Musings of a Punk Rock Father

I like falling asleep with the TV on.  I don't know why, but if I am having trouble sleeping, sometimes all it takes is turning on the TV.  But I usually put on one of a handful of movies that I watch over and over again.

These are the movies I like to watch when I don't feel well.  These are the movies I watch when I am stressed.  These are the movies I watch when I can't sleep.  These are the movies I watch when I want to fall asleep to a movie.  Here are 4 of my favorites.

Elizabethtown

I love absolutely everything about this film.  I love Alec Baldwin.  He has some hilarious lines, like telling Drew his is "a failure of mythic proportions, a folk tale that makes other people feel better because it didn't happen to them," and another one mentioning the sound of something hitting the fan.  I love Chuck and Cindy, who are lovin' life.  I love the pace of the film, which is rather slow, but comfortably slow.  But I love the ending the most.  The road trip Drew takes with Claire's elaborate mix-tape just makes me feel good.  Even if I don't make it to the end, I know that it is coming, and I look forward to it.  But I am just fine even if I fall asleep before Drew even departs for Elizabethtown.  Because maybe I will wake up just in time for the road trip.

Almost Famous

Oh man, is this going to be a list of all of Cameron Crowe's films?  No, these two just happen to be two of my favorite feel-good movies.  I identify with William Miller, the teenage music writer.  When I was younger (not as young as William Miller), I too wanted to be a music writer.  I wrote a fanzine, published a handful of issues, interviewed some of my favorite bands.  I got to hang out backstage a couple of times, once I was even on the band's tour bus.  Starstruck.  (But I never, ever asked for an autograph.)  Almost Famous shares a certain restrained sentimentality with Elizabethtown.  There is a warmth, a humanity that comforts me, that makes me want to watch again and again.

Wonder Boys

When I think about what this movie is actually about, it doesn't seem to be appropriate to put on a list of feel-good films.  Yet that is what it is to me.  I have to start with the cinemetography.  There are scenes that take place outside, in the snow, that I think are beautifully shot.  Dante Spinotti and Curtis Hanson were also the d.p. and director, respectively, of L.A. Confidential, another beautifully shot film.  The film looks warm to me.  I really enjoy Michael Douglas's Grady Tripp.  I cannot articulate why, because there is nothing overtly spectacular about his performance.  That could be what is great about it, that his performance is low-key; I think Roger Ebert called it "muted."  It is fun watching the variety of writers in the film. And that is probably the main reason I love this movie, and consider it a feel-good film: it is about writing.  But it has writer Grady Tripp, who is having trouble following the overwhelming success of his first novel; James Leer, a talented but highly troubled young man who seems to need a mentor to channel his talent in the right direction; 'Q,' who seems to be a type of Stephen King or John Grisham, a writer who churns out a novel a year (and starts his lecture with the line "I. AM. A WRITER," a line I always laugh out loud at).

Ocean's 11

Steven Soderbergh might be my favorite director.  Many of my favorite movies are Soderbergh movies: Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Solaris, The Good German, The Informant...the man knows how to make a good movie.  But this is the one that makes the feel-good list.  When I first saw previews for this, I think I shook my head in disbelief that he would make such a vapid movie as Ocean's 11.  But when I watched, I saw it for what it really is: an extremely flashy, good-looking fun vapid movie.  When Melanie was pregnant with our first child, we might have watched this movie 3 nights out of the week.  I think the score to the film was the only thing that could calm Aidan once he was born.  The actors all seem to be having such a good time making the movie, that I can't help but have a good time watching it.

There are a few more, like any of the Bourne movies, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (which is more of a favorite "sick day" movie), or Big Fish (in retrospect, I should have written about that one, because it round out a solid "top 5 feel-good movies" list).

What are your feel-good movies?