Cut the turf of the wall. Don’t take him out
Through the door. What leaves that way
Can also come back. Now the corpse is through; seal the gap.
His fingers are stiffening; give him his axe.
Cut the turf of the wall. Don’t take him out
Through the door. What leaves that way
Can also come back. Now the corpse is through; seal the gap.
His fingers are stiffening; give him his axe.
when you smell fire & charred fur on mineral bite of winter
I am thinking of you
If The Revenant qualifies for “nature porn,” then First Man is the logical extension of Blade Runner 2049: “Ryan Gosling Porn—in Space!” When the camera isn’t focused on Gosling’s helmeted face, it’s on CGI constructions that suck the life out of this zero-gravity biopic. This occasionally engaging special effects extravaganza is pretty to look at, but mostly absent of the soul-stirring emotion that fueled Apollo 13 and Hidden Figures. Whereas director Damien Chazelle showed promise with his debut Whiplash, his latest feature fits into a pattern of dressed up homages to Hollywood’s past and doesn’t even qualify as revisionist history.
The Wailing (2016, dir. Hong-jin Na) has a brutal, naked approach to horror: the blundering confusion & fright in supernatural circumstances lends a realism to each actor’s performance. Hwan-hee Kim spookily portrays Hyu-jin, a sick child whose ominous illness drives her father, a detective named Jong-goo [Do-won Kwak], to desperation. Kwak shakes, scrambles, cries, & fumes as Jong-goo, whose increasingly reckless bumbles felt relatable as I grasped at theories, not knowing who to trust. The Wailing has just enough gore, tingly suspense, & and an ending that left me guessing how slight the edge is between safety & grizzly death.
After giving us the genre-bending Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard takes a stab at the neo-noir with Bad Times at the El Royale. Although elaborate in its narrative setup, the film falters from time to time. While acting is mostly solid across the board—especially by Jeff Bridges and Cynthia Erivo—pacing drags considerably and emotional moments do not always click in this story about strangers who convenes upon a rundown hotel for different nefarious motives. Despite these detractors, the film is freshly original, full of tension and dark humor. It is an enjoyable reprieve from mainstream dribble that constitutes studiofare.
The Old Man & the Gun is a good ol’ yarn, the type your grandfather would tell. This laidback, romantic affair about an aging bank robber possesses a myth-like quality. While the narrative’s pacing may be slow for some people, the cast’s charms make up for it. Magic especially shines between veterans Redford and Spacek. By not taking the material too seriously, director David Lowery explores topics such as aging and love with a dose of fun. When a film keeps a smile on your face the whole running time, it’s bound to stay with you long after the credits roll.
Elizabeth Short has long been a source text of sorts for true crime aficionados. In Dreamland for Keeps, Sarah Nichols uses James Ellroy’s noirish fictional account of Short’s murder, The Black Dahlia, as source text for found poems in which Short speaks from her life and her afterlife. It helps to come to this collection with some background on Short already, but it’s not necessary; the cultural alchemy by which a murdered woman becomes both icon and cipher is one we’re all well-versed in. In Nichols’ hands, the louche overreach of Ellroy’s prose becomes a stark, forceful, and self-possessed poetry.
The best portions of A Star is Born play out more or less like the film’s well-edited trailer: fast-paced, gorgeously photographed scenes set against emotional tunes. But once past the moment in which Gaga gets her big break (a scene which is a contender for the very best of 2018) the movie settles into rote Behind the Music cliché. Cooper is better than he’s ever been, and shows great promise as a director. Gaga is, as ever, playing for the back row in every scene, whether she’s singing or acting. I’ll leave you to work out if that’s a compliment.
Mr. Butterchips is worst at what he does best, and for this gift he feels blessed in Alex Schumacher’s latest strip.
Editor-in-chief Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner welcomes you to the October issue and shares news about our ongoing fundraiser!
Sean Woodard’s column Finding the sacred Among the Profane, which explores religious themes in horror films, returns with a look at the Vincent Price classic Witchfinder General.
I always get a little nervous when I’m asked to help somebody move. You learn things about people. Unless they box up every single little thing (and who does that?), you get little unguarded glimpses into their lives when you’re in amongst people’s stuff.
Cash only for the
needle of gin, confetti
pitch of the sax,
and Capone.
We paint ourselves a mingled memory
of wet words in a clinging storm
that congeals pleasure into folds
and bitter flesh into pulpiness.
My mother wants the dead to go away,
tired of how they pop up among the list of the living,
in whatever the last profile picture they selected
not knowing it was the last.
I feel the draft from the hallway. I hear the scrape and clap of her pumps. Then she’s turning on the lights. She looks at the bottle of Burrowing Owl breathing on the kitchen table and nods. Her hands slide across her stomach. She looks down at me with the same expression every week: one part surprise that I’m actually there, one part a strong desire to laugh out loud.
how she stays silent the whole time.
Her eyes are closed and her lashes fan
out across her cheek:
I decided that this is what religion looks like.
In the bar, Miss Carey’s song on, “Honey.”
If you were ten years younger, had no kid
wee’d still be smoking along the river,
watching Frogtown ducks swimming in the dark.
Gabriel Ricard with an all-Shudder Halloween edition of Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo
You glance around at the same place that held birthdays, barbeques, movie nights. The memories burst from their unmarked graves at the back of your mind. They form a pool behind your eyes, congealing into bitter teardrops that are on the verge of falling. You blink them away, making it all nothing but a few wet spots on your sleeve before slouching to your room and locking the door.