Films are prodding me

I have watched three films in the last 24 hours. They were selected without apparent forethought, at the dictates of chance, and yet each one spoke to me deeply about appreciating life, exhorting me to live life to its fullest. Actually most films seem to be telling me that in some way or other. Maybe that's what good cinema does? The films I saw are:

City of Angels

I had seen this film before but I wanted to show it to my friend C. because I thought she would like it and we had recently seen Wings of Desire together. This modern remake is about savoring life but it does not show as deeply or effectively as Wings of Desire did, in my opinon. What was remarkable about seeing this was seeing it with C. She is such a positive person and she loved it so much. She appreciated that I showed it to her. It was so refreshing. I seem to be hanging out with so many jaded intellectuals that critique the life out of everything. This is not to say that C. isn't intelligent but she isn't only intelligent. She thinks with her heart and her mind and it really is beautiful to listen to her speak about things.

After C. left I wasn't tired so we watched another film.

About Schmidt

Nicholson is superb. He plays a retired actuary who is only now faced with discovering himself, not in comparison to others or from expectations or others, but his true self. Well what to do about that? He reaches out and makes feeble connections with others, often leading to misunderstandings. But slowly he begins to sort through things and the last scene in the film brings me to tears, here, now as I remember it. There don't seem to be any easy answers. We each have to get in our own RV and make our own mistakes.

Finally this afternoon we went to the Cinema Arts Centre to see Facing Windows.

Wow! What a great film. I feel like stopping people on the street and telling them to rush right over and see it. I already called C. and left a message. I felt stupid leaving such a message but sometimes things wear off, you know, and I wanted to tell her now, before ordinary life rushes in and dilutes it: See this film -- you must see this film. I don't want to write the plot here, you can read that on IMDb, I want to write that it was great and you should go see it, if you can. It's too fresh in me to describe. I looked at the clear, blue sky driving back from the theater and ... it was so incredibly beautiful and I wondered why aren't I just happy with that? Why isn't that enough for me? Why do other things creep into my mind and ruin it? I don't know.