An English Teacher Reviews The Great Gatsby

Like many a high school English teacher across the dark fields of the Republic, I've taught F. Scott Fitzgerald's great American novel to hundreds (thousands?) of students, and this is mostly for them.  However, I don't mind taking the rest of you for a ride in this circus wagon.  Nobody needs an invitation; just come with a simplicity of heart that is its own ticket of admission.

As you may be able to tell from the three allusions I dropped in the intro there, I love Fitzgerald's prose and had little hope that noted "Look at ME!" director Baz Luhrmann would do any better job than the myriad other filmmakers who have taken a stab at it, most notably Jack Clayton's dreary, schmaltzy 1974 version starring Robert Redford, which is the one I've shown in class every year so far.  Really, I was just hoping that this new flick would just be marginally better than the Redford version.

Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Baz's take on Gatsby isn't merely slightly superior to the old one but leagues better.  It's not a perfect film by any stretch.  There's plenty to quibble with, and I'll get to that.  But it gets enough right that I feel confident about showing this updated version to my junior classes from now on.

The Good:

-This guy:
He's not going to win any awards for it, but there aren't many actors who could carry the role the way he does.  Hell, Redford's a great actor, but even he seems to slump under the weight of the character.  Leo plays him exactly right.  He's ambitious, duplicitous, charming, and insecure.  Look at that smile.  It's a major facet of the book, and Leo nails it.  Bottom line: It's a role for a movie star, and Leo's one of the biggest and brightest ones we've got.


-Nick as a broken-down alcoholic writer during the stock market crash. It's the film's biggest risk, and the likeliest to ruffle traditionalist feathers, but I liked it.  Basically, the movie turns Nick into Fitzgerald, who died broke and alone, despite the success of Gatsby.  This allows Fitzgerald's transcendent language to appear and be heard, despite the fact that the Nick of the book never mentions being a writer of any sort.  Maguire even looks like the troubled-but-gifted author, especially with the haircut he sports during his scenes at the clinic.  It's no secret that Nick is a version of Fitzgerald himself; both come from the Midwest to New York and are appalled yet drawn to the lifestyles they experience there.  I've always argued that Fitzgerald was trying to warn not only America but also himself of what the ravages of excess would wreak upon each, although the downfall of both was inevitable.

-This scene:
Gatsby and Daisy's reunion is perfect.  It's awkwardly funny, dramatic, and well-staged.  It's a fine example of what Luhrmann can do when he slows down for a moment and stops swooping the damn camera all over the place.  It also reinforces the awkward position of Nick; he narrates the film yet is not present for some of its most central action.  He is both "within and without" as he stands outside in the rain while Gatsby and Daisy get reacquainted in Nick's bungalow. 

 -The best film adaptations stick to the story without being slaves to them.  In addition to the major framing device of Nick writing the book from rehab, Luhrmann changes a few things, and most work well.  For instance, I didn't miss Gatsby's dad ("My name is Gatz") showing up at the end, as he does in the novel.  It's pure falling action, and too much of that sucks a film's ending dry.  I also didn't mind accelerating George Wilson's hunt for Gatsby by having Tom give up his rival's name and address to the grieving husband immediately after the accident, rather than letting Wilson seek Tom out the next day, as he does in the book.

I was more bothered by the film's omission of Nick's final conversation with Daisy and Tom, where it becomes clear that Daisy has never told Tom that she, in fact, is the one driving the car which kills Myrtle Wilson.  This detail helps to get across the notion that Tom isn't the "bad guy" keeping Daisy from true love.  Daisy chooses Tom's pearls over Gatsby's letter early in the story, then she again chooses the stability of Tom's inherent wealth over Gatsby's hard-earned but ill-gotten gains.  Fitzgerald's point is that Daisy is an attractive but false goal, like so much of what what we hold in esteem in America, and lots of readers miss that.  However, I'll cut Baz some slack.  The scene near the end where Daisy won't take Nick's call and doesn't even acknowledge Gatsby's funeral is an adequate substitute. 

Most importantly, lots of Fitzgerald's words make it into the film.  They're the real stars, after all.  Any version of Gatsby absolutely must have those beautiful, poignant final lines ("boats against the current," and all that), but the Redford version doesn't, amazingly enough.  Even when the lines are altered a bit, it's no travesty.  For instance, Nick's line about "reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope" becomes "I look for the best in people," which is almost exactly the way I translate it in class.  Major demerit for no "Her voice is full of money," though. 

The Baz

Because I'm an English teacher, I've also seen Luhrmann's other notable literary adaptation, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (also starring a much younger DiCaprio) dozens of times, which is the main reason I was skeptical about what he'd do with Gatsby.  The actors literally yell lines at each other, in order to create tension, I suppose.  The tone is all over the place, from silly to surreal to melodramatic.  It's a completely frenetic experience.  Perhaps Baz has matured and mellowed a bit, as he managed to dial it down a bit for Gatsby.  Still, all of his greatest hits are present:

-The anachronistic music.

This has been the most frequent complaint from students who've seen Gatsby.  Ironically, teens are the ones who seem offended that Baz likes to insert today's pop music into historic settings.  I think they feel pandered to.  Anyway, they wanted "The Charleston" and got Kanye and Lana Del Rey instead.  I actually don't mind this trademark of his.  I liked Jay Z's score, and Romeo + Juliet's soundtrack is one of the few redeemable things about that messy film.

-The swooping camera.  Meh.  He uses it a bunch to give a sense of setting, showing where Gatsby's mansion is in relation to the Buchanans' manor.  Yes, it's overdramatic.  But it really didn't bother me like the...

-LOUD NOISES!!!
When Gatsby comes to pick Nick up for lunch, he does donuts around Nick's place for awhile first.  Why?  It certainly doesn't fit with his carefully manicured character.  But his fancy yellow car makes a great VROOOOOM, so you gotta have it, I guess.  Then Gatsby proceeds with the exposition of his (fake) early life on their way to New York, but you can't really concentrate on it because he's driving like he's in the Indy 500.  Fast, fast, loud, loud.  That's Baz, to the core.

-Baz apparently also thinks drug-addled fever dreams are an effective storytelling device.  The scene in Myrtle's apartment is like watching when Leo meets Claire Danes in R+J in a cracked mirror.  Substitute the dude playing the sax on the balcony for Mercutio's inexplicable drag show, and you're there.  Just a diaspora of absurd facial expressions, outsized reactions, loud music, and a constantly spinning camera.  Note: I'm pretty sure this description covers the entirety of Luhrmann's other famous film, Moulin Rouge, but I only saw that once, over a decade ago, so I'm no expert. 

