Open Five 2

(think I like any movie with a dirty windshield)

"There is a degree to which I don't have older people in the movies because I don't want there to be an easy relation point for everyone. Like sorta, okay, so -- you're an older actor, if you see an older person in these movies you sort of see his perspective, or her perspective, and you think 'oh, I can find my way into this.' But if you don't have that, you're sort of left adrift. That's an interesting experience for me. You're sort of having to go through this world and not be -- like, you don't know anybody at the party, okay so, you have to go talk to somebody, that you don't feel comfortable with, or you have to just leave and go home. Both are reasonable responses, but I think that's an interesting kick off."

"As far as themes, I don't work with themes until the editing. And very loosely in the editing. I try to steer as clear from themes as possible. I don't think that they can be reduced to a theme. Um. I don't even know what the theme would be. I think they're about relationships, and trying to build a comprehensive view of my relationship and my friend's relationship -- not entirely comprehensive, but just trying to come at it from different angles."

"I don't always want to make films this insular. I realize that there's issues outside of myself. And, um. But. I think, that that stuff will come, and I'm not in a rush to change the subject, to change the world that I've spent a couple years trying to establish, and I'm not in a rush to create something else, or to get outside myself. But I will. But I don't think insularity cripples the films, and I don't think they come and go so quickly, I don't think that these films -- I think they'll be around."

(quotes from)

St. Nick

St. Nick strikes me as a kind of folk movie, in that it draws from its own self, and seems faithful to itself  above all. Like, it sings a song of its own soul, with the voice of cinema.

The narrative evokes thoughts and feelings about self-searching and urgent discovery, and the speed of the movie is true to its characters, children (who are gifted with a mostly clockless existence), and its settings of fields and rundown homes and other outskirts of civilization.

It's sort of off the grid, minding its own, and unhurried by unseen troubles.

Is it a children's movie? In every wonderful way: its content is child friendly, its main characters are children, and most important to me, I felt like a child when I watched the movie. It has the sensitivity of a child and somehow -- a product of its art -- the movie vibrated with mystery and wonder, like the world does for a child.

The movie is fluent in the language of cinema. David Lowery (writer/director/editor) and dp Clay Liford demonstrate such good taste that was I reminded of the classic Hawks quotes about "three great scenes, no bad ones" and that a good director is "someone who doesn't annoy you."

St. Nick is a warm and lyrical movie that's essentially faultless.

A thing that's difficult to demonstrate in this format is Lowery's skill for cinematic grammar. The narrative is essentially a wallless series of drifting vignettes. Events occur late in the movie to help provide an overall context, but the bulk of the structure exists inter-sequence, emotion to emotion.

Cinema, from the inside out.

Doctor Detroit

"there is no doctor."
"there is if you believe in him brother."

argentine writer césar aira has this idea he calls "flight forward" that basically means he never allows himself to feel stuck as a writer cause at any point he can invent something to unstick himself. seems like this concept has always existed, but i like that aira cherishes it to the point that it's gifted a name and implemented as a central feature.

doctor detroit, directed by michael pressman (tmnt ii: secret of the ooze) is a silly fun movie that ignores the weight of reality in order to allow the imagination flight.

a character in doctor detroit making a face one might make while watching doctor detroit

basically the entire movie is a "flight forward" cause it's the telling of the creation of a character invented by another character at the story's beginning. what happens is this pimp can't repay his business partner (named mom) the 60k he owes, and so invents a person named doctor detroit, who then must be made real. associate professor clifford skridlow (dan aykroyd) is the person trapped into this role, which role is mostly the opposite of his normal everyday role, although the plus side is the task allows him to access parts of himself previously unrealized.

the invention of doctor detroit prompts a series of problems which in turn require more inventiveness. the movie, thankfully, often uses fun as an ingredient of invention.

to me its value seems to be not so much an examination of an interior self or the root of human problems, but a stimulation of the human animal's creative faculties and a reminder of infinite possibility.

Dispatch from AFI: Post Tenebras Lux

the greater los angeles area has over 17.9 million people, a stat which i think makes the area endlessly fascinating and surprising. one interesting city and an OK place to live i think.

but fact is, because we're all different from each other and live our lives in at least slightly different ways, there are 17.9 million+ great los angeles areas, because each person creates their own metropolitan area through personal experience and perspective.

carlos reygadas, director of post tenebras lux (after dark, light)(FYI), has proven in each of his four movies that the spectrum of human experiences exist within each person regardless of geographical location or network size. 

each person, to the toppest highs to the lowest lows, contains the full ingredients. and only a moviemaker like reygadas, who seems to care in a deep and earnest way about each person he places in front of the camera, is able to make this point. 

i feel like reygadas might possibly lol at the idea of a "supporting character," or in other words a person whose perspective is a narrative or structural obligation. i feel like reygadas wouldn't insert a character in order to insert a character. i feel like reygadas cares about his characters in a way that suggests a person who cares about people too much to reduce them to narrative ornamentation. he's a moviemaker who holds on characters for extended periods but with shots so cinematically hypnotic and captivating and compelling that his longest shots feel short. any cinephile in 2012 can tell you how rare that quality is. you don't hold long to hold long -- something lives in the duration of a shot, in pure duration (which itself is a symbol of the human condition), and reygadas, i feel, knows what lives in the light, in the shadows, in the space of time, and elsewhere.

he probably doesn't know, of course. but he's curious. and i think the curious are brave. i really do.

