Thursday Movie Picks - Non-Linear Timelines

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

This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're looking at movies with non-linear timelines. Time always moves forwards of course, but with film, we have the capability to rewind, fast forward, double back, start over... we can view a series of events in pretty much any way we want. And these movies take advantage of that.

Cloud Atlas (Wachowskis & Tom Tykwer, 2012) This wildly ambitious film, adapted from David Mitchell's Russian nesting doll of a novel, probably never should have been made. The book has such a literary conceit that it's nearly impossible to adapt to cinematic form, but God bless the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer for trying. Whole long sections of this are just thrilling arias of pure cinematic expression, linking stories hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart by the elemental forces of human experiences. The overarching story (such as it is) is about the journey of a soul as it learns over the course of several lifetimes what it means to be good. The ensemble cast is full of some spotty performances (and some even spottier makeup), but Halle Berry, Doona Bae, and a near-unrecognizable Hugh Grant have never been better than they are in sections of this.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) How this didn't win every single goddamn award walking away in 2004, I'll never know. It's a goddamn masterpiece, with career-best work from Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Charlie Kaufman, and Michel Gondry. Nothing I could write about it will ever top this that I wrote four years ago, so I won't even try.

The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002) Oh those wild and crazy kids! What ever will they do to fuck themselves up next? This Bret Easton Ellis adaptation throws so much style at the wall to see what sticks, and a surprising amount of it does. Hopping back and forth between different attendees at a fateful college party and what led them to make the decisions they made there, we watch as teen heartthrobs Jessica Biel, James Van Der Beek, Ian Somerhalder, Kate Bosworth, and Kip Pardue do some VERY bad things, to themselves and to each other! The movie as a whole holds together only barely, but the best scenes (including a homoerotic bedroom dance/pillow fight to George Michael's "Faith", a rapid fast-forward through an entire vacation abroad, and one of the best, most effective suicide scenes ever put on film) really linger.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Four)

Here we are, at the top of the pyramid. The Top Ten. I hope you like all these as much as I do.

BUT! Before we move on to the business at hand, allow me to remind you up front that this is a list of the best dance videos, NOT the best video dance routines. If that were the case, then you would have seen a lot more from Madonna, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and more. I had to draw the line somewhere, and I decided I couldn't classify something as a Dance Video if the dancing took up less than half the video. Believe me, it was HARD cutting "Beat It" from this list. It was in my top three until I actually went and watched the video again... and found that the dancing doesn't even start until almost two-thirds of the way through. And the more Michael videos I watched, the more I realized that even though what dancing there was is still stellar, there wasn't nearly as much dancing in them as I remembered. In fact, the one that had the most was the edited version of "Bad", which I... <runs for cover>... HATE (I just never bought that persona from Michael).

Anyway.

Rest assured, were this a list of greatest music videos of all time, or of the best dance routines, there would be a LOT more MJ (and Madonna) on this list. But as it is, this is how the list stands. At this point, most of the videos speak for themselves, but I will still try to articulate why I think they're the best of the best.

10. OK Go - Here It Goes Again

I wrestled with myself over whether this actually counted or not, and finally decided it did. This treadmill routine (choreographed by Trish Sie) is a gimmick, sure, but WHAT a gimmick. It's super clever, superbly executed (in ONE TAKE!), and still mind-blowing. I still watch it in a state of "What the... How did they... Oh. My. GOD! AWESOME!" every single time.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Three)

Inching ever-closer to the top spot....

20. Paula Abdul - Straight Up

Have you ever seen the full video of this? Because I thought I had, but then I watched it for this, and.... PAULA TAP DANCES. A CAPELLA. WTF. She also lands a triple pirouette with no help from editing tricks. Figures, since David Fincher directed this chiaroscuro beauty. This video is also proof that a good teacher (Paula) doesn't teach her students (Janet Jackson) everything she knows (if you didn't know, Paula choreographed all of Janet's early videos, and was even in the video for "What Have You Done For Me Lately", which features the most amazing shoulder-ography from Ms. Jackson).

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This will be a post of confessions.

Confession #1: I haven't blogged a single damn thing for far too long. I wish I could say that it's because I've been too busy, but honestly, I was only really busy while I was performing in January-February and then back in September-October.

Confession #2: I can really only do this sort of thing on a deadline. If I see something that I feel REALLY compelled to write about, then I have to do it right away or it will never get done, but that rarely happens with something that would be appropriate for this particular forum...