Nolanometer Final Grade: B

For perspective,
Redford's Great Gatsby: C-
Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet: D+

The Great Claycord Kerfuffle

I've put off writing this for a long time. 

Partly, I just didn't know how to begin.  Partly, I'm worried about how long it's going to get (and if anyone would care enough to read to the end). 

But mostly, I think the wounds were still too fresh.  Not enough time had passed; not enough distance had been created.  I thought about writing about it when it all blew up back in May, but I really needed to let the whole thing die down.  Although it was very difficult for me to do so, I didn't enter the online tempest because I didn't want to inflame the situation.  I think that was wise. 

But it's time to tell the story, at least my side of it.  Even amongst people who know me pretty well, there's still a great deal of misunderstanding about what the hell happened, exactly.  How did I get myself into such a hot, stupid mess?  (In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a mirror on SF Gate of a blog originally posted May 30 on Claycord.com; the original post has been removed).

Well, let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Believe it or not, I think we need to go back to the first day of school in order to gain the context I want you to have.  Actually, I think we have to go back further than that.  According to my Facebook timeline, I joined up in March of 2008.  I could write a whole separate blog on how much looking up that date shocked me.  It's amazing how quickly new technology becomes part of our lives.  Is it really only four years that I've been posting snarky status updates, arguing with conservatives, and kvetching about the Giants?  It feels like I bitched about Aaron Rowand for six years alone. 

Anyway, when I first joined, I didn't allow current students as "friends" on Facebook.  Not because there was a school rule against it, but mostly because I didn't need them snooping into my personal life and seeing a side of me that I didn't present at school.  This mostly amounted to photos of me after a few cocktails that my friends would tag.  So I told kids to wait until they graduated, and then I'd accept them. 

What changed my mind?  Well, I hope you're ready for some really sweet irony, because here it comes. 

After being a citizen of Earth in the 21st century for a while, I came to an understanding: If you post something online (or allow someone to "tag" something on your behalf), you'd better be prepared for anyone in the world to see it, not just the audience for which it is intended.  See?  Irony.  Told you it was a comin'.  

In other words, I shouldn't have ANYTHING on my Facebook page that I didn't want students to see, because the reality is that if they really wanted to view it, they could find a way.  Lots of these graduate kids I was friending had younger siblings still at CP.  It seemed like a pretty silly wall of protection.  Yes, I could always say, "But I'm not friends with my current students!" if somebody wanted to make an issue out of something, but that seemed like an artificial restriction.

I deleted a few photos and became more careful with the language I used in statuses, etc.  I'll still drop the occasional curse word, but I won't go on any obscenity-filled rants.  I also made certain topics verboten.  It helps a lot that I've gotten pretty domesticated by this point in my life.  I'm married with two kids and own a townhouse.  There's not as much potentially embarrassing material as there would've been 10 years ago (or god forbid, 15 years ago...yikes). 

Back to that first day of school.  My syllabus ends with my contact information.  After I'm done reading it over, I always add (orally) that I do have a Facebook, and I will accept students if they friend request me.  I will never go looking for them- that feels creepy to me.  I warn them, though, that there can be repercussions.  I'll correct their grammar/spelling.  I'll gently chastise them for silly/drunken photo poses.  I'll mock their overly dramatic statuses.  I'll keep track of their relationships.  

Basically, I'll do all the same stuff I do to them in class as I get to know them over the course of the year.  I tend to get a dozen or so friend requests that first day, and by the time the year ends, probably 75% of them or so have befriended me.  Keep in mind, I get 160 new kids every year, which is the biggest reason I have 1,100+ Facebook friends.  Although being really, ridiculously good-looking is probably a close second. 

One advantage of allowing them as friends is that even though I give them my personal email on my syllabus, and my work email is readily accessible through the school website, kids find it a lot easier to enter my name into Facebook and message me if they have questions about an assignment.  It's just the way their generation operates. 

The other advantage is less tangible, and it totally depends on the type of teacher you are.  There are some in my profession who just want to show up, do their job, and go home.  They don't need nor want a connection with the kids, and that's fine.  You can still be a really good teacher conducting yourself that way.  But one of the main reasons I'm a high school teacher is that I actually like the kids.  Oh sure, sometimes they drive me nuts with their apathy/sloth/self-involvement, as teenagers will.  And there's usually one or two every year that I really can't stand (the feeling's mutual, I'm sure).  But by and large, the connections that I make with my students are some of the best parts of the job. 

I'm not saying you need to be Facebook friends with the kids in order to form a bond with them, either.  You can chaperone dances, go to plays, fundraisers, concerts, and sporting events, or just shoot the bull with them before/during/after class.  Many of my colleagues confine themselves to just those things, and that's great.  I do all that stuff, too.  But I've found social media an especially effective tool in showing the kids that I do care about what's going on in their lives and inviting them to be part of mine-with boundaries, of course.

Part of what my partner teacher Joel Swett and I preach on the first day to our American Threads classes is that we're trying to build a sense of family.  We even joke that he's the "Mom," and I'm the "Dad" because he tends to be a tad more nurturing and earnest while I can be sarcastic and gruff.  Actually, I think I make that joke when he's not in the room.  It occurs to me he may not be in on that joke.  Oops.  Sorry, man. 

At the end of the year, it's uncanny how many kids write to us that they didn't believe a familial relationship amongst 65 kids was possible, but they really do feel that way as they leave for summer break.  Facebook is just one part of that equation, but I've found it to be a useful tool.  Do students try harder on their Great Gatsby study guides because I "like" their status?  Do they pay more attention to a dry grammar lesson because I tag them about something funny that happened in class that day?  Do they try harder to get to class on time because I'm a angry Giants fan who posted his rage about last night's game just like they did? 

There's no way of knowing for certain, but I'd venture a pretty emphatic "yes."  Again, I don't do these things because I'm looking for some edge in the classroom.  I do them because I'm genuinely interested in their lives and enjoy interacting with them.  That's what's most absurd about the outrage over the "babysitting society's mistakes" line on my profile.  To anyone who knows me, it's so obviously a joke.  When I mentioned it to my sophomore pre-honors class (basically, the best-of-the-best) after the blog came out, they all laughed.  The entire room.  A couple of them even said, "Now, that's funny."  They know that's not how I actually feel about my career and that it's clearly an example of my sense of humor.  

I can understand how parents and community members who read that and don't know me could get indignant.  Here's the thing: It's not intended for people who don't know me.  It's on my Facebook page with a whole bunch of other things that aren't meant to be taken seriously.  I had no idea that when I signed up to this relatively new site in 2008 and created a profile page with my tongue implanted firmly in cheek, it would be used to determine the quality of my character four years later.  

