Sniffle.
So I saw the new Sophia Coppola movie on Friday morning which induced me into such an emotional tailspin that I'm still crying about it.
I may not even be crying about the film now, but I keep crying at anything and anyone. Like this afternoon, I got a book soggy I was crying so hard, and I had read ahead and knew how the damn book ended too.
Anyway, I am usually moved by most films (bad and good). As my mother is fond of saying, "Marina never met a movie she didn't like.", but still there are some films, books, plays, musicals, concerts, TV episodes that reduce me to a babbling mess of a human.
Here are some of them (or as many as my pre-menopausal brain can remember).
1. "Terms of Endearment"
My mother and I had to sit in the theater for the entire length of the credits and then some time after that so that I could compose myself enough to leave. The woman sitting in front of us in the theater turned around and asked my mother if I was okay. I was rather young as well so I had not yet learned how to having an emotional breakdown quietly. Added memory, we saw this at the Alex Theatre in Glendale back in the day. Yes, Virginia, they used to show first-run movies at the Alex Theatre.
2. "Fluke"
A friend of my mother's recommended that we see this film. I don't know if I should thank him or not. I lost my grandma and also had to put my dog down within the same six months. This sounds melodramatic, but we're talking about two significant losses for me. The fact that they happened within a small amount of time has always meant that I associate both deaths with each other which compounds the grief. Anyway, if you have seen this film, you know it's about reincarnation and specifically souls who were once human being reincarnated as animals. It's a very smart and lovely film, however, at the end of the film, the narrator (Matthew Modine) intones some sentiment about looking into an animal's eyes and recognizing someone. Well, that was it, people. Done. In fact, watching that film is as painful as "My Dog Skip" when the boy gets on the bus to go to college, and Skip sits watching the bus.
Jesus.
Next thing you know, I'll be writing about "Old Yeller" which is also a damn good film.
3. That episode of "Dawsons Creek" when his father died.
Okay, moving on. I cannot for the life of me remember how Dawson's dad died, just that it was the funeral episode. Was it a car accident? It had something to do with the convenience store that Dawson goes to at the end, right? All I remember is sitting through that episode nonplussed and then, at that moment in the end when Dawson finally breaks down, I lost it. I lost it so bad I've never been able to watch the episode again.
4. "ET"
My dad took my sisters and I to see this film one summer day. We went to Eagle Rock Plaza. I remember everything about it, and I remember loving it. However, we drove home, the four of us came into the house, and my mother was in the kitchen. She asked, "How was it?", and I burst into tears.
This is also exactly what happened the Sunday afternoon I went to see...
5. "Born on the 4th of July"
No kidding. 10-12 years later and the exact same scenario played out. I went to see it by myself, I liked it (although I've never watched it again), and I drove home. I remember there was a downed tree at the beginning of our block when I came home (there was a big storm). I walked into the kitchen and there was my mom and...deja vu.
6. "The Emperor's Club"
The best part of this story is that my mother saw this movie first and then tried to tell me about it. She tried to tell me about it 5-10 times in an hour period. She never got much past "And then..." because she would break down every time. See, it's genetic. Although I did eventually see it, and also experienced a similar reaction.
7. A play titled "17 Days" by Rick Garman, Colony Theatre World Premiere (1993)
A year to the day after my grandma died, my mother and I went to see this play. We went because we had season tickets, we didn't know anything about the play, but when you have season tickets you go.
Dude.
The play was about a singer who comes back home to the Midwest to deal with his family as he's been diagnosed with AIDS. I don't know exactly what else happened in this damn play (but it was good-I remember that) however I do believe he died in the end. It doesn't really matter in the end. It was just the absolute wrong play to see on the anniversary of your grandma's (and in my mother's case, mother's) death. It was awful. The two of us were in pain from holding ourselves together. We waited until the entire theater had cleared and my mother said, "Get your sunglasses out and put them on." Then we had to somehow make it out of this tiny 99 seat theater on Riverside Drive in LA without breaking down. I could probably see this play now and enjoy it. I know it was highly acclaimed that year in LA. I just could never fathom sitting through it again.
8. "Silence of the Lambs"
This is a different kind of crying. I cried from the beginning to the end of this film solely because I had fallen in love with the book a year earlier and this film from beginning to end was so absolutely the perfect adaptation in every way that I burst into tears and didn't stop. This doesn't happen to me often - usually it's in musical theater where I've dreamed of seeing something for years and then see it - but the only way I can describe it is... your anticipation is so great that when it's rewarded, all you can do is cry.
9. A book I read this weekend called "God-Shaped Hole" by Tiffanie Debartolo
This book tells you how it's going to end in the prologue. YOU KNOW. Even reading that halfway through the book, I read the last chapter so that I could prepare myself for the inevitable for I had fallen in love with the characters. There are even repeated versions of the warning you get in the prologue throughout the goddamn novel.
Doesn't matter. When the inevitable came, I was laying in bed sobbing. Sobbing. Such a beautiful and tragic love story. My favorite kind.
10. "Somewhere"
I wrote about my reaction to this film in earlier post and AlL over my Twitter feed because I was alone and had no one to speak to. I never expected to have the reaction to this film, and it came on suddenly with no warning. Really, the moment that killed me was when Johnny Marco & Chloe are lounging by the pool at the Chateau Marmont. That's it. That's all. Except it was such a true father & daughter moment that I began crying and shortly thereafter just wanted to hug my own father.
Jesus.
I am a messy, overly-emotional woman, however, I do hide it under a veneer of sarcasm that sometimes fools some people.
