Possibly even triple.
So I know I'm not doing Acephale anymore, but some things just gotta get said. Basically, I just had the most amazing sex ever, twice, followed by a brief cuddle session that lasted exactly the right amount of time so that I didn't have to ask him to leave. I let him out, still feeling that glow, took a hit and hit play on my computer, and it's fuckin' Elvis's 'Do the clam" on my itunes. If anyone in the world is in a better mood than I am right now, I'm really happy for them.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Failure!
I'm a total failure at writing about movies right now.
HOWEVER- my new apartment has an ant problem, and I was about to be really bummed about it, when I remembered what Richard Feynman wrote in Surely you're Joking, Mr. Feynman, about ants. They navigate by smell, and confusing their scent trail will...well, confuse their trail. So I dosed my kitchen sink liberally with some perfume someone gave me at some point, and what do you know: now my kitchen is ant free, without the use of pesticides; and it smells like that French girl I made out with in high school. So I guess reading that book wasn't a complete waste of my time after all...
HOWEVER- my new apartment has an ant problem, and I was about to be really bummed about it, when I remembered what Richard Feynman wrote in Surely you're Joking, Mr. Feynman, about ants. They navigate by smell, and confusing their scent trail will...well, confuse their trail. So I dosed my kitchen sink liberally with some perfume someone gave me at some point, and what do you know: now my kitchen is ant free, without the use of pesticides; and it smells like that French girl I made out with in high school. So I guess reading that book wasn't a complete waste of my time after all...
Monday, May 7, 2007
Grindhouse cinema
As we are all being forcibly made aware of grindhouse film by the illustrious Mssr. Tarantino, I'd like to put in my two cents about this genre, which is near and dear to my heart. While I have yet to see Tarantino's (or Rodriguez's) nod to one of my favorite kinds of movie, I am reasonably sure that Tarantino's attempt at emulating this will be a failure, since the elements of exploitation cinema that interest him appear to be those stylish, cool-factor bits and not the raw ugliness that comprises what is really interesting in these films. Additionally, Tarantino's dialogue heavy format and bent for pseudo-philosophical content will not lend itself well to the genre, and I seriously doubt he can manage to broaden his scope. I might be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that I called this one.
So I will review one of the ugliest, one of the worst, and one of the most representative grindhouse features that I'm aware of: Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper.
New York Ripper is barely a film. It barely has a plot, it barely even has a premise, but of all the messed up junk I enthusiastically show to whomever will watch, this is the one that most frequently elicits: "That changed me," and I certainly will go back and watch it, and watch it change people, again and again. The film opens with an elderly gentleman tossing a stick for his golden retriever in a recognizable, NYC location(a classic feature of grindhouse flicks, which were predominantly shown in the 42nd street grindhouses). In a trite, cheap shot moment, the obliging pooch return to it's owner carrying not a stick, but a severed human hand. And it only gets worse from there. The basic, overarching premise of the film is that there is a serial killer on the loose, targeting women in the manner of Jack the Ripper, antagonizing the police, and generally being up to no good. Character development is achieved largely through the assertions of other characters in the film, and "she has an IQ of 142," is supposed to be enough to convince us that some simpering blonde nitwit who behaves like she couldn't put her pants on by herself is smart. Similarly, much of the police work/mystery unraveling is necessarily made by a leap of faith; "After reviewing these tapes, it is clear to me that the killer is well-off, from a cultured background" (after listening to a tape of a man saying "you're stupid" in a donald duck voice). Like many grindhouses, this film exists as a vehicle for two or three truly shocking set pieces, and the rest of it is poorly connected, compulsory plot-furthering situations. So I'll review this film how it should be reviewed:
Set pieces:
1) Razor to the nipple
2) Razor to the eye-ball
3) Broken bottle to the crotch, w/ crotch POV shot
4) Foot rape
Themes/gimmicks:
1) SM
2) Voyeurism/exhibitionism
3) Donald duck. You heard me.
Grindhouse films are ugly. These films were made to deliver a blow, to touch something in members of society who wanted to feel: anything. I think things like this are worth seeing because they are a naturally occurring phenomenon that I find fascinating. Those things that are most telling about them now, (their emotional salience, themes of misogyny and violence against women, one of the only glimpses into the lives of certain fringe elements of society, one of the truest glimpses into the real fantasy life of at least one section of Americans...), came from someplace true and important to understand. This particular type of escapist relief, this particular kind of head trip, is deeply interesting but a sad and curious artifact of deep hatred and loneliness; of film-makers and film viewers. If Tarantino delivers as much emotional scope and complexity in his polished, kick-ass retro piece as I take away from New York Ripper, I'll be very surprised.
