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I just bought a bunch of caps.*I've never worn hats in my life! It's already too late, I'm afraid.*
Yeehaw!
Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom
Another old one I found and rewrote to make it not just a review of my cowboy boots
Watching Out of the Blue reminded me of an old pair of cowboy boots I used to wear to highschool. They didn’t fit and I would clomp down the hallways in them towards my classes. Everyone told me they were the worst boots they’d ever seen. Even I knew they were horrible, but I wore them every day for two years, the heels eventually wearing down until they were lopsided, making walking difficult.
At any point my father could have asked for them back. They were after all his. He had bought them from a van on the side of the road one night when he was stumble drunk. But even he soon realized they weren’t worth wearing. He would never again find the right concoction of beer and amphetamines to make them sparkle quite like they did that night he brought them home, and so left them in his closet for me to come across one day when I was angry and hating everything and looking for something real special to wear to school.
And so there they were when I needed them. They sat there amongst the clutter of his other drunk fashion miseries: fringe suede jacket, karate outfits, Satan’s Choice fundraiser T-Shirts, moccasins, and all of the other looks he had briefly adopted until sobriety made him opt instead for a lifetime in nothing but pajamas. But when I saw them there, these boots called to me. They were exactly what I was looking for. The kind of fashion accessory that would defy the odds of anyone continuing to remain my friend.
There were other faux-pas’ of course. Who doesn’t have a legion of them in highschool? But it was these boots that called the most attention to themselves. They were noisy, unpleasant and desperate for attention. They were also an obvious posture. Defiance for defiance's sake. Horribly embarrassing, but noble in their own stupid, shallow, brash as well as frighteningly insecure way. The qualities of any typical mixed-up adolescence.
All of which will be the basic ingredients that make up the performance of Linda Manz in Dennis Hoppers “Out of the Blue”. Like my boots could not help but do, she makes too much noise for how little attention she will want. The manner in which she under smokes and over puffs her cigarettes tell us not only that she wants us to see her smoke, but that she still hasn’t yet figured out how it will make her cool. When she quotes rock and roll lyrics, they are less a rallying cry of rebellion, and more that she has run out of adult things to say. And even as she walks, it will be with such an off-balanced swagger, that her short legs can’t quite keep up with the quick determination of her steps. She is constantly giving us glimpses of who she wants to be, and what she want to sound like, and where she wants to go, but rarely any sense of the place she actually fears she is. Which is nowhere.
The end result will be the greatest child performance of all time. Manz will play teenagerhood with such a fearless commitment towards all of its inherent contradictions, she constantly risks becoming completely unnatural with every movement she makes. Which is exactly how it should be! The only way to get to the truth of such an age is to lose all sense of what is true and natural. To act completely unconscious towards the all-consuming self-consciousness of this very particular time of our life. To willingly let yourself rattle around in boots that don't fit your feet. The result will be like watching an old teenage photograph of a bad haircut. But, in this cinematic instance, it will be twenty-four haircuts a second. And every time we cringe, our hearts should ache just a little bit more.
So, thank you Linda Manz. Thank you for allowing me to finally make peace with the bad memories watching you has conjured up. Maybe if you can one day also absolve me of the sin of painting Jim Morrison on the back of my jean jacket, you will be granted a sainthood. And as you levitate up to the heavens, I can only hope your cowboy boots are just enough sizes too big that you will rise out of them as you leave this filthy and embarrassing world behind.
Say hello to Elvis, for me.
At any point my father could have asked for them back. They were after all his. He had bought them from a van on the side of the road one night when he was stumble drunk. But even he soon realized they weren’t worth wearing. He would never again find the right concoction of beer and amphetamines to make them sparkle quite like they did that night he brought them home, and so left them in his closet for me to come across one day when I was angry and hating everything and looking for something real special to wear to school.
And so there they were when I needed them. They sat there amongst the clutter of his other drunk fashion miseries: fringe suede jacket, karate outfits, Satan’s Choice fundraiser T-Shirts, moccasins, and all of the other looks he had briefly adopted until sobriety made him opt instead for a lifetime in nothing but pajamas. But when I saw them there, these boots called to me. They were exactly what I was looking for. The kind of fashion accessory that would defy the odds of anyone continuing to remain my friend.
There were other faux-pas’ of course. Who doesn’t have a legion of them in highschool? But it was these boots that called the most attention to themselves. They were noisy, unpleasant and desperate for attention. They were also an obvious posture. Defiance for defiance's sake. Horribly embarrassing, but noble in their own stupid, shallow, brash as well as frighteningly insecure way. The qualities of any typical mixed-up adolescence.
