Tag Archives: August Bravo

Love Among The Ruins.

Posted by Marco Sparks & August Bravo on

Ah, Ann-Margret. Her of the unique ability to be 25 and act 14.

August Bravo: Before we talk about last night’s very interesting episode – “Love Among The Ruins” -I want you to go to this site. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it before, the “Which MAD MAN are you?” quiz. I too it and my result was Pete Campbell. I really hoped for Cosgrove. Oh well. And from last week, what you said about Draper being more forward thinking than Kinsey, I thought you meant Kinsey, the famous 50s doctor, not the character on the show. Very appropiate for you to say that.

Marco Sparks: Thank you. I do my best. Oh, you mean Alfred Kinsey? Ha ha. Yes.

August: Okay, so last night’s episode… was a very interesting one. There were o many subtle scenes throughout. I love Don’s growing anger over Pryce and the chaps from London. And I’m very intrigued to see how that anger might continue to escalate throughout the rest of the season.

Marco: Indeed. Here’s Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner talking about the chaps and dandys from London:

“The British have come here because we’re great. They’re redefining how things are done. But at the same time,they feel everyone needs a parent. That’s their attitude.”

And yes, last night’s episode with the truly great title, “Love Among The Ruins,” based on the poem by Browning, was very interesting. And there really are so many ruins there, aren’t there? Sterling Cooper itself, New York, Betty Draper’s dad, Roger Sterling’s hopes for a smoothing sailing into his post-divorce life, etc. Oh, and speaking of which MAD MAN I happen to be, I took the quiz and this is what came out…

…surprising no one, perhaps. The drama over his daughter’s impending nuptials which may or may not have Roger’s young bride Jane in attendance is fasciating to me. I think since the end of last season, I’ve actually started to really like Roger. But I do sense that the new set date for his daughter Margaret’s wedding – November 23, 1963 - might be a sad, mournful day. It will probbly rain too.

August: I’m going to go ahead and say this right now, but my favorite scene in the episode was Probably Don showing his dominence in the family by telling Betty’s brother how everything was going to be and work with the arrangements over her ailing slightly alzheimers-ish father. I always feel Don is trying to maintain his manhood in the house. Not that Betty questions it or that anyone else does, really, but he seems to constantly need to exhibit his alpha dog status in the homestead.

Marco: Perhaps because he wants to have that perfect suburban home life, and in doing so, he feels partly defined by wearing the pants at home? And let’s face it, it’s not hard to be “the man” compared to his brother-in-law. I don’t want to call anyone a slippery pussy or anything, but seriously, stuff a tampon in that guy so that he’ll shut up. Also: Bunk beds!

You know who I didn’t love before, but that I do now? Peggy Olsen, no joke.

August: Peggy’s storyline throughout this episode was unusual, but certainly a nice change. What makes her think the things she does? I wnder how her infatuation with men again will change the way she feel about work. What I really liked about her in this episode was her reenacting the “Bye Bye Birdie” scene in the mirror. Does she want to be looked at the way the men look at the other girls? I don’t think so, but maybe she wants to know if she still has it?

Marco: I think if you take the whole Marilyn/Jackie O. comparision from last year and apply it to the two main ladies in the office, of course Peggy has to compare herself to Joan. I mean, first of all, look at Joan. She has a certain kind of commanding power and authority within the office (look how she handled Moneypenny last week) and she was the first person that Peggy interacted with when she was hired. And Joan and Don really are Peggy’s main role models I think.

from here.

I like Peggy more because she takes the good advice people give her (mostly from Don and occaionally from Joan)(but also from Colin Hanks last year), and she uses it. And she gets ahead. Yeah, she wants the eye of the men, I think, but only sometimes. That kind of attention feels good sometimes, but she knows she wants and deserves more out of life and a career. She doesn’t want to be a man, I don’t think, she wants to be a woman in what has always been a man’s world, and I think her arc over the course of the show will be just as interesting as Don’s. She’s too smart, especially shown last night during the whole Patio/Diet Pepsi meeting, about which fantasy to market towards: men’s or women’s.

“You’re not fat anymore.” How condescending, Crane.

In fact, I think she’s moving closer and closer to being the human version of Don Draper, as opposed to poor mn’ blue blood Pete Campbell, who is just as lost in the world of the human beings as Dick Whitman, but isn’t as good at hiding it and/or being fucking awesome in it.

Also, as much as I do now like Roger (and you can just smell an upcoming Roger/Don confrontation, can’t you?) and his runaway out of control charm, I think he needs to be applauded and, of course, slappd across the face for his “You’re the only one here who doesn’t have that stupid look on her face” line.

August: I love that line, I think it goes, “You’ve got to leave the tools in the toolboxes.” I wonder if he means the men at the office?

Marco: Mayyyybeee. I loved the stuff with her at the bar, trolling for the finest male college boys Brooklyn could offer her, and try out a few of Joan’s zingers. It’s okay to fuck some college boys, and you know what? It’s just as okay to skip out on them in the middle of the night, Peggy. If you stay, I think you’re going to find out just how boring Burger Boy really was. I was waiting for her to add to her parting, “I work on Madison Avenue, bitch!”

Joan still has my sympathies because of her asshole husband to be (or are they already married and I missed that?). The looming threat of June 1 and her upcoming prison of maternity makes me yearn for her to make a fiery breakout.

“It’s sexy and it’s what they want.”

August: With Betty’s father living there for what I assume will be the majority of the season, I’m interested to see the unusual things he will do, as he slips further and further away. I liked his prohibition era worry to the sirens outide. And I’m curious to see more of his antics in Don’s domestic bliss this year.

Marco: It’s interesting that the father, slipping away, was still able to shake Don up last year with his comment: “He has no people!”

August: That near final scene, with Don’s kids at the summer function, with Don just sitting there, just watching the girls dance around, the bare feet moving through the grass. Don’t can’t help but watch and reach below to touch something, to feel the grass. Just for a second. Maybe just to feel something. His life is in a jumble right now, and he fees lost (as he possibly goes more introspective) and he can’t help but want to feel something, anything.”

Marco: Yes, yes, yes. That scene was incredibly beautiful to me, and also incredibly tragic. Don Draper is a lost man searching for something external that he seems to feel is missing internally. He’s been a lot of places and all of them are where he’s already been, and yet, I feel he’ll travel a lot farther and long to feel a great many more things before he really meets Don Draper/Dick Whitman at the finish line. Also, I smell a wee bit more of infidelity.

