique as it is ridiculous, such as when a dying Brendan Gleeson says “I’m going to die now,” and then, of course, dies. This movie was so memorable to me that it even inspired me and my brother to visit Bruges, which was, as the movie joking suggests, like a fairy tale.
In the Loop
In the Loop is my go-to comedy that I never get tired of. Most movies I can’t watch more than once every six months or so. This movie, however, is endlessly rewatchable, even when you know the jokes are coming. Part of it stems from the partial improvised nature of the script, and part of it is it’s cutting political savvy—it’s a smart movie about dumb people. This is a movie that’s entirely dialogue dependent: most of the lines are a verbal tennis match between the characters, and everyone sinks their teeth in. One of my favorite insults is when Jamie (Paul Higgins) complains about opera music, saying “it’s just vowels.” But the real star of the film is Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), who is a wordsmith of expletives: he tells the expletive-sensitive US representative to not be a “F-star-star-cunt.” Same with most things that writer-director Armando Ivanucci does (like his work on Veep or his British television equivalent to In the Loop called The Thick of It). The movie also has a great sense of its own comedy, making jokes out things that wouldn’t make sense out of context. Some of the funniest and most memorable lines (such as “Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult”) are nonsensical outside of the context, which is the exact opposite of a lot of generic comedies that just go for one-liners. I love how In the Loop creates this insular world of comedy that also manages to skewer the political process in the United States while never taking itself too seriously.
Tag
films
Blair Witch Project
I remember hating television and the movies my parents watched. All my dad watched was Gene Hackman and Spielberg style movies, and sitcoms. All my mom watched was soap operas and made for tv romantic movies. My parents have no taste. I hated how it was all fake, how people didn’t talk or act like that in real life. I remember saying to my dad constantly, “People don’t talk like that.” Then I saw Blair Witch and listening to their dialogue, fuck, it blew my mind. That scene where Heather is screaming at Mike about losing the map. That scene on the river with the two fishing guys telling each other they’re full of shit. It was all so human to me, my friends were obsessed with scary parts, but I was obsessing over the realistic dialogue and how they showed real emotions. The characters in Blair Witch acted how people would act if they were scared, humans scream and cry, their hair gets messy, they complain and throw fits. I ended up seeing it three times in the theater; I have watched it several times a year since.
Every Which Way but Loose and Every Which Way You Can
These two movies did something that American movies and American literature have a hard time with. They have normal everyday Americans working on cars, getting into fights, listening to country music, and grandma shooting a shotgun, but it isn’t miserable. The characters laugh, they have hobbies and goals. People like this are often depicted as stupid or miserable in 21st Centuries narratives. But that isn’t life for normal people, I work at a grocery store with poor white people, Hispanics, African-Americans and ex-Mormons. We aren’t miserable, yes a lot of wealth and power are blocked from us. But we laugh, we take care of each other, we get into little fights, and grandma has a shotgun. I really like the names too, Philo Bedo, Lynn Halsey-Taylor, Orville, Echo, etc, what great names. And there’s an orangutan named Clyde that punches Harley douches, lol, awesome.
Boyz n the Hood
I couldn’t find the movie online to rewatch, going by memory. I remember being around 13 or so and watching Boyz n the Hood, there was a scene in it where Cuba the character Tre is in bed with a girl. There are like helicopters flying above and he freaks out and starts punching the air, it all seemed so authentic, so real. I just stared at the screen, seeing what it means to be powerless. I felt powerless when I was little, I don’t wanna talk about that, but I did, I felt powerless. And that is what it means to be powerless, you can’t do anything, except hide in your room and punch the air. It is like, even now, I feel mostly powerless in public, I can’t buy anything, people look down on me because of my job, I can’t wait to go home and hide and punch the air.
Underworld
I really like how it starts, Selene dressed all black, perched on a building, in the rain. Oh god it is so beautiful to me. I think on the inside, I imagine myself as Selene, dressed all in black, beautiful, sleek, with scintillating blue eyes. Selene doesn’t know the answers to the universe, she doesn’t know anything but how to kick ass. But she has an epiphany that kicking ass isn’t everything, and that the power constructs around her are making life worse and are in general based on false or outmoded ideas about reality. Then there are the lower class werewolves condemned to live in the sewers, but Lucian is an asshole too. The plot of Go to Work ha some similarities with this, Selene doesn’t voice an ideology like Victor or Lucian, Selene just acts, she is movement, she is a force, a new reality on the offense. And of course that head splitting at the end, she holds up the sword and blood drips from it, omg, I love that so much.
Chocolate
This movie is about a Thai mom prostitute who dies slowly of cancer, a Japanese dad criminal boss, an overweight sad boy who everyone picks on, a group of gun toting transgenders and an autistic ninja girl. This plot could only happen in Southeast Asia. It calms me to watch Zen, how she is so full of passion to kick everyone’s ass.
Noah Cicero lives in Las Vegas, NV. He has several books published; The Bathroom Reader and Bipolar Cowboy are his newest.
Movies that Matter: Noah Cicero was last modified: December 4th, 2015 by Troy Weaver