Eclectic Youth - Dead Poets Society, The Man Without a Face and The Doom Generation

It's only the first week in August, but for some reason it seems as if Summer is coming to a close. The Oscar blogaratti is all abuzz with announcements from the fall festival circuit, we've begun to see the trailers for the last few anticipated fall/winter films. Heck, I'm pretty sure that the weather has even gotten a bit cooler over the past few days. But, here at Awards Wiz, we are still in the heat of things.

A few years ago I didn't publish in the summer. I rarely went to the movies after the Oscars. In 2011, the first film that got me to the theater was "Super 8." In JUNE! Oscar season exhausted me instead of exhilarating me, but in recent years, I've only needed a bit of time to regroup, and I could enjoy cinema and writing in a different manner.

One of my struggles here at Awards Wiz...not a struggle per se...but a fact, I guess, is that it's just little old me here. I used to have a contributor to the site, but Rick has moved on to pursuing his creative endeavors in lieu of writing about others'. I have done that as well, to a lesser extent. I continue to freelance over at Awards Daily, and while I have ads on my site, the only take home from this has been, for many years, the joy of sharing my thoughts on film/the Oscars with a decent sized audience, a creative outlet, and access to films/filmmakers I wouldn't have otherwise.

The past weekend, the fact that I do this as a "hobby" has been brought to my attention, indirectly. I do so many things in my life. I work for a drug/alcohol treatment facility. I act. I direct. I assistant direct. I write. But from many of those things, I don't make a living. That being said, I could. And when I'm in the flow, I'm quite sure my words can stand along side those who get a paycheck for doing the very same thing.

The past several months I have been reading Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's "The Wheel of Time." It's a 14 book fantasy series that was started by Jordan in 1990 and finished by Sanderson, with help from Jordan's widow (he died in 2007, dictating much of the final characterizations to Harriet, his wife) in 2013. It was a nice sidebar to my Best Films Rewatch, but as I neared the end of the series I found myself wanting to focus on finishing it. Which I did on Saturday morning. At least I thought I did, until I remembered that there is a prequel. But it's short...and I'm publishing anyway.

While finishing the books I did manage to watch 3 films that were left off the initial Best Films Rewatch list, and oddly enough, they really belong together in terms of my life. First was "Dead Poets Society," directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, and Robert Sean Leonard.

I saw "Dead Poets Society" for the first time in high school. We watched it in my AP English class near the end of the semester. I was riveted by the film. I felt that the Neil (Leonard) character was a representation of my life and my perceived relationship with my parents. I wanted to be an actor...had wanted that for several years, but my parents...and in retrospect, myself and my own self doubt and self criticism, wanted more of me. Stability. I loved how Neil went against his Dad's wishes and auditioned and landed Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream." I also loved his relationship with Ethan Hawke's Todd. Back in 1994 I had seen zero Queer films, and this was pretty much the closest thing that came to that. For years I insisted that "DPS" had underlying homosexual themes, but looking at it again, I think I just wanted that to be.

We didn't finish the film in class that day, so I ran by the video store to rent it because I needed to know what happened. When Neil committed suicide, I was wrecked. Would this happen to me if I pursued my dreams? Needless to say I started college majoring in Pre-Law...moving to English...then to Vocal/Piano Performance before finally succumbing to Acting.

The film itself has somehow managed to gain a less than stellar reputation, which is interesting considering the amount of people who said they loved it on my social media platforms. 1989/90 was a time when only 5 films were nominated for Best Picture, and this one made the list.

I find it to be a wonderful film, and the deleted scenes (which are still, inexplicably only available on youtube having been released on the laserdisc version!) actually make the film better, but I can understand, to some extent where people are coming from. It's a bit saccharine at times, but the acting truly makes up for that. Robert Sean Leonard should have been nominated for an Oscar alongside Williams.

The second film I watched was "The Man Without a Face." Similarly to "Dead Poets Society," the themes of this film, directed by Mel Gibson, are very queer. Mel plays McLeod, a professor who was burned in a car accident, in hiding in a small summer town where Chuck (Nick Stahl) and his family (including the incredible Gabby Hoffman as his sister and mother, played by Margaret Whitton, always searching for that next husband) summer.

McLeod is an outcast, and the perfect person to secretly tutor Chuck for the entrance exam to the military Academy of his dreams, but when the town discovers (thanks to Chuck) that there was a young male student of McLeod's who was in the car at the time of the crash, dying...gossip and fear begin to bubble at the surface. When the police chief discovers Chuck, who has been missing over night after a fight with his older sister, standing in McLeod's home in his underwear, the damage is done. Before the truth can come out, everyone decides that McLeod must have molested Chuck and will have to get out of town.

What's interesting about this film is that the only implication of homosexuality (in truth, that is) is that of the student who died. Chuck is portrayed as straight. McLeod...probably straight, although it's not officially stated. It's a story of friendship and two people who discover that they can be loved. In the novel the film is based upon, however, McLeod is gay, Chuck thinks he might be gay, and there may or may not be a sexual encounter between the two. Obviously that wasn't going into the film. Not a film directed by Mel Gibson in the 90s.

Does this omission have an impact on the quality of the film? Not really. It's incredibly shot and directed, and even the moments that seem obvious indicators for heterosexuality don't really bother me that much. The film is fantastic.

Finally, we have Gregg Araki's "The Doom Generation," a film famously given zero stars by Roger Ebert. This film was the antidote to my youth and films like "Dead Poets Society" and "The Man Without a Face." This film is nuts, and I used to love to show it to people in college, particularly excited to see their reactions to the final scene.

The film stars Rose McGowan and James Duval as two troubled teens who pick up drifter Jonathan Schaech and instantly become accessories to murder.

The film is still everything I remember it to be. It's an America as perceived by the doom generation. A subsect of the stragglers from Generation X. It's insane, shocking, and heavy on style, but somehow truthful. Ebert hated it, obviously, comparing it negatively to "Natural Born Killers." Although I personally find this film to be superior. The actors are great, McGowan in particular. I can't imagine any other actors portraying these roles and making them seem real.

When I originally saw this film, I didn't know what "crystal" was, although it is mentioned several times that Amy is on it...but now, of course I know what it is...and it makes the film and the other side characters' confusion as to who Amy is make all the more sense. Or non-sense. It's not only an America of the doom generation, but also peppered with a bit of psychosis.

We'll be looking at another Araki film in the near future, one very, very different. And one that Ebert loved. "Mysterious Skin."

The list:

Vertigo 1958
Funny Girl - 1968
West Side Story 1961
The Godfather Part II 1972
Empire Strikes Back 1980
Clue - 1985
Shag 1989
Silence of the Lambs 1991
The Crying Game - 1992
Pulp Fiction - 1994
Doom Generation - 1995Secrets & Lies - 1996
Drop Dead Gorgeous 1999
Psycho Beach Party 2000Billy Elliot 2000
Donnie Darko - 2001
Mulholland Drive - 2001
Lost in Translation - 2003
Mysterious Skin - 2005
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion - 2005
Zodiac - 2007
Where the Wild Things Are - 2009
Black Swan - 2010
La La Land - 2016
Call Me By Your Name - 2017