Drive

"I don't have wheels on my car. That's something you should know about me." - The Driver

I haven't posted much about movies lately, or really about anything at all, because we seem to be in a seven year drought of creativity. I feel like there has been a general mood of non-excitement all around me. The vibe is decidedly mellow. (Although I did have a really great first anniversary last weekend. I just don't feel like getting personal in my blogging these days. Let it suffice to say that Rachel is great at making my life interesting, but that's about it for the excitement in my life in these dark times.)

I always get in this mood at the end of summer where I want to fight against the slowing tide. I start to feel guilty about all the things I was going to do, but never did. But lately I have been feeling like I should just go with it. I should take advantage of the rare time I get to do nothing at all. So today, when my Manager called and told me that I was cut for today, I told myself that it was okay to just sleep in. I gave myself no expectations for this free day.

A couple of drowsy blinks after that and I found that it was 1:30 pm. I woke up. I took the dogs outside to poop. I yawned several times and scratched an itch on the back of my left thigh. I walked around the house and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked at the food in my fridge for a considerable amount of time. I did not eat any of it. Then I decided I should do something I used to do all the time, but almost never do anymore: go to a random movie in the middle of the afternoon with all the other daytime perverts.

First I was going to go see The Killer Elite, but soon realized that it was not actually showing yet. So then I thought I might go see Straw Dogs just out of morbid curiosity. I can't quite grasp why that remake has happened. But even I couldn't will myself to confront that. Not on a Thursday anyhow. So I looked at the movie app on my phone and decided I would go see Drive.

It must have been about 2 minutes into the movie when I started to cry tears of regret for all the terrible movies I have had to sift through in recent years to find this shining pearl of rare, and unmistakable beauty. That may sound like a quick judgment to you, but trust me. When it's right, it's right. When you have dedicated as many years of your life as I have to sitting in sweaty movie theaters with all the wrong people, watching terrible things and trying to understand what it all means, there is an instant recognition of greatness. It just has a certain smell to it.

A great movie is something magical. It is much more than the sum of it's parts. If you don't have that magic it can't be faked. It doesn't matter how many Oscar winning actors are in it. It doesn't matter how big the budget was. You can make a $300 Million dollar monstrosity of a film with Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, and a bunch of three-dimensional blue people who have sex with their pony tails, and it will still put me to sleep in less than 40 seconds.

I have started to believe that I am the problem. Maybe I've seen too much and just don't like movies any more. Maybe nothing impresses me any more. I have been accused of movie snobbery many times. Many times, indeed. But than a movie like Drive comes along and proves to me that the magic is still there after all.

Drive is about a guy who drives cars. He works in a garage by day, fixing up cars. Sometimes he does stunt driving for B-movies. And by night, he is a driver for hire. He doesn't ask questions. You tell him a time and place, and he will be there. If you watch the previews you might think it's kind of like The Transporter. But it's not.

It stars Ryan Gosling, who is quickly becoming the younger Hollywood actor with the most interesting career. I don't think Drive will make a lot of money. Even though Ryan Gosling gives one of the best performances I have seen in a long time, I can almost promise you he will not win any awards for it. And yet, for some reason, he decided to do this film anyway. His career is definitely on the rise. He didn't have to do a weird art film like this, but he did. This is the sort of movie that would usually have a mediocre, unknown actor in the lead. One might argue that it doesn't need someone with the talent of Ryan Gosling. But I disagree. It ain't easy to play a guy who says almost nothing but still keep the entire audience at the edge of their seat for 100 minutes.

So I give a special thanks to Mr. Gosling for coming down from his comfy romantic comedy perch to do something dangerous. I shouldn't be surprised though. This is, after all, the same guy who starred in a movie about a guy who falls in love, and has an innocent, platonic relationship with a sex doll.

Besides Gosling, this movie also gives us a really disturbing, and not even remotely funny performance by my favorite comedian, Albert Brooks. I was very disturbed, especially because it was Albert Brooks. What is this world coming to? I'm sitting in a darkened room watching Albert Brooks do scary things now. Nothing can be trusted. Nothing is safe any more.

I'm not sure what else, besides the acting, to praise in this movie. I'm not good at explaining why a certain scene is good at making me feel a certain way. I just know how it makes me feel. This movie made me feel all kinds of wonderful things that I haven't felt at the movies in a long, long time. It took me for a ride. I liked it. With that said, I don't really recommend this movie. If the preview made you want to watch it, you should probably rent The Transporter instead. This movie is not what it seems. It's way better than that, and you probably won't like it. Maybe it is my snobbery talking, but I just know that it takes the right kind of eyes to appreciate art of this magnitude. Too many times have I tried to share these things with people only to have them tell me that they hated it, and I must be screwed up in the head to think it's a good movie. But I know what I saw. I can't wait to see it again.



P.S. Movie geek trivia: The "special thanks" section in this film's end credits thanks Alejandro Jodorowsky. I don't expect anyone who reads this to know who that is. But take my word for it. It's sufficiently weird that it has had me thinking about it all day long.

P.P.S. I think I have a title now for the mysterious photo series I have been thinking of doing all year, and which I have spoken almost nothing about to anyone. I haven't even written it down, but it's definitely building. I think I will call it 'Survivors'. And there will be blood. Oh, yes! There will be. My mind is sometimes a scary place.