Change Your Image
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Reviews
Chillicothe (1999)
a nice surprise
So I was talking with my brother (he's in Orlando, I'm in L.A., we're both from Enon, Ohio) on instant messenger the other day about a screenplay I want to write. It's about a guy that can't choose between growing up and staying a teenager forever. He asks if I've seen "Chillicothe," made by a fellow Ohioan (he saw it at a festival last year). "Nope," I reply, and I look for it on imdb and find all these great reviews. I doubted I ever WOULD see it, my pessimism being rooted in working with independent films since I moved out here. Luck has it, a couple of days later I'm rummaging through video tapes in the office and sure enough there is a copy of "Chillicothe". And that's only the first happy accident. The film itself is the big payoff.
Introspection without egotism. Adventurous without overstretching. Emphasizing the strengths of unknown actors. Very little useless dialogue. Nice segues into thoughtful non-sequitors (the video-store guy). And, it has similar characters and situations to those I want to use in MY screenplay, but with an entirely different story. Thanks to all that, I absolutely loved it. A very nice job, Todd. I wish you all the luck in the world. And don't worry about whether people can pronounce the title or not. If they like it (and they will) they will learn.
P.S. - I sold many great CDs to partially fund my move to L.A. from Columbus, using the philosophy of "I will eventually miss it and have to buy it again" (lost almost all of my Hendrix that way). I had to double-check before I wrote this, but I did keep the "The Joshua Tree." Go figure.
The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000)
Getting over the gay thing
I was asked to attend a screening of this film without knowing what I was in for. In hindsight, I'm sure my opinion as a straight male was a view the filmmakers wanted to hear.
After the initial disclosure of the fact that this is a movie about gay characters, the sexuality just didn't mean anything anymore. The story transcends "oh look how gay we are" and instead focuses on the HUMAN BEINGS involved. When a character talks abut his relationship, it is done in a way that all audiences relate. My friends and I compared it to films like "The Breakfast Club" and "The Big Chill," both of which focus on peer groups facing emotional obstacles.
Sure, AIDS doesn't factor in the movie much, but it doesn't really factor into the characters' story. I'm sure every gay person doesn't spend his/her day concentrating on the AIDS crisis. Does every WWII film need to focus on the Holocaust? No, there's much more to it than that. Does every film about homosexuals need to be an educational document of the dreadful plague that has concentrated on this certain group? NO. This is a romantic comedy. Imagine Tom Hanks beating Meg Ryan in their next film together. Spousal abuse is a frightening, real situation, but does it demand a place in a romantic comedy? Not any that I can think of.
To me, this film is what it is: A comedic look inside the lives of human beings very unlike myself, in circumstances I can still relate to. It's a character study with an insight I hadn't seen on film before. I bet that more heteros than myself come out of this film with similar views. I recommend this film.