August: We still haven’t talked about New York itself yet.

Marco: You mean that ever changing, sordid little beast with the Penn Station/Madison Square Gardens change up? I like Kinsey, the young guy who believes in change, but maybe not always for the right reasons, and always have a good laugh at him, especially here, as the Grand Old Wise Man Of New York City. I see Kinsey’s side to this particular argument, especially about the great works of Roman architecture, but I wouldn’t compare New York to Rome, nor call it the greatest city on Earth. I know New Yorkers truly believe that, but, well… “a city of cry babies?” Ha ha.

But I also love Don’s magic in selling the potential clients on coming back to Sterling Cooper, and of course his frustration with then having to drop them after he not only won them back with the need for such a change to NYC. He doesn’t just give his juice away for free, people! Just the same as the fact that the man attends meetings, he doesn’t set them.

It’s an interesting time at Sterling Cooper, in NYC, in Don Draper’s life, and on Mad Men. Out with the old, and in with the new. See you next week.

Bye Bye Birdie!

Life under British rule.

Posted by Marco Sparks & August Bravo on

As much as we’ve been waiting for Mad Men to return, you kind of get the feeling after last night’s season 3 premiere, “Out Of Town,” that Mad Men‘s been waiting for us too. August Bravo and Marco Sparks are here to bask in the luminous afterglow…

August Bravo: Not too much much to say about this episode. It seemed so much like a filler episode, really. It’s interesting they would shoot an episode like this to start off the season. It’s too smart of a show to just make his the premiere. I feel Matthew Weiner has a hidden agenda with how this episode is supposed to make the viewers feel.

Marco Sparks: Starting with the bare feet. I’d both agree and disagree with you there, agreeing in the sense that I think last night’s episode wasn’t an explosion right out of the gates, and that the new season will probably take a few episodes to really spread it’s wings and get of the ground, but this is also a show that has proved itself able to have a major storyline soar within just a few episodes.

But I’d have to disagree in that I found last night’s episode incredibly satisfying, especially it’s perfect beginning…

Don Draper, resolving to be a better husband, up in the middle of the night making some warm milk for his pregnant wife, and his sleep deprived mind begins to wander to his own origins, hypothesizing not just how he came into the world, but how he got his original name from the eponymous male body part. How fitting.

Especially when you add in the great throwaway line about the eldest Draper daughter almost immediately afterward.

Augusto: One of the things I really liked was the way Draper found out about Salvatore, the art department guy, was gay. What a nice way for that to finally come out of the closet.

Marco: Yeah, how nice, and how tragic. Sal’s a character you just like, who always feels classy even when he’s being petty, and so in a way you were rooting for him in that scene, I think, and yet, not at all surprised at how tragically cut short it was.

Plus, the way Don flirts with the bohemians and the intellectual rich vagabonds in the past seasons, you get the sense that he’s probably much more forward thinking than some of his comrades, more so than even Kinsey, who’s just for show, so while he may hold this over Sal later (though I don’t know why he’d need to), he’s not disgusted by it. Plus, you know that Don can respect a man’s secrets.

August: Also, maybe something picked up by me was Don’s inner struggle with himself. Like he wants to be a better husband and father. Weird to say as you still him participate in his usual hobby of extramarital affairs. But the expression on his face seemed to change, to show more depth, than other episodes.

Marco: Not much of a struggle though. Don definitely wanted to fix his relationship with Betty at the end of last season, but perhaps tha didn’t mean he wanted to cut out the cheating. Maybe just get better at the cheating? Maybe only stop cheating within the state of New York? Or maybe cut out the cheating except for the opportunities hat just so perfect drop right into his lap like candy. Or, like stewardesses.

Billy and Sam, accountants/g-men.

As much as I loved the stuff in California last year, I think that “Billy and Sam” and the stewardesses was one of my favorite sequences ever in this show. Also, whie “It’s my birthday” would be a great (or should be) a great line for sex, I suspect that it actually was Dick Whitman’s birthday, if not “Don Draper’s.” I keep waiting for you to tell me that you love Pete Campbell, August.

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, 1820, by Hokusai.

August: Great appearance by the English guy, Pryce, as the new CFO. He was great in Benjamin Button. Probably one of my favorite characters in it, in fact. I liked the way the Brits played Pete and Ken Cosgrove off of each other, making each think that they were going to be the accounts executive.

Marco: Yeah, that guy, Jared Harris, is good, and his voice was the best thing about Fringe last year. If I remember he casting announcement, he’ll probably be around for a while and could very well bloom into Don’s nemesis this season. Plus, I’m digging the inclusion of the Brits in general this season, and laughing at the limey version of Pete Campbell, Mr. Hooker/Moneypenny.

August: What is your impression of that guy, Moneypenny/Hooker, Pryce’s right hand man? Sweet talking all the ladies and stuff. What a weird thing to put in the episode unless it actually means something down the road. I don’t know. I feel like everything in that show happens for a reason.

Marco: I think it was to set up Pryce’s debasement of him, relegating to be one of the secretaries, “one of the girls.” Plus, an office full of cute girls and you’re a tosser like Hooker, yeah, you’re probably going to try to hit on anything that moves in a skirt, you know? Plus, who knows, maybe he’ll end up as Sal’s new love interest. He is British after all.

I get the impression that you’re a big Ken Cosgrove fan.

August: Cosgrove is such an awesome character. Probablythe most interesting to me because he’s neither married nor dating anyone. He just goes out and does what he does.

Marco: In case anyone’s curious, August Bravo is the Ken Cosgrove of Counterforce.

August: Yes.

Marco: So, August, accurate or not, what do you think of the name “London Fog?”

August: I don’t know if I like/dislike it. For the show it’s a little mysterious. But I guess the entire show is built on the mystery of others. It’s the 60s, after all. People’s public lives aren’t out there in the open.

Marco: Not yet, though I think you see a little of the beginning of that last year with Marilyn’s death. And presumably with Kennedy’s death this year. The mystery of a person can be so much more real (and interesting) than the person themselves.

August: What interests me quite a bit is the idea that Don has for the London Fog ad, with it’s subtle extra meaning concerning Sal aside, with the coat being open. Very fitting for the product.

Marco: I’m actively forcing myself not to bitch too much about Pete Campbell here. In fact, I don’t need to. He’s the opposite of Don in so many ways, or at least the opposite side of the same coin as Don. He’s really just there to be the asshole and he’s perfect at it.

