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.