Good? Will Hunting. Not a Big Fan…

I just finished watching Big Fan which is a great movie, but then I threw on Good Will Hunting and I don’t think they compare.

Dan Harmon was right to pick this shit apart, and when you realise in its infancy it’s an entirely different movie, like Borne Identity levels of intrigue, what Van Sant allegedly does with it, turning it into a heartfelt drama with too much orchestral manipulation, it’s kinda flowery and pompous to be honest. Until Nolan decided to just overuse a score, I never realised how many movies used stings and refrains to tell you how to feel. I think the Afflecks have (or had, I guess) too much pull after this, I get Ben and Matt had to prove they “wrote” the screenplay, but I can also see the reason for the vitriol from better writers at the time who were peeved about the Oscar win. It’s so hard to hear shit get praise when you know it’s so fucking flawed. The “brain off” in the bar is so silly. I do love Minnie Driver, I adore her to be honest, I defend Grosse Pointe Blank a lot.

Oh, and Will’s AUTISTIC AS FUCK, BRAH. Sorry. I mean, he’s “wicked smhart” with his, let’s eat beans rather than drink coffee bullshit. I get this is a blatant attack on the pitfalls of intellectual elitism, and I didn’t realise it’s also capturing the Irish Catholic vs. Protestant tension was encapsulated in South Boston, the blonde intellectual in the bar is a WASP effectively. And I never actually noticed how coddled and infantilised Will is by the professor, no fucking wonder Will snaps in the end. One of the psychiatrists Will fucks around with was in Little Man Tate as a pompous TV presenter. Making gay jokes is still homophobic you can’t hide behind, “I ain’t got no problem with it” bullshit, it’s such a Ben Affleck response to gayness. (I don’t think he’s matured, and if he’s gone back to and left J-Lo again that confirms a lot). I also think it’s kind of silly they insist on Will getting therapy to rope Robin William’s character into it. He really is the best part of the film. He plays off Damon very well, I never said Matty was a bad actor. He’s had some terrible takes, he and Benny were actually extremely out of touch with their generation in the end.

You could argue Skyler is a watered-down Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but she’s too sane and grounded to be considered manic, she just has pixie, childlike qualities and a sweet sense of humour but she plays the drama part much better. I wish I could tell the joke she does in the bar. She and Williams, I feel anyway, were the more accomplished and mature actors in this Skarsgard’s Jerry is obnoxious on purpose, I like he gets ripped into later. Ugh, Casey Affleck’s obnoxious in this. I kinda like Ben’s in the background except for the interview scene. And only an autistic guy would tell a joke in the first person because “it sounds better”.

And maybe my copy is really bad but there are a lot of very shoddy, out of focus shots in this. Oh, and greyhound rescuers would hate it.

I’m relating too fucking hard to Will being pushed by Jerry into doing “more” and Sean saying his not ready. I’m fundamentally at the end of my rope of people trying to convince me I’m hiding all my confidence and just need a little shove or a kick up the butt or whatever. I get Will, I think it’s why I still give this movie a pass. When I got diagnosed, you may as well have sent Robin Williams to my house to give me a giant, fatherly bear-hug and repeatedly tell me it’s not my fault. And to be fair, 20 somethings madly in love in college are incredibly dramatic, I’ve heard dorm room fights, I’ve had them and they suck. It’s a relatively honest movie if nothing else. Dog-piling on Will for ditching the job interview isn’t fair either. Like nobody’s asking the fucker what he wants, Skyler offers to take him away, he freaks out, but Jerry pushes and pushes, he expects perfection. And Will’s like “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining shit to people”. PREACH. I also suspect the “NSA speech” is from the original script. But I don’t think it’s fair to put that shit on a kid, like it doesn’t matter what you know by then, you’re still fucking terrified of the future and pushing a smart kid isn’t fair. It’s bullying, if you’re so threatened by the potential of a wasted potential, think about how that kid feels, how daunting it is to carry that and have everyone be so mean and envious and pushy about it. Let them breathe, at least. Don’t give them shit about what they have to offer, don’t parse it as being for their own good and you’re looking out for them. Fuck off. I get you can’t glamourise the Southy lifestyle. Chucky talks him out of that. Sean and Jerry have it out in the end. Then Will and Sean hug it out, it’s all neatly tied up.

I really don’t have a lot to add to this. Kevin Smith being involved and having ties to Weinstein at the time gave him a lot of pulling power for an indie director. If you decided to boycott Miramax movies because of Harvey, I’m sorry most of your favourite movies are unwatchable by that logic. People don’t get how distribution works, horrible people have left their fingerprints on a lot of art. I don’t hate this movie but I think people were willing to admit its predictability. I don’t think it’s worth hurling insults at in retrospect.

I do like apples but Dan’s right, it is a goofy as fuck line. I brought up Big Fan, which is such an interesting script and so cleverly made for how low budget it looks. I love there’s a rat running across the ground of the parking garage where Patton works, I love he’s a man-baby conflicted with protecting his team and its best player over accepting his victimhood. It’s such an interesting character study, Patton brings a lot of anger and resentment to the role, he’s fine with his shitty, dead-end job and having no wife and kids, he has a best buddy who’s insufferable but absolutely idolises him. He has a douchey bottom-feeder ambulance chasing lawyer for a brother, the rest of his family have a false sense of superiority, his mother’s a nightmare but he refuses to leave home, he refuses to be different, he pities the banality of everyone around him, he finds his own importance on the radio call-in show as the prime Giants fan. I hate Michael Rapaport now, he’s as big a douche as he plays (I thought his son was in Higher Learning, no, it was him with no beard, he needs a beard he barely has a chin, he looks twenty years older in Beautiful Girls, which was the following year) so he’s perfect as the rival ran Paul has to compete with. It’s such a fantastic portrayal of toxic fandom gone too far. It’s clever and careful with the dramatic moments, it’s genuinely a better indie film than Good Will Hunting. Even Paul and his buddy sitting outside with the TV hooked up to the car battery being such a great compensation for not having access to a busy stadium, that’s how massive a fan these guys are, they show up like they’re lucky talismans rooting for their team and when Paul’s not there and his attacker isn’t out on the field, everything goes to shit. The biggest critique you could lob at it is the QB character is a black guy who goes to a shitty suburb for drugs and hangs out in strip club, I feel like they went that way rather than them idolising a white player, who by their logic may not have beaten a fan up or been as aloof, but I’m sure Paul’s simpering and tailing could’ve pissed off a white guy just as bad. Paul’s so childishly naive about why the QB’s hanging out in the slums but we’re fully aware. He’s not being a total nuisance, he makes a totally innocent blunder and is overly punished for it. But the QB and his buddies don’t go after Paul later, and Paul doesn’t lie to the cops about not remembering shit to protect himself from thugs. It’s all for the team. Maybe if Patton hadn’t been in it I’d have ignored it, (actually absolutely I would have) but I don’t know who else could do the role justice anyway. I love Kevin Corrigan too, he’s a good character actor, he and Patton have a good buddy chemistry, they play off each other’s childishness until Paul’s too depressed to be nice to the guy. I also didn’t realise the game playing in the bar is the Giants/Eagles final showdown, so when the Giants lose, Paul’s triggered. I figured he would attack Phil based on him outing Paul for being the beating victim.

It’s worth a watch, if you really want to support indie movies.

Pretty Woman’s pretty good…

I feel like this doesn’t get enough credit for having a great establishing scene, a lot of 90s movies knew their place and how to structure shit in a 90min format, they weren’t forced to make movies lengthy, it was better you didn’t. So a good opening montage is important. I like Edward’s little conversation with his ex girlfriend about his secretary being one of her bridesmaids, his quick break up with the current girlfriend, the already nervy Jason Alexander tailing him, Edward chastising a lackey for not paying attention to Tokyo. Dude’s distant and unavailable, already anxious over the death of his father and needs to bail in a stickshift rather than a limo. Vivian’s poor, wakes up at night, has to avoid a landlord and deal with the irresponsible Kit. She’s in a bad neighbourhood, a colleague got whacked, and Hank Azaria doesn’t seem to realise some tourist from Orlando should know what a dead body looks like already. (Also people so often forget he voiced more than Apu on the Simpsons, but kids are only going to remember him for that).

Vivian and Edward have a good rapport, there’s obvious attraction only Vivian’s too street-smart to fall for it. And he’s not oblivious to the nature of her work but they both still labour under preconceived notions of one another. The fact he doesn’t expressly tell her to get deportment classes or fix her necessarily, there’s no bet and he cares for her. She’s mildly childlike but not entirely an ingenue. She understands manly things like cars and neckties, he’s bad with cars and scared of heights. He’s a workaholic but she has a work ethic of her own; doesn’t do drugs like Kit, flosses and takes her responsibilities seriously, she’s equip with a buffet of rubbers. They’re “professionals”. It’s cutely written, she won’t be his “beck and call” girl. 3000 bucks for a week’s work is actually good for that period. If you grew up when shit was actually cheap you don’t realise how far a dollar used to go until it doesn’t. And she’s getting a stipend for clothing too.

Hector Elizondo is much more fatherly and eventually respects Vivian, again her “deportment training” is to “help her” rather than win a bet and she asks for help, so at least it was trying to fix its source material. And Barney’s not  End of the day, the movie isn’t sex-worker positive, it’s kind of SWERFy propaganda even if Vivian charms everyone regardless, she’s a sassy little minx and Edward’s childishly smitten with her. But she’s still “worth more” than a hooker and can still “be more” like what she was doing wasn’t valid and only came about from having a povo and abusive background. She wants to change for him more than the money. You’re supposed to be distracted by Vivian’s whimsical faux pas so Edward’s acquisition/dead daddy subplot isn’t too dry. Edward at least admits to screwing people for money and Vivian’s realigning his moral compass in an nonsexual way. But he won’t chill out with her. He’s so unchill until the end. Even when he’s seducing her he’s pretty deadpan and it’s less charming, I don’t find him particularly alluring to be frank, but she’s not warmed him up, obviously. It’s one of those “sensual, sexy” but not overtly horny 90s movies, they knew how to appeal to women back then. I know there will be much better written essays on why this isn’t a feminist movie. I think they only go to a polo match to mirror My Fair Lady, but Edward’s less ashamed of her, he’s too rich and powerful to truly lose esteem from dating a hooker, Edward telling Phil this just to prove she’s not a corporate spy. I think they tried to sell this as a comedy over a drama and I think people forget it gets kind of graphic later. The fact the movie builds up to a kiss on the lips rather than sex flips the script a touch, I suppose. But she’s “too good” for this, it’s the kind of language SWERFs use with more vulnerable women they don’t see as a threat to their marriages. There’s a nice juxtaposition of their bare feet in their respective environs, Edward’s in grass, Vivian’s on the penthouse carpet, and she sits on the same steps she took her boots off on to put on her new shoes. I didn’t remember Jason Alexander straight up assaulting her. Barney’s more on her level, they’re both in subservient roles. Vivian’s all “I coulda been something” with Kit, Kit could do better too, again it’s such sappy nonsense that doesn’t fly. Only Fans girlies, don’t let this type of rhetoric dissuade you, there are smart girlies paying off their student loans with horny man money. Kit thinks she can go do beauty school. I kinda actually hate the ending a little, it’s goofy as fuck and her line is stupid.

The soundtrack’s pretty great, I had one of the songs on a compilation tape of soundtrack songs sung by uncredited no-names.