August: This episode doesn’t sum up too much for me, nor does it need to be summed up too much. It’s Mad Men. They don’t need to do shit, but be excellent. They just do.

Marco: All in all, and I know that August won’t really agree with me here, but this was an exciting return to form. Or maybe just the fact that the show is back and is still of such high quality is what’s so exciting. Everyone likes Don Draper, but he’s a bastard, obviously. But’s magnificent at it. You’re almost rooting for him, much the same way that if we’re all honest with ourselves, we liked Bill Clinton and that he secretly has carte blanche with us. I just hope the opening moments of the episode do indeed deliver us more about the Don Draper/Dick Whitman enigma.

“Help yourself. Not the stoli.”

And no that the show is beloved by viewers and the media alike, I hope it stays this consistent level of great and deep, and doesn’t drift off into epic levels of mediocre bullshit like Battlestar Galactica did where people were afraid of calling it what it was for fear of not looking smart.

But hey, just like Don Draper himself, this show could keep going places and ending up where it’s already been and I’d be okay with that.

Skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I’ve been inspired by Woody Allen week to revisit a lot of old Ingmar Bergman stuff. I’d seen the classics – Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal and Persona, of course – years ago, but there’s a lot I still haven’t seen. I have Cries And Whispers on VHS somewhere in my bunker and I really need to find that. And August Bravo gave me one of the versions of Fanny And Alexander a few years ago. Also, you know which of his movies I’ve always wanted to see? The Silence. For real.

Bergman and Ingrid Thulin during the making of The Silence, 1963.

Woody Allen on Ingmar Bergman, part 1:

“Film as a dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames in a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. At the editing table, when I run the trip of film through, frame by frame, I still feel that dizzy sense of magic of my childhood: in the darkness of the wardrobe, I slowly wind one frame after another, see almost imperceptible changes, wind faster — a movement.”

-Ingmar Bergman

A sterling example of how film lovers are smarter than non film lovers: one of the first things we’ve learned is that you don’t play chess with Death!

Woody Allen on Ingmar Bergman, part 2:

“During a career that spans some four decades, he has made about 50 movies, and in those movies he has created an immediately recognizable world. Whether it is the distant allegorical realm of The Seventh Seal or the banal domestic one of Scenes From a Marriage, this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory at best. God is either silent (as in Winter Light) or malevolent (as in The Silence), and Bergman’s characters find themselves ruled, instead, by the capricious ghosts and demons of the unconscious. More persuasively than any other director, Bergman has mapped out the geography of the individual psyche — its secret yearnings and its susceptibility to memory and desire.”

-Michiko Kakutani

“Among today’s directors I’m of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh — they all have something to say, they’re passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh’s Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia.

-Ingmar Bergman, in 2002

Did Bergman get a pass over his Nazi past that Gunter Grass didn’t?

Ang Lee on Bergman.

Bergman and Woody Allen.

Roger Ebert on Persona, not just once, but twice.

A nice review of The Silence.

“I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.”

-Ingmar Bergman in The New York Times, January 22, 1978

One Year Later.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

So, on this day in history, about 62 years ago, the US Air Force shot down and captured what was either a weather balloon or some kind of “flying disk” in Roswell, New Mexico.

Perhaps related or not so related, just over a year ago, Benjamin Light mentioned something outlandishly foolish to me. I really thought he was off his meds, no joke. But he had that kind of dangerous, scary clarity that only a nutcase can have. The kind where you don’t turn your back on them, are afraid to look them in the eye, and you pretty much agree with whatever the fuck they say just so you can get out of the room with her genitalia intact. He said to me, “I think I want to start a blog.”

And I – always the level headed one – said, “What? You’re fucking crazy.”

And he said, “No, no, trust me, it’ll be good.”

And then crazy psychotic history was made…

So here we are.

What a long strange trip it’s been, right?

We’ve talked about post peak oil, we’ve talked about Lost (like, a lot), we’ve talked about politics and the news in general. And general weirdness. We’ve talked about being cool with yourself, not so cool with yourself, and how to get laid either way. We’ve barely give you a chance to get a word in edgewise, because we’ve been talking about cats (and more cats), and things that are in bad taste, and the moon.We’ve talked about film, music, and literature at times, and everything in between. Including the stuff that’s just bullshit. We’ve talked about ourselves just a little, both with words and in video, and we’ve even talked to people we love (other than ourselves)(though this site is filthy with onanism, to be sure). Hell, we’ve even talked about talking (but mostly about ourselves, again with the onanism)!

Look at all that talk talk talking. It’s like we’ve found the nexus of the fucking universe and we’re mapping it for you.

Michael Jackson is dead and we’re still alive.

And not to brag too much, but we’ve seen a few faces and we’ve rocked them all!

Sometimes we’ve felt like we’re a bit alien ourselves, or maybe we’re transmitting to you from outer space, but we do it anyway. We do it because, no joke, there is something very seriously wrong with us and we love it.

This Recording already used the blog as a spaceship metaphor that I would love to use here, but rather than appropriate it here, I’m just gonna outright steal it. But rather than a proper spaceship, Counterforce is the fucked up. The weird one. The one that the prisoners took over and started running their own way. Like Spock and Nero and all of those pointy eared fuckers, we’re bursting through your black holes and disrupting your time stream and hopefully reality as well. Hello there, we’re from the future. We’re in your here and now and you’re our living sexy museum and we’re yours. Don’t take us to your leader, because we only care about you.

Not that we haven’t made some mistakes. Sometimes we’ve been really on our games and sometimes… well, really off them. That’s usually on me though, I’m not gonna lie. As blogonauts, we’re still learning out here in space. There’s a few less rings on Saturn because, well, we crashed into them just a little. Same with the Big Dipper. We did something inappropriate with a black hole for the same people climb Everest. Also, we found life on Mars and then accidentally blogged it out of existence. And Halley’s comet won’t make it’s way back to this solar system for a few more years than it was already scheduled to because we saw it, liked it’s style, were in kind of a naughty bad place, and now, long story short, it won’t look our way, won’t return our phone calls, and wants to take a break with the Earth. Our bad, kids.

That said, we’re still here, and even though we’re sometimes the blogging equivalent of the chaos cloud that will someday end all life on Earth, we’re also hopefully going to only get better. Help us? Tell us what you think. Tell us how much we rock, or how hard we suck. Tell us what you want to see and maybe, just maybe, we won’t poke your eyes out.

