Hall and Oates

‘(500) Days of Summer’ – A Romantic Comedy I Love and Can Tolerate

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

I keep thinking of “The Simpsons” episode where Homer and Marge try to teach Bart and Lisa about how great love is. But in the process of looking over their kids’ experience with love, they end up doing more damage than good. Marge reminds Bart of when he had a crush on the older girl who lived next door, and it ends up taking us to the scene where said girl tells Bart how excited she is because she now has a boyfriend. Then you have that imagined scene where the she pulls Bart’s heart out of his chest and throws it to the ground. Back to reality, Bart tells his well-meaning mother:

“Thanks for reopening old wounds mom!”

That whole episode was going through my head as I watched Marc Webb’s “(500) Days of Summer.” I found it to be one of the most intimate portrayals of the amazing highs and debilitating, and we are talking seriously debilitating, lows of love and relationships. This has been called by some as “Annie Hall” for a new generation and, along with “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” it is one of the best films I have seen about the messiness of relationships.

The story centers on the touching yet odd relationship between Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn, two co-workers employed at one of those Hallmark greeting card companies. Webb and the film’s screenwriters, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, have also taken the approach of showing this relationship in a non-linear format, going from when Tom and Summer break up to when they first met and then back and forth in time to where moments inform both the past and the present, let alone the future.

Webb has said this film is more a coming-of-age story than a romantic comedy. Still, a large part of me would like to call it the latter as it puts so many others of this desecrated genre to utter shame. They all revolve around the same kinds of characters who are complete opposites, and they remain to where each film is indistinguishable from the next. While many may find comfort in always knowing how the story ends, I find it depressing and at times shallow and false. This one doesn’t work like that though.

Neustadter has admitted this is based on a real relationship he had, and of the love and brutal heartbreak that came went with it. With Summer, we see a person whose belief in true love was shattered following her parents’ divorce. With Tom, his belief in true love came about after completing misinterpreting the climax of “The Graduate.” As a result, this film has characters I can truly relate to.

“(500) Days of Summer” has many wonderful moments which vividly capture the different stages of a relationship. While we remember more of what went wrong than right, the moments of happiness stand out just as powerfully. There’s a great moment where Tom Hansen is on his way to work, and it then turns into a hilarious musical number done to Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True.” Yes, you can always count on songs from the 1980’s to lift up your spirits to an unrealistically high.

The moments where we see Tom in a state of depression ring much truer than I would ever care to admit. Romantic rejection can make one feel so completely worthless, and it takes forever to dig oneself out of that dark emotional hellhole. I think this is why most romance movies today are comedies, because we have to laugh at these things at times so they don’t drive us crazy. All of this reminds of a great piece of dialogue uttered by Ned Beatty from “Homicide-Life on the Street:”

“A woman can affect a man totally. How woman feels about a man, that’s how he’s gonna feel about himself, his friends, his job.”

As Tom Hansen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perfectly cast and comes across as likable without ever being overly obnoxious. Every emotional moment he experiences here rings true to what we have experienced in our own lives, and it is done with complete conviction. The moment where we he is running down the street after seeing his expectations ruined by reality is bound to bring back the worst pain you have felt when you realize a relationship has ended, permanently.

Then you have Zooey Deschanel who has the loveliest eyes of any actress I can think of off the top of my head. She really stole my heart as Summer, a young woman who has been conditioned to believe in anything but true love. While she clearly likes Tom Hansen, she cannot bring herself to love him because it can never seem real to her. Deschanel has such a lovingly sweet presence, and it makes Levitt’s constant yearning for her very understandable.

These two characters are really good, if not perfect, together, and I love the unforced way they become a couple. The chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel is wonderful, and seeing them here made me want to see these two to stick it out together. That they don’t is a painful reminder of how unfair love can be, and of how Trent Reznor sings about him wanting something he can never have.

Webb, who would later go on to direct the two “Amazing Spider-Man” movies, gives “(500) Days of Summer” a beautiful look which captures the rollercoaster of moods witnessed throughout. With this film, which was his feature film directorial debut, he shows he can balance out getting strong visuals with getting great performances from his actors.

While romantic comedies remain a damaged genre to where I still find myself running away from them at full speed to this very day, “(500) Days of Summer” gives me hope that they can be better. But better yet, here’s hoping humans can find a connection with other humans despite the advances in technology and social media. This film came out before those things really took hold of our lives.

* * * * out of * * * *

‘Private Eyes’ by Hall & Oates – My First Vinyl Album

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

Private Eyes album cover

Hall & Oates’ 1981 album “Private Eyes” was actually the first vinyl record I ever got which I could call my own. Years ago, my mother offered to buy me and my brother one vinyl record each, and we were both really excited at the prospect of having one of our own since our parents owned several dozens of them, many of them by Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles (they have great taste in music). I don’t remember exactly why my mom did this. Maybe we were well behaved or something (a rarity for the two of us as kids).

