Like It's 1999

So I've been trying to start watching The Wire from the beginning again, in anticipation of Season 4 coming in the mail (it finally did yesterday), but I found that I needed a break only two episodes in. Don't get me wrong, The Wire really is fabulous. All the accolades of one of the best shows ever are not at all mistaken, but as much as I can get into The Wire, it's not much of an emotional experience. As much as I might feel for the characters, or like them, my favorite still being McNulty, and get angry about just how fucked up the system is, and be consistently surprised by what happens, the show still fails to hit me in just the right place. It hits me in the head instead of the heart.

Most of my television and movie watching is right before going to sleep in my bed, and I find that with The Wire, I can go to bed pretty much at any time, even in the middle of an episode. If I finish, I can still just roll ever and go right to sleep if nothing else is pressing on my mind. It's not, say, the experience I had watching Six Feet Under where I found I couldn't fall asleep because I was just so emotionally rattled, and still sometimes in tears. And I'm not just talking after the series finale. After watching the S2 finale on DVD, which was probably around 2 or 3 in the morning my senior year of college, I remember lying awake in bed just wanting to call anyone and tell them I loved them.

So what does this have to do with 1999 and a smiling Melora Walters at the end of Magnolia?

Well, part of it has to do with this article in Entertainment Weekly. 1999: The Year that Changed Movies. In 1999, I was still a sophomore or junior in high school, and going to the movies and watching television was like my religion. We're talking formative years and religious fervor, and now I find that I've simply hardened. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe my emotional detachment to watching The Wire isn't the shows fault, but the simple fact that I've become emotionally detached from the things I'm watching. Detached and critical to the point that I just am not moved by much (Gilmore Girls series finale and Friday Night Lights aside).

As a larger aside, this may be a horrible overstatement as I am already thinking of how the bittersweetness of Pushing Daisies can turn me to mush and raise my spirits week after week as well as when I watched Waitress. Maybe it just has something to do with pie.

Anyway, this morning I got up and decided to watch Magnolia. I did it for a couple reasons. For one, I am anticipating There Will Be Blood, so why not watch some PTA. Second, with Walk Hard coming out, there just seems to be a lot of John C. Reilly talk on the internet. Lastly, and most personally, it just seemed appropriate. I kind of knew that the themes about the past ("We might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.") would hit me in some new way, especially today, but just like it was 1999, Magnolia drew me in and didn't let go for 2 and a half hours. It hits all the right emotional notes, from Frank Mackey's facade being torn apart by the reporter, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith and all the love he has to give, the Wise Up sing along, to that final moment. Magnolia might be one giant sprawling mess of a movie, but in the most important ways, because it actually moves me and doesn't just make me think about the flashy tracking shots and clever tricks, it's perfect.

Jim Kurring:
"...whatever you wanna tell me, whatever you think might scare me, won't... and I will listen... I will be a good listener to you if that's what you want... and you know, you know... I won't judge you... I can do that sometimes, I know, but I won't... I can... listen to you and you shouldn't be scared of scaring me off or anything that you might think I'll think or on and on and just say it and I'll listen to you..."