So I will review one of the ugliest, one of the worst, and one of the most representative grindhouse features that I'm aware of: Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper.
New York Ripper is barely a film. It barely has a plot, it barely even has a premise, but of all the messed up junk I enthusiastically show to whomever will watch, this is the one that most frequently elicits: "That changed me," and I certainly will go back and watch it, and watch it change people, again and again. The film opens with an elderly gentleman tossing a stick for his golden retriever in a recognizable, NYC location(a classic feature of grindhouse flicks, which were predominantly shown in the 42nd street grindhouses). In a trite, cheap shot moment, the obliging pooch return to it's owner carrying not a stick, but a severed human hand. And it only gets worse from there. The basic, overarching premise of the film is that there is a serial killer on the loose, targeting women in the manner of Jack the Ripper, antagonizing the police, and generally being up to no good. Character development is achieved largely through the assertions of other characters in the film, and "she has an IQ of 142," is supposed to be enough to convince us that some simpering blonde nitwit who behaves like she couldn't put her pants on by herself is smart. Similarly, much of the police work/mystery unraveling is necessarily made by a leap of faith; "After reviewing these tapes, it is clear to me that the killer is well-off, from a cultured background" (after listening to a tape of a man saying "you're stupid" in a donald duck voice). Like many grindhouses, this film exists as a vehicle for two or three truly shocking set pieces, and the rest of it is poorly connected, compulsory plot-furthering situations. So I'll review this film how it should be reviewed:
Set pieces:
1) Razor to the nipple
2) Razor to the eye-ball
3) Broken bottle to the crotch, w/ crotch POV shot
4) Foot rape
Themes/gimmicks:
1) SM
2) Voyeurism/exhibitionism
3) Donald duck. You heard me.
Grindhouse films are ugly. These films were made to deliver a blow, to touch something in members of society who wanted to feel: anything. I think things like this are worth seeing because they are a naturally occurring phenomenon that I find fascinating. Those things that are most telling about them now, (their emotional salience, themes of misogyny and violence against women, one of the only glimpses into the lives of certain fringe elements of society, one of the truest glimpses into the real fantasy life of at least one section of Americans...), came from someplace true and important to understand. This particular type of escapist relief, this particular kind of head trip, is deeply interesting but a sad and curious artifact of deep hatred and loneliness; of film-makers and film viewers. If Tarantino delivers as much emotional scope and complexity in his polished, kick-ass retro piece as I take away from New York Ripper, I'll be very surprised.
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Host part II
Or 'insomnia part 80 billion' or something.
I still don't have the energy to really say anything about 'The Host,' but I will relate this anecdote to those of you who have seen it. So I work in a Children's Hospital, and right outside the door to my office is a wall where the feeding disorder kids hang their art therapy projects. These kids are between the ages of 2-10, I'd say, and were probably almost all born prematurely. At any rate, I am always largely impressed by these projects, and am particularly enamored of the work of a young girl of about 4 named Claire, whose last project "snazzy feet," I actually considered stealing before I realized what I was considering. This week Claire has painted a large, watercolor mural; of a river flowing, and the sun, and some plants, and.... a large, indiscriminate amphibious looking blob? And the word HAN scribbled in big yellow kiddie letters, with an arrow pointing to the river. Now I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation for this; if you figure it out, let me know.
I still don't have the energy to really say anything about 'The Host,' but I will relate this anecdote to those of you who have seen it. So I work in a Children's Hospital, and right outside the door to my office is a wall where the feeding disorder kids hang their art therapy projects. These kids are between the ages of 2-10, I'd say, and were probably almost all born prematurely. At any rate, I am always largely impressed by these projects, and am particularly enamored of the work of a young girl of about 4 named Claire, whose last project "snazzy feet," I actually considered stealing before I realized what I was considering. This week Claire has painted a large, watercolor mural; of a river flowing, and the sun, and some plants, and.... a large, indiscriminate amphibious looking blob? And the word HAN scribbled in big yellow kiddie letters, with an arrow pointing to the river. Now I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable explanation for this; if you figure it out, let me know.
Science!
