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Mr. Damon: What’s with the hair?

Friday, November 13th, 2009

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In revisiting Good Will Hunting one of my reactions is always, dude, what’s with the hair?

Seemingly incongruent with Will’s character as a lower class, no-frills, anti-elitist, true-blue guy from Southie — his hair is always perfectly coiffed, gently gelled, and always bounces back into place.  It’s like a Vidal Sassoon ad.  Watch the fight scene.  His hair whips back and around in slow motion, like that of the best of Loreal models. 

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Perhaps he just gives his hair a lot of attention.  Is that why he always does math in the mirror? 

Or maybe he’s just unshowered and his oily, voluminous hair is just a part of who he is?  Like his inborn gift of mathematical skill, he didn’t choose this gift of beautiful bouncy hair either.  He’s sitting on yet another winning lottery ticket, and owes it to us all to be in a shampoo commercial. 

Or he just uses great shampoo?  I don’t know.  Regardless, his hair is always beautiful.

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I of course don’t recall his hair being that distracting back in 1997, and so perhaps it is simply a product of the late nineties.  Will is a tough guy, but he still wants to look cool.  I suppose we can give him that.

I was trying to remember if I could think of any similar hairstyles from the era. I don’t think I need to explain the startling similarities I discovered. 

Ladies and gentleman, the Will and the Rachel. 

rachel_gwh_comparison

    Posted in Matt Damon, The Film | No Responses »

    10-year-too-late fansite?

    Saturday, October 31st, 2009

    Blog Will Hunting has been honored to receive several mentions around the web lately.  Universal Hub, your source for all blog things Boston, namedropped us a couple weeks ago… plus, we got a nice little write-up in Thrillist.  (Here’s what it looks like… I like their design!)

    Blog Will Hunting gets mentioned on Thrillist

    The Thrillist post invokes a couple talking points upon which we’d like to elaborate.

    First, describing GWH as “the TNT classic.”  Of course, it’s true.  This is what Good Will Hunting has become, and how so many of us end up watching half of it when overcome by fondness while just flipping channels.  Have you noticed, though, how the for-tv edit of the film is so much more ridiculous than most dubbed-over obscenity-laced movies?  I’m particularly struck by the the translation of “fuckin’ sandwich” to “burger sandwich.”

    Are we to believe that “burger sandwich” is some wacky Boston slang, like “pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd”?  Because, first of all, Harvard Yard isn’t a fuckin’ parking lot and no one has ever parked their car there and it just doesn’t make sense.  It makes more sense for a car to be parked on the MIT dome than in Harvard Yard.

    Second, are we really a “10-year-too-late fansite”?  I’d argue that we are ten years too early.  All the best nostalgia is twenty years post.  Take Happy Days‘ 70s nostalgia for the 50s.  In ten years everyone will have Good Will Hunting fansites.

    But we were here first.

      Posted in The Film | No Responses »

      “Good Will Hunting by Myself” (happy in a crying sort of way)

      Thursday, October 8th, 2009

      “Good Will Hunting by Myself” is a song by the band Ludo.
      (I think it’s emo!)

      Excerpted lyrics:

      And I can watch Good Will Hunting by myself
      (it’s cool, it’s fine)
      I can shop for clothes without her help
      (it’s cool, it’s fine)
      I can hang out with my friends,
      do the good times ever end?
      Yeah I can watch Good Will Hunting by myself

      Girl, I remember when we was sittin’ on your couch
      Watchin’ Good Will Hunting,
      holdin’ hands and drinkin’ milkshakes
      But milkshakes melt, people change,
      and you dumped me on my birthday

      Right after I bought you that really expensive thing from the Body Shop called Jojoba Loofah Milktowel or something like that, that I sold 147 Cutco knives to afford, but whatever, hey, it’s cool

      I’ve moved on you know, I’m happy now -
      well, happy in a crying sorta way.

        Posted in The Film | 1 Response »

        Damon Behind the Camera

        Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

        In this Boston Globe profile, Matt Damon says directing is most likely his next big move. “I’m not in a race to start doing it,” says Damon. “I feel like I’m getting so much experience with great directors. All I’m doing is learning more.”

        But is this the sort of behavior we can expect to see from Damon as director?

        This video is fake, a promotion for the HBO series Entourage. But from what untapped emotional wells did Damon draw his inspiration? What rage lies just beneath the surface of Hollywood’s Golden Boy? And why does everybody want to direct?

          Posted in The Film | 2 Responses »

          Good Will Hunting: The Effin’ Short Version

          Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

            Posted in Recommended Viewing, The Film | No Responses »

            Two tickets torn in half, and nothing to do

            Saturday, June 27th, 2009

            Hi. I’m Dave. I’m a friend of Alex’s from way back. One might say I’m the Chuckie to his Will. Or … one might not.

