Garage Days

Whenever people find out I write and publish film criticism and movie reviews the immediate response is almost always the same: Wow. That must be so great!

I admit it, as honesty is an absolute in such efforts: There are moments.

There are also moments that try my patience to its end. There are moments when I stop, sigh, shake my head, and give serious consideration to retiring from this business because I believe, in the moment, I can no longer readily and gladly suffer what passes for entertainment nowadays.

But then, just as I am about to turn in my notice and call it quits, something happens. Something that some might call a 'miracle', and I find my faith restored in this crazy business.

A week ago today, as I write this, I was giving serious consideration to calling it quits. After more than ten years of weekly deadlines, thousands of words in the form of film criticism and movie reviews, untold hours of sitting in the darkness I had reached a point where I was trying to rationalize why I should watch just one more film or movie and write about it. After all, did it really matter--what I do? My efforts don't get promoted and my readership, for which I am forever grateful, has most certainly stagnated and the product I was obliged to expose myself showed no signs of getting better, and the mail I get in response to my writing on such topics had reached a point in its overall tone that I was almost afraid of collecting the mail.

Then something happened. For lack of a better term, a miracle.

That miracle was a film entitled "Garage Days".

Superficially "Garage Days" comes across as a cinematic effort apparently conceived and produced in a garage. But given a second viewing without burden of prejudice and unrealistic expectations rooted in the Hollywood machine and it comes across as what it is: A bittersweet story about an Australian rock band that is just beyond the possibility of success: The band members are a little too old to be doing what they are doing and a little too untalented to have any true hope of finding the big time in rock and roll. But no matter. Because of their willingness to dream, their desire to aspire they are willing to take a chance and forgo the other reality that most likely awaits them: Boring jobs and no dreams whatsoever.

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