Post 118

Hooray for solid stances!

Alright. So. It's been a while since I touched on my deliberations over my stance on R-rated movies, but the debate has been silently raging within me--especially since I bought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind about a month ago. My dilemma has been this: though I have seen a couple of edited R-rated movies, Sweeney Todd is still the only fully R-rated movie I've ever seen, and I saw it in innocence. So am I or am I not the sort of person who watches R-rated movies? My official declaration of morals says, essentially, that I am generally opposed to R-rated moves but that I am not officially abstaining from them 100%. Still, I've owned Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for almost a month without removing its shrink wrap--partly because I haven't had a strong inclination to watch it because I've seen it fairly recently, but mostly because I've only ever seen an edited version, so I don't really know what badness it may secretly contain (as I mentioned a couple of posts ago).

Last night, right around 2:30am, I removed it from its shrink wrap very ceremoniously--which means you're in for another fairly melodramatic episode from the life of me.

Yesterday, I and some of my roommates decided that we wanted to watch a movie, so I rented Memento for us to watch. We started it pretty late, ending a little before 2am. I gotta say, I was completely blown away by that movie. I cannot remember a time that a movie has so thoroughly amazed me. The writing is brilliant, the acting is great, the directing is superb--really a well-rounded, high-quality flick. The F-bomb is uttered a ridiculous number of times, but foul language doesn't really offend me, and I'm pretty sure that, were such a story to happen in real life, it would be accompanied by plenty of swearing.

Momento is rated R for "violence, language and some drug content," but I'm gonna say that it was the language that really earned it the rating: the violence was nothing too terribly intense, and the "drug content" was so incredibly brief that I probably would have missed it if I hadn't been on the lookout for it (unless insulin injections count, because we do see a few of those). I'm pretty sure it's the exorbitant over-usage of the F-bomb that got it the rating; there was a lot of that....

But can I just reiterate that I loved this movie? I don't think I've ever seen a movie that was so intellectually stimulating! I'm always saying that I like "thinking movies"--movies that require the audience to actively pay attention to what going on--and Memento wins the magic chocolate monkey award for that, lemme tell ya.

2am and my brain is positively humming with delight. I'm trying my best to rewatch the movie in my mind so I can piece it all together. The more I think, the more I like it. Absolutely amazing, that's what that movie was.

Every night before I go to bed, I say a prayer. Whenever I pray, I do my best to silence the white noise of my soul and focus entirely on conversing with my Creator. Last night, as I did my best to quiet down the euphoric literary lobes and rejoicing analytical regions of my brain and steer my train of thought toward higher ground, I became increasingly more away that, while all was sunshine and skittles in my skull, a doleful cry (previously drowned out by the noise of my cerebral party) was echoing softly in my chest cavity.

Huh. I wonder what this unhappiness in my heart is. Weird. Anyway. Heavenly Father, I'm really grateful for the intellectual--uh--the, uh, the intellectually stimulating--uh--the, uh....

Going nowhere fast.

I was not to be deterred, though, and I managed some sort of prayer and then got under my covers and began making swift strides toward sleep.

I only got so far as delirium, though. As my brain powered down to the stage where intelligible thought ceases to exist, the abstract sense of gaping emptiness became the only thing I was concretely aware of.

Have you ever tried to rouse a sleeping cat? You know that look they give you when they just barely crack their eyes open and look at you with this what-on-earth-makes-you-think-you're-worth-waking-up-for look? I'm pretty sure that that's the look I gave my bedside clock last night.

"It's 2:30 on a Monday night. I have to get up to go to work in less than five hours--am I really gonna get up and walk to my thinking place just now?"

I groaned silently and rolled over--yes, yes I am.

I didn't even bother to put shoes on, I was so tired. The 40-some-odd degree weather and rough sidewalks were quick to point out to me the poorness of this decision, but I didn't particularly care; I needed an empty bench in a quiet park so I could sit and think. I frequent one such bench that sits about 5 minutes' walking from my place, and I was determined to go there.

So I went and sat and prayed and thought, and I came to the conclusion that, regardless of how engrossing a movie is, if it's gonna make me feel like this, I don't wanna watch it.

-So, Schmetty--how 'bout that R rating, huh?

Well, I'm pretty sure that it was the crazy twist at the end that left me feeling icky, and I don't think that that part of the movie contributed to the R rating....

-But, had you avoided the movie because of its R rating, you could have avoided that, too.

Seems irrelevant; that twist could have just as easily been in a PG-13 movie. Besides, my brain hasn't had this much exercise in far too long; even returning to the college scene has failed me! It feels good.

-But was it worth it?

Mmmm, pondering. Uh, no, probably not.

Phooey.

My intellect still tells me that a rule like "All R-rated movies are bad" is too simplistic to really be fair, but my gut tells me that I'll be feeling guilty every time I watch one. Even a very hungry intellect doesn't want to cope with irrational guilt just to get some excitement--at least, mine doesn't. And I'm not convinced that this guilt is entirely irrational. I think that if intellectual pursuits ever threaten to conflict with spiritual ones, it's always best to error on the side of spiritual improvement. Furthermore, even among the movies I really like, I can't think of a single one that I would say everybody has to watch, so I think it may be safe to assume that, if someone someday produces the best movie ever, and if that movie happens to be rated R, I would fare better by passing up the best movie ever because of a superficial rating system than I would by occasionally opening myself up for a soulectemy every now and again--not that even I am quite that melodramatic; the hyperbole is meant merely to drive home my point.

Resolved: no more R-rated movies for this little butterfly; no sir.

I walked home, feeling solid in my resolution but unclear on its implications for the R-rated movie I owned.

-Is it grandfathered in?

Gimme a break, Schmetty, that'd be like grandfathering in your wine cellar when you decide to give up drinking [not that I drink... or have a wine cellar...].

-Can we sell it?

If you decided to give up your porn addiction, would you sell your Playboys to a high schooler? [Not that I have a porn addiction, either--again, it's that hyperbole thing, my favorite device.]

-I know. We'll donate it to DI! We shall be philanthropic with our aborted bad habits!

Riiiiight.

Phooey again.

So, I came home, took Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind down from my shelf, and went back outside, removing the shrink wrap on the way. As I did so, I talked to the thing much like I imagine I might address a geriatric pet that I was taking out back to shoot--cooing my adoration, asserting my lack of regret for both purchasing and now destroying.

Shrink wrap: into the dumpster.
Factory sealing stickers: into the dumpster.
DVD case: into the dumpster.
DVD: one last goodbye, snapped in half, into the dumpster.

Thus end the days of R-rated ambivalence; now on to something better....