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You are here: Home / TV & Movies / Movies / I go to the movies and I go downtown

I go to the movies and I go downtown

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I saw a bunch of the Oscar-nominated movies this year for the first time in a while — Birdman, Boyhood, Selma, The Imitation Game, Grand Budapest Hotel. I liked them all, except The Imitation Game, which felt like a made-for-tv movie to me. I was impressed that the others were a notch above the usual Forrest Gump famous-actor-puts-on-a-weird-accent type garbage that usually gets nominated.

I can understand why some people hate Wes Anderson, and I understand the various arguments about Selma, that it should have gotten more nominations or that the portrayal of LBJ was unfair. But I can’t understand why Boyhood is so polarizing, why some people hate it so much. I liked it a lot, it felt like real life to me, which I think was the main goal. I have a few quibbles with regards to its realism, I thought they made his high-school girlfriend too pretty (I don’t think people look that good in real life, though my wife thinks sometimes they do when they are eighteen), and I certainly don’t like to think I live in a world where annoying goateed dads give their kids lectures about the greatness of Wilco (I could accept the possible realism of the Black Album thing, guess).

I don’t necessarily think movies have to be realistic per se (though with Boyhood that seemed to be whole point), but I only like them when they seem real to me. And I like them best in general when there’s some scene that feels just like something out of my real life.

I was trying to think the other day what scene from a movie goes through my head the most when I’m going about my day. I decided it was probably the scene from Goodfellas when Ray Liotta’s riding around in a hurry, thinking he’s being followed by helicopters. I always think of that when I’m driving and I’m in a hurry.

What scene from a movie seems most like your real life to you? And what did you think of this year’s movies?

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I can’t finish watching “Home for the Holidays” because the fights around the Thanksgiving table are way too realistic for me.

    Also, Leonard Nimoy, another victim of Big Tobacco. If you currently smoke, stop. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. COPD is a really, really crappy way to go. We got to watch my dad die that way, and it was not pretty.

  5. 5.

    Rand Careaga

    I was underwhelmed by Boyhood for its first half, but finally won over by its cumulative effect and achievement. The Imitation Game was decent light entertainment, but suffered in my eyes from some grievous liberties taken with with history (and shouldn’t Bumbershoot Cummerband talk to his agent about being typecast as a high-functioning autistic?). I was enchanted by every element of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Who imagined that within Ralph Fiennes there dwelt a gifted comic actor yearning to emerge?

  6. 6.

    Culture of Truth

    So what is real life like? Your alarm goes off, you get at the same time every day, go through the same routine, go to the same place, see the same people, do the same things, go home, go through your evening routine, and do it all again the next day, with slight variations that build up over time. This feels like “Groundhog Day.”

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    This is going to sound much more awful than I intend, but in some ways, “Winter’s Bone” seemed like a slice of my early childhood life to me. No, my dad wasn’t a deadbeat meth cook, and my mom wasn’t a checked-out, zombie-eyed nonentity, thank god. But the way that movie depicted rural Southern poverty and its sick, patriarchal honor code resonated powerfully. It made me all the more grateful my mom had the guts to escape it with my sister and me in tow when we were still little kids.

  10. 10.

    Matt McIrvin

    There was a lot that was unrealistic about Zemeckis’s Contact, but the little scenes of the dorky scientists goofing with each other were exactly right.

  12. 12.

    srv

    Without a doubt, my real life maps to the scene with Jonathan Banks and Lithgow (Dr. Lizardo) at the insane asylum in Buckaroo Banzai.

  13. 13.

    CaseyL

    Multiple news outlets reporting that Leonard Nimoy has died.

    Even though he was elderly, and ill, I feel gutted. This is a huge loss.

  14. 14.

    Matt McIrvin

    …Brazil conveyed so precisely (though with tragicomic exaggeration) the small horrors of living in a completely broken system, and maybe realizing that you’re part of the brokenness.

