Just finished reading this month’s GOOD in lieu of sleep (at 3am, an action I might entitle BAD), and a tribute to/standard mawkish package about Hal Ashby lept right out at me; it’s actually a pretty worthy paean (also: the man made my favorite movie of all time [see above], so I was easily swayed)—Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, and Jason Schwartzman all tip hats to his directorial skills, and it makes for a not entirely uninteresting 10 minutes of one’s life. As good as any cotton prose for fluff’s sake as I’ve read lately.
How Schwartzman puts it is exactly the reason I love H&M with such firemouth zeal. I know it’s cinematic sentimentalism doused in maple syrup and then boiled until it carmelizes. But I continue to buy in every year, despite myself. Besides, Ruth Gordon is winning in it, and really, show me person not fascinated by May-December plotlines and I’ll argue that they probably died months ago. The Schwartz says it better:
“I put in Harold and Maude first. Holyshitfuckcrazyshit.
From the second it started, my life as I knew it was over. For the first time, a film made me feel the way music always had. When two strings on a guitar are out of tune, they vibrate very quickly. And as the strings become more in tune, the vibration changes, it slows, and you can actually feel them become in tune. (Note: It gets cheesier.)”
His note, not mine. Read on here.
