#people talk about what a existential horror rent-a-kid was but no one ever talks about the mommy market

[cookinguptales]

*googles to make sure The Mommy Market wasn't just a fever dream*

huh. I guess that movie really did exist.

[donnerpartyofone]

#4

In 2018, with the help of some concerned and informed people in my life, I discovered that I’m probably pretty autistic. The driving factors were not what you might expect (I didn’t, anyway)--chiefly, a kind of persistent clumsiness, disorientation, organizational difficulty, trouble learning certain practical tasks--but it helped explain a lot of things about me that one might otherwise consider “quirks”. I had always taken for granted, for instance, that I have a lot of trouble recognizing faces, including ubiquitously famous actors, or members of my own family. I have also been accused from time to time of taking things “too literally” (to which I usually reply something like, “But this is literally what’s going on in reality, how does literalness make it dismissible?” I really don’t get it). Also, most typically, I have never liked being touched. “You’re just like Dave Letterman!” my dad chortles, an interpretation I don’t mind. I think it might also be pretty autistic of me to be so averse to family. I don’t have the slightest inclination toward maternity, which one could guess from the previous passages, but it’s more than neurosis. I know intellectually that people care about their families; the same way most people burst with pleasure at the sight of a baby, any baby, they also respond automatically to the very idea of blood relatives. As a kid, I was always baffled by the obsession other kids seemed to have with their cousins, or how in love they could be with their grandparents. In my world, you obsess over people to whom you have something to say; people who share your taste in art, your politics, your philosophies, your passions and phobias. I don’t understand relationships that are based on blood alone, on being trapped in the same place and time by virtue of pure circumstances.

Today, as my friends are all having babies one after another, I find myself strangely fascinated by them. Some of these people have struggled all their lives to find a sense of belonging or purpose, and having children has given them a sense of meaning beyond anything they previously hoped for. As someone who continuously struggles to find a sense of purpose, which I base exclusively on my intellectual and artistic pursuits, I’m amazed by the idea that I could potentially put all my existential confusion behind me if I were willing or able to become a mother. I can estimate how profound it must feel to create life, and then to become responsible for turning that life into something good. But, I remain unable to attach meaning to the idea of something being “a part of me” on a purely biological basis. I have insurmountable trouble thinking of my biological predecessors as being “where I come from” on the identity level. I can’t imagine being so sentimental about being an organism in a colony of like-organisms, not the way I am about people who have brought me experience and taught me to think.

So, even if I were without the mother-related trauma heretofore detailed, I still think there is something about who I am as a person, that would have made me recoil from my grandmother. My mother’s mother was the platonic ideal grandmother, a plump, pleasant old lady with a syrupy southern drawl who seemed to have stepped out of a cookie commercial. Excessively generous with money, food and affection, she presented as a person any family would welcome in their household. However, I always detected something oppressive about her. I was raised to be guiltily dutiful toward her, so as a child, I thought my suspicion and repulsion was just a problem with me. It must make me an asshole, that I don’t want her to hug me with her entire body for such a long time that I can’t figure out what’s going on anymore and I’m suffocating from the heat. I must be a dick, that I don’t want someone chasing me around, staring at me, posing me and jostling me like a baby, which I haven’t been for years. Maybe it was my problem, that I didn’t want her to burst into the bathroom and shriek with glee at the sight of me on the toilet trying to take a single solitary piss. Maybe I was just being a jerky teenager when I froze in horror while my grandmother sat next to me at the dinner table, gazing smolderingly into my eyes like a lover and caressing my hair non-verbally when I was perfectly capable of having a respectful adult conversation.

As I grew up a little more, I began to pick up on the fact that she drove both of my parents nuts. All of this motherly pageantry was incredibly manipulative, and really a way of controlling people. The creepy coddling I received as her granddaughter was really something she did to everyone. She was bright, incredibly shrewd really, a person whose hard work and frugality produced a self-made millionaire, though this didn’t reflect in her humble home. She was a dyed in the wool republican who was capable of watching the Daily Show with appropriate delight. Actually, she had a weird sadistic sense of humor; I always thought she got a little too much joy out of seeing little boys get smacked in the nuts by speeding baseballs on America’s Funniest Home Videos. That probably bothered me because of how she unforgettably screamed with laughter at my flinching when she took me to get my ears pierced. Everything indicated that, regardless of her age and conservatism, she wasn’t a vulnerable, senile old biddy, but a keenly intelligent woman very much in touch with the real world. This made it endlessly disturbing to me that she so insisted that everyone around her act like a little baby, adults and children alike, so she could rule us all as the ultimate mommy. Her aversion to grownup conversations and self-reliance was a way of forcing everyone into a Rockwellian time capsule in which everything was predictable and hygienic, in which mother knows best. Literally any admission of imperfection could trigger an outburst that would enslave everyone to the process of cheering her up. I recently heard a story about a Christmas visit during which she and her husband were lavishing attention on my brother as if I wasn’t even there. Concerned that I might be lonely, my father suggested that they include me in this play session. At this recommendation, my grandmother burst into hysterical tears, and my parents had to spend the rest of the night apologizing for accusing her of being neglectful.

Eventually, I learned little by little that she was more than just a prototypically clingy old lady with a keen talent for doling out guilt. It was a little weirder than that, and ultimately, a lot darker. First, there were the things I had heard about my mother’s life as her daughter. I remember a story my mother told about a birthday party that her mother threw for her when she was little, sometime in grade school I think. Her mother said that she had hired a gypsy woman to tell everyone’s fortunes, which was extremely exciting. A little carnival tent was set up in the back yard, and all the kids lined up to hear about their futures. When my mother’s turn came up, she walked in, only to find her mother in there in a turban talking with a corny accent, as if her own child wouldn’t know who she was--let alone any of her friends. My mother told this story to explain how embarrassing her mother was, but what I picked up from this was less a funny story about how parents traditionally humiliate their kids, and more like evidence that my grandmother’s identity is completely rooted in her position as an apex matriarch, well beyond anyone else’s intelligence or control.

The way she infantilized me was not an ordinary byproduct of having a grandchild, but something she did to everyone in her life, historically, up to and including my adult parents. She certainly continued to do it to me as an adult, and she insisted on a childish sort of positivity that I could barely muster. I thought, if she wants us to have a relationship, I should talk about my life, which sometimes includes complaints--or simply categorizing things as just-ok, or business as usual. Of course, she found this extremely irritating for some reason, and would pressure me to change my story with declarations like “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SO MISERABLE!” One Christmas when I was really in a bind, I called to thank her for the holiday check she had sent me, saying that it gave me much-needed help in making my rent at that time. “Oh...well, I thought you would do something nice with it,” she said in a strange tone that let me know she was sort of angry with me for some reason. I had to sort of bend the truth into a story about some special treat I supposedly got myself in order to get her to cut it out.

A better example of what was really going on with her also had to do with Christmas. You know Christmas: If you’re a little kid, you get up at about four in the morning, you beeline for the tree and try to peak into the openings in the wrapping paper, you wake up your parents either by force or by the shockwaves coming off of your person, you all open presents together in a sleep-deprived daze, and you’re basically all back in bed by 10am. Well, this might happen with my mother, but once my grandmother was awake, a ritual began. First, she would get out her camera, and follow my mother back into the bedroom. There, my mother would get back into bed, and pretend to be asleep. Then my grandmother would take a picture of my mother “waking up.” Then, another picture of her theatrically delighted expression when she “remembers” that it’s Christmas. Then a picture of my mother entering the living room and exploding with joy when she sees the tree for “the first time”. Then pictures of the presents being opened, then etc...this whole completely artificial passion play of my grandmother’s little family having the perfect Christmas.

