Comfort Food... Er, Comfort Film



I am going to post on several movies that I really LOVE. These are movies that I watch over and over and over and over again. I do this with books too, but I'll save them for some different posts.
This first one is a movie that I hope all of you have already seen. If you've seen it once or twice, go buy it. If you own it, go watch it. If you have never seen it, PLEASE, go get it RIGHT NOW (or make it #1 on your Netflix list). This movie comforts me to no end. I am listening to it even as I speak.

"Dad, You were never dying." "But I'm gonna live!"
Isn't this how most of us feel most of the time?
I can't really explain the beauty of this movie to you if you have not already seen it. If you have already seen it, you don't need me to explain.
There is a beautiful soundtrack, including Dylan, Lennon, Elliot Smith, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones (with one of my favorite Stones' songs), that Snoopy/Peanuts music, and Nico, singing "These Days." Some of which are included on the cd:

I think I will someday even go so far as to someday make my own soundtrack for this movie (and I am generally too lazy to make my own mixed cds - that's what boys are for).

There is a pet falcon named Mortichai for God's sake - how much better can it get?
The Royal Tenenbaums is about the ways people connect - or fail to. It is full of icecream shop illuminations (the scene in which, I always, without fail, weep). This film is full of gentle lies and gentle truth, deceit, love, the parent-child structures we never escape, and good old-fashioned incest (almost).
Essentially this movie is about Family. YOUR family. MY family. (Did I mention JB's family?) It's about knowing that no matter what, there is always a family out there more fucked up than yours is.
And it's about how forgiveness is an absolutely nesessary element in every. single. life. It is also about how nearly every one we are connected to is part of our family, and thus, worthy of our love and compassion. How we all miss the comforting parts of being a child. And how even those childhood moments were never so comforting as we wished.
All that un-cheesy sappiness is perfectly interspersed with lines like these:
"Let's shag ass."
"You poor Sucker. You poor, washed up, Papa's boy."
"Don't listen to me. I'm on mescalin - been spaced out all day."
"What happened to you? You used to be a genius. At least, that's what they said."
"I've missed the Hell out of you, my darlings."
"You gotta brew some recklessness into them."
Granted, Wes Anderson is a genius. But in my opinion, this is his opus.


Quote: "I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were gonna forgive me." "I don't think you're an asshole, Royal. I just think you're kind of a sonofabitch."

Quote: "Hmm. Can't somebody be a shit their whole life and try to repair the damage? I think people want to hear that..." The Royal Tenenbaums