and i have no idea what to look for. i remember covers from the seventies and eighties, not so much with the titles or authors. i did remember 'the funhouse' by owen west (eighties) and 'midnight' by john russo (also eighties, i know, sorry) but i'm blanking on other stuff.
hmm.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
a lot of the time i watch movies that
i would never bother to do if it weren't for the fact that i was bored.
so tonight i watched alien vs. predator: requiem. i seem to recall reading bucketloads of hate directed at this film by eager fapping fanboys wanting to see aliens eat predators or vice versa, and i also recall that it got really shit reviews.
well, what for? it's a FUCKING MOVIE ABOUT ALIENS AND PREDATORS. this is not rocket science, nor does it even need to make any sense. it is a monster movie, and being of the times it needs to be a monster movie where a lot of shit gets ripped up or bleeds or dies violently or something happens that makes you think 'ew. that’s fucking sickening.' or what have you. which this movie has in spades.
it had: a dad and his kid getting facehugged and chestbursted, a lot of stupid teens dying in exciting (not bloody enough for me) ways, a saucy scene wherein the lead teen entices another teen to the local high school for a torrid night swim (which is then interrupted by a bunch of aliens wanting to, perhaps, get their freak on) a dad getting lunched out on in front of his screechy kid, a bunch of bums getting facehugged, a cop getting skinned and hung from a…do i need to go on?
it would be a very good movie to get drunk to at the drive-in, and it would be a very good movie to get bored with and end up balling in the back seat to. i would do either of these things quite happily, and if i had been so lucky to see it at the drive-in, i would have done all three with the utmost zeal. i am that sort of girl.
speaking of drive-ins, when i first started watching gore and horror thanks to the mom-and-pop video store which had opened next to my house, i went on a herschell gordon lewis kick. said kick was fairly extreme, and i ended up weeping over the fact that the store owner wouldn’t sell me his copy of she-devils on wheels, and he really should have, because it never got rented, but i digress. one night i brought home 2000 maniacs after school. i was likely about 15 or so.
i sat down, popped it into the trusty betamax and my mother strolled in. 'something new, honey?'
yes, mom. leave so i can enjoy the naked ladies and the bad acting and the super-duper awesome gore in peace, please.
she sat down. moms never do what you want them to.
'you know, i think i’ve seen this. it was when your father and i were dating.'
sure you have. go away. go get drunk. go eat a ham.
'in fact, i know i have. there’s a very disgusting part coming up. they’re going to stick one of these men in a barrel and then hammer it full of nails and roll it down a hill. i made your father leave at that point.'
not only had she actually seen it, she had spoiled it.
but it made me smile, somewhere deep down. perhaps i had been conceived at a herschell gordon lewis film? stranger things have happened, you know.
anyhow, watch alien vs. predator: the sequel if you’re bored, or if you don’t care, or if you have a migraine. it’s all good.
so tonight i watched alien vs. predator: requiem. i seem to recall reading bucketloads of hate directed at this film by eager fapping fanboys wanting to see aliens eat predators or vice versa, and i also recall that it got really shit reviews.
well, what for? it's a FUCKING MOVIE ABOUT ALIENS AND PREDATORS. this is not rocket science, nor does it even need to make any sense. it is a monster movie, and being of the times it needs to be a monster movie where a lot of shit gets ripped up or bleeds or dies violently or something happens that makes you think 'ew. that’s fucking sickening.' or what have you. which this movie has in spades.
it had: a dad and his kid getting facehugged and chestbursted, a lot of stupid teens dying in exciting (not bloody enough for me) ways, a saucy scene wherein the lead teen entices another teen to the local high school for a torrid night swim (which is then interrupted by a bunch of aliens wanting to, perhaps, get their freak on) a dad getting lunched out on in front of his screechy kid, a bunch of bums getting facehugged, a cop getting skinned and hung from a…do i need to go on?
it would be a very good movie to get drunk to at the drive-in, and it would be a very good movie to get bored with and end up balling in the back seat to. i would do either of these things quite happily, and if i had been so lucky to see it at the drive-in, i would have done all three with the utmost zeal. i am that sort of girl.
speaking of drive-ins, when i first started watching gore and horror thanks to the mom-and-pop video store which had opened next to my house, i went on a herschell gordon lewis kick. said kick was fairly extreme, and i ended up weeping over the fact that the store owner wouldn’t sell me his copy of she-devils on wheels, and he really should have, because it never got rented, but i digress. one night i brought home 2000 maniacs after school. i was likely about 15 or so.
i sat down, popped it into the trusty betamax and my mother strolled in. 'something new, honey?'
yes, mom. leave so i can enjoy the naked ladies and the bad acting and the super-duper awesome gore in peace, please.
she sat down. moms never do what you want them to.
'you know, i think i’ve seen this. it was when your father and i were dating.'
sure you have. go away. go get drunk. go eat a ham.
'in fact, i know i have. there’s a very disgusting part coming up. they’re going to stick one of these men in a barrel and then hammer it full of nails and roll it down a hill. i made your father leave at that point.'
not only had she actually seen it, she had spoiled it.
but it made me smile, somewhere deep down. perhaps i had been conceived at a herschell gordon lewis film? stranger things have happened, you know.
anyhow, watch alien vs. predator: the sequel if you’re bored, or if you don’t care, or if you have a migraine. it’s all good.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
i'd like to speak frankly about something very important and also repellent:
namely, that i LOVE the movie wild orchid. i love it from the very moment it begins. i love the splash screen for the title. i love the shitty font they use. i OWNED THE SOUNDTRACK. i’m not ashamed of this, although my favorite song in the movie wasn’t on the soundtrack. i relate my total and UNDYING DEVOTION to this film in the hopes that i might convince some of you as to the utter rightness of this fucking piece of work.
