Hilary's Hit List, Part II

(In this post, Hilary Crowe continues giving her media suggestions for lifting your mood in the transitional time from winter to spring. Her other suggestions are in Part I.)

Movie: True Romance Tony Scott, Director

Nothing says escapism quite like Quentin Tarantino’s love story about a loser comic store clerk and a newbie call girl. After Heathers, of course, this is Christian Slater’s best film, and Patricia Arquette at least has this to legitimize her otherwise dismal career. As Clarence and Alabama respectively, the two bring their C-list celebrity status to the acting table, fully committing themselves to achieving a new level of trash and sleaze with each scene. The happy newlyweds make runnin’ from the law in stilettos and Hawaiian shirts, toting a suitcase full of coke, look classy with a capital “C.” Not in the mood for a heavy, gory, heist flick? Not a problem: Scott lends his mollifying, Hollywood hand, removing much of the terror from the more typical endeavors of a Tarantino script. Sure, Clarence is a murderer and Alabama is a hooker, but he did it out of love, and she was forced into it by poverty and parental abandonment. Freeing one’s love from the chains that bind him or her, even if that means killing her drug-dealing pimp? Now that’s true romance.

Book: A Happy Death by Albert Camus

Like any good college student, I am an exploratory existentialist. In A Happy Death, the precursor to The Stranger, Camus strikes a balance between the hearty, youthfulness man is capable of revealing and the unflinchingly heartless, existential Mersault of The Stranger. In this novel, one can more fully identify with Mersault’s agony (Mersault is the same name for the protagonist, but different character for a different novel), realizing the pursuit of pleasure and that of happiness are not one and the same. Later, he comes to terms with the life he has been living and wants to continue living. Through Mersault’s pandering between heady hedonism and emotional turmoil, one can observe the first tendrils of Camus’ signature brand of existentialism rooting themselves into his work. Camus’ writing is at times bluntly provocative, while at other times clouded and contradictory. However, watching Camus figure out his interpretation of life through Mersault’s musings and his mistakes in doing so reveals that even great minds have off days, room for improvement, and at one time or another stood in our world-weary shoes.

(To see Part I, click here.)

(To see a hit list from Stephen Tringali, please check: "Hit Me with Your Hit List.")

(Promotional poster from Time Warner Pictures.)

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