  15. 15.

    shelley

    Liked ‘Birdman’ well enough, but wasn’t pushing it for Best Picture. Just seemed too familiar, like a male version of ‘Black Swan’

    Can’t believe it about Leonard Nimoy. I wanna cry

  18. 18.

    jl

    if bad day: Opening scene of Stardust Memories, which is a bummer since I think Woody Allen is an ass, very over rated, not that funny or witty or original. So fact that a scene from an Allen movie keeps running through my head is double bummer.

    if good day, varies depending on the variety of goodness involved in the good day. I will have to think on it.

  19. 19.

    Paul in KY

    I’ve seen Wilco twice (Bonnaroo & Loufest) and I’m just ‘meh’ about them. I wish Uncle Tupelo would get back together. Much better band, IMO.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    (I don’t think people look that good in real life, though my wife thinks sometimes they do when they are eighteen)

    I tend to agree with Mrs DougJ. So why couldn’t Mason Jr’s girlfriend be that beautiful?

  23. 23.

    schrodinger's cat

    The scene in Mira Nair’s Namesake where Tabu gets the phone call from India at some unearthly hour at night informing her about the death of one of her parents and the helplessness she feels about being so far away. My husband got a similar call about 3 years ago.

  24. 24.

    Paul in KY

    @Rand Careaga: Grand Budapest Hotel was my choice, but I have not seen these other films yet, so I guess not an informed choice. Loved the film, though.

    I love cats. Have 3, wish I could have more. Will say, though, that when that goon throws the cat out the window, I just bust up laughing. Think it is Jeff Goldblum’s reaction that gets me.

  26. 26.

    Mike E

    After watching the PBS docu on the Mississippi Freedom Party, listening to LBJ tear down the widow of one of the 3 slain men in a phone convo with Hoover, makes me not care if some movie portrays him in a bad light. Also, Donald Moffat’s take on LBJ in The Right Stuff is hysterically maniacal. Too.

  29. 29.

    Punchy

    @Paul in KY: I’ve seen Wilco at least twice, too. Also completely underwhelmed. I wish the original cast of Cornmeal would get back together. Ditto for Yonder Mountain.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    @Amir Khalid: I gotta say, the girlfriend did seem actressy beautiful to me. Not to say other characters weren’t attractive too.

    But she stood out a bit as a Hollywood touch. Yes, people like her walk amidst us in real life. And they date real people too. But it was pushing it …

    ETA: Saw “Still Alice” this week and liked it a lot. Julianne Moore was very good, as always. Alec Baldwin plays the husband, and he is so good at portraying men who are just slightly unappealing. Like that about him.

    Bring this up because: the whole family and their house were a Hallmark commercial. All the women in the family were slender and gorgeous (one was pregnant), all the men were handsome and successful.

    And Alice, in the throes of later stage Alzheimer’s, had perfectly tinted chestnut hair — not a wisp of white or grey — albeit not every strand in place.

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    The only nominated film we’ve seen so far was ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ and it was wonderful.

    Today’s paper had a cartoon showing people lining up to purchase movie tickets. The first group were going to see ‘Birdman’ and the caption read “To understand Hollywood”, while the second group were going to see ‘American Sniper’ and the caption read “To understand the rest of the country”.

    WTF?

  34. 34.

    Bobby B.

    Nimoy was always willing to lend a voice when needed (Big Bang Theory). I remember him from post Trek stuff like “Columbo” and “Night Gallery” more than Trek.

  35. 35.

    Mike J

    @Wag:

    The scenes about making mixed tapes in High Infidelity resonated with my college/grad school years.

    The entire guys (and it’s always guys) obsessed with music thing was my life until about 25. Almost every single person in my life was a DJ or musician or concert promoter or ran a record store. Everyone I knew could argue about which session musician played on which b-side of a Cleveland garage band that only put out two records.

  36. 36.

    Linnaeus

    @Bobby B.:

    He was also the narrator for In Search Of…which I remember watching a fair amount when I was kid. I was a little disappointed that the NYT obit didn’t mention that.