Anyway, my brother got this KTEL album (remember those?) called “Radioactive‘ which featured popular songs of the moment from Devo (their cover of “Working in a Coalmine” is one of my favorites), REO Speedwagon, Rick Springfield and Blondie among others. “Radioactive” was the equivalent of those “Now That’s Music” CD’s which get released every other month, but the music on this particular album was excellent and never groan inducing, and it was a good selection by my older brother.

But for me, my choice was clear from the start, and it represents one of my most decisive decisions at a video or music store.

I first got exposed to “Private Eyes” when I was in Kindergarten thanks to my friend Matthew who lived down the street from me in Marietta, Georgia. Matthew had the album on cassette and we kept listening to the title track endlessly, and when those claps came into play, I made it look like I was punching myself. This made the two of us laugh hysterically, and we didn’t listen to much else on the album at the time. That one song seemed to be enough for the two of us.

But later, we started to listen to “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” which I had heard on the radio, but I didn’t realize right away it was also on the “Private Eyes” album. Cool, I thought, this tape must have a lot of good songs on it. Sure enough, it did! Just before I got the album on vinyl, “Did It in A Minute” became Hall & Oates’ latest hit song. Getting “Private Eyes” at that point seemed like a do or die mission in retrospect. Come to think of it, it was!

I still have a lot of memories from listening to this definitive Hall & Oates album after all these years. My brother and I were dancing without a care to these songs, especially to “Did It in a Minute.” This was back before we both became saddled with those inhibitions which more or less came to define the adults we are today. Sometime later, my family moved from Marietta, Georgia to Thousand Oaks, California, and “Your Imagination” started playing on KIIS FM, back when Rick Dees was the morning disc jockey. I thought it was a very cool song, and I later realized it was also on the “Private Eyes” album as well. For me, this album now seemed so magical because it had so many great songs on it, and if there was a song I heard on the radio which I liked, it had to be from this album!

“Private Eyes” was just an infinitely fun album to listen to, and this is still the case more than 30 years after its release. It is one of several records from the 1980’s I can never get sick of listening to, and it always brightens my mood whenever I put it on. Hall & Oates went on to become a dominant musical duo during the 80’s with this album as well as “H2O” and “Big Bam Boom,” but neither of those albums, despite having some awesome tracks, could hold up as well as “Private Eyes” did.

Of all the songs here, I still think the best one is “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).” While the other songs might seem stylistically dated, this one feels timeless and could fit in with the music of today. For a time, it was the ring tone on my cell phone, and when went off in the office I used to work in, a fellow colleague remarked about how Hall & Oates once auditioned for Smokey Robinson. Robinson ended up not hiring the duo, and he later admitted it was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Of course, I don’t want to leave out other songs like “Did It in a Minute” which ends the first side of the record. A great up-tempo song, it was one which got me really excited about life when I listened to it (I was 5 or 6 at the time, so what did I know?). Going onto the second side, we have “Head Above the Water” which proves to be an appropriate selection to listen to during aerobic exercises. Lesser known songs like “Tell Me What You Want” and “Some Men” resonated strongly for me even when I didn’t understand the lyrics. Then again, it took me a long, long, long time after the first grade to really pay attention to a song’s lyrics. The music itself was all that mattered to me at the time.

I always kept wondering about John Oates though. Daryl Hall was always the most prominent of the duo, and John seemed to be there mostly as backup. I wonder if Mr. Oates ever got seriously resentful of Mr. Hall in a “Fatal Attraction” kind of way. But they are still together, so I guess it never got quite that bad. John, however, proved he is every bit as good a singer on songs like “Mano a Mano” and “Friday Let Me Down,” a song title which would have a depressing significance on me during my adolescent years. It didn’t even matter how I had no idea what “Mano a Mano” meant (it would be several years before I took my first Spanish class) because the song itself has a catchy rhythm which every decent 80’s song needed to have.

It should also be noted how Hall & Oates were a big hit on the R&B charts with their music back then, and this was a rare feat displayed by what some would call a “white act.” While many of us today may laugh at white people doing what others simply saw as “black music,” this musical duo was never seen as a joke, and they were respectful of the influences which inspired their musical choices. The song “Looking for a Good Sign” was actually dedicated to the original lineup of The Temptations, a huge influence on their work. The duo would later perform with two of the vocalists from The Temptations on the “Live at The Apollo” album.

“Private Eyes” is not an album with any big theme to hold all these songs together. It is not a concept album like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” an album which took me many years to fully appreciate. In the end, “Private Eyes” is still an endlessly entertaining album which can never be construed as boring, and it holds up really well. I still love listening to this album to this very day, and it remains one of my favorite albums of all time. Considering how it was my first vinyl record, it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Years later, I did purchase the remastered CD of “Private Eyes, but I do still have the original vinyl record in my possession. Believe me, I will never get rid of it. Ever.