Wow. Seriously fucking bad stuff. (Memory lane alert.) When I first started working at a movie theater in tenth or eleventh grade, my very first night was also the opening of this movie in my hometown suburbia. 300 Protestants worshipping at the alter of Buena Vista. Probably all of them were currently in band, were in band in junior high, or wished that they had been in band. Manager comes up to me at the usher box trying hard to stuff all the torn ticket stubs into a bulk candy bag for later tabulation. “Our projecter broke down and you’ll have to get ready to direct a lot of angry people back to the box office for free passes.” Shee-oot. When he disappears into Auditorium One to deliver the bad news. I hear the muted sound of much booing. I am immediately confronted by the mob. “You want me to stand in line? This is opening night!” Later, when cleaning out the theater in case of a second evening show, I can’t help but compare the scene with riot footage. There is pop on the screen, on the walls, and popcorn strewn everywhere. The ostensibly supposed-to-be-fucking-civilized bourgeoisie trashed the theater. Those pricks. Now comes the embarrassing part. I watched the film myself a few days later and was enthralled by it. To my impressionable mind, it was the most wonderful film of the year, next to Babe. I thought in a just world it would be up for twenty Oscars. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then. Even by the end of that year (it didn’t premiere in Minnesota til January of ‘96) I had moved on to the “sophistication” of Shine and The People vs. Larry Flynt (yeah, a lot more has changed since that point, as well). I hadn’t had the good fortune to see Mr. Holland’s Opus again until orientation week at college with a dorm room full of freshmen music majors. Tellingly, their intervisitational Wednesday-evening presentation of the film was a break from a line of four or five Disney cartoons. So this room full of supposedly pretty sophisticated Concordia Cobbers sat pretty much in quiet admiration of the film and its dozen-or-so cliche plot twists… that is up until Richard Dreyfuss steps up to the podium at his farewell assembly to conduct the first performance of “An American Symphony (Mr. Holland’s Opus).” It opens its salvo of Michael Kamen schmaltz with a flagrant drum roll. One music major, a very intelligent dude named Matt Mayfield, stands up and shouts “What the hell is this?! This is the climactic composition that’s supposed to explain his thirty-year mad quest?!” I found myself agreeing, only I added that this piece of crap compositon also perfectly reflected the maudlin sentiments of the film as well. As I recall, Matt reverted and joined the rest of the group in the room in saying he had no problem with the film itself. Actually, they all thought it was good. If I were to base if solely on this episode, I’d have to come to the decision that it’s a lot easier and more common to have refined taste in music than it is to have refined taste in cinema (of course, these were music majors viewing the film and many of them were on the path to being music teachers as well). Anyways, it’s always fun to revisit films I used to like to see just how much my tastes have changed. As an aside, did anyone else notice how much the final strains of “An American Symphony” blatently rip off “A Day in the Life”? It makes me want to smack somebody.

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