To clear up any future confusion, I have added parenthetical notes since the piece came out to make explicitly clear the humor intended.  I haven't changed anything else, though.  My "favorite" quotes are all lame cliches.  My "about myself" is a quote from a movie I love, and it's basically gibberish.  I also have listed that I am "interested in men" (which results in tons of gay cruise ads on my sidebar) and that one of my favorite movies is Beaches.  I am more likely to go on a gay cruise than to ever see Beaches.  

Hell, the silliest thing about the outcry over the "society's mistakes" thing is geography.  I live five minutes from College Park.  I am a member of the community.  I have two kids.  If we don't move by the time they go to high school, my own wonderful little "mistakes" will go to CP themselves where they will be well-instructed by a mostly outstanding faculty.  I'm proud of my school.  I'm proud of the kids who pass through there, for the most part.  I've devoted my entire professional life (13 years and counting) to the place.  There's the context that Claycord's post was missing.

Poop.  I meant to do this chronologically, and now I'm getting ahead of myself.  Lemme try to refocus. 

All right, so how did I get myself into this very public predicament?  Well, it's pretty simple, really.  I was grading some essays at home, where I have access to Facebook (it's blocked at school).  Grading essays is one of the least favorite parts of my job.  It's typically incredibly frustrating.  Part of it is that you're reading 130 papers about the exact same subject.  But mostly, it's that you've spent all this time with them going over exactly what's required and how to do it, and then you find yourself reading stuff that feels like they not only completely ignored all your instructions, they ignored them while putting in roughly 20 minutes of work.  

Anyway, the first one I read started...well, I don't quite have the vocabulary to explain it.  And I'm not going to rehash it here.  Let's just say the first sentence was almost magnificent in its unreadability.  If you'd like to see it, it's still up on my Facebook page.  I didn't delete or edit anything because I knew that would be seen as an admission of guilt.  

Before I go further, allow me an addendum here.  Normally in this space I'm as honest and inclusive of details as possible.  It's my life, and I share it.  But this story involves a student, and he has already been put through public scrutiny through no fault of his own.  I (and others) have already caused him enough duress, so I'm going to mitigate his involvement in this tale as much as possible.  I will say this: He is not a poor student nor a problem kid.  He was one of my favorites this year, actually.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have posted what I did.  It's the same way I am in the classroom.  If I'm teasing you, it means I like you.  It's the kids I don't feel connected to whom I leave alone.  And yes, he was, and still is, a Facebook friend. 

I felt the opening sentence was notable enough that others might find it amazing as well.  One of Facebook's main functions is for people to vent about their jobs, and I'm certainly not above that.  I've published "from the mouths of babes" conversations I've had with students, observations from campus, and even praised kids when they've done something that's impressed me or made me laugh.  With this particular post, I thought people would marvel at the syntax and sympathize with what we, as teachers, must deal with at times.  My main point with the commentary about teaching being a hard job was, how do you go about fixing something like that?

As far as I can recall, it was the first time I posted an excerpt from student work, although I've more generally referenced things like it before.  Because of what came next, I won't be doing it again. 

Right now, you're probably saying, "Well, of course not, you idiot.  You shouldn't have done it in the first place, you big meanie.  How dare you humiliate a student!"  Well, you're saying that if you're an adult.  If you're a teenager, you're saying "Not kool 2 put smbdy on blast like dat!  SMH."

Here's where context comes into play again.  I made the post on a Wednesday, May 23.  I had just started grading that class period's essays.  It typically takes me about a week to finish one class set.  I read every word and circle every mistake, with plenty of commentary.  Papers I grade often look like they've been at a crime scene; they're splattered with red ink.  When I published the nameless excerpt, I knew that nobody except me could possibly know whose paper it was because I had it in my hands.  Furthermore, I wouldn't be returning them for another week- plenty of time for that post to roll well down the page and get forgotten like everything else does in social media.  Their lifespans are short, unless someone resuscitates them. 

My naivete came in believing the post would stay where I intended it- on my Facebook page, viewable to only those whom I was "friends" with.  If I had ever, for one minute, thought that anyone, including the student himself, would identify whose work it was, I wouldn't have clicked "enter."  Again, I know you might be saying, "But couldn't the student go check the post once he got his paper back?"  Trust me; you don't know teenagers.  I wish they cared that much about the feedback they get.  There was approximately .001% chance that the kid would get his paper back and check it against a Facebook post from a week ago.

Still, what I did was wrong.  It wasn't intended to be mean-spirited, but it could easily be perceived that way.  It wasn't fair to put a young person's work on display like that, even anonymously.  When the whole thing broke, I tried to justify it by saying that if my own kid wrote something that garbled and handed it in, I wouldn't mind him or her being made an example of, as long as it was done with humor and good will.  I still think that's true.  But this wasn't my kid.  Plus, there's no one I look up to more than my mom, and she told me I shouldn't have done it.  So, that's that.  I'll own my mistake. 

But let's also be perfectly clear: Without what came next, which I had no part in nor power over, that student would have never known that his work was being exposed to scrutiny.  The biggest misconception I'd like cleared up from the Claycord post is that the student or his parents complained, and that's how it became news.  The blog is intentionally unclear about how and from whom Claycord obtained my original post and the subsequent comments it engendered, so people were left to assume it was brought to light by an aggrieved party, namely the student or his parents.  This is flatly untrue.  

I know this because as soon as the blog was posted and it started to become "news," I pulled the student aside and told him about it.  I'm going to leave most of what we talked about private, except to say that he had remembered seeing my post and thought nothing of it, unaware it was from his paper, and that I have apologized to him for my part in causing this public dissection of his work.  

The other misconception is that my Facebook page was set to public, so that anyone could have seen my post.  It wasn't.  It was set to private and always has been.  Again, the Claycord post conveniently left out that someone, either a Facebook friend of mine or someone with access to a friend, screen grabbed the post and comments and sent them to Claycord where they could be carefully edited to make me look like as big a monster as possible.  

To this day, I have no idea who that "someone" was.  But if you're that someone and happen to be reading this, allow me to speak to you directly: You are a coward.  I have no idea what your motivation was.  I'd love for you to explain it to me.  You could let me know who you are and why you had such a problem with what I wrote that you'd send it to a local gossip site, presumably hoping that a negative story would come of it.  But let's face it; that won't happen.  Because you hid behind your wall of anonymity while my reputation suffered, as did my family, as did the student whom your actions called attention to.  That's what cowards do.  Thus, I'm guessing the conversation will remain one-sided, unless you grow a spine.

