What does cinema mean in the Trump Era?

Hopefully the Trump era isn't long and we head into a better epoch soon, but cinema is a process and not a result or "product".

In 2017, movies were finally reduced to flooding, disposable, expensive junk. Popcorn movies have as much fluff and flavor and nutritional value as popcorn. That ain't much, which is why you have to eat so much to feel satisfied.

Trump's America is the worst I've experienced. Reminds me of the dark, bleak days of George Bush Sr & Jr mixed with the willfully ignorant, gaudy, desensitized numbness of Reagan and Ford era content. Republicans have steadily declined into deeper lies, conspiracy, crime, genocide and evil (the lack of God). But hopefully this is America bottoming out.

If Trump is to be president for 2018, expect Hollywood to keep losing money and investing in bigger, dumber movies (think The Farting Butt film in "Idiocracy") while indies continue to dry up. I expect Netflix will probably hit a snag before their big push for cinema. Stranger Things is already tired and Kevin Spacey was Netflix's biggest star. Troma and Full Moon might get a minor boost in bank loans but highly doubtful. I think this tiny economy recovery is going to serve only the rich and most indie producers are too small and disorganized to compete. Maybe Lloyd Kaufman and Charles Band will finally team-up... or Roger Corman can buy their catalogs.

But, I think grass roots REAL underground cinema by independent directors might have a shot. When America's elite become outwardly fascist, conservative and criminal, its the American people who get pissed off, informed, active and creative. Art needs inspiration. Survival, liberty, justice. These are things that inspired the best films of all time. And you don't need a budget or new technology to make real art. All you need is a camera, a subject and an eye.

seismic reactions in political thought will change movies

I hope 2017 was the death year for reboots and unoriginal scripts. Hollywood knows that audiences want original experiences and to relive classic history, but instead of "hip" unoriginal recreations of the past, they are forced to make historically relevant new narratives.

The Last Jedi was another glitzy paint-by-number remake of a classic sequel. Enough already. It made a billion dollars? Well, people have to go to the movies and Hollywood lets one fucking movie own the month of December, its going to do well. Especially since Disney funds theaters to only show their content, killed net neutrality and probably bankrupted Fox. Neoliberal capitalist pigs. At least they got rid of Fox which was sinking in mud anyway.

Logan sucked and appeased the sleeping masses, but thankfully its the finale of the franchise (knock on wood).

Leatherface was a massive, massive disappointment. A waste of hungry young global talent and a total jerk off of a classic folklore by greasy, greedy producers of schlock. At least they lost the rights to make more.

Power Rangers, Jumanji, Baywatch, Spiderman, Kong, IT, Puppet Master, Jeepers Creepers, Thor, Blade Runner. Old shit that didn't need new chapters. Cash-grabs, not inspired scripts that demand to be shot.

Hollywood is tone deaf at appealing to young people but thankfully they've engineered a generation who appease whatever Hollywood says. You feared the communists taking over the state? The capitalist takeover of the working class is much, much worse. And its deep state neoliberals who caused this. With their rejection of Marxism and exploitation of the free market, posing as leftists when they only serve the conservative 1%.

Liberals are running scared and bleeding money and doubling down on brainwashing as much as possible. With Trump in office, they are afraid of who will get exposed and they know the working class is turning against them. So they will show their true racist, sexist, conservative colors to keep them happy. And Trump's hordes of idiots will remain in the vocal minority but will spread more division, chaos, ignorance and hate as long as their spoiled mama's boy senpai is in office.

This is the moment where Libertarians have a moment to take control. To trust Anarcho-Capitalists would be a return to the collapsing 1980s (which is what has just happened). Plus they are are basically the racist, sexist, religious, gun crazy wing of Centrism.

Its up to the Far Left Marxists to rise again as an organized bunch beyond class, ability, tax bracket, minority group, whatever. They have to repair the economy by repairing the government. All Trump will do is defund and slash jobs, without any clue who is actually valuable (actually with crooked leanings to protect crooked pirates that serve him and his cronies). Anyone out for the better good must side with the better good.

This is the time for independent enterprise. Individuals coming together to achieve a global dream of freedom, independence and protection by state from big business. We must use small business to take back our communities. Don't give money to politicians or corporations. Put that money into your own future by investing in the poor, not the rich. Demand democratic socialist leaders and not self-serving liberals or conservatives.

Faceless 1988

I started this year (and this blog) with a review of Jess Franco's Faceless. Now lets come full circle and re-review it. If 2017 taught me anything its that Franco was ahead of his time.

Faceless is still his masterpiece for me. Its extremely well-made but the script gives him the most substance to explore his established vocabulary. In the DVD commentary, he reveals that it was written by producer Rene Chateau for his aesthetic exactly. Chateau was a pure Franco fan so this obviously is the film for Franco fans. Franco is forced to stick to his better judgment and not lose sight of his audience with excessive sex or minimal plot. Its the commercial version of Franco's usual Dr. Orloff plot, but its so much stronger as Chateau organizes Franco's psychological obsessions and political leanings into something his haters can understand. Franco admitted that he didn't work with conscious meanings while shooting. But he read and contributed to Faceless and agreed that it is his story. He understood all of the symbolism, helped build its language and cosigned it as true to his vision. In commentary he even shoots down the claim that this is not a true Franco film.

All of that is preface for exploring the deep messages that make this the purest example of Franco's worldview. The script deconstructs his style exactly so the master can apply his aesthetic to where it belongs.

The plot of Faceless is based not on Orloff or the eerily similar French horror film Eyes Without A Face, but on the obscure novel that inspired both. Body snatchers are abducting and killing women to provide the flesh for a plastic surgeon's scarred sister. This thin premise is the groundwork for a Freudian labyrinth of psycho-sexual fracturing of the psyche.

The ultimate metaphor of the film is the Faceless Woman as the ultimate victim of capitalism's "sex sells" culture. Without a face, she has no identity, no love, no validation and cannot enter the world. Finding a new face = filling non-existence. No capital, no communism creates a violent search, a consuming passion for blood driving her to evil exploitation and fantasy fulfillment. Capitalism is built on the pain of the public for the privately wealthy. This is all from Eyes Without A Face, but the script takes some liberties. Prostitutes and Johns are shown as equal victims of the elite's hierarchy. Franco sees sex and drugs as instruments of the same hypocrisy, both independent occupations. Cocaine is how the film's damsel is seduced by our villains. This is the horror of a system where the working class aren't allowed to thrive but are demonized for using the only means they have. The horror of no communism is community goes to Hell where its "dog eat dog" and the artificial surface rules and spirituality is lost, sex is corrupted and cosmetic surgery is an enterprise.

Finding her New Face becomes the obsession of her plastic surgeon brother, the Ego - a cold Germanic genius, amoral, perverse and bourgeois in taste - a perfect example of Franco's villains. He is assisted by his cold blonde female nurse who represents Franco's feminine side - dangerous, anti-aging, anti-reproduction, a Lolita. The Id is represented by their manservant who is innocent, manipulated, confused but full of savage violence and obedient loyalty. They drag beautiful working class girls to their Parisian clinic to be diced up for old women to become beautiful again... until they abduct a rich daughter of a powerful elite man (the ultimate crime).

From the beginning, the Ego is torn between Sister and his nurse, the Other Woman. He is happy with both until an older woman whose beauty he damaged (representing The Mother) destroys his sister's face and ruins the balance of female energy in his psyche. With his beloved sister's life destroyed and the reality of aging clear, he is driven mad trying to resurrect his childhood memory of her. But the Other Woman become jealous of this incestuous obsession.  He is torn between two vampire females who drive him to seek blood and become a vampire himself. The female assistant symbolizes Lina Romay, the famous life partner of Jess. Her character is always that of a Frozen Image, a memory, a "dream girl" he cannot satisfy. Dream Girl turned Nightmare Girl. In a brief cameo, Lina appears as a photograph! One amazing sequence has the surgeon and nurse hunting a girl in a disco. The young woman rejects this aging man and his nurse uses false lesbian wiles to seduce the victim. Another great cinematic reflection of Franco and Lina's arrangement. Franco's women are often the slasher in his stories (Bloody Moon) Perhaps she was jealous of the grief Franco expressed for his original love and leading lady Soledad Miranda, who is represented by The Damsel the Ego keeps locked away.

The Damsel is in the mold of classic Franco girls. She is his version of The Virgin, but a coke-taking "daddy's girl" whore who sleeps with all races of men. Franco defends and praises her for this. The SuperEgo, a detective assigned by her Father, pursues her. He is flippant, bored, a hotshot Americanized tool of authority wunderkind destined to fall. This is the archetypal Franco male hero. Franco pokes fun at his younger self, the stifled commercial director who learned under Orson Welles but was barred from Hollywood success. At one point, Franco self-identifies with a stereotypically gay photographer of cokehead models, the best summary of his extremely castrated aesthetic fetishization of the female image in film. This gay Id combats the SuperEgo with a muscle man named "Doo Doo". Project what you will.

Franco belongs to that group of psychoanalytical directors including Hitchcock, Lynch, Maya Deren, DePalma, Fellini, Argento, Bunuel (call them the "Caligari Club") who use cinema as a dreamscape. They use so may of the same tropes like Blonde vs Brunette, Virgin or Whore, The Father-In-Law's Challenge, Familial sexual tension. Its about the sex NOT shown. Romantic Horror + Sexual Horror. The quest for hidden desire and the fear of exposed fetish. When the Ego's female slaves are discovered by a woman, the Id overreacts and tortures her. This mistake haunts him in the end and destroys him (finally stopped by spikes to the base of the brain by the SuperEgo).

