I'm spending a little studio time with the Suicide Girls Radio team tonight and joining them on their show about Social Media and the Internet Premier of We Live In Public (you might remember this as one of the films I was obsessed with last year).
I'm bringing some of my favorite mash-ups to play along with my radio wit and social media delight.
Be sure to tune in on Indie 103 Internet Radio! And if you missed it, grab the podcast here!
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I mentioned Primer a few blog posts ago, and I just started reading Anubis Gates for the 4th (or more) time. And then last night the boyf and I watched Southland Tales. What a beautiful train wreck. ("Don't it make you smile, like a forest, fire" L.C.)
The characters are exquisite, some good acting, some not so good. The plot is difficult to follow and understand (I read that 20-25 minutes of the movie were removed from the released cut), but the story is great. It reminded me of a combination of RepoMan, Muholland Drive, Brazil and Primer with a bit of conspiracy and Satyricon aimless wandering thrown in.
It's a tough movie to watch, and most of the time I was shaking my head, for the potential of what it could be. How did it get hacked so much? But what is left; the twisted mescalin beauty and haunting scenes are novel sparkling gems.
This movie is Minas Gerais (the mining state of Brasil) and there is much to be seen, delighted and loved - as long as you check your haughty judgement at the door. You are entering a different reality.
And if you want to skip straight to the surreal ending...
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So just for kicks this morning over coffee I ran through the 9 timelines of Primer. It's a great movie and a fascinating read.
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The Fall by Tarsem is the best modern film I have seen. It's up there with Fellini's Satyricon and Sargasso Manuscript. The intensity and visual stimulation are mind-blowing. And the story is both mundane and fantastical. It's like the Wizard of Oz. A journey. An adventure and rehabilitation.
Although released 2 years ago internationally, it's just been released in the US. Go see it.
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I just got back from seeing the Cohen's Bro new movie - No Country for Old Men. I always think the Cohen bro movies are different from what they turn out to be. I had no idea what this one was about, what story would it tell, what was the style. I knew nothing, my mind was zen blank as the lights dimmed and the screen came to life.
A story unfurled. Wide beautiful shots of desert scrubland. A desert I didn't recognize. It was Texas. Some scenes reminded me of my desert trips, minus the dead bloated bodies and drug deals gone awry. (I did once dream of that life, in a country on a border far far from North America.) As the story continued, wide shots, spare dialog, characters that were not Hollywood beautiful, perfect, but interesting and a delight to look at, to watch unfold. Who was this like? What was this like? Fellini came to mind.
Scenes took place. Guns and mayhem, and surprise and ingenuity. And then there were post action come across the scenes, which reminded me of the Bashar and the last 4 chapters in Book 5 of the Dune Series. (I remember you Bashar. I remember you from that summer in Des Moines, when I was 19 and had not yet read Hyperion and learned of the Shrike. You are not just the Bashar Teg, but inspiration for other characters in stories, myths that I love.)
Until the final credits this was just another movie, until, until, I saw it was based on a Cormac McCarthy novel. Then everything fell into place. I should have know. The movie perfectly caught the difficulty, challenge and utter sensual delight of a Cormac McC novel. They are hard, rough, bitter fruits - nuanced and faceted. I went home and picked pages to read aloud from Blood Meridian. I remembered the story. I remembered who gave it to me. (Alfonso, your other name.) And I remember what I learned from that time. The love of the desert and compete and utter ruthlessness.
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Kamikaze Girls finally arrived via NetFlix. I sorely missed it when it was at the NuArt last year. This movie is definitely in my top 5. If you like motorcycles, girly girls, a good story, fighting and Japaneses culture - you need to see this movie NOW. It's fabulous. Check:
Momoko yearns to live in 18-century Versailles than in her back-country hometown of Shimotsuma, heartland of the yakuza. To escape, she loses herself in the dreamy, doll-like fashions of the "Lolita” scene. Her idol is Akinori Isobe, chief designer of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright—her favorite Lolita design hose. She travels all the way to Tokyo to shop at their store.
One languid summer, to help fund her expensive hobby, Momoko runs a classified ad of brand-name knock-off clothes (produced by her dad) for sale. She encounters a buyer named Ichiko (the real name is Ichigo), who happens to live in her neighborhood.
Super-rebel Ichiko, is a “Yankee”-style member of the Ponytails motorbike gang, one of Ibaraki's "Wild speed tribes,” whose teeth-rattling customized bikes are decked out with fiberglass shields and bannered backrests.
Somewhat against Momoko’s will, she and Ichigo slowly develop a strong friendship as they share their feelings on the odd goings-ons around them.
Because of the movie, I also found this blog, which has started my obsession with Nampa. Now I understand so much more - especially in Babel.
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A few months ago I saw a great movie on time travel, called Primer. The first time I saw it, I was so freaked out by the possibilities it was hard to go to sleep. The movie twists on itself and I didn't dare to try to figure out every angle, until this timeline was pointed out to me. And now, I definitely want to see it again.
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I saw Silent Hill a few nights ago. I'm not a fan of the horror genre - at least not the slash and mutilate "boo" style. Still the boyfriend wanted to see it so I went along. I had very little idea of the movie, but expected complete trash. The first half of the movie indeed delivered on the trash, but about half-way through, the movie added a plot, some more characters and took a very Neil Gaiman sandman-esque turn. That's also when I started to make the Diablo references. Once I realized I was watching a video game, the movie became a lot more enjoyable.
At least the blood, guts and spook-jump factors got burned out early in the movie and I was able to get to sleep without being freaked out.
I love Roger Ebert's review of the movie and this snipped in particular.
The people who live in Silent Hill are dead, I guess. Some of them glow like old embers on a fire, which is not a sign of life. They live in abandoned buildings and in the mines and in a Smoke and Flame Factory, which you will recall from my Little Movie Glossary is a factory-like location of uncertain purpose which generates a lot of smoke and flames. Also sharing their space are rat-like little CGI insects, who scurry around thinking they look a lot scarier than they do.
I especially liked the sexy nurses starting to do the Michael Jackson Thriller dance, but instead they just end up slashing each other.
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Sam and I saw V for Vendetta the first weekend it opened and I've been meaning to write about it. I loved loved loved the movie and luckily for me, today I read Amanda's review of it and instead of writing my own, I can copy her words:
[W]hen I see a masked man in a movie whose appearance seems to come straight out of my imagination, who embodies things I loved as a girl, and fights for ideas I hold very close as an adult, I feel like dancing.
She also has some great still images. Read the rest of her review here. The part of the movie I mostly respected, was that they never took his mask off - even when there was the chance. This was a great movie and I highly highly recommend it to everyone.
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