  37. 37.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Mike in NC: I am not interested in seeing either of those two movies.
    BTW, don’t the wingnuts know that the what the world knows about this country is through Hollywood’s lens? And didn’t Hollywood make American Sniper, as well?

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    RE “Still Alice”: Kristen Stewart played the younger daughter, and the most “real” to me of the characters (aside from Alice), and she was excellent. Had never seen her in anything, but she was perfect for this role. Lot of humanity and youth looking for her place in life and not wanting to settle.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    I think that movies should portray either some aspect of real life that resonates with some or should be so far out there that you have to completely let go of reality to believe it. And even then it should connect in some small, maybe, probably intangible way. Otherwise most of us can not imagine the rest of the story, that part that is always untold.

  40. 40.

    piratedan

    for movie scenes that seem to accurately portray real life, a strange one that has always stuck with me is strangely enough from The Warriors when our “hero” and the “heroine” are riding on the subway on their way back to Coney Island after a night filled with death, assault, fear, pursuit etc and they’re joined on the train by the two middle class couples who are out on the town for prom. Not a word is spoken, all done with facial expressions and head nods regarding the haves and the have-nots….

  41. 41.

    gogol's wife

    The scene from a movie that’s most like my real life is the one in Notorious where Cary Grant passionately kisses Ingrid Bergman for about 5 minutes while the camera swirls around them.

    I saw no movies this year except Magic in the Moonlight. I can’t go see Colin Firth’s latest, in which he slaughters a crowd of people in a church, so I guess I won’t see any this coming year either.

  42. 42.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Birdman was a steaming pile of shit. I liked the first half of Boyhood but then it started to drag a bit. Both the wife and I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel.

  43. 43.

    patrick II

    The movie scene that I find most often repeats in real life is when Sean Connery, playing James Bond, wins big at Baccarat and takes home the beautiful girl in his Aston Martin, has incredible sex — and then she tries to kill him.

    That last part especially.

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:
    Stewart is, for some reason, a widely disliked actress despite some really good and adventurous movie work. Do people resent Bella Swan that much? I don’t see Emma Watson getting any Hermione backlash, and no one gives Jennifer Lawrence grief for being Katniss.

  46. 46.

    Mustang Bobby

    I met Mr. Nimoy in 1974 when he was a guest at a cocktail party at the summer cottage of the producer the Cherry County Playhouse of Traverse City, Michigan, where he was appearing in a summer stock production of 6 RMS RIV VU. It was a very brief conversation and I avoided any talk about Star Trek, which at the time I understood he didn’t like to talk about. So we talked about sailboats.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    Even if I’ve never had a sales job (not in a formal sense anyway) the damn Glenngarry Glenn Ross sales office pipes every office I’ve worked at directly into my soul. I’m usually, but not always Jack Lemmon, but occasionally get the good leads and coffee.

  48. 48.

    Paul in KY

    @Punchy: I read the 1st band as ‘Commeal’ & was googling them & nothing showed up. then I looked closer at the name! Both of them are bands I would love to see, original or current lineups.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:
    Kristen Stewart gets resented a lot for, I don’t know, playing that silly girl Bella Swan? It doesn’t seem fair since she does quite a bit of interesting and adventurous movie work. Emma W*tson doesn’t appear to get any Hermione backlash, nor does J-Law get it for playing Katniss.

  51. 51.

    Culture of Truth

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Yes, I did too, also because I had no idea what it was about when I saw it on cable. So I was taken by surprise, in a good way.

    Speaking of Tom Cruise, the interactions between his character and his buddy Vanilla Sky felt like real life.

    Also the workplace setting and conversations in “All the President’s Men” remind me of staff meetings and vice versa

  52. 52.

    Paul in KY

    @Mike J: I wasn’t that into it, but I made some killer cassette mixtapes. The order on the mixtape was predicated on the order of the song on the album you were copying it from. 1st killer mixtape would have all songs that appeared in 1st position on albums, and so on…

  53. 53.

