Quick recap: A recent graduate, played by Dustin Hoffman, gets caught between a sweet girl and her mother who he happens to be sleeping with.

Fun (?) fact: Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin are actually only 6 years apart in real life.

My thoughts:I know most people love Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate and his fumbling and bumbling is supposed to come off as romantic and adorable, but I was completely turned off anytime he opened his mouth. I don’t know what it is about his voice in this film but it grated on my very last nerve. He just sounded so dopey most of the time, like one of those idiot cartoon villains who, for whatever reason, the mastermind keeps around. I just don’t get the appeal.

 I think this is one of those movies I would’ve enjoyed much more had I first watched it when I was 20 or even 25. As I wasn’t around in 1967, I don’t know what audiences thought about Benjamin and Elaine’s relationship, but I can’t imagine girls wanting something like that. I mean, the guy was having an affair with her mom, then on the first date took her to a strip club which made her so uncomfortable she cried, and then stalked her relentlessly. True love? No. That’s creepy. The affair he had with Mrs. Robinson also creeped me out, so basically this movie is about how to be a predator.

The saving grace for The Graduate is the music. I almost went out that night and bought a Simon and Garfunkel album I loved it so much. I never thought I would be a fan but each song fit so perfectly into each scene. I’d watch it again just for that. Also because I laughed every time the line ‘Hello darkness my old friend’ came on. It makes me want to carry around a boombox and put that song on blast anytime I’m sad so people will truly know what I am feeling.

The dialogue is another strong reason for watching this film. It was very snappy and reminded me of Manhattan several times. It could’ve also been because of the creepy relationships, though.

Final review: 3/5

Up next: The French Connection

Quick recap: A group of friends from high school learn to navigate the trials and tribulations of their early 20s at-you guessed it- a diner.

Kevin Bacon is peak Kevin Bacon

Fun (?) fact: As I learned from this article, Judd Apatow was directly influenced by Diner. He said that every scene in his movies where people are sitting around talking about sex, come from the dialogue from this movie.

Hear me out- young Mickey Rourke reminds me of Bruce Willis, but with hair. They even sound alike.

My thoughts: I know it will come as a shock to many, but I was never actually a college age male in 1950s Baltimore. I’m really glad to get that out of the way. Despite this handicap, I still expected to enjoy Diner, even if I couldn’t personally relate to it. I mean, what else could you possibly need in your life besides a young Kevin Bacon?

Plenty more, apparently, because I just didn’t care for this movie all that much. It’s one thing to have a movie about ‘nothing’, but it’s another thing to have a whole bunch of ‘nothings’ make you think you are about to get ‘something’, when in fact everything will happen exactly like you predicted in the beginning: the wedding will go on, a young man with a gambling problem will not be taken out by the mob, and the young couple will fall back in love, exactly where they started.  ‘But!’, you say. ‘What about the journey? The self-actualization? The maturity?’. Yes, the friends grew up and learned to live in their situation but they never actually came to terms with anything, except the value of resignation. I imagine a sequel where everyone meets up in 10 years, probably in the same diner, and everyone sits around complaining about the same issues they’ve always had. I wasn’t expecting some twist or even closure, but don’t hand me a sappy ending when you know full well that when the camera stops, everything continues as it always has been.

Final review: 2/5. The point is for Kevin Bacon.

Up next: The Night of the Shooting Stars

Quick recap: Netflix says this is a movie about a dysfunctional family but I beg to differ. . These people are the most awful and miserable I have encountered in this list and that’s saying something, considering I have watched Downfall.

Kind of odd, but I used to have a thing for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Glad that’s been cured!

Fun (?) fact: Many well known actors refused to play the part of Bill, who is a pedophile. It didn’t bother Dylan Baker, however, who claims his career never suffered and he moved on easily from the role. Who is that, you might ask? Exactly.

How about a lovely scene with Jon Lovitz, who is apparently posing on the same couch my mom had for over 30 years.

My thoughts: When a movie goes with something as bold a title as Happiness, I knew it would be anything but. And considering how rough the last few weeks have been, I wanted to wait until I was in a better state of mind before watching something so mind numbingly awful. I’ve seen some bad stuff on here, mind you (El Topo, Murmur of the Heart, The Tin Drum), but Happiness is on a whole other level of messed up.

One weird game I like to play when watching movies I’ve never heard of before is to think about what kind of person would list this film as one of their favorites. Because you know that somewhere, someone LOVES the hell out of Happiness and can probably quote it word for word. That concerns me, naturally, but I guess I can see the possibility in the kind of person who loves black comedies. And buddy, this is the blackest comedy there is. Unlike American Beauty where I could never figure out what the ultimate message was, this one was simple: The suburbs suck and the nuclear family is a myth. Heartwarming, no? Maybe not, but it makes the film much more tolerable to think of it as a farce, rather than a legitimate story.

So, what exactly is so bad about Happiness? I’m not really going to go into detail about it because I don’t want this blog to turn into ‘for mature audiences only’, but here’s a quick rundown on a few characters:

Allen- a sad sack of a man who has a crush on his next door neighbor but who also gets off calling random girls and saying super inappropriate things to them

Kristina- has a crush on Allen and when they finally go out (a rare moment of happiness for me because I felt sorry for her) reveals that she killed the doorman who raped her and cut his body into little pieces.

Helen- whom Allen has a crush on. She wrote a book about being raped as a child but that never happened and now she wants nothing more than for that to happen.

and finally Bill- a therapist who is a pedophile. He enjoys drugging his young son’s friends and raping them.

And to top it off, none of these people ever really learn a lesson, except maybe Kristina who was arrested. The movie ends with the family sitting around the dinner table and continuing their misery exactly as before. The only thing that surprised me as the credits rolled was how the movie didn’t just end with everyone killing themselves.

Final review: 2/5

Up next: Vinyl