Good vs. Evil

It’s not so much a movie as a direct assault on the nervous system. The first time I ever saw The Exorcist was at the late, great National Theater in Westwood. It was also the last time. Well, the last time I saw it in its entirety.

I can say without hesitation I’ve never been so terrified at a movie, any movie, before or since. There was more than one time I had to close my eyes because I didn't want any one of a number of horrifying images burned into my memory.

So when I saw The Exorcist on my cable channel listings, I thought maybe it’s time to get past my fear and see if I could get through it start to finish a second time, although I use the term “start-to-finish” in the loosest sense of the words.

I knew I had to lay down a few ground rules for myself. First, as I implied a second ago, I wasn’t going to watch it literally start to finish. I’d take breaks, maybe watch a little bit every morning before I went to work – which is what I wound up doing. And that brings me to my second point: I wasn’t going to watch it at night.

It’s not that I’m afraid of things that go bump in the night. I’m afraid of things that levitate, vomit pea soup, spin their heads around and sound like Mercedes McCambridge in the night. No, this was going to be a daytime viewing so I’d have plenty of hours to make sure it wasn’t top of mind just as I was drifting off to dreamland.

Or attempting to.

Now that I’ve seen it again and had a chance to think about it, it wasn’t nearly as scary as the first time. At least not in the same way. I can see now the effects, which while still great, were limited by the technology of the time. The head spinning doesn’t look quite as real as it did. The levitating looks like a magic trick. The blood, hers and others, looks a little too red to be real.

What is even better than I remember is the caliber of acting from the entire cast. The subtlety and nuance in each actor's performance is nothing short of remarkable. It would've been easy to drift into the expected horror film hamminess, but no one in the movie treats the material as anything other than real.

But what's as scary to me now as it was then is the idea of good versus evil. I’m a believer there's evil in the world, and there's a constant battle going on. Don't believe me? Pick up a newspaper (or an iPad).

The scene where Father Karras says to Father Merrin, “I believe there are three distinct personalities.” And Father Merrin replies, “There is only one.” rings true to me.

The tricks the devil uses in the movie to deceive - a combination of lies with just enough truth mixed in - seem eerily similar to what goes on in the world around us every day.

I think that's the power of the film, reminding us that the battle between good and evil is ongoing and real. And if we let our guard down for a second, the wrong side wins.

Which makes The Exorcist a film worth watching with your eyes open.

Let Titanic rest in peace

Yesterday my family and I went to see Titanic 3D. The wife and I, along with our great friends Dave and Maureen (yes, that Dave and Maureen) originally saw the movie on the second day of its release at the Village Theater in Westwood when it first came out. Because the Village screen is so big, it felt like we were actually on the ship - even at the end.

They've got to get that air conditioning fixed.

You may know, I'm not a fan of 3D. And in this particular case I'm not sure it added much. But at least it didn't distract from the movie.

As I write this, a 100 years ago the Titanic was already underway on its fateful voyage. It's still one of the great "what-if's" of history, like the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, the Challenger shuttle or 9/11.

The movie was better than I remembered. Love story aside (still a stroke of movie marketing genius on Cameron's part), it gives an unflinching glimpse of the sheer terror that must've gone on in the two hours it took the ship to sink.

When Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown looks back at the sinking ship from her lifeboat and says, "God almighty," she's speaking for everyone in the theater.

There's currently a diving expedition company that, for $60,000, will take you on a ten-day cruise out to the site where Titanic rests, and bring you down to the ship in a submersible for an up close and personal look. There've already been couples who have been married down there.

How far behind can the floating gift shop be?

The unrestricted scavenging of artifacts and ship parts by unauthorized divers and treasure hunters has already taken its toll. I think it's wrong. For all the fascination, Titanic, like the Arizona that rests under Pearl Harbor, is a gravesite that deserves the proper respect and decorum.

Even though it only sailed once, it's not too late to give Titanic a second chance.