    Dee Loralei

    The scene in The Big Night when Primo, Tony Shaloub, goes ballistic when some woman wants a side of spaghetti with her risotto. I feel like that all the time when someone requests something that doesn’t go together, And I don’t work in the restaurant industry any more. Most recently this past Sunday at a dinner party for my father’s birthday. But I mostly keep my thoughts to myself and act more Segundo and appease than the Primo I feel.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:
    Kristen Stewart is “cursed” with looks that place her in the nearly unreal category. It can be an ironic barrier to being considered a gen-you-wine actor. More commonly a problem for women but not exclusively (Jude Law, for example).

  55. 55.

    Hungry Joe

    Nimoy anecdote (I know the people involved, so it’s not an urban myth): He loved Yale Strom’s wonderful documentary “The Last Klezmer” so much that he agreed to do the voiceover for Strom’s “Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 years.” At the end of the taping Strom handed him a check. Nimoy handed it back, saying, “I had a wonderful time. Put this where it’s needed.”

  57. 57.

    Hawes

    Every little clip I’m seeing about Nimoy makes me less sad. What a fantastic sense of humor he had about all of it.

    As far as movies invading real life, I feel like Mike Ermentrout from Breaking Bad all the time. “Shut up, Walter…”

  58. 58.

    Culture of Truth

    I think Kristen Stewart is resented because the Twilight films are so bad, compared to the Hunger Games, or Harry Potter, but also for having some kind of sullen attitude or giving bad interviews, because she has a contempt for the entertainment media, which is a plus when you think about it.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    @Dee Loralei:
    One of my favorite “small” movies. Letter perfect; wonderful performances; tricky period to capture in a way that’s not either mocking or mawkish.

  60. 60.

    MomSense

    Little Miss Sunshine. It’s not that anything in that movie is like my life in the particulars of the story–but the whole of it sooo felt like my life.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @MomSense:
    Heh, then you’ll probably understand why I consider ‘Arrested Development” to be a documentary. Also, too, the first fifteen minutes of “Idiocracy.”

  63. 63.

    Culture of Truth

    I believe Roger Ebert said the scene in “The Producers” where Gene Wilder is having a fit and Zero Mostel throws water on him and instead of feeling better he says “now I’m wet!” felt like real life, as a reminder that there was no situation in life that could not be made a little bit worse. Now I think of that scene that way too.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    When I saw Office Space I was working for a company that made laser-printer software. The movie was instantly the source of all quoted lines in my vicinity. The scene in which everyone takes a baseball bat to the PC LOAD LETTER device was like some glorious catharsis for us.

    Even though we were probably the people responsible for some of those emotions in others.

  65. 65.

    Sherparick

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: I have watched Grand Budapest Hotel 3 times now and I just love it (as much as I hated Rushmore). The acting was just terrific. Ralph Fiennes should have won the Oscar for this role, not the “English Patient.”

  66. 66.

    Dee Loralei

    @trollhattan: Mine too. One of my fav movies of all time. Even the bits that aren’t food or eating related, LOL. I even made a Timpano several times because of it. And if I ever do open the restaurant I’ve been threatening to, I’ll go back to being Primo again, someone else will have the be the Segundo role and be nice to people,LOL.
    When I had a catering business, my partner, the nice people person and I would meet with clients, and I could always tell from the initial meeting who I was gonna have to add an extra 15-25% PITA to their tolal tab. It’s the only way I could get through dealing with idiots.

  67. 67.

    Southern Beale

    I actually like Wes Anderson, I adored Moonrise Kingdom for instance. But I hated The Grand Budapest Hotel. Despised it. I thought it was a huge snore. I actually fell asleep in that film.

    Interestingly, I also fell asleep in “Inherent Vice,” the new Paul Thomas Anderson film. Both films had a lot in common — quirkiness merely for the sake of being quirky, a convoluted plot, more style than substance. And I fell asleep in them both.

  69. 69.

    DougJ

    @Southern Beale:

    I also couldn’t stay awake thru Inherent Vice. But I love PTA normally.

