Netflix trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkO0eviVLU They should show this in schools. To illustrate how you can survive marching to the beat of your own drummer. Until you don't. I'd never even heard of this movie, but a reader recommended it and after the Thai show we watched was just too weird to continue, I pulled it up. Now the story is simple. André delayed his colonoscopy and when he finally got it he found out that he had terminal cancer. But the essence of the story is not André's cancer journey, but André himself. I'm watching the Burning Man documentary on HBO, and the guy who started it, Larry Harvey, had never paid taxes. He was living outside the system. And when André appears on screen you think the same thing, this is an oddball who found his place in San Francisco, amongst like-minded people, far from the scrutinization of the east coast. But this is untrue. Turns out André has a career in advertising and... André is the weirdo in your high school class, not the checked-out stoner, but someone who was smart who didn't care whether he fit in. Then again, André did plenty of drugs. Did they cause his cancer? André tried it all, he was living life to the fullest, until... The story is so whacked that I don't want to reveal any of it because I don't want to ruin it. André and his friend go to a bar and start talking to the bartender, Janice, and... Then a whirlwind trip begins, all based on André's eccentricities. You can see how he could rub you the wrong way, but he's not negative, he's not cutting, and it's not exactly that he's outrageous, just that he'll say the unexpected thing, make jokes, color outside the lines. We've squeezed this behavior out of younger generations, it gets no applause in society at general. Now it's all about being a business person and becoming rich. The business itself isn't even that important, as long as it pays. The goal is to separate yourself from the hoi polloi, live on a higher level, all while boasting of your achievements to the rest of the world, acting superior, letting others know they are inferior. But it didn't used to be this way. Certainly not in the sixties. It was the love generation, we were all in it together. Equals. As for business...those were the corporations funding the war machine. Finance? Who knew exactly what they did on Wall Street, I certainly didn't. But I knew the movies and the music and the culture, culture was everything. But André wasn't even born until 1968. While most of his brethren have sold out, André has not, he's remained curious and questioning, left his hair long, he looks like a homeless person. But he is not. Don't judge the book by the cover. André drives a Tesla. Now the "New York Times" has a policy of reviewing every movie that plays in the city. Check the paper on Friday, the reviews are endless, they all run together. They reviewed "André Is an Idiot," but I don't remember it. No, films like this depend upon word of mouth. And I'm telling you, you've got to see this movie. A documentary. Unlike the exploitive ones now all over streaming TV. Shot in a first class manner. It's not only André, but his relationships. Especially with his best friend Lee. Male friendship like this is never depicted on screen. Two regular guys, not setting the world on fire, but not living on the street, who talk to each other every day and do things together, know each other by heart... Normally we're exposed to winners and losers, but André and Lee are in the middle, just like you and me. And you've got some new age philosophy. And you've got family values. This is a family story that Hollywood never gets right, if it even tries. André is magnetic, he's funny. The story itself will crack you up. And then there's the cancer thread... This is what it's like living through the Big C. The chemotherapy, the caregiving, the false hope... First and foremost, "André Is an Idiot" is an American story. Watch it. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