All of which will be the basic ingredients that make up the performance of Linda Manz in Dennis Hoppers “Out of the Blue”. Like my boots could not help but do, she makes too much noise for how little attention she will want. The manner in which she under smokes and over puffs her cigarettes tell us not only that she wants us to see her smoke, but that she still hasn’t yet figured out how it will make her cool. When she quotes rock and roll lyrics, they are less a rallying cry of rebellion, and more that she has run out of adult things to say. And even as she walks, it will be with such an off-balanced swagger, that her short legs can’t quite keep up with the quick determination of her steps. She is constantly giving us glimpses of who she wants to be, and what she want to sound like, and where she wants to go, but rarely any sense of the place she actually fears she is. Which is nowhere.
The end result will be the greatest child performance of all time. Manz will play teenagerhood with such a fearless commitment towards all of its inherent contradictions, she constantly risks becoming completely unnatural with every movement she makes. Which is exactly how it should be! The only way to get to the truth of such an age is to lose all sense of what is true and natural. To act completely unconscious towards the all-consuming self-consciousness of this very particular time of our life. To willingly let yourself rattle around in boots that don't fit your feet. The result will be like watching an old teenage photograph of a bad haircut. But, in this cinematic instance, it will be twenty-four haircuts a second. And every time we cringe, our hearts should ache just a little bit more.
So, thank you Linda Manz. Thank you for allowing me to finally make peace with the bad memories watching you has conjured up. Maybe if you can one day also absolve me of the sin of painting Jim Morrison on the back of my jean jacket, you will be granted a sainthood. And as you levitate up to the heavens, I can only hope your cowboy boots are just enough sizes too big that you will rise out of them as you leave this filthy and embarrassing world behind.
Say hello to Elvis, for me.
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Anyone have any thoughts on Louis Malle's "The Fire Within"? I'm stumped on how I feel about it. I think it was perfectly done for what it is trying to do, but I found it so remote as a result of its frank depiction of alienation and failure. Yes, this is exactly what it feels like to feel alone and useless, but just like my own life, I only could deal with it in small portions between naps.
In short, I feel like I should have been way more excited about this one but...I wasn't. I was simply pretty good with it.
In short, I feel like I should have been way more excited about this one but...I wasn't. I was simply pretty good with it.
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Also, any proper Bauhaus fans out there? Looking for a recommendation for what their best record is. Ive only got a live album and have never heard a studio album by them.
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Also, any proper Bauhaus fans out there? Looking for a recommendation for what their best record is. Ive only got a live album and have never heard a studio album by them.
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I'm a fan, but I'm in the same boat. I'd say Mask, but I've only heard a few songs from it such as Kick in the Eye. They're all good, though. I'd be content to just listen to all of their versions of Bela Lugosi's Dead, to be honest.
That was one I was leaning towards because I generally like getting bands first albums and I like the cover. I just didn't know much about the actual music on it.
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Also, any proper Bauhaus fans out there? Looking for a recommendation for what their best record is. Ive only got a live album and have never heard a studio album by them.
TO BULL OR NOT TO BULL: A QUESTION FOR FRANCESCO ROSI
At the core of Francesco Rossi’s harrowing but almost completely dispassionate look at the world of bullfighting, there is nothing but death. It will not be dressed up and bedazzled in the glittering jackets of the toreadors. It also will not be given much attention during the glimpses we get of the grind of everyday life in 1960’s Barcelona where survival is the preferred preoccupation. Instead, the focus of the film will be just death, unabstracted and doing what death does. Making things cease to exist. Even such seemingly invincibly strong animals as these.
Needless to say, it’s a difficult watch. But one that, if we just keep looking long enough until its unsentimental gaze infects our own, we will begin to see how the process of methodically draining life becomes almost a variation on a theme. Like Monet’s paintings of the Rouen Cathedral, always different, but always the same. There is a process here in how death manifests, one heartbreaking moment following another like clockwork. Slowly the poor animal is drawn down as if death is on its back and riding them into the ground. Its nose fills with a cascade of blood, wastefully pumped into the dirt from pierced heart and lungs. Its tongue lolls, already sagging and lifeless before the rest of the body has given up the fight and succumbed to its wounds. For better or worse this will be what Rossi is here to show us, over and over again. And as the sound of cheering rises in the arena, ecstatic and rapturous, while the people there might not know it as the toreador takes his bow, but this is what they are applauding. Nothing but death. And this thousand-pound carcass that has to be slowly dragged from the dust it collapsed into, is its sole bit of handiwork.