We’ve been proud so far that with us, you’ve gotten basically 6+ different blogs, some that overlap, and some that are drastically different. We’ve enjoyed it and hope you have too. My co-bloggers all wanted to be more involved in our very special 1 year birthday here, but most were busy with jobs and living sexy lives of danger and adventure. Benjamin Light has been off the grid and we eagerly await his return, and his shocked disgust at how I’ve trainwrecked this beast in his absence. And Occam’s probably not speaking to me since he realized that I stole some CDs from his house during a Lost party. And Lollipop especially wanted to remind you of how much greater the blog has gotten since she first commented and then joined us (and she’s more right than she’s wrong about that) and August Bravo wants to let you know that he’s giving up Heroes due to relentless scrutiny. Bravo, August Bravo.

This is where I wrap it up. If it was just me closing this up, I’d say something like: We’ll see you out there, space cowboys and cowgirls. But instead I found someone to put it even better than I can…

And now a special word from the desk of Peanut St. Cosmo:

hello readers! funny to think we’ve been in existence on this “series of tubes” for a year now! it feels kinda like the first rocky year of a marriage and if you make it, you figure you’ve got about six more years before the itch comes on and you’re both fucking the pool boy/baby sitter and filing for divorce. you get the idea, i give us six more years until you call it quits on us, but you’ll never find a better lay! i promise you, i’m the best you ever had!!!

but in all seriousness, i do appreciate the two of you who like my infrequent posts. thanks for stopping by :)

The Auteur Theory: Univeral languages.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

“Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.”

-Frank Capra.

In the past, August Bravo and I have talked about a few of our favorite films and how we’d like to see them become Criterion DVDs. Why the Criterion Collection, you ask? Because we’re low brow film snobs and the Criterion Collection just looks sexy on a DVD shelf. I don’t want to speak for August here, but I’m a film nerd and kind of a completionist in that regard. Electronic copies of things are great, but just like my very sexy bookshelf, I like having an awesome selection of DVDs of album chilling there for me to admire and really take the time to decide: What do I want to watch today?

Which also ties wonderfully into me celebrating my own awesomeness, which is something I’m finding it harder and harder to say no to these days, ha ha!

That said, at some point August and I will probably do another one or two posts on those movies we like in a classic sort of way and at some point, we may actually jump into the auteur theory for which we took as the name of our series. But until then… chomp down on some of our past posts on the matter…

“The fact that it doesn’t have a completely satisfying ending, or maybe it does, is something I thoroughly admire about this film. I enjoy thinking about a film days after I’ve watched it, or at least, I like movies that stick with you for days after you’ve watched them. Not many have that kind of staying power anymore, but this film stays with you for years.”

-August on Shadow Of A Doubt, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

“I hate to use the word satire more than once (and I do use it again in this post) but this movie is a perfect example of satire done right, perfecting showing you a world very much like ours, and very much like ours will become. In fact, the only detriment to this entering the Criterion collection to me is that it still feels a little too fresh. Maybe in another ten years it’d be more than perfect.”

-myself on Sidney Lumet’s still frighteningly brilliant Network.

“After many flings with a great many women he’s still left confused. The ending is one of the best I’ve ever seen. With almost no structure, the film is probably meant to confuse the shit out of everyone, an initial reaction that Fellini probably not only expected but counted on. As probably one of the most imaginative directors there was, I’m sure he had many reasons to make this the way he did. And I wouldn’t change a thing.”

-August on Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2., which is getting the musical remake treatment as Nine, directed sadly by Rob Marshall and starring interestingly Daniel Day Lewis. That aside, clearly August’s metier is endings.

“Polanski is a master filmmaker, and he’s particularly good with one single element of life: That sense that something is off and just not quite right. Sometimes it’s paranoia, and suspicion of one’s surroundings, but that’s if you’re lucky to nail the feelings his films inhabit so perfectly down into words, if you’re able to describe that real life sense of nameless dread that feels like a hand reaching for your neck while you’re wide awake in the dark.”

-myself on Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.

“Among other untimely events, the film takes you back exactly to the beginning. It seems this is something I find fascinating in movies, or I guess you could say that I just hate resolution in film? Not everything needs to be a happy or unhappy ending. But an ending, just a regular, ordinary ending is what I feel should propel this movie to that ultimate and pivotal infamy of the Criterion collection.”

-August on Steven Spielberg’s Munich.

So there’s something for you to catch up on while you eagerly await our return to blowing up the internet with film nerdery.

Saturdays are boring.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

It’s a Saturday morning, somewhere in the vicinity of 7 AM as I type this (who knows when I’ll post it, could be days knowing me), and I’m stuck here at work. Ugh.

In the parking lot outside are 9 cars and about thirty people commiserating before compiling into problably an easier carpooling configuraion and driving to the nearby local air show. The other day someone asked me why I was working instead of going to the air show. My answer was in two parts:

1) I don’t give a shit as I’m above the age of 6.

2) Haven’t you ever seen any TV show where they show “real life” videos? People die at air shows, man!

Anyway, the people in the parking lot are drinking. I can see the suds and foam of beers in the early morning sunlight from where I sit passively blogging away. I’m tempted to go out and tailgate with them, just a little bit. I’ll pretend I know them, throw out some stories about how I’m here as a friend of Gary’s and “AIR SHOW WOO HOOOO pass me another cold one, okay?” I’ve done this kind of thing before, no worries.

This is billed as the ultimate tailgate trailer. I keep for the humanity that devoted scientists to concoct this.

I’ve joked about it before but I have crashed a funeral before. Or a wake. Whatever part of the thing it was where the mourning was still going on but there was wine and finger food. It’s not as sexy as when Will Ferrell does it in Wedding Crashers but I won’t lie. It’s got a certain allure.

Fuck me, a Saturday at work. I lied and told Lollipop that I wasn’t going to work today, but mostly because I realized that she’s semi-expertly deduced a good majority of my schedule based on my email frequency and gchat availability. Not bad on her part. Sorry, Lollipop, I was half being sarcastic this morning when I said I wasn’t going to work this morning and half just flat out lying. You know how I do.

Saturdays are boring. Well, no, that’s not true Sundays are boring, but I tend to cram a lot of adventure into them, so I’m not going to knock them too much. Saturdays are that make or break down of your typicalweekend adventure.