Got angry there for a minute.  Stop.  Breathe.  Continue:

Two days after my post, I received the following email to my work address.  The return address read "news@claycord.com" :

Mr. Nolan,

I recently received the text from a post on your facebook page, and was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.

1.       Do you think it’s appropriate for a teacher to create a post on facebook criticizing an 11^th grade student the way you did?

2.       Why did you do that?

3.       Do you believe calling a former student an “asshole” was appropriate?

Thanks for your time,

Mayor

I knew what Claycord was.  If you live in the area I do, and you smell smoke, see helicopters, or hear a loud boom, it's pretty much your first stop.  People from the community will hook you up with the 411.  Of course, I also knew what Claycord was not, which is an official news-gathering organization that plays by the standard rules of journalism.  It traffics in unconfirmed rumors and anonymous sources and serves as a hub for people in the community to anonymously vent in the comments sections about whatever issues they perceive to be afflicting society.  I had no idea who "The Mayor" was, but apparently he's the guy who runs the whole site.  Anonymously.  Sensing a trend with that word?  

All those factors made it an easy decision not to respond.  This wasn't The New York Times asking for comment.  These were incredibly leading questions from an anonymous blogger.  What good could come of any answers I gave?  It was pretty clear from the questions and the content of the site that a good, ol' fashioned hit piece on Yours Truly was being crafted.  I didn't want to fuel the fire. 

That was Friday.  On Tuesday, I got two more emails.  One was from my principal.  It was a request to meet with me to discuss an email he received from Claycord.  The one to him was signed "Kevin Cunningham" instead of "Mayor."  I guess authority figures merit an actual identity in correspondence.  Since the email was forwarded to me by my principal, and I haven't asked his permission, I won't re-post the whole thing here.  But The Mayor stated that I "posted a student's paper" and, as if the questions couldn't get any more biased, he asked my principal if he "condoned this behavior by a man who is supposed to be a leader...not calling our children 'society's mistakes.'"    

At the meeting, I told my boss exactly what I'd written and asked him if I'd broken any rules.  He told me that he didn't think so.  After the thing broke I met with him again, since he had gotten a few emails from parents.  Although he clearly wasn't thrilled to be dealing with an annoying situation like this, he couldn't really chastise me.  He had checked with the district, and they had determined that I hadn't violated education code, my contract, etc.  They determined that what I had done fell under personal "freedom of speech."  I wouldn't be officially disciplined in any way. 

The Mayor also emailed me again.  Clearly, he'd been "investigating" me.  Well, what he could get off my Facebook profile page, anyway:

Following up: Also, why did you post on facebook that your job title is “babysitting society’s mistakes”? Do you think that’s appropriate for a teacher to write? 

I've addressed this and The Mayor's other questions already.  As to the "asshole" query, my answer is "Yes, absolutely."  It's not exactly my finest hour, but calling a grown man a naughty name on the internet is perfectly within my rights.  What, because he once took up a chair in my room, I can never treat him like I'd treat any other adult?  It's especially funny that anyone would worry about me hurting that particular guy's feelings.  The dude's a college graduate and a U.S. Marine.  I think he's been through worse.  If you go back and look at the thread, he "likes" my comment and then we "lol" together in the next couple spaces.  Crisis averted.   

The Claycord post came out Wednesday morning, a week after my original post.  Since I knew that something was in the wind, I had been checking the site periodically.  Still, even though I was prepared for something, it's hard to put into words how shocking it was to see pictures of me and snippets of my Facebook page (with my name all over them...anonymity is reserved for the site's creator and the cadre of regular commentators) plastered all over someone else's blog.  All the old cliches were true: My heart leapt into my throat, the blood drained from my face, my pulse raced, etc.  

I was the talk of the faculty lounge at break.  At the end of the next class period, anxious students were coming up to me, asking me if I knew about "the thing on the internet," no doubt tipped off on their smart phones by their friends or family.  I wrote to my immediate family to warn them of the post before they heard about it from somebody else.  I spent lunch with my regular crew of a half-dozen teacher friends, who were all supportive of me and angry at what they perceived to be yet another example of petty teacher bashing.   

Mostly, I hit "refresh."  

The story doesn't end with the original post, you see.  Claycord revels in its community of commentators, nearly all of whom use nicknames or other vaguely descriptive monickers, such as "Pinky" or "me me me."  The next two days became a ceaseless ritual of checking every ten minutes (or even five, if I had time) what people were saying about me on the internet.  In the time the story was up, it was very hard to concentrate on anything else.  I had trouble sleeping.  I couldn't focus on the stack of essays I had to grade before the end of the school year.  I had little appetite.  

Actually, that was a nice fringe benefit; I can stand to lose 10 pounds.  Ok, 25.  I'm working on it!  All right, that's a lie, too.  

The only time the whole thing completely left my head was when I was "on stage" in the classroom, reading part of a story or engaging in class discussion.  

One specific memory I have of the day when the story came out was going to buy a new tire at Firestone and waiting for it to be installed while grading papers and sipping a beer at BJ's next door.  The whole time I was interacting with tire people/waiters, I was wondering, "Have they seen it?  Do they think I'm a huge jerk?"  

I don't possess the writing skill to adequately communicate the feeling of being publicly analyzed and eviscerated.  People I didn't know were writing emphatic opinions of my character, teaching ability, and attitude, based on a carefully crafted blog post by another person whom I've never met.  It's an incredibly odd and discomfiting feeling to stand by and watch people form strong, knowing conclusions of you based on a few snippets of your life presented out of context.  

It actually made me re-assess the way I feel about people in the public eye: politicians, celebrities, athletes.  You hear them say things like, "I don't read what people write about me.  I don't care what people who don't know me have to say."  Trust me; they care.  Everybody does.  It's human nature.  Even if they themselves don't read it, people who know them will, and it can hurt them more so.  It sure did for my wife and mother. 

On to the comments...

First, there's thing with the pictures.  There were people who had zero problem with anything but lost their minds over the fact that I had photos of students on my Facebook page, as if I just grabbed a bunch of screen shots of their yearbook photos and filed them in an album (the title of which is so obviously a joke I won't even bother to defend it).  Most of what's in that album are junior prom pictures from three or four years ago.  The kids posed for pictures with me.  My wife took most of the shots.  Truth is, I have photos of CP kids that aren't in that album because they were taken by students, and I was tagged in them.  For instance, Joel and I take a big group photo with both of our Threads classes on the last day of school every year, and the kids all tag each other in it.  The horror.    

