Flashback Friday

It's only the second day of the new year and I'm already looking backwards. It's not for past memories, but for past movies.

As I sat in my chair thinking about some "classic films", I couldn't help but start singing "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" by the Beatles (off of the Help! album). Although, I have to admit, on the I Am Sam soundtrack, Eddie Vedder does a pretty decent rendition. That must be one of the few Sean Penn movies I actually like, too.

One of the movies, Harold and Maude, can be seen as a cult classic among some groups of people. It's about two people who happen to frequent funerals for "fun" and end up becoming close friends. Odd pairing, an octogenarian and twenty something, but it's a good movie, none the less.



I think one of the funniest scenes is when the local priest shows such disgust for whatever you want to call Harold and Maude's "ship" - a friendship, a relationship, something. People think they're sleeping together. Others say they're just good pals. It's up to the viewer to decide.



(Family Guy fans have seen this version)

The movie has a "killer" soundtrack as well - all Cat Stevens hits. Ruth Gordon, who plays Maude, sings "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out", and gets Bud Cort (Harold) to join her. It's pretty sweet. I think outside of the movie, it's another song I want to attempt to learn on guitar (Hello, Dante, where are you when I need you?). Although, I can *slightly* play Robbie Williams "Better Man", it's pretty bad.

It definitely has great life lessons, one of which is you just can't take things too seriously.. at any age. People come and go so quick in our circles, that you really have to let go of what you think you know and can handle. As Maude said to Harold, "A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room".

For a film with such dark undertones (funerals, death, constant fake suicide attempts), it's an honestly jovial movie, if it weren't for the positive out look by the older woman. Sure, see this as a cougar / May-December romance, but look past it for a minute or two and capture the innocence in the young man, trying to live some semblance of life he can be accustom to.


The other movie I was thinking about, was The Graduate. Maybe because the director Mike Nichols recently passed away, maybe because the most classic line from the movie is said by Dustin Hoffman, maybe it's just one of those films that are timeless. Hoffman plays a young man home from college, wondering what life will bring him outside of his family's high class social network. He ends up being seduced by his father's business partner (hence the line), has a lot of confusion about it, and ends up with another woman (more his age). I think this movie is in a few AFI lists.

I really can't say a lot about this movie, as there's nothing really to nit pick out of it. Just happens to have been in my thought pattern as I sat in my room.

Cheers;



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