Not my mom.
I may not even be crying about the film now, but I keep crying at anything and anyone. Like this afternoon, I got a book soggy I was crying so hard, and I had read ahead and knew how the damn book ended too.
Anyway, I am usually moved by most films (bad and good). As my mother is fond of saying, "Marina never met a movie she didn't like.", but still there are some films, books, plays, musicals, concerts, TV episodes that reduce me to a babbling mess of a human.
Here are some of them (or as many as my pre-menopausal brain can remember).
1. "Terms of Endearment"
My mother and I had to sit in the theater for the entire length of the credits and then some time after that so that I could compose myself enough to leave. The woman sitting in front of us in the theater turned around and asked my mother if I was okay. I was rather young as well so I had not yet learned how to having an emotional breakdown quietly. Added memory, we saw this at the Alex Theatre in Glendale back in the day. Yes, Virginia, they used to show first-run movies at the Alex Theatre.
2. "Fluke"
A friend of my mother's recommended that we see this film. I don't know if I should thank him or not. I lost my grandma and also had to put my dog down within the same six months. This sounds melodramatic, but we're talking about two significant losses for me. The fact that they happened within a small amount of time has always meant that I associate both deaths with each other which compounds the grief. Anyway, if you have seen this film, you know it's about reincarnation and specifically souls who were once human being reincarnated as animals. It's a very smart and lovely film, however, at the end of the film, the narrator (Matthew Modine) intones some sentiment about looking into an animal's eyes and recognizing someone. Well, that was it, people. Done. In fact, watching that film is as painful as "My Dog Skip" when the boy gets on the bus to go to college, and Skip sits watching the bus.
Jesus.
Next thing you know, I'll be writing about "Old Yeller" which is also a damn good film.
3. That episode of "Dawsons Creek" when his father died.
Okay, moving on. I cannot for the life of me remember how Dawson's dad died, just that it was the funeral episode. Was it a car accident? It had something to do with the convenience store that Dawson goes to at the end, right? All I remember is sitting through that episode nonplussed and then, at that moment in the end when Dawson finally breaks down, I lost it. I lost it so bad I've never been able to watch the episode again.
4. "ET"
My dad took my sisters and I to see this film one summer day. We went to Eagle Rock Plaza. I remember everything about it, and I remember loving it. However, we drove home, the four of us came into the house, and my mother was in the kitchen. She asked, "How was it?", and I burst into tears.
This is also exactly what happened the Sunday afternoon I went to see...
5. "Born on the 4th of July"
No kidding. 10-12 years later and the exact same scenario played out. I went to see it by myself, I liked it (although I've never watched it again), and I drove home. I remember there was a downed tree at the beginning of our block when I came home (there was a big storm). I walked into the kitchen and there was my mom and...deja vu.
6. "The Emperor's Club"
The best part of this story is that my mother saw this movie first and then tried to tell me about it. She tried to tell me about it 5-10 times in an hour period. She never got much past "And then..." because she would break down every time. See, it's genetic. Although I did eventually see it, and also experienced a similar reaction.
7. A play titled "17 Days" by Rick Garman, Colony Theatre World Premiere (1993)
A year to the day after my grandma died, my mother and I went to see this play. We went because we had season tickets, we didn't know anything about the play, but when you have season tickets you go.
Dude.
The play was about a singer who comes back home to the Midwest to deal with his family as he's been diagnosed with AIDS. I don't know exactly what else happened in this damn play (but it was good-I remember that) however I do believe he died in the end. It doesn't really matter in the end. It was just the absolute wrong play to see on the anniversary of your grandma's (and in my mother's case, mother's) death. It was awful. The two of us were in pain from holding ourselves together. We waited until the entire theater had cleared and my mother said, "Get your sunglasses out and put them on." Then we had to somehow make it out of this tiny 99 seat theater on Riverside Drive in LA without breaking down. I could probably see this play now and enjoy it. I know it was highly acclaimed that year in LA. I just could never fathom sitting through it again.
8. "Silence of the Lambs"
This is a different kind of crying. I cried from the beginning to the end of this film solely because I had fallen in love with the book a year earlier and this film from beginning to end was so absolutely the perfect adaptation in every way that I burst into tears and didn't stop. This doesn't happen to me often - usually it's in musical theater where I've dreamed of seeing something for years and then see it - but the only way I can describe it is... your anticipation is so great that when it's rewarded, all you can do is cry.
9. A book I read this weekend called "God-Shaped Hole" by Tiffanie Debartolo
This book tells you how it's going to end in the prologue. YOU KNOW. Even reading that halfway through the book, I read the last chapter so that I could prepare myself for the inevitable for I had fallen in love with the characters. There are even repeated versions of the warning you get in the prologue throughout the goddamn novel.
Doesn't matter. When the inevitable came, I was laying in bed sobbing. Sobbing. Such a beautiful and tragic love story. My favorite kind.
10. "Somewhere"
I wrote about my reaction to this film in earlier post and AlL over my Twitter feed because I was alone and had no one to speak to. I never expected to have the reaction to this film, and it came on suddenly with no warning. Really, the moment that killed me was when Johnny Marco & Chloe are lounging by the pool at the Chateau Marmont. That's it. That's all. Except it was such a true father & daughter moment that I began crying and shortly thereafter just wanted to hug my own father.
Jesus.
I am a messy, overly-emotional woman, however, I do hide it under a veneer of sarcasm that sometimes fools some people.
Not my mom.