    GBH was the first Wes Anderson movie I really liked. I thought Steve Zisou was pretty good too.

  70. 70.

    FridayNext

    This scene from Marty hit home from me when I first saw it not too long ago. The tone is all wrong, because this was 1955, but I used to have these conversations with my parents all the time. I think my dad was considered a real lady’s man in his day (late 40’s-50’s) and he just couldn’t understand why his short, fat son wasn’t out getting laid every other week.

  71. 71.

    Hungry Joe

    I once tried to inject movie life into my own by going a whole day saying only “Shut the fuck up — you’re in over your head” (John Goodman’s line from “The Big Lebowski”) and “Just find the girl” (John Huston, “Chinatown”), on the theory that one or the other line could be applied to just about any situation. I was enjoying myself immensely, but everybody was pretty sick of it, and me, by lunchtime.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    If you want an instantly quotable movie about working in corporate America, seek out “Head Office,” starring Judge Reinhold and a stellar cast of supporting comic actors. The plot sucks, but the corporate stuff is dead-on.

    “I didn’t MAKE that decision, I APPROVED that decision! Don’t you people know the difference between a decision and an approval?!”

  73. 73.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @Sherparick: I will definitely give it a second watch when it appears on cable some time down the road. It was quite clever for sure. I agree about Rushmore as well.

  74. 74.

    PurpleGirl

    WRT Nimoy:

    From the second New York Star Trek Convention to the last one, I was a gofer. At that second convention, I stood outside one business room shouting at fans to get back, we don’t know when who is going to be here or when, etc., for several hours Sunday morning of the con. (I knew that Nimoy was going to be there.) The convention hosts had decided that no gofers would be able to meet him in the room. I decided that, “no, that is not acceptable after I’ve been shouting and hurting my voice…”. So, when I got word that they would be moving him by way of the kitchen, I stood in the doorway, convention book and pen in hand. He would sign my book or not leave the room. I stood there and stuck the book and pen in his face as the door opened. And he signed the book. (Stupidly I gave the book to my then boyfriend.)

    Another story: Saturday evening, I’m in the business room. The phone phone rings, my friend Laura answers it and says “Bridge, Lt. Palmer speaking.” Her face turns several shades of red and hands me the phone. It’s Nimoy asking to speak to Al Shuster (Con chair). I had the phone to a third person after saying Shuster ist’t there right now but I’ll go get him. I run off to the ballroom and find Al Shuster’ I start to stutter and Shuster says something nasty, I tell him that there’s an important call for him. (Can’t say who is on the phone because of the fans around us. Shuster runs to the business room. I walk back slowly. Ah, those were the days.

  80. 80.

    dan

    Kristen Stewart is more disliked than resented. And it’s because she has never been able to muster a smile in anything, scripted or otherwise. She has a constant sourpuss face and the acting range of a potato.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Dee Loralei:
    Brutal business. I’m sure most folks imagine catering as an endless string of preparing beautiful meals for beautiful in beautiful settings and developing beautiful relationship with all. “Look, leftover Château Pétrus for the staff!” They don’t envision catering the Elks or the local council of Realtors(tm) or the western Best Buy store managers or the Palins. Most of us live in Fresno, not La Jolla and half of the people living in La Jolla are from Fresno anyway.

    Local Italian deli does Friday “Big Night” dinners that echo the film feast, down to the timpano. It’s really charming, as they clear floor space and put out a long table. The meal is served family style by the actual family. I call it “Food Coma.”

  85. 85.

    Tenar Darell

    Any movie where joy and happiness is someone at the wheel of their car, by themselves, bopping to a song. And sadness/anger is shown by someone weeping/screaming by themselves in a car. Those are things that I’ve definitely experienced. Just yesterday, I was bopping and singing along.

    And though I hate to admit it, walking through Paris in contemplation of the past was represented really well by Midnight in Paris. (Never met anyone on a bridge though).

