Noah Baumbach is my fucking hero

There is a multitude of crap out on DVD. Much of this crap I somehow own, including Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Street Fighter (the Sonny Chiba version from 1974, not the video game-based Raul Julia film.) But in this gigantic inundation of trash culture, science fiction and Criterions that I call my DVD collection, there is a void I only wish I could fill.

If this hasn't been stated before in here, I'm a college kid, and I am wont to do college things. You know, like drink. And in typical college fashion, I spend trips home drinking and then raiding my parent's refrigerator. Given that I am not a fan of my home town, this event happens about two or three times a year. Now, my parents are early sleepers, so it's not as if they'd be waiting up for their 21-year-old youngest son when he gets home at 2 or 3 a.m., and thanks to rampant insomnia, I also end up staying up a couple more hours.

So how's a boy to entertain himself? By exploiting the luxuries he can't afford - namely, digital cable and Showtime. Vaguely bored and vaguely lonely, I at first perused some very softcore pornography on Showtime, but scanned the listings for something better. I saw something about the movie Kicking and Screaming on the digital guide, and decided to watch it. It sounded interesting and has Parker Posey in it, who I have a mild school boy crush on.

What I didn't realize when I decided to watch a movie based entirely on the fact that it had a girl Ryan Adams is currently schtupping in it was that the movie would be amazing. The plot follows a group of friends after they graduate from college, and their kind of ambling/aimless lives that result. Witty dialogue, heartfelt situations and characters with names like Otis and Grover would win me over by the time I was ready to pass out.

Then I realized why I had never heard of this movie: it wasn't out on DVD, and the VHS was out of print. Given that Noah Baumbach, the director and writer, would go on to co-write The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Squid and the Whale, this seems more than a little unusual. The fact that it is really fucking good though makes it also a more-than-mild irritation.

I broke down a couple weeks ago and bought a VHS copy of the film, and have watched it repeatedly the same way I did upon watching High Fidelity, Breakfast Club or Almost Famous. I found that the lines we're just as memorable and snappy, lines like "What I used to able to pass off as a bad summer could now potentially turn into a bad life." or "No, I only told you. We have such a weak, pathetic familiarity that talking to you is like talking to myself."

Next Tuesday, the John Cusack flop Must Love Dogs is coming out on DVD. Kicking and Screaming is not. This is the proof that there is no God, and that Pascal's wager is a worthless proposition.

So if you can find a copy or catch a drunken midnight screening, by all means, go for it. If not, it's too bad that for whatever reason, this little gem won't be seen.