Some sort of re-introduction.

Sometime in late-2001 I was a moody teenager that was also becoming a burgeoning indie rocker. The Strokes and The White Stripes were my shit, Britney Spears was the antichrist, and The Velvet Underground were apparently the demigods of cool. Prior to that year the only music I was remotely interested had to have been recorded before 1980 or made by someone that was relevant before that Mason-Dixon Line of artistic time. The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan were The Only Bands That Mattered to me and... Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that at somewhere in that year I had become more artistically aware and much more discerning in taste.

Somewhere along the line a little movie came along called The Royal Tenenbaums that I decided to rent out of the blue. I don't even remember what spurred me to check it out, but I get the feeling it was this review from the oft-maligned Pitchforkmedia.com, a site I regularly read at the time to know what were the Important Records of the day to go buy at my local Rasputin Music (and not download! It was important as a connoisseur of Art to actually own the works in question).

I loved Tenenbaums, but probably more so because it was unlike any other movie I had watched up to that point and I reveled in at least trying to be contrarian. All at once, it was strange, funny, intelligent, and quite surprisingly showed a lot of heart despite being so strange and nebulous. With money I made from tips doing birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese's, I went across the parking lot one day while on break and purchased the DVD from Circuit City (R.I.P.). A movie like that required repeat viewing for me, and buying it would be a lot cheaper than renting it all the time.

Oh, did I watch it. With each viewing did I appreciate the rich scenery of Anderson's storybook faux-New York, the clever script, and the subtlety of the stellar performances. When I had oversaturated myself with the movie, there were rich supplements on the Criterion Collection DVD package to indulge myself with and actually teach myself about the motivations and intentions of Wes Anderson. And since I've been known to have a penchant of sharing my discoveries with my peers, this was a secret too good to keep to myself and I introduced Tenenbaums to my friends who all loved it (or at least claimed to just to humor me).

I know I'm letting this turn into something way too long-winded so I'll wrap up pretty shortly here. One thing led to another, I went to UCLA where I actually became friends with other hipster kids and had a roommate whose interest in movies rivaled my interest in music and we became instrumental in shaping each other (although he probably won't admit to this). Then came Lost In Translation (probably the first movie I literally went way out of my way to see) and eventually my enrollment in a history of American film where a screening of Citizen Kane probably was what converted me forever into the Church of Cinema. Cliche as hell, I know, but who cares.

So here I am, inspired to start a blog about all the movies I watch and my opinions on them after going to my local library and checking out some collected works books on film criticism (American Movie Critics: From The Silents Until Now and Pauline Kael's For Keeps: 30 Years At The Movies in case you were wondering) and feeling like this is probably a better outlet for my intellectual gushing than randomly ranting to friends that normally don't care. This is a blog that has had two previously failed incarnations, and hopefully this is one that'll have some life to it. Hell, it's a new year right? Fuck, a new decade. In conclusion, all I have to say is: Mahnola Dargis, I think I love you.