Even with its luxurious surface and fantastic budget, the film is crude, abstract and obsessed with The Primal. I find the commercialism's contrast only raises the darkness and animal magnetism in Franco's style. Unable to use his own experimental jazz, Franco makes ironic use of pop songs to attack consumerism (notice in which scenes they play). Franco satirizes the style of other directors with a style purposely static. The uniqueness of scenes lies in the details and deviations, which he learned as a jazz musician. He is free from the storytelling and experimentation to have fun with each scene. He wants you to grade each individually on execution as he sprinkles weirdness in each scene but only extends himself when it counts. This film follows his hardcore porn days so it has a heavy softcore vibe that is soothing enough to be disarming. The gory scenes replace the "money shots".

In the end, this film is about the creation of a perfect Frankenstien woman: a beautiful stranger's face on one's defaced sister. The vampire Sister buys her new face - the final capitalist prize for jealousy, murder and illegal gain - becoming the ultimate kinky love object. Freud's nightmare. In maybe the greatest ending to a Franco film, the SuperEgo fails to save The Virginal "dream girl" because of her rich vacationing Father. The Father-in-Law's false hopes doom them. He kills his own daughter by raising her to be the cokeheaded sexual victim of capitalist vampires. Its slut-shaming, victim-blaming perhaps, but Franco still damns the "predators of the night" but puts the blame back on the corrupt authority father figure who lost control. It, like the work of David Lynch and Hitchcock, may be mistaken for rape apologizing, but these "meninist" Marxists were simply showing the intersectionality of sexual abuse and the abuse of power from the leaders of state and business. This is Franco's last smoldering attack on Generalismo Franco, the fascist dictator who defined the cynical worldview and radical politics of Spain and his own life path. In the end, maybe all of his work was psychologically about Replacing The Father. This was his struggle. He was left so damaged, so anti-mother, anti-reproduction, anti-children, anti-Nazi and thus anti-women he was naturally drawn to (blond women). He found solace in a sister fetish for darker, younger women. "Faceless" is a perverted biographical confession to this sexual damage.

Jess Franco is an artist who psychoanalyzes himself brutally with every personal film. With 100+ films made, he became more self-aware than almost anyone. He contextualized his beliefs and prejudices into his work effortlessly and could still make a deceptively commercial film. As bizarre, excessive, mad, drug-damaged or awkward as it might get, he owns his funny psyche because he knows it compares favorably to the collective man's.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974

2017 ends and we say goodbye to Tobe Hooper, one of the most gifted but under-recognized directors of the 20th century. I'm a huge fan of the man and professed for years there are deep levels to his work that were overlooked as kooky paranoid drugginess until our current political hellstorm. Now that he's dead it seems the world is waking up and cinema is catching up to his vision.

The clearest example of this is Get Out, the critic's and audience's favorite this year. The American horror fandom's white male minority were quick to label it "liberal propaganda" and "too funny to be horror". Little do this backwards simpletons understand Get Out is a postmodern remake of their holy Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Because so many still don't realize TCM is a fierce, focused satire on rightwing politics in America.

While Get Out is a game-changing liberal-friendly attack on neoliberalism, TCM was the original. Hooper and screenwriter Kim Henkel were two jaded Texas radicals feeling the effects of the collective bad LSD trip that killed Flower Power and gave power to corrupt capitalist authoritarians. Henkel's script is a harsh Marxist criticism of hippies and their blissful ignorance and cooperation with conservatism, but Hooper directs it with a game self-deprecating empathy with these goofy hippie victims and a kind of morbid sympathy for the backwoods cannibal hillbillies who are tools of the bourgeoisie. This collaboration birthed the first Libertarian horror film; "Easy Rider" meets "Psycho".

I would say Hooper is the Leftist Libertarian, as his sequel TCM2 is a trashing of yuppies and warning of neoliberalism and Reagan republicans. Henkel is the more Right Libertarian, not trusting the CIA at all and casting a young libertarian Matthew McConaughey in his TCM4. Both films are radical politically, just as feminist as the first Massacre but really work best in tandem aesthetically.

Where Henkel is ultraviolent, nihilistic, political, symbolic, mystical, minimalist, primal, politically incorrect, transgressive, Jungian and naturalistic, Hooper counters with a style that is "staged", ironic, operatic, stoned, satirical, logical, optmistic, technical, cartooned, perverse, expressionist, Freudian and romantic. Seperate one from the other and you get their respective sequels.

But where do they agree? The negative direction of our country. They each shift the blame more on the other but find both at fault. Hooper finds the rednecks the more absurd & dangerous threat and I suspect Henkel finds them a byproduct of the hippies' isolating classism. The film is a comedy that laughs at both sides of this family rivalry and illustrates a reflection and relation between Sally and Leatherface. They live right next door, both lose a brother (Vietnam reference) and are both getting screwed by "The Man". Its the pointlessness of their violence and separation that is tragic. What probably hatched as a white male's dark fantasy of torturing his little sister on-screen developed into a transcendent confession of an impossible union between Beauty and Beast. The story expresses the personal pain of these two scruffy Texan boys never being able to bring the rich blond girl home to "meet the family". Leatherface and The Hitchhiker are the yin and yang of the creators, the Id and SuperEgo. The Old Man is a crazed, shame-filled mixture of both, the Ego.

This confused moral grayness creates the transgressive use of black & white throughout the film. The "White House" turns out to be a slaughterhouse of teenage hippies. The white damsel is saved by a chubby black protector (as Get Out would play off of). Repeatedly, there is great horror shown in daylight The Sun is shown as an evil force.

And there is more meaning to the production design. Sally comes to the White House later for sanctuary only to find it full of dead bodies in the attic - a rejection of The Church. Immediately after, she tries The Gas Station that has no gas left. This could be a reference to concentration camps or the Middle East.

So much of the Normal gets subverted: family dinner, the kitchen, patriarchy, white men, meat-eating, capitalism, the South, victimhood, the very idea of hippies as useful, the binary. This is hardcore cynical Marxist stuff. The writers are out for blood and pissed off at everyone. This informs the now famous formula of Scare-Laugh-Scare-Laugh that this film popularized. It can't be overstated how archetypal this script has become. Every year it looks more and more tame because fan works like Get Out & True Detective spread its influence. But its most famous for spawning the basic slasher formula. Isn't Halloween just an unofficial sequel where Leatherface breaks out into suburbia? (the unintentional effect the TCM had on mainstream audiences that made it a frightening hit with teens) No one would argue that its not a horror film, but its creators maintain TCM was a dark satire first.

Here we are going into 2018. Tobe Hooper has passed on, the Leatherface franchise seems massacred after the latest installment and the most popular film of the year is a postmodernist retelling of this film. Is the TCM now a classic film and its more of a history lesson than a relevant commentary? No way. Get Out's evil family make sexual objects out of black people for business. Very topical. But TCM's evil family make food out of the poor and less fortunate for business. That message is more encompassing and even more pressing as its no longer the stupid hippies we must fear in political power but the evil cannibal white trash themselves. This explains the popularity of Leatherface during the George W Bush era and I hope TCM becomes a beacon for resistance to fascist tyranny again. With each film, Leatherface's world opens up more, exposing his insulated world of lawless slavery, inbred mania and capitalist brutality to new generations. The story has never been completed and its culmination might bring needed positive closure to the real world. Its become an American film institution, more than a franchise, with power to attack the highest criminals in our society.

I hear the film rights are back on the market. Maybe now we have artists worthy enough of doing Mr. Hooper & Mr. Henkel proud.

Ridley Scott: Kubrick's son

There might not be a stronger trilogy of films directed consecutively than Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, but I'm surprised how few pick up on their connective narrative which lay out Kubrick's pessimistic predictions of the human race - White man ruins the planet, lets his privileged 1% breakaway and leaves the 99% to die in a capitalist-owned government dystopia. The rules, morals and causes of this coming society are then examined in his remaining work (Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket & most importantly Eyes Wide Shut).

Now the first filmmaker to pick up on Kubrick's not-so-hidden conspiracy theorist plot was Ridley Scott. His first film The Duelists is a major play off of Barry Lyndon but Alien directly confirms Scott's acceptance of Kubrick's worldview. The antagonist of Alien - as Scott has reminded us with this year's Alien Covenant - is essentially HAL from 2001. And with Blade Runner, Scott remakes A Clockwork Orange within his own futurist expectations, bringing HAL down to Earth inside of Alex's droogs.

Cinema Manifesto

Hollywood use social media to tell us what we like. Back in the day, audiences used to TELL which movies to make with their video rentals, something you can actually use to determine popularity better than tickets sales or ratings aggregators.

But they screwed it up by monopolizing video stores with Blockbuster, basically their created propaganda store to put Mom n Pop independent shops out of business.

And if you believe Hollywood has some CIA ties, than this is government-funded bankruptcy of the public for the private wealth.

 

This is where the Libertarians are righter than most (and why I voted for Gary Johnson in 2011). But their leader Ayn Rand proposed a removal of all government socialism to counter government-run monopolies in the free market. Government monopolies aren't just wrong because they ethically block independent business from growing, they fail because you government can't run everything if its spread so far. Plus it leads to illegal propaganda and political sponsoring. 

Hollywood is bigger than the government in dollars and influence, but its used to only profit capitalist parties, the NeoLiberals, the Christian Conservatives and all the white supremacist Luciferians in-between. There's also that Gay Boule thing and the Jews. Anyone promoting basic communism is silenced, excommunicated and shouted down. Hollywood and thus mainstream movies are both so anti-leftist and anything on the contrarian is a miracle.

