Lauren Tom in "The Joy Luck Club"

Lauren Tom as Lena St. Clair
Michael Paul Chan as Harold, Lena's Husband

The Stairs are Grey

The Joy Luck Club is a movie about daughters trying to live up to their Mother's expectations. Lena's mother was married to an crazy abusive husband in China. Lena decided to take the total opposite route and married a man who is as fair to her as the day is long and just about as unemotional to boot. This man is Harold, the principle at the architecture firm that Lena works at.

The Kitchen is Grey

The scene that this story occupies takes place in the apartment of the couple. It is a modern, but passionless and lifeless home. Its made of steel and cinder block, with nuetral furniture and a bedroom with walls so crooked that you can't even hang a picture on them.

The Living Room is Grey

This movie presents the opposite of what we've come to expect from the movie architect. Harold and Lena aren't passionate, they are too calculating, they don't seem to like what they do. This couple is so devoid of life that the only TV show that Harold watches is Jeopardy, and he only shows real anger and frustration when he misses a question. There is no music in their lives, a fact that is presented in the movie by suspending the score for a solid 8 minutes, the whole of the scene.

The Bedroom is Grey and the Walls Are Crooked

"All around the house I see the signs my daughter does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces."

Jeff Bridges in "Fearless"

Jeff Bridges as Max Klein
John de Lancie as Jeff Gordon








Long before Jeff Bridges played a free spirit in The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges played a free spirit in 1993's Fearless. The opening shot of the movie is Max walking through a cornfield, holding a baby, and we soon learn that hes walking away from a plane crash. This crash transforms him into a do as you please, don't give a damn, live life kinda guy. Through out the movie, we learn in a series of flashbacks to the moments right before the hydolics on the airplane go out that Max wasn't always a this person, he used to be a high strung, anxious, nervous wreck on an architect.

It really ties the room together

In these moments before the plane crash, Max and Jeff, his partner in the firm they own, are traveling from San Francisco to Houston to present a pitch to a company named 'Nutty Nick's'.
They are going over the awesome presentation that you see above when the plane goes haywire. After the crash, we really don't see Max do any architectural, other than taking Rosie Perez on a tour of Oakland while pointing out todos los edificios.

I'm debating between:
"Hey! Careful, Man! Theres a beverage here!"
&
"Oh, The usual. I bowl. Drive Around. Occasional acid flashback."

Mark Ruffalo in "Just Like Heaven"

Mark Ruffalo as David the Landscape Architect








Ok, so its another movie where the architect's wife is dead and he starts to see spirits. But instead of mean ghouls, he sees cute-as-a-basket-of-kittens Reese Witherspoon. And they fall in love. But she's not dead, shes in a coma! So he builds her a garden. Then they kiss at the end. Seriously, if Reese wasn't in this movie I would have turned the movie off. The only way they could have made the movie worse is if they cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role. Whats that? Oh, they did cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role! I do this stuff in the name of research, kids, all for you.

Paul Newman in "The Towering Inferno"

Paul Newman as Doug Roberts








In 1974, Doug Roberts builds the tallest skyscraper in the world in San Francisco. At a total of 136 stories, I really don't want to do the math as to how tall this sky scraper is. I'm guessing well over a mile high though, judging by the ego's of the film's two stars, Newman and McQueen.

The opening credits: The Jetseting Architect

One hero is the Architect that must navigate the complicated plans and systems of this building for the film's second hero, McQueen's Fire Chief, to fulfill his job description. To those of you in the business out there, you'll be happy to learn that the film's villains are the contractor and the electrical engineer. These two skip on costs, use shoddy building material and 'only' build to code, which of course, is not what the architect spec'ed. In the end, the two heroes must blow up the water tanks above the penthouse of the tower to drown the conflagration.

The 136 story 'Glass Tower'

By Far, the best part of the movie is the brief encounters between Newman and McQueen.

Chief O'Hallorhan: [sighs] Architects.
Doug Roberts: Yeah, it's all our fault.
Chief O'Hallorhan: Now, you know there's no sure way for us to fight a fire in anything over the seventh floor, but you guys just keep building 'em as high as you can.
Doug Roberts: Hey. Are you here to take me on, or the fire?

Newman pretends to look at drawrings

Doug Roberts: [picks up ringing phone] Roberts.
Chief O'Hallorhan: It's out of control, and it's coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes. Now, they wanna try somethin'. They wanna blow those water tanks two floors above you. They think it might kill the fire.
Doug Roberts: How're they gonna get the explosives up here?
Chief O'Hallorhan: [after already having been given the task] Oh, they'll find some dumb son of a bitch to bring it up.

Breaking the rules:
Riding elevators while the building is on fire

Doug Roberts: I don't know. Maybe they just oughta leave it the way it is. Kind of a shrine to all the bullshit in the world.

Newman saves children

[last Lines ]
Chief O'Hallorhan: You know we were pretty lucky tonight, body count's less then 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill ten-thousand in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and carrying out bodies until someone asks us... how to build them.
Doug Roberts: Ok, I'm asking.
Chief O'Hallorhan: You know where to reach me. Goodbye, Architect.

Setting the C-4, Doug Roberts does his
best Howard Roark impression.