Bad Lieutenant and How to Date a Film

Twenty plus years ago, David Lynch came up with a TV show called “Twin Peaks”. Ahead of its time, its run was short. It was one of the first big “mythology” shows that I watched faithfully. Unfortunately, I tried to re-watch the show about a year ago and found it to be dated and nonsensical. As a college student, I was proud of myself for figuring out the mystery and was extremely sad when it was cancelled. But as an adult, what was genius is now just moronic.

I thought the same thing while watching “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. Despite my Nicolas Cage hatred, I had an open mind. The film has an 80s grittiness to it, although it’s set in the recent past (I think). Cage is a police lieutenant who tried to do the right thing by saving a subject from drowning in the floods, and ends up being rewarded with permanent back pain. He naturally turns to drugs to deaden the pain – first starting with prescriptions and building it all up from there. He eventually spends more of his time high than straight. In the midst of this there is a murder investigation that he’s leading. But the murder is insignificant.

This is essentially a character study. And although the director shows you the underbelly of the society and tries to give you a stark contrast, he instead inserts random, nonsensical images in order to throw the viewer off, and to show the distortion of Cage’s perception. Eventually you aren’t really sure what’s happening when. Again, what could be genius to one person was just idiocy to me. I’ve already seen one film where Cage goes down a long and winding road into oblivion. I spent that one waiting for him to die so the movie would end. I guess you could say I was apathetic – primarily because this was a pathetic excuse for a crime drama. (*)

But the idea of something being dated stayed with me this week. What if the movies I’ve spent years ranting about really aren’t that bad? What if my perceptions have changed as I’ve gotten older? What if the ones that I think are great really aren’t? I know I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for “The Fabulous Baker Boys” and “Xanadu”, but what about “The Matrix” and “Jurassic Park” and even “Forrest Gump”?

Yesterday as I pondered all this I clicked onto Yahoo and found two lists – one of classics from since 1999 and another full of classics of all time. These aren’t just award winning films – these are the “100 Films to See Before You Die”. So I’ve decided to give it a whirl. I make no commitments on how many to get through or when, but I’m going to work toward re-evaluating some films. If you’d like to come along, check in once in a while. I’ll be posting everything here.

Wish me luck!

PS - If you're interested in the lists themselves, you can find them here:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/100-movies-to-see-before-you-die-modern-classics.html