So why shouldn't the government produce their own films that they can profit from. The politicians are robbing our government so much that now foreign dictators are getting chunks of our taxes and federal reserve! Spread socialism if you love movies!

resurrecting the original (First Generation)

I count 19 sequels released and many more films are remakes or based on TV shows or intellectual property. What is this? Its an obvious strategy for the film producers but why are so many critics and audiences receptive to these films that are rarely non-disposable?

I think they see the disappointing truth of Hollywood cynicism, deny it and reframe it as subversive "pop art" appreciation or some heroic aesthetic recontextualizing for Gen Z. That is always the message spread by the PR stooges who run social media "entertainment news". What would that really mean if it wasn't a lie?

I remember the first wave in the mid 90s: Brady Bunch: The Movie, Addams Family, Lost in Space, Beverly Hillbillies (thankfully Gilligan's Island's corpse was not molested). Besides the sequel to Addams Family, these are truly abysmal movies that only appear positive in contrast to what Hollywood has devolved into. But they are easy to make.

I think this return to aesthetic laziness is tied to our digital zombification, as ADHD ties to our acceptance of the disposable and shallow. The only people unamused by these movies are people with longer concentration and memories. The rest are comfortable watching 1000 hours of mediocre content so they reject the standard that 1000 hours of content should or could be good.

Push for "anti-franchise" films. Anti-nostalgia. Anti-remake, anti-sequel, anti-prequel. This is the new aesthetic of radical narrative commercial filmmaking.

2017 films ranked

Get Out
T2 Trainspotting
Alien Covenant
John Wick: Chapter 2
Lego Batman
Good Time
Killing of a Sacred Deer
Cult of Chucky
mother!
Valerian
Death Race 2050
Wizard of Lies
Blade Runner 2049
The Dark Tower
Wonder Woman
The Last Jedi
Justice League
Happy Death Day
A Cure for Wellness
Leatherface
Puppet Master 12
Jeepers Creepers 3
Split
Dunkirk
Raw
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Logan
Kong Skull Island
Baby Driver
Annabelle 2

unseen:
Thor 3
The Shape of Water
Spider-man Homecoming
Power Rangers
Baywatch
Jumanji
Murder on the Orient Express
IT
The Disaster Artist
The Emoji Movie
The Lego Ninjago Movie

Good Time / Wonder Woman 2017

Wonder Woman was a disappointment. A bit more generic, sentimental, corny and naive than expected, but it was a fair popcorn film for 2017's low standards. The problem was that on-paper and in reviews, WW mixes the genres of  superhero, feminist, war, spy, coming-of-age, mythology... but it doesn't elevate any of these genres. The combination itself is progressive and interesting, but the script is bland, cliche, missing big moments and the directing is just serviceable.

Patty Jenkins as the first woman to direct a popular superhero film got rave reviews but outside of the cute romantic dialogue scenes, she's just another studio director-for-hire basically babysitting an already assembled factory. Zack Snyder's action choreographers, storyboard artists and CG animators make the film what it is: a comic book come to life for 14 year old girls. But I didn't find the feminism to be anything memorable. Wonder Woman is strong yet naive... and thats all. She goes from wide eyed idealistic woman-child to slightly bruised idealistic woman (losing her virginity and seeing people die equals adulthood).

The film was surprisingly conservative. Very few women play a role, its steeped in the boring man-culture of WWI, the script doesn't make any radical observations on anything, WW is the secret weapon of a team of conservative men and ultimately she is a non-character until she finds a strong male hero. And the idea of a happy multiracial team of men and women in this past era is absurd. Not more absurd than a golden lasso of truth, but the film needed emotional realism & historical honesty.

This is the most successful DC film since The Dark Knight because it has the optimistic, screwball nostalgia of the original Superman/Batman films, but it needs more grit, anger and futurism for me to respect it as much as Batman V Superman or even Suicide Squad. It was more watchable than Justice League, so there's that.

Good Time on the other hand was a brisk, exhilerating watch, one of the best new films of 2017. Its as pure an indie effort as we will get, written, directed and produced by brothers who capture their own experience of extreme American poverty in the 21st century.

It starts somewhat unoriginally with a Buffalo 66/Dog Day Afternoon setup of NY ethnic rejects (one mentally challenged) getting involved serious crime and absurd melodrama. But it differs in that its spirals into a different chaotic journey closer to Italian NeoRealism than a dark satire. The film is an almost character study of a man with pure intentions who is forced to sink to lower and lower means to do "what is right" by him. Robert Pattison, like Kristen Stewart, is trying to wash off the Twilight series or a bad romance by taking riskier acting roles. He's fine here, but he's just the centerpiece for much more amazing performances and characters.

Its not the most powerful film but its message is essential and executed beautifully. Few films are attacking our economic and moral structures and very few do it with as much style and street authenticity. Having lived in squalor and met plenty of these people, the film resonated with me. These people are the biggest victims in life and Hollywood for all of its phony liberal posturing does nothing to highlight their struggle. And that struggle is so much more compelling than superheroes or spaceships or ghostly psychopaths because its the reality the other disposable entertainment is escaping from.

I'm done with movies. This year was miserable. I tried watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2 for my year-end list. It was so excruciating, so full of toxic stupidity, so abusive of CGI, cameos and dick/fart jokes. It makes Troma look like Godard. The predictable dialogue, the wooden acting, the lack of any drama or momentum. Colorful panels progressed loudly for 30 minutes without one intelligent thing being said or done by characters or filmmakers. It cost probably 50 million to make and made 100 million. All because of inflated ideas of what value should be. I cut it off.

I have to ask a scary question - Do these people in charge of production of movies know ANYTHING about movies outside of Quentin Tarantino, "Fight Club", 80s Steve Spielberg and Martin Scorsese? Every new film is just a Greatest Hits mixtape of the writer and director's microscopic film library. No one comments on society, politics, the human condition. But everyone poses like this deep dark rebellious artist, while they all live in ritzy L.A. cocoons of studio analytics and deals made by pedophile agents.There is no art in the media anymore. Its all "bread and circuses".

I always wanted to be a moviemaker. Then I learned it was an industry, a very protected and insidious industry, but I kept pursuing some pure avenue of moviemaking. Now the indies are dead, the corporations own every studio and we are stuck in a neverending loop of nostalgia, kiddie humor and 
untalented film students getting labelled as the best generation of geniuses ever. No one cares about history or the future or the potential world-changing power of artistic filmmaking anymore. Lets all just jerk off to who the Oscar-winning D.P. is. Is there anything sadder than this outcome?

cinema of the subconscious

I love that John Carpenter's They Live reveals not only the exploitative nature of commercial propaganda and media brands, but it deconstructs the very mechanism how cinema works.

When we watch a film, we read each frame for symbolic messages. Only a philistine examines and grades a film on visual arrangement or surface beauty alone or most prominently (Socrates taught that spectacle is the least important aspect of drama).

We read film the way we read words in a book, except instead of turning symbolic text into sounds in our mind to find subtext and imagine time-space, we break down symbolic shapes, colors, motions, progressions, contrasts and compositions into text.

Writing filters through the superego before the ego gives it to the subconscious. It takes work to read unless its subliminally forced in advertisements, etc. Cinema plugs right into the subconscious because the hard part (reading) is so much faster, easier, monosyllabic and natural. We are perceiving a rearranged, idealized version of the physical world. A child or idiot or animals with similar eye sight can watch a film and be hypnotized by its images and programmed with whatever mass idea the filmmaker wants.

That is why only auteurs should be trusted with such a powerful tool. Its mental magic, playing with dreams and effecting the core of beings. You can't do that for profit and simple special effects. It must pass psychoanalysis, politically correctness and brain food. You can do that creatively without becoming a boring puritan, but this is the intrinsic philosophical nature of cinema voyeurism. Its more than just "moving pictures", the insidious industrial label used to denigrate its artistic influence.

Females need female versions of 80s sex comedies. Most women don't know how to please a man in the bedroom, which is why we have a culture (especially in film) based on women as objects of desire for "desirable" men rather than pursuing their own desires,

film as excrement

Exploring and learning about culture from books, art, video, audio, culture is what I do for fun. Movies have been my favorite for most of my life, but I think we are entering a dry spell for new movies. Which is okay because most moviegoers are very ignorant, need to educate themselves and stop serving the production of garbage.

I will keep this blog alive but I do not care about Hollywood trends right now, not do I care about the opinions of mainstream audiences. This is good fortune and blessings because I want to create & distribute my own filmed content and not stuff money in the pockets of the old fashioned film barons. Nothing worse than the critics and film freaks who ONLY like old films, but that doesn't mean you like any piece of shit because its new. There's very healthy lovely shit and putrid sickly shit. Flush wisely!

The Dark Tower / Happy Death Day 2017

I like doing year end lists simply because I'm forced to compare films I wouldn't watch otherwise and find gems.

The Dark Tower got scolding reviews from popular critics and middle class white audiences who were so much more enamored with the reboot of Stephen King's IT. Now I haven't seen that film, but its reviews from its own fanbase are cold. What I found in Dark Tower was a very modest, watchable, unusual and kinda bad ass adventure film. It was sold as a dumb shoot em up superhero-style film and while it is gritty, hyperkinetic and cartoony, its a family film. Its like The Matrix for kids. This film is bound to earn a cult following and, while it could've benefited from another script draft and a much tighter final scene, this is good popcorn entertainment.

