Old Joy
Repost from old blog, 4/20/2008God, how stupid is this? While wasting a perfectly good half-hour browsing user reviews on Netflix, I became troubled by all the negative reactions to the 2006 film “Old Joy,” which was one of the best movies I saw that year. I was compelled to write my own review, but when I tried to submit it Netflix gave me this dumb error and wouldn’t take it. I’m going to post it here so my waste of time isn’t even more wasteful. Why do I fucking care what people on Netflix think of a movie I like? I hate the internet – it’s like this, you know, continually making mountains out of molehills, getting you lost in little insignificant alleys of data and opinion that are fucking meaningless, time-wasting, ignorance-building, distracting.
And so, my take on “Old Joy”:
The opening scene of “Old Joy” shows a man meditating in his back yard, and getting distracted. I suppose that’s as good a metaphor for all the negative reactions here (on Netflix) as any. This is a movie that requires you to sit, to let go; but naturally some viewers are going to get anxious – for movement, for change, for distractions. I wasn’t one of them. This was one of the best movies I saw last year. It’s certainly not about plot or characters changing and having some grand revelation. It’s meditative, it’s poetic, it gives you spaces in which to think and to lose yourself. The characters are wholly convincing and fully realized. Subtlety like this is rare.
Note from 2010: As of right now this film is available to view on Netflix Instant View.
3 Comments
Josh
Jul 17, 2010 @ 17:07:26
Eh, cheer up, it’s not all bad. Sure, there are about 10,000 raving fucking lunatics to every 1 person with a brain, but most of those people actually do more good than harm. I mean, it’s doubtful that anyone who set out to watch Old Joy would be deterred by Netflix zombies but it irritated you enough to post about it, and I bet people check it out. I added it to my queue; it sounds interesting and I had never heard of it before. It might be a waste of time but it’s equally possible that someone will find something of value.
Of course, I just spent 5 minutes on a comment that won’t have any impact so I’m probably just reinforcing your point. Damn.
Cristiano
Jul 17, 2010 @ 18:18:32
Hey Natty, as always your taste is right on – great movie; thanks for pointing to it; best, C.
Natty
Jul 19, 2010 @ 21:12:05
Josh – I know. The internet can be great, I mean, it’s practically facilitated my entire writing career up to this point. And I appreciated your comment – so it wasn’t useless!
Cristiano – thanks, man.