Hi all, sorry for the shocking lack of content in recent weeks. Tomorrow I am off to IMFAR (International Meeting for Autism Research) to present a paper; this is why I haven't had any time to write about movies. Although I haven't managed to stop thinking about them... At any rate, wish me luck, it's the first thing I've ever been first author on.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Feminism, apparently
Alright, let's talk about vagina. In film. I'd like to preface this by saying that I am by no means a feminist, educated about feminist theory, or even really a huge fan of feminists as they appear to me to exist today; nor am I really very similar to most women and therefor close to being able to understand how they feel about gender roles and all that jazz. So here goes what looks to be pretty much a shot in the dark.
I specifically want to talk about feminism in the context of two films: Catherine Breillat's 'Anatomy of Hell,' and Peggy Ahwesh's 'The Dead Man'. Both of these films purport to be explorations of female sexuality, sans "the usual patriarchal-porn trimmings" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader, on The Dead Man). Both are adapted from literary sources (The Dead Man from the short story by Georges Bataille, Anatomy of Hell from Breillat's own novel Pornocracy). And both are very focused around one overwhelming mood: revulsion.
I didn't choose to talk about these movies because they are good, and, in fact, I'm pretty sure Breillat's movie sucked, but they did make me think.
'The Dead Man' was interesting in that it has been heralded as a feminist film, as is evidenced by the above quote, but damn if it isn't absolutely true to the Bataille story. In the story (and the film) a young woman discovers her lover's corpse. She leaves her country home and wanders, naked under a raincoat, out into a storm and engages in a series of acts that convey that she has completely relinquished her self control; the violent situation produces a series of violently unstudied actions. Our heroin, naked, soaking wet and already at the edge of experience enters a bar and things escalate until she is engaged in raunchy public sex acts with the lecherous local yokels; falling down drunk and not above squatting on the bar and urinating on one of it's patrons before being unceremoniously fucked on the floor. Ahwesh's treatment of the subject matter is pretty much verbatim, and I don't think Bataille would be at all displeased with her decision to include acting so bad it made the audience squirm almost as much as the image of one of her actors pulling on his limp dick, or the very long and simply shot sex scene on the floor, with all the drunken grunting and thrusting that that involved. As the original story was written by a man, and the film is, in fact, shockingly true to the tone of the story, it is interesting that it is considered a feminist film. My best guess would be that this is a reflection of the perception that works that are violently confrontational and have female characters that make us uncomfortable are feminist works. Exactly why it is important, to the end of establishing gender equality, that we be made uncomfortable, that we be confronted with a revolting woman, I can't say I know. Needless to say, I thought the dead man was the most awesome movie ever.
The Anatomy of Hell, on the other hand, was deeply flawed and at times obnoxiously preachy. It did, however, leave an impression, as some of the images are burned into my retinas until the end of time, or at least the end of this week. In this confused head trip, a gay man(aging Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi) happens on a woman, in a gay bar, slitting her wrists. They enter into an agreement in which he will be payed to watch her while she sleeps at her isolated country home. What follows is a lot of terrible dialogue about how revolting women are, and how (straight) men want to possess them. The heart of the film, however, is the imagery and without the dialogue obnoxiously spelling out what must have been basically the entirety of 'Pornocracy,' the mood in this film is basically the same as that of 'The Dead Man.' Important differences are that the female character in Anatomy of Hell is in no way rooted in psychological realism, in fact I'm pretty sure that as this was in conception and execution a feminist film, she must necessarily be less specific than that and be representative of women. In addition, she has complete control, and although she's asleep for most of the action (and she's quite a deep sleeper), appears to constantly be doing things to poor Rocco. Rocco does an excellent job of being deeply affected by all this, and calmly drinks the reddened water she prepares for him by infusing it with her used tampon, but I have trouble buying the importance of the shit that he's so deeply affected by. Also of note is that Rocco's big, hard, beautiful cock makes a number of appearances in the film and female anatomy is, well, made revolting. I guess we'd have to ask Breillat how this forwards the feminist agenda. The film is absolutely violently confrontational, although when coupled with the explicit feminist 'men want to own me period blood is OK' dialogue it seems as if we are being asked to feel guilty for thinking the disgusting, confrontational imagery is gross rather than being asked to push ourselves to the limits of experience, perception and understanding as I feel we are in 'The Dead Man.' Overall an interesting idea in that it's violent and confrontational about sex, but, well.
So those are my thoughts on at least this one specific aspect of feminist film.