I'm such a fan of this film for its very "woke" philosophical message. In a year full of mainstream Nazis, Illuminati puppetry in vogue and general corporate evil triumphing over democracy, here's a film about a misfit kid fighting apocalyptic White Satan with the help of his surrogate father, a black vigilante Jesus. Bold move from Sony, Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman. I fucking hate franchises but I'll take a Dark Tower 2 if it sticks to its message of deprogramming tomorrow's leaders.

Happy Death Day was another cute teen-oriented movie. This one found major success as its another cheaply produced, decently executed and mega-promoted film from producer Jason Blum. In 2017 he gave us Get Out, Split, Amityville Awakening and probably some other shit. The guy is laughing to the bank on these "horror" films that really are spoofs and exploitations of the horror genre. Thats not even a real complaint but it is disheartening that he's averse to producing really powerful, visceral horror cinema. But his films have an indie/outsider spirit, good talent and they get young people interested in the theater experience.

This film is a reworking of Groundhog's Day (it doesn't deny it) and of course its inferior, dumber and cornier. The filmmakers kinda insult the intelligence of young fans and adults who must sit through this, but the redeeming thing about HDD is this it boasts the most complex female character of the year AND she's the protagonist. We see her have a full arc from obnoxious, self-obsessed bitch to empathetic, responsible young woman without any pandering or making her a perfect queen genius or a weak, fragile baby doll. Most of the characters are stereotypes and the plot is fairly predictable and there are no big laughs, but it will satisfy its core audience: young girls. And they have enough woman-hating/man-hating garbage filling their minds that a small bit of smart feminism goes a long way.

Split 2017

I wrote a favorable review this year of M. Night Shymalan's unpopular The Happening. I think its the most creative, topical and pleasing of the work I've seen. Split is a throwback to his earlier films - very Hollywood checklist, very moody and self-serious. It has moments of awkward humor and deep social commentary but its all stifled by the industrial, commercial nature of the story. What starts as a very creepy, reflective portrait of the sick Jungian archetypes of modern American structuralism drizzles into a lazy deconstruction with cop-out answers about trauma that were only clever in the 1950s when Hitchcock made them originally. The presentation isn't interesting enough and it all feels cheapened as it climaxes with an "Avengers" cliffhanger ending. Yes, this was all an origin/prequel/commercial for Unbreakable 2. That explains the boring execution and lack of inspired ideas as Shymalan is out to please "demographics" with superpowers, a "sexy psycho" Heath Ledger antagonist, child/sexual abuse subplots and impossibly brilliant teenage victims who are too often visually sexualized (not a good look when the film is about sexual victimhood).

Maybe its all a brave pervy confessional of its director with the psychoanalytic nature of the plot and this obvious hypocrisy of fetishizing adolescent white girls, a running theme in Shymalan's work. He blames his mom like every director ever - like Aronofsky's mother! this year- and delivers a bland Saw rip-off off that easy critic-bait. I found the film disturbing for the right and wrong reasons. This was like the 10th film this year to make softcore porn out of child-looking actresses and it seems like a male generational confirmation and/or a sexist self-pitying protest. Its gross, to me. Why not just show hot women and get over this disgusting Lolita fetish? Why keep drilling these nasty dark impulses into commercial films? That doesn't make it art. Elite Hollywood pedo lifestyle propaganda dressed as softcore S&M popcorn entertainment for teens. And this weirdness goes all the way back to 80s horror slashers and beyond.

Anyway, the film was too long, too slow and didn't pay off much of anything but shows another, more unlikable but vulnerable side of M. Night Shymalan who must be having a bad midlife crisis and dip in his bank account.

John Wick 2 / Raw

I skipped 2014's John Wick, but this year's sequel left a big impression. Now it feels like sequel because it has a semi-stock plot and Keanu Reeves is comfortable but maybe not as engaged as he can be. But the film overall is a thrilling, intelligent, non-cliche ode to Cold War espionage and modern gangster films. All with the Eastern religious principles and universal themes Reeves includes in most of his major work. The script again is clever and the directing is quite dazzling at times, making incredible use of the action and beautiful locations, but Reeves has become one of the true auteurist actors whose strong voice is unmistakable and very helpful. You can tell how hard he works on the quality action choreography, ironing out the script and keeping other actors on their toes.

In many ways, it feels like a showcase of ingredients sorely missing from other action franchises, a highlight reel of high action movie IQ styled into a film. But it doesn't feel like boring aesthetic exercise or pretentious masturbatory machismo. Its old school and very faithful to its inspirations (Bond, Punisher, Death Wish, Beverly Hills Cop, Cobra, Commando), but totally open to the ideas of Kubrick, Refn and more risky filmmakers. The film exemplifies its class with a great nod to The Shining, basing the look of a character on another, but NOT the personality. Thats how nostalgic influences should be incorporated. Creatively, distinctly and respectfully.

But films are ideological and I dig the message. Here is a person haunted by who he was. Unlike the Bourne films, he knows who he is now and has to fight to continue being that good person. But he also accepts the killing machine he still is and uses it as a weapon. This is kung fu Jesus, which Keanu has trailblazed and owned as a character archetype. Somewhere between Zen master and vigilante superhero, while weighed to a realistic world thats logical and pessimistic. And the whole ride ends with a fantastic cliffhanger that matches its unique worldview. I'm now a big fan of this movie's world.

Raw was not so fun. Its a bland "horror lite" story about the savagery of sisters and how awkward college age is. Indie horror has become saturated in films like this (Ginger Snaps, Excision, Tale of Two Sisters, Takashi Miike's chapter of Three Extremes). Its supposed to be a disturbing critique of Millennial morality (or amorality) but it comes off like a stuffy conservative exploitation of young people. Boring rave music, young girl's asses in the camera, candy colored blood all over the screen and a bizarre treatment of vegetarianism that is supposed to be mocking and supportive but just comes across boneheaded. The script is paper thin and minus its 2017 characterizations of young women and gays, its like any shitty slasher cash-in out of Europe from the 1980s except devoid of the softcore sexuality or moments of macabre or grue. I was surprised how tame this experience was after hearing it made audiences sick. Pussies.

Films like this are so typical of digital age indie filmmaking: focused so much on brief moments of visual splendor or "shocking" a soccer mom audience who will never watch this (except maybe the director's) that it can't be bothered on logical characters or creative shots or sustaining interest at all. On its most successful level its a dark satire about young women finding wild abandon after adolescent repression, but it never comes off dark enough or funny enough. The recently ended TV show Girls did it so much better, nailed a dozen of the same scenes and ideas too. And that show is quite passe now. I don't think its crazy to find influence in that show but this is a weak tribute.

Logan 2017

I don't get off on trashing movies often. I wish they were all good. But I love that I can trash this piece of shit.

I enjoyed the 1st third of this film. It was automatically the best shot and acted Marvel film. Generic and derivative, but I kinda dig the idea of Wolverine doing Skyfall. There are so many macho, dumb, faux-gritty, angry-white-man-in-the-future movies in the wake of Mad Max Fury Road, what damage could one more do? But then the charm of Logan wore off.

The script is such cliche-filled, overly-sentimental, racist nothingness. We've seen this movie played out 30,000 ways. I can imagine the pitch:  

"Its a modern noir/Western/jiu jitsu road movie about fatherhood and sacrifice and old school American values in a degrading post-Obama world. But the next generation will be like Wolverine! Girls can be tough too, if they act like men. And there will blood, tears and lots of sweat. Some blacks will sacrifice themselves for their superiors. And the bad guys will be real Nazi militant types to show WE aren't Nazis!" 

Between all of the corny tearjerker lines and white trash humor there are some amusing bits of senseless gore and practical action setpieces. This movie (minus the Emo Cowboy meathead shit) is almost indistinguishable from Deadpool. Replace the romantic subplot with the daughter subplot and boom! Fox specializes in these conservative fratboy lovefests that stroke white male egomania.

Look, I am not anti-white or anti-male. I fucking love film, the most white male centered artform there is. But fuck! The genre is dead creatively because its saturated in ridiculous, moronic, repetitive, juvenile white manbaby power fantasies and deathdreams. Thats why I didn't even bother to review the equally boring and stale Dunkirk.

Everything remotely watchable about this film can be found in The Toxic Avenger. Troma did the whole "gory, working class superhero" thing long ago and made it way more fun and way less pretentious. So sorry if I'm not impressed with your regressive propaganda. John Wayne is dead. Its 2017. Grow the fuck up.

I don't see much feminism in movies

The actresses I see getting acclaim are terribly one-dimensional. Its their youth & beauty (which will fade) that are always showcased, violently fetishized now to even more younger and vain actresses. Hollywood, twitter and instagram's female celebrities are like a cult of vain, plastic, youth-worshipping witches who have no value outside of looks.

Gal Gadot, Zendaya, the little Stranger Things girl, the Logan girl, the Annabelle cast, pretty much every actress under 30 in a film or show this year was the exact same character: depressive, waifish, "desirable object" girl-children who get a predictable moment to strike back but are ultimately tools. Hollywood has this perverted fixation with this female image. And eerily, this is true to life of a generation of very vain, vacuous little girls who are being indoctrinated into the old system.

And as usual, women over 30 are depressed moms & career women, mindless sex goddesses who kick ass or crazy old ladies who are funny. Of course there are films like Pitch Perfect 3 or those (Blank) Moms comedies and there's an upcoming pro-Hillary slate of all-female ensemble dramas. But why are female-focused films always relegated to unoriginal plots based on bland male-focused films? Ghostbusters was an experiment to go the other way, but that was just sacrilege. Does Hollywood fear giving a good script to women? Are they afraid of showing women of different ages getting along? It can't be in the nature of women to be obnoxious catty harpies. This is the male idea that they simply roleplay to get by and spend male money to survive.