The Gate ('87)

This prequel to Sofia Coppola's Somewhere stars Stephen Dorff as Glen, a little boy who's afraid of black magic and demons and flies into hysterics over every bad or scary thing that happens and makes repeat demands that on-vacation parents be called and sobs in front of people and feels shame about over-emoting in front of people so hides in his room. Basically, it's a close cinematic match to my personal memories of being a boy.

Glen is such a fucking kid, which I think means Dorff was a good child actor,

AND GLEN IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIED, by the way, in being terrified by the evil-seeming world. There is evil in the world,
the evil is in the backyard.
!!!!!!!!!
Yaaaaay :)

There seem to be a high number of 80s genre movies that promise to deliver fantasy and fun and then deliver those things. I like how inventive they feel -- maybe a lot of contemporary multiplex movies feel less inventive to me because they're not original stories but remakes and adaptations and well you know.

I kept waiting for The Gate to run out of steam. It does not run out of steam FYI. The script is by Michael Nankin, who co-wrote and co-directed the cult-classic Midnight Madness. The script is often sharp and playful, and crisp, and pops. Popcorn dialogue.

Glen has a nice arc about discovering his capacity for courage, and also I like his friend Terry (Louis Tripp, whose career it seems never quite took off), who also feels naturalistic and fleshed-out: he's a nerd/occultist/heavy metal fan (which nears my perception of IRL heavy metal fans) who grieves his mother's untimely death.

One might make the case that The Gate has subtext, but that subtext exists only though subjective interpretation, in some Todd Haynes-type semiotic deconstructionist pov, concerning maybe suburbia and fear of the unknown, if one wanted to make that case. It'd be interesting I bet. If any of that makes sense it's true, I swear.

But overall I think it's the kind of movie that it's best not to overthink. I sat back and experienced the movie and was rewarded with surges of pleasurable adventure. I'm happy to say director Tibor Takács, whose other work is unfamiliar to me, has a sharp eye for cinematics.

I like it as a black magic movie because I don't think black magic is serious. As a godless person I dislike religious black magic movies, like Catholic horror movies, because they're too serious. There are some exceptions, like Alucarda, which treats the devil in the way I think he works: as an absurdity.

In summary, good job here everyone. The Gate is good. Good job :)

Barbara Kopple Accepts Academy Award for Harlan County USA

Taxi zum Klo

"You see, I like men. I'm thirty and a teacher by profession. Otherwise I'm your normal, jaded, neurotic, polymorphously perverse teacher. I radically separate my job from my private life and pleasures."

Frank Ripploh directs himself in Taxi zum Klo, a confessional autobiography.

It's like Half-Nelson if Half-Nelson was about sex not drugs, and if it'd been directed by the I Am Curious (Yellow) director.

The density of Ripploh's admissions -- the extent of his insight into himself -- creates cohesive and lush textures and vibrant emotions and

light, poetic details. It's like if Weekend had been made by the Little Fugitive people and this was one person.

This movie has most of my fav qualities, it's: earnest, candid, humorous, warm, curious, passionate, creative.

Lots of sex. Gay sex. Ripploh is a gay swinger -- I care about judging this lifestyle about as much as he does. Which is not at all. There's a no-limits feeling, like Ripploh is willing to expose every part of himself. This Is How I Am Human, without barriers. In America right now we have people like Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow who make movies that are admissions of normalcy, and I think they do the same kind of thing, except they tend to take me places I've already been. Their narratives are kind of boring I think. Their lives are kind of boring I guess, it doesn't seem like they try to enlarge one's perspective of the world, it seems like they accept the world as it is and try to be mellow and not piss anyone off. I don't know, maybe they should try to shake things up a bit some time, maybe, I don't know. Just saying I'd rather hang out with Ripploh.

 Just saying.

 The fact that he's a teacher doesn't scare me. All people are horrible and some of them have to be teachers also -- I don't think Ripploh is particularly horrible and I don't think he "corrupts" the children. If my nieces had a teacher like Ripploh they'd be cooler, probably. They're pretty cool I'm just saying.

Ripploh can kick it with people who don't share his lifestyle. He's comfortable being himself and lacks obvious insecurities about his character or his sexual orientation. That's cool.

Ripploh reminds me of Portland. He reminds me of infinite possibility. He reminds me there's no mold -- and reminds me that those who ignore the molds are most interesting. He reminds me to be myself as much as fucking possible. He, I guess, helps me with my memory. His art is the type that connects with my sense of self and encourages me to expand and be fearless and honest and adventurous.

Good movie :)