Much, much later, I would find out what all this debasement was probably really about. It had to do with my great aunt. I knew that this woman, who I have rarely ever met in my life, and her daughter both suffer from brutalizing clinical depression. The daughter actually has an electronic device in her brain that acts like a pacemaker for depressive episodes. I had never even heard of something like that before, but it made perfect sense to me that this person and I would be in the same gene pool. Naturally, though, my grandmother would not have found such a dour defect so sympathetic. My grandmother and her sister seemed to have some kind of amorphous feud going on. My grandmother complained relentlessly that her sister refused to spend enough time with her, and I usually thought about how unfair she was being to a woman who has had cancer multiple times, whose energy is leached away by depression, and whose daughter is also routinely sick and almost uncontrollably suicidal. Apparently there was a history of slights and passive aggressions between the two women, though none of it topped the thing I ultimately learned about their family. At some point in their lives, my long suffering great aunt admitted to her sister that she had been raped by their father. I never knew the man, but he was supposed to have been sort of a son of a bitch, and there were other reasons that this made all the sense in the world to me. I remembered a story about how, after he died, his daughters found years’ worth of private writing that he had produced. It sounded like they were really raunchy violent western stories, which my parents were naturally interested in seeing, until they discovered that my grandmother had burned it all. “It was PORNOGRAPHY!” she declared. It’s a little hard to tell whether she was simply appalled by this rather un-Rockwellian artistic deviance, or if she was especially bothered because she knew him to be real life predator. In any case, it would have been impossible to know, because when her sister confessed that their father had violated her, my grandmother basically gave her the finger. Or rather, she gave that whole upsetting topic the finger, and then insisted that her poor destroyed sister continue to be her faithful companion as if none of it had ever happened. “It’s so painful!” my grandmother cried when her sister refused her most recent invite to brunch, and it took everything in me not to say, “Yeah, well, can you think of any reasons by yourself why she might not be fucking dying to hang out with you all the time?”

So it became clear to me why my grandmother might be so controlling and belittling, why she might try to force everyone into a performance of endless childhood, why she might expel from her life anything that smacks of imperfection. It still remained very difficult for me to just suck it up and be what she wanted me to be, not so much because I’m especially proud of my personality--a personality that in every way would repel her if I were to reveal my private world of crime, horror movies, pornography, fetishism, occultism, anti-capitalist sentiment, and of course, suicidal ideation. I also had trouble being the granddaughter she needed because of this autism of mine; it doesn’t make any sense to me to dissimulate, I’ll never become a smooth enough liar to pretend to be somebody’s innocent little baby, even if it would benefit me to do so. Making things up makes no more sense to me, than it does for someone to say “I love you” without meaning “I’m impressed with your personality, your intelligence, your culture, your morality, your humor, your...” It doesn’t make sense to me for someone to say, “I don’t care who you are, I love you because you’re my baby.” I made my best efforts in her last years, but nothing will stop me from feeling guilty toward her for the rest of my life. The way that she died fucked me up so badly that I’m only beginning to realize it now.

[quadrophenicc]

Alice Glass and Lydia Lunch on Why Pleasure is the Ultimate Feminist Rebellion            

Alice Glass ran away from home for the first time when she was 14 years old. She moved into a dilapidated house in downtown Toronto, split the rent with 20 other teenagers, and, one year later, ran into Ethan Kath high out of her mind in the streets. The two went on to form Crystal Castles, the witchy, bleakly aggressive electronic Toronto outfit that came to define a certain sound of the mid-aughts. The band’s front woman, she was so much more than just a figurehead—she was a magnetic force to be reckoned with. Crystal Castles toured for six years straight, and in October of 2014, she broke out on her own. Now Glass is preparing to release her debut solo album. The new offering is dark—she has compared its sound to “kittens eating their hoarding owners after they die”—and its first single, “Stillbirth,” is an anthem for domestic violence survivors, a screaming, visceral cry. This music is personal—her most intimate offering yet—representing a move toward a style that reaches outside electronica. Lydia Lunch, the legendary No Wave poet, writer, speaker, and musician, called Glass from her home in Park Slope. The two spoke about crawling out of bedroom windows, how the nuclear family is the ultimate fascist society, and just how art has saved them, time and again.  

Alice Glass—Thanks so much for agreeing to talk with me, Lydia! This is an honor.

Lydia Lunch—I wish I was out in L.A. driving around with you through Echo Park right now, but we’ll have to do this on the psychic and verbal plane for now.

Alice—I’d like to imagine that. I can’t drive, so I’m going to imagine you driving.

Lydia—I was reading up on you, and it seems that we’ve had a quite similar background as teenage runaways and upstarts. We knew what we had to do.

Alice—I moved [away] from home when I was about 15. I just couldn’t live there anymore and the community I was in, it just seemed like the natural thing to do.

Lydia—Yeah, the microcosm of a fascist society: the nuclear family. Get the fuck out! I ran away for the first time when I was about 13. I snuck out my basement window. I came to New York and I went, “Oh my God, I know what I might possibly have to do and I’m going to go find some money so I don’t have to be forced into that.” So, I went back and got money. I lied about my age and got a job as a maid in a hotel, which was quite convenient if you like to steal and fuck the engineers, which I did. You have to do what you have to do, which is not only escape but create.

Alice—I remember sneaking out a window as well, but we lived in a Victorian house so my room was on the third floor. It was really difficult; I had hoses connected to all the nooks and crevices. It’s pretty fucking dangerous to think about now, but I felt pretty good about it then.

Lydia—I just went back to my hometown for the first time in 30 years and toured a lot of my old stomping grounds. I grew up in a black ghetto in Rochester, New York, and I kind of traced some of the paths of memorable, horrific moments. I had my first storytelling experiences under someone’s shotgun to my head—paid storytelling at 13. I think that set me on my path.

Alice—It’s weird, the only time that I can really get nostalgic is seeing the alley that my friends and I used to hang out in. It’s always used in movie sets, because it’s cheaper to film in Canada, but they to try and make it look like New York. They always use the exact same alley.

Lydia—When did you start writing, Alice?

Alice—I always kept journals and wrote little bits of poetry. When I was a kid, my parents worked in the city and I was left to my own devices a lot, so I’d just wander around singing melodies. I was in the school choir—I went to Catholic school.

Lydia—Me too! Look at how much good that did us. The devil goes to Catholic school.

Alice—[Laughing.] Yeah, my grandparents were definitely really religious, and my grandmother gave me a lot of Catholic guilt, even when I was going to church.

Lydia—I’ve never had a moment of guilt in my life. My father was a door-to-door Bible salesman at one point and, trust me, he was not at all religious. He was just trying to get into women’s houses. At nine, I was reading this really beautiful, highly illustrated, full-color 10-pound bible, and that’s when I just said, “God is a Marvel comic.” I didn’t have the God-haul that some people have.

Alice—Yeah. When I was nine years old I had a lot of friends that were boys, and I’d make up stories for us to play that involved being Power Rangers or whatever. One of the most prominent Catholic school stay-at-home moms started a rumor that I was actually friends with them because I was giving them hand jobs. I had no idea what that was!