With the long overdue destruction of the Weinberg empire, let's usher in real women in film. Realistic characters, written and directed and PRODUCED by women

The Last Jedi's producer Kathleen Kennedy has tried earnestly to make a feminist blockbuster in The Last Jedi. It did big business but the film sucked. There was a strong scent of chauvinism involved but also the feminist message didn't fit the story (which was foolishly written and directed). And the "underdog" heroine is uninteresting and handed everything.

I don't think audiences or creators in power have any clue how real victims of sexism (WORKING CLASS WOMEN) are a cog in the giant system of exploitation and oppression. Clearly as the films are still stupid and audiences still pay for the empty Mary Sue, the infantilized Lolita, the evil Ice Queen and the generally worshiped Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Get Out did a great job deconstructing the insidious nature of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype. Mother! was a valiant effort to contextualize the Ice Queen and the Infantilized Lolita. Wonder Woman's characterization is very problematic to me in Justice League and her own film, but it is a push towards heroines with some depth (even if its still very shallow, cartoony, childish). But its still not enough.

Hillary Clinton is a hard person to defend or empathize with, but how did the country empathize with a complete woman-hating troll/creep/huckster/demon over a "nasty woman"? Because we've had generation after generation of women in the public who are simply cartoons with no inner life. Hillary is an example of this but she's also a symptom of the real problem. We need better representation of everyone. I don't even think we need female superheroes or 3rd-wave propaganda or "Girl Power!" buddy comedies. Just write women as people!!!!

The most progressive and respectful instance of feminist writing was oddly in Roger Corman's Death Race 2050. Two women, both supporting characters, meet at a bar called Bechdel's to discuss the male protagonist in a great tongue-in-cheek Dadaist moment. Its subtle, meta protest to the way they are relegated in the oppressive world of the film. Filmmakers need to lampoon cliches to shred their power and create a better work environment for women everywhere. They are half of the audience :P

Juliet of the Spirits 1965

Federico Fellini's female-perspective remake of his own "8 1/2" is another showcase for the director's sensitivity, extravagance, libido and philosophical brain farts. Fellini is famous for capturing the existential crisis in visual terms first and arguably better than anyone. His films from this period are filled with dreams, flashbacks, hallucinations and this film debuts the possibility of a supernatural realm. His influence on world cinema is obvious but I think its too overlooked by Americans how much he influenced their favorite Italian genre-meisters like Fulci, Argento, Bava, etc. Fellini's humor, style, technical brilliance and animator's eye is seen in so many Hollywood films and some of his biggest admirers are Terry Gilliam and David Lynch. I wonder what Hitchcock thought of him.

Fellini is certainly a fan of Hitch. They both have similar preoccupations: female characters, fashion, trauma, repression, the world of dreams. But Fellini was of his generation and took things further into the world of neurosis, sexual liberation, transcendental mysticism. I think you can make a fair comparison between Fellini's Juliet and Hitch's Marnie. These films are deep psychological journeys into the lives of women who are terrorized by the freedoms of their director's worldviews; Sympathetic portraits of women they love but don't quite understand. Critics say that these male directors failed to capture things realistically but I think both films do an amazing job in intentionally abstract, non-realistic ways. They are expressionistic parodies of female troubles and mirrors to the male problems of the directors and their past male characters. Its too easy to say Juliet is a lazy rehash because the changes in context ARE the story. From Fellini's perspective, a woman's aging, her female acquaintances, her social status, her home, her sexuality, her religious beliefs, her paternal figures are oppressive psychic forces that can be compared to the disastrous production of a movie in his previous masterpiece.

Is Juliet as great at 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita? Maybe not in execution or inventiveness but the ambition is there and quite successful. As his first color film, its a game-changing matrix of Technicolor psychedelia. Fellini's films grew in scope, texture, design and progressive elements continually and that makes his career fun to watch even if he's less inspired. And all of his films mix an urgency and sincere emotionalism with a relaxed painterly control of its many, many elements. You get the sense he's playing to audiences, loved ones, critics and rival artists (well, we know he is from his) and he does it  with such a diplomatic panache. He's saying that is what his job is. He is inseparable from his life as a director and his characters are inseparable from him. Juliet was meant to represent his wife and maybe he is conceding that he is inseparable from her and she is inseparable from his art. Out of his trilogy of existential films, this is his most romantic and personal I think and maybe his most finely tuned, but its magic rests on its continuity with the other 2 like the finale of any trilogy.

That Obscure Object of Desire 1977

Luis Bunuel's last film is regarded as his masterpiece. I was shocked to see some arthouse magazines and critics rank it as high as "Top 10 films ever". Its an elegant, perfectly executed, playful, experimental film, like all of his films. Most of it plays as an intentionally predictable study of delusion and abuse, very akin to Kubrick's Lolita (although this film is based on an earlier story), but somehow this film gets more respect. Its not as well shot or well acted or cleverly written... until the climax. "Obscure" has an ending that brilliantly recontextualizes every single moment into MORE than a ripoff or cliche love tragedy. A classic Bunuel "fuck you" moment that is surreal, political, upsetting and well earned. It seems so close to copping out and becoming the bourgeois fluff piece it appears to be and then it becomes a bitter battle cry and call to arms. I've said enough. Maybe not his best and maybe it is, but its essential viewing.

Get Out 2017

I saved this film for the last weeks of 2017 as a Christmas gift to myself. I was quite delighted by what I watched.

Get Out is a dark satire casting the experience of being black in a white society with classic horror film tropes. Its already been compared to the Stepford Wives and described as a cynical spoof of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Fair. But I'm more reminded of the Wes Craven film "The People Under The Stairs". The film lays out the mental exploitation, dehumanization and utilitarian mental slavery of blacks in Western culture with a kind of domestic thriller that only lampshades the violence of slavery and being ghettoized. All while remaining a flippant, hip date movie for blacks and whites to empathize over. Its kinda "Gone Girl" for Obama-loving Millennials.

Its actually a thin plot given a very smart, dynamic and bold treatment. Its not too cynical or disturbing, always remaining light and fun as the films listed above. Writer/director Jordan Peele is a real film student who combined some topical references to say something necessary in a fresh way. Would I call it a masterpiece? I don't know. Its themes were heavy, heartbreaking and finally cathartic to me, a person who has lived painful experiences like this. But the masterstroke is that it paints an optimistic crowd-pleasing climax that doesn't go for melodrama or grand spectacle or epic tragedy. This story rightly sticks to a happy ending thats earned and not beyond realism.

On objective technical merits, its a wonderfully directed film with expert acting, beautifully integrated plotting and non-traditional cinematography and a memorably original soundtrack. And thankfully there is no cliffhanger for a sequel. Imagine a film that completes itself!

This is a strong contender for Best of 2017 and already has the popular vote with critics. Its miles ahead of just about everything else I saw and its the most satisfactory and positive of the best films. You'll just have to see how I rank it on the year-end list :)

Eyes Wide Shut 1999

Stanley Kubrick's Christmas movie. What makes it a Christmas movie? (besides the story's time frame) Its a deconstruction of the cliche "true meaning of Christmas". Kubrick delves into the clash of religious moralities that plays out unseen in the lives of the American family. The story opens with a young couple, new to money, invited to a holiday party thrown by bourgeois occultists. As a male Satanist tempts the wife, angelic and demonic females tempt the husband. Neither gives in, but the wife wants to. As the story progresses, this marriage faces consequences for these separate moral attitudes to marriage. And in the end, having experienced each other's dreams, they move on from their black and white views on fidelity to start a new life beyond outdated dogmas and bonded by traumatic memories.

This would be Kubrick's farewell to our phenomenal world and his final say on the philosophical conflicts of modern man. I think this is his masterpiece. I rarely cover the plots of films because A. I don't want to spoil much B. its usually unnecessary in a review and C. most film's don't have plots worth discussing. But EWS has one of the most complex plots ever devised for a motion picture.
Kubrick's genius is in leaving us with so many questions. Profound ones. How much of Tom Cruise's absurdly coincidental story is truth? Did the group of Satanists kill the hooker? If so, does it really matter? Who put the mask on the couple's bed? Did the husband make up everything to get even with his wife or did he turn down 3 women in one night? Kubrick leaves all avenues open and leaves both husband and wife guilty of repressed desires and muted satisfaction. Neither religion can survive alone. Kubrick explains Christianity and Satanism are a binary, symbiotic and extreme wings of the same faith. And it is faith that is needed in any marriage and believing any story. Eyes Wide Shut is inspired by a novella called Dream Story and we never know whose dream we are watching. I assume it is a shared collective dream of reality. We all experience this fantasy of morals, truths and desires. We are trapped in this ideological version of history and it effects the spiritual journey of everyone through structuralism, even if you may be an atheist (as I assume Kubrick was).

Kubrick, I think, sides with Sydney Pollack's character, the Luciferian friend of the husband who is a decent man who rejects Christianity for the orgies, drugs and small crimes. The two readings of the film hinge on whether this character is lying to Tom Cruise or not. You must decide whether Kubrick condemns or upholds the codes of this elite group of masked celebrities and aristocrats. Some theorists claim the Illuminati killed Kubrick for revealing too much. On the other hand, I could see Kubrick going to Eyes Wide Shut parties in his youth. But maybe the film is a depiction of Kubrick's own fear of or rejection from the bourgeoisie. His own mistrust of their practices or a friendly envy of them. These questions remain.

