A Fault...

The Fault In Our Stars

I’ve never been too keen on going to movies that are depressing. I just have always felt that the point of going to a movie is to be entertained and not depressed. I’ve seen Hotel Rwanda, Dallas Buyer’s Club, 12 Years a Slave and other movies recently that have both depressed and inspired me. Watching My Girl as a teenager was one of the first movies I ever cried while watching. Then I cried a little while watching Lost in Translation. I didn’t have a reason why but I did. The Notebook surprisingly didn’t get to me but United 93 and Marley and Me were full on sobfest. Finally Fruitvale Station broke my heart and depressed me while simultaneously angering me. So while I do have some serious reservations in seeing a movie that is depressing, it is not a deal breaker. So with all the lead up to The Fault in Our Stars, I knew that this movie was gonna break me down and leave me a wad of kleenex in the bottom of some woman’s purse. That may not make much sense but it is how I truly felt. So why see it? To paraphrase Timothy Olyphant in “Go” I hate depressing movies, but I am uncontrollably drawn to them.

The Fault in our Stars is the story of 17 year old Hazel (played by Shailene Woodley who is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses) and Augustus (played by Ansel Elgort who embodies the cocksure Augustus Waters) and how they fall in love despite cancer looming over them. You cannot make a upbeat cancer movie. It just isn’t possible. You can be rolling on the floor laughing your ass off and someone says cancer and the mood is deflated like a balloon with a leak. It even makes the farty noise that is normally so obviously funny but here just hangs. Cancer is the silence in the room right as you say the most embarrassing thing. Still Hazel seems to have an logical and determined response to her cancer. She just worries for her parents and how they will deal with the loss. Her mother claims she is depressed and she wryly points out that depression is a side effect of dying. Still her doctor and parents all believe that a support group in “the very heart of Jesus” will help. There are stories of remission, loss, and pain all wrapped up by a testicular cancer survivor with a heavy love for Jesus singing another song. This is life for Hazel. Sleep, doctors, and support.

Then she arrives at group one day and literally bumps into Augustus Waters, a cancer survivor with a lost leg who only fears oblivion and being completely forgotten. There is an instant chemistry and Hazel, though fighting her feelings for him, starts to fall for him. The chemistry between Woodley and Elgort is palpable. While you understand completely why she pushes him away they are drawn to each other so easily and perfectly. There is very little she can do about having cancer and there is even less he can do about loving her completely. The Fault in Our Stars is a love story first and a cancer story second. Not only that but it makes cancer seem manageable if only you love someone. I’ve always been (to my detriment) a proponent of love and that love can solve or lighten the most depressing things. It can give you something to look forward to. Hazel Grace and Augustus were meant to be together. That it is destined to be a short love does not limit or make their love any less than the love of two people who will survive for 50 years. In fact, it probably makes it sweeter with it’s fleeting.

There is plenty of crying in this movie. Plenty of moments that break your heart and some that make you want to reach out and hug the main characters. The book is beloved and seeing this story on the screen, you can see why. Hazel is not weakly dying, she is facing death. Augustus is not afraid of her being a grenade that will go off and destroy everyone she loves. He loves her and she loves him. We as viewers love them as well. So in the pantheon of movies that will depress the hell out of you, The Fault in our Stars, this movie elevates and lifts the viewer. The movie may be depressing and I did tear up a few times but in the end, love is never a bad thing. It is only something that needs to be held onto and if Hazel and Augustus can hold on to it when death is looming, maybe there is a little hope for all of us.

Mr. Unhappy says: Go see this movie and bring your kleenex...in the dark, no one can see you cry. Okay? Okay.

The bloated Pot in Pulp Fiction...

At this point, I have seen Pulp Fiction an unbelievable amount of times. I can turn my head and close my eyes and see each scene by dialogue alone. I can recite it with only minor mistakes and I can watch it anytime, anywhere and with anyone. The movie is flawless...or nearly flawless. Pulp Fiction is truly one of those movies I can watch over and over again, finding new little details that make me love it more and things that always bother me. Butch's dad dying of dysentery while have that uncomfortable hunk of metal stuck up his ass...and then Chris Walken's character took the watch and shoved it up his ass. I cringe every time I hear that. Or  how about how Eric Stoltz's drug dealer is out of balloons and puts the heroin in a baggie which in turn leads to Mia thinking the heroin is cocaine and she snorts it leading to her near death experience. The subtle nod to that scene when Vincent meets up with Mia and Marcellus later in the movie.

Yet there is one ginormous moment in the movie where you just sit and wonder what the hell happened to this movie. There is very little overall point to it. You'll find the video for that scene below. The scene is boxed between two great scenes. It comes immediately after the brilliant Christopher Walken  describes to a small child how his father shoved his gold watch up his ass so he could eventually give it to his son and how after his dad dies, Christopher Walken's Captain Coons, out of respect carried that hunk of metal up his ass for two more years. The scene is shocking and funny. Poignant and gross. Immediately after the scene below is the bring out the gimp scene which is arguably one of the most disturbing and most intense scenes in movie history. I know that, for me, that scene makes the entire movie for me. Wraps up a loose thread and leads into the next tale. 

And yet, for about 10 minutes screen time, we come back to a hotel scene which my friend says he won't even watch. Fast forward through it and you literally miss nothing except a slight background on Fabienne (she wants a pot belly and oral pleasure), a slightly cruel shower scene where you nearly see all of Bruce's Willis while he mocks his wife/girlfriend with a slightly offensive mongoloid voice, and finally (thankfully) the knowledge that Fabi forgot to grab Butch's father's watch off the kangaroo in their apartment and Butch has to go back for it which brings us into the next fabulous sequence of the movie. It is a seemingly worthless sequence and yet I have to wonder if there is a hidden meaning, a critical point, to the Fabienne the mongoloid/I wanna pot belly scene. And what was the point of having it in this moment of the movie? There is so much intelligence behind the rest of the movie that to just have this scene in there because...well just because... it doesn't make sense. Is it to show me what Butch has to lose if he dies? If so, why do I care if he dies and Fabi the mongoloid has to make due on her own? Is it to have the eventual Willis in the shower wangtastic scene because we all wanna see Willis wang? Is it about the blueberry pancakes that she ends up not getting? Is it just a short interlude to allow the watcher to catch his breath? As far as I can tell, the scene makes no sense. It is a worthless scene with no visible redeeming quality and it has bugged me since the first time I saw the movie at the matinee special with the 20 or so senior citizens who had no clue what they were getting into (indeed half of them left the theater shortly after the Ezekiel 25:17 scene). The scene is not worth the time it takes out of the movie and it completely blows the pacing of the movie. Why? Why is this scene in the movie?

Tell me. Give me your thoughts. Feel free to email or tweet them to me... because apparently comments are broken on my blog. No other reason why I am not swimming in comments weekly. I will update with any theories you may have, giving full credit and continue this discussion. Give me your thoughts internet!

Email: MrUnhappy1331@gmail.com

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Until then...Mr. Unhappy sez: Pulp Fiction is a great movie. Fabi the Mongoloid...not so much. Still it is like the family fucking circus... I hate it but am inexplicably drawn to it.