NOT TO SOUND 100% CORNY OR ANYTHING...
I recall very vividly the first time I read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and (almost) all the books in the HARRY POTTER series. I remember how I tossed and turned in bed, unable to get to sleep on the school nights that I first watched AMERICAN BEAUTY and ALMOST FAMOUS. To this day, my sister still gets a good guffaw at the way my mouth was hanging open at the end of the musical WICKED... and sometimes I still get choked-up thinking about how all the ladies finally got what they needed at the conclusion of SEX AND THE CITY.
There are tons of stories out there, but only a select few that really get under our skin and stick with us for the rest of our lives... It's a special occasion worth celebrating... and worth blog blabbing about.
SO HERE IT GOES
Since I started telling people that I'd like to pursue filmmaking as a career, I've been given a fury of recommendations. For years, friends and family told me that David Chase's THE SOPRANOS was really something to see. They didn't know whether to call it the best TV series they'd ever seen or the best multi-part film... Regardless, I wasn't into it.
Because I had been poisoned by MTV and its brainless (but flashy) reality shows, I dismissed all television as garbage -- and frankly mobsters were not high on my list of compelling story topics. I thought I knew everything back then...
Boy, was I an IDIOT.
Anyway, there's a nice lesson to be gained from my rambling. I've come to understand and labor under the idea that you should visit a movie, book, play, song, etc. only when you are ready to visit it. If you see something before you're emotionally mature or hungry enough for it, it won't mean as much to you and you could end-up dissing something that you might have adored if you had waited to see it at another, later time.
This past Spring Break, my friend and I were staying with my Aunt in New Jersey. For something to do, we checked out the first season of THE SOPRANOS from the library.
I was finally ready for it.
Five episodes later, as I lay belly-up on the little fold-out mattress on the floor in New Jersey -- I was indelibly hooked. I couldn't stop thinking about Tony Soprano and his dilemma over being a good father/husband and a good mob boss. I loved the characters and how they were equally riddled with as much conflict as they were potential bullets. I knew it was going to be one of those grand love affairs that I sometimes have with certain TV programs.
Several months later, I'm in the middle of the prolonged 6th season. Since that night over Spring Break my fascination with the Soprano crew has expanded like the Grinch's heart on Christmas Day. After watching an episode a week or so ago, I was driving in the car with my sister and we were listening to Eminem's ode to abusive relationships "The Way You Lie". I started spacing out... completely enraptured, thinking about a nail-biting scene of domestic abuse I had just seen on the show. My sister had to turn to me and ask me if I was okay. I was that lost in thought. Every episode, I take in, I'm filled with horror, laughter and gut-wrenching empathy (or sometimes antipathy).
In my time living at home this show has become a really big thing for me... like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or ALMOST FAMOUS or WICKED. That being said, I'd love to muse on WHY it's such a masterpiece of a story. I just have a colossal need to discuss it -- a need which far exceeds the puny number of people I have to discuss it with.
I want to tell you the lessons I've learned from it-- how those lessons are almost more impactful than a year of film school.
This'll be comin' at you in my next entry. Pretend to indulge me (but you don't have to).
Be back soon. For now...
CIAO.
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