            In any case, when Alex told me he was writing a Good Will Hunting blog, I was immediately excited. Not only because I, too, think of the movie more than anyone probably should, but because I am a bit obsessed with Elliott Smith, and this would be yet another venue to vent the effects of my insanity.

            I wish I could say I was hip to Elliott Smith from the very beginning; that I was a Portland rock scenester who knew him from Heatmiser. Instead, I was like many others: I heard him in Good Will Hunting and thought to myself, this – this is for me. I want this.

            I saw Good Will Hunting on TV recently, and, as watching movies on television often goes, it was a disjointed experience. Commercials interrupted important scenes, profanities became fuzzy and ineffective (all the Southie boys say “friggin’”, right?). I hadn’t watched the movie too carefully since picking up Elliott Smith’s XO in 2000 or so, and it was interesting seeing it through the eyes of a Smith fan. The songs fit perfectly in the background, but they also periodically sneak out in front.

            More than the theme song “Miss Misery”, “Between The Bars” is the perfect song for Good Will Hunting, with the dark humor of that punned title and the story of someone stuck in an alcohol-aided (or fueled?) rut. No, the boys in Good Will Hunting aren’t alcoholics (yet), but they are addicted to vices that keep them stagnant, a hole Will digs himself out of at the end of the movie, at which point Smith is replaced with “Afternoon Delight”, just as Either/Or, of which “Between The Bars” is the centerpiece, closes mercifully with the hopeful “Say Yes”.

            I’m a musician, and there is no avoiding the fact that I rip off Smith at every turn. Not in terms of melody, but in feel and tone, and I try in vain to capture how his songs are each universes unto themselves. His melodies wind around a fixed point, always moving, but never so far you lose your bearings.

            The day Elliott Smith died, I was surprised at how upset I was. I didn’t know him, after all. I think it was because the songs, despite a couple of decent posthumous releases, were gone, along with that sense of discovery. Discovery that so many people felt watching Good Will Hunting, and again seeing the poor bastard, eternally uncomfortable with success, playing at the 1997 Oscars.

            That’s what I think of when I think of Good Will Hunting.

            Guest Contributor David Brusie is a musician and writer living in Boston. Check him out at davidbrusie.com.

              Posted in Elliot Smith, Soundtrack, The Film, The Makers | No Responses »

              Fame, fortune, and their name printed in the auspicious MIT Tech!

              Friday, June 26th, 2009

              The problem Professor Lambeau puts on the hallway chalkboard sets off such excitement as to the identity of the mystery mathematician that his next class is overfilled with students eager to learn who the “silent rogue” could be. When I first saw the film, I thought that the joke — “Is it just my imagination or has my class grown considerably?” — was that everyone enrolled in the massive lecture course actually showed up, which never happens in large lectures. Instead, I think the implication is simply that nearly everyone who heard about the Hard Math Problem being solved was eagerly attending in awe; in short, this is a really big deal.

              So big a deal in fact, that people are running as fast as they can to get to the lecture hall.

              Someone solved the theorem on the hallway chalkboard!!

              Someone solved the theorem on the hallway chalkboard!!

              Only in repeated viewings did I realize, this quick scene is not of running students late for class, but instead, it depicts the electric excitement on campus that disrupts the normal pedestrian flow, pulling academics into a sprint toward the lecture hall, books and briefcases in hand, to behold who solved the theorem.

              Addendum: In this curious eagerness they find companionship.  Could this be the result of “goodwill hunting”?  They look for math but find companionship, but maybe it was companionship they were looking for all along?  Because nerds don’t have friends?

                Posted in Math, Plot Points, The Academy, The Film, Ya Suspect!! | No Responses »

                What’s so good about him?

                Sunday, June 21st, 2009

                An addendum to previous post, Good Will Hunting II: It’s Hunting Season

                Okay, I would be remiss not to praise the GWH2 moment wherein Mr. Ponytail intones the film’s somewhat obtuse before-and-after title.  Really, is anyone in the film really hunting for “good will” — “an attitude of kindness or friendliness; benevolence”?

                Will Hunting is actually surrounded by this sort of unobtrusive support; what he ultimately needs is “to meet his match” (according to the trailer) — the kind of challenges he receives from Minnie Driver, Robin Williams, and Math. I would argue he’s “It’s Not Your Fault” Hunting.  But that is not the same as good will.  Will needs tough love, not merriness and good will towards men. (Though I guess he claims to need no one but the dead academics he so relishes…)

                The other understanding of the play on words is that Will is just plain Good, as in Good [at Math] Will Hunting.  Good [at Burying it Deep Inside] Will Hunting.  But that’s stupid, right? But I digress — the film’s title is a compelling discussion to come.  Let’s just cut back to the punchline… “Applesauce, bitch.”  (And who doesn’t like applesauce?)

                  Posted in Blogging, Concepts & Criticism, Plot Points, The Film, Ya Suspect!! | No Responses »