  86. 86.

    hoodie

    Saw Birdman, Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood. Grand Budapest may have been a great film, but I just can’t get past that Wes Anderson quirkiness. I thought Boyhood was innovative and was surprised it held my attention. Kind of interesting to think about in comparison to those old TV series that went on for so long you saw the actors playing the child characters actually grow up, except that in the later episodes, the Bradys get a divorce because Mike is gay and Marcia ends up doing porn. Birdman was ok, some interesting angles on ego and self image. I can see why it won, but it is pretty meta. Haven’t seen Selma, but I imagine it has more meat than the others, but probably not as structurally innovative.

  87. 87.

    gogol's wife

    @FridayNext:

    Good acting by Borgnine. I’ve never been able to watch that movie because it just seems so depressing. But maybe I should try it. I never saw him do that kind of acting.

  94. 94.

    wasabi gasp

    @Hungry Joe: For the past few days I’ve replied to my girlfriend, wherever it might fit, with “Do it ’til you’re satisfied.” I consider myself very, very lucky that it still cracks her up…because I need to stop.

  95. 95.

    Paul in KY

    @FridayNext: I get the impression that back in the day (pre-60s), women put ‘looks’ further down the list than they do now.

    Some of that was because they didn’t have the great independence & opportunities that they have today.

  96. 96.

    Roger Moore

    @hoodie:

    I can see why it won, but it is pretty meta.

    Hollywood loves movies about acting. As somebody said, it isn’t quite literally a movie about Hollywood, but the spirit is there.

    ETA: Not that this is unique to Hollywood. Shakespeare had a lot of fun including plays inside his plays. Playception!

  99. 99.

    MaxL

    This is nuts, but Kristin Stewart’s mouth is an eyeworm and I can’t watch a movie with her in it. Some review joked that the girl couldn’t do a scene with her mouth closed…and then I saw her in Snow White(?) and there she was, mouth open, for 120 minutes. I kept hoping she would close it just once, but no. Not even for a full second. It’s like when the locals in Thailand told me the geckos never make their gecko noise seven times. Hours I spent counting. Sometimes 5, never more than six. Or all those hours in Little League, playing left field, without finding a single four leaf clover.

    Maybe I could watch Still Alice, but only if Juliane Moore doesn’t cry. But she cries in every movie. A lot. And I would just be….wait for it…..

  101. 101.

    Southern Beale

    @DougJ:

    I liked The Life Aquatic (Steve Zissou) and I even liked Rushmore. I normally like Wes Anderson.

    I have to say I was really disappointed in PTA’s The Master. I did not, actually, fall asleep in that film but I probably should have. I don’t understand people who say it’s a masterpiece. I don’t get it.

  102. 102.

    hoodie

    @Roger Moore: The themes presented are broader than acting, though. It may be just that acting is a medium that Hollywood understands better than, say, the motivations of a politician or a plumber. I imagine lawyers would like good movies about lawyers, if there were any.

  104. 104.

    Amir Khalid

    Alas, and also a lack-a-day. The Wonkette headline to our right misquotes Spock’s dying words from The Wrath of Khan. He said (to Kirk), “I am, and ever shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper.”

    Their headline should go something like, “We are, and ever shall be, your fans.”

  105. 105.

    FridayNext

    @gogol’s wife:
    I agree. He well deserved the Oscar for best actor that year imho, even though he was up against some major competition in Cagney, Dean, Tracy, and Sinatra. And those weren’t small roles or movies, either. (Well, I admit I don’t know anything about Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me so that might be). I don’t want to spoil the movie, but I didn’t find the ending depressing. It’s quite hopeful. And it begins to be hopeful with a wonderful soliloquy that begins, “You don’t like her, my mother don’t like her, she’s a dog and I’m a fat, ugly man!” It ain’t Shakespeare but…

  108. 108.

    Avery Greynold

    @Southern Beale: Thanks for hating Grand Budapest. After despising Anderson films but really liking Budapest, I was conflicted. Now I can excuse his latest as an aberration and hope he returns to form.
    Imitation Game had me until the contrived “My brother will die if you don’t warn the convoy” scene.

