Mumblecore: Are You Ready to…Crumble?

By Si Dunn

It’s time for senior moviemakers to step up and show the mumblecore movement how to stop muttering into its angst and actually say something worth hearing.

Okay, okay, so I’m being sarcastic about this surging outbreak of ultra-low-budget movies featuring twentysomethings talking, talking, talking about relationships and sex and then about sex and relationships, while, like, you know, not quite finishing their sentences. Like.

We seniors could call our new movie movement grumblecore, because many of us have plenty to complain about: multi-decade marriages gone south; jobs moved overseas; new careers we can’t compete for, nor even comprehend; retirement savings that won’t last one “golden year”; no long-term care insurance; family members scattered across the nation and universe; and guaranteed short-term futures as a varsity players in shuffleboard hell.

We also could call our movement stumblecore. We have, after all, managed somehow to stumble a long way through life, figuratively and literally. Now we may be having real balance problems when we walk or when we try to put two thoughts together as we we talk.

We could call our movement crumblecore, as well. Hey, you think you’ve got angst, mumbledude? Try riffing about sex and relationship woes when you don’t have your false teeth pasted firmly in your mouth, when every joint in your body aches, and when your impotence medicine suddenly is making everything and everybody look blue. Likewise, try getting on with your life’s next great chapter knowing that it’s, like, death, and it really is, like, just ahead.

Will it be a cardiac roadside bomb? A sniper attack by the Big C? A no-joke stroke? Or just one of a million other sanguinary surprises?

Mumble, mumble, mumble; mutter, mutter, mutter; grumble, stumble, crumble....

Cut! That’s definitely a wrap!

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