14 Movies to Help You Plan Your Midlife Crisis…

Congratulations, Mr. Ben Stiller! With your new movie Greenberg, you’ve reached that stage in your life where playing an obnoxious gym owner harassing lawyers with talk of vomiting carries a whiff of unfulfillment:

You’ve probably entered the middle-aged zone through its main gate – The Midlife Crisis. Midlife crisis is such a mean and distinct kind of unfulfillment, that on Jinni it gets its own subgenre (and a Faith No More song, but that’s beside the point); a subgenre in which the hero struggles with his dull life and broken dreams.

The bright side is that acting in midlife crisis films can be quite rewarding – an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a few Emmys are just some of the benefits people received by acting as the disillusioned protagonist.

You should watch out though, as the subgenre is currently dominated by two powerful players: Michael Douglas specializes in more Hollywood-style tales, while Bill Murray’s roles tend to have an indie flavor.

There are, however, ways of fighting off your gloom. Here are four of the best ways to handle a midlife crisis, as cinema has taught us:

Love to love you baby

If the age difference doesn’t bother you, trying to feel young again by putting some love, and a young lover, back in your life is a good and mostly harmless solution that can be applied in almost every case.

American Beauty (1999)

Lester (Kevin Spacey) is bored with his suburban life and crumbling marriage, when he discovers that dreaming about the neighboring cheerleader can awaken him from his emotional coma – an awakening with life-changing consequences

Lost in Translation (2003)

Bob (Bill Murray) is feeling like a fish out of water, and that can push a middle-aged, washed-up action star toward some minor depression and major whiskey consumption, especially when he’s confined to a luxury Tokyo hotel. Luckily, the lovely and neglected Scarlett Johansson is around…

Crush (2001)

Midlife crisis is not exclusive to men, of course. Three best friends in a small English town deal with loneliness, disappointment and some workplace problems using cigarettes, gin and each other’s sympathy. Andie MacDowell also enlists the help of a twentysomething guy (yes, you can call it “Sex & the Small Town”).

Claire’s Knee (1970)

In Eric Rohmer’s typically talky 1970 film, midlife crisis takes an offbeat turn when the soon-to-be-married Jerome encounters his friends’ teenage daughter Claire. But his interest in Claire is neither romantic nor sexual – he has a very specific obsession: touching her knee. On his quest for making contact, Jerome, in true Rohmer fashion, must go through many conversations about love, morality and human nature.

In Treatment

Midlife crisis tends to take its toll, sometimes in ways that deeply affect the hero’s psyche. Sometimes the best solution is to let it all out, in behavior ranging from eccentric to flat-out antisocial.

The Game (1997)

Nicholas (Michael Douglas) is extremely wealthy and lonely. To spice up his midlife crisis, enter Sean Penn, his trouble-making younger brother, who buys him a mind game for his b-day. What are the rules or purpose? Nobody knows. But paranoia and conspiracies are complimentary.

Falling Down (1993)

Divorced, unemployed, stuck in traffic, and annoyed by the weather, the other drivers and society in general, it’s no wonder Michael Douglas is losing it.
With a license plate that says “D-fens” it seems like the only option he has is to defend his rights. And what’s more appropriate than starting a violence spree to right all the things he thinks are wrong in American society? A rocket launcher is definitely useful when you’re on that kind of mission…

The Sopranos (1999)

How come nobody else chose the obvious – help from a psychologist to deal with anxiety, depression or workplace and family problems? Of all the people in the world, it had to be Tony Soprano who sought a professional help. When you’re the head of the most powerful crime family in New Jersey, sometimes getting in touch with your feelings can make things worse, rather than heal you.

Away We Go

Escaping a midlife crisis can literally mean running away from it all. Embarking on a journey, with some obligatory escapades and encounters with wise and not-so-wise strangers, can usually help the hero rediscover him/herself.

