Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Terry: Put on your seat belt.
Rudy: It pushes on my neck.
Terry: What?
Rudy: It pushes on my neck, it's uncomfortable.
Terry: Well when someone slams into us and
you go sailing through the windshield, that's liable
to be uncomfortable, too. Now, put on a seat belt.

A happy 20 to this lovely film from writer-director-genius Kenneth Lonergan that I nevertheless haven't seen in 20 years. Did you know of Mark Ruffalo before this? There are two things he was in before it that I might have noticed him in -- Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil and the movie 54 as one of Ryan Phillippe's dweeby friends who couldn't get into the club...

... but I don't recall him making much of an impression at the time. We all knew him after You Can Count on Me though. Laura Linney on the other hand we all knew from way back, since we all went and saw Congo one thousand times in the theater. Right? Right...? Ahem. No but seriously twas  her work on Tales of the City and then Primal Fear and then her show-stopping stuff in Truman Show in 1998 which I'm sorry even against YCCOM might remain my favorite Laura Linney performance -- love it so. "Meryl" Forever!

In summation... I should probably re-watch You Can Count on Me, I have just finally been convinced by stumbling upon this photo of Mark Ruffalo and Josh Lucas wrestling with one another in it:



6 comments:

Carl said...

I watched it for the first time in at least 18 years earlier this spring and thought it held up very well. I don't think of Ruffalo as showing his age much, but he's downright babyfaced in it.

Anonymous said...

Oh, watch it again! It's so very watchable and Linney and Ruffalo are just fantastic in it. One of my all-time favorites.

Eternal Sushine said...

Are you going to write review on Ammonite?

Jason Adams said...

Eternal Sunshine -- Yes! I sure am. But I am waiting for it to hit VOD, since I am trying to not review things when they hit theaters because I don't want to encourage going to movie theaters while there's a pandemic. Ammonite hits VOD on December 4th so look for my thoughts (spoiler -- they are very positive) that week :)

Anonymous said...

Oh god you absolutely should go back and rewatch You Can Count on Me. It's so great!

Eternal Sushine said...

Thanks for the answer, Jason; Oh yeah. I know your reaction is positive. I follow him on Twitter and IG and saw that his reaction was very good. Looking forward to your review, as I think you are, along with Nathaniel Rogers, one of the best independent critics.