Lydia—You know, I don’t have a lot of the normal, what I consider “cancer-causing” emotions, and I think it’s because, unlike a lot of traumatized people, I never turned the knife inward. I turned it outward. I started writing really violent poetry and I never felt any guilt. There were a lot of emotions, because I came out of such hatred and anger. But I flat-lined and built emotion. The stuff I do is very heavy and aggressive, and people think it’s negative, but I have so much empathy. I’m angry at the fucking world, but I’m not angry with anybody specifically.

Alice—I definitely can relate to that sentiment. I think that trying to channel that energy through art and performance and turning that anger into something creative and positive saved my life. I was someone that did internalize the events that happened to me, and I had a really hard time overcoming depression and feelings of worthlessness. I self-harmed from a really young age thinking it was something that I needed to do. [Music] felt like a relief, like I finally had control over myself. That’s something that I’ve been able to get now creatively.

Lydia—Because all of those emotions are things that people put upon you, they’re not how you ever were. I realized at a pretty early age that whatever the individual circumstances of our traumas were, I should never feel that my experience is unique. I felt that they were universal traumas for women, children, and the nuclear family—I had to come out and tell them. I’m trying to speak for and about those that have a mouth but don’t know how to scream yet or can’t find the words. That’s why so many sensitive, weird, outside “freaks”—and I say that with the highest of compliments—come to both of us. They need the mouth that can scream, that can whisper, that can sing, that can detail and find a way to express the existential horror of existence. Fuck you if you think I’m going to hate shit just because you made me hate you. Oh no, I’m very rebellious. It’s the individual duty as a rebel who will not be forced into the cycle of abuse to find, like what you do in music, beauty through the horror.

Surviving and existing a lot of the time is like a ‘fuck you’ to all the energy that’s put into trying to destroy us.

Alice—Yes, wow. I mean that’s my goal. Music is cathartic and I do feel like it’s something that I’m still kind of dealing with. I’ve only been able to get out and realize it now, because I was taking so many things internally and putting the guilt and blame on myself. There are things I’m doing on this new record that I would never have felt confident enough to do before. It’s very emotional music. There’s a personal message behind every song, but what I’m singing about is more than just personal. These past couple years have just been about recognizing that—I think that most people are fundamentally good—but that there are just people out there that take advantage of the optimism that others have for life.

Lydia—Well, there’s also a magnetism to victimology. I guess that’s why I became a predator at a very early age. I used sex as—I wouldn’t necessarily say a weapon—but kind of as a battery charger, and I was always the predator, because I needed an accelerated state of existence.

Alice—I love that. I do think I can relate to that. I think that finding other women in the punk scene that share that kind of sentiment is important, and I really don’t think that you can be punk without being a feminist and without being empathetic towards all walks of life. It’s kind of a little bit like being a hippie but being more aggressive instead of being passive. All of my female friends felt the same way—banding together is kind of what propelled me to not give in and get had, at least not immediately.

Lydia—I came up in a very different time. The late 70s. The scene that you came out of had a much more—or tried to have a much more—positive community spirit. There was a huge community of various types of artists, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, etc., but we were highly negative in the sense that we were completely disappointed by the failure of the 60s. Some of the biggest influences on my reactionary behavior were the failure of the Summer of Love bookended by the summer of hate by Charles Manson—very impressive—the Vietnam War, Kennedy’s assassination, and Kent State. These were things that really defined that attitude of my generation to come out and make music that was so incredibly violent. As opposed to, I’m not going to say punk rock, because I’m No Wave—No Wave, to me, means not audience friendly. I always felt outside of every collective I was in. Although I’ve collaborated with a lot of people, I’ve always felt kind of outside it.

Alice—I definitely romanticize the scene you came up in, the late 70s and early 80s, because it did feel more individual-based. By my time, it’s kind of like you have a sincere idea of something that can be razor sharp, and then after a while it trickles down and it turns into something that doesn’t even resemble the original. The climate that I was in was completely male-driven, almost like sports or something, where all the local men could sort of come together in the community. I wasn’t so much part of a scene as I was around one.

Lydia—Exactly. That’s what was so interesting about No Wave: there were so many women in bands, doing films, doing photography, doing art, and it wasn’t so much of an issue at that point. It wasn’t a gender issue. We were in a city that was bankrupt, that looked like Beirut on the Hudson, which was so criminal in all aspects, from the government, to the police, to the purposeful burnout of the Lower East Side and the Bronx. Gender was the least of our issues and it wasn’t such a big deal at that point.

Alice—It seemed like, growing up, that women’s liberation wasn’t so much of an issue. It wasn’t something that was really talked about, it was just kind of assumed, but to a dangerous degree where I was idealistic about people that I was surrounding myself with. Me and my friends were all 14 or 15 going to shows, and it was kind of a way for men in their 40s to prey on that idealism. There is one band that’s been [playing] since the 80s, and in Toronto you had to give respect to them even though they fucking suck. The lead singer guy was in his 40s and would prey on 14-year-old girls—sleep with them in a bathroom at an all-ages punk show. He just kept getting away with it. That was the climate.

I really don’t think that you can be punk without being a feminist and without being empathetic towards all walks of life.

Lydia—I was trying to readdress the imbalance of sexual power when I was 13 to probably 24. It felt like it was my duty to go out and be the predator. I felt that I was not just avenging myself, but kind of avenging women in general.  I never had any personal animosity against the individual male. My animosity has always been against the greater cabal of the “cock-ocracy” and the kleptocracy and the patriarchy. The problem with society is that it’s not about the rights of the individual, which is what it was supposed to be. It’s not even about the rights of the collective or the majority. It’s about the wants, the greed, the desires of the minority, which is 1 percent of the population. What the fuck is the solution? I don’t have it. But in the meantime, I’m going to continue to fucking complain about it, because all I can do is try and articulate the frustrations and point out that in the last election there was no fucking option. Because they threw the only option under the bus.

Alice—Bernie.

Lydia—Bernie Sanders. The last person I voted for was Larry Flynt because, actually, not only does he believe in freedom and liberty for all, but he actually pays to have political sex scandals in the public eye. Yeah, “Hustler” magazine. Chew on that one for a while.

Alice—It’s great to talk to someone who I feel has a great grasp on the situation, more than anyone else that I’ve really talked to. I went to the Women’s March in Los Angeles, and it was really powerful to see so many people take a stance for humanity and everything, but it’s like, what do we do next?

Lydia—I think every woman needs to know self-defense and needs to be mentally armed if not physically armed. You need to at least feel safe in your own home. When I moved to New Orleans from New York in 1990, 17 cops were arrested. I decided to take gun training because I wasn’t going to be the victim of a fucking road cop. So now I have more gun training than the New York City police force. It’s always been “Apocalypse Now” for me, that’s the state of mind I live in. Numbers mean nothing: one death may be a tragedy, but one million is a fucking statistic—you can’t comprehend it. You can’t comprehend three quarters of a million Iraqis dead. Agent Orange, for what? Because our pawn in the game decided not to fucking play by the rules anymore. Happens over and over again. Welcome to America, asshole. Oh yeah, we’re supposed to be talking about your new album!

I was trying to readdress the imbalance of sexual power when I was 13 to probably 24. It felt like it was my duty to go out and be the predator.

Alice—[Laughing.] Whatever. I mean, music is kind of a lot less interesting to talk about right now.

Lydia—Well no, because it’s what saves you. It’s the only way we have to rebel, with music, art, literature, spoken word. Even at my most quote-unquote negative, I still think there is beauty in the “brutarian” poetry. They will not steal my sense of wonder; they will not kill my love of hedonistic pleasure. I always close my solo shows with this: Pleasure is the ultimate rebellion. The first thing they steal from us as women is pleasure at the brink of the apocalypse, pleasure at the mouth of the volcano. Pleasure. And that’s why we create.

