There's a film opening today that I think you should see. I want you to see it so we can talk about it. You and me talking about this film: I want that to happen.
The film is Must Read After My Death—a documentary that filmmaker Morgan Dews made entirely of footage created by his grandparents, Charley and Allis. Charley and Allis were obsessive in their documentation of life—at first for each other (they sent records back and forth when Charley was in Australia) and then for their marriage, and then for their family life, even when it was dire (and it often was).
Dews has assembled this footage to tell the story of his family. There are no great secrets revealed—just tiny, sad ones that are unbearable enough. Must Read After My Death is captivating, and beautiful, and sad, and amazingly edited. It's the real-life version of Mad Men or Revolutionary Road: A couple in the '50s and '60s who look oh-so-perfect from the outside, but within, are anything but.
Here's the catch about you seeing this amazing movie, though: It's not in any theaters in Portland! It opens today, but only in New York and Los Angeles.
It's not a huge surprise that it should open in those two cities—they are the Centers of the World, after all—but what is a surprise is that unless you live in those Centers of the World, the only way you're going to see Must Read After My Death is via its simultaneous internet release. Starting today, Gigantic Digital (a part of Gigantic Pictures, which produced the film) is premiering Must Read on their website for $2.99.
My first reaction upon hearing this was, "Three bucks? Cheap!" My second response was, "Um, lame." Because here is how I—and I suspect many of you—access the internet: on a very tiny laptop with very tinny speakers. I have been known to watch a movie or two on this thing when I absolutely cannot be bothered to leave my bed, but it is not a preferred method for movie viewing.
But if Gigantic Digital is to be believed—and if more films that are actually worth watching start to be released online—this is the way of the future. Getting films in theaters is really expensive, apparently, and also there is this whole Hollywood system that is supposedly a pretty hard nut to crack, and it's all very complicated and difficult and takes a lot of energy that artists would rather spend on, you know, making art. So the idea is that the quantity and quality of movies will increase if there is an easier and better system for releasing them. I get this. This sounds like a fair idea. Democracy, and all that.
But maybe I'm just an anachronistic and technophobic old curmudgeon, but I just love going to the movies. It is my favorite thing. You get a beer or a trashcan-sized Diet Coke and you get some popcorn and some M&Ms and you mix them up and make a mess but that's okay and you sit back and the movie starts and it gets so dark that you forget where you are and then you're in this world and it's awesome and then the lights come on and it's like whoa... you just watched this movie, and now you get to talk about it with your buds, or if you went alone, you get to just think about it and walk out of the theater and overhear what other people have to say and feel all smug because they are wrong about everything.
That's what it means to watch a movie. So this is difficult for me, to recommend watching a film online, on your tiny little laptop with the tinny little speakers.
So here is my suggestion: go buy a huge TV, and a surround sound system, set it up, and then probably also get a large couch, because yours isn't very comfortable (I checked), and then get one of those cables that connects your computer to the TV, and then hook it all up and make some popcorn and a Diet Coke (add rum, you will like it), and then watch this movie. Turn out the lights, silence your cell phone, and enjoy the show.