 

Predictably, some called for me to be fired.  Others speculated that I was "burned out" on teaching and should retire or find a new career.  There was name calling: ("dick" and "idiot," amongst others).  Many harangued MDUSD for being so dysfunctional as to let someone like me remain employed there.  A few folks applauded me for not being "PC" and "telling it like it is."

Basically, the entire thing became an ink-blot test, which is likely how The Mayor intended it.  Whatever people's feelings were toward public education in general and teachers more specifically came out in their comments about me.  As is typical in today's hyper-partisan environment, several commenters took the opportunity to voice their opposition to the scourge of unions.  I think the quote that best expresses just how ludicrous things got had to do with the fact that I was (formerly) the head representative for the teachers' union at CP.  "College Park Dad" claimed:

Union guys use union tactics. As Mr. Nolan is the teachers union rep at College Park, expect that many of these comments have been solicited by Nolan and his sympathizers. They’re not regular Claycord readers who just happened to want to voice an opinion. This same sort of thing happens in Chicago elections.

Then there were those who took it a bit further.  Ever had anyone imply in a public forum that you're a sexual predator?

"Anon": Did anyone notice how many female students he has as friends?

"Shiloh": Do you think all pedophiles are on record as being pedophiles?

"Don't Censor Me Bro": Ex-teacher Julie Correa was well liked too…read the Sun & Mon Times for details…(Correa is an ex-teacher convicted of raping one of her female students)

How about being linked with a serial killer?

"Nice Doesn't Mean Anything": REMEMBER: Everyone thought Ted Bundy was a really nice and cool guy too….just sayin’

I actually found a degree of humor and poignance in just what a nutty age we live in, where people can anonymously fling sordid semi-accusations about a private citizen from an object smaller than George Costanza's wallet.  What a golden era!  Unfortunately, those comments did make my mom cry.  Small price to pay for progress, though. 

Of course, all comments are moderated by a site administrator, whom I can only assume is The Mayor.  I won't deign to commit the same sort of character assassination he perpetrated against me (how can I?  I don't know who he is!), but I will point out a few things and let you be the judge of what kind of man he is and what kind of site he's running.

Claycord purports to be a "news and information" site, and as I mentioned before, it seems to do a pretty good job with local stuff like ceremonies, fires, and traffic accidents.  But it does not practice "journalism."  Heck, the "Terms of Use" page makes that clear: The content that is published on Claycord.com contains rumors, speculation, assumptions, opinions and factual information. Postings may contain erroneous or inaccurate information. The owner of this site does not ensure the accurateness of any content presented on Claycord.com.

Simply put, a "real" news organization would not have run the story Claycord did.  It would have revealed where it got its information, and it wouldn't have cut things up into a context-less attack piece the way The Mayor did.  The "investigating" also would've been conducted in different fashion, as real journalists are trained to ask questions in a non-biased, non-leading fashion.  The reality is that this only became "news" because Claycord made it so.  There was no aggrieved, underrepresented party petitioning for justice.  I'd never received a single parent nor student complaint about my Facebook profile before. 

Then there's the accountability issue.  There's no byline on the story.  No editor-in-chief with whom to register feedback.  No contact info other than the nameless email, no journalistic credentials.  I wrote a few years back about the likely/inevitable death of journalism as amateur bloggers took over, and a couple excerpts from that entry proved prescient: 

What will happen if all the newspapers go out of business? I shudder at the thought. Will there be any more journalism, or just "news organizations," both television and online, broadcasting their own biased talking points? 

I closed with this: 

People already have enough trouble obtaining information without a filter. I'm terrified of a time when we won't even realize the filter's there. 

Claycord, especially its comments section, operates with a very heavy filter.  While comments comparing me to serial killers and pedophiles were allowed through, dozens of others defending me (and challenging Claycord's reporting) were never allowed to see the light of day.  

My friend and colleague Josh Coito pointed out many of the same issues I've raised in this blog and called out The Mayor. He tried as many as seven or eight times to publish his views from three different computers.  None ever made it through.  Criticisms were also deleted from Claycord's Facebook page, where they can't be moderated beforehand.  In the next few weeks, I heard from perhaps two dozen ex-students (both in person and online) that they had attempted to post and been denied, and many of them said they knew friends who had tried as well and were also turned away. 

Essentially, The Mayor completely controls the conversation.  He only allows viewpoints to appear on his site that further his agenda, whatever that may be.  He claims all the privileges and status of a journalist with none of that pesky responsibility.  Hey, it's working for him.  I don't know if putting me and me family through what he did caused him to lose any sleep.  I also don't know what caused him to take the post down in the middle of the night just 40 hours after publishing it. 

But I have a guess. 

In many ways, this became a Tale of Two Cities situation for me.  You know, "It was the best of times, it was..." shoot, I can't remember the rest.  Anyway, while this certainly had to be considered a low point in my professional career, it produced an unexpected blessing.  

You see, after the first wave of initial, largely negative comments were posted, people who knew me began coming to my defense.  Current students, ex-students, even parents spoke their good opinions of my character and abilities.  Kids I hadn't heard from in years chimed in that I had made a positive difference in their lives.  Many claimed that they were still using skills and critical thinking abilities I'd imparted on them.  A couple even suggested that I was one of the main reasons they'd decided to attend college.  

I was incredibly humbled by their kind words and vociferous protests.  There was another thing that made them valuable: The vast majority of these comments had names attached.  Out of all the people who bashed me, I counted one who used a real name, a 2012 graduate who claimed I "regularly acted unprofessionally."  Here's the thing: I didn't even know that kid.  Never had him.  Had to look him up.  Everyone else who used his or her real name was apparently on my side.  

Maybe The Mayor realized that he'd slandered someone most people seemed to regard as a beneficial member of the community.  Maybe he felt bad about what he'd done.  Maybe he was just tired of moderating the scads of comments from the pool of thousands (I'm getting old!) of students I've had in the course of my 13 years at College Park.  

Without explanation, he removed the post sometime after I went to bed that Thursday night and before I woke up that Friday morning.  I clicked "refresh" and got a 504 notice, which meant now I also did not have access to all the nice (and not-so-nice) things people had written about me.  Fortunately, I had left the page open on my school computer and was able to copy and paste the story and most of the comments into an email, thus my ability to quote them in this post.

If you'd like to peruse them yourself, shoot me an email, and I'll forward them to you.  It's the least I can do for anybody who's read this far.  Which may be exactly nobody, at this point.  I mean, sheesh.  I wanted to tell the whole story all at once, but could I be any more verbose?  Sorry.  We're almost done, I promise.  