It might be assumed, because of how unblinking and up close a portrait this is of the agonizing deaths of these animals, that the film is a condemnation of the practice. It certainly does not do supporters of this particular sport any favors. But while the camera may never flinch from showing us every bit of its ugliness, and it almost seems to beg of its audience to occasionally do the work of turning away for it, there seems not to be any statement about the morality of what we are seeing. Rossi is more playing the part of a coroner at an autopsy, but instead of pulling back the skin to determine the cause of death, he is putting the skin back on to show us how the death manifested. And how when we strip away all of the ritualistic pageantry that surrounds the bloodletting, and overlook the balletic skill of the toreador on display, that there is nothing left to stare at but the future of everyone and everything that lives on this terrible world. How we all slowly crumple into the earth, just like these ferocious beasts who do everything they can to keep standing, but eventually droop, since there is not enough muscle in the world to save them.
The questions than is, can a movie that is this unpleasant, this emotionally remote, this unwilling to even give the barest of explanations of why what we are watching is acceptable, but simultaneously never make the slightest motion to stop it, elicit any emotion beyond despair or outrage? While it is hard to explain, I think the answer is yes. And that may be because, much like some of the greatest poetry ever written, its beauty can be found in what a futile gesture it all really is. This is ultimately all a great noise, signifying nothing. The bull will still die. And the applause the survival of the toreador receives will fade. And the garish jackets and caps will come off. And the crowd will go home. And after so much unnecessary blood and violence, it will just all happen again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. And every bit of it will be heartbreaking, and if we can’t at least try to see the poetry in how empty it all is, in these transient moments of struggle the film has captured, what else is there but all of this blood that slowly sinks and disappears beneath the sand?
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Anyone have any thoughts on Louis Malle's "The Fire Within"? I'm stumped on how I feel about it. I think it was perfectly done for what it is trying to do, but I found it so remote as a result of its frank depiction of alienation and failure. Yes, this is exactly what it feels like to feel alone and useless, but just like my own life, I only could deal with it in small portions between naps.
In short, I feel like I should have been way more excited about this one but...I wasn't. I was simply pretty good with it.
In short, I feel like I should have been way more excited about this one but...I wasn't. I was simply pretty good with it.
I liked it more than you, but I agree that it's pretty deflating. It might be the earliest film to be so frank about the suicidal mindset. But it also has the insecurity of the young Malle maybe trying too hard to out-dark Bergman. I see it as an interesting entry in Malle's work, perhaps a necessary exercise, but I'm glad that he got it out of his system and left it at that. It's also kinda funny that he made the film between his two most breezy films, Zazie at the Metro and Viva Maria.
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There comes a point in every afternoon, after you've snifted* just enough brandy, that maximum volume Soundgarden becomes a tantalizing possibility.
*drank in a paper cup
*drank in a paper cup
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Forgive the critical messes I'm about to spill all over these floors, but I'm just trying to train myself to write as much as possible these next few days, and I'll be sharing (mostly) completely unedited write-ups, in an effort to preserve these 'hot takes' before I start attempting to make sense of what they are saying.
As a point of pre-emptive self defense, these probably will be of even spottier quality than usual. Definitely more self indulgent. At times very close to being total nonsense. But they are the roots of how I being writing, before I try to make clear points, and I'm trying to learn how to stay as close to this as possible. While I'm sure no one would ever accuse me of making too much sense in my other 'reviews', personally, I'd like to start making less.
So please bare with me. It's gonna get real crummy in here.
As a point of pre-emptive self defense, these probably will be of even spottier quality than usual. Definitely more self indulgent. At times very close to being total nonsense. But they are the roots of how I being writing, before I try to make clear points, and I'm trying to learn how to stay as close to this as possible. While I'm sure no one would ever accuse me of making too much sense in my other 'reviews', personally, I'd like to start making less.
So please bare with me. It's gonna get real crummy in here.
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If childhood memories could be distilled into pure energy, they would probably seem as radioactive as the golden glow emitted from the spray-painted wheatfields of The Reflecting Skin. Otherworldly, easily seen from a distance and something that would likely be burned upon our retinas if stared at long enough. But, in the instance we happen to all be vampires, this vibrancy would also be something for us to recoil from. That might burn our skin. And that’s something that's worth considering regardless of what side of the light we think we live in. At least until sunset.
