June 28, 2004
Rock Star Quote of the Week:
"Usually people would experience a type of sensory deprivation, and they would lose the sense of time. It would force them to be in the moment, and since people don’t usually get to experience that, there’d be a sense of elation. There would be a feeling of, “Wow, that was really weird, I don’t know what happened, but I suddenly heard this symphony…” Because it was such a huge noise with so much texture to it, it allowed people to imagine anything. Like when you hypnotize somebody, and nothing becomes something. That was what the whole purpose became. 1/3 of the audience would always think it was really shit, and try to leave, or get as far away as they could, and the other 2/3 really liked it."
-- Kevin Shields on audience reactions to MY BLOODY VALENTINE live
10 Movies In The Spirit Of Rock'N'Roll: Reuben Ham checks off the ingredients contributing to ten milestones in debauched, excessive, gratuitous cinema…
THE NINTH GATE (Roman Polanski; 1999)
- beards
- Satan
- glamorous smoking
- Johnny Depp chasing Satan while glamorously smoking
- Johnny Depp leafing through priceless old books while glamorously smoking without an ashtray
- Polanski's girlfriend riding Johnny Depp as he becomes Satan, or she does, or someth-- TITS!!
- widely regarded as piece of shit
- infinitely better than it's given credit for
- isn't BITTER MOON, anyway
- makes me want to hang out in second-hand bookstores looking for hot French girls who may or may not be Satan
8 ˝ (Federico Fellini; 1963)
- filmmaker has writer's block, makes film about filmmaker with writer's block
- yes, it is that narcissistic
- is in black & white so that we know it isn't ADAPTATION
- is also in black & white so as to appear more aesthetically interesting
- includes scene in which dude dons a princely toga and melodramatically whips a bunch of servile chicks
- and if that's not rock'n'roll, quoth David Lee Roth...
- everyone is pretty sure it's a masterpiece
- no-one is quite sure why
- but it has that scene with the chicks
- and the beginning where the balloon-guy floats into the sky, that's just... I think it really... I mean, in a way... yeah
ZABRISKIE POINT (Michelangelo Antonioni; 1970)
- deep subtext
- funny haircuts
- pretty photography
- young people talking about politics
- fucking in the sand
- everyone expects voice of God, gets Pink Floyd soundtrack instead
- something explodes at the end
- explosion means something
- IMDb user dismisses it as "one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen"
- directly adjacent IMDb user hails it as "true art"
MULHOLLAND DRIVE (David Lynch; 2001)
- has a dwarf in it
- someone said, 'let's drop everything at this point and cue up some beautifully photographed, gratuitous lesbian sex'
- someone else said, 'okay'
- original speaker said, 'well, I was only joking, but hey-- cool...'
- this works
- Laura Harring has lasers for eyes which decimate Jeffrey Wells articles
- Kyle MacLachlan threatens to show up, but never does
- has a dwarf in it, and is dreamlike
- is this due to the dwarf's presence?
- probably<
NOWHERE (Gregg Araki; 1997)
- nothing happens
- in pretty colours
- kids fuck, do drugs, watch televangelism ironically
- guy in alien-suit plays 'alien'
- pointless cameos allow viewer to exclaim, 'Isn't that...? I thought so! Where's the guy in the alien-suit? He's funny. Why is the soundtrack full of shoegaze bands? In 1997?'
- opens with a guy whacking off in the shower to SLOWDIVE
- which is the sort of cinematic opening one might conceive while actually whacking off in the shower to SLOWDIVE, but which one would never seriously film
- IMDb user excitedly asks, "do you get it?!"
- another IMDb user sagely offers, "If you don't see any meaning to this, that still doesn't mean that it is completely meaningless"
- everyone laughs
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (Robert Rodriguez; 2003)
- makes no sense
- everyone wears black
- Salma Hayek in tight top
- Johnny Depp looking cool while shooting people
- dudes tossing their long flowing locks
- in slow motion
- not much else
- oh, there's a motorbike
- and a... dog... or something
- Rodriguez's '10 Minute Cooking School' segment on the DVD is actually really fucking good
STRANGE DAYS (Kathryn Bigelow; 1995)
- violence; pretty colours; noise
- makes even less sense than ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
- Jim Cameron wrote story when he was 13; Kathryn Bigelow just imagined she was 13-- and male-- and a director-- when she directed
- philosophical questions of technology and morality and the future of humanki-- TITS!
- Ralph Fiennes sounds like British actor who has been condescendingly told to affect American accent, enjoys revenge by only half-trying
- widely regarded as piece of shit
- is, in fact, a piece of shit
- think about the purity of this for a moment
- now watch POINT BREAK
- and read more Heidegger so you can get all the references
NAKED KILLER (Clarence Fok Yiu-leung; 1992)
- all the bullet ballet of HARD BOILED
- as performed by lipstick lesbians
- are another eight points really necessary?
- uh... phenomenal editing
- no, really-- top-notch chopping
- score is probably quite nice, too
- best tagline in the history of celluloid: There Are Two Things On Their Minds... One's Killing!
- that's right! ...they're also into cross-stitch!
- and horticulture
- and pillow-fights, of course
THE RULES OF ATTRACTION (Roger Avary; 2002)
- Dawson Leary is mean!
- Kip Pardue is himself!
- that-chick-from-7TH HEAVEN is... um... mean too, I think
- Shannyn Sossamon gets vomited on!
- ennui! death! meaninglessness of everything!
- Jack Daniel's poured without a shot-measure!
- snappy camera tricks
- CURE featured prominently on soundtrack
- Eric Stoltz shows up... 'cos if he didn't, a film like this would just seem wrong
- Rev. Camden from 7TH HEAVEN should have been in it and been mean but, sadly, isn't
BATTLE ROYALE (Kinji Fukasaku; 2000)
- blood
- 'the film that inspired Tarantino's KILL BILL!' according to an annoyingly chipper yellow sticker on the Region 4 DVD's cover
- why? ...because they both have, like, blood in them?
- hailed as hyper-moral, incisive social commentary
- is actually gratuitous splatterfest
- this is a good thing; aesthetics are more important, foo'
- anime hairdos
- rebellious young'uns
- less sex than ZABRISKIE POINT
- also considerably less sand
Next Week! VELVET might actually appear in prose!
© Reuben Ham
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