The film is still a fascinating mystery and fans dream that it would've been made clear if he had handled the final cut. Some say that is part of the conspiracy. I know that the film as is is a beautiful experience. Sure, Kubrick would've selected better takes or improved the edit or sound design had he lived, but the final cut of any film could be better. Its a monumental work of art regardless.

Finally, it is a perfect Christmas allegory because its about which version we choose to believe. Kubrick doesn't lead us either way because it is the viewer's own subjectivity and moral prejudices that will choose the narrative. Can you believe? Do you still have faith?

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? 1969

There have been plenty of films about dancing and the worst seem to be about dance contests, but here is the anti-"dance contest movie". Apparently the USSR would show this film in schools as anti-capitalist propaganda. And thats what it was meant as. Its a very pessimistic, brutally honest study of the shady human nature inherent in exploitation. It uses the early days of Hollywood as a backdrop for the story's angry frustration and tears. Its a feminist story mostly. How women, youth, patriotism, blacks, the working class and anyone who believes the American Dream is pimped and gutted by the lawless governing system of money-driven entertainment. The protagonists are literally teased with hopes of success and artistic expression to become consumable meat puppets for the local bourgeoisie.

I can't recommend this any more without giving away important plot details and spoiling things. This is a great film from Sydney Pollack based on a Great Gatsby-esque novel and Jane Fonda kills it acting-wise. Keep in mind that this perfectly reflected the countercultural mood in post-Vietnam, anti-hippie America. Its just as bleak as Bonnie and Clyde or Easy Rider but with a bitter, ironic Old Hollywood style. Brilliant stuff.

Still pissed about The Last Jedi

It was like the unfunny, awkward parts of the Attack of the Clones mixed with the most boring parts of Empire Strikes Back with some leftover fluffy garbage from The Force Awakens.

Rey replaces Han & Luke, so why would I root for this Rey character if I now KNOW Star Wars' best heroes ended up as failed losers? We have very little faith in the justice of this universe now. "Luke's as honorable as Yoda and Obi-wan" Except they were supporting B characters who trained him to be better than them. The action of 3 movies amounted to false hope and quite clumsy failure. That was intentional with the Prequel Trilogy. Its the anthithesis of the original Trilogy.

Disney's execs, more than any other studio's, fundamentally do not understand storytelling, cinema and fans of both. The same greedy suits who made a fortune off poor quality, repetitive "sequels" to every classic they ever made. They just regurgitate from the past works of talents that probably never got paid their due. They are everything wrong with the business side of moviemaking.

Phantasm 5: Ravager

While the original Phantasm has sentimental value to me and is a good example of low budget 70s genre filmmaking, its far from a great film. The plot is paper thin, its dated in the best and worst ways and its a bit slow and dry. But the film that is essentially a horror-movie-for-kids-about-PTSD spawned a world famous franchise thanks to its iconic villains, charming FX and cool soundtrack. But the sequels kinda suck.

Phantasm 5: Ravager is the final chapter to a saga that was best left at one story and the best entry since the original because its only focused on deconstructing its origins, ignoring the unnecessary and finishing what it started. Ravager reduces all of the sequels to "bad dreams", which would be upsetting and ludicrous in any other sequel, but this is the forgotten motif of the 1st film. This thematic continuity is what makes all great sequels work. Add the fact that this is the most grungy, cheap and personal film since the 70s as creator Don Coscarelli lets a new director make this a fan film and not a commercial cash-in like the rest. Ravager looks back at the series with fondness for the journey, apologizes for the schlockiness and redeems its fans for their loyalty by expanding on the artistic credibility of the original, at least narratively (the production is far below the original's standards). Its a moving tribute to a series that helped define an era and I'm very glad they said their peace and ended it properly before central star Angus Scrimm passed away.

This is my favorite low budget exploitation film of 2016 btw. For a series and era that was defined by its adolescence, this is a mature farewell.

Death Race 2050 / Baby Driver / Dagon

This year the studio that bought Roger Corman's Death Race 2000 decided to lease it back to him (or at least, let him produce an independent film for them to distribute). In effect, is the biggest and best technically independent film of 2017. Corman still knows how to round up amazing talent and resources for a low budget product that its more than just product. Corman is such a genius because he's always stuck to the interests of the youth & working class who consume his films and includes an inspiring, transgressive message of independence and rebellion. Death Race 2050 is loaded with biting, smart satire and a late tonal shift that lifts it from dumb action romp to valid dramatic exercise.

DR2050 is somewhere between Idiocracy ripoff, Hunger Games spoof and Mad Max Fury Road tribute. Its still exploitation filmmaking, but its the Hollywood machine being exploited and not the viewers. Its also the most creative and socially conscious comedy I could find all year. Very highly recommended.

I couldn't get past the first 40 minutes of Baby Driver. It reeks of that desperate commercial pandering and pedestrian philosophy that I had to sit through from 90s TV and Hollywood. The protagonist is meant to endear himself by constantly lip-syncing to black music, twitching and pouting silently. Its supposed to be this heavy dick suck to Gen Z hipsterism like "Wow, they are so much more cultured and cool than us Gen Xer's". I'm Gen Y, so this phony, creepy, exploitative lovefest isn't impressive in the least. Its driven home by the casting of Kevin Spacey as Baby Driver's cheerleader and obvious audience surrogate.

Worst of all is that this film is an open ripoff of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive. Those first 40 minutes are a big budget, whitewashed, suburbanite version of that film's magical concoction: A sexy getaway driver with a personality disorder, a hip jacket and gloves is in dept to gangsters. The film is built on its (dated in BD's case) hipster soundtrack and awkward "bad boy" romance. And its all done with annoying, zippy, one-liner dialogue and musical dancing. Its sooooo concentrated to appeal to teenage girls, soccer mom's and Rex Reed-type critics, which isn't a crime but its decidedly unintelligent, easy, fetishistic and insulting.

Whereas Drive was a deconstruction and total left turn from The Driver, Baby Driver is the sugarcoated, mass-produced version of the deconstruction that is likely unaware of the original.

Brian Yuzna & Stuart Gordon are the producer-director team behind Re-Animator and they wrote the classic Disney film "Honey We Shrunk The Kids" (not allowed to make it!) who have had an honorable career in the independent horror genre. Dagon is one of their weaker fare but its still very competent and risky for its time & place. Its a Spanish production that makes use of an awesome decaying Gothic locale and some fantastic actors, but the script is pretty ABC besides the creepy Lovecraft mythos. Its extremely violent & spooky but not suspenseful and the characters are flat. You have to be forgiving with a film this small and I think a ton of talent keeps it from the majority of it ever falling flat. I especially enjoyed Macarena Gomez as the main antagonist. She's a pint-sized, adorable but very threatening female villain.

I fall out of love with big budget Hollywood commercial filmmaking more and more. I don't even really enjoy low budget exploitation much anymore, but its always remarkable when some real artists get work in these fields. I'm inclined to support the smaller films because they mean more to the artists and have more creative freedom. DR2050 is a good example of a film that overloaded on universal themes, artistry and fun to make you forget how small its scope is. BD relies on tired big budget tricks and knicks recent low budget ideas to fool the masses, but is essentially a non-story. Dagon isn't a classic but its way more brutal, clever and well-made than films twice its size and half its age.

 Taken from Cap America or Avengers. If they have 7 storyboard artists, the director is a glorified production manager.

 And to people who automatically praise the director for the look of a film, the studios are micromanaging things to such an extreme degree that its already decided before the director is hired.

These are 2 shots from 2 of the shittier Roger Moore oo7 films. They are easily comparable to the best shots from Blade Runner 2049. Just to show great cinematography is really separate from total quality.

Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets 2017

What a refresher! Luc Besson directs a film that feels like his own personal answer to the Disney-fication of Star Wars. His classic Fifth Element was a tribute to the original trilogy and the SW prequels were inspired by Besson and it seems Besson repays Lucas with what feel like a 2017 Lucas film. Its a simple kiddie plot, but its helped by not straining for dramatics or false complexity. We get a cute romantic buddy action film set in an alien future with a great message of ecology and equality. Can't knock the only film this year with a graphic non-imperialist message.

The film is gorgeously designed, shot and directed like a Technicolor cartoon. Its a wonder that this film was independently financed as it resembles the best Hollywood had to offer. Obviously the scope isn't quite as grand and it doesn't have the cast of millions or wall-to-wall explosions, thus focusing on undervalued artistic tools like costume, staging, lighting, etc. The cast are not as established but they appear inspired and in the groove. Surreal cameos from Rihanna, Ethan Hawke and Herbie Hancock are badges of honor that this film was done out of love and not out of profit.

American media were embarrassing in their dismissal and celebration of Valerian's domestic failure. Thats where we're at. Folks are such brainwashed corporate consumerists that they root against potentially entertaining experiences so their team wins. Bizarre. And yes, Valerian is better than The Last Jedi.

Justice League / The Last Jedi 2017

I'm ranking all the major releases of 2017 so I bit the bullet tonight and tackled the two big franchise films of the season (illegally bootlegged, of course).

Justice League was quite a disappointment. WB is becoming infamous for studio meddling and its so painfully obvious here. What should've been the climax of Zack Snyder's brutal, operatic Man of Steel/Batman V Superman films is an uneven unofficial Avengers film. WB got rid of David S Goyer, the man who wrote those films and Nolan's Batman trilogy (and the undervalued Blade trilogy) and replaced him with some newbie and Joss Whedon. Whedon handled extensive reshoots as Snyder faced a horrible personal tragedy and its shows. Only 1/3rd of the film feels like Snyder's work (mainly the epic action scenes that save the picture) while there's just too much boring, unfunny character play. What made BVS so special was the conflict between characters. Here, there's no chemistry at all as they are played as playful co-workers. That style fits the colorful, family friendly Marvel world but not DC.