thing to love number one: carre otis’ character gets on a greyhound BUS to go to NEW YORK CITY at the very beginning of the film. she is actually leaving from the middle of NOWHERESVILLE, a fact evidenced by the sight of her bus’ first destination: KANSAS CITY. the very notion of someone on an empty, dusty road boarding a bus about to take them to the fantastic metropolis of kansas city--which then takes one to the really big city--is a cinematic trope, if you will, that i had never thought to see.
thing to love number two: my friend shannon’s sister kelly called this film ‘wild orchard’ repeatedly, for no reason that we could figure. kelly also thought that going to red lobster meant that you had to dress up.
thing to love number three: i saw this movie one night at the west seneca mall with the aforementioned shannon and my friend tracy. we were the only teenaged girls in the theater. everyone else was there to surreptitiously jerk off, i think. after we saw it we went to antoinette’s for ice cream sundaes. but back to the movie.
thing 4: this is THE MOVIE where mickey rourke has a nervous breakdown and begins to believe that he is in fact a dude who should wear too much eyeliner and get lots of plastic surgery and REALLY IS mr. “i am untouchable damaged dude” and can’t open his mouth when he speaks and should become a boxer and ride harleys with ape-hangers while sporting a red bandana like a golden retriever for the rest of his life because don’t you know that harleys and bandanas are the coolest? i truly believe you can trace his downfall to precise moments in the film. like the sex therapist scene in the limo. which i’ll get to. or like when he decided to eat the german orange tanning pills instead of bothering to lay in the sun.
thing 5: carre otis has to watch a lot of black people having hot wilding animal mandingo buck sex up against walls of abandoned hotels. throughout the course of the film they just act as this greek chorus of animalistic fuck activity. i think this ‘wakes her up’ sexually and makes her more amenable to mickey rourke and his weird-assed talk-freak desires.
thing 6: a lot of people stand around in the movie with barely any clothes on for no reason. like at restaurants; they stand just behind you while you eat your dinner. I WANT TO EAT DINNER IN THAT PLACE.
thing 7: there is so much crazy-assed dialogue courtesy of zalman king that i don’t even know where to begin.
“tell me about their wedding night.”
“they went to a grand hotel. (PAUSE) on a tropical beach somewhere. (PAUSE) they made the reservations by phone, not knowing it had fallen to ruin. (SMALL PAUSE) he hated it. (PAUSE) she liked it. (PAUSE) it made her feel(PAUSE)(PAUSE)(PAUSE)…”
“what?”
(EXTREME PAUSE) “decadent.”
thing 8: as well as half-naked people, there are naked people standing around everywhere for no discernible reason. if they are ladies, their breasts are always heaving. well. it is rio.
thing 9: jacqueline bisset’s partner or sometime boyfriend or whatever the hell he is is played by the same actor who essays the role of the driller murderer in the also excellent slumber party massacre.
thing 10: mickey rourke takes carre and their new, convenient german friends to a “special place” so that the german lady can experience the thrill of almost being raped by drunken sweaty navy men. then, he takes the opportunity to pull a bruce lee on said navy man, and gives him a swift kick to the solar plexus in what can only be described as an extremely heavy scene. action follows fast and furious as the german lady in question is then assaulted by a thug desirous of her swank jewelry, so mickey rourke runs in and saves the day by actually RIPPING HER TOP OFF and then RUNNING AWAY. if you don’t believe me, rent the fucking movie. then they all have a group psychofuckfreak in the limo on the way home, with mickey as the sex therapist. carre otis actually has the decency to look woodenly disgusted at all this, as well she should. i mean, she has a german couple she knows nothing about balling on the seat next to her.
then he tells her that the people in the limo are not having sex, they are making love. “there’s a difference.” HEAVY.
thing 11: something very amazing is predicated on the notion that you should believe that carre otis has a passable portuguese accent. let me ask—-do you think she does? after the amazingness, mickey rourke watches her get fucked by a guy named jerome through the window of jerome’s hotel room. he has an appropriately angsty expression on his face. meanwhile, up in the room, jerome has a big string of drool hanging off his chin while he semi-rapes carre otis.
thing 12: carre otis and jacqueline bisset dress up like ‘twin’ men for carnival. actually, they dress in the same outfit for most of the movie so i don’t know why it’s so important that they do so for carnival. jacqueline bisset left a dress behind for carre otis to wear the first night she meets mickey rourke. i’m sure it all MEANS SOMETHING but i can’t say what. we learn that jacqueline is obsessed with mickey rourke. also that he was an orphan who stuttered so badly as a child that he could barely talk. and some long bullshit story about her dressing like a maid and some other crap.
thing 13: carre otis mildly yells (woodenly) at jacqueline bisset “i strongly advise you to tell them. if you don’t, it’s MISREPRESENTATION!” i don’t really know what the hell she’s talking about. i think mickey rourke is behind it all somehow.
thing 14: shockingly, there is a PIL song played on the soundtrack during carnival. i cannot express to you how FUCKING BLOWN my mind was at seeing/hearing johnny rotten/lydon’s voice snarking out at me in the theater. it was great. (PAUSE) but really surprising. (PAUSE) i mean, johnny rotten and zalman king? think about that. john must have needed some scratch, right?
thing 15: mickey rourke not only wears red bandanas when the mood strikes, he also chooses to go without a shirt for most of the film. sans german tanning pill orange, this would have excited me more than it does. sometimes he wears a rosary as a necklace. he reminds me of a scary pro wrestler.
thing 16: everyone in this movie forces carre otis to stand around and watch them balling, or listen to them talk about balling, or to just flat out disregard her when she says she doesn’t want to be involved in their nauseating balling performances/discussions. still, if i were her i would have probably stuck around too. it’s a weirdo scene, and i like weirdo scenes.
thing 17: let me say again, HARLEYS WITH APE HANGERS ARE NO GOOD. riding said harley with a leather vest on (shirtless o.c.) with a purple bandana tied around your neck AND a rosary AND about three gold watches on one hand is OVERDOING THINGS.
thing 18: near the close of the film, a black midget in a bellhop costume appears. why? is he supposed to be like a lawn jockey? WHY IS HE THERE?
thing 19: at the end, we learn that mickey rourke can “go to any restaurant [he] wants and sit at [his] own damn table but that [he] can’t swallow [his] food.” or however i should have written that. and that carre otis is very beautiful but that she’s “gonna disappear.”
thing 20: who cares if they really had sex or not during the big “making love” session? MAYBE they did! WHO CAN BE KNOWING? i get to watch orange mickey rourke (post cheek implants) having wild orchard sex on the floor of a vegas style ‘opulent’ hotel room for five or six minutes before they ride off into the sunset on ape-hangers and then carre gives us the thumbs-up.
it’s disturbing to me, because he really does look like blaine a.k.a. the invisible boy. like, i get a little squeamy. the only thing that saves this from being completely fucking weird like angel heart, where they are DEAD FUCKING RINGERS, is the cheek implants. for once, thank god for cheek implants.
if you think i write this from a place of irony, you are sadly mistaken. i am dead serious in my love for this film and everyone should see it.
p.s. i really wanted to add a lovely photo from somewhere in the film but as most of you know there’s not much going on other than TITS-A-PLENTY. sorry.
thing to love number one: carre otis’ character gets on a greyhound BUS to go to NEW YORK CITY at the very beginning of the film. she is actually leaving from the middle of NOWHERESVILLE, a fact evidenced by the sight of her bus’ first destination: KANSAS CITY. the very notion of someone on an empty, dusty road boarding a bus about to take them to the fantastic metropolis of kansas city--which then takes one to the really big city--is a cinematic trope, if you will, that i had never thought to see.
thing to love number two: my friend shannon’s sister kelly called this film ‘wild orchard’ repeatedly, for no reason that we could figure. kelly also thought that going to red lobster meant that you had to dress up.
thing to love number three: i saw this movie one night at the west seneca mall with the aforementioned shannon and my friend tracy. we were the only teenaged girls in the theater. everyone else was there to surreptitiously jerk off, i think. after we saw it we went to antoinette’s for ice cream sundaes. but back to the movie.
thing 4: this is THE MOVIE where mickey rourke has a nervous breakdown and begins to believe that he is in fact a dude who should wear too much eyeliner and get lots of plastic surgery and REALLY IS mr. “i am untouchable damaged dude” and can’t open his mouth when he speaks and should become a boxer and ride harleys with ape-hangers while sporting a red bandana like a golden retriever for the rest of his life because don’t you know that harleys and bandanas are the coolest? i truly believe you can trace his downfall to precise moments in the film. like the sex therapist scene in the limo. which i’ll get to. or like when he decided to eat the german orange tanning pills instead of bothering to lay in the sun.
thing 5: carre otis has to watch a lot of black people having hot wilding animal mandingo buck sex up against walls of abandoned hotels. throughout the course of the film they just act as this greek chorus of animalistic fuck activity. i think this ‘wakes her up’ sexually and makes her more amenable to mickey rourke and his weird-assed talk-freak desires.
thing 6: a lot of people stand around in the movie with barely any clothes on for no reason. like at restaurants; they stand just behind you while you eat your dinner. I WANT TO EAT DINNER IN THAT PLACE.
thing 7: there is so much crazy-assed dialogue courtesy of zalman king that i don’t even know where to begin.
“tell me about their wedding night.”
“they went to a grand hotel. (PAUSE) on a tropical beach somewhere. (PAUSE) they made the reservations by phone, not knowing it had fallen to ruin. (SMALL PAUSE) he hated it. (PAUSE) she liked it. (PAUSE) it made her feel(PAUSE)(PAUSE)(PAUSE)…”
“what?”
(EXTREME PAUSE) “decadent.”
thing 8: as well as half-naked people, there are naked people standing around everywhere for no discernible reason. if they are ladies, their breasts are always heaving. well. it is rio.
thing 9: jacqueline bisset’s partner or sometime boyfriend or whatever the hell he is is played by the same actor who essays the role of the driller murderer in the also excellent slumber party massacre.
thing 10: mickey rourke takes carre and their new, convenient german friends to a “special place” so that the german lady can experience the thrill of almost being raped by drunken sweaty navy men. then, he takes the opportunity to pull a bruce lee on said navy man, and gives him a swift kick to the solar plexus in what can only be described as an extremely heavy scene. action follows fast and furious as the german lady in question is then assaulted by a thug desirous of her swank jewelry, so mickey rourke runs in and saves the day by actually RIPPING HER TOP OFF and then RUNNING AWAY. if you don’t believe me, rent the fucking movie. then they all have a group psychofuckfreak in the limo on the way home, with mickey as the sex therapist. carre otis actually has the decency to look woodenly disgusted at all this, as well she should. i mean, she has a german couple she knows nothing about balling on the seat next to her.
then he tells her that the people in the limo are not having sex, they are making love. “there’s a difference.” HEAVY.
thing 11: something very amazing is predicated on the notion that you should believe that carre otis has a passable portuguese accent. let me ask—-do you think she does? after the amazingness, mickey rourke watches her get fucked by a guy named jerome through the window of jerome’s hotel room. he has an appropriately angsty expression on his face. meanwhile, up in the room, jerome has a big string of drool hanging off his chin while he semi-rapes carre otis.
thing 12: carre otis and jacqueline bisset dress up like ‘twin’ men for carnival. actually, they dress in the same outfit for most of the movie so i don’t know why it’s so important that they do so for carnival. jacqueline bisset left a dress behind for carre otis to wear the first night she meets mickey rourke. i’m sure it all MEANS SOMETHING but i can’t say what. we learn that jacqueline is obsessed with mickey rourke. also that he was an orphan who stuttered so badly as a child that he could barely talk. and some long bullshit story about her dressing like a maid and some other crap.
thing 13: carre otis mildly yells (woodenly) at jacqueline bisset “i strongly advise you to tell them. if you don’t, it’s MISREPRESENTATION!” i don’t really know what the hell she’s talking about. i think mickey rourke is behind it all somehow.
thing 14: shockingly, there is a PIL song played on the soundtrack during carnival. i cannot express to you how FUCKING BLOWN my mind was at seeing/hearing johnny rotten/lydon’s voice snarking out at me in the theater. it was great. (PAUSE) but really surprising. (PAUSE) i mean, johnny rotten and zalman king? think about that. john must have needed some scratch, right?
thing 15: mickey rourke not only wears red bandanas when the mood strikes, he also chooses to go without a shirt for most of the film. sans german tanning pill orange, this would have excited me more than it does. sometimes he wears a rosary as a necklace. he reminds me of a scary pro wrestler.
thing 16: everyone in this movie forces carre otis to stand around and watch them balling, or listen to them talk about balling, or to just flat out disregard her when she says she doesn’t want to be involved in their nauseating balling performances/discussions. still, if i were her i would have probably stuck around too. it’s a weirdo scene, and i like weirdo scenes.
thing 17: let me say again, HARLEYS WITH APE HANGERS ARE NO GOOD. riding said harley with a leather vest on (shirtless o.c.) with a purple bandana tied around your neck AND a rosary AND about three gold watches on one hand is OVERDOING THINGS.
thing 18: near the close of the film, a black midget in a bellhop costume appears. why? is he supposed to be like a lawn jockey? WHY IS HE THERE?
thing 19: at the end, we learn that mickey rourke can “go to any restaurant [he] wants and sit at [his] own damn table but that [he] can’t swallow [his] food.” or however i should have written that. and that carre otis is very beautiful but that she’s “gonna disappear.”
thing 20: who cares if they really had sex or not during the big “making love” session? MAYBE they did! WHO CAN BE KNOWING? i get to watch orange mickey rourke (post cheek implants) having wild orchard sex on the floor of a vegas style ‘opulent’ hotel room for five or six minutes before they ride off into the sunset on ape-hangers and then carre gives us the thumbs-up.
it’s disturbing to me, because he really does look like blaine a.k.a. the invisible boy. like, i get a little squeamy. the only thing that saves this from being completely fucking weird like angel heart, where they are DEAD FUCKING RINGERS, is the cheek implants. for once, thank god for cheek implants.
if you think i write this from a place of irony, you are sadly mistaken. i am dead serious in my love for this film and everyone should see it.
p.s. i really wanted to add a lovely photo from somewhere in the film but as most of you know there’s not much going on other than TITS-A-PLENTY. sorry.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
this isn't a really stupid movie
except for the parts where it’s really stupid, like every time stephen lack opens his mouth, but i try to put that out of my mind and concentrate on the good bits.
scanners is, as david cronenberg will freely admit, a mess. it was his tax bracket movie. he had no real plot. he did, however, have the good sense to cast patrick mcgoohan in a somewhat pivotal role, and this is good enough for me. the paddy is always at his best when he is acting sort of like an confused, uptight, weirdo asshole i think, and he does that very nicely with his opening line, which is:
'you’re 35 years old mr. vale. why are you such a derelict? such a piece of human junk.' seriously, all he needs to do is open his mouth and the awesomeness comes forth. it’s that weird, no-man's-land accent and the diction and the delivery. he is literally spectacular.
it's sort of like when he's the warden in escape from alcatraz, always grooming his fingernails with this weird tight smile on his face, or when he has his freakout as number six in 'the prisoner', ripping off that ape mask and leering at himself in this positively fucked up manner, or when he's playing red in hell drivers and pasts stanley baker a good one just for fun, or even when he's longshanks in braveheart and pitches his son’s no good lover out a window. he's just good that way.
he also makes some odd acting choices, like slouching whenever he can, but you know, people do those things sometimes, and in the context of the scene where he's slouching, i think it makes sense. he's annoyed by these consec tools. he knows that the scanners will break your fucking backs, and he's simply having to reiterate said position for what is probably the eight thousandth time. so he's a bit sleepy about the whole thing.
in the book 'cronenberg on cronenberg', there’s this awesome bit about scanners where d.c. admits to the fact that it's basically a piece of shit, and then goes on to talk about what a coup it was to have gotten the paddy to act in it. he talks about how he'd aged so magnificently, how absolutely wonderful he looked. you'd almost think he wanted to hump the paddy in much the same way i do, but i digress. he also talks about how the paddy one day confessed to him on set that not only was he terrified that he would fuck up on camera, but also that he was terrified that if he wasn't drunk enough, he’d kill someone.
why didn't i work on this film? god is patently not my friend. i would have gone out and gotten good and fucked up with the p. whenever he wanted me to, and i would have taken my clothes off for him at the barest hint of a request.
but anyhow, scanners: one massively lovely head explosion, one actor who can't act to save his ass even under duress (stephen lack), lots of nosebleeds indicating psychic strain, one actor eating hunks of scenery at pertinent moments in the film (michael ironsides), one script with some loose ends and an unnecessary death (the paddy's), but honestly, one of the best roles patrick mcgoohan had in the eighties. he gets to be the 'luke, i am your father guy', he has a heroic meltdown right before his death, he gets to be a snarky fucker. all the good stuff, and all the stuff he was the best at.
am i saying anything i haven’t said before? likely not. but i had to get drunk tonight, and this is what you get when i’m drunk—-epiphanies about the unending glory of patrick mcgoohan.
the good doctor, paul ruth:
scanners is, as david cronenberg will freely admit, a mess. it was his tax bracket movie. he had no real plot. he did, however, have the good sense to cast patrick mcgoohan in a somewhat pivotal role, and this is good enough for me. the paddy is always at his best when he is acting sort of like an confused, uptight, weirdo asshole i think, and he does that very nicely with his opening line, which is:
'you’re 35 years old mr. vale. why are you such a derelict? such a piece of human junk.' seriously, all he needs to do is open his mouth and the awesomeness comes forth. it’s that weird, no-man's-land accent and the diction and the delivery. he is literally spectacular.
it's sort of like when he's the warden in escape from alcatraz, always grooming his fingernails with this weird tight smile on his face, or when he has his freakout as number six in 'the prisoner', ripping off that ape mask and leering at himself in this positively fucked up manner, or when he's playing red in hell drivers and pasts stanley baker a good one just for fun, or even when he's longshanks in braveheart and pitches his son’s no good lover out a window. he's just good that way.
he also makes some odd acting choices, like slouching whenever he can, but you know, people do those things sometimes, and in the context of the scene where he's slouching, i think it makes sense. he's annoyed by these consec tools. he knows that the scanners will break your fucking backs, and he's simply having to reiterate said position for what is probably the eight thousandth time. so he's a bit sleepy about the whole thing.
in the book 'cronenberg on cronenberg', there’s this awesome bit about scanners where d.c. admits to the fact that it's basically a piece of shit, and then goes on to talk about what a coup it was to have gotten the paddy to act in it. he talks about how he'd aged so magnificently, how absolutely wonderful he looked. you'd almost think he wanted to hump the paddy in much the same way i do, but i digress. he also talks about how the paddy one day confessed to him on set that not only was he terrified that he would fuck up on camera, but also that he was terrified that if he wasn't drunk enough, he’d kill someone.
why didn't i work on this film? god is patently not my friend. i would have gone out and gotten good and fucked up with the p. whenever he wanted me to, and i would have taken my clothes off for him at the barest hint of a request.
but anyhow, scanners: one massively lovely head explosion, one actor who can't act to save his ass even under duress (stephen lack), lots of nosebleeds indicating psychic strain, one actor eating hunks of scenery at pertinent moments in the film (michael ironsides), one script with some loose ends and an unnecessary death (the paddy's), but honestly, one of the best roles patrick mcgoohan had in the eighties. he gets to be the 'luke, i am your father guy', he has a heroic meltdown right before his death, he gets to be a snarky fucker. all the good stuff, and all the stuff he was the best at.
am i saying anything i haven’t said before? likely not. but i had to get drunk tonight, and this is what you get when i’m drunk—-epiphanies about the unending glory of patrick mcgoohan.
the good doctor, paul ruth:
Thursday, January 28, 2010
man on wire
there is something strange about dreams. they can be huge and outlandish and impossible, and then, somehow those same dreams can be attained, and if you’re a certain type of person, you find yourself dancing across a wire strung between the twin towers. these utterly impossible dreams are so important. because nothing is really so unattainable, not if you desire it like you would a lover.
this film teaches that. if desire is there, then the magical will happen.
i was weeping like a little girl when they showed the photo of him, halfway between the two towers. everything between. completely liminal space, between living and dying, between a tiny rope of wire and the swirling air all around, between heaven and earth and somehow at home in that liminal space, not possible because that’s a borderline, a no man’s land, but he is at home there, in love with that place, not afraid. ecstatic. joyous.
love, desire, and longing—are there any things more important in this life?
they bring you to a place where the achievement of your dream gives you an almost ecstatic seeming bliss in the unlikeliest of places. the photos—of him lying on the wire, seagulls above him, kneeling, saluting, walking towards the camera with a look of pure pleasure, the face of a man who has at last gotten what he always wanted, proof that the world can be kind at times, proof that the human spirit can literally ascend, and that something as terrifying and insane as walking on a wire between the twin towers can suddenly make the most beautiful, lovely sense.
one suspects that even the police were moved to tears, at least some of them.
“I observed the tightrope ‘dancer’—because you couldn’t call him a ‘walker’—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire….And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle….He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again….Unbelievable really….Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.”
eight crossings, forty-five minutes in another world. how could you ever want to come home?
these things, so important.
this film teaches that. if desire is there, then the magical will happen.
i was weeping like a little girl when they showed the photo of him, halfway between the two towers. everything between. completely liminal space, between living and dying, between a tiny rope of wire and the swirling air all around, between heaven and earth and somehow at home in that liminal space, not possible because that’s a borderline, a no man’s land, but he is at home there, in love with that place, not afraid. ecstatic. joyous.
love, desire, and longing—are there any things more important in this life?
they bring you to a place where the achievement of your dream gives you an almost ecstatic seeming bliss in the unlikeliest of places. the photos—of him lying on the wire, seagulls above him, kneeling, saluting, walking towards the camera with a look of pure pleasure, the face of a man who has at last gotten what he always wanted, proof that the world can be kind at times, proof that the human spirit can literally ascend, and that something as terrifying and insane as walking on a wire between the twin towers can suddenly make the most beautiful, lovely sense.
one suspects that even the police were moved to tears, at least some of them.
“I observed the tightrope ‘dancer’—because you couldn’t call him a ‘walker’—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire….And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle….He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again….Unbelievable really….Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it.”
eight crossings, forty-five minutes in another world. how could you ever want to come home?
these things, so important.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
not sure of the point
when you remake things like the last house on the left. the original is a pretty stupid movie, but at least the people doing the offensive things are unpleasant people—apart from david hess, who is (to me) weirdly charismatic even though he's as ugly as sin and seems to be equally as unpleasant on his off days as he is in his films—and this helps you when you're watching girls being forced to piss themselves, or to make out with each other at gun/knifepoint, or when krug and co. are disemboweling someone. the doofy tunes (courtesy of hess) and the comic relief cops are annoying, but whatever. the bad guys are ugly people doing ugly things. you see this. you know it.
this new last house strikes me as disingenuous, because everyone in it is pretty. it's dishonest. it takes out all the very unpleasant business—the pissing, the enforced making out, the disemboweling—and replaces it with a rape sequence that, were it not for the filth and the disturbing music, could potentially be seen as somewhat titillating.
i generally don't give a shit about things like this, but this new deal actually comes off as much sleazier in intent, and for me, much more upsetting than the original film. because someone out there will watch it, and buttons will get pushed, and you know, i can't really blame them. it's designed to excite, and then it's meant to make you feel bad for getting worked up. although you know rape is A Bad Thing and you know these people are supposed to be the living embodiment of Really Bad People, they're not even that violent and weird, just sort of libertine and naughty in their perversions.
they're hollywood homely, which is to say not homely at all, and everything is too perfect and pat and ultimately very stupid. it's not like when john vernon as the warden is getting it on with all the chicks in chained heat, and that you can shrug off because it IS grindhousey and goofy and linda blair is a pudgemonster—it would be upsetting if it was played straight but it's not. in this movie it is played straight and it means to upset you for reacting the way you do, because watching good looking semi-naked people in forests in long shot having doggy style sex can be fun to look at. some people may say this is the point, that you're supposed to see that nice looking people can do horrible things, that the swell guy up the block is actually a sexual thrill killer, but this movie isn't that fucking smart and i can't say that i credit any of them with that level of intelligence.
there was an element of 'they went looking for bad stuff and bad stuff happened' in the original; mari and phyllis are on their way to see a band called bloodlust (if memory serves) and they want to score pot along the way which leads them straight to david hess and the awesomely disgusting fred lincoln (who starred in and directed many a porn film after) which then leads them to an untimely end. right in front of mari's house. ooh, snap!
there's one truly brilliant moment in the film, and that's after they've killed the girls, and they all sort of stand around in a daze, looking awkward and fucked up. wes craven has said that this moment is meant to evoke a feeling of 'they were playing with a doll that had somehow become broken, and they didn’t know how to put it back together again.' i think that's a pretty good description of the action on screen, and rumor also has it that shooting that sequence was emotionally and physically draining for the actors, who didn’t talk much that day at lunch and didn't say much when they finally wrapped.
in this new version, mary is just a sweet young thing going to visit her friend, and her friend is the bad influence, and mary's also got an older brother who died and who…huh? who cares about character development? the people going to see this movie know what it's about. i can guarantee you. they don't give a shit if mary has a dead brother who really supported her and went to every single one of her swim team meets. they want to see Bad/Cool Stuff. anyhow, after they stab the bad influence buddy twice in the belly and rape mary the gang just head for the house, don't bother with character beats, this is the new school of filmmaking so fuck taking a moment to see their reactions. i can totally see everyone going and hanging after the shoot and having a beer, because you know, it was martini shot time, and they finally finished the allegedly 16? 17? hour day of rapetastic fun in the woods.
i'm not squeamish, and i'm not overly freaked out by rape in films, having been raised on a steady diet of both bodice rippers and true crime novels, but something about this just annoyed me to a degree that you can’t even believe.
the film goes on to concentrate on the collingwood's revenge, which has again been softened and taken down a notch from the original—mrs. collingwood no longer fellates weasel's dick off, she shoots him instead; sadie is just shot, junior is allowed to live and is in fact speedboated away from the titular house with the still living mary—only krug gets a semi-interesting death, which is that his head goes asplodey in a microwave (don't think that can actually happen). fine and good, i suppose, but i like the fact that in the original, sexual violence is met with sexual violence by the 'good' family and krug eventually gets it with a nice big phallic chainsaw from mr. collingwood. in a not very bright movie it was a nice and somewhat smart note to hit. this film doesn't even give you that, it falls back on the stellar setpieces of goretasmic awesomeness, which is ultimately boring.
even though the original is dumb, it's still better than this, and that's sort of saying something, because i've always felt that the original was given far more credit than it deserved in terms of its place in genre history. texas chainsaw? sure. last house? never so much.
i think that a lot of horror is trying to swing around back to the days of the seventies—the thrill of the sticky floored theater and the shock that you'd get when you'd see this kind of shit play out on the big screen. but the seventies are dead and gone, and there are no more grindhouses, and remaking a movie that has been long since surpassed in freakishness by your local nightly news is just dumb, and it bothered me, and i honestly haven’t felt this fucking aggravated by a movie in a long time.
this new last house strikes me as disingenuous, because everyone in it is pretty. it's dishonest. it takes out all the very unpleasant business—the pissing, the enforced making out, the disemboweling—and replaces it with a rape sequence that, were it not for the filth and the disturbing music, could potentially be seen as somewhat titillating.
i generally don't give a shit about things like this, but this new deal actually comes off as much sleazier in intent, and for me, much more upsetting than the original film. because someone out there will watch it, and buttons will get pushed, and you know, i can't really blame them. it's designed to excite, and then it's meant to make you feel bad for getting worked up. although you know rape is A Bad Thing and you know these people are supposed to be the living embodiment of Really Bad People, they're not even that violent and weird, just sort of libertine and naughty in their perversions.
they're hollywood homely, which is to say not homely at all, and everything is too perfect and pat and ultimately very stupid. it's not like when john vernon as the warden is getting it on with all the chicks in chained heat, and that you can shrug off because it IS grindhousey and goofy and linda blair is a pudgemonster—it would be upsetting if it was played straight but it's not. in this movie it is played straight and it means to upset you for reacting the way you do, because watching good looking semi-naked people in forests in long shot having doggy style sex can be fun to look at. some people may say this is the point, that you're supposed to see that nice looking people can do horrible things, that the swell guy up the block is actually a sexual thrill killer, but this movie isn't that fucking smart and i can't say that i credit any of them with that level of intelligence.
there was an element of 'they went looking for bad stuff and bad stuff happened' in the original; mari and phyllis are on their way to see a band called bloodlust (if memory serves) and they want to score pot along the way which leads them straight to david hess and the awesomely disgusting fred lincoln (who starred in and directed many a porn film after) which then leads them to an untimely end. right in front of mari's house. ooh, snap!
there's one truly brilliant moment in the film, and that's after they've killed the girls, and they all sort of stand around in a daze, looking awkward and fucked up. wes craven has said that this moment is meant to evoke a feeling of 'they were playing with a doll that had somehow become broken, and they didn’t know how to put it back together again.' i think that's a pretty good description of the action on screen, and rumor also has it that shooting that sequence was emotionally and physically draining for the actors, who didn’t talk much that day at lunch and didn't say much when they finally wrapped.
in this new version, mary is just a sweet young thing going to visit her friend, and her friend is the bad influence, and mary's also got an older brother who died and who…huh? who cares about character development? the people going to see this movie know what it's about. i can guarantee you. they don't give a shit if mary has a dead brother who really supported her and went to every single one of her swim team meets. they want to see Bad/Cool Stuff. anyhow, after they stab the bad influence buddy twice in the belly and rape mary the gang just head for the house, don't bother with character beats, this is the new school of filmmaking so fuck taking a moment to see their reactions. i can totally see everyone going and hanging after the shoot and having a beer, because you know, it was martini shot time, and they finally finished the allegedly 16? 17? hour day of rapetastic fun in the woods.
i'm not squeamish, and i'm not overly freaked out by rape in films, having been raised on a steady diet of both bodice rippers and true crime novels, but something about this just annoyed me to a degree that you can’t even believe.
the film goes on to concentrate on the collingwood's revenge, which has again been softened and taken down a notch from the original—mrs. collingwood no longer fellates weasel's dick off, she shoots him instead; sadie is just shot, junior is allowed to live and is in fact speedboated away from the titular house with the still living mary—only krug gets a semi-interesting death, which is that his head goes asplodey in a microwave (don't think that can actually happen). fine and good, i suppose, but i like the fact that in the original, sexual violence is met with sexual violence by the 'good' family and krug eventually gets it with a nice big phallic chainsaw from mr. collingwood. in a not very bright movie it was a nice and somewhat smart note to hit. this film doesn't even give you that, it falls back on the stellar setpieces of goretasmic awesomeness, which is ultimately boring.
even though the original is dumb, it's still better than this, and that's sort of saying something, because i've always felt that the original was given far more credit than it deserved in terms of its place in genre history. texas chainsaw? sure. last house? never so much.
i think that a lot of horror is trying to swing around back to the days of the seventies—the thrill of the sticky floored theater and the shock that you'd get when you'd see this kind of shit play out on the big screen. but the seventies are dead and gone, and there are no more grindhouses, and remaking a movie that has been long since surpassed in freakishness by your local nightly news is just dumb, and it bothered me, and i honestly haven’t felt this fucking aggravated by a movie in a long time.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
when i watch david lynch movies i get very excited.
in every sense of the word. it's almost a pervy excitement, as well as the regular kind. i think he knows that people have this sort of reaction to his movies, and if i were to say anything definitive about david lynch that would likely be it. beyond that i am uncomfortable with the very idea of dissecting anything he does or says, because it's like cutting up the frog in biology class so you can see how it works. that may do for frogs, but it doesn't do for art. you either like it or you don’t, and there's really no in between, and you can laugh at people because you think their taste is shit (and it probably is) but that knowledge of 'this is crap' or 'this is great' isn’t entirely useful for anything else, unless you count getting flushed with excitement and pleasure at seeing something so wonderful appearing before your eyes that you could be living inside a dream as being useful, which i do.
this also relates to a very long winded essay i am continually writing about high and low forms of art and culture and how they are essentially equally important, with nothing to separate the high from the low, and this also ties into david lynch, but that's a matter for another essay, because this one is about tender and perverse imagery. (i stole that 'tender and perverse' bit from a jess franco movie and if you caught the reference good for you, you win at movies. seriously. if not, you lose. seriously.)
and now i'm all off the plot. so.
some of my most favorite images in films come from david lynch movies. i'm making a list of all of them now, and all of them cause this perverse excitement. so here we go; but i know i'm forgetting tons of stuff. to do it properly i should be sitting here watching all the films, but i want to get this out there.
the lady in the radiator singing to henry that in heaven, everything is fine
henry poking the baby to death and its subsequent screaming
frank booth wanting everything to be dark
dorothy vallens' obvious pleasure at being beaten the very first time we see frank
ben singing in dreams
sherilyn fenn stumbling along a desert road with half her brains spilling out of her head looking for her lipstick
bobby peru and lula in the hotel room
everything about fire walk with me. i can't stress this enough. it is probably my favorite film by lynch, i never saw twin peaks and don't care about it in the slightest, the movie makes perfect and beautiful sense to me and it hits every button i have wonderfully. everything laura does is enchanting and horrifying. for that matter nearly everything that everyone does in the film is enchanting and horrifying. besides it being my favorite lynch film, it is possibly my favorite film ever made—which is saying a lot, and if you don't like this film then you definitely fall into the aforementioned group of people who are being laughed at because you have shitty taste in life and fail it forever.
the shaky road that--someone--is traveling on forever
the curtains in fred and renee's place
videotapes left on the front steps
fred meeting the mystery man at the party—"you invited me. it is not my custom to go where i am not wanted."
alice's highly enforced striptease
all the fucking in the film
the final 'dick laurent is dead'
the car accident on mulholland dr.
the nightmare become reality behind the diner
mr. roque
betty's audition
discovering the dead body at diane's apartment (which incidentally is right around the corner from my house and i should get on the waiting list for that place good fucking christ)
no hay banda, and the entire performance at club silencio and the shaking and crying of betty and rita
the end—i don't mean like a title card, but the end
inland empire is its own beast; it has so many amazing things going on that it, like fire walk with me, is difficult to pick apart. it tells the story of itself endlessly.
how can i describe this film any other way? it tells the story of itself endlessly.
'what do whores do?' 'they fuck.'
the girl crying in the room
rabbits
the old woman who comes marching over to nikki grace's place to tell her and the audience the story of the movie she/we are in, both literally and figuratively
brutal fucking murder and this, which i had to get the dvd to quote properly: 'i can’t seem to remember if it's today, two days from now, or yesterday. i suppose if it was 9:45, i'd think it was after midnight. for instance if today was tomorrow, you wouldn’t even remember that you owed on an unpaid bill. actions do have consequences. and yet, there is the magic.' there aren't words to describe how i feel about this tiny bit of dialogue.
kingsley tells the story about the cursed film, which is the story of…
the runner inside the soundstage
nikki grace's increasing confusion
her run down a dimly lit pathway into full frame
the dingy apartment filled with the slutty girls doing the locomotion
'fucker's been sowing some pretty heavy shit'
'you on high now, love'
the very long story from the japanese girl at the end when nikki/sue is dying on the street about taking the bus to pomona to a blond friend who has troubles with her female parts and is also the story of what’s happening right next to said japanese girl and is also the story of the...
nikki in the theater
nikki shooting the very frightening person with the very frightening face which is also nikki's face
everyone dancing at the end (including the girl from pomona) to nina simone and just laughing and giggling
that's all i can think of right now. did you enjoy this? doesn’t matter either way, really.
this also relates to a very long winded essay i am continually writing about high and low forms of art and culture and how they are essentially equally important, with nothing to separate the high from the low, and this also ties into david lynch, but that's a matter for another essay, because this one is about tender and perverse imagery. (i stole that 'tender and perverse' bit from a jess franco movie and if you caught the reference good for you, you win at movies. seriously. if not, you lose. seriously.)
and now i'm all off the plot. so.
some of my most favorite images in films come from david lynch movies. i'm making a list of all of them now, and all of them cause this perverse excitement. so here we go; but i know i'm forgetting tons of stuff. to do it properly i should be sitting here watching all the films, but i want to get this out there.
the lady in the radiator singing to henry that in heaven, everything is fine
henry poking the baby to death and its subsequent screaming
frank booth wanting everything to be dark
dorothy vallens' obvious pleasure at being beaten the very first time we see frank
ben singing in dreams
sherilyn fenn stumbling along a desert road with half her brains spilling out of her head looking for her lipstick
bobby peru and lula in the hotel room
everything about fire walk with me. i can't stress this enough. it is probably my favorite film by lynch, i never saw twin peaks and don't care about it in the slightest, the movie makes perfect and beautiful sense to me and it hits every button i have wonderfully. everything laura does is enchanting and horrifying. for that matter nearly everything that everyone does in the film is enchanting and horrifying. besides it being my favorite lynch film, it is possibly my favorite film ever made—which is saying a lot, and if you don't like this film then you definitely fall into the aforementioned group of people who are being laughed at because you have shitty taste in life and fail it forever.
the shaky road that--someone--is traveling on forever
the curtains in fred and renee's place
videotapes left on the front steps
fred meeting the mystery man at the party—"you invited me. it is not my custom to go where i am not wanted."
alice's highly enforced striptease
all the fucking in the film
the final 'dick laurent is dead'
the car accident on mulholland dr.
the nightmare become reality behind the diner
mr. roque
betty's audition
discovering the dead body at diane's apartment (which incidentally is right around the corner from my house and i should get on the waiting list for that place good fucking christ)
no hay banda, and the entire performance at club silencio and the shaking and crying of betty and rita
the end—i don't mean like a title card, but the end
inland empire is its own beast; it has so many amazing things going on that it, like fire walk with me, is difficult to pick apart. it tells the story of itself endlessly.
how can i describe this film any other way? it tells the story of itself endlessly.
'what do whores do?' 'they fuck.'
the girl crying in the room
rabbits
the old woman who comes marching over to nikki grace's place to tell her and the audience the story of the movie she/we are in, both literally and figuratively
brutal fucking murder and this, which i had to get the dvd to quote properly: 'i can’t seem to remember if it's today, two days from now, or yesterday. i suppose if it was 9:45, i'd think it was after midnight. for instance if today was tomorrow, you wouldn’t even remember that you owed on an unpaid bill. actions do have consequences. and yet, there is the magic.' there aren't words to describe how i feel about this tiny bit of dialogue.
kingsley tells the story about the cursed film, which is the story of…
the runner inside the soundstage
nikki grace's increasing confusion
her run down a dimly lit pathway into full frame
the dingy apartment filled with the slutty girls doing the locomotion
'fucker's been sowing some pretty heavy shit'
'you on high now, love'
the very long story from the japanese girl at the end when nikki/sue is dying on the street about taking the bus to pomona to a blond friend who has troubles with her female parts and is also the story of what’s happening right next to said japanese girl and is also the story of the...
nikki in the theater
nikki shooting the very frightening person with the very frightening face which is also nikki's face
everyone dancing at the end (including the girl from pomona) to nina simone and just laughing and giggling
that's all i can think of right now. did you enjoy this? doesn’t matter either way, really.
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