Confession #3: ...which is why I am able to participate in Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series whenever it's happening. There's an assignment and a deadline. It's just like being in college again! Only with a WAY cooler professor.

Confession #4: I haven't seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind since the first time I saw it in 2004. I haven't watched it for several reasons. Because I wanted to preserve the memory of that first, magical viewing. Because I was dreadfully afraid that it would not have the same impact on me on another viewing. Because I was dreadfully afraid that it WOULD have the same impact on me on another viewing. Because it so burned itself into my psyche upon that first viewing that I actually haven't needed to watch my DVD copy in order to watch it again. It's one of very few films that I constantly carry around in my memory, completely intact.

Confession #5: I wasn't going to watch Eternal Sunshine again for this because I already knew the shot I would choose.

Confession #6: Because I hadn't seen the film in ten years, I figured I owed it to Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, and cinematographer Ellen Kuras to watch it again before choosing.

Confession #7: This was going to be my pick for Best Shot

Confession #8: This is my actual pick for Best Shot

Confession #9: Apparently, I didn't remember Eternal Sunshine quite as well as I thought I did. Some things actually hit me harder this time around (the way Carrey whispers "This is the last time I saw you"). Some performances struck me as far slyer than I originally gave them credit for (just how much does Mark Ruffalo know about Dunst and Wilkinson's relationship?). And Kate Winslet was even more wondrous, partially because on this viewing I realized that Clementine is not nearly as clearly-drawn in the script as she is in Winslet's performance. HOW did she lose the Oscar for this?!? And while I remembered Jon Brion's score almost note for note, I had gone so long without associating it with these images that it completely stunned me how perfect (and oftentimes counterintuitive) it was. The sound in general, actually, was far more effective than I remember.

Confession #10: As someone who has taken the train to work from CT to NYC for the past six and a half years while living with someone, Joel's entire opening monologue struck me in a way that I was not prepared for. So much so, that I saw the film almost completely differently this time around. Joel and Clementine's relationship suddenly meant so much more - I understood it on a level I definitely do NOT recall from the first time around (when I was still in college). Commuting to work does weird things to you - you become a slave to not just your work schedule, but to the train timetables. It saps most (if not all) of your energy - you don't want to go out in the city because you just want to get home, and you don't want to go out at home because you just spent all day "out". Having someone to come home to is such a wonderful thing, but commuting puts a weird strain on relationships - you simultaneously want to spend more and less time with your partner because time alone becomes more precious of a commodity. Your life feels more part of a machine that keeps grinding you down than if you were driving to work (especially for a short distance), and free time is something that suddenly only becomes available to you on weekends - if it isn't completely taken up by errands. And if your partner doesn't commute - they just don't get what it feels like, the toll it takes on you. So, yeah, Eternal Sunshine hit me right where I live.

Confession #11: I had completely forgotten about the shot I ended up choosing, but MAN it hit me like a ton of bricks on this viewing. The one I had thought I was going to pick still made me gasp (it just comes out of nowhere, so otherworldly), but this one, which comes almost immediately after, wrecked me. Everyone knows and loves the beautiful first shot of Clem and Joel on the ice (next to the gigantic crack - the one that was on all the posters and DVD covers), and this shot is designed to recall it - and actually does a great job of recontextualizing that first shot. In the first one, Clementine and Joel are pretty happy. The crack in the ice represents the ugly, imperfect parts of their past (forgotten) relationship. In this shot, Clem is gone, and so is the crack. The ice is perfect. Joel should be happy - this is what he wanted - but he's not. Life should be perfect without the pain - and it may look that way - but it's not. In trying to protect ourselves by erasing or avoiding emotional scars, we end up becoming our own worst enemies. There's a handful of great quotes in Eternal Sunshine, but for me the one that best sums it up goes unsaid: 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Confession #12: As a commuter, I was tempted to choose the shot where people keep vanishing from Grand Central Terminal as the Best Shot. OH how often I've wanted that to happen as I'm running to catch the train home!

Confession #13: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hasn't changed at all in the ten years since I first saw it, but I have. I thought I remembered it perfectly, and maybe I did, but the emotions I experienced during this viewing were completely different than what I remember from the first viewing. I reacted to different scenes, and some scenes hit me in different ways. That's the funny thing about memory. While what happened is always the same, they way you remember it changes over time. And I love that this film about memories - how they affect us, and how we can affect them - proves to be a perfect example of that.