Alice—As an individual, I think that just surviving and existing a lot of the time is like a “fuck you” to all the energy that’s put into trying to destroy us.

Lydia—And let’s not only say “Fuck you, and fuck you again,” but, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna fuck you and I’m gonna like it. There you go motherfucker, how ’bout that?” Can I get an oh yeah, oh yeah?

[backlogged]

Letter of introduction Dear. mr. neuman I had a take and thought it could be done better. This is a letter introducing Adam Carpenter He is  young, about 20 He is an absolute sweetheart and Very personable. He loves music, beer and can play a mean chord. He is well versed in his trade You know he will make a name for himself in whatever he does. I know it will be a pleasure for everyone concerned and hope you will enjoy hearing him play. affectionately Emily. Pizza: 8 Water:5 beer : one pack Pringles: if deal three Matzo ball soup: 1 Golden peanut snack: kosher: 1 Pizza kosher snack: 1 PBR: 1 JFK comes up a lot At work, where I work I work at the cinemas And we talk a lot about JFK People like to tell their favorite jfk quotes My favourite quote from JFK is as followed ich ein bin berliner It is the best quote ever The story is even funnier JFK went to germany He went to germany smoochez the germans and visit the berlin wall He went to germany show solidarity he told the german people ich ein bin berliner Which means I am a doughnut. Frames: 6 Baskets Hangers Socks Pants New shirts Laces Smaller belt More books More vinyl Wine glasses should be picked up By the stem rather than the bowl by the bowl Rather than the stem This helps keep the wine cool No one likes hot wine Unless you are an alcoholic In that case You just do not care Fruit or soup in cups Eggs or shellfish Fowl or meat {not a roast} Never a roast Please never serve a roast If you serve roast than you are bourgeoisie Salad dessert A Memory Banished        Disturbance        Gratitude and Suffering        Deception        Onward - As If To Breathe        A Memory Promised        Careless Whispers (Wham)        The Re-Evaluation of Tina        Silent Night (Gruber)        Altitude        The Doll in the Trees        The Berlin Dog        Stability        My Best Friend's Girl (The Cars)        Memorandum        Dog Stroll        Desire (A More Desperate Hell)        His Threads Are Bare And The Winds Are Marrow        Continence (From The Outside) Veal scallopini Roast turkey Mashed potatoes String beans with mushrooms Cranberry sauce, stuffing gravy How much would you pay? CITIZEN KANE CASABLANCA THE GODFATHER GONE WITH THE WIND LAWRENCE OF ARABIA THE WIZARD OF OZ THE GRADUATE ON THE WATERFRONT SCHINDLER'S LIST SINGIN' IN THE RAIN IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE SUNSET BLVD. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI SOME LIKE IT HOT STAR WARS ALL ABOUT EVE THE AFRICAN QUEEN PSYCHO CHINATOWN ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST THE GRAPES OF WRATH 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY E.T. DR. STRANGELOVE BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID Butter tolls Fresh fruit compote Cookies coffee How much would you pay? Moss Pebbles Clip on lamp Heat bulb Another vase This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave He celebrates and spurns His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; Herons spire and spear. Who tolls his birthday bell, And the rhymer in the long tongued room, Who tolls his birthday bell, Toesl towards the ambush of his wounds; Herons, stepple stemmed, bless. Who tolls his birthday bell, Through wynds and shells of drowned Ship towns to pastures of otters. He In his slant, racking house And the hewn coils of his trade perceives Herons walk in their shroud, Who tolls his birthday bell, More spanned with angles ride The man souled fiery islands! Oh, Holier than their eyes, And my shining men no more alone As I sail out to die Who tolls his birthday bell. Three of four varieties of cold cuts Such as Ham, turkey, no roast beef, lamb, or cold cuts. Never serve roast beef Scalloped potatoes Vegetable salad Buttered tolls Vanilla ice cream with green mint sauce Cookies Coffee He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself. Curried lamb or chicken Rice ring Chutney, raisins, ground nuts French bread, butter Raw spinach salad Ice cream and cake or cookies coffee The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter – to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Alpha Desperation March palmcorder yajna Alpha Negative Transjordanian Blues Cry For Judas Golden boy Power in a union Quito Heel Turn 2 Lobster, shrimp newburg or beef stroganoff Rice Green olives Croissants Caesar salad Cheese and crackers Fresh fruit Coffee I am a big dylan fan I love most of what he put out My first album I got for my birthday My nana took me to get it It was hard rain I thought it was peter frampton on the cover I felt pretty ripped The recording of that was a mess The title of the album tells you all you need to know It was raining The band lost their steam from the rolling thunder revue But dylan just went out and blew everyone away It is one of my favorite live performances ever from him The lyrical changes are golden as well. Everything is intimate I still have it Seven years later For everyday use One complete set of four or six place settings of inexpensive china, pottery, or unbreakable plastic ware. Which now comes in the most attractive colours This set should include: Dinner plates Dessert plates {can be used for salad} Cereal dishes {can be used for soup, pudding canned fruit!} Cups Saucers Dinner plates Cups Cream pitchers 2 platters Dessert plates {can be used for salad} 2 vegetable dishes Which now comes in the most attractive colours so get this guess who’s the other j.lo? JON LOVITZ he’s the best j.lo also has the biggest bum no doubt WERQ IT 2ND J.LO 10 Beautiful Things That Can Kill You 10 ryan gosling 9 Sheep 8.Poppy 7 Sky Dancers 6 Moonlight’s Reflection 5 Beards 4 Blue Hole 3 Yarn 2 Art Sculpture 1 Hope Diamond A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera - The ending of most of Rick and Morty season 2 episodes Ghost Town (for some reason) The last scene in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 6: A Very Sunny Christmas The Notebook Brokeback Mountain The Fault in Our Stars movie and book thenicestplaceontheinter.net Sad Japanese Commercials R.E.M - Everybody Hurts Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah Avril Lavigne - Wish You Were Here It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 6 Episode 10 I’ve read Goodnight Moon almost every night for the past two years.  It’s a wonderful book which my son enjoys.  Here are some of my issues with the bedroom depicted in it. 1.  The Size of the Bedroom This bedroom is enormous.  There is no one, I think, who has not noticed this.  As someone who has lived in apartments only slightly larger than “a little toy house,” it’s mildly vexing that this bedroom is the size of a banquet hall in Downton Abbey. Nice bedroom and/or place to possibly hold the 2024 Olympics 2. The Little Toy house. The little toy house would rent out for $2500 a month in Manhattan (not including utilities) This is not that little of a toy house.  Not only could the rabbit easily fit inside the “little toy house,” the little toy house also has working electricity.  Why are these rabbits so civilized?  Is this some f**ked up Watership Down sequel??? 3. The color scheme we’re going for is “exploded paint factory.” “So what color have we decided on for the upstairs child’s bedroom?” “Which child’s bedroom?” “The enormous one.  The one with the expansive tomato-colored floor.” “I was thinking for that room maybe a dark green?” “Really?  Dark green?  You don’t think maybe dark green walls with a tomato-colored floor is a bit much?” “No, it’ll look amazing.  We can break up the monotony of the color with some dark green and yellow striped curtains.” “That’s an amazing idea.  On non-matching red and yellow spearhead curtain rods?  Do you think a tiger skin rug would be overkill?” “For a young child’s room?  No.  Not at all.  ”   5. The  Bookshelf “For tonight would you rather read ‘Hop on Pop’ or the entire Encyclopedia Britanica?” Why are these books so thick?  This is a child’s bedroom, not a law library.  Unless this rabbit is defending a doctoral thesis, there’s no need for him to own every non-fiction hardcover from Farrar Straus and Giroux. 7. The Idea That Anyone Would Keep a Comb and a Brush and a Bowl Full of Mush on the Same Table 8.   Continued… Meanwhile, back at the ranch… “So what color do you think for the child’s bed?” “I was thinking like a tomato-ish red color?” “You remember the floor’s a tomato-ish red color.” “Yeah.” “You don’t think that’s a lot of red for a child’s bedroom?  We don’t want it to look like the Amityville Horror kill room or anything.” “You don’t trust me?  I’ve been decorating children’s bedrooms for almost twenty years.” “No, I trust you, I trust you.  So you want to do all the furniture in red?” “Are you out of your f**king mind?  Of course not.  For the rest of the furniture I was thinking something sophisticated, like a mustard yellow.” “For everything??  All the furniture?” “All the furniture.” “Even the little toy house?” “Are you seriously asking me this?  No.  Of course not.  The little toy house should be red.” 10. The Dangerously Non-childproofed Fireplace Also, nothing says “child’s bedroom” like an expensive mantelpiece clock bordered by Cookie Monster-blue funeral urns. 11. The Totally Ignored Existential Mouse As casual about their infestations as they are exacting about their interior design. 12. The idea that a child this young (rabbit or human) would need a black office telephone by his bedside. “Goodnight, Technologically-out-of-date telephone” Who’s calling, his financial adviser?  Why would someone this age need a telephone unless it’s to call the woman across the vast expanse of his bedroom to ask her to stop whispering, “Hush.” This Picture of Bears in a Couples Therapy Session "So you say your mother was protective. Tell me more..." “So you say your mother was…protective?” Husband Bear:  We’ve started fighting more since our son was born.  I feel like she resents me.  I feel like every little thing turns into an argument.” Wife Bear:  “How could I not resent you?  We have a newborn and you’re off eating salmon in a PBS documentary while I’m stuck at home 24/7. Husband Bear: “Don’t start, Janet!  That documentary was a once in a lifetime opportunity!” Therapist Bear:  You sound angry. Husband Bear:  Brilliant observation!  It took you eight years of graduate school to figure that out? Therapist Bear:  Let’s all take a deep breath.  In, two three, out, two three… (They are all silent for several seconds) Wife Bear:  Also, a tomato red floor seems like a really bold choice for a psychologist’s office, doesn’t it?