It’s been Robert Altman week over at This Recording this past week and it’s been excellent, as they usually do. Definite highlights include Tyler Coates’ write up of Nashville, Molly Lambert talking about California Split and menfolk in general, and Georgia Hardstark on (and off) McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Oh, and Molly Young, of course, on The Long Goodbye. Such a weird, wonderful film, that one.

Especially since, back in the 70s, I feel you really only had two viable male role model ideals coming out of the film industry: Elliot Gould and Han Solo. I may not actually mean that, but it’s early and it sounds good and authoratative.

I’m a little sad that no one did anything on one of my favorite entries in the Altman filmography, Images. I should talk about it at some point. I remember I once was talking abot films with August Bravo and I told him he should see Images because it was great and I loved it and that was enough of  reason. This was in emails or text messages and he said, “Yeah, I’ll definitely look for it.”

A half an hour later he texted/emailed me and said, “I’ll probably never see that movie. Whatever it was.”

Ha ha! That’s fine, August, that’s cool. Didn’t hurt my feelings at all. Bros! By the way, I slept with your girlfriend. I don’t know which, but one of them, okay?

In case you’re curious: This is how men of good camraderie one up each other in a playful and fun way. It invovles our penises and not our brains, so it’s easier for us to retain knowledge about movies we like, nacho stylings, and keeping straight whether we’re tits or ass or legs men. That’s really what we’re all about for the most part.

Of course I’m referring to straight men above. For gay men, bicurious men, or asexual men, or men who are in the process of changing which gender box they put the check mark in on when they’re applying for jobs in these tough recession-drenche times, it’s essentially the same, just give or take a few things.

To prove it, hardcore man-style, I’m going to march outside and have  few beers at the pre-air show tailgate party, scream out a few sports-esque things as if I know what I’m talking about, like, “PUT PETE ROSE IN THE HALL OF FAME ALREADY FOR FUCK’S SAKE, YOU ANIMALS!” Somebody will then invariably have car trouble and I’ll say, “I’ve been drinking, so don’t worry, I know what I’m talking about,” and I’ll fix their engine with a hammer. Then I’ll club one of the women over the head (not with the hammer, mind you, that’d be monstrous) and drag her back to my love nest. I’d like to say that we’ll probably do something adult and very kinky there, but we’ll probably just watch Images and discuss it over some nachos. It’s tragic, but this is how I tend to roll more often than not.

And what are you doing with yourself today?

The Auteur Theory, part six: The only way to get rid of my fears.

Posted by Marco Sparks & August Bravo on

“The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.”

-Alfred Hitchcock.

And here we continue with part six of our films that we love, and perhaps even adore, that we feel should make the jump over to the Criterion Collection, if, for no other reason, just to make ourselves a little happier. But today I think we’ll venture out into international waters of fear and unease, but first…

Marco Sparks: Based on reading this, I’m tempted to make The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky, my next choice, but… I won’t. I may be the only person who actually liked this movie, even though I did feel it was hurt by Aronofsky having to downgrade his vision for it do to crisis after crisis (though not quite to a Lost In La Mancha level, but still). Even still, I feel that it falls into the category of several films of more recent release, like Lost In Translation, that could very well find themselves heading into Criterion status after a little bit of aging.

Oh… well. August, what’s your pick for today?

August Bravo: Munich, 2005, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the Munich massacre.

Seeing the trailer alone got me pretty pumped up to see this. I remember actually going to the theater and watching it, where I was quite surprised to find Benjamin Light sitting. Well, I guess it wasn’t that big of a coincidence since that was one of the only showings in town.

Eric Bana plays Avner, an old bodyguard of the prime minister of Israel, sent out on a mission to find and assassinate the men responible for the murders of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich olympics. Seeking not just retribution, Bana and his team are sent out to get an eye for an eye. Eleven names, eleven assassinations, all tied to Black September, or so they think. This is an unusual movie, but a very good one.

It seems the only good movies these days are either based on books or real life events. It’s such a rich topic to tackle, especially for someone like Steven Spielberg. Oh, did I mention that he directed it? Yes, Steven Spielberg is to blame for this awfully terrific movie, which is probably why this was nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture. I was sad to see that Eric Bana didn’t get a nomination for Best Actor, but he had some stiff competition: Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, Joaquin Phoenix (my absolutely favorite new rapper) for Walk The Line, and the eventual winner, Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. I was even sadder to see that this film didn’t win a single Oscar, but this isn’t the first time Spielberg’s been atrociously robbed by this ceremony.

Now, after having given you a brief overview of the movie, here’s why I think it should be a Criterion classic: Because why not? Well, for one, it’s a Steven Spielberg movie. When is the last time he got some respect? Err, wait. Because Daniel Craig’s in it? He’s sooo dreamy. Wait. That’s not it either. Okay, because this movie has no rules. With a decently notable cast, other than the ones I’ve named, you’ve got Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz (from Amelie), and Mathieu Amalric, who plays Louis, the provider of names. And I can’t get over how great his role is, or how great he is in the role. Louis despises Avner because his father longs for a son more like him and the sides he does not take makes him so interesting, yet Amalric plays him such a subtle amount of venom.

Marco: I have to interject here just to add that you’re right, Amalric is really good in this role, and his presence is incredibly understated. He’s an actor (who was compared to Roman Polanski so many times in reviews of Quantum Of Solace) that you always think is going to take it over the top, but he never does. He always keeps it perfectly on the line, with those big bug eyes of his betraying so much of what’s inside him. And don’t forget to mention the equally wonderful and low key Michael Lonsdale, who’s wonderful as Louis’ papa in this film.

August: Avner’s inner struggle, wondering if what he’s doing is right, is something to pay close attention to. The cover to the two disc edition of the DVD and the original movie poster explains it well enough. The Israeli crew’s progression throughout the film is something I’ve enjoyed as well. Their circumstances can’t help but force them to grow weary of each other. Among other untimely events, the film takes you back exactly to the beginning. It seems this is something I find fascinating in movies, or, I guess you could say that I just hate resolution in films. Not everything needs to be a happy or unhappy ending. But an ending, just a regular, ordinary ending is what I feel should propel this movie to that ultimate and pivotal infamy of the Criterion collection.

