All of the party anxiety, all the introversion, all the desperate desire to appear cool, it just goes out the window. And we almost certainly do not look cool to anyone witnessing this. But there is a freedom in not caring at all what the rest of the world thinks of you. It’s a feeling that I aspire to daily, but rarely achieve.
Further inside the greenhouse, there were a few flowers that resembled small, puffy mouths. We were told that these were snapdragons and upon closer examination, they were cute. I could imagine each of them jumping up and going down, making popping or snapping sounds.
He chugs a beer, slaps his own face to psych himself up, and takes the stage in slow motion, his anxiety palpable, his eyes wide and focused. To the tune of “Swamp Thing” by The Grid, he gets on stage, and immediately, something is wrong. His dance moves are jerky, out of sync with the music, and he gets visibly frustrated with himself.
break me open for all to see. strip me
bare. slice me deep. carve me
to the bone.
There’s a chain. It hangs from the pulley. It clangs in the night.
Where a link once broke, it has since been mended
with thick coiled wire, teased at the end like a doll’s braid.
FILM / Local Hero / Joe Boulter
Burt Lancaster’s Happer symbolises Forsyth’s critique of the capitalist system, and it’s perhaps fitting that Lancaster demanded $2m to play the role, a third of the film’s entire budget. A president of an oil company with unlimited wealth and power, he is perhaps the most lost character in the entire film.
FILM / The Matrix, Techno-Jesus, and a Love Beyond Understanding/ Tony Cartlidge
To prepare for the release of the fourth feature-length film in the Matrix trilogy, I’ve been re-watching the films again, just to, you know, make sure I haven’t missed anything microscopic that will provide a rationale for bringing Neo and Trinity back from the dead. I’ve been absolutely forensic in my viewing, fast forwarding less than a dozen times and only falling asleep on a few occasions (but always waking up before the credits) because the only thing that’ll ruin the 3rd Matrix sequel will be either the absence of logic or a drop off in the amount of fetish wear.
FILM / “This Ain’t That Kind of Movie”: An Analysis of Gender and Sexuality in the Kingsman Franchise (in Contrast to the Traditional Spy Film Genre) / Delaney Burk
Is there a way to form a cohesion between the excitement of espionage with a more modern recognition of the problematic nature of Bond? Answering that call Kingsman: The Secret Service, one of the very same films that James Bond inspired the creation of.
FILM / Glenn Danzig and the Psychosexual Balancing Act of Vampire Media / Lane Chasek
I went into Danzig’s latest feature film, Death Rider in the House of Vampires, knowing only that 1) it was a Glenn Danzig production and 2) it featured Danny Trejo. I wasn’t expecting a vampire film on par with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but I was at least expecting a fun, bloody, and (possibly, hopefully) sexy flick about cowboy vampires.
FILM / I See A Darkness / Steve Mitchell
Warren Oates knows there’s only one thing he can do well. It may not matter to some folks. They may not think it’s important, and that’s alright by him. He ain’t asking for their say so. He’ll do what he needs to do.
FILM / Disney's City of Movies / Brianna Di Monda
We’ve known Disneyland to be an Absolute Fake for decades. It’s a space of hyperreality, a toy city so perfectly crafted that the real world pales in comparison. To leave the park, you drive home in your car through congested streets no longer optimized for the perfect flow of traffic, and ride a grey highway home.
That doesn’t mean you have to like it, admire its all-or-nothing approach to burning Hollywood to the ground in its own small way, or even find humor in such scenes as Gordon delivering against her will a woman’s baby in the most horrifying way imaginable.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Rituals
Five doctors go backpacking in the remote Canadian wilderness. All is (relatively) well until their boots vanish. But vulnerable feet are just the beginning—they’re being hunted. Relationships are strained, past traumas resurface, and tough decisions are made as the pals fight to survive. There's incredible chemistry between the group thanks to convincing performances and witty dialogue. Hal Holbrook shines as on-the-verge-of-burnout idealist, Harry. Despite an uneven finale, you’ll be gasping for breath as you watch these men struggle against things they are underprepared to deal with. Had me ready for my own little therapy session. Also, someone quotes Yeats.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Only Lovers Left Alive
A couple’s self-isolation to avoid modern-day contamination leads to the husband’s existential crisis after he exhausts his interest in music. His wife joins him in derelict Detroit from half a world away to reengage their marriage. They find minimal peace until her sister unexpectedly shows up, and very reluctantly drags them back into the world with deadly consequences. Despite their own social distancing the outing turns deadly. Oh, and they’re vampires. John Hurt portrays their friend, completing an excellent cast to Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 very odd, satisfying film where hard, pointy choices are made.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Possession
The Berlin Wall serves as a fitting backdrop for this frenzied psychological drama/horror about a fragmented marriage. Here you’ll find doppelgangers, improperly used electric knives, dead dogs (gods?), crises of faith, and a skeleton in the closet to end all skeletons in the closets. Demoniac performances imbue Possession with a mythic energy—Adjani justifiably gets most of the love, but Neill and Bennent more than hold their own. The whole ordeal is relentlessly fraught with anxiety and impending doom from its distressing opening to its apocalyptic final act. Set aside some recovery time.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Night of the Eagle
Sidney Hayers gave us the best adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife to date with Night of the Eagle. Written by legends Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson (with contributions by George Baxt), this 1962 horror centers around a sociology professor who discovers his wife is a witch—and that ain’t all, she’s been protecting him against the evil magic of his jealous colleagues. Will his rigid skepticism destroy them both? Stark lighting and dramatic cinematography draw you into the action. There’s lots to dissect, from gender politics to perception vs reality, but I love this as a relationship story.
FILM / Zora's Super Short Show / Cinephile / Zora Satchell
“The last thing the world needs is another fake female orgasm,” Beatrice says to her therapist as she vents to her about her inability to authentically portray an orgasm for a film she’s shooting. Beatrice, as depicted by Dina Shihabi, is the protagonist of the film short for this month: Cinephile (2021), written and directed by Dre Ryan.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Blue Sunshine
Jeff Lieberman capitalizes on the anti-drug propaganda of the ’60s with this wacky little gem. In Blue Sunshine, people are losing their minds . . . and their hair. Jerry Zipkin is falsely accused of murder after his best bud succumbs to this alopeciamania. Now he’s gotta clear his name and act as a (very weird) detective to get to the bottom of it all. Could the answer be linked to a strain of LSD passed around campuses ten years ago? Contains one of the best party scenes that involves pretending to be a monster in all of cinema. Watch with friends.
By Zmorg, the second planet from the Sun of Zmorg, the people had long since given up on pants altogether for the more efficient Shirt, long enough to cover their Unshaven Shames but made of a lighter lace, as Zmorg was a warm planet.