[thejoeydavis]

Movies of 2016

(I’m posting this late but for archival purposes I’m putting it here)

Every January I do a list of all the movies I watched over the past year in chronological order and this,, as you can tell,, is that list. Each movie is rated out of 10 and rounded to the nearest whole number for simplicity and because I use the letterboxd app to log all my movies and it uses a 5 star system. These number ratings are meant to be as objective as possible, which means they’re judged on commonly agreed upon film conventions and what most critics and kinophiles would consider to be “good film,” as pretentious as that sounds. Really it just means I went with my gut feeling and then considered technical aspects and effectiveness on all of these. Paired with each are some thoughts to talk about what I liked or disliked, how it made me feel, etc. I’ll try to keep it short on as many as I can since there are so many. tl;dr: top 10 is at the bottom

Anomalisa – 7 – a predictably depressing Charlie Kaufman film about loneliness and being human—somewhat ironic considering it’s a stop motion film. Don’t let the puppets with 3d printed faces fool you; this is a very human movie with one of the most realistic sex scenes ever captured on film. Probably don’t see this with your mom like I did.

Inside Llewyn Davis – 8 – one of my favorite movies of the past few years and one of my top Coen bros movies. The charismatic but dickish performance by Oscar Isaac and beautiful folk soundtrack depicts a hard life for a musician in early 1960s New York that will make you feel better about yourself (unless you’re a musician).

 Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl – 8 – also one of my favorite movies of the past few years, this love letter to classic film by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is a beautiful story of a popular kid in high school who befriends a girl with terminal cancer. Essentially Perks of Being a Wallflower meets criterion collection.

Project X – 7 – one of my guilty pleasure movies. Lots of fun.

 The Hateful Eight (70mm) – 6 – I got to see this in 70mm complete with preshow overture and intermission and it was an incredible experience. I loved the movie but it’s not Tarantino’s best by any stretch. Note the huge disparity in rating from last year when I gave it a 9.2. This film is not a 9.2.

 The Forest – 3 – in this movie Natalie Dormer goes to the Japanese suicide forest to search for her sister who went missing. Suicide is a very apt theme here considering how heavily I considered ending my life during this movie. Truly awful.

 Carol – 6 – one of those movies that I know is good but I just didn’t enjoy. It’s about Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett as they try to hide their forbidden romantic relationship in 1950s New York. Long, slow, but very pretty and touching, I’d recommend it if you like character driven stories—especially ones about LGBT issues because it’s very good in that regard.

 Hail, Caesar – 7 – underrated mystery film by the Coen’s about old Hollywood and communists. More along the lines of the Big Lebowski than No Country For Old Men. Just a really fun movie with a great sense of world building that makes 1930s Hollywood really come alive.

 Deadpool – 7 – pretty funny and exactly the kind of movie Ryan Reynolds and fans wanted. Probably the only good Marvel movie made by Fox.

 The Witch – 8 – a visceral and disturbing film about a cursed life in 1600s New England, The Witch (stylized as The VVitch) is one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. Be warned though, it’s the definition of slow burn horror so you’ll probably dislike it if you’re used to modern horror films.

 10 Cloverfield Lane – 7 – one of the big surprises of the year and also one of the most thrilling, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman both give excellent performances. It’s basically a bottle episode completely unrelated to the first film. People have criticized Winstead’s character for her actions at the end but it completes her character arc perfectly so it definitely works.

 Room – 8 – beautiful film. Somewhat overrated.

 Brooklyn – 8 – one of my favorites from 2015 and immensely enjoyable from start to finish. This story of an Irish girl moving to Brooklyn shows that the conflict doesn’t have to be high stakes for it to be compelling.

 Batman v Superman – 4 – wow surprise surprise, Zack Snyder made another shit movie. Awful film full of clichés and nonsensical dialogue, bizarre editing, and the incredibly moronic decision to try and kickstart an entire cinematic universe in a dreadfully painful 2+ hour runtime. This movie sucks and DC needs to either hire some competent scriptwriters and directors or just give up already.

 Zootopia – 7 – ah the quintessential furry movie 2016. I really enjoyed this and it has great rewatch value. One of the most beautifully animated movies of the year.

 Midnight Special – 6 – I had no expectations for this movie and I was pleasantly surprised by it, although somewhat let down by the ending. It’s an interesting story about a kid with unknown supernatural powers being smuggled to a specific coordinates where he says something will happen. The mystery unfolds throughout the run time and there are some pretty cool scenes. Fun sci-fi to rent maybe.

 Midnight in Paris – 7 – 1920s Paris is arguably one of the best eras to be alive in and Woody Allen captures the magic of the period well. As with most modern Woody Allen films it’s pretty cheesy—especially the modern day scenes—but the scenes that take place in the 1920s with F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Picasso are truly a delight. One of my favorite movies from 2011.

