House of D

Lately, I actually have been unable to sit through movies I consider terribly bad. This isn't to say they are normal B movies. I can sit through a b movie no matter how bad. I DO have a sense of fun, thank you. But if a movie has pretensions --well, I just can't deal. For instance, I tried to sit through David Duchovny's House of D.Okay, I had to abandon this one. I just couldn't sit through it. So, alas, there is no review for it.

Before anyone picks on me and say I don't give good films a chance, I'll be as clear as I can on this:

There are movies I am prone to love: Interracial love stories between non-black men and black women, Coming of age stories, Stories about the Jewish experience, Nostalgic stories about the old neighborhood, Stories about characters in deep intense emotional pain, Stories about normal people, Any story starring some actor I have a major jones for. These include Christian Bale, David Duchovny, James Spader, Clive Owen.

And then there are movies I tend to be averse to: Pretentious movies, Pretentious movies that are really simplistic and think they’re really deep, Pretentious movies about the uniquely sad lot of the artiste, Movies that portray mental illness in a romanticized manner, Movies that portray childhood disabilities wrongfully, Movies that romanticize death, Kneejerk nihilism, films with kneejerk anti-religious sentiments, empty stories about empty people who all think they are unique and wonderful, any movie where Robin Williams plays someone who is “different” from the rest of the world, stories which contain a scene where someone “interprets” a Bible story in some absolutely faithless way but which thinks it is increasing my faith by so doing.

The story of The HBouse of D is about Tommy who lives in New York’s Greenwich Village in 197s. He’s an almost thirteen-year old who does meat delivery with his retarded friend Pappas (played by Robin Williams) when he is not trying to help his mother get over his father’s death and when he’s not going to Catholic school where a priest who obviously hates the Bible is teaching his class the Bible while the class rips out pages of the Bible. He gets advice about girls from an incarcerated black woman (played by Erykah Badu) who speaks to him through a window in the wall. And he is falling in love with a girl who looks vaguely ethnic.

When Pappas is caught stealing, Pappas’ dad prepares to send him to Willowbrook. For those of you to old to be aware of Willowbrook, this place became infamous during the latter part of the seventies for the abuses poured onto its innocent mentally-disabled inhabitants.

Okay, so you see my problem?
Oh that my life were easier! Why can’t most movies have everything I like and nothing I hate?