There's one last thing to do here.  

The day the blog posted, I knew enough to stay out of it.  My friend and colleague Lance Johnson rendered me a huge service by posting a blog and writing several comments on Claycord that showed a different side to the story.  I was able to direct concerned parties toward his work without entering the fray myself.  He ended up taking a bunch of flack for his efforts and got lumped in with me (one commenter, curiously, wrote that Lance did so because I was his "boss," which shows an alarming lack of knowledge of faculty hierarchy).  For that, I am indebted to him. 

The rest of my friends and family were uniformly supportive as well.  I owe them my thanks and apologies; it can be difficult to be married/related to me at times.  Like, a lot of the time.  However, those people are supposed to have your back, even when you're wrong.  

Therefore, it was mainly the kids (many of whom are now adults) I had in mind when I wrote my only public response to this incident before what you're reading right now:

(I want) to thank everyone who had my back today. I am truly humbled by the number of people, especially students and ex-students, who took the time to stand up for me, and with such passion and eloquence. You'll never know how much I appreciate it.

Those words are more true today than ever.  This could've been one of the great crisis of my life.  Instead, because so many of you who sat in my classroom at some point in the past 13 years went out of your way to comment on the post itself, write to me on Facebook, or offer words of support in person, I feel a tremendous sense of affirmation.  I owe a special debt of gratitude to the countless number of this year's students who wrote variations of, "Keep being yourself.  Don't let people who don't know you change how you do things" in their end-of-year journal entries.  

I even feel kinda fortunate that this all happened, in a way.  After all, most people have to die in order to have such nice things said about them.

Thanks for reading.

-Nolan

Agony and Ecstacy: How the 2010 San Francisco Giants Drove a Grown Man to Tears

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value." -Thomas Paine, 1776

"If I die before I witness a San Francisco Giants' World Championship, my life will be somewhat incomplete, no matter what else happens." -Andrew Nolan, 2009

My first thought when the tears came was, absurdly, "I wonder if I've ever cried before 10 a.m. before." The next one was, "I'm almost positive I've never cried in front of this many people..."

I'm not much of a crier. Don't do it at movies (except this one). Didn't do it on the day of my wedding, nor at the birth of my son (nicknamed "Panda" before we decided on his real name because of our love for 2009 Pablo Sandoval). I did get a bit choked up the night the Giants won the World Series for the first time in their San Francisco existence.

Oddly, though I had celebrated effusively that night, I still felt a bit...numb. It all seemed a little unreal. After waiting for my conscious life for this to happen, I couldn't quite process it. This team did it? And with relative ease? I'd built it up to be such a Holy Grail, such a vain fantasy, that when it actually happened, when the Giants actually rolled the Rangers in five games...it was a letdown of sorts. Where was the drama? Where was the torture? This wasn't the team I'd followed these many years, knowing that any success was merely a prelude to a massive failure just around the corner.

Catharsis didn't come until approximately 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 3, the morning of the parade that I'd been hoping to attend for the past...well...since I can remember. And it came in the oddest of places: on a BART train.

There are so many things I could write about the 2010 S.F. Giants, but many others have said them already, and better than I have.

I could tell you that part of my "letdown" was that I realized how attached I'd grown to this particular squad, and I wouldn't get to see them play together anymore. They were a constant in my life since April, and they evolved constantly and intriguingly. I devoted many more hours to watching/analyzing/worrying about them than is healthy.

I could tell you that this was the most likable Giants bunch since the late 80's, and possibly ever. It was a "team" in the truest sense of the word. The best team in baseball, for one magical year.

I could tell you how this was a concrete example of the way sports can bring a region together. It's been a long time since we've had a championship around these parts. I don't care if you were a bandwagoner or a die-hard; the Bay Area was buzzing for the Giants during their run.

I could tell you how euphoric it feels to write these words: The 2010 San Francisco Giants are World Champions.

Instead, I'd like to share with you what got me so verklempt at the Embarcadero station the other day, and how it fully epitomizes my jubilance as a Giants fan.

As any Red Sox/White Sox/Cubs/Indians fan could tell you, there is (or was, in the case of both Soxes) a legitimate fear that lifelong fans could pass away before seeing the team he or she devoted so much time, energy and passion to reach the ultimate zenith.

You can tell my high school students haven't been Giants fans for long enough because they say things like "You gotta have faith!" and "Stay positive!" They were eight or nine years old in 2002. Not nearly old enough to have the hole punched through their heart still be a gaping wound eight years later. Heck, I was 13 when the Giants were swept by the crosstown A's in 1989, not to mention for the myriad playoff flameouts in between. It takes time to build up this much agita.

And here's the thing: I never saw Mays play. Or McCovey. Or Marichal. Other than the occasional appearance at the ballpark, they're just statues and old newsreel footage to me. There are people who've been rooting for this team since it moved to San Francisco in 1958 and became part of the fabric of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Some of them died before they got a chance to watch the outpouring of joy that the rest of us experienced on Wednesday, November 3, at a parade that part of me dreaded would never take place while I walked this earth.

This championship is for all of us. But even more so, it's for them.

Which is why my eyes clouded with tears when I looked to my right on an incredibly impacted BART train and finally saw the sign the woman in the wheelchair who'd gotten on at Rockridge was holding. She had to be in her 80's and was being wheeled around by her similarly-aged husband. There had been too many people for me to see it before, but once the doors opened at Embarcadero, people got off, and I could see the large, orange sign she was holding. Without warning, I was reduced to a quivering mess.














I took a photo with my cell phone camera as quickly as I could, and then awkwardly half-embraced the man pushing the chair, who had seen me trying to document the moment and aimed the woman and the sign toward me. I stammered, "Her sign...it made me cry." His eyes also began to well up. "Me, too" he replied.

Her dad had raised her a Giants fan, who knows how many years ago. He never got to see them march down Market street as World Series Champions in person.

Well, it finally happened. His daughter made sure he didn't miss it.

Thank you, 2010 San Francisco Giants. Thank you, from all of us.

My Ten Favorite Movies of the Decade

Same rules apply here as to my music blogs (songs and albums). Unlike with music, I consider myself a pretty astute judge of film. Still, I'm perfectly aware that there are others more qualified than I to make a "Best of" list for the decade. Thus, movies that I consider works of art, such as Brokeback Mountain and There Will Be Blood will only make the honorable mentions list. As great as I think they are, I don't want to watch them over and over again.

Therefore, this list should be considered the 10 movies that I never got sick of. If I see any of these showing on cable, I'm guaranteed to watch for at least 15 minutes.

