Medicare For All
Movie Monday - Review of Forever's Not So Long - running time: 12.17 minutes
(Edited: A reader pointed out I didn't link to the movie. Sorry. I linked last Monday. Bad me.) Here it is:
http://foreversnotsolong.com/
I think the most perfect form of literature is a well-written short story, with the emphasis on short. Unlike a novel where you need layers of fillers or else you might only have a short story; a really good short story says it fast and then you think it long.
That’s what happens in Forever’s Not So Long. It’s a very short film about impending doom and how some humans cope with it.
In just the first minute of the film, George is frantically packing (but quite obviously ineffectively packing since who searches for photos of Italy or space blankets at the end of the world?) and Cindy is ready to take a powder on him (I’ll just take out the garbage, she says.) for good.
That’s it. The radio announces buses will make two more trips to the safe zone. Cindy takes out the garbage and beats it away and our hero is left to end his world, alone. But not before learning from Cindy that she wants to break up and be with Alberto, who is from Italy.
True to the mundane, George (our hero) on hearing this and also knowing they are both facing death, calls to her with this trite question: What does he have that I don’t have?
We’re 1.37 minutes into the plot and George closes the window and the tale begins.
Or does it? Within 30 seconds we have the best joke of the movie: the TV announcer revises the epicenter of the disaster from Cincinnati to 15 miles south of Manhattan. It’s the map shot that makes it funny. And the joke advances the plot: George now faces doom without the possibility of rescue.
More humor as a doomed friend from Hoboken calls and George tells him about Cindy. The friend replies: You know I never liked her. You can do better.
I see a theme. Let’s follow it. Pete, a Hoboken friend seems at peace as he tells George he is going to eat Doritos with chocolate milk and watch The Neverending Story. George bemoans after hammering away at his and Cindy’s picture: I’m going to die alone.
Or is he? What follows is a swiftly and cleverly crafted encounter with another woman first with George telling her all their lives are pointless and probably always have been. Followed by his request: Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?
We’re now 6+ minutes into this 12.17 minute film. Watch the rest. It won’t end happy but it’s not really sad.
Did it remind you of Musee des Beaux Arts by Auden? Especially these lines:
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm
It was filmed in Brooklyn, NY. It's an amateur film with amateur touches but it's a very good production. Shawn Williamson as writer and director has crammed a lot of thinking stuff into a very small area and he shows many fewer seams than larger, expensively-financed productions. You may want to remember his name.
(Edited again: Did I write this originally too early in the a.m. or after too much coffee? I can't believe the mistakes I didn't catch.)
(Edited: A reader pointed out I didn't link to the movie. Sorry. I linked last Monday. Bad me.) Here it is:
http://foreversnotsolong.com/
I think the most perfect form of literature is a well-written short story, with the emphasis on short. Unlike a novel where you need layers of fillers or else you might only have a short story; a really good short story says it fast and then you think it long.
That’s what happens in Forever’s Not So Long. It’s a very short film about impending doom and how some humans cope with it.
In just the first minute of the film, George is frantically packing (but quite obviously ineffectively packing since who searches for photos of Italy or space blankets at the end of the world?) and Cindy is ready to take a powder on him (I’ll just take out the garbage, she says.) for good.
That’s it. The radio announces buses will make two more trips to the safe zone. Cindy takes out the garbage and beats it away and our hero is left to end his world, alone. But not before learning from Cindy that she wants to break up and be with Alberto, who is from Italy.
True to the mundane, George (our hero) on hearing this and also knowing they are both facing death, calls to her with this trite question: What does he have that I don’t have?
We’re 1.37 minutes into the plot and George closes the window and the tale begins.
Or does it? Within 30 seconds we have the best joke of the movie: the TV announcer revises the epicenter of the disaster from Cincinnati to 15 miles south of Manhattan. It’s the map shot that makes it funny. And the joke advances the plot: George now faces doom without the possibility of rescue.
More humor as a doomed friend from Hoboken calls and George tells him about Cindy. The friend replies: You know I never liked her. You can do better.
I see a theme. Let’s follow it. Pete, a Hoboken friend seems at peace as he tells George he is going to eat Doritos with chocolate milk and watch The Neverending Story. George bemoans after hammering away at his and Cindy’s picture: I’m going to die alone.
Or is he? What follows is a swiftly and cleverly crafted encounter with another woman first with George telling her all their lives are pointless and probably always have been. Followed by his request: Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?
We’re now 6+ minutes into this 12.17 minute film. Watch the rest. It won’t end happy but it’s not really sad.
Did it remind you of Musee des Beaux Arts by Auden? Especially these lines:
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm
It was filmed in Brooklyn, NY. It's an amateur film with amateur touches but it's a very good production. Shawn Williamson as writer and director has crammed a lot of thinking stuff into a very small area and he shows many fewer seams than larger, expensively-financed productions. You may want to remember his name.
(Edited again: Did I write this originally too early in the a.m. or after too much coffee? I can't believe the mistakes I didn't catch.)
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