The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

Just for a brief, non DHP-related post here, recently, I watched Into the Spider-Verse and The Straight Story back-to-back. It really opens your eyes to the sheer range cinema has to offer, from a hilarious, action-packed superhero blockbuster, to a very simple (and borderline plotless) movie about a true story of a man traveling 240 miles to see his gravely ill brother on a tractor/ride-on lawn mower (because he's half-blind and needs a walker [though he uses two canes out of pride], which means they took away his driver's license; and, while Straight really was hald-blind, as far as I can tell the leg paralysis was written into the film because Richard Farnsworth, the actor who plays Alvin, ACTUALLY HAD CANCER THAT HAD SPREAD TO HIS BONES AND ACTUALLY CRIPPLED HIM IRL.) Two films, very great in almost polar opposite ways.








The virtues of the former should be pretty obvious, but for the latter, it might bear repeating: Dude took several weeks out of his life driving a lawn mower to see his dying brother. And there was a non-negligible chance that one or both of them would be dead (one from the stroke, one to the myriad of health complaints he has that forces him to use a mower and not a car that can easily make the journey in about five hours) before they made it. And he does, and we appreciate how difficult the journey really was. What more do you need?