Independent Film

There is something lovely about independent film. Most people don't really see it, but I do. And I'm happy that I do. Every weekend people will go to the movies, and they'll go see Couples Retreat, The Proposal, Paul Blart, or any number of big budget mind numbing movies, believe me the list goes on and on. Now I am by no means saying that there isn't a time and place for these big budget movies. God know as long as they are making transformer movies I will be going to see them. All I'm saying is that for my money I'm going independent. There is something inspiring about these films. They have a feeling that makes you feel as if they are routed within the real world. And there is something so special about walking out of a movie and knowing that the story you just sat through is really important to somebody. There is something so special about these movies. I promise you they are worth it. So don't always take the easy way out when you are at blockbusters. Look for something that you've never seen before that catches your eye. Sure there are a few duds in there group, but no more than the big budget movies that are released everyday. Today I watched a movie with my mother. A movie by the name of Management. And not only did this movie make me feel something special, but it also made me realize that given the right material Jennifer Aniston can actually act. She is more than just a pretty face and the some of her Rachel character from friends. Who would have ever thought that with movies such as Rumor Has it or Derailed. But seriously check out movies like Management, Adventureland, Brick, The Brothers Bloom, or even Funny People even though it might have had a bigger budget it is still a pretty special and personal movie.

Moments

There are moments in life that can be bigger than the sky. You may not know these moments when they are happening, but eventually you will look back and realize that you just had a defining moment. It seems to me lately that these moments have been few and far between. And it has just come to me that this is the case. I feel like right now I'm in a pool of stag net water. I don't know why but I know that this is not the person I was always destine to be. this can't be the person that I was always destine to be, because really quiet honestly I fucking hate this person. I had this vision of my life and when I think back to when I was like ten years old, this is definitely not even close to the vision that I had in mind. Now granted there really is no way humanly possible that I could have been a Jedi Knight. But come on, when the hell am I going to have another big moment. It's like I'm stuck in some sort of purgatory. God I am beginning to loathe my twenties. Where is my moment? Where is the thing that makes my story great? Every great story has an even greater moment. The moment that everyone talks about, the one that they always connect to. The truly great movies have this moment that I'm talking about. When a movie is earth shattering it seems like it is filled with them. Then there are some movies that the moment is basically the soundtrack within the movie. I am a firm believer that this moment is incredibly important, and whenever I am in a movie I search this moment out among other things, and I guess this search as bled into my life as well and I regret to say that I have no great moments. Even the moments in my life that I might feel are great to the outside viewer they are mediocre at best. I need to figure out what am I doing wrong. I need to start to live, before I look up one day and it's all over. I guess that's what I have been trying to say this whole time. It is important to live, not to sit idly on the sideline watching as other people make important memories, because you will regret it. Don't be afraid to get in there and get your hands dirty, make enemies, piss people off, fuck up all the time if you have to. At least when it's all over you will realize that it was worth it. You gotta live for the moments in life. Don't be a secondary character in your own life because sooner or later you'll wake up one day and want to drive a pick axe through your own skull. Live for the moments.

Failure

I myself am afraid of failure. That has always been my biggest fear. It's so crazy but when I was in seventh grade we had to write an essay about our biggest fears and most people said spiders or snakes or any other of the everyday things that kids would say frighten them, but then there was me, Brandon Ponder seventh grade and already I was afraid that my life was going to be a failure. That is the craziest thing, especially taking into consideration my current situation. But that really is another issue for another day. The real thing is what makes a seventh grader so afraid of failure. I guess I was/am just that kid.

I'm talking about this because well I am about to enter my first film in a film festival, and although I want to think that I'm going to knock it out of the park I just have this feeling that I am going to fail. But really the more and more that I think about it I just don't care if I fail. I guess the thing is that I've failed enough in life. Baseball, girls, etc. It just really doesn't matter you know. Some people fail, well really most people fail and I plan of failing a whole lot, because at least if I'm failing, that means that I'm doing something, not just sitting around with my buddies drinking beer talking about what we should be doing. There is a quote in a movie that I really like, and it goes something like this. "What you're seeing is not the real me. The real me is a spectacular failure." I've always liked that line, I don't know why, maybe every since I've heard it I've hoped that one day I would get the chance to say it, to really say it and mean it you know. Because I feel like with the right feeling I could wear that as a badge of honor. Now I'm not saying that I am a failure or that that is what I want to be when I grow up, I'm just saying I'm not really as afraid of it as I once was.