This is the contradiction in Phillip Ridley’s film that will be essential to its horror. Not only does it attempt to bring a nostalgic cast to how it presents its view of childhood, a hue that all of us would likely feel comfortable curling back up in if afforded the chance. But it also fills this vision with such scorching light it can't help but deepen the kind of shadows where the belief in such things as vampires can thrive. Whether or not we believe in these things, is irrelevant. What matters is there was a time in our life when we had to. And isn’t that enough for it to be frightening?
As a result, its vision of childhood seems a suffocating thing, long mummified, regardless of all the light it allows in. It is not a depiction of youth that dreams of the future. Instead, it wallows in its smell of dead flies and dust. And as the old bandages it has been swaddled in begin to crack, it leaves only a musty cloud for us mortals to breath in. It would be a wonderful perfume for the undead, if not for all the pesky sunlight lingering about.
For fans of horror, it is a good thing to finally come upon a film that does not pander exclusively to the horrors we find in the night and in the darkness. The Reflecting Skin instead stares at its monsters dead on, fully illuminated, because it clearly hopes its audience will wither like an ant beneath its unflinching point of light. But even if we don’t shrivel like a burning insect while watching, we will at least sense its message tingling on our backs. Things can be just as frightening in the broad daylight for a child who stares too closely. Especially as you realize there are no shadows left to play tricks on you and that what you are looking at is just life. And you're more than welcome to discover whatever nightmare in it you like.
This is the contradiction in Phillip Ridley’s film that will be essential to its horror. Not only does it attempt to bring a nostalgic cast to how it presents its view of childhood, a hue that all of us would likely feel comfortable curling back up in if afforded the chance. But it also fills this vision with such scorching light it can't help but deepen the kind of shadows where the belief in such things as vampires can thrive. Whether or not we believe in these things, is irrelevant. What matters is there was a time in our life when we had to. And isn’t that enough for it to be frightening?
As a result, its vision of childhood seems a suffocating thing, long mummified, regardless of all the light it allows in. It is not a depiction of youth that dreams of the future. Instead, it wallows in its smell of dead flies and dust. And as the old bandages it has been swaddled in begin to crack, it leaves only a musty cloud for us mortals to breath in. It would be a wonderful perfume for the undead, if not for all the pesky sunlight lingering about.
For fans of horror, it is a good thing to finally come upon a film that does not pander exclusively to the horrors we find in the night and in the darkness. The Reflecting Skin instead stares at its monsters dead on, fully illuminated, because it clearly hopes its audience will wither like an ant beneath its unflinching point of light. But even if we don’t shrivel like a burning insect while watching, we will at least sense its message tingling on our backs. Things can be just as frightening in the broad daylight for a child who stares too closely. Especially as you realize there are no shadows left to play tricks on you and that what you are looking at is just life. And you're more than welcome to discover whatever nightmare in it you like.
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If childhood memories could be distilled into pure energy, they would probably seem as radioactive as the golden glow emitted from the spray-painted wheatfields of The Reflecting Skin. Otherworldly, easily seen from a distance and something that would likely be burned upon our retinas if stared at long enough. But, in the instance we happen to all be vampires, this vibrancy would also be something for us to recoil from. And that’s something that's worth considering regardless of what side of the light we think we live in. At least until sunset.
This is the contradiction in Phillip Ridley’s film that will be essential to its horror. Not only does it attempt to bring a nostalgic cast to how it presents its view of childhood, a hue that all of us would likely feel comfortable curling back up in if afforded the chance. But it also fills this vision with such scorching light it can't help but deepen the kind of shadows where the belief in such things as vampires can thrive. Whether or not we believe in these things, is irrelevant. What matters is there was a time in our life when we had to. And isn’t that enough for it to be frightening?
As a result, its vision of childhood seems a suffocating thing, long mummified, regardless of all the light it allows in. It is not a depiction of youth that dreams of the future. Instead, it wallows in its smell of dead flies and dust. And as the old bandages it has been swaddled in begin to crack, it leaves only a musty cloud for us mortals to breath in. It would be a wonderful perfume for the undead, if not for all the pesky sunlight lingering about.
For fans of horror, it is a good thing to finally come upon a film that does not pander exclusively to the horrors we find in the night and in the darkness. The Reflecting Skin instead stares at its monsters dead on, fully illuminated, because it clearly hopes its audience will wither like an ant beneath its unflinching point of light. But even if we don’t shrivel like a burning insect while watching, we will at least sense its message tingling on our backs. Things can be just as frightening in the broad daylight for a child who stares too closely. Especially as you realize there are no shadows left to play tricks on you and that what you are looking at is just life. And you're more than welcome to discover whatever nightmare in it you like.
