Straight Edge Life

I have a good friend in LA who is a bit of an audiophile. When I say “a bit” I mean that in the

“hey I just bought some new speaker cables”

“oh yeah, how much?”

“$1000″

“woah, did you wire up your whole house or something”

“No, they’re just for my main speakers. They’re 6 feet long.”

…kind of way. He’s a nut, a great guy, and he knows his stuff. I asked him once about what makes a good system. Rather than tell me about a bunch of components he simply said “A good system is one where the speakers vanish and you feel like you are in the room with the musician”. This is exactly what I feel separates a good movie from a great movie… When the filmmaking completely disappears and you are in the room with the characters. When the plot, story, characters and settings are the only thing you notice. It opens a door between the audience and the story and makes it infinitely more enjoyable as an experience.

Go see Monster. The filmmaking is completely transparent. It’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Charlize Theron deserves every award on the face of this planet for her performance. The movie is incredible.

It’s not an easy film to watch. It’s pretty hard actually. From the comfort of my cushy chair at Cinemark 17 I felt as uncomfortable as I have ever felt watching a movie. A week prior to seeing it I got an email from my friend in Minneapolis, Sara, telling me that she had to console a friend for an hour after seeing it because she couldn’t stop crying.

It’s disturbing not only because of the content itself. The circumstance, the events, everything… it’s tough to watch. But what’s most difficult is how easy it is to relate to the characters. And it’s not just in a rational way. You don’t sit there and go, ok, that makes sense, she’s killing because this or that happened to her and that justifies what she’s doing (in a street vengeance sort of way). For me, and I think most people, it’s more experiential than that, it’s more emotional and primal. You RELATE because you are so close to the characters. The acting is so strong that there really is NO barrier between you and the events that have shaped them into who they are. And what it might tell you about yourself, the way you might feel while watching this, well that’s the scariest most disturbing part of it. This represents the best in moviemaking in my opinion. I give it 10/10.