First, the honorable mentions:

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Almost Famous (2000), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), Mission: Impossible III (2006), X-Men (2000) and X-2: X-Men United (2003), Hotel Rwanda (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Star Trek (2009), Old School (2003), Casino Royale (2006), Bowling for Columbine (2002), Children of Men (2006), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Milk (2008), Miracle (2004), Road to Perdition (2002), Super Troopers (2001), There Will Be Blood (2007), Unbreakable (2000), Training Day (2001), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Grizzly Man, (2005), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Kill Bill, Vols I and II (2003, 2004).

The two films I had the toughest time omitting (Honorable Honorable Mentions?): Batman Begins (2005) and Garden State (2004). Begins would've made it if I didn't like The Dark Knight even better, and Garden State would've made it if Zach Braff had let someone else play the lead instead of moping through his otherwise excellent film.

The top 10:

10. The Departed (2006)
A brilliant mobster/cop flick where everyone's throwing their fastball, sans perhaps Jack, who decided to chew scenery rather than craft a three-dimensional character. The rest of the cast more than makes up for it. Damon and DiCaprio are so good they make me want to see an inverse version of the film where they switch roles. Wouldn't that be fascinating?

The film's got crackerjack tough-guy dialogue as well, like this exchange after DiCaprio punches a guy for demeaning his choice of cranberry juice at the bar:

Mr. French: [calmly] Hey, hey, hey... do you know me?
Billy Costigan: No, no.
Mr. French: Well, I'm the guy that tells you there are guys you can hit and there's guys you can't. Now, that's not quite a guy you can't hit, but it's almost a guy you can't hit. So I'm gonna make a fuckin' ruling on this right now. You don't fuckin' hit him. You understand?

However, Wahlberg gets the best lines. My favorite:

Dignam: This is unbelievable. Who put the fuckin' cameras in this place?
Police Camera Tech: Who the fuck are you?
Dignam: I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.

9. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
This loving ode to the 70's is by far my favorite Will Ferrell performance. Is it a great film? No, but it's absurdly funny.

When I first saw this movie, by myself on dvd, I'm not sure I even liked it. Oh, there were some chuckles here and there, but nothing special, I thought. Anchorman is like one of those catchy pop tunes on the radio, though. The lines just went around and around in my head and got funnier on repeated viewings. It eventually ended up my most quoted film of the decade.

To wit:

Ron Burgundy: I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly...

Veronica Corningstone: My God, what is that smell? Oh.
Brian Fantana: That's the smell of desire my lady.
Veronica Corningstone: God no, it smells like, like a used diaper... filled with... Indian food. Oh, excuse me.
Brian Fantana: You know, desire smells like that to some people.
News Station Employee: What is that? Smells like a turd covered in burnt hair.
News Station Employee: Smells like Bigfoot's dick.

Ron Burgundy: You are a smelly pirate hooker.
Veronica Corningstone: You look like a blueberry.
Ron Burgundy: Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island?

[to Baxter the dog]
Ron Burgundy: What? You pooped in the refrigerator? And you ate the whole... wheel of cheese? How'd you do that? Heck, I'm not even mad; that's amazing.

Ron Burgundy: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
Veronica Corningstone: Really.
Ron Burgundy: People know me.
Veronica Corningstone: Well, I'm very happy for you.
Ron Burgundy: I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Ron Burgundy: Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.
Veronica Corningstone: No, there's no way that's correct.
Ron Burgundy: I'm sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don't know what it means. I'll be honest, I don't think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.
Veronica Corningstone: Doesn't it mean Saint Diego?
Ron Burgundy: No. No.
Veronica Corningstone: No, that's - that's what it means. Really.
Ron Burgundy: Agree to disagree.

Ron Burgundy: I'm gonna punch you in the ovary, that's what I'm gonna do. A straight shot. Right to the babymaker.

And, of course, the immortal Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell)...

Brick Tamland: I love... carpet.
[pause]
Brick Tamland: I love... desk.
Ron Burgundy: Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them?
Brick Tamland: I love lamp.
Ron Burgundy: Do you really love the lamp, or are you just saying it because you saw it?
Brick Tamland: I love lamp. I love lamp.

...and my favorite moment of the film:

Ron Burgundy: Boy, that escalated quickly... I mean, that really got out of hand fast.
Champ Kind: It jumped up a notch.
Ron Burgundy: It did, didn't it?
Brick Tamland: Yeah, I stabbed a man in the heart.
Ron Burgundy: I saw that. Brick killed a guy. Did you throw a trident?
Brick Tamland: Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.
Ron Burgundy: Brick, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You should find yourself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because you're probably wanted for murder.

8. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
A couple years ago, this would be higher on my list, but for whatever reason it hasn't aged for me as well as some of the others. I haven't watched it in a while. It's possible I'm also downgrading it because of the colossal wreck that is Spider-Man 3. Anyway, it's still beloved.

Like many sagas, Spider-Man really hits its stride in the second installment. All that origin stuff is out of the way; now Peter must deal with being a hero and the toll that can take on one's social life. He goes through the same doubt that anyone does when they undergo a huge lifestyle change. What did I just do? Is it too late to take it back?

He loses his mojo for a while, which is something else we can all relate to. However, he has enough of it to save everyone's bacon in one of my favorite scenes of the decade. The train rescue itself is great, but what gives me chills is the part at the end where the passengers catch Spider-Man and pass him backward through the train. When the little kid says, "Don't worry. We won't tell," (unfortunately, it's not in this clip) well, let's just say my allergies start acting up.


7. The Bourne Identity (2002)
The second installment might be a better film, and the third is no slouch, either (although I could never quite get into it the way I can the first two). However, the first Bourne movie was so refreshingly different than any other action/spy thriller that came before it.

It's hard to recall now, but the odds were stacked against this film being a success. Nobody thought of Matt Damon as an action star; it turned out he was the best choice for the agile, cerebral Bourne. The film's director (Doug Lyman) was known for making hip comedies like Swingers and Go, not helming an action franchise. Nevertheless, his kinetic style serves as the perfect tone for the techno cool of the film.

Not only does The Bourne Identity get credit for being awesome on its own merit, it also deserves kudos for inspiring the amazing Bond reboot, Casino Royale. There's no way that movie gets made in the style it did without taking its blueprint from Bourne.

In terms of cerebral action, both Bourne's escape from the embassy and his Mini Cooper joyride are as good as it gets, without our hero firing a shot and with nary an explosion in sight. That sound you just heard was Michael Bay snorting in derision.

6. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Have I ever laughed harder in the movie theatre? Not in my adult life (seeing The Naked Gun when I was 12 probably wins out all-time). The truly amazing thing about the most hilarious film of the decade is that my expectations were incredibly high going in. I was a fan of The Ali G Show, where the Borat character originated. The buzz before the film's release was otherworldly. Still, I found myself crying tears of laughter along with a packed house on opening night at Sasha Baron Cohen's antics.

Admittedly, some of the scenes are one-trick ponies because of their shock value. You can only get the full comedic effect of the nude wrestling or the "attempted kidnapping" of Pamela Anderson once. But a line like this gives me the giggles just thinking about it:

Sometime my sister, she show her vazhïn to my brother Bilo and say "You will never get this you will never get it la la la la la la." He behind his cage. He cries, he cries and everybody laughs. She goes "You never get this." But one time he break cage and he "get this" and then we all laugh. High five!

Like any great satire, the film can be enjoyed on two levels. My teenage students think it's funny because "It's so racist!" (this applies to stupid adults as well). The rest of us are able to see that Borat is not skewering Kazakhstan or Jews but our own cultural ignorance (not to mention geographical ignorance- the Kazakhstan bits are actually filmed in Romania, neither of which most Americans could get close to finding on a map).

Regardless of one's comedic acumen, everyone is rolling when Borat and his portly assistant throw money at the cockroaches, supposedly a kindly old Jewish couple who have "changed their shape." Or when Borat demands of a woman at a garage sale, "Gypsy, give me your tears." Or when Borat addresses a cheering rodeo crowd, "May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman, and child of Iraq!"

5. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
A funny thing happened here. When I first wrote my list, I had the first Lord of the Rings movie as an honorable mention, and The Two Towers made the Top 10. I had convinced myself that it was my favorite of the three excellent films. Then I started thinking about all the moments from the movies I liked...and 70% of them came from Fellowship.

The mines of Moria scene is still the series' seminal moment. It's the spot when the daunting challenge of Peter Jackson's really long movies about wizards, elves, and hobbits suddenly became, "Holy crap! This is actually going to work!" When it comes down to it, if I could only watch one of the three LOR films for the rest of my life, it would be this one, which came as a surprise to even me.

4. The Dark Knight (2008)
There's been a revisionist tendency to describe this film as overrated after the initial rush of praise. Sorry, I still love it. It's filled with tension; there's not a dull moment. Bale's "Batman voice," first mocked, has now become a pop culture staple. I still believe the movie missed an opportunity, but that will affect further installments, not this masterpiece.




3. The Ring (2002)
I love horror movies the way a fat kid loves cake. It's my guilty pleasure genre, and I end up sitting through a lot of dreck in search of a few good scares. Most of my favorite horror films (Halloween, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street) came out before I was alive/allowed to watch them in the theatres; thus, The Ring is the most scared I've ever been at the movies, narrowly edging The Blair Witch Project. When Samara crawls out of the well and through the tv at the end, I can still remember what I said aloud, squirming with the rest of the opening night crowd: "Oh my god, you've got to be f#%&ing s@#tting me."

It would've been one of the best horror films of the decade if it had ended after the harrowing scene with Naomi Watts "rescuing" Samara out of the well. That double climax just made it an instant classic. Basically, you're on edge of your seat from the masterful opening scene with the two girls alone in the house, and it never lets up. The tape that supposedly kills you if you watch it itself is unsettling, and when you get home and realize that you've also seen it, you're just hoping that the tv isn't on static when you turn it on, or you just might wet yourself.

As for The Ring 2, let's all just pretend it never happened, shall we?

2. Donnie Darko (2001)
I already covered this extensively. Click it or ticket.















1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
When I sat down to make this list, it was the first one I wrote down. Still, I figured something would eventually surpass it. I mean, it's a silly little comedy movie. Hell, let's face it; it's pretty much a romantic comedy. I hate romantic comedies!

Or do I?

Isn't what I hate about most romantic comedies what I hate about other crappy genre flicks? They stick to formula. They're usually merely star vehicles. They're sloppily written. They're full of flat characters. They're cynically aimed at an audience who doesn't care about any of that; they want to turn their brains off and drink in the formula.

It occurred to me that another favorite, eminently re-watchable movie of mine is Say Anything, essentially another rom-com. So it's not this genre of film I necessarily hate (although I certainly don't gravitate to it), it's just that very, very few of them do love and funny as well as Sarah Marshall.

It's one of the few films that gives me a grin just thinking about it. I own it on blu-ray and also have it saved on my dvr. My wife asked me why, and I told her it was because we don't have a blu-ray player in the bedroom, and I might want to watch part of it when I'm down there. It easily passes the "If it's on cable, will I watch for at least 15 minutes?" test. Speaking of my wife, she had to threaten a divorce if I didn't stop singing "Die...die...die...I can't" from "Dracula's Lament."

There's simply nothing I don't like about this film. Most importantly, all the characters are multi-dimensional and believable. Even the supposed "bad guy," Aldous Snow, is a pretty decent fellow. Main character Peter Bretter reluctantly admits, "Fuck, you're cool!" Those typical "cute" romantic comedy moments never feel forced, even though they're all there: The first kiss, the first fight, and the guy gets the girl.

Then there's the fact that it's funny as hell. Lance already posted a lot of his favorite lines in his own blog about Sarah Marshall, but I can list a bunch more without repeating any.

Brian: You don't need to put your P in a V right now.
Peter Bretter: No, I need to B my L on someone's T's.

Brian: Look. Liz and I, we think the world of Sarah. We think she's great. But, and I'm just being honest here, every time she would come over to our house, she always acted, you know, like a... like a little bitch. Okay, okay, okay, pump the brakes.
Peter Bretter: Dating Sarah is not like dating Liz, okay? Sarah is better than Liz!
Brian: You really want to have this conversation? Do you really want to have this conversation?
Peter Bretter: Yes.
Brian: [screaming] She is the mother of my unborn child!
Peter Bretter: [meekly] Sorry.
Brian: You're my step-brother! We're not even blood! I have no qualms with sticking you! I will equalize you!
Peter Bretter: Sorry.
Brian: You dick!

Sarah Marshall: When were you planning on telling me this?
Aldous Snow: I just told you, then.
Sarah Marshall: Yeah. No, I know. But telling me now isn't really the same as telling me.
Aldous Snow: Well, look, you know, I've not told you I've got genital herpes, because it's not inflamed at the moment...

Kunu: [singing to himself] Oh the weather outside is weather...

Aldous: It was like going on holiday ... not with Hitler maybe — but Goebbels, yeah.

I'll leave you with my favorite moment from the film: