2016

1. Love & Friendship
2. Paterson
3. Fences
4. The Founder
5. Hacksaw Ridge

Honorable Mention: Doctor Strange

All of these films are not only my favorite from the year, but I believe that each of these represents the best work these respective directors (all of whom I find interesting and worth following) have done in their careers.

Top tens are pretty silly. We all know that. But I've found myself resisting them more the past couple of years.

These five (maybe six) films are the ones from 2016 that I want to re-visit. Maybe it's telling that I haven't re-watched any of them yet (I did fall asleep to partial re-views of The Founder and Doctor Strange).

I'm planning on re-watching Rogue One because I just read a good essay on it which made me re-consider it somewhat (and honestly, we all know that I'm a sucker for this childhood pop franchise that won't let me grow up). But it wasn't and isn't a favorite from the year.

There were a lot of good movies in 2016, including some trashy stuff and some art stuff. I was entertained more in 2016 than I was this year or the year before it. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe not. I'm content with my current discontent.

The thing is that I don't care about the rest of the films from 2016. I don't want to re-watch them. I don't feel like discussing them. Was Nocturnal Animals better than Finding Dory better than The Purge:Election Year? How do I rank them? Why would I? I don't know. I don't care. I saw 53+ films from the year and I can only think of 3 (after looking at a list--otherwise I wouldn't have remembered them at all) that I feel were a complete waste of time: Star Trek Beyond, Neon Demon, and Tarzan, for the record. I couldn't force myself to pay attention to either of the first two and the latter has the distinction of being the only film to make me fall asleep in the middle of the morning.

I guess I'd re-watch any of the films from the year if it meant an opportunity to discuss aspects of them with you guys. But it's been a long time since we've all been "in sync" with our viewing habits. It's been at least as long since we've all committed to faithfully engaging with one another here about films.

I'm actually talking myself into an interest in a renewed attempt at a CR5FC "movie of the month" club. I'd be up for it if you guys are.

2015

2015, Ten,
Five Groups of Two

1. The Force Awakens
2. Entertainment

3. Results
4. Irrational Man

5. Knight of Cups
6. Hateful 8

7. High-Rise
8. Stinking Heaven

9. Ex Machina
10. Crimson Peak


You all know how I feel about The Force Awakens. It succeeded in awakening the child in me. It *entertained* me. Which is why it feels right to pair it with Entertainment, the film that captured my own despair in regards to art and culture. Entertainment apes the forms of the arthouse, making it clear that the cheap and easy entertianments of the masses is not its easy target. It is just as much if not more so a statement against the empty gestures of a spiritually dead aestheticism.

I still love Results, but its faults are starting to wear through for me. Each re-watch, I see a little more clearly how it conforms to our culture of death in little ways. Its center is still an affirmation of love and life, but there are creakings at the seams. Irrational Man, on the other hand, has risen in my memory's estimation. I really do need to re-watch it. Woody Allen is at his most self-critical here, but critics dismiss this one because it features crime and philosophy instead of smarmy sex talk and social silliness.

Knight of Cups and Hateful 8 are two films that I respect and want to love, but don't love. Malick and Tarantino are both Masters, but I'm not sure that I want to follow either one. Malick is too serious, trying to escape it all. Tarantino is too smug in his commitment to wallowing in the trash.

High-Rise and Stinking Heaven both explore what it means to live together. I've forgotten most of what I liked about either one and find myself not caring to defend them now. My Top Ten ends at 6. Or maybe even at 4. The Top 4 are the only ones I would re-watch right now, this very minute.

Ex Machina and Crimson Peak get the end of the list nod because I find myself still impressed with the visual storytelling in each. Even if I had problems with both of them, they both featured compelling worlds fully realized.

Horrible?

More Horror

I'm not feeling all that inspired to write anything. Here are some brief copy and paste comments from the end of my bgg horror challenge:

October 24th: It Comes at Night (2017, Trey Edward Shults)

Basic plot: A mysterious plague has killed off almost everyone. Which is worse, death or survival?

Seen before? N

Recommend? Yes

This film is a slow burn, focused on characters and relationships. Then it is frustrating (enjoyably so) in that what is revealed about the characters is often as mystifying as it is revealing. It is much more about human behavior than it is about unknown monsters threatening us (though it has an element of that too). I can't really talk about what I like about the film without going into deep spoilers (though there is no real twist or deep surprise, just a constant thrum of despair). It's probably my favorite film so far of an otherwise mostly disappointing 2017. That said, I think it's only good, not great.

---

Well, I finished out the month with only 7 films watched. Not too bad, I guess. I also watched one non-horror film, getting out to the cinema to catch Blade Runner 2049 (eh, ok). And over the course of the month, I probably watched a few hours of board game media videos. And parts of episodes of kids stuff (Voltron, Ronja) with my kids.

I finished out the month by watching Stranger Things 2. It took me 5 days to "binge watch" the whole season. After seeing the trailer, I was prepared to be disappointed as it looked like the show had gone in a much bigger, blockbuster direction. It's true that the show is bigger and more expansive, but it also stayed true to what makes it so special, capturing perfectly the feeling of childhood friendships, the kind of magic bonds that some of us were lucky enough to experience firsthand in the 80s, providing some relief as it seemed like much of the world was hostile to outsiders and freaks like us.

Anyhow, Stranger Things 2. Highly Recommended.

---

Reflecting on Stranger Things 2 with a little distance now, I'll add my usual disclaimer that films starring kids make me uneasy. I think that there's almost always an element of exploitation going on. This is most evident in the presentation of sexuality (there's one scene in Moonrise Kindom for example that definitely crosses the line and tarnishes the film); this is a minor spoiler-- there are a couple of kisses at the end of ST2. The one female star was not told about this kiss until the day of filming. The male star as well. It was a "first kiss" for both of them. "It's just a kiss," but it's also disturbing to see these children engaging in something they otherwise would have discovered in an organic way for the sake of entertainment. The actress playing El commented that she was emotionally distraught during one psychologically harrowing scene in the film. That's another example.

The thing is that Stranger Things is not a kids show. Some elements of childhood are fantastically displayed in the show, but it is highly crafted (the artifice is clear; there is at least no attempt at deception in this regard) by ADULT hands.

Acting involves masks, putting on personas, becoming a person. The difference between the stage and "real life" is that the mask is always imposed from without. I guess that this can be good or bad, depending on the quality of the mask. Overall, I guess that I do believe that the roles that the Duffers have created for the child actors are positive ones, heroic and self-sacrificing. The real life children will learn to he noble by "acting" noble. But I still have a few reservations.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned

October.

I've never strongly associated it with horror anything. The increasing commercialization of fright as it is tied into our cultural cycle is probably worthy of study. I don't understand why or exactly how the ghoulish partnered with the greedish. Candy companies want to sell candy. Costume companies want to sell costumes. Lawn decorations want to be on lawns. People, I guess, just want to have some naughty fun. Mostly, though, I find it all tacky and lacking any real resonance.

This annual celebration of scary things means very little to me. But there is another annual celebration at the end of October that I pay very close attention to every year. It also involves a great deal of manufacturing, selling, and buying. It is definitely a commercial holiday. I am of course speaking of the Internationale Spieltage SPIEL'17!!! That's the official name. Almost everyone in the U.S. refers to the event by the name of its city: Essen. This event at Essen is the biggest board game fair of the year, where most companies release their newest and best games for the year.

The past several weeks, I've scrolled through long lists of announced games. I've read previews and reviews. Later this week, as the fair is happening, I'll have a livestream of video coverage on throughout the day. This is all an annual ritual for me. (I also pay attention to Origins and GenCon, but Essen is really the highlight of the year). Eventually, throughout next year, I'll get a chance to play a tiny fraction of the nearly 1,000 new games released. I've already pre-ordered 5 games which will probably be delivered in November or December. I'll likely buy at least another half dozen or so over the next few months. And I'll get to try many, many more if I make it out to any cons next year.

I'll spare you all my Top Ten Most Anticipated Essen Games 2017 List. Moving on...

All of that is an introduction to the fact that I'm on boardgamegeek.com a lot, especially this time of year. It's the only website that I check nearly daily, and have been doing so for 12+ years. But BGG isn't all games. There is a lot of social activity there all over the map. At the end of last month, I stumbled upon a "geeklist" dedicated to watching horror movies in October, watching a film a day. I hadn't been watching much so figured this might be a good impetus to get me to watch some stuff. And watching horror movies specifically means that I probably get to argue with Brandon, right? The Giants win 17-17. This one was a no-brainer for me. Because the zombies got my brain....ha ha groan.

I haven't kept up the pace of a film a day. Not even close. Here's what I have watched. I'm copying and pasting my quick comments from over on BGG:

Oct 2:
I re-watched Lost Boys this morning for the first time in a loooonng time. It was one of the first horror movies I ever watched, at age 9, at my friend Dave's sleepover birthday party. Between this film and the new video game he had received (Castlevania!), this night is burned into my memory, now and forever.

Re-watching it now, so many years later, I'm struck by how much of a kid's movie it really is. It's r-rated, but it has the same vibe as many of the pg-rated films of the 80s (which usually contained more swearing at least than a pg film could get away with today), where kids band together against unknown evils.

I don't recommend the film unless you're 9, at which age you shouldn't be watching it.

Oct 3:

Little Evil

Basic plot: Your stepson is the spawn of Satan.

Seen Before? N
Recommend? N

This one was more of a comedy in horror trappings. There were a few good moments in which I smiled or chuckled, but mostly it didn't work for me. I called the story arc from the beginning. There were no real surprises for me, so it was all about how it got there, and the humor just landed flat for me most of the time.

October 3rd: Les yeux sans visage (d.Georges Franju)
(English title is Eyes Without a Face)

Basic plot: A brilliant skin surgeon's daughter has a mangled face. He steals new faces for her from young girls off the streets.

Seen before? N
Recommend? YES!

This isn't just one of the best horror films I've ever seen. It's one of the best films that I've ever seen. There are no real "jump scare" moments, but there is a steady ratcheting up of dis-ease, an atmosphere of despair and decay that is suffocating. There is very little gore, but the subtle moments of violence are deeply disturbing.

October 7th: The Green Inferno (2013, Eli Roth)

Basic plot: A group of idealistic student activists go to the jungle to save a village from bulldozers. They get eaten by the tribe they're trying to save.

Seen before? N

Recommend? No

I wanted to like this one. I did like it up to a certain point.

My biggest problem was when the activist leader was revealed as a selfish, compromised jerk. This is a twist that takes the edge off of the horror of do-gooders realizing that their conception of the world was way too simplistic. Being confronted by this betrayal becomes worse than being eaten alive by cannibals. This is especially clear in the way that the rest of the film plays out and especially in how it ends. Ugh. 

I was also bored by much of the body horror/gore. The first kill is staged pretty wonderfully, almost comically, but it gets old fast. And the film completely lost me in the scene of almost but not quite saved at the last minute female genital mutilation. It's not that I wanted to see this depicted onscreen, but the staging of this and the way it is resolved just led me to believe that Roth was acting cowardly, playing it safe in the land of horror conventions instead of doing anything really scary. The fact that our privileged point of view character gets away lets the viewer get away. We're able to feel good about ourselves and log another film on the BGG Slashing Through Cinema geeklist.

Oct 12th: 

DAY OF THE DEAD.

Seen before? Nope

Recommend? Yup

I never knew that I was such a huge Romero fan until I watched Dawn of the Dead several years ago. Day isn't quite as good as Dawn, but it's pretty danged good.

October 24th: The Driller Killer (1979, Abel Ferrara)

Basic plot: A struggling painter goes insane. A power drill is involved.

Seen before? N
Recommend? I don't know

I don't really recommend this one, but I don't know, maybe I do. Abel Ferrara has always been a frustrating filmmaker for me. I can't help but be drawn into the dirtiness of his New York. There's something authentic about his violent and sexual aesthetic (the two are often tied in his work, as perhaps they too often are in NYC itself) that is lacking elsewhere. The Driller Killer is the most raw punk rock film I've seen in a while. It does what it wants. Its ballsiness, its flaunting of horror conventions, its i-dont-care-ness, demands some level of respect. It's not the straight slasher film that the title makes it out to be. It's really more of a psychological horror film.
There's a decent case to be made that all of the violence that occurs in the film takes place only in the head of the increasingly insane protagonist.


That's it for the horror. Besides the horror, I started the month by watching Things to Come and Destination Moon, two classic science fiction films I hadn't seen before. I was on a panel at RoberCon with a couple of BCF friends on the history of science fiction films. It went really well.

Both of those films are pretty amazing. You could have heard what I thought of them at the panel. I don't feel like writing about them now.

I saw Blade Runner 2049 last week. I forced myself to go see it. Was it worth seeing? I guess so. I'm glad I saw it. But it's not so great.

I recently completed my full re-watch of Breaking Bad. This has been a slow affair over the course of most of this year. I've now seen the entire series three full times (with some episodes seen much more than that). There are flaws. I was especially mindful of how grating some of the handheld camera work was this time through. Sometimes the plotting seemed too tidy, sometimes it seemed to almost lose itself. But mostly the show is still a glorious success. Its highs are really freaking high and its lows are dirty down-dogged low. Vince Gilligan and his crew are the best. I am so happy to have Better Call Saul to look forward to each year. I pray for Gilligan's continued good health and long, active career!!!

In other TV Club news, I've been watching....

The Gifted. Three episodes of this. I know that I should give up on it. It's not good. Three whole episodes have passed and nothing has happened. Just a lot of mutant shuffling and huffing and puffing. I'll probably drop it sooner or later, but right now I'm stubbornly holding onto it as my guilty superhero pleasure since I've dropped all other superhero shows (I made it a few episodes into last year's Flash season before finally giving up on it for good).

Star Trek: Discovery. It's not an accident that this show shares initials with sexually transmitted diseases. So, so bad.

The Orville. This, on the other hand, is the Star Trek show that I have been waiting 20 years for. I've never been a Seth MacFarlane fan. I've never been able to watch a full episode of family guy. I ruthlessly mocked the Ted Laugher. I didn't know anything else about the guy. But it's fall and there's new TV on, so I had my antenna out and randomly caught a new show called The Orville one night. And I've since gone to track down and watch the previous 4 episodes. The Orville is not perfect. But it's so much fun that I forgive it all of its imperfections and immaturities. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but it's the show that I am most looking forward to on a weekly basis right now.

I guess that's it. I've watched some more bad tv not worth mentioning. I'm looking forward to Season 2 of Stranger Things in a few days, but based on that trailer, I'm prepared to be disappointed big time. I was pleasantly surprised by Stranger Things last year and fell for it, enjoying every bit of it. But I haven't wanted to revisit Season 1 since then. And I'm not sure that I feel the need for a sequel any more. I definitely don't want one that opens up to a bigger mythology. The show was at its best when it was about small things, small relationships.

I still haven't seen mother! I couldn't get myself to care. Same with It. And Chris' and Brandon's recent posts havn't done anything to convince me otherwise.

And Brandon, I'm still not on the Spielberg wagon. I do think that most of his "legacy" consists of "products." Everyone has their Schindler's List lunch pails and Catch Me If You Can travel thermoses. And I still can't care. Even his best work does feel like so much corporate product to me. Maybe I've fallen for the PR line.

Great Can. Okay Beer.

I'm currently drinking a pint can of Royal Kilt Inspector. It's as disappointing as the two movies I've watched since my last post. Just fine, even satisfying, but lacking anything special. It also advertises itself as one thing (a Scotch Ale) and doesn't deliver on that promise.

Which movies have I seen?


The Dark Tower

Have you guys ever watched a movie and thought about writing a review only to find that someone else had already perfectly expressed your thoughts, better than you could have done? That is what has happened to me. Friend of CR5FC Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (hey, he left a comment once) wrote a perfect review. The only thing that I can maybe contribute to it is to continue my film/food comparisons and compare the film to a pickleback. Whenever I enjoy one of these with old friends, it is customary after finishing to declare, "It's like it never happened." That's how I felt almost immediately after walking out the doors of the Saver.

Here's the link to the review I didn't write, but wish I had: http://film.avclub.com/stephen-king-s-fantasy-saga-is-reincarnated-as-a-dud-in-1798191955. Vishnevetsky is still one of our best.


You've Got Mail

Yes, I was in the mood to re-watch this '98 romantic comedy for the first time since, well, probably since 1999. It's more interesting as a time capsule than as a film. It's no Shop Around the Corner. But it is pleasant and Hanks and Ryan do have great chemistry (Joe Versus the Volcano is still a largely unheralded masterpiece and the two of them are best there, but good here). My friend Spike had (has?) an enduring crush on Ryan. I'm pretty sure that he believed her to be the perfect female. I was contrary at the time and argued that besides the exception of Joe, she was only good in the film adaptation of David Rabe's Hurlyburly (amazingly, released the same year). I'm pretty sure that there's nothing in Hurlyburly for me to care about today. But You've Got Mail continues to have a lot of charm, a charm that I resisted at the time, and much of that charm comes directly from Meg Ryan (and of course, Hanks, who I never questioned). It's a shame that she seems to have disappeared in the last 15 years. Her IMDb page indicates that she's continued to work, but I haven't seen (or largely heard of) any of the things she's been in since '98. If you guys haven't seen Mail in a while, it's worth a late night watch in bed with your wife.


Only two movies? Yep. I've also watched some YouTube videos (mostly GenCon coverage, but also trailers, late night talk show clips, and various other things), a few episodes of The Chase (an entertaining trivia show that can be found on NWI), a few episodes of Cheers, and a few more re-watches of Breaking Bad episodes, but this isn't TV Club. I also re-watched Dennis Leary: No Cure for Cancer almost immediately after my last post and meant to write about it, but didn't. I have problems with Leary (that probably should go without saying), but this special has a place in my heart. It's a fierce stand-up performances that was revelatory to me in the mid-90s and continues to impress me today, 20 or so years since the last time I've seen it. Maybe I'll re-watch it again soon and actually write about it. It fits in perfectly with my current meditations on what it means to be a man, specifically what it means to be a man right now in America. Finally, I watched the first half of De Palma's Fury, but fell asleep and don't feel like I need to return to it. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Stay tuned for the next pathetic post here. At the rate I've been watching things and posting here, you can expect it in about three weeks. :-)

EDIT: I forgot. I also watched one of my Top 100 and posted about it here: http://keepithunnid.blogspot.com/2017/08/jros-71-aguirre-wrath-of-god-herzog-1972.html

2017. Hope?

I was planning on writing out a list with comments, but I don't have the energy to do it. Even so, here is a link to my list of 2017 films that I haven't seen yet that I am cautiously optimistic about. 46 films. Out of thousands. But if even a portion of these deliver on their promise, then 2017 may be a good year in film after all. And I'm also sure that I've missed some gems. It is likely that it will be 3017 before we can recognize what unseen jewel was worth praising in 2017.

https://letterboxd.com/oedipuss_wrecks/list/must-see-2017/

And it’s an exhaustion. It’s an absolute, the end of expression.

"I will try now to give a coherent account of my disintegrated self, for when I turned away from you, the one God, and pursued a multitude of things, I went to pieces." -St. Augustine

Yesterday, I was driving a work van down Floral Ave and was the first car stopped at a red light at the Burbank intersection. The red light would not change to green. I waited. Cars behind me started to honk. There were loud shouts. The cars coming from the other direction were all going through the red light. I sat and waited. A woman walked up to the van and shouted at me that people behind me told her that the light was broken. I shouted back that it appeared to be working and that it was currently red, which meant that I could not drive through it. I asked her if she understood basic traffic laws and told her that I would not disobey those laws. More honking. More shouting. More cars from the other side going through the light. Eventually one car from behind me left the lane and passed about five cars to pass me and go through the light. A few minutes later, about eight cars did the same, traveling down the opposite lane and going through the red light while opposing traffic was continuing to go through. People passed me and yelled at me. At that point, I made a legal right turn on red to avoid being the cause of these idiots creating a giant traffic accident. I was sitting there for about ten minutes before I turned.

Really, I don't care about traffic laws. But it amused me in the moment to play a character who believes so strongly in obeying traffic laws that he will suffer through the disdain and outright hatred of his fellow man for doing so. I played it straight and did not break character. It was funny to me, but I didn't laugh. It was more important to me that this persona that I had adopted maintain its integrity than for me to get any immediate humor out of it. Except that that's the only reason that I committed to the action, because of the humor, maybe because of some core truth that strained toward integrity. There was a co-worker in the van with me that I had just picked up from a garage. Maybe the "joke" was for her, part of it being pressing her alternating embarrassment and amusement with my stubbornness. But I don't think that's entirely the case. It was for the cars behind me and the people walking by and the people passing happily going through the red light, for everyone who helpfully told me that the light was broken. Mostly, it was for myself, to be honest to a role that I may have just come up with at whim, but that I was fully committed to. Anything less seemed like a betrayal. Even the legal right turn seemed like a weak concession made by that character. The character that I was playing was going straight and would wait until it was legal and proper to do so. But the part of me that could reflect on having to deal with getting the work van hit by another car made the choice that it wasn't worth it.

And so when I write that Rick Alverson's Entertainment is a movie that I understand and appreciate with a deeply instinctive, personal passion, maybe that unfeigned love for such an abrasively rigorous film makes more sense in the context of a life of acting, of entertaining and being entertained. The stand-up stage (or any stage) offers a clear demarcation between face and mask, but we all wear different masks every day in the ways in which we present ourselves to the world. But to the extent that we do this, the mask becomes the face or vice versa. The other day, I had to "act mean" to kick some kids out of an apartment. I didn't really care about what these kids did, but my job was to play this role. And there's no way to "act mean" without channeling mean emotions, without actually being the mean guy. We sometimes forget that we are all actors, in that every thing that we *do* is an action, an act.

This always-consciousness of acting, though, is a bit of a curse. Those of us who are constantly evaluating our emotions and actions feel separate from our emotions and actions. They are costumes that we wear, but not ourselves. And if this is so, maybe our selves aren't really there, there is no core identity. There is only an emptiness. I believe that this emptiness is false, but the "feeling" is a reality. Exploring this reality of the disintegrated self has been Alverson's consistent project across his films.

In his book Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide To Late Capitalist Television, Adam Kotsko evaluates the television show Dexter.

"Listening to Dexter's monologue about this gap between his performance and the feelings others supposedly "really" have, it struck me that his problem stems from the very fact that he thinks he's missing out on something. What is a genuinely nice guy, for instance, if not someone who is in the habit of acting like a nice guy? How many people, when consoling a friend, honestly feel empathy in any gut-level way? He believes that his performance of these rituals when he doesn't "really" feel the corresponding emotion makes him a kind of monster, when in reality everyone else is mostly just going through the motions as well. Other than his secret habit of ritually murdering people, the only thing preventing him from being a "normal" person is his very belief that there is an obstacle."

"At that time I was truly miserable, for I loved feeling sad and sought out whatever could cause me sadness. When the theme of a play dealt with other people’s tragedies—false and theatrical tragedies—it would please and attract me more powerfully the more it moved me to tears. I was an unhappy beast astray from your flock and resentful of your shepherding, so what wonder was it that I became infected with foul mange? My love for tragic scenes sprang from no inclination to be more deeply wounded by them, for I had no desire to undergo myself the woes I liked to watch. It was simply that when I listened to such doleful tales being told they enabled me superficially to scrape away at my itching self, with the result that these raking nails raised an inflamed swelling, and drew stinking discharge from a festering wound. Was that life I led any life at all, O my God?" -St. Augustine

I'm currently in the middle of a re-read of Augustine's Confessions. I highly recommend the book to all of you. The entire book is a prayer; I think that you would all appreciate prayer more if you ever heard anyone pray like Augustine! Most interestingly for this blog's purposes, there are many places in which Augustine interacts positively and negatively with the entertainments of his youth. I'm pretty sure that Rick Alverson would like The Confessions. Josh Larson of Filmspotting recently released a book titled Movies Are Prayers. I've only dipped into it a little bit (it's got a great introduction by Matt Zoller Seitz) so can't speak to the book as a whole, but I love the title (with some reservations, of course!). Relating this to Entertainment, I'm obviously suggesting that the film is a prayer. There is a yearning for connection and for reality, for Connection and Reality, for an integrated self instead of a disintegrated self, not "success" but being able to somehow feel whole and be whole. There are a few hints in Entertainment (not to mention Alverson's other work) that this fullness of Reality is to be found in the Creator and Sustainer, apart from which we disintegrate.

I do realize that most of this "film writing" here has not at all engaged with the details of Alverson's film. I could and maybe I will. I need repeated viewings. It deserves repeated viewings, which is probably the best praise I can give it. But for right now I refer you to the following review. It's not full-deep analysis, but it's a good review that actually understands the film. There is much more digging to do. "As each of these scenes grows progressively more surreal, The Comedian simultaneously recedes as a traditional character with legible feelings and emerges instead as the core of the film’s rich, abstract expression of the troubles of self-consciousness."
http://cinema-scope.com/features/funniest-joke-world-rick-alversons-entertainment/

And here's a great interview with Alverson and Turkington. The interviewer asks pretty basic questions and they respond with graciousness. Alverson is more aloof (though does answer mostly straightforwardly) while Turkington reveals himself as a basically sweet guy, open to communicating all of the secrets of his trade.
https://youtu.be/yhhXLZNL4IQ

And this piece is also definitely worth reading:
https://consequenceofsound.net/2015/11/the-end-of-expression-a-conversation-with-rick-alverson-and-gregg-turkington/
“Look at Bill Cosby. Here’s a guy who has the most sincere sort of stand-up,” Turkington observes. “But I dare say that’s more of a character than Neil Hamburger. Based on what we’re seeing in the news right now, that is a real mask that guy had on up there.”

As a side note, I've been aware of Neil Hamburger for nearly 20 years. It was the fall of '99 that I discovered Will Oldham (star of Alverson's New Jerusalem). In the next few years, looking through Drag City catalog listings, I'd come across the name of the "legendary" comedian Neil Hamburger. He was a mystery to me then. The internet hadn't had him pegged yet and I had little information. I never bought any of his recordings, but I was always hoping that I'd catch him live sometime. I never did.

As a side side note, my friend Dan introduced me to Oldham through this SubPop single: https://www.subpop.com/releases/bonnie_prince_billy/lets_start_a_family_a_whorehouse_is_any_house_limit_2. We'd listen to records in his dorm room often. And this specific time, I made him replay this 7" record over and over and over and over again. It was one of the best things I had ever heard. Soon enough, I found another friend (thank you, Kate) who made me a bootleg cassette of early Palace stuff. Dan was a huge film fan and encouraged me to make lists. '99 was a great year for many reasons and a great film year, but it was mostly great because Dan was there and because I was watching great films and listening to great music with him. Dan is dead now and I miss him greatly. I think that he would have loved Entertainment. Damn it, I'm crying writing this.

Entertainment.

The Big S(cht)ick

Are we doing this?

Because I'm here doing this.

Writing about movies on company time.

Yesterday, I went to Cinema Saver (probably my favorite place in Broome County; at least one of the staff knows me by name there).

I got out of work at 3pm. My family was at a family reunion and wouldn't be home. I could go late to the reunion, either smuggling in booze or wishing I had, or I could go to the movies.

I considered seeing The Little Hours at the Art Mission at 3pm, but to be honest I didn't really want to see it and it would have been tight trying to get there on time. The only reason that I wanted to see The Little Hours at all is that I had heard that it was a less raunchy adaptation of our own riotous Boccaccio adaptation from the mid-90s. In one of my early acting roles, I played the silent stranger while my friend Mike played all of the sexy nuns. Also featuring Josh and Nick. Good times.

(poster is a recent mock-up by my friend Josh)

I settled on the 3:30pm showing of The Big Sick at Cinema Saver. I hadn't read any reviews or seen the trailer, but I did know that it was positively received and near-universally loved by critics. I was vaguely familiar with Kumail Nanjiani. I had seen Zoe Kazan in other films, but didn't remember that until I just now looked her up.

The Big Sick is the worst adaptation of The Decameron that I have ever seen. Not even close. Terrible liberties were taken, characters changed or eliminated, and entire plotlines scrambled or removed. It's like no one involved actually read the source material.

It just barely works as a romantic comedy. It's more than a little bit weird that Nanjiani plays himself, acting out past events involving his wife with a woman other than his wife. There is some chemistry between Nanjiani and Kazan, maybe, but maybe it's just that Kazan works her smile for the big-time here and it works, big-time. Romano and Hunter have fun as the magic parents who welcome the outsider. Kher and Schroff have just as much fun as the lovably ethnic Pakistani parents smothering their son.

So, everyone's having fun. There's an undeniable lightness to it and it bounces along mostly harmless.

But because it's so airy, there's no bite to it, nothing to hold onto, no wonder stuff to fall in love with. There are some interesting moments of cultures in conflict ("If you didn't want me to act like an American, why did you bring me to America?"), but none of that is developed. It's all surface gloss, shiny and fun. Everything is so damned nice in the movie. Cheap laughs, surface laughs.

I didn't like it. But of course I liked it. It was movie magic. Everyone got what they wanted. Happily ever after was achieved. And most importantly, I was caught up in it. One of the reasons that I still love the cinema and force myself to go at least once a month is that it really does rejuvenate me in a way that tv at home does not. At the cinema, I can still resist the distraction of that text alert vibrating my pocket. I don't have to talk at all. I walk into a dark theater alone, sometimes with others around me, and I surrender myself to someone else, to other worlds, to other ways of viewing this world. 

I find Nanjiani's smarmy niceness a bit nauseating. It's a mask even if maybe he's wearing the same face under the mask. There are raw and real things that he could have explored, but instead we're given the Hollywood version each time. There are occasional glimpses of real pains and frustrations (for instance, in the Pakistani girls who come to audition as brides-to-bes), but every time they are packaged with a tidy Hollywood ribbon and bow.

Eh, meh.

That's all I've got. I don't want to put too much energy into this considering that Brandon has already given up on his new blog. :-)

So, Brandon's blogging again, eh?

Let's do this.

It's already August. How has 2017 been so far?

The crank in me says disappointing as usual.

Here's what I've seen and at least a sentence about each.

Ranked:

1) Get Out
I'm surprised that this one has stuck with me as the most impressive film of the year so far. I had problems with it coming out of it (mostly with the finale, that it moved to the broadly comic instead of staying the course of the horrific; maybe the alternate ending on the DVD will solve this problem for me?), but a discussion with my friend Ben (not MIA film club Ben) convinced me of the deep darkness of this film, that it is truly great.

2) War for the Planet of the Apes
This was my most anticipated film of the year. It was satisfying, but I was disappointed that there was no extravagantly wild set piece to match apes on horses on the Golden Gate Bridge or apes on tanks driving through a wall of flames. Instead, we get a weak avalanche of whiteness. Dawn is my favorite of the trilogy.

3) The Beguiled
This went to the Cinema Saver. I knew it wouldn't play for longer than a week so decided to catch it on a Monday afternoon, 4 something showing. I was the only one in the theater. The Beguiled delivers what it promises, a houseful of women/girls beguiled by a stranger, longing for change and any sort of good news, ready to believe the best in anyone. I only regret that it gets a bit explicit in its sexiness toward the end. If it weren't for that, it'd be a wonderful film to share with my older daughters.

4) Baby Driver
This one has already cooled in my mind. It was a fun trip, exhilarating for much of its run time, but I'm not sure that there's much to return to. I actually wish that there were more surface pleasure to it instead of a stretching for deep meaningfulness. It doesn't quite work as endlessly replayable music video or as serious thinkpiece.

5) Logan
Logan is supposed to be the end (telos) of the superhero movie, such a movie matured. I can't remember much about it. Except for the scene of the good family taking in Wolvie and Prof X and paying for it. And I guess that middle sequence alone makes this one worth thinking about.

6) Girlfriend's Day
Bob Odenkirk delivers a satisfying, if slight, comedy with a silly plot.

7) Okja
I lost interest after the pig was kidnapped. It was a bit of a slog to get through the second half of this.

8) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
I remember being entertained by this. But it's a slick, corporate product even if it's aching to be otherwise.

9) Spider-Man: Homecoming
There were a few good moments, but as a Spidey fan for as long as I can remember, I was sorely disappointed. Spider-Man turns into Iron Man, Jr. in this movie. And that's only the beginning of the problems here.

10) Cars 3
It's a good kids' movie. It lost me when it gave an extended flashback at the end highlighting the themes of mentor/mentee that were already obvious throughout. I hate flashbacks that treat the audience like idiots.

11) Wonder Woman
I don't get the love for this one at all. It's another superhero slog.