 Captain America Civil War – 7 – not bad but much worse than Winter Soldier. It was enjoyable at least and miles ahead of Avengers 2.

 Green Room – 8 – a disturbing, white-knuckle rollercoaster of a film that follows a punk band as they fight off a bar full of alt-righ—I mean neo-nazis. An absolute must-see.

 The Nice Guys – 7 – fun from start to finish, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe give two funny and over the top performances in this 1970s period film about two detectives who get caught up in a case that’s way over their heads. Definite recommendation. Crowe’s performance in the first third/half or so is very melodramatic and over the top cool-guy but I believe it was intended to be tongue in cheek so don’t let it throw you.

 The Jungle Book – 6 – not bad.

 Raiders of the Lost Ark – 9 – a near perfect movie and one of, if not the best action movie of all time.

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 Make Happy – 8 – Bo Burnham tweeted about a special premiere screening of his new special back in March so I bought tickets and went with Andrew to see it. We went to the Largo in West Hollywood and were treated to a short comedy show and the grand premiere of Make Happy, Bo’s last one-man show for the foreseeable future. It was an incredible experience.

 The World of Tomorrow – 8 – it’s only 16 minutes and it’s by Don Herzfeldt—what’s not to love? Get ready for an existential crisis.

 The Conjuring 2 – 7 – pretty spooky in some parts with a cool little i spy game you can play with the name of the ghost demon lady. Not as good as the first.

 Finding Dory – 7 – older Pixar films have a certain level of charm that all their films post-Toy Story 3 (barring Monsters University) don’t seem to have and this is no exception. It was very enjoyable but it just felt like it doesn’t have the magic that the old ones have.

 The Shallows – 4 – the amount of praise this movie received was deadass baffling. This is one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year and I don’t see how so many people missed the cliché dialogue and plot, ridiculous shark cgi, exploitative ass shots, and absolutely insane and unrealistic attempts to kill the shark. Critics and audiences comparing this to Jaws is an insult to not only Spielberg, but also the art of filmmaking itself.

 Frances Ha – 9 – one of my favorite movies of all time, this black and white indie film by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig is a cozy tale of solipsistic loneliness, friendship, and following your dreams. It’s depressing, but in a very relatable and reassuring way. Greta Gerwig as the New York dancer Frances is so believable that seeing her in other roles feels almost disingenuous. Honestly if you watch anything on this list you should watch this first, foremost and as soon as possible. It’s on netflix!

 Mistress America – 7 – another one by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig and it was actually my introduction to their work. I loved this movie when I first saw it but it pales in comparison to Frances. Still a great movie with wonderful acting and snappy as hell dialogue. Fun fact: Noah Baumbach worked with Wes Anderson in the past and it shows here, especially in the dialogue.

 The Neon Demon – 8 – one of the most polarizing films of the year but a definite return to form by the near infamous Nicolas Winding Refn. The success of the 2011 masterpiece Drive was not good for Refn’s ego apparently as he followed it up with the nauseatingly self-indulgent Only God Forgives. Thank goodness he was able to find a balance between pure art film and accessible indie film with the Neon Demon. It’s by no means very accessible but the acting, especially from the main girls and a sleazy Keanu Reeves, is great and the visuals are incredibly surreal and v e r y v e r y n e o n . Recommend if you like artsy films with lots of sex and blood.

 Back to the Future – 10 – a textbook example of what a perfect movie looks like.

 It Follows – 8 – nothing but love for this creepy and atmospheric 2015 horror/suspense film about the end of childhood and the impending dread of adulthood. Really it’s about a supernatural shape shifting thing with its “rule” being that acts like an std being passed down through sexual partners. If the thing catches you, it then goes after the previous person in the chain and so on, so the only way to save yourself is to pass it on or run endlessly in futility. Please do see this it’s great.

 The Secret Life of Pets – 6 – a disappointment but Louis CK as a dog was fun to see.

 Hush – 5 – not very good Netflix horror movie about a guy terrorizing a deaf lady at her home in the woods for some reason.

 Snatch – 6 – I suppose if I were more familiar with Guy Ritchie’s work I would’ve enjoyed it more but it looks like it was shot by a Tarantino wannabe edgelord and edited in windows moviemaker. Still entertaining though.

 Horace and Pete – 10 – Horace and Pete is a dramedy web series multi-camera sitcom written, directed, and produced by Louis CK and it’s the single best serial program I’ve ever seen. This is a true masterpiece in every sense and the writing and acting is some of the best in a serial program. It was so good that I actually could not enjoy anything else for days after because everything paled in comparison. For example, I watched Stranger Things the day after I finished this and I had to stop watching three episodes in because it was completely and utterly awful compared to Horace and Pete. The quality of writing is unbelievable and I laughed and cried at many many points. Louis CK, Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, and Alan Alda, bring career defining performances to the small screen and I cannot wait to watch it again—although I’m not sure I’m prepared for it.

 Breathless (1960) – 7 – one of the most defining films of the French New Wave, this film by Jean Luc-Godard is a love story shot in some of the most unconventional ways I’ve seen in a film. It’s not surreal or weird but it certainly is interesting. Worth a watch if you like the cinematography of Wes Anderson, Woody Allen, or Louis CK—although it’s a much more saturated French New Wave style since all those styles are derivative of this. Has some of the most intriguing and innovative tracking/dolly shots I’ve ever seen. In fact, at one point two characters are walking down the street but they couldn’t afford a dolly for the tracking shot, so they had the cameraman sit in a wheelchair and film while someone pulled him backwards to make the shot. Really that’s what French New Wave is all about: innovating and using filmmaking techniques that were unprecedented at the time.

 Star Trek Beyond – 6 – a really fun return to the franchise that actually felt somewhat like a Star Trek film—unlike that last one. It’s still just an action movie franchise now but it’s just a real good time.

 Lights Out – 3 – again, the praise this film received was COMPLETELY unwarranted and totally baffling. This movie blows and is so saturated with clichés that I can’t imagine liking this film. don’t waste ur time.

 Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates – 5 – actually hilarious movie. Really dumb but so goddamn funny. Zach Efron and Adam Devine are a great duo. Has arguably the best exchange about fisting in the history of film.

 Café Society – 6 – a pretty good modern Woody Allen film. Much better than his last two, Irrational Man and Magic in the Moonlight. It’s nice to see a film from Woody Allen that isn’t about a much older man falling in love with a much younger woman.

 Suicide Squad – 2 – “roses are red/there is no god/my favorite movie?/suicide squad.” – Gideon Ondap deadass one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I wrote a 10 page essay on this after it came out but basically the editing is jarring enough to induce brain trauma, the acting is atrocious, and the script is objectively bad. A complete and utter failure of a film. The name is a warning.

 The Room – 1 – another one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen yet 1000x more enjoyable than Suicide Squad. Tommy Wisseau is a genius and this is his magnum opus. Required viewing. Also I must say that a Suicide Squad/The Room double feature makes for one of the funniest nights of life.

 Scott Pilgrim vs The World – 8 – honestly one of my favorite movies. A super well done adaptation directed by Edgar Wright, this film is able to stand independently next to the already spectacular Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series. The music is incredible. It never gets old.

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 Sausage Party – 5 – obscene, racist, vulgar, and dumb as hell with a giant food orgy at one point. Still laughed at much of it.

 Captain Fantastic – 8 – a dad raising his kids to survive in the wilderness of Washington must bring them into society to attend their dead mother’s funeral. A big surprise and one of the most enjoyable movies I saw this year.