City Slickers (1991)

Three urban friends feel that the way to avoid their grim future lies in pretending to be cowboys. But before pulling off a feel-good story (more than the others in this list), Billy Crystal doesn’t forget to tell primary school kids some harsh truths about life from a protagonist in a crisis.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

The loss of a friend heightens a well-known oceanographer’s sense of midlife crisis. And so Steve (Bill Murray) dives into a vengeful trip against one of the sea’s most rare and mysterious deadly creatures. Leading a group of misfits, he does his own version of captain Ahab, only with red caps and Owen Wilson as the son he never knew.

Sideways (2004)

A failed writer and a TV actor want to celebrate one last week of singleness, touring California’s wine country – but they’re in an Alexander Payne film, so nothing can go right. What was supposed to be a fun and light-hearted wining-and-dining vacation turns into a slippery slope of dishonesty, disappointment and way-too-heavy drinking.

Broken Flowers (2005)

Don (Bill Murray), an aging womanizer, receives a mysterious letter claiming he has a son. Reluctant at first to be haunted by his past, and to leave his house or even his slacker uniforms, he is finally persuaded to embark on a bittersweet cross-country journey to some of his former girlfriends.

Career Counseling

When everything seems to be going nowhere, sometimes it’s best to just cross out the past and turn over a fresh page.

Wonder Boys (2000)

Writers are probably more prone to midlife crisis, as evidenced by this famous writer and college professor who struggles with his never-ending next novel while his life falls apart. A talented yet troubled student, a pushy editor, and a love affair with his boss’s wife don’t make things any easier.

JCVD (2008)

Even action stars get the blues. Jean Claude Van Damme stars as himself, a down-on-his-luck action star who comes home in a postmodernist tale about rising, falling, and kicking some people’s teeth in along the way. In his best role and most critically-acclaimed film (well, only critically-acclaimed film, to be honest) he delivers this award-worthy monologue:

Greenberg (2010)

But, Mr. Stiller, judging from the trailer, you chose to combine approaches: a love affair with a young woman while also starting a new career as an expert in doing nothing.
Could transforming into the 40-year-old slacker be the solution to your angst?

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We’re working continuously to improve Jinni’s recommendations system, based on an innovative approach to modeling each person’s unique taste, or Movie Personality. Feedback from our users is very important to us.

We’re now looking for volunteers for a survey about recommendations. If you volunteer, we’ll generate a recommendations set for you using an updated system we’re currently testing. It will take you just 10 minutes to evaluate the recommendations and complete the survey.

If you’d like to participate, please email us at contact@jinni.com with your username on Jinni and/or the email you used to sign up. Note that you must have rated at least 20 movies and shows you like (rating of “Good” or higher) to be eligible.

Everyone who participates will be automatically entered in a prize drawing for an iPod touch, not to mention the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping us give you and fellow movie lovers better recommendations!

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We’re proud that Jinni is among this year’s Hive Award winners at SXSW.

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Registered users will notice today that their Jinni homepage has changed. Instead of going to the usual search homepage, you will land on a new overview page that includes several personalized ways to choose what to watch next: Your latest recommendations from Jinni, movies and shows that people you’re following and your neighbors have recently liked, and your Movie Personality Sketch. The page also includes your Activity Gage (a measure of your overall activity on Jinni) and your latest activities.

While Jinni does (we think) offer a useful, unique service for non-registered users with semantic search by mood, the full value is in the personalized service. Jinni creates a one-of-a-kind model of each person’s tastes, or Movie Personality, using your ratings, preferences, and other activities. Because your Movie Personality is based on our semantic approach, we can explain it in words (in your Movie Personality Sketch) and apply it in a variety of interesting ways.

Your Movie Personality powers recommendations, neighbors, taste compatibility, and all personalized features on Jinni. The personalized homepage, which has been a while in coming, is an expression of Jinni’s personalized approach to video discovery. We hope you’ll enjoy your new homepage!

Do you make more use of Jinni’s personalized or non-personalized features? What personalized feature would you most like to see us add to our service?

(You can always access your personalized overview page from the dropdown user menu at the upper right of every page on Jinni.)

