Movie moments
This past weekend my wife and I watched a DVD of a movie called Pieces of April. It tells the story of a girl who lives in New York City and hosts a Thanksgiving feast for her family. All sorts of things go wrong for her, and for her family, and their already strained relationships stretch to the point of breaking. It is a wonderful, painful exploration of a family full of love and devoid of patience and understanding. I highly recommend it.
While I don't normally write about movies that I see, I mention this one because of a particular scene at a Krispy Kreme donut shop. When the family stops there en route to April's apartment, Mrs. Happy leaned in toward the television and said, "Is that our Krispy Kreme?" A subsequent shot of the family in the parking lot revealed a setup identical to the nearest Krispy Kreme to where we live, complete with a Wal-Mart in the background. We decided that it must be our Krispy Kreme, and the end credits confirmed it with the words "Filmed on location in East Meadow, New York," and other places.
I don't know why it's so thrilling to see a familiar place on film. For me, I think it's because it shows me for sure that the world does indeed exist beyond my own immediate perception. Most everything I see in film is fake to some extent, but seeing my Krispy Kreme lets me know that some things are real, that people who drive down Hempstead Turnpike will see the same Krispy Kreme in front of the same Wal-Mart that I do, and that Oliver Platt is one of those people. However little I may have in common with him, he and I at least have that Krispy Kreme connection.
My theory may be way off base, but it's still thrilling to have that moment of recognition on film. Mrs. Happy and I have experienced many such moments since moving to New York. The characters on the Law & Order often visit and talk about places where we've been. The same goes for Without a Trace. Once, while we were watching a quirky independent movie called The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human with our friend Amy, Amy said, "Hey, go back! Rewind a little bit." I rewound a couple of seconds, hit play, and she pointed to an actor in the background of the scene and said, "That's Chris Liner!" Chris went to high school with Amy and Mrs. Happy. He eventually moved to California to pursue a career in acting, ending up in that movie alongside Mackenzie Astin.
We've also had some "Hey! That's…" moments with movies filmed in Central Texas. Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. walked past Gold's Department Store in Georgetown, Tx., in the movie Johnny Be Good (I don't recommend the movie, though). Part of Dazed and Confused took place in an elementary school I used to drive by nearly every day. Varsity Blues was also filmed in Georgetown (another movie I highly do not recommend). The movie Michael featured several Austin-area locales.
Our coolest moment of recognition so far came in the movie The Life of David Gale (still another that I don't recommend). Part of it was filmed on the University of Texas at Austin campus, where both my wife and I finished our undergraduate work. An exterior shot of a building showed the exact place where The Happy Friend and I used to eat lunch together at least three times a week. At that same spot, on November 13, 1997, I asked her to be my Happy wife. She said yes immediately.
Whenever we see something we recognize on television, video, or DVD, we each raise our right fist in sort of a victory sign, just as a nonverbal acknowledgment of the thing we just witnessed. I can't explain why that kind of moment is such a thrill. But it really is.