Its not a bad movie but its very generic. Superman Returns/Dark Knight Rises territory. I thought the casting was great, if wasted. The dialogue was the worst element but at least the script had a brisk pace. The plot was low on drama or any real message besides what has to be the most over-used, commodified empty sentiment of the 2010's: "Hope".

Perfect segue to The Last Jedi. Star Wars 8 is like the lighter, dumber twin of this year's Alien 8. Its an epic achievement of CGI, moody digital photography and franchise callbacks. But Alien Covenant struck me as so important because it sets up so much nauseating formula just to radically reject it while Jedi can't find any confidence outside of its knowledge of source material. But the problem with this new Disney trilogy is that each film is beholden to ONE old film at a time. Jedi is a remake of Empire in tone, visuals, settings, character arcs with a "surprising" reversal of the ending of Return of the Jedi (only because Force Awaken took Empire's ending).

But Episode 8 is much better than Ep 7. Its even more poppy, emo, silly, sleek and that becomes a distraction. If this wasn't set in George Lucas' old film it would just be another post-Harry Potter fantasy flick for teens. The drama is on that same level. Take a swig every time someone yells "Nooo!!!" or cries or stares into the void to a silent soundtrack. Its such generic melodrama and emotional exploitation, but it works for 4/5 audience members, right? I dunno. The film is facing major backlash and my takeaway is that audiences are quickly growing tired of Xerox-style sequels. They want futuristic science fiction, intelligent characterization and... newness. Ep 8 has too many dollars behind it to be a bad movie. Its watchable if very boring and overexerting. But I much rather watch Attack of the Clones for its awkward innovation and sincere sense of magic & chaos than a rich, warm but hollow redo of a better film.

The major failure is that Disney's films treat The Force as simply a Hippie superpower and not the political/religious allegory Lucas intended it to be. Thats what inspired a generation of fans to embrace it beyond the movies. It was based on something more than toys, one-liners and muppets.

The Last Jedi, like Justice League, leaves us after 2 hours of explosions with that bland non-message of "Hope". Things are awful and "the darkness" is winning (you know how much I hate this binary colorism Hollywood loves to sell) but keep faith that someone else will save you or things will just work out on their own. I like the pessimistic, pro-active moral of Alien Covenant much better: Stop hoping, evil won't lay down, FIGHT BACK.

This is what happens when our culture becomes too steeped in man-child culture. We have to put to bed all of the lofty idealism and fluffy entertainment and make films that are about the real world and how to survive. The evil villains in JL and SW have no motivation beyond "I'm bad. I'm angry." Why aren't the heroes angry? Why don't the villains see themselves as heroic? Again, Alien Covenant nailed this. Some damn realism goes a long way. Anakin Skywalker was manipulated by a fascist system for 3 movies before he turned evil. Ben Solo's reason is unknown. Actually, Luke explains that Ben was brainwashed similar to Anakin, so why would Luke not see this happening? How is the hero of Star Wars so stupid to let the tragedy of his father repeat EXACTLY? And, overthinking this, Yoda saw Anakin turning and prepared for it but Luke didn't prepare for Ben? And why did this chick even need training when she was more powerful than Luke within a few days? And did the writers forget about this? http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_of_Two This is all fanboy continuity but if you aren't going to pay attention to the details, why even make the film?

Answer: money

David Lynch almost directed Return of the Jedi and I'm so glad he didn't. At that stage of his career,he could never match the charm, color and epic weirdness of the finished film. You can tell he regretted passing on it by making Dune, which is heavily inspired by Star Wars 1-3. And it really doesn't work (although its well-directed). It just sucks seeing a great experimental director doing commercial work only for the money or to copy.

Interestingly, Twin Peaks: The Return (my favorite show of 2017) felt like Lynch finally doing a convincing job of commercial Hollywood style from the modern era. The original Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet are excellent but they work best as 1950s realism (much like Lucas' work is always reminiscent of 1960s realism). Lynch has explored lots of different eras and localized American cultures and tried to showcase all of it in a TV series. It was a fantastic experience, feeling galactic and making the smallness of life seem so alien and mystical.

Its bizarre that people seem to see Lynch & Lucas as being so different. I think David is just a small town guy and Lucas always thought big. Now its kinda like they've developed the same style, just in different genres and arenas. One commercial and the other still indie/TV.

*And the latest Star Wars has Lynch stars Laura Dern & Justin Theroux???? Weird stuff.

And Lynch has basically preached the same mystical Eastern religious theories of oneness in Twin Peaks as Lucas has in Star Wars. Is Lucas the secret rival inspiration for Lynch's commercial career?

I only want to make experimental films but commercial films are the only things getting funded and independent films have never been so squeezed out of distribution. I might raise just enough to get to Cannes and sell whatever I can shoot. I'm sure someone will buy a film shot on a smart phone, set in an apartment building, starring non-actors if you can convince them its art. Indie schlock meisters have done this since the beginning of film bookings. But the ones who actually sold artistic films found the most lasting success. Anyone can rip off a trend or use stars or an old story that comfortable to watch, but people flock to whatever is new & original & good.

Remember that Marty McFly went back to the 1950s to make sure we don't have an apocalyptic anarcho-capitalist 1980s so we can have a futuristic socialist 2020s with flying pollution-burning cars. But he had to go back to the Wild West for a second. 

Yes, Back to the Future is a deconstruction of Christian legend.

Fuck Marvel

I'm finally deleting these stupid Marvel movies from my hard drive. I've never sat through an entire film besides Avengers & Guardians so I skimmed through these.

The 2008 Incredible Hulk, while a total bore with wooden characters and only one good action scene, is more respectable than what Marvel has put out. Its the lovely location scouting, production design and cinematography. The flat commercial directing is led by the lavish production of visuals. This is the review I give to 9/10 Hollywood films.

Captain America Winter Soldier. Essentially the same story as The Hulk, Thor and Iron Man films. Same pacing, same plot twists, same messages. All-American macho Ken doll is at odds with the military (but also works for them), has some betrayal, has some light romantic tension with his Lois Lane, stops the evil guys pulling strings so the government can function better. These films, if you take out the basics stolen from old Superman/Batman movies, must represent some middle class NeoLiberal/Conservative white utopian statist dream, where capitalism is protected, terrorists are spectacularly defeated and patriarchy is preserved. They appeal to a tribalism thats always been in America, but they pour gallons of gasoline on the fire. These superheroes, unlike DC's Justice League, are not concerned with ideas like "democracy" or "truth" or stamping out corruption. They are simply government workers who protect the status quo from radicalism. Winter Soldier replaces the usual Lois Lane role with a fiery Scarlett Johansson (and her many stand-in's) and gives Cap a black sidekick, but thats about as progressive as it gets. There's some airheaded attempt at political/spy intrigue and it makes no sense. The rewarding bits are the bookend action scenes where everyone uses superpowers and CGI. The rest of the film looks like a bland network TV drama and the action scenes are lifeless and built around money/time-saving tricks, even though they knew they would make a billion dollars with this lemon.

Iron Man 3 was released at the height of Marvel mania and was the first critical flop. Its not any worse than the other two films, but its like a bad remake of Batman Forever. Iron Man is sulking and heartached to show he's as deep as Batman. The cinematography reflects this and its actually show well. Too much of the film is the uninteresting, unromantic love story of Robert Downey Jr & Gwyneth Paltrow. Zero chemistry and it was all done better in the Spider-man films.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is pretty good. The script lacks the unity and zing of the first Avengers, which I can't deny was a timely bit of Hollywood escapism and mindless fun a'la Michael Bay. Joss Wheadon deserves all of the credit for any positivity associated with the MVU. He's a great writer and a great visual designer and he brings personality and fun to these characters that totally drizzle without him.

Captain America: Civil War. This is the MVU's biggest production I assume as it has a ton of C, B and A level superheroes. My beef with Marvel they rarely put any imagination into the visuals or production. They just show off what expensive sets and locations they have, throw some stunt men at each other and film some cliche dialogue to stitch it all together, performed by very limited actors with big names. Civil War is the same but its evolved a bit. The action is better, the cast is more diverse and it at least tries to make some smart observations about the fractured political atmosphere. But you smell the bullshit as its all lip service to sell tickets. There is no story behind the noise. No drama, no insight, nothing memorable. This film is the crowd favorite over Batman v Superman, but it lacks all of their style and substance.

The next Avengers film will be a huge success and we will probably get these films for the next few generations. Thats such a sad idea to process. They will recast these characters and relaunch them endlessly in Disney fashion until they've lost all history and imagination. Warners' Justice League films are bound to be abused by critics and audiences because of brand loyalty, but Batman & Superman will live on. Wonder Woman brings a great balance to the Marvel formula too. God, I want this trend to fucking finish. Only a handful of these characters are even good.

P.S. I want to say that I especially dislike the Guardians of the Galaxy film I watched. James Gunn is a nice guy and the film is no different than these other films, but I'm disappointed that he basically just made an MTV version of The Avengers. And that I've heard him repeatidly called a genius for throwing in some pop songs and letting his digital animator direct 2/3rds of the film. What a hack. And this guy came from Troma is the tragedy of it. He could redeem himself if he damage controls the eventual Hollywood version of The Toxic Avenger.

