Thursday Movie Picks - Prodigy/Genius

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them - it's fun, promise!

I am sitting in my warm apartment watching the snow blow around outside, and I must admit that I feel very content. This is my favorite thing in the world, especially with a mug of hot cocoa (check) and a fire in the fireplace (not happening in a one bedroom in Manhattan, unfortunately). Next to movies, of course, which is why I haven't moved from the couch all day.

But it's Thursday, which means I have some picking to do! This week's TMP theme is geniuses. I'm not one, although I do have my moments! The point being, I should be so lucky to do something so brilliant as these people that I get a movie made about me.

Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984) One of the greats. A movie about the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a bona fide genius, and Antonio Salieri, an almost genius. The Best Picture Oscar winner of 1984 (which made it my favorite film sight unseen for a long time - I was born in 1984) is deliriously entertaining, one of the best films to win Best Picture. And F. Murray Abraham's performance as Salieri is one of the all-time great performances.

Searching For Bobby Fischer (Steven Zaillian, 1993) An ordinary man discovers that his seven year old son is a chess prodigy. He and his wife find a coach for the boy as he goes and plays in the park against random men. Except that in the hands of writer/director Zaillian, this is so much better and more complex than that plot sounds. This is easily one of the best films of the '90s.

Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997) Will Hunting is a math genius, wasting his days as a janitor at MIT and his nights hanging out with his buddies on the south side of Boston. One day, a professor posts an impossibly difficult math problem in the hall, and Will solves it. Naturally, the professor wants to work with his brilliant mind, but Will has a lot of issues, so he must go to see a therapist (played by Robin Williams in an Oscar-winning performance). I love this movie so much. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and it's kind of amazing that they haven't written anything since, although it's clear from their performances here that they were always movie stars.

An Open Letter

Dear Matt Damon,

PLEASE. SHUT. UP.

I have liked you as an actor ever since School Ties. And I'm sure you're a good guy. But recently, it seems as though every time you open your mouth your Straight White Male Privilege comes flooding out and it is EMBARRASSING.

I can't really speak to the whole Project Greenlight diversity issue, but this most recent slip-up, I most definitely can. "Actors are more effective when they're a mystery," huh? So by that yardstick, you must be a pretty damn ineffective actor, since everyone knows a whole lot about you - we know your best friend is Ben Affleck because you told us when doing the rounds for the film you wrote  together (Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite films), we even know who your wife is because you bring her to premieres with you and thank her in award acceptance speeches. And because of that, we know (GASP) what your sexuality is!

Yet somehow, we still believed you (and your co-star Michael Douglas, aka Mr. Catherine Zeta-Jones) as a gay man in Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra. And we buy it when you fall in love and have sex with women other than your wife in other films. Because acting is ALL ABOUT making people forget that you are who you are in real life and making them believe you are whatever character you are playing. For example: We all knew Christopher Lee was not a vampire, but we were still scared shitless of him as Dracula anyway! "Mystery" doesn't ever enter the picture. The only time it might lend a helping hand is when the actor is BAD, when they're not doing their job to make the character believable. That's when we rely on our good old-fashioned intuition to help fill in holes.

Because let's face it: 99% of the time when you see someone, you assume they are straight. Even if it's only subconsciously. Because, let's face it, most people in the world are straight. And since that's the case, people are straight until proven gay. That just is how it is, and that's okay. It does, however, put the onus on gay people of all stripes to "come out" (a phrase I detest) and let people know. That's slightly unfair (more so in parts of the world where being gay is a crime or otherwise punishable offense in the eyes of other people) but it is what it is.

So at best, Matt, by saying this you are showing that you are completely ignorant of how your own craft works, and at worst you are saying something extremely damaging to gay people. It's not exactly homophobic per se, but it promotes homophobia by suggesting that gay people should not say anything about their homosexuality at the same time as you and countless others flaunt your heterosexuality around the world without giving it a second thought.

And no matter which one it is, your statements make me think less of you. And they make me less likely to see your new film, which looks like it might be really good and which I probably would have seen otherwise (and which, by your own logic, no one will see - or believe you in if they do - because there's no mystery to the fact that you are not an astronaut with world-class smarts). Because now when I look at you, all I can see is a smug straight white man who doesn't have the ability to see past the end of his nose. And why would I want to support the career of someone like that?

Sincerely,

Dancin' Dan