This is the contradiction in Phillip Ridley’s film that will be essential to its horror. Not only does it attempt to bring a nostalgic cast to how it presents its view of childhood, a hue that all of us would likely feel comfortable curling back up in if afforded the chance. But it also fills this vision with such scorching light it can't help but deepen the kind of shadows where the belief in such things as vampires can thrive. Whether or not we believe in these things, is irrelevant. What matters is there was a time in our life when we had to. And isn’t that enough for it to be frightening?
As a result, its vision of childhood seems a suffocating thing, long mummified, regardless of all the light it allows in. It is not a depiction of youth that dreams of the future. Instead, it wallows in its smell of dead flies and dust. And as the old bandages it has been swaddled in begin to crack, it leaves only a musty cloud for us mortals to breath in. It would be a wonderful perfume for the undead, if not for all the pesky sunlight lingering about.
For fans of horror, it is a good thing to finally come upon a film that does not pander exclusively to the horrors we find in the night and in the darkness. The Reflecting Skin instead stares at its monsters dead on, fully illuminated, because it clearly hopes its audience will wither like an ant beneath its unflinching point of light. But even if we don’t shrivel like a burning insect while watching, we will at least sense its message tingling on our backs. Things can be just as frightening in the broad daylight for a child who stares too closely. Especially as you realize there are no shadows left to play tricks on you and that what you are looking at is just life. And you're more than welcome to discover whatever nightmare in it you like.
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Ooh. I’ve heard of this film, thogh I haven’t watched it yet. Pahak is a fan of this as well.
I'd advise not going into it expecting a horror film. I know I didn't like it much the first time I saw it, and a lot of this has to do with expecting something different because of all the 'greatest unknown horror' list I kept seeing it on.
In fairness to those lists, I do think it is mostly a horror. At least it's that more than it is anything else. But, least just barely. It's horror in the way something like Valeria and her Week of Wonder is a horror. It isn't really, at least not a first glance, but it has lots of elements that should appeal to fans of the genre, even if it might not satisfy in more conventional ways..
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I'd advise not going into it expecting a horror film. I know I didn't like it much the first time I saw it, and a lot of this has to do with expecting something different because of all the 'greatest unknown horror' list I kept seeing it on.
In fairness to those lists, I do think it is mostly a horror. At least it's that more than it is anything else. But, least just barely. It's horror in the way something like Valeria and her Week of Wonder is a horror. It isn't really, at least not a first glance, but it has lots of elements that should appeal to fans of the genre, even if it might not satisfy in more conventional ways..
In fairness to those lists, I do think it is mostly a horror. At least it's that more than it is anything else. But, least just barely. It's horror in the way something like Valeria and her Week of Wonder is a horror. It isn't really, at least not a first glance, but it has lots of elements that should appeal to fans of the genre, even if it might not satisfy in more conventional ways..
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Ooh. I’ve heard of this film, thogh I haven’t watched it yet. Pahak is a fan of this as well.
), but I try to watch them all.Some other great films from that niche:
Let the Right One In
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Poison for the Fairies
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural
Tideland
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There comes a point in every afternoon, after you've snifted* just enough brandy, that maximum volume Soundgarden becomes a tantalizing possibility.
*drank in a paper cup
*drank in a paper cup
\ m /
Yeah, those twisted coming of age stories that may, to some degree, flirt with horror are my personal weakness. I don't like all of them, of course (contrary to @Citizen Rules not even all with little girls ), but I try to watch them all.
Some other great films from that niche:
Let the Right One In
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Poison for the Fairies
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural
Tideland
), but I try to watch them all.Some other great films from that niche:
Let the Right One In
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Poison for the Fairies
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural
Tideland
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Yeah, those twisted coming of age stories that may, to some degree, flirt with horror are my personal weakness. I don't like all of them, of course (contrary to @Citizen Rules not even all with little girls ), but I try to watch them all.
Some other great films from that niche:
Let the Right One In
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Poison for the Fairies
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural
Tideland
), but I try to watch them all.Some other great films from that niche:
Let the Right One In
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
Poison for the Fairies
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural
Tideland
Haven’t seen the others yet.
I’m familiar with them all. Tigers are not Afraid is on Shudder and has been on my radar for a year now.
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