Marco: Good point, that. We’ve never really discussed in depth what our personal criteria or what we see as the criterion for the Criteron collection is. Partly because it’s hard to nail down, but… there’s a certain off beatness of fine filmmaking that I feel is one aspect of it. An overlooked quality, perhaps. A somewhat political film like this definitely makes sense, possibly after a few years of aging like fine wine, just like Costa-Gavras’ Missing. But I don’t feel that the Criterion collection should be home to just plain classics. Casablanca probably shouldn’t carry the Criterion logo on it, but The Third Man certainly should.

Eric Bana as Nero, the villain in the new Star Trek movie. I dig the name.

Now, for my pick today, I’m actually going to throw out a few. And since I have the tendency to ramble on, I’ll just throw them out and walk away, most likely to talk about them another day. They are:

The Tenant, 1976, directed by Roman Polanski (and starring him as well).

Suspiria, 1977, directed by Dario Argento.

Deep Red, 1975, also directed by Dario Argento (I told you that I’d be suggesting a giallo classic or two, didn’t I?).

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate before.

These are three excellent films of psychological horror and, well, just plain horror as well. And a clear indicator that the 70s were a great time for paranoia. The Tenant works on so many terrifying levels, further proving that Polanski was quite possibly a genius filmmaker at one time, and nobody handles the unnerving unsettling terror that lives beneath your skin like him (it’s sad to say, but the closest I’ve ever seen to true perfect sinister feelings in a film since Polanski was probably Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring), especially here as he deals with a little bit of diaspora unease and a lot of the existentialist hell that is living in an urban environment like an apartment complex, surrounded by people that may want to destroy you.

Marco Sparks’ favorite French hottie, Marion Cotillard reenacting the shower scene from Psycho.

As for these Argento movies… they just get inside you and grab a part of you and squeeze. And they’re beautifully lit and shot. And sooner or later, Suspiria will get remade (though I think Deep Red needs it first), possibly with Natalie Portman in the lead. Argento (whose daughter, Asia, was the subject of every cinephile’s dirty fits of lust at some point or another), has been more miss than hit in the last few decades, but for a while there he and De Palma were neck in neck for producing that certain brand of psuedo-Hitcock horror-thriller, though Argento was much more interested in the more supernatural and gory parts of life (which, thankfully, lead to his funding Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead).

August and I will continue for a little more talk about the films we love and respect and think that you should as well, but for now, we’re wondering what scares you so bad in a film that you can’t bear to watch it?

And what scares you so badly that you can’t bear to look away?

Counterforce on Vacation: I’m only happy when it rains.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

This is my weird but wonderful celebrity sighting from over the past weekend:

Most of my associates here at your semi-friendly neighborhood Counterforce have gone back to work, whatever their day jobs are, or back to school. They’ve gone back to the grind. But not yours truly. Marco Sparks is still on vacation, grinding away here in the golden state and chilling in Benjamin Light’s apartment while he’s off making a little paper.

Anyone care to know the contents of Light’s porn folder?

The nice thing, let me tell you here, about starting a blog with a bunch of people is that when you go on vacation, it gives you places to stay. So, you know, thanks to both Peanut and Lollipop for putting me up for a while. Occam, understandably, is a cheap bastard who wouldn’t put any of us up, but he has been hosting the official Counterforce Lost parties the last two weeks, and that’s pretty stand up of him.

Speaking of official Counterforce anything, over the weekend, all of the assorted weirdos from this blog were gathered together in one room, and in the same hotel room for a while, in San Francisco. There were some lurid stories, some large quantities of consumed alcohol, and some down and dirty drama: The ingredients of any good party, yes?

In SF, pretty much all of us attended a nerd convention, and Lollipop took home the best spoils: a picture autographed by Mitch Hurwitz, Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, and Kenan Thompson (Kel was busy manning the Coolburger). Oh, and the guy who did the voice of Spongebob was in there somewhere too. A very cool grab.

But me? Other than the pleasure of everyone’s company, which would’ve been more than enough for me (more than I deserved, certainly), I got the photo you see up at the top of the page of a certain flame-headed singer of a 90s “alternative” band (who now sadly stars on that Sarah Connor show in the middle of the Friday night graveyard of programing on Fox)(Right before Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse which, sadly, I’m expecting to get cancelled any second now).

The story of the picture is simply that I was out to lunch with August Bravo (who smells like straight up mayonnaise, no joke) and my friend Anthony at some Chinese place. “the best dim sum in the city,” the sign outside told us. I was broke, Anthony was buying, so that meant I would’ve followed him into hell. Or a dim sum place when the sketchy looking tempura house he originally wanted was closed (damn you, SoMa!).

I’ll spare you the nitty gritty of our conversation there, but Anthony’s training for a job in which he’ll have a gun. Sigh. What starts out there was cop talk slowly devolves into cock talk and something tells me to look over my shoulder. Perhaps alternarock nostalgia. Either way, there’s Shirley Manson, radiant and glowing, like 5 to 6 feet away from me, having lunch with some wanker. I quietly mutter to my associates in a hushed, stealth tone, “HOLY WTF OMG JESUS CHRIST, THAT’S SHIRLEY MANSON OVER MY LEFT GODDAMNED SHOULDER FUCK!” Luckily, August is on the ball (he was already sexting away on his iphone, so it was cool) and snaps the photo. We decide not to be the kind of pricks who interrupts a celebrity’s life or meal, even if it is with some wanker, to ask for an autograph or ask them to marry us or seek out any kind of validation for our own weird existence. Instead we took a much more subtle and despicable route of just casually glancing back at her like constantly. I suggest to Mr. Bravo that he should get another picture of the lovely Ms. Manson, this time with me leaning into the frame (cause I’m an asshole like that)(and cause the one above has Anthony in it staring off into nowhere or perhaps our waiter’s ass cleavage). He tries to, but it’s too late, the jig is up, and they’re onto us.

The wanker proceeds to look back at us constantly now and we feel shame. Not too much, mind you, a little. Anthony orders more duck and we bullshit our story for in case the wanker decides to say something to us, you know, to stick it too us. Anthony orders some shrimp porridge, rattles off all the police codes for various nefarious sexual acts one can visit upon a minor, and we bullshit that we’re celebrities too. No, not as bloggeurs, but that we’re actually an avante garde folktronica groupe called Infinity Sign. The story we come up with to back that up holds no water and of course, Shirley Manson isn’t going to lower herself to talk to us, and that’s understandable, and I do feel bad about taking the picture. By the way, our first single, “Put My Thing In Your Thing Where All The Other Wild Things Are” will be available on itunes soon.

