I’m not a fan of the holiday season. Sure, I like that I can buy mint M&Ms with reckless abandon, and Christmas music is always a plus. But as a general rule, the crankiness and conusmer-itis bothers me. So I choose to view November and December in a way that makes me seem like I’m happy for the holiday season. It’s the time of year when the world falls in love with some of the best movie releases ever. If I’m not sequestered at a speech tournament on Friday afternoons, I can be found at the local movie theater, watching movies that will more thank likely end up nominated for Golden Globes or Oscars.
I kicked off the holiday movie season today with “Walk the Line.” What surprised me most about this film is that I anticipated to hear quite a lot of cussing. Not so. However, there was so much drinking and pill-popping that I actually felt a little nauseated. Alcohol in a film hasn’t affected me that much since I saw “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in high school.
The film covered the first 30 years of Cash’s life, focusing mostly on his love for June Carter. Talk about a man who won’t quit! He was relentless in his pursuit of her, and she was quite wary of his alleged devotion. But her wariness couldn’t stop her from loving him back, and it really is a tale of what it takes to love someone. Most films reduce love to nothing more than animal attraction, so it was interesting to see the “ugly” side of love. Perhaps the true-story basis for the film made that possible. There are many different ways to love someone, a topic that came up in one of my classes earlier this week, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since. Moving on…
Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as The Man In Black. I’ve heard he did the singing himself, but didn’t stick around for the credits to verify that. Reese Witherspoon was equally fascinating to watch. The music made me regret that I hadn’t listened to more of Johnny Cash’s music prior to seeing the film, and buying his CDs now will just make a bandwagon kind of a person. So I’ll wait until January, maybe, to track down some vintage Cash.
So, what came up in class? What was said?Mint M&Ms are good, but have you tried the Hershey mint cookies’n cream Nuggets? Yum.
Love the cookies and mint nuggets. They are almost as good as mint m&ms. One student is thinking about writing a persuasive speech on how love is portrayed in our society. It’s hard to explain, but maybe he’ll let me float you a copy once it’s written. Which should be by this Saturday…