P.S.S. Deadpool is probably the best MVU film after the original Avengers, but its essentially just Die Hard 6. Wise-cracking everyman vigilante with a broken heart shooting terrorists on big artificial sets with explosions, funny sidekicks and pop culture jokes. Its even made by the same studio as Die Hard so it feels like they just exploited the Marvel trend and canned Bruce. Its a decent action-comedy tho and the director did a good job. I'd like to see him work on something actually useful.

Mother! / Alien Covenant / The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Mother! is Darren Aronofsky's companion to Black Swan. Its like when Scorsese made Casino to cash in on Goodfellas: the director improves on some stylistic qualities, but it really was stronger the first time. To Aronofsky's credit, the theme is a bit more illusive and mature, but it really didn't need to be. At the end of the day, he's just showing off which films he likes by mish-mashing references and deconstructing genre tropes, making left turns on horror cliches and playing to the most literate viewers. But this "not remake" of Rosemary's Baby is a bit too blunt. Its trying to visualize the intersectionality between patriarchy & Western morality through the metaphor of childbirth. Again, Polanski did it so poetically and originally that this film can only up the modernity and mainstream surrealism. Aronofksy does what DePalma did to Hitchcock for years by underlining other artists nuances by beating you over the head with them. Am I crazy or does he reference The Giving Tree many times? Its another absurdist Freudian horror film for feminists, but not as entertaining, creepy or surprising as you would hope. There is one really effective scene (the one that caused a festival audience to vomit), but the film is still stale and overly long. Jennifer Lawrence isn't an actress I've ever cared for, but she's starting to show a bit less woodenness, although she's essentially just a sympathetic photography model as per usual. Javier Bardem is his usual warm but creepy self, but Michelle Pfeiffer steals the film and you wish she was the centerpiece of the whole thing.

I gave Alien Covenant a 2nd watch and I'm delighted I did. This is the best sequel of 2017. It works perfectly as a prequel to Alien and delivers enough of the canned formula to satisfy the masses, but diverts to create its own original plot, injecting some much needed newness in the saga (which Prometheus delivered too sloppily). Ridley Scott puts on a masterclass in scifi directing from what is a very thought provoking script about the morality of a superior intelligence that sees humans simply as fodder for a more pure and honest lifeform. Yeah, yeah, its essentially the plot of the first Alien, but the series has never returned to that essential theme with any success. Here, it is the entire premise. Its as if Ridley Scott is remaking Alien the way he originally envisioned it, divorcing it from the feminist gore, weapons & monster genres and deeper into the dark psyche of egomania, fascism, eugenics, Nazism, occult and other pressing fears rarely mentioned in the non-metaphysical commercial scifi we are used to. The villain here is an executioner judging humanity without bias, showing us our own monstrosity in the face of the monsters we have literally made into iconic anti-heroes. And in a way, Scott returns to the basic principles, obsessions and meanings in the old spaceman films of the 50s & 60s that inspired he, Lucas, Tobe Hooper, Lynch, Carpenter and a generation of dark genre directors. Ridley combines those new American influences to his European sensibility (and the experience he's collected working more consistently and with bigger productions). This film wasn't too popular because it wasn't Prometheus 2 or the same, tired Alien formula, but this easily rivals this generation's Star Wars films or Avatar. Its that well directed, written and produced. I'm very sad that this might be the last time Scott touches the saga he started as Disney just bought the franchise through Fox. They will almost definitely return it to a commercial teen action fanboy territory and we won't get a conclusion to what is a fantastic cliffhanger. But maybe Scott can talk his way into making it by throwing in more of those pesky xenomorphs.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is worth a watch. Its not the memorable, charming, grisly, risky affair that director Yorgos Lanthimos had with his preceding film "The Lobster", but its snarky enough, clever enough and chilling enough to satisfy. Its a great satire on class struggle, a comedy to the working class but a real nightmare for the upper crust "hoi polloi". Here is another film where the villain has a somewhat valiant mission of cruelty and the protagonists are just symbolic meat. The absurdity and shocks are tempered and there's a pronounced fetishism of surfaces and appearances. I kinda felt that the plot and characters were window dressing to arrive at the moody production design, grim performances and bleak moral worldview. It didn't stray too far from The Lobster, which is disappointing because it was that film's originality that won me over, not how highbrow it proved itself to be. But check it out for the lovely directing, clever if predictable script and a very succinct cast, practically carried by the exquisite Nicole Kidman.

The Phantom of Liberty 1974

Bunuel is cinema's first official surrealist and so he has a head start on exploring the subgenre's parameters even if he is naturally its most dated example. But he also grew into a a powerful narrative director who could restrain himself to commercial and technical prowess to sell a message. Here he is in the twilight of his career (the man started in the 1920s!) and Phantom is a radical mixture of seemingly normal, bland TV style cinema and Luis' roots in dream logic and absurdist satire. This and Discreet Charm were immensely popular arthouse hits in France & America, so some of it is not expected but in keeping with the aesthetic trajectory we associate with the 70s, or at least its counterculture.

The film is a loose anthology of episodes tied together by characters and themes but not having a central plot. It may have been influenced by Monty Python's Flying Circus but Bunuel is an obvious influence on SNL's early years. Each sketch is hip, sexy, political and ironic, but not played for easy laughs. Bunuel doesn't care if you don't find it funny. Thats actually the point: to find this absurdity depressing and too real to be funny. Its an amazingly successful exercise to be as ridiculous or gross or awkward while still holding a mirror to the audience. Maybe the points will fly over the head of the layman but the keen veteran director lets the film still work on an infantile level as pure entertainment.

I've seen only 4 films from Bunuel and I can't think of a director with such a broad command of narrative. With Un Chien Andalou he captures the insanity of dream analysis with silent footage. With Viridiana he explores the dark psyche of the feminist condition. With Death in the Garden he presents a great American-style thriller with radical political implications and with Phantom he takes us on a mellow, formal experience of the immaterial & the unfathomable curiosities of human behavior and polite society. He's one of the true masters of the form.

The Room 2003

I don't find The Disaster Artist at all interesting because the appeal of The Room is not just its inept technical components, but the magically absurdist logic of the universe it creates as a "bad movie". Its cool to explain to casual fans what goes or doesn't go into its poor editing, non existent production value, amateur acting and a repetitive but earnest script. But they already know. Tommy Wiseau is a bizarre aging foreign hipster who spent his life savings on a film without having any proper craft to pull it off. Yet he succeeds because its not craft that determines how great a director is. Wiseau had a vision, he assembled people good enough to pull it off, he stuck to his version of the truth and fans totally loved it. It is a heartwarming meta-story, but its also cruel and morbid to reduce he and his film to a punchline. Maybe The Disaster Artist acknowledges his unique talents as its title suggests, but it still categorizes him as an accidental success. Wrong.

Properly contextualize the pieces of truth that The Room gives you. I think the film is so rewatchable and popular because there is a dark and sincere emotional core. Between the 4 awkward sex scenes put to cheesy RnB (3 of which occur in the first 30 minutes) and the many times Greg Sestero explains Tommy is his "best friend", there's a depressing tale of heartbreak, drug abuse, criminal mistakes, a failed marriage, suicide, depression, abuse and more. This film is Wiseau's confessional - part of his shadowy origin that has become part of the experience of The Room. It has a mythology and language that has inspired as much decoding and wonder as the films of David Lynch.

Nothing wrong with laughing at the quirkiness or horrible ADR or bizarre use of green screen, but don't underestimate what this film says. One point of contention I have with so-called fans is the supposed pointlessness of the subplots like Claudette's cancer diagnosis, the Chris-R scene, the characters playing football in tuxedo's.

Early in the film, Tommy has the line, "Denny, don't plan too much. It may not come out right!"

This is the sad, obsessive code of this narrative. If you use this as the overarching theme of The Room, it plays with a bittersweet logic, like a Crayola colored version of a Russian tragic novel. The most logical theory we are left to make is that this is an Americanized version of Wiseau's past and Denny's story is his: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/1kp8df/the_character_denny_in_the_room_is_a/?st=jb5vfws9&sh=a4674eda

 Even with (or because of) its bad acting, high school drama atmosphere and so on... The Room evokes that dark period in many people's young lives when love fails them and they lose it all. It shows the ignorance, youth and spoils of the film's white hipster audience when they only ridicule this attempt at art. And on a plot level, the film never loses momentum and each scene plays beautifully despite its shortcomings because the story is personal to the filmmaker.

And much of the film's shittiness lies not with Wiseau's performance as actor or director. Notice that the Line Producer, the person who sees each stage of production to completion for the producer, is Greg Sestero who is the film's worst critic and sold the rights to this exploitative new film. Sestero's only other claim to fame is playing Andre Toulon in "Retro Puppet Master" and he brings that same air of detached, cynical hucksterism to the acting and the production of The Room. And again, much of The Room's awkwardness comes from its editing and ADR, possibly to set up the film as a comedy. Also, Wiseau's A.D. claims to have directed the camera and actors, so isn't he bragging that he's responsible for the film's terrible staging and line reading? Wiseau's role is the classic producer who assigns probably too much freedom to his crew. His stroke of genius was casting himself and using his own life as basis for the script. His overwhelming emotion and visible scarring mixes with the amateurism and absurdity to create low budget cinematic poetry.

And it is art. Made by a true outsider, a true original and a true maverick who spread a message that has become kind of generational. It fits with the bleak and absurd post-9/11 age in ways that are obscure but obvious. The creative choices by Wiseau weren't intentionally funny or weird, but that only serves the authenticity. If it all were the same but an ironic performance by a pretentious cynical star, would it be as intriguing? I don't think so. And this is one of the most authentic, independent and personal films of the young 21st century. I respect it wholeheartedly and I hope it receives a better appreciation someday.