 Don’t Think Twice – 8 – Mike Birbiglia has always been one of my favorite comedians because his stories were so heartwarming, wholesome, and packed to the brim with jokes that would reward you on multiple viewings or listens. Don’t Think Twice is Mike’s second movie I believe, and it’s about an improv group in Brooklyn having fun doing their craft while trying to make a life for themselves. When you’re a comedian/improviser,, your friends are too, but if one of you actually gets a big break then it’s that person’s break and no one else’s. It causes a lot of tension between performers because even though they’re all friends, they’re still actively competing in a highly sought after profession. Judd Apatow came out after he saw the movie and said how accurately it depicts the life of comedy performers. It’s a really depressing (in a relatable way) and realistic take on the competitive world of improv and deals with friendship, comedy, and how cruel life can really be. Beautiful movie.

 American Beauty – 8 – really did not like this the first time but warmed up to it on the second viewing and it really shines despite many dated aspects.

 Antz – 6 – woody allen as a ant oy vey

 Back to the Future II – 5 – pretty bad sequel until he goes back to 1955. Worse than the third tbh

 Everybody Wants Some!! – 7 – even after the abortion that was Boyhood I didn’t give up on Richard Linklater and I’m glad I didn’t. This spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused (but in the 80s this time!) was a ton of fun.

 Clapping for the Wrong Reasons – 8 – this short film written by Donald Glover and directed by Hiro Murai is about a surreal day in the life of The Boy, a character Donald Glover created as the speaker of his Because the Internet album (his magnum opus imo). Hot take: Chance v Bino push up contest contender for best film scene ever.

 Kubo and the Two Strings – 7 – the most beautiful disappointment of the year. The incredible stop motion animation is unfortunately much more enjoyable than the underwhelming story. Not as good as Coraline.

 Hell or High Water – 8 – the director of photography from Sicario returns for this modern western about two brothers who rob the banks that screwed over their mother. Great performances from Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, and Chris Pine.

 Don’t Breathe – 7 – this horror film about three thieves who break into an old blind man’s house borders on exploitation film towards the end. Not that bad.

 Blair Witch – 6 – not as bad as everyone said it was. It’s a soft reboot of 99’s Blair Witch Project but with a modern horror twist—which means it relies mainly on jump scares and unnecessary use of found footage tropes rather than atmosphere building and genuine terror. I still thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the last 15 minutes or so were really spooky. The creature design was really great and the way time moved was an interesting horror device. If you liked the first one but were bored by it then you’ll probably like this one because it moves a bit faster although you might be bored by it too. Oh but side note: that drone scene was fucking stupid.

 Over The Garden Wall – 10 – this 10 episode cartoon network animated miniseries aired in the fall of 2014 and follows two boys as they wander through the woods to find their way back home. It stars Elijah Wood, Christopher Lloyd, Melanie Lynskey, John Cleese, Tom Lennon, and Tim Curry among others. The story itself is inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and the music is inspired by early 20th century Americana folk music. It’s literally the single most charming thing I’ve ever seen and it’s an absolute MUST SEE.

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 Doctor Strange – 7 – not much to say about this one but I liked it. The visuals were top notch and although Dr Strange is basically just Tony Stark pt 2, it makes sense considering how much lesser of a role Stark will play in later movies. I’m really excited for the new Thor movie now.

 The Purge Election Year – 4 – each Purge movie is better than the last and this third installment is still a 4. That’s pretty much all there is to say. There are some legitimately hilarious parts in this though—all unintentional.

 O Brother, Where Art Thou? – 7 – another silly Coen film and one of their most accessible. Good film based on the Odyssey.

 Arrival – 9 – Dennis Villeneuve is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors after last year’s Sicario and now 2016’s Arrival. This is a film about humanity, the complete frivolity of our problems, and how staying divided will be our undoing. The cinematography is breathtaking, the score is great (much of it follows the circle of 5ths, which will make sense after watching), the acting is good, and the film just has a beautiful sense of scope to it. I encourage you to watch this and DON’T WATCH ANY TRAILERS OR READ ANYTHING ABOUT IT. I assure you; you’ll want to go into this as blind as possible (and you should never watch trailers anyway they literally ruin films).  In Trump’s America this movie is even more important so please I urge you to watch this.

 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – 5 – the Phantom Menace of the Harry Potter universe, Fantastic Beasts has so much exposition and forced world building that anyone who hasn’t seen the first 8 hp films will probably have a tough time figuring out what’s going on. The opening sequence is literally just a montage of newspaper headlines saying how terrible this dark wizard is, which was done in harry potter but over the span of roughly 3 movies rather than 1 minute. Overall positives: the creature designs were fun, Jacob was rad, the humor was effective, the cgi wasn’t /that/ bad, newt’s hair was wavy af (and he was a hufflepuff, which I appreciate), and the costumes may get an Oscar nomination. As for the cons: so much panning, craning, and tracking that I could barely see what was going on due to low framerate, the first 10-15 minutes are a suicide squad level editing disaster, the pacing was weird at times, they revealed who the main antagonist was in his actual first scene, too many plotlines interweaved, inexcusably bad framing in a few shots, and the ending was a little bit Chekhov’s gun but was pretty much deus ex machina. This just didn’t feel as magical as the harry potter films and, like star wars 7, it feels like a failed attempt to recapture what made people love the franchise in the first place. It was a very flawed film but I still enjoyed it and will watch it again.

 Moana – 6 – VERY overrated but still good. How a lot of people felt about Frozen is how I feel about this movie. The animation was incredible, the voice acting was great, the songs were good (although not nearly as catchy or memorable as Frozen, save for Shiny) and it ends up being another Tangled, a movie I enjoyed but will forget about very soon—hell I’ve already forgotten about it. Just think about how long Frozen was a thing. People were talking about Frozen for months after and I haven’t seen anyone mention Moana since its opening weekend. Overall a huge disappointment. Zootopia was the far superior animated feature this year.

 The Handmaiden – 8 – my first Park Chan-wook film and I loved it ! This film is fucking enigma for the first half and then as soon as one detail is revealed it suddenly opens up and becomes an incredible psychological thriller. I honestly was not enjoying this film for the first act or so because of how seemingly meaningless it was but it really shaped up to be one of my favorites of the year. Never before have I experienced a film that made me 180 on opinion during the course of its runtime. Be warned: don’t see this with your parents or anyone you would feel awkward watching porn with because this shit is basically pornography at MANY points during the film. I don’t know if my friend and his brother have forgiven me yet.

 Unedited Footage of a Bear – 8 – there’s a tl;dr at the bottom of this one because it’s a little long and expository. I was watching an idubbbz video (https://youtu.be/5Bs45yITIt0) back in November and many criticized how unfunny and bizarre it was compared to his other content. People started to speculate that he was doing a metafictional series about his channel along the lines of alantutorial (https://www.youtube.com/user/alantutorial), a channel in which performance artist Alan Resnick plays a fictionalized version of himself who is depicted as a mentally ill young man obsessed with making tutorial videos. This alantutorial series is a commentary on poorly made tutorial videos that flood youtube, as well as social media in general and the overwhelming desire for likes, favorites, going viral, etc. after discovering Alan Resnick and watching all his videos I started to seek out his other content and I found this short film that aired as part of Adult Swim’s infomercial slot at 4 a.m. This may sound familiar to some as the timeslot for Too Many Cooks, which went viral. This short film, titled Unedited Footage of a Bear, can be watched here: https://youtu.be/2gMjJNGg9Z8 and parodies those commercials you’ll often see on tv about drugs that are peddled to mentally ill people without proper testing. This film depicts addiction as a force that can and will ruin your life, your family’s life, and will kill you if left unchecked. There’s an explanation you can watch here: https://youtu.be/_2e5ia9j0TA that explains it really well and is worth the watch. tl;dr: cool 10-minute short horror film about addiction by performance artist Alan Resnick – check it out.

