I haven't written a "real" post on my blog in quite a while. I could give you a whole host of excuses about how busy I am, but the truth is that I just fell out of the writing groove.
Today, though, I want you to share in my joy.
I'm a member of a closed group on Facebook for film lovers--not the "Oh, I've watched Einsenstein's The Battleship Potemkin twenty times and that scene with the baby carriage falling down the Odessa steps is *da bomb* kind of film lover (although I actually may be one of those annoying people...sorry) and certainly not the "Have you seen Little Fockers yet? Isn't DeNiro HI-LARIOUS???" type. No, this is just a diverse group of friendly, witty people who love watching movies and having fun discussing them in an intelligent way.
Online communities really only thrive when individual members participate and engage regularly. We have a weekly quiz in which one of the members picks a single frame from a movie, posts it in our group, and we all try to guess which movie it's from. Believe me, these aren't easy. Past frames have been from films as diverse as Tati's Playtime to Lynch's Eraserhead. (Yeah, I know, the quiz owner does seem to have a bit of a happily cruel streak, doesn't he? Hee hee.)
For over three months, we've been playing this game and I have NEVER gotten one right, let alone won. Even frames from movies I love, like Brazil, have totally eluded me. Guess my brain just doesn't work that way. After I've seen a film, I look back and remember the experience of it, not individual frames or even quotes.
Today, he posted this image and gave the decade (1970s).
The European license plate was a clue, but that was pretty much it. And the tractor really threw me off. One of our members threw out French Connection which was my first thought too, but that wasn't it. Once he said that though, I was convinced it was a thriller of some kind. I guessed a couple more and then decided to just throw out as many thrillers from the 1970s as I could. Three was indeed the charm. I finally hit on Straw Dogs, Peckinpah's controversial thriller from 1971 starring Dustin Hoffman.
I cannot tell you how excited I was when he told me I got it right. I mean seriously. I fist-pumped. I danced. I jigged. I blurted out a big "WOOHOO" which made my cat hide under the bed. I was so thrilled, I took this pic of myself and shared it with my film friends.
Basically, I was happy. Sometimes it doesn't take much. And you know what? It really shouldn't. Do a little something to make yourself happy today. Thank me for it later. Just something small will do.