Anatomy of Hell available through netflix, The Dead Man available for rental(16mm) from the NY film makers coop
I specifically want to talk about feminism in the context of two films: Catherine Breillat's 'Anatomy of Hell,' and Peggy Ahwesh's 'The Dead Man'. Both of these films purport to be explorations of female sexuality, sans "the usual patriarchal-porn trimmings" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader, on The Dead Man). Both are adapted from literary sources (The Dead Man from the short story by Georges Bataille, Anatomy of Hell from Breillat's own novel Pornocracy). And both are very focused around one overwhelming mood: revulsion.
I didn't choose to talk about these movies because they are good, and, in fact, I'm pretty sure Breillat's movie sucked, but they did make me think.
'The Dead Man' was interesting in that it has been heralded as a feminist film, as is evidenced by the above quote, but damn if it isn't absolutely true to the Bataille story. In the story (and the film) a young woman discovers her lover's corpse. She leaves her country home and wanders, naked under a raincoat, out into a storm and engages in a series of acts that convey that she has completely relinquished her self control; the violent situation produces a series of violently unstudied actions. Our heroin, naked, soaking wet and already at the edge of experience enters a bar and things escalate until she is engaged in raunchy public sex acts with the lecherous local yokels; falling down drunk and not above squatting on the bar and urinating on one of it's patrons before being unceremoniously fucked on the floor. Ahwesh's treatment of the subject matter is pretty much verbatim, and I don't think Bataille would be at all displeased with her decision to include acting so bad it made the audience squirm almost as much as the image of one of her actors pulling on his limp dick, or the very long and simply shot sex scene on the floor, with all the drunken grunting and thrusting that that involved. As the original story was written by a man, and the film is, in fact, shockingly true to the tone of the story, it is interesting that it is considered a feminist film. My best guess would be that this is a reflection of the perception that works that are violently confrontational and have female characters that make us uncomfortable are feminist works. Exactly why it is important, to the end of establishing gender equality, that we be made uncomfortable, that we be confronted with a revolting woman, I can't say I know. Needless to say, I thought the dead man was the most awesome movie ever.
The Anatomy of Hell, on the other hand, was deeply flawed and at times obnoxiously preachy. It did, however, leave an impression, as some of the images are burned into my retinas until the end of time, or at least the end of this week. In this confused head trip, a gay man(aging Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi) happens on a woman, in a gay bar, slitting her wrists. They enter into an agreement in which he will be payed to watch her while she sleeps at her isolated country home. What follows is a lot of terrible dialogue about how revolting women are, and how (straight) men want to possess them. The heart of the film, however, is the imagery and without the dialogue obnoxiously spelling out what must have been basically the entirety of 'Pornocracy,' the mood in this film is basically the same as that of 'The Dead Man.' Important differences are that the female character in Anatomy of Hell is in no way rooted in psychological realism, in fact I'm pretty sure that as this was in conception and execution a feminist film, she must necessarily be less specific than that and be representative of women. In addition, she has complete control, and although she's asleep for most of the action (and she's quite a deep sleeper), appears to constantly be doing things to poor Rocco. Rocco does an excellent job of being deeply affected by all this, and calmly drinks the reddened water she prepares for him by infusing it with her used tampon, but I have trouble buying the importance of the shit that he's so deeply affected by. Also of note is that Rocco's big, hard, beautiful cock makes a number of appearances in the film and female anatomy is, well, made revolting. I guess we'd have to ask Breillat how this forwards the feminist agenda. The film is absolutely violently confrontational, although when coupled with the explicit feminist 'men want to own me period blood is OK' dialogue it seems as if we are being asked to feel guilty for thinking the disgusting, confrontational imagery is gross rather than being asked to push ourselves to the limits of experience, perception and understanding as I feel we are in 'The Dead Man.' Overall an interesting idea in that it's violent and confrontational about sex, but, well.
So those are my thoughts on at least this one specific aspect of feminist film.
Anatomy of Hell available through netflix, The Dead Man available for rental(16mm) from the NY film makers coop
Friday, April 13, 2007
Acephale
So, for all one (possibly two) of you who are wondering what's up with Acephale... The lovely foreign boy that I married three years ago and I are about to embark on that leg of the journey towards a green card in which, we have been told, the government will start to interview people, monitor our monitorable communications, and snoop around generally making sure we're really married. It might be overkill but I don't plan on losing this boy or this battle with the department of homeland security, so I'm going to kill Acephale temporarily. Given that it's taken 3 years to even get this far, temporarily might mean any number of things. At any rate, maybe it will give me some time to come up with new material. Damn shame about the timing, as I just found out that Mia shares Hitler's birthday, and more than a few of my interests...
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