Shame about that whole recession thing, isn’t it? Last year you were basking in your economic glory and picked up a plasma television thinking that the ludicrous balance in your chequing account would never go down.
Now that account is overdrawn and the gigantic TV is currently the fourth wall in the damaged cardboard box you call a home. No sir, things aren’t going well — but on the plus side you can still watch DVDs.
In these trying times we’re happy to present a list of films that will hopefully make the recession slide by a little easier.
Money Is The Root Of All Evil
Sure, some extra money would be nice right about now, but never forget how quickly good fortune can transform into murderous greed. Just ask William H. Macy’s character in the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. His good intentions to increase the family nest egg lead to imprisonment, a murdered wife, a dead father-in-law, and a “funny lookin” guy in a wood chipper.
Then of course there are Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thorton’s downtrodden rural brothers in A Simple Plan. They planned to better their lower class existence with a bag of stolen drug money only to be surrounded by a pile of corpses and useless marked bills.
The history of cinema is filled with such stories. Not even Humphrey Bogart could avoid that fate in The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. Seriously, if Bogie can’t overcome the perils of greed, what hope do you have?
Money can’t buy happiness
Even if you can manage to get your hands on some coin without killing your closest friends, you might find that all the cash will only make you miserable in a bigger house. The go-to choice for “the greatest film of all time” taught us that. Charles Foster Kane (a.k.a. Citizen Kane) may have acquired a mountain of money and a personal museum of the world’s finest treasures, but none of it bought back the joy of riding on an oddly named sled at his poor parents’ farm. More recently Daniel Day Lewis scored a shelf full of awards for his remarkable portrayal of an inordinately competitive oilman whose insatiable drive for wealth left him alone and insane.
It could be worse
If seeing the evils money can cause isn’t enough to scare you off the green stuff, you can always take solace in the fact that there’s some poor sucker out there worse off than you. John Ford’s perennial classic The Grapes Of Wrath depicts a family destroyed by the Great Depression whose poverty is so extreme that not even blue-eyed Henry Fonda can overcome it.
In more contemporary times, Fernando Meirelles’ City Of God showed a Brazilian slum in such a dire economic state that pre-teen kids found themselves turning to crime.
Poverty chic
And finally, if nothing else will ease the pain at least you can find comfort in a few memorable films that prove you can be both soul crushingly broke and damn cool. Slumdog Millionaire found Oscar gold in a story of a boy whose charmingly poor upbringing lead directly to a million dollar bank account and true love. Poverty peddler Kevin Smith gave us Clerks, a movie about a group of minimum wage slaves who might wear used cloths, but are still capable of making witty pop culture references that you only wish you could manage.
Those films are good, but the ultimate example of poverty chic is unquestionably John Waters’ trash classic Pink Flamingos. The unforgettable movie is about a group of trailer-dwelling yippies who want nothing more than to be known as the filthiest people alive. Any movie that can transform an impoverished 300-pound transvestite into a movie star demands recognition. If Divine can achieve immortality by eating dog poo for cash, surely you can find a way to survive the recession. Just watch movies until the whole thing blows over. Someone will have to pay you for it eventually. That’s my plan.