What am I?

Wow, I think that is has been a little while since I have been on here, and I already know what you are going to say. What about the two other movies. Well I had some important things to deal with this last week and I have something on my mind right now so I will get right into the last two movies so that I can get on with it. 4) Good Will Hunting. 5) Goonies.

Now on to more important things. I want to go on record right here and now and say that maybe I hold people to high up. Because when they come crashing down which inevitably happens, they really do hurt landing right on top of me. It's hard for me though, because I really can't look at anyone and not want to really know what they are about, or what they have been through. And everyone has so much interesting things to say when you really begin to listen. But sometimes I begin to think that maybe I should stop listening. It's like the last few lines from the Catcher in the Rye. Never tell anybody anything, or you'll miss everybody. There are times when I am walking around that I feel so much like Holden Caufield, and I think that sometimes that just kind of scares me. Because I feel as if I could be out of here tomorrow and not even really look back, maybe make a few phone calls to loved ones every six months or so but that really is about it.

Why do you feel this way you might ask. It's easy, people. People just get to you. You let them in and they just break your heart with absolutely no regard, and not a real care in the world about the effect they have had on you. I saw that there is going to be a sneak preview of a movie that I think I'm really going to love this weekend. And I really wanted to text someone right then and there and ask them to go, but I couldn't, because that person has decided to remove themselves from my life. Well just from the interior, they still want to be there on the exterior you know, and that just isn't close to enough. it's really kind of a cop out if you ask me, but hey nobody ever really asks me. So I will go to that movie, and I will probably feel something so special that I can't even put it into words, and when it's over I'll walk about the movie theater and think about it the whole ride home in silence, by myself. Oh poor pathetic me right. I'm over it already, can't you tell.

No what is really bothering me is something deeper. Something that penetrates all the way to the core. I think people don't really see it but within families there are these cracks. Cracks that nobody can really see but are so fragile that when push comes to shove they shatter the entire foundation on which we lay everything. My foundation was shook last week, and I don't know if I can come back from it. When you're a boy, you see a man, and that man is unlike any other man. He is super human almost. And because he is super human and because you are a boy, you grow up trying to live up to that man's expectations. You love all the same things that he does, and you grasp onto his ideals and really you begin to take them as you're own and you defend them to the death. This is the kind of super man that you want to be when you grow up. But then one day you realize that he isn't super human, but that he really is just a man, and at times not even a good one. Now what are you suppose to do? What type of man are you going to be? Was everything you ever thought of this man a lie? Because he lied to you about why he wasn't there when you were born. He said you're mom kept him from being there but that wasn't it. The real reason he wasn't there is because he was engaged to another woman. A woman more to his families liking. So what made him change his mind? Should I not be made that he almost didn't step up to his responsibilities since he did. I don't know, I think I might be made because maybe this is the type of man that I am growing into, and I just don't even know it. What am I if not a product of my father?

Desert Island Movies #3

Movies are a very special thing. So before you get all I'm such a movie buff maybe you should stop for a second and think about what you are saying. Especially if your collection consists of such movies as You Got Served, Butterfly Effect, Legally Blonde, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton, and of course lets not forget The Notebook. Because really people these movies in no way shape or form make you a movie buff. Or maybe they do because a movie buff is someone who just fribilously watch movies on a whim and that is not this guy. But that's a whole other thing all together isn't it. Back to the task at hand, and that is #3.

3.) I'm going to have to go with the movie CLOSER. Now this movie to me is absolutely pitch perfect and fabulous. It seems to me to be one of the most relavent movies about relationships. About the intimacy, the lies, and the all out why that we as humans are completely and utterly fucked up. And for me there is something that is so bitter and said that it is almost refreshing to watch this movie. Another big plus that this movie has going for it is the fact that so many people that I know just absolutely hates it. I sometimes feel that I am a firm believer of if everybody hates it then there must be something more to it. And there are so many people that I know that went into this movie hoping for this great love story and they absolutely get club punched right in the face, and I love it. I remember the first time I saw this movie when it was over that is when I realized that I want to write movies. There were just so many words or phrases that were still ringing in my head, and every scene was getting played back over and over. I knew that I had just seen something that was truely great. And I realized in that moment that it had just changed everything in me. I was struggling to know what it was that was truly going to make me happy after I realized that baseball wasn't going to be the way for me, and writing was going to make me happy. It also happened to be the movie that made me realize how important music was. The Blowers Daughter is basically reason I have gotten into all of the music that for the most part my friends love to tease me about, because they think there is no way in the world that this guy listens to this music, but I do. When I listen to music now I instantly think where does that song fit into a movie. Anyway I'll see you all tomorrow for #4.