This picture is absolutely for Peanut, who loves Gwen Stefani so much.

Eventually Shirley Manson and the wanker – whom we try to hypothesize could be her young lover that she takes whenever in the city or her bodyguard or both – leave. And let me tell you here: Some women leave a room and some women leave a room angry. And some do it in the sexiest way imaginable. That’s Shirley Manson. And most likely that dopey guy enjoying the meal with her was probably just the executive producer of her show, but whatever, he’s still the executive producer of that show. Wanker-ish.

Several days later, Commander Light and I took in a showing of the new Clive Owen picture, The International. What a bizarre, wonderful film. Total 70s paranoia thriller fetish porn and all the major action sequences take place in post modern art museums. There’s a wonderful collection of weird European hair happening this film (this weapons manufacturer character who’s running for Italian PM in the film would appear to have a sleeping falcon resting on his head at one point, but, no, it’s just his mega hair). Naomi Watts is barely in it (because, I assume, Jennifer Connelly was busy) and Clive Owen has clawed his way into being my favorite living movie star. Why? Because he’s not a star. He’s not even a man. He’s an animal in a suit and it works.

That, of course, leads me to the Clive Own interview in the latest Esquire. An excerpt:

It just didn’t occur to him to feel the part in advance of doing it. British actors are utterly different animals. You talk to a British actor and he’ll tell you about the night before very matter-of-factly: ‘I fucked her three times.’ They don’t care about your reaction. And you’ll say, ‘Hmm. You fucked her three times. How did it feel?’ and they’ll be blank. ‘Feel? Feel? What’s feeling got to do with it?’ They don’t cart around their emotions about the job. They have lives.

As for Lost, since we do tend to ramble on about that show a bit here, I have to express some love for this past week’s episode, “LaFleur.” It was packed with little tidbits for the fan, and quite frankly, you know that any episode that’s “previously on Lost” clips package starts with a character getting slapped is going to be. Plus, there was this:

“Hustlers, get your guns/This shadow weighs a ton…”

Posted by Marco Sparks on

It’s going to be a busy next few weeks for the ladies and gentlemen of Counterforce as most of us go on a vacation of some sort or another. We’re going to try to keep coming at you with regular updates but just understand that if we don’t post as much as we normally do… well, it’s because we’re off having loads of fun away from the internet. Sorry. We’d love to take you with us but there’s really just not enough room.

from here.

But for now we invite you to take a trip down memory lane and remember why you love as much as you do and get caught up on some of our old posts…

Occam Razor loves America and is going to tell you how to survive in a post peak oil world. Also, there’s pictures of Esther Baxter.

Lollipop Gomez is remarkably like David Frost, Barbara Walters, and a sexier Geraldo Rivera all wrapped into a tiny glasses wearing package. Take a gander at her hard hitting interview series where she puts only the best and the brightest in the hot seat and asks them probing questions about food, card rooms, and wacky religious cults.

Benjamin Light talked about the Oscars earlier and really disgusting “film reviewer” types a while back, but catch up on some of our earlier film reviews:

X-Files 2: I Want To Believe.

The Dark Knight.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Jack Nicholson and The Witches Of Eastwick.

And Hellboy 2 and the death of the modern action flick.

Quantum Of Solace.

The Candidate.

Let The Right One In.

And why Point Break is one of the great films of this time or any other.

And film remakes to be terrified of.

And don’t forget that August Bravo and myself get a bit pretentious (well, a little) about films that we’d consider super duper classics, which you find here and here and here (and parts four and five coming very soon).

Plus, Benjamin Light does a nice counterpoint to that with films that he considers to be hidden indicators of bad taste.

Oh, and politics! Back during the campaign season, this site used to be just filthy with political trash talk. Now, it’s just filthy.

And Lost. Yeah, I guess you could say that we have Lost mania. Or something.

And that’s not to say that we don’t talk about literature and music and art as well, cause believe me, we do. In fact, we talk our asses off about it. About all of it and more.

And don’t forget we have Peanut St. Cosmo too.

So, just remember, we’re not going anywhere. We’re still here and we still love you. Sort of. We’re just going to go on a little vacation and we invite you to join us.

The Auteur Theory, part one: Truth at 24 frames per second.

Posted by Marco Sparks & August Bravo on

“Photography is truth. The cinema is truth at 24 frames per second.”

-Jean- Luc Godard.

Marco Sparks and August Bravo consider themselves to be armchair cinemaphiles, probably just like yourself, but they’re just more arrogant (and sometimes, more knowledgeable) about it than you. But like every good poor man’s film critic, they regard the Criterion Collection with the highest of regard because, well, how can you not? Some of the world’s finest cinema in just about every genre is collected there, meant for the true lovers of film. And for the idiots. And any and all between. But sometimes, just sometimes, you come across a film that’s excellent and you have to ask yourself, “Why isn’t this in the Criterion Collection?” Join us as we do a little bit of that ourselves.

August Bravo: Blow-Up, 1966, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

The best kind of movie is the one with no real ending. This movie is exactly that. Blow-Up (or Blowup) follows a fashion photographer, played by David Hemmings. After taking pictures one night he wants to take those and publish it into an art book. Whilst living his daily life in swinging London he comes across a beautiful park with a beautiful couple in it. He photographs them. The film makes it almost seem he’s done something like this before. Photograph couples unknowingly, I mean. After getting the sufficient photos, he leaves and notices himself being stalked by none other than the woman from the pictures he was taking in the park. Her reaction to him taking pictures is what spirals the movie into something entirely different. It’s a very quiet and slow film. You almost wait for the exact moment where everything catapults into something action packed, but it doesn’t. Not to me, anyway. What movies this movie is the two girls that want to get their pictures taken earlier in the film. Why put these girls in the movie? That’s something I think about endlessly with films. Why did the writer put this in the script? What importance did these two innocent, young girls have? Also something you need to find out for yourself. The cover may give it away, but it may not. I was reminded of this film a couple of years back while watching a movie called Cache, or “Hidden” in French, directed by Michael Haneke (of Funny Games fame). I got the same unusual feeling I got at the end of that movie as I did with this one. Yes, I realize thsi movie is a bit pretentious, once again to me, anyway, but very well deserving of criterion status. Although, it is no Fool’s Gold.