  110. 110.

    FridayNext

    @Paul in KY:

    Are you talking about the movie or my dad? My dad was tall and handsome. My short, troll-like nature comes from my mom’s side of the family. You can always tell the in-laws at family gatherings on that side. They poke up out of the crowd like a bowling pin at a bowling ball party.

    If you are talking about the movie, you may be right, but it’s not important, I don’t think. They are talking about looks in that scene, it could be any attribute that the child has that the parent doesn’t see or understand. This is a very particular scene, but it has a profound universality to it. At the end he shouts, “I’m ugly, I’m ugly, I’m ugly.” but he could be shouting “I’m, gay, I’m, gay, I’m gay” or if the issue was career choices he could be shouting “I’m a musician, I’m a musician, I’m a musician.”

    Love this movie, but I need to get back to work.

  117. 117.

    Mike J

    @Hungry Joe:

    I once tried to inject movie life into my own by going a whole day saying only “Shut the fuck up — you’re in over your head” (John Goodman’s line from “The Big Lebowski”) and “Just find the girl” (John Huston, “Chinatown”), on the theory that one or the other line could be applied to just about any situation.

    You just don’t get it, do you?

  118. 118.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    Many of the scenes from “Idiocracy” ring true for me.

  120. 120.

    raven

    @delk: Where? What’s the prognosis? I fractured T-6 41 years ago. Bone graft. harrington rods and year in a full body cast. It was “a pain” but it worked out.

  123. 123.

    eemom

    “I’m on the motherfucker” by Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. Said it many times; never gotten it right.

    I loved Boyhood. Synchronicitously watched it with my daughter the day she headed back to college after Christmas break, which was kind of intense.

  124. 124.

    delk

    @raven: T11 and T12. Severe osteoporosis. A side effect of 28 years of HIV meds. I fractured them getting out of bed. Taking Fosamax and wearing a custom TLSO brace for now.

  125. 125.

    raven

    @delk: Sounds as good as it can be. My wife had micro surgery on her spine last year and the surgeon told me what they did to me then was barbaric but, at the time, was revolutionary. Hope it gets better for you.

  126. 126.

    speedbumped

    I’m a huge fan of Alexander Payne’s films, but especially About Schmidt. The first 20 minutes or so of that film (the whole thing, really, but particularly before he embarks on his road trip) just so perfectly captures the mundanity and essential meaninglessness of most of our days — even the ones that should feel significant.

  128. 128.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t resent Kristen Steward but I think she sucks all the humor and joy out of any scene she’s in. Adventureland could have been a lot funnier except she was the co-lead and was completely unfunny. Not that Jesse Eisenberg is all that funny either. That movie could have been hilarious if recast with Michael Cera and Emma Stone.

  129. 129.

    Tokyokie

    I was living in Austin around the time that Richard Linklater made Slacker, I knew a few people who appeared in the movie, and it showed what my life was going to become if I didn’t move away.

  130. 130.

    Elie

    I saw all of the best pic nominees except for the Imitation Game. I liked or loved them all — they were very different from each other. Each had its own special message and tone… Selma was a poignant insight on one of our greatest heroes about the burden of leadership with very human performances. Grand Budapest was a wonderfully heartwarming story about real values, decency and love presented in a funny and quirky package that I loved very much. I very much feel that Ralph Fiennes should have at least been nominated for best actor, if not winning it outright. He was amazing in that role. I loved Boyhood and felt it was emotionally honest in every way. I had no problem with the beautiful high school girlfriend… the first girlfriend or boyfriend is always “beautiful” — even if they may not be in reality. They represent a very real special special person forever. Birdman was hilarious and really made a statement to me about how we wrestle with our deepest emotional needs for specialness.. the scene of Michael Keaton in his undies just spoke to me — we all get trapped in situations that we know we still have to make the best of.

    Overall, no real complaints with the lot of them…

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