#182: True Romance

True Romance (1993)
Directed by Tony Scott
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rappaport, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Bronson Pinchot, James Gandolfini, Saul Rubinek, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Samuel L. Jackson

After my parents got me hooked on movies I spent hours on this new fandangled invention called the internet looking up actors I had recognized. Goodfellas put me into the world of Robert De Niro. I had to scoop up everything I could get my hands on from Raging Bull to Taxi Driver (much harder to find at the time than expected) to Heat.

After my friend Jeremiah lent me Pulp Fiction I had to learn more about Quentin Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs came first and then looking at Tarantino's imdb page I saw he had written True Romance. What this film ended up doing above entertainment was broaden my film exposure to a slew of actors I had never seen before. This was before Gandolfini was Tony Soprano and it was just a small role, but his scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette now seems like a precursor...Soprano training wheels perhaps.

I had seen Gary Oldman in Dracula because to most youngsters, monsters (much like naked women) were awesome. Because of his Drexl Spivey character I discovered one of the most talented and chameleon-like performers that would impress in any role. This guy is one of the best ever.

True Romance is a bloody and vulgar pseudo-action movie but it's more than that. It is a love story and the most unconventional romance you'll ever see. Clarence and Alabama get into drug dealing and murder and drag everyone they meet into the fray in an effort to escape and make it to their own paradise together. They need only each other. So while the execution of the story is somewhat unconventional, the themes at the core are of the oldest ilk imaginable. Melding the traditional with flash-bang modern style (and before Tony Scott got jittery with jump cuts).

It's been a while since I've seen it. The last time came when I was dating a girl -- let's call her Amber -- in Halifax while I was living in Fredericton. It was the first weekend I was spending with her in Halifax. We had started dating after we met one weekend a month earlier when my good friend Amanda introduced us. We hit it off and everything seemed great. We borrowed a copy of True Romance from our mutual friend Adam and that was our Saturday night.

While the relationship ended a month later due in large part to distance and some miscommunication, that night was pretty cool. There is a distinct joy I have when introducing someone to a movie I love. Like my parents showing me Goodfellas and Carlito's Way, I was opening someone's eyes to a new film in their mind's catalogue of viewing.

The weekend was awkward otherwise, it had been a while at that point since my last relationship and well in part due to my awkwardness it didn't go as smootly as hoped. True Romance wasn't the theme for the weekend unfortunately. While it seemed that we were both compatible over our many phone conversations leading up to our first couple days together in person, it wasn't the case when put into practice.

This wouldn't be so bad if we lived in the same city. In some cases, you are either compatible or not, case closed. This was one I thought could be improved over time...she thought otherwise. The end of this story is actually a brain dead moment on my part.

Amber was moving back to Fredericton the following autumn. We had expressed interest in rekindling our brief relationship and we even had a moment when she was visiting one weekend when I pulled her aside and we kissed on her way out of the party for the night.

Fantastic right?

Well it would have been if another ex hadn't recently steamrolled back into my life -- let's call her Claire. In the month following my kiss I had started dating Claire, a girl I had been with a couple years prior, incidentally when she was also living in Halifax with me in Fredericton. We got back together and my next meeting with Amber was really terrible.

"You suck," she said. She said it playfully enough but I realized that any chance of ever being with her again was dashed. I got drunk and it vanquished the feeling for the night...no, it didn't, it made it worse.

Claire and I broke up a week after my birthday and I have been single ever since except for a month this past summer. Sure it's not like that whirlwind was a living hell, it was fun, awkward and by and large a learning process. True romance only exists in the movies, it never comes easy.

Luckily that weekend in Halifax with Amber also started a romance of a different kind. I had bought a bottle of wine that weekend, you know trying to set the mood. A Cabernet Sauvignon called Baron Phillipe de Rothschild.

It's still my go to wine, but it opened my eyes to a world beyond beer. So despite the turmoil of these two failed relationships I came away acquiring a taste for wine. So I got that going for me.