Movie Moods

I'm not sure what made me think of this, but I guess being up late makes your mind wander.

Have you ever noticed how certain movies require you to be in a particular mood to watch? Usually they are really, really good movies, or really bad movies. I have yet to find myself in a situation where I say "Self, I feel like watching John Travolta pretend he's still a relevant actor in Broken Arrow". No, that just doesn't happen. Broken Arrow was an OK movie. Not a good movie, and not a terrible movie. More of an "Oh, it's on TNT right now and since it's Sunday afternoon and I have nothing better to do, I'll just go ahead and watch it" type of flick.

But then there's one of my favorite movies of all time, Apocalypse Now. I first saw this my senior year of high school while we were studying "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. If you want to impress someone, tell them you read this book. Well actually if you want to get laid you might try saying you read "The Odyssey" since that's about a bloke trying to get home to his wife. "Heart of Darkness" is some rather fucked up shit, not to put too fine a point on it. So I'm not too sure of the type of person you'd attract quoting "The horror, the horror!" But I digress. The movie is based on the book, or more accurately it's an adaptation of the book. I won't get into the specifics but essentially substitute the African jungle for the jungles of Vietnam and the rather violent period when the ivory trade was booming with the Vietnam war and you have a pretty good idea of the major differences.

The thing about this movie is it's not something that you throw in one night when you're bored and want something to occupy your time and/or relax after work. This movie is the Fatal Attraction of movies (which I realize is a terrible metaphor): It will not be ignored. It demands your attention and if you don't give it your full focus, it tends to say "Well fuck you buddy, I'm leaving without you," and promptly proceeds to shift from Martin Sheen jumping around in his underwear while lamenting about the fact that now that he's out of the jungle, all he wants is back in, to U.S. soldiers surfing while helicopters attack the Viet Cong and blare "Ride of the Valkyries" over loudspeakers. As I said, it's something of an attention whore.

But unlike a good, mindless action flick like Independence Day or Air Force One, you really have to be in the mood for some existentialist rantings by a crazed war correspondent (Dennis Hopper), or possibly the best use of lighting and camera angles I've ever seen to make Marlin Brando's Col. Kurtz the scariest motherfucker you DON'T want to meet in a dark alley. If you're not in the mood, you just can't watch it.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the really bad movies. Ones that if you have even the slightest desire for a coherent plot, well-developed characters, good special effects, and actors that are not actually made out of plywood, you will end up getting immediately pissed off and libel to do something rash. Like watching Deep Blue Sea (a movie for which there is no possible excuse for watching more than once). Take, for example, Evil Dead. For those that don't know, Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are the prequels to Army of Darkness which is quite possibly the most brilliant comedy/horror film ever made. The difference is that while Army of Darkness was intended to be a slapstick-comedy take on the horror film (at times it's almost Monty Pythonesqe), Evil Dead is quite serious. It tries so very, very hard to be an actual scary horror film. And it does have some rather disturbing moments (gratuitous tree-rape scene anyone?). But after about 45 minutes, it becomes quite obvious that, while unintentional, this is an A+ horror satire of the finest degree. It is so monumentally bad as a horror movies that it completely transcends the genre and somehow manages to become not only a parody of itself, but of all B-type horror movies of the last 50 years. This is B-movie making at it's finest.

But just like Apocalypse Now, you have to be in the mood for such a flick. You can't just throw on Evil Dead while you're cleaning the kitchen because half the fun is one of the EAFC's (Expendable Attractive Female Character) getting chased through the woods by some evil being that is portrayed by a drunk cameraman running through the forest as nosily as possible which smashing occasional small trees. Which, of course, ends in the aforementioned tree-rape scene.

Then there are movies that you should never, ever, ever, EVER be in the mood for and if you are, you need to go slam your balls in a door right now. Movies like Three On a Meathook, which sounds like it might actually be a good B-level slasher flick. But it's so, so bad that even watching to MST3Kify it too difficult to do without just being dumbfounded by the sheer incompetence of the director. Aside from not being in the least bit scary or disturbing, there is a scene where the main character goes to a bar. At this bar, there is a band playing. Eventually, we are treated to a shot of the band. Now this would not normally be an issue if it were the Star Wars cantina-style shot where you see the band for a few seconds as the play the music that will make up the background of the next scene. But noooooo; that would be too much to ask from Mr. Fucknut director man. Instead, we are given an 8 minute stationary shot of the band playing 2-3 ENTIRE FUCKING SONGS. It may not have been that long, but I remember I was simply stunned by how long we had the fast-forward on before we got past this point. Oh and the reason for this visit to the pub? Nothing. It was the movie equivalent of a Hummer limo: wasteful, pointless, and too damn long.

I'm not exactly sure what makes one movie require a "mood" while others require nothing more then "Hey, I haven't seen Captain Ron in a while! Let's watch that." But I do know of many movies that I just can't watch unless my mind is in the proper state. And for the 4 people who read this blog, do you have any movies that require a certain mood before watching?