Another reason to love Netflix
I have a bad habit of watching movies nearly constantly. I like to have the background noise on while I’m making dinner, folding laundry, paying bills. . . I find it takes the montony out of normal household chores. Plus, if the movie is bad, you can focus on what your doing and not feel guilty–I’ve justified watching many a shallow film in this manner. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had the courage to sit through Employee of the Month. And yesterday I almost burned the ground beef because I got so wrapped up in this movie. No, not Employee of the Month, but a great little movie called Starter for Ten.
I had reason to be optimistic. I had read the book and at points it had made me laugh so hard I was a little embarassed. It is a wonderful feeling, to be laughing so hard when you are alone, with nothing but the written word inspiring your giggles. The people I was living with at the time wondered if I had a boy in my room. Sure I did. And his name was Brian Jackson.
He was the main character, played winningly, adoringly, beautifully by James McAvoy (no, not the angry tennis guy, although I thought that too. But the nice guy, the gentle faun from The Chronicles of Narnia). And while Narnia is a charming place, there is something in him that is really appealing. I get the impression that its the character, the person inside that is appealing, and now what he looks like, which makes me feel better about myself as a person, that I am not shallow or superficial. And I would venture that his appeal is broad–he is the nice guy, the good guy, the guy you want to get the girl but usually has to overcome obstacles before he can achieve that particular happy ending.
Nothing special, no Shane or Hazel or Phinneaus is needed to make this boy special, he is that way by the strength of his own character, his own convictions, the choices that he makes and the way he puts his ideas into practice.
But I get ahead of myself. The plot is hardly ground-breaking. Jackson goes off to college, eager to learn all there is to know about the world. He wants to learn why people like jazz, he wants to learn what the word “dialectic” actually means. He goes off to college and carefully stacks his copies of Karl Marx, and Freud next to his bed. He listens to music that is both pretentious and heartbreaking. The Cure often plays in the background. He joins the college quiz team because that to him, means knowledge. There is some appropriately significant back story as to this reasoning, but I’ll let you figure this out. And inbetween joining the College Quiz Team and his first few excursions into the world of college drinking, he meets two girls. He meets Alice, the beautiful blond drama student who has dreams of being a “tv presenter” and he meets Rebecca, the non-zionist Jew who protests against everything. Which is kind of a funny aside, because nearly every time Brian sees Rebecca, she is protesting something. Their relationship is forged over yells and impassioned screaming. And not the sexy kind.
Even though we all know its a bad idea, he falls for Alice almost immediately. He gives her answers to the quiz challenge, forfeiting his own spot because he is bespotted by her off-the-shoulder sweater and her blonde hair tamed into a side of the head pony-tail. Brian pursues a relationship with Alice, inviting her out to dinner the most embarassing scene I’ve ever witnessed as far as a first date goes, all with Rebecca commenting wryly. After being invited to Alice’s for New Years he does a little dance in the courtyard. Rebecca opens her window and shouts down to him, and they have a brief conversation where everyone watching the movie knows that he is chasing the wrong girl. Fortunately, the disastorous New Years changes all that (I won’t say what happens, its really worth watching for yourself). He spends New Years night with Rebecca and then ruins it all when he says Alice’s name at a key moment.
And thats what really matters in the movie. There is more to it, of course, but you should watch it for yourself. What was interesting to me was how much I was wrapped up in Brian Jackson. And after thinking about it, I figured out why.
Brian Jackson was basically every guy I fell for in college. He was well-meaning, decent, a little nervous and a little pretentious, but not overtly so. I find it annoying when people pretend to read Freud and Marx and speak of them as if they’d be meeting for drinks later, but I bet Jackson actually tried to read those books. He may have fallen asleep two pages in, but he cracked them, he made the effort, he knows they have value when so many guys can only see the value of scantily clad women in Maxim and a cans of beer. And he casts himself always in the “learning” side, he never would admit or even think that he was on the “knows everything” side of things.
So get netflix! There is more out there for you!