Cat Piss (Short, 2007, Giuseppe Andrews, Download) - 8.5
An older gentlemen has issues with his plumbing, so Giuseppe Andrews helps him out. I liked this one a lot. The neighbor who wore pantyhose over his face with sunglasses over it was amazing.
Choque (Short, 2005, Nacho Vigalondo, Download) - 9.0
Nacho Vigalondo goes on some bumper cars with his girlfriend, and when he feels some teenage punks are being too aggressive, he challenges them to some more bumper car madness. It’s pretty hilarious.
The Baseball Card Movie (Short, 2009, Casimir Nozkowski, Youtube) - 7.0
Short documentary about modern baseball card collecting, focused on a specific shop in New York. I collected obsessively when I was a kid (I didn’t actually watch baseball, I just liked the process of collection), so it was interesting to see how much it’s changed.
House Hunting (Short, 2003, Amy Lippman, Download) - 6.0
Paul Rudd and Zooey Deschanel are looking for a new apartment, and they test one out by having sex on the bed, and Paul Rudd shows off his ass, and then there’s something wrong with the realtor. It was ok.
6/18
Salome (Short, 1978, Pedro Almodovar, Download) - 7.5
Early Almodovar short about Salome, who dances around and demands that John the Baptist is beheaded. Pretty good.
6/20
Pulp Fiction (Rewatch, 1994, Quentin Tarantino, 35mm, Clay) - 9.5
John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are hitmen who go to retrieve a mysterious suitcase stolen from their boss, Ving Rhames, who has paid the boxer Bruce Willis to throw a fight, but Bruce Willis kills the opponent instead, and also a couple robs a diner where the hitmen are eating, and all the stories meet up with each other, and a ton of other stuff happens. It’s really fucking great, and mostly perfect, with amazing dialogue that is amazing for reasons I don’t even understand. I hadn’t seen it in years, and it fucking holds up.
6/22
Martyrs (2009, Pascal Laugier, DVD) - 8.0
A girl is traumatized from having been held captive and had horrible things done to her as a child, and now she’s haunted by some kind of creature, and she tries to hunt down the people who did it. This movie is all over the place, and the plot seems to drastically change like three times, but somehow it works. I was expecting something disturbing from what I’d been hearing about it, but when the final twist comes, revealing why the girl was tortured, it’s more just kinda weird than anything else. It’s original at least, if not especially mind-blowing. I don’t know what exactly people claim is difficult to watch, but there’s an extended torture montage where a girl just gets punched in the face all the time that could be what people mean. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Saw series and other “torture porn” films because I consider them to be very similar to all the great slashers, in that they celebrate innovative ways to kill someone. So for me, the torture scenes in Martyrs were kiiiiiind of fucking boring. But aside from that, some of the violence is really great, and when they show the actual devices of torture, it’s really good, and the sequence where the girl busts in on a family is fucking incredible.
Tetro (2009, Francis Ford Coppola, 35mm, Embarcadero) - 5.0
This guy goes to Argentina where his older brother Vincent Gallo is, and he tries to get him to open up about his past or something, and he finds some shit he’s written, but it’s in code, so he tries to decipher it, and then writes a play based on it, and it’s a success. I wanted to like it, but it was pretty much boring, and I couldn’t get engaged in the story. I was also distracted by the cinematography. It was shot on digital, which I don’t have any problem with, but I think at this time, digital can only look so good. It’s shot and lighted very similarly to Rumble Fish, which is a fucking gorgeous-looking film. Coppola was obviously trying for the same effect here, and it’s possible I was just thinking about it too much because of an obsession with film, but I found that it looked really flat and boring. Flat and boring is how I would describe the story too, though, so I guess it actually matches up. And I don’t know, maybe it’ll look better on Blu-ray.
6/27
Sin Nombre (2009, Cary Fukunaga, 35mm, Red Vic) - 8.0
A Mexican gang member ends up killing his gang leader, and he goes on the run, and befriends a girl who is trying to cross the border. Some of the gang members are pretty frightening, and the story doesn’t hold back in portraying gang life. It’s really good.
6/28
Duplicity (2009, Tony Gilroy, 35mm, Red Vic) - 5.0
Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are both corporate spies, and they sleep together, and they connive to scam each of their corporations, but they might be double-crossing each other. It was either really confusing or just really dumb. Probably both, I guess. But watchable enough.
6/29
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009, Michael Bay, 35mm, Kabuki) - 8.0
Shia LaBeouf is off to college, but first he accidentally touches a remaining shard from that black thing from the first movie, and after a brief showdown with Transformer Gremlins, he takes off to leave, but Decepticons are still around, so the Transformers need his help, and a ton of other shit happens, including Shia almost cheating on Megan Fox with a crazy stalker/rapist girl who I could’ve sworn was also Megan Fox in a blond wig. Shia is hilarious and charming, in fucking top form here, and Julie White as his mom was also fucking great. The entire first half of the movie I thought was incredible, but eventually it does start to feel real fucking long, and the final battle especially goes on forever. And without being obsessed enough with Transformers to tell any of them apart, the action isn’t very exciting. It’s far from Bay’s best work, but it’s not the piece of shit everyone says it is, either. Well, in a way it is, but I’ll get back to that.
After I saw it, I was dying to know what race the "racist" twins were supposed to be. Can it really be considered racist if I honestly could not fucking figure it out? They were like Asians imitating black people, mixed with hillbillies. So all I can figure is that people are mad because they left out Mexicans? Nobody would answer me on Twitter or FaceBook, and I genuinely wanted to know the answer. Everywhere I looked to research the matter didn’t bother to specify, as if it’s so obvious, there’s no need to. My best educated guess is that they’re supposed to be Black, but seriously, I couldn’t tell. They’re supposed to have formed their personalities based on an amalgamation of pop cultures consumed from the internet, and that is exactly how it comes across.
But anyway, here’s the thing about this movie. Everything that people have said about the plot not making any sense, is entirely correct. I don’t follow movies very well myself, especially if I’m distracted by shit blowing up, so I didn’t actually notice. But from what I’ve read about the plotholes and various inconsistencies, it seems the movie was definitely problematic. My favorite article on the subject would be this one. It’s not only a hilarious read, but it actually answered my fucking question about the “racist” robots. And to be honest, I can’t figure out if reading about all the movie’s problems actually makes me like it even more or not. I'm pretty sure it does.
6/30
Public Enemies (2009, Michael Mann, 35mm, Balboa) - 7.0
Johnny Depp is John Dillinger and he’s a bank robber, and Christian Bale is fed up with it. I was never bored during its 2+ hour running time, but there was never a moment when I was thrilled or excited, either. It’s a thoroughly good movie, without ever being great. Nice to see Stephen Dorff getting work.
June Top 10
1. Drag Me to Hell (Blu-ray, DVD)
2. A Woman Obsessed (VHS)
3. Megaforce (VHS)
4. The Hangover (Blu-ray, DVD)
5. Airport 1975 (DVD)
6. Up (Blu-ray, DVD)
7. Bedroom Eyes (VHS)
8. S Club 7: Back to the Fifties
9. Choque (short)
10. Land of the Lost (Blu-ray, DVD)
Bottom 5
1. The Blind Waiter (short)
2. Lola Montes
3. Six Months to Live (short)
4. Victory at Entebbe
5. Duplicity
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