I love movies. I know that’s a really general statement, but I do. One of my very favorite things in the whole wide world to do, is to just get together with some of my closest friends at someone’s house, watch a good movie, and then talk about it and quote it for the rest of the night. There are few things I enjoy more.
A lot of times, I love the movies that I love because I somehow connect with them. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of my favorite movies are great just because of their pure entertainment factor. Trading Places, A Hard Day’s Night, Love and Death, any Mel Brooks movie, whatever.
That’s not the case with all of my favorites. There’s Garden State. No, I’ve never been an actor, living in LA, who once played a retarded quarterback on T.V., and I have not, as of yet, had the good fortune to meet Natalie Portman. But I know that feeling of not knowing what the fuck I want, that feeling of not knowing where the fuck I’m going, too well.
One of my favorite movies is High Fidelity. You know the one. John Cusack, Jack Black, “Kathleen Turner Overdrive”? If you haven’t seen it, we’re not friends.
High Fidelity was always one of those movies for me. I guess I felt connected to John Cusack’s portrayal of Rob Gordon because I, like Rob, am a music freak. I am elitist, easily close-minded, and I hate the bands you like. But my whole world is music. After watching High Fidelity again this afternoon, I realized that that is all that I have in common with Rob Gordon.
You see, the whole movie, Rob is trying to figure out why his ex-girlfriend Laura left him, and he tries to figure out a way to win her back. He spends that whole hour and a half-plus wading through past relationships, past loves, and past heartbreaks.
For better or for worse, and I haven’t decided which one it is yet, I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. It’s not that I don’t have the go-nads to think through all of that. It’s just that, I have no past like that to think through.
Some of it’s my fault. In fact, a lot of it is my fault. Ever since I can remember, and all the way up until now, in college, I’ve been a shy fuck. I have a hard time really letting go, really opening up, and just showing a girl what she means to me.
The worst, though, is what isn’t my fault. The unrequited love. I’ve had my share of that. In fact, to be totally honest, I’m still feeling my share of that. It’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on the worst of my enemies. That constant realization that there is NOTHING I can do? That’s what keeps me up at night.
So maybe I’m no Rob Gordon. Come to think of it, with all the ongoing feelings of unrequited love, I think I’m more like Bleeker from Juno. Although, without that happy ending, when he finally gets what he wanted the entire movie, for the time being.
And without all the orange Tic-Tacs and sex, too.
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