Monday, March 7, 2011

Clubbing Films

Yesterday I started and finished "The Film Club" by David Gilmour. A quick read, obviously, and an engaging one. It's about fatherhood, dealing with a teenage son, and movies. It goes like this:

Gilmour's sixteen-year-old son is struggling in school. Giving up at school is a better way to put it. Worried about growing distant from his son, and worried about the futility of keeping him in school, Gilmour allows his son to drop out and live with him rent-free with only two stipulations: 1) no drugs, 2) they must watch three movies a week together.

So together they bond, share their life problems and life experiences with each other, and watch a lot of movies.

If you're expecting a book that gleams life lessons from film you're not going to get much of that here. That may have been Gilmour's initial intent, but in the end it's just about loving your son and getting safely through this sinister world.

I liked "The Film Club." Not a life-altering book, and not something I will ever try out on my children, but I was moved and entertained. If anything it made me want to write about movies. It made me want to watch a movie and pick apart what I like and don't like about each scene and every character and every line, then take all of that and show it to somebody, to make them understand, to make them see things as I see them. Other people might call that torture.

Some buddies have started a movie club of their own. I contribute. I am especially proud of my recent review of the first "Twilight" movie.
http://nongayorlameversion.blogspot.com/2011/03/twilight-charlie-swan-saga.html
And you should also read everything everybody else has written. We just started, so there isn't much in the way of content right now.

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I'm on the laptop right now. I keep my music library on the desktop computer, so when I'm here and I need something rolling in the background I usually turn to Myspace. I just streamed El Perro Del Mar. Now I'm easing through Lykke Li (currently listening to "Possibility," which is on the "New Moon" soundtrack, interestingly enough -- I can't escape it). Clearly I'm in a Swedish waif mood. Nina Persson and her Cardigans better look out.

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