My all time favorite movie is shared by two films: Office Space and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The first because I have lived the life of Peter Gibbons. When I got my first office job I worked as a file clerk for a convenience store chain. The owners were brothers, who were also both lawyers, who were constantly at odds with each other. One minute you’d have one standing at your desk asking you to do one thing, and then an hour later you’d have the other one standing there telling you to do something else. It was crazy. The one brother always liked to leave these mass voice messages to everyone. And every single one started out with “yeah, uh...”. After seeing Office Space, I always filled in the next part with “we’re going to need you to come in on Saturday…” *shudder* Bram Stoker’s Dracula is on a whole other spectrum. I’ve always been a huge vampire buff and that movie speaks to everything I love about vampires. One of my favorite quotes is from that movie. It’s when Jonathan is going to meet “D” for the first time in Transelvania and he’s writing to his beloved Mina. He says, “I sometimes feel like I have a part to play in a story that is not yet known to me.” This is pretty much how I feel about my entire life.
My favorite documentary has to be The Cosmos by Carl Sagan. I also love the remake by Neil Degrasse Tyson, but the original will always hold a special place in my heart, as I’m sure it does for Neil as well. The way Carl talks about the cosmos and our place in it makes me think about how insignificant and significant we are at the same time. Sure we’re all just floating around on a on a "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” but we also have control over the experience we have on that mote of dust. We make this world what it is. We have the ability to define our own significance. That’s pretty fucking powerful.
What’s your favorite documentary or movie (or both)?