Film Love is Blind: Our Cinematic Infatuations

Perhaps I say this because I live an insulated lifestyle, but I believe cinema has a power to bring out both the best and the very worst in us. You’ll find a film that you adore and laud it loudly, but then you encounter someone with the opposite opinion, and things might get nasty. Their perspective doesn’t even have to be too drastically different — it’s still just wrong. The other person literally does not understand it. Why the film speaks to you, why it’s powerful, why it works the way it does – they’re clueless when it comes to these things. We love these films like they’re our own belongings; that’s how powerful the connection can be between a movie and its audience. And sometimes this love of ours doesn’t make sense. It just is. Inexplicable, all encompassing, irrational love.

But as Shakespeare once said, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; therefore, is winged Cupid blind?” In honor of Valentine’s Day, my fellow Balconians and I are celebrating the films that we blindly love, the work we will defend like quarrelsome lovers. When we hear detractors, we know they’re wrong. For the love of movies …

Heartbeats (2010)

Here is a film that takes the greatest pleasure in embracing the names it’s often called. “Pretentious.” “Superficial.” “Arty.” It’s as if the members of Xavier Dolan’s threesome raise their heads and say, “Yes, and?” It wallows in dumb desire and revels in the lusciousness of lust. And underneath that artificiality, the movie wears a heart on its sleeve that’s as vulnerable and honest as anyone could ask for. Regardless of whether it riffs on other films, there’s a uniqueness in the presentation that’s breathtaking and intoxicating. It’s truly the kind of film that’s hypnotic in nearly every scene, and nearly every time you watch it. When haven’t you bought the object of your desire something ludicrously out of your budget? When haven’t you experienced time slow down then your crush swaggers into a room? Heartbeats critiques that frivolity, but it sympathizes with the experience because we’ve all had it at one point or another.  Honorable Mentions: Singin’ in the Rain, Her, The Chipmunk Movie – Kyle Turner

The Fountain (2006)

Covering a thousand years and three incarnations of the same lovers, The Fountain is certainly one of the most ambitious films ever made, but I would argue that it’s also one of the greatest. Death is a subject that most people do not feel comfortable discussing, and probably never will. That’s why when a film touches on death so intimately, it’s truly special. The obsession we as a culture have about remaining eternally young and dismissing death in its entirety is a major part of the tragedy of The Fountain. While we care for our loved ones, we aren’t there for them when the time comes because of that denial. Darren Aronofsky’s film is the most hard-hitting treatise on death, love, and loss I’ve seen. It’s impact has never lessened in the nine years since I first saw it. It’s raw power can’t be denied. – Colin Biggs

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – A Sonnet

I hate how Fox references autopilot

And Bruce Wayne’s Howard Hughes beard

I hate how important Rachael is

I hate how Batman’s no longer feared

I hate Bane’s big dumb sheepskin coat

And the way he reads Jim’s speech

I hate the way John Blake so easily knows

Who the Batman is

I hate it when you think you’re fit

I hate it when Selina Kyle lies

I hate it how little Batman there is

Even worse, you make Alfred cry

I hate when people compare you to The Dark Knight 

Or the passing of the man who embodied your greatest villain that no one seems to recall

But mostly I hate the way that I don’t hate you

Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all – Blake Howard

Speed Racer (2008)

If you don’t like Speed Racer, then you’re a piece of shit. I saw the film twice when it was in theaters and countless times since, and every single time I watch it, I have the widest smile on my face. It’s a crime that this film is generally considered bad. Speed Racer is absolutely insane; the aesthetic that the Wachowskis embrace is like getting hit with a rainbow. It excels at camp and over-the-top moments of cartoonish reality, but it also manages to hit blissful moments of deeply felt emotion. Consider the finale, when all the voiceovers play over Speed’s comeback in the final race. When his mom tells him how proud she is and the music swells, I’m in absolute wonder. Speed Racer is a cinematic masterpiece, and I’m confident that with time, that statement will become consensus.  Honorable Mentions: MacGruber, Gangster Squad, Van Helsing – Dylan Griffin

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)

Many are surprised to find out that Tim Burton’s debut feature is this collaboration with Paul Reuben’s man-boy caricature. Many are also surprised to hear me enthusiastically place this bizarre, childish film within my top 20 favorites of all time. They think that any film involving Pee-wee Herman has to be nonsensical, silly garbage, (dys)-functioning to make kids sit quietly in front of a screen for 90 minutes. Many are presumptuous. Though I wouldn’t disagree that Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is silly and somewhat nonsensical, it is far from disposable. On the contrary, it is a well-crafted road movie that hits its broad range of target audiences in various ways. For children (and many adults … just me?), it might merely be absurd fun to see grown-ups act juvenile. For teenagers, it represents the struggle to reconcile with one’s quirks as an eccentric outsider. Adults enjoy the film as an escape from the banality of a career life. No matter the person, we can all find ourselves in Pee-Wee’s journey. Hopefully, we find his bicycle along the way. – Nick Mastrangelo

Check out the rest of the Balconians’ cinematic blind love on Page Two!