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With The Hurt Locker sweeping the Oscars, and a new war movie, Green Zone, debuting last weekend, it seems that there are more and more excellent movies about the U.S army.
So it’s time to choose the 10 greatest U.S. army movies. I’ve left out great TV series, which deserve their own post, like Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, Over There, The Unit, the upcoming Spielberg/Hanks project The Pacific and more.

As you can see below, Iraq’s contribution to the pantheon is minimal. As much as I liked The Hurt Locker, it finds a good place in the middle of the list, and doesn’t beat several well-established classics.

10. Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

The re-creation of Iwo Jima features impressive battle scenes, the air full of thick plumes of smoke, zinging bullets, and pounding explosions. But the most interesting part of the movie comes as the three men are paraded in front of the American public, as they vacillate between embarrassment and anger at the public relations campaign they find themselves embroiled in, while also pleading with the public to help provide funds for the soldiers who are still at war.

9. Black Hawk Down (2001)

The outstanding ensemble cast includes a competent but nervous Ranger sergeant leading his first mission, a “desk jockey” who excels when sent into combat, a cocky and enigmatic Delta, and a downed Black Hawk pilot. The violence of the film is brutal and nearly constant. Director Ridley Scott unflinchingly, and very realistically, captures the chaos and mayhem of this bleak battle in which nothing goes right for the men, as things go from bad to worse.

8. The Dirty Dozen (1967)

An all-star cast energizes this classic World War II action movie about a group of 12 American military prisoners assembled by tacticians and ordered to perform a suicide mission: infiltrate a well-guarded château and kill the Nazi officials vacationing there. Major Reisman (Lee Marvin), the noncriminal in charge of the group, whips the men into a crack unit, uses them to best the troops of his by-the-book superior officer in war games, then leads the steely antiheroes on their perilous assault. This hit movie is a rousing thriller laced with a stinging cynicism perfectly in tune with the increasingly skeptical tenor of the times.

7. The Deer Hunter (1978)

A complex and emotional, epic look at the Vietnam War and its effects, told through the lives of a tight-knit group of friends from a small Pennsylvanian town. It depicts their lives before, during and after the war, lives that will forever be altered by their horrific experiences, as so well demonstrated by the character of Nick, who survives captivity but is unable to escape its trauma, caused by a devious Russian roulette game, a scene that no moviegoer can ever forget.

6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The movie chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines to track down a soldier, Private Ryan, so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the unimaginable loss of her three other sons to the war. The first unforgettable 20 minutes so realistically and horrifically depict the Normandy invasion that as viewers we almost feel like we’re landing at Omaha Beach ourselves, along with the unit.

5. The Hurt Locker (2008)

The big winner of the 2010 Oscars focus on the story of 3 members of a bomb-disposal unit in Baghdad. As their tour of duty enters its final weeks, the men face a set of increasingly hazardous situations, any of which could end their lives in an explosive instant. I knew it was a good movie, as I felt I was disarming the bombs myself…

4. Patton (1970)

Patton is an enduring portrait of a complex and larger-than-life figure - field General George S. Patton, who wrote poetry, fired pistols at strafing fighter planes, and loved America with a lofty and historical zeal. Patton won 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.

3. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Full Metal Jacket is an exploration of the behavior of men in battle. A moving commentary on the dehumanizing process that occurs when soldiers prepare and engage in battle, it is an unforgettable experience from Stanley Kubrick, one of the most original voices to ever pick up a movie camera.

2. Apocalypse Now (1979)

Considered one of the best war movies of all time, Apocalypse Now features incredible performances and beautifully chaotic visuals that make it an absolute must-see. It’s an atmospheric journey into the chaos of war and the chaos of the soul.

1. Platoon (1986)

Widely regarded as one of the finest war films ever made, Platoon reflects not only the United States’ division over Vietnam but the timeless truths of battle: terror, disorientation, exhilaration, and horrible loss.

Technorati Tags: The Hurt Locker, War movies, Kathryn Bigelow

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