Desert Island Movies #2

For me there has always been something special about movies. And it has become increasingly harder for me to talk to people about movies. Not because I don't want to but because I do, and people often times don't want to talk to me about them because I have such a strong opinion about them. And it's not that I mean to or that I am even down grading the movies that other people watch, but when you get into the world of movies and you start talking to people who really love them to you get a chance to see how these people have such big opinions on movies that the only way that you can keep up is if you get your own big opinions and really that is what I do know. Now on to more important business. What is the second movie that I would take with me?

2.) Shakespeare in Love. There are some movies out there that you have been in love with you're entire life. The movies that just live within you that you can always remember the first time you ever watch that movie, and how every since it has held a special place in your heart. This is not that movie. The last part of that statement is true for this movie, because it obviously holds a special place in my heart other wise I would not be talking about it right now, but the first part is definitely not the case. I feel like this movie happened to me at a very important part in my life. And yes it like a car crash or being mugged it most certainly did happen to me. I don't remember the exact day and all the little details like I do with some movies, but I do remember that I never really wanted to see this movie. I wasn't really a big Paltrow fan and I really just had not interest in it at all, but one day me and Cooper sat down and watched it and I remember when it was all said and done it took me almost a day to really soak in what I had just saw.

I say that is film came at an important time because it was right around the time in my life that I really committed my love to film and I began to be very critical of films and just what makes a movie great. Not just the feelings of nostalgia that you might get when you watch a certain movie or that it has funny lines and makes you laugh or that it has bananas special effects. I had just gotten into the entirety of it all. I'm talking the screenplay, the lighting, the camera work and the way it is cut, the costumes, the set pieces, the raw emotions that the actors give off. I had just jumped head first into film and this movie spit out what I like to think is a masterpiece of art. And more importantly it did it in a year where there were movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line which where masterpieces in their own rights, but Shakespeare in Love was the one on top, and I will always think deservingly so. It is so beautiful a love story I really can't even put it into words. And it is so sophisticated that it really just is hard to put into words. And it has something that I myself really think that all love stories should have, and this really is my own personal opinion and really not too many people out there agree with this fact but I love it when a love story has sort of a bitter sweet ending. It's not quite happily ever after but its not just pain and heartache. And I guess that it was said best in a movie that I saw a couple of years ago, and that is that, only unfulfilled love can be truly romantic. And that's how I feel about this move. It is romantic in the best possible way. So stay tuned for number #3.

Desert Island Movies #1

Well it has been just about a week since my last post. I just felt like I needed to give everyone even myself a chance to take in the last post which was almost a book long. And now I'm going to lighten things up with this post and talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and that is movies. To be more specific we will be talking about my desert island movies. These movies being the top five movies I would take with me if I was stuck on a desert island for the rest of my life. I am a firm believer that you can found out everything you need to know about a person by the movies that they watch, and more importantly the movies that they love. And here are mine.

1.) Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The thing about this pick is this. If I could take the "holy trilogy" itself I would, and I have always stated that I think that Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is the best of all the movies and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is the most fun, but for me there is something special about A New Hope. It was the first. I can still remember the first time that I ever saw it. It was one of the most magical experiences of my life, and for the next two weeks I swore that I was a Jedi Knight. I truly believe that this movie is were it all started for me. This is the movie that made me love movies. This is the movie that opened up my imagination and made me believe that anything might be possible. I think there is something important about the relationship that a kid has with the first movie that they fall in love with. I myself was a very shy kid and was always more comfortable being by myself, and I believe that this movie allowed me to do that. It allowed me to be in this whole other world and not really notice that fact that I was alone, because I had Han Solo, Chewy, Yoda, and Obi-Won all there with me. And as I've grown up and my love for movies has blown up I can now look back at this movie and appreciate just how great and a head of its time that it really was. How this epic story only gets better with time. So for all these reasons A New Hope ranks right at the top of my desert island movie list.

It has just now come to me that if I spell out all five movies and the reasons why I love each this post with be longer than the one from last week so I will be unleashing my list one day at a time this week, so stay tuned for the rest of the list.