I just finished watching the Story Of Us a Rob Reiner movie starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Phiffer. Now the trailer for this flick kind of gave the impression that there was going to be a unhappy ending. Seeing that I know how Hollywood works I expected a 30/70 chance of a bad ending. I got to say that I was actually pulling for the unhappy ending. Why you may ask? I guess I am kind of sick of the always cheerful ending in some movies. To me that mentality just does not seem to be rational.

To explicate a little further. You take your average guy or gal (or dude and dudette if that is your particular vernacular) most of the time life isn’t a happy ending. Not that a persons life can equal a two hour movie, there is many ups and downs. I just wish that the movies reflected more of a normal house hold. Why is it that in the movie the people are always rich. There jobs are always real cool. In the movie Bruce was a writer. His wife played by the lovely Michelle Phiffer made the crossword puzzles in the papers. To me that does not reflect what might be the target audience of this movie.

My oldman in his time has been a janitor, a truck driver, and has had lot of other unglamorous jobs. Same goes for my mother. We never lived in real fancy house or went to real fancy restaurants. All in all everything was pretty average. And hey I’m cool with that. I like average. It not as bad as bellow average and it’s not as good as above average. It’s right there in the middle. I would like to see more movie that capture that kind of feeling.

Now I’m not saying I don’t like a happy ending in movies. Going to the movies is escapism and should definitely give one a chance to escape. Otherwise it defeats the whole purpose of the movie going experience. Here is what I’m proposing. This of course would put more work in it for the people who make the movies, but who cares that’s why they make all that money. I want movies to come in two flavors, a happy ending and then the unhappy ending. So depending on mood a person could watch the ending that they were really in the frame of mind for.

Take Casablanca for example. There is a flick that has an unhappy ending. Rick lets the love of his life fly off with some asshole politician. And all poor Rick gets is some French guy to be friends with. Bummer. This is where my alternate ending policy would really kick in. I love watching Casablanca when I’m in a bad mood. But how about when I’m especially chipper and want to see a happy ending for poor Bogart? Damn it if it wouldn’t be cool to see the dame get off of the plane to go running into Rick’s arms. Yeah! That would be cool.

The movie I picked as a contender to the throne of greatest SCI-Fi movie of all time is Starman. A John Carpenter movie. Like in Close Encounters the alien was not the “bad guys”. The government was the bad guy there is no doubt to me.

The movie starts out with shots of space as the Voyager probe hurtles into the void with its message of greetings. It reaches a planet that pulls it down. Shortly after that the planet shots a spaceship out headed for Earth. Which brings us to Jenny Hayden who is grieving over the death of her husband played by Jeff Bridges. Then we see the US governments way to greet a UFO, blowing it out of the sky. And of course it crashes near Haydens’s place where the alien takes the appearance of Jenny Hayden’s dead husband. She watches in wonderment as the alien changes into her dead husband. “I send greetings” he says and Jenny Hayden passes out.

Which brings us to my favorite character of the movie, Mark Shermin. He is a scientist who is with SETI. When he arrives at the crash site one of the guys inspecting the crash site asks him if he’s with the National Security Agency. Shermin responds “Not really, I just work for them. On loan sorta like a library book”.

In fact when Shermin is explaining it to George Fox(who is the NSA lead asshole) of why and how this alien came to our planet. The NSA asshole thinks that if there are aliens that they are out to get us. Shermin plays the greeting from the Voyager probe and says that we have invited them here. The NSA goon tells Shermin that “Greetings is just what the cannibals told the missionary before he ate them.” Shermin smile and asks “Who is the missionary and who is the cannibal?” Another good bit is towards the end when Shermin gets to the Governments HQ and sees the Autopsy area they have setup for our visitor. He inspects the buckles and leather belts and says with a heavy heart “Welcome to planet Earth.” A little after that Shermin Asks Fox what is going on. And Fox tells him “Its the one thing I don’t need from you is a lecture on morality.” Shermin snaps back “All right screw morality. What ever happened to good manners? We invited him here!”

You can see I really like this Shermin guy. But how about the alien you all ask. What about him? The alien explains what his people are like “There is only one language, one law. And there is no war, no hunger. The strong does not victimize the helpless.” Of course the alien is finally captured. But before the NSA guys can get their hands on him my buddy Mark Shermin shows up. Shermin is truly amazed. This is something he has only dreamed about. He has so many questions to ask. He asks if they have been here before. “We are interested in your species. You are a strange species not like any other. And you would be surprised how many there are intelligent but savage. You are at your best when things are worst.”

Shermin lets him go. His Boss George Fox the NSA asshole is not happy. “Shermin you are finished. I will have you eviscerated for this.” Shermin looks at him and says “Well as much as I hate to stoop to symbolism” and he blows a big poof of smoke into Fox’s face. Shermin has a big shit eating grin on his face happy in knowing that the alien was allowed to escape and have a happily ever after.

Close Encounters Of A Third Kind. It might be a contender. It to me has concepts that really reaches me. The idea that these aliens that do come and buzz rednecks are not evil or ugly bug eyed monsters gives me hope. At least it does for me. If they came across the galaxy just to turn some cows inside out and abduct rednecks I will cry. If they can create the technology to travel across the galaxy I don’t think they would come to probe Billy Bobs anus.

The bad guys if there were any in the movie, would be the government. These guys would make Fox Mulder a good nemesis. Making a cover story about some kind accident that unleashed a terrible virus. But, even the “bad guys” really were not that bad. They didn’t kill anyone to keep them out of the area where the UFO’s were buzzing. So its a pretty positive movie.

And how about Richard Dreyfus’s character? Would you give up the wife and three annoying kids to go off with the nice aliens? I would. Did I mention those annoying kids. Sorry honey I’m out of here. Just imagine what you would see? I think it would be amazing. Amazing just to get away from those fucking kids.

I just returned from seeing Saving Private Ryan. And was totally amazed. Usually after seeing a movie I feel like the main character. When I saw Diehard I went away feeling like I could take on a skyscraper full of terrorists. With Saving Private Ryan I did not go away feeling like a W.W.II soldier. In fact I no longer have the child dream of fighting in the big one. John Wayne era W.W.II movies always gave you the heroic feeling. Those movies portrayed W.W.II as a great war. Not that I ever thought wars were great. They made it feel like W.W.II was a noble battle. Where as opposed to movies about Vietnam. Which portrayed that war as a dirty ruthless fight.

Saving Private Ryan did not try to glamorize W.W.II. It showed it the way my Grandpa told me about it. “You would be standing right next to a guy and see him get shot to pieces.” Grandpa would go on to say “John Wayne movies don’t show you the truth.” And that “they were bullshit.”

Saving Private Ryan Showed the landing at Normandy like I would figure it really was. The poor bastards first out had the shit shot out of them. Speilberg did war scenes with a camera effect that made it feel like you were there on the beach with them. It was very erratic camera movements. It added to the claustrophobia of the scene. They also showed all of the gory detail of war. When people where hit, they fell down. None of the running around like a funky chicken. Blood was everywhere. And these GIs wanted two things. Their momma and morphine.

Well enough of me playing Siskel and Ebert. Go see the goddamn movie. And do not bring kids to see it. And mark my words Tom Hanks is getting another Oscar for this movie.