Marco Sparks: I like how you threw in Fool’s Gold there, FTW. But, damn straight Blow-Up should be a criterion classic. They’ve done a wonderful job with Antonioni’s L’Avventura and L’Eclisse and they should definitely expand to his other films like this or even Red Desert or Zabriskie Point (by now it has to be worthy of crazy cult status, right?) or even La Notte, the middle film in the unofficial trilogy that L’Avventura and L’Eclisse bookend. Also, Cache. An excellent mention there, Mr. Bravo. A great film. The kind of movie that would probably leave Hitchcock unsettled.

But for my first selection: Blissfully Yours, 2002, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

This oddly lovely Thai romance film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (but you can call him “Joe,” like his friends and critics do, since there’s a Thai tradition of adopting nicknames rather than hearing people butcher their long names) is a bit of a weird pick for this, I know. But that is why I picked it. No description of the plot will do it justice since it’s literally about the love affair of a man and a woman, and the slightly older woman who’s jealous of them (and there’s lots of sex), but more so than plot, this is a mood piece. A tonal work if ever there was one. One thing I like about the Criterion collection is not just that they’ve expanded a lot of people’s knowledge and ideas about film to include foreign disciplines, but they’ve also shown you that film as art doesn’t always have to have a ridiculously complex plot, nor be a life or death matter. How one judges life and death is different from person to person, the same with the art we love and appreciate. With that in mind, I would definitely include this film by Joe, or perhaps his first film, Mysterious Object At Noon, a half documentary, half neature narrative exploration of the exquisit corpse party game.

August: La Dolce Vita, 1960, directed by Federico Fellini.

What Fellini movie shouldn’t be made into a Criterion classic? Well, a few, but this isn’t one of them. I prefer 8 1/2, but as most, or maybe just some of you know, that’s already in the collection. The title literally translates into “The Sweet Life,” this movie offers you insight on the life of the famous. Anita Ekberg gives a dashing performance as Sylvia. And Marcello Mastroianni is always riveting. Spawning probably  one of the most famous phrases, “paparazzi,” named after Marcello’s friend Paparazzo, a photographer of stars. This movie shows the life of a reporter, who’s just trying to find a meaning for life. After many flings with a great many women he’s still left confused. The endingis one of the best I’ve ever seen. With almost no structure, the film is probably meant to confuse the shit out of everyone, an initial reaction that Fellini probably not only expected but counted on. As probably one of the most imaginative directors there were, I’m sure he had many reasons to make this the way he did. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

Marco: Well said. The previous releases of this film were quite nice, but they do deserve that extra little Criterion stamp of approval. It’s so weird to see so much of our contemporary society still so familiar with the world of 1960′s Italy, and yet there it is. And as for the ending, which is brilliant, this film reminds me a great deal of Seinfeld in that sometimes in nothing we can find everything. Fellini was certain man who had issues with woman, and his career was all about that, being in love and in war with those issues and those women. I can’t help but think of “Asa Nisi Masa,” the words that make the pictures move.

For my next pick: The Passenger, 1975, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

When I tell you that I’m an Antonioni fan, you’ll understand that I’m serious. It’s no joke, it’s the real deal. I could talk for hours about this film and I could talk your ears off, but what I’ll say here instead is that I’ve done a lot of reading on the filmography of this director, and this period in his life was especially interesting. Around this time, Antonioni was trying to capture a certain feeling, to make a certain idea of his come to life. You can see it in the scripts that he wrote right before this, the films that never came to life and eventually evolved into this project, also called Professione: Reporter, starring Jack Nicholsonson and Maria Schneider. Antonioni was desperate to tell the story of a man so lost that he hoped to find himself and who would just keep going until he got there. Or somewhere. The title here takes on a different meaning altogether due to one cast members’ refusal to any driving in the film, thus switching roles in an interesting way.

August: Trainspotting, 1996, directed by Danny Boyle.

Don’t we all just need one more fucking hit? I do. So does Ewan MacGregor. I don’t know what first brought me to watch this movie. Maybe you, Peanut? Regardless, this is one of my favorite films. It starts off with some junkies, literally willing to inject/do anything to get get high. Sounds like a lot of people I know. Renton (played by MacGregor), or Rents, as everyone likes to call him is the focus of the film. After trying to quit, he goes through a tumultuous journey where he gets back on and off the heroin wagon. But heroin isn’t what this movie is all about. It’s about life. It’s about trying to be somebody, kind of. One can’t go on their entire life being a junkie, which is why Rents quits in the first place.

The fact actually made it’s way into the halls of Criterion on laserdisc, but I only mention that because what the fuck is a laserdisc and who the fuck cares? It’s got some positive reinforcement as it shows Rents actually succeeding in life. But it just comes to a crashing stop, ultimately showing you that you can quit a drug, but you can’t quit your friends. A lot of this movie is about growing up, especially towards the end. That sounds reasonable that the growing up takes place in the second half of the movie, yes, but this isn’t your ordinary drug film. Or any film. Probably one of my favorite soundtracks ever as well. The score leaves a lasting effect on how you perceive this movie and it’s characters.

Marco: for my last pick today, I give you Visitor Q, 2001, directed by Takashi Miike.

There’s a lot of cinema from Asia that I would suggest here, including Oldboy, which is soon to be remade here in America, Last Life In The Universe, Miike’s own Audition, Battle Royale, and probably even Lust, Caution. And that’s not even to mention the other fine foreign movies that didn’t make the list here just because of space such as Amores Perros and A Clockwork Orange.

But I picked Visitor Q for a lot of reasons. Firstly, when it’s all said and done, this is a good movie. But that gets lost in just how fucked up it is (it is Miike, after all). This is a film that starts incestuous sex and ends with a man and a young woman being breastfed by their wife/mother. In between those two points you get a lot of violence, sex, drug use, and necrophilia. But it all ties together (not so much nicely, but semi-completely) in a message about maternal nurturing and what it takes to heal a broken down family. But let me put it this way, if it’s content was toned down and this was released forty years ago in either Italy or France, it’d already be a known classic just hanging off the lips of scholars, not just cinematic perverts like you and me. But still, you ponder, too risque for the Criterion collection? Well, they did put out a version of Salò, didn’t they? And after you’ve released an art film with people eating shit in it, well… you can release a lot of different kinds of art after that, I’d imagine.

Okay, that’s enough from us for today. We decided to break this down into two posts, foreign and domestic, so tomorrow or perhaps the next day we’ll bring this a little closer to home. Until then…

STAY TUNED!