Twin Peaks (Pilot) – 8 – it was good

 This House Has People In It – 8 – hey look another Alan Resnick short film. you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/x-pj8OtyO2I and the attempted explanation is here: https://youtu.be/mjBTAnCUbZc because this one is pretty complicated compared to footage of a bear. also worth the watch simply for the L O R E

 No Country For Old Men – 10 – one of the best movies of this century hands down. not sure if I rate it quite as high as There Will Be Blood though, which came out the same year. The Coen’s crowning achievement (although you could argue that title belongs to The Big Lebowski for reasons)

 Moonlight – 9 – a very heavy coming of age film about a young boy living in the south who attempts to find himself while growing up in an incredibly unforgiving environment. beautiful film and I’m excited to see it again. very very important film for LGBT issues.

 Nocturnal Animals – 8 – one of the biggest surprises this year. I LOVED this movie and it stayed with me for days. as soon as it started I made a mental note that I’d have to really pay attention to everything because I figured it would be heavy with metaphor and symbolism and boi was I right about that. Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal give great performances and I honestly can’t tell you the last time I got so emotionally invested in a film. people have criticized Adams’ performance as melodramatic and cold, which is the point because she’s not supposed to be likeable. the narrative structure is refreshing and fun to piece together and the visuals were pretty alright. my favorite part of this movie was piecing together all the metaphors (of which there are many) and figuring out what the events of the Nocturnal Animals manuscript (in the film) means for the characters. It’s been a very polarizing film apparently, which surprised me since it doesn’t really try to be anything more than it is. It definitely rewards close observation but I can’t guarantee everyone will like this one. I won’t say more because going into it blind is the best way but I do recommend it. Tense, emotional, gripping, funny. It’s good.

 x x x w i n t e r x x x

 Star Wars Rogue One – 8 – I really enjoyed this. I probably don’t need to say much because it’s star wars but this was the best star wars film since Empire Strikes Back in my opinion (although episode III wasn’t that bad). the characters were a little flat, some of the humor was out of place, and the first 30 minutes had bad pacing, but overall it was great. the action in this one was insane and I’m so happy that we finally got to see a proper space battle (and holy shit is it a good one). this has one of my favorite moments of the entire series and it actually feels like a star wars movie unlike episode VII.

 La La Land – 10 – I’m at a loss for words honestly. This movie is so fucking good. The soundtrack is incredible, the choreography is awesome, the cinematography is BEAUTIFUL, and the performances are wonderful. I could keep thinking of adjectives or I could just tell you to go see this movie as soon as you can. Best movie of the year hands down. LA has never looked so fucking good OH MAN please go see this movie you’ll surely regret it if you don’t. OH and we went to see this in the Vista Theater in LA, which was a once in a lifetime experience. See this in the most old-Hollywood theater you can because it actually improves it if that’s possible. Now there are some flaws, mainly in third act pacing, but it’s so enjoyable that it doesn’t matter.

 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – 10 – it’s a classic and could be considered a perfect film. not much to say but it’s definitely one of my favorites of all time. never gets old.

 Home Alone – 8 – this was the first time I watched Home Alone and I liked it.

 Assassin’s Creed – 6 – the neckbeard-y guy doing anime runs up and down the stairs of the theatre behind us really set the tone for this movie. I didn’t hate it but it was pretty dreary and I feel like almost nothing happened. I don’t think it translates to the screen well but it did capture the feel of the games, or at least the first one. Let’s just say after seeing this I went on a mission to watch at least one more movie so it wouldn’t be my last of the year.

 Swiss Army Man – 7 – the praise for this movie was a bit unwarranted. It’s really silly and touching but it wasn’t the modern masterpiece that everyone was saying it was. maybe I missed something but the corpse of Daniel Radcliffe farting is only tolerable and funny for so long. I will say that this is one of the most unique movies I’ve ever seen, so I’ll give it props for that, and the soundtrack was actually incredible. I enjoyed it very much and need to watch it again but it was alright.

Come Together – 8 – an H&M short film by Wes Anderson that can be watched here: https://youtu.be/VDinoNRC49c . It was cute and I guess it’ll hold me over until Isle of Dogs, which comes out in 2018 (no it won’t)

 The Lobster – 8 – this absurd commentary on relationships and their influence on society is just bizarre and has a wonderfully dry performance from Colin Farrell and, well, every other actor too. this film is just crazy and I really need to watch it again. Expect it to be on my next year’s list as well. TOP TEN RELEASED IN 2016 xxx 10 – The Nice Guys

9 – Hell or High Water

8 – The Handmaiden

7 – Don’t Think Twice

6 – The Witch

5 – Moonlight

4 – Nocturnal Animals

3 – Green Room

2 – Arrival

1 – La La Land honorable mentions: Captain Fantastic, Horace and Pete, The Neon Demon, Make Happy recommendations: Frances Ha, Mistress America, Over the Garden Wall, The World of Tomorrow, Midnight in Paris, Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl, The Lobster and finally the award for worst movie of the year goes to ,,,,, SUICIDE SQUAD duh. In 2016 I watched 77 movies, which is terrible considering I watched 124 last year and 92 in 2014. That gap from September to November really killed me in that regard and hopefully it won’t happen again or for as long next time. Overall this was actually a pretty weak year for movies it seems. Looking at my top of the year list, it looks significantly weaker than last year’s which had The Revenant, It Follows, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Sicario, and Brooklyn. If anyone has questions or suggestions about anything I’d love to have a discussion so feel free. Here’s to another year of great movies. also if you’d like to follow me on twitter @thejoeydavis please do because I’m a huge slut for likes and I desperately want and need your approval. thanks for reading

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #24: Showbiz.

Written: 1/18/2017

The scripts were only to be handed out when filming took place, which was to be a week after auditions were done, and nobody really knew what the movie was supposed to be about, they were just excited to have a shot at being in a movie made by one of the most notable, up and coming horror directors: Frankie Toussaint, or, as he is more commonly called, Frankie T. Auditions themselves were very confusing, the actors were only asked to talk about themselves, there was a wide variety of people and no actual roles were known. The only consistent element that everyone, at some point in the interviewing process, was asked to scream. None of the actors were sure how they did, because it didn’t seem like the casting people wanted anything at all, but after a couple days actors were contacted and told that they got the parts-which were still undisclosed-and that they were supposed to gather in an alleyway in Chinatown on the following Monday at 10am, where a bus would come to take them to the filming location.

Margret, who had the problem of being pigeon holed into “sexy maid” roles, and only auditioned for the film for the sake of being able to do something different, was surprised to see that there was a woman there who looked very similar to her, only 20 years older. The woman would’ve been surprised, but there were also three other groups of strange pairs that looked like the same people, just at different times of their lives. Conversation was awkward until somebody finally asked if anyone knew what the movie was even about, then they were able to melt into a comfortable level of gossip until the bus came, 40 minutes late. The bus itself was pretty standard on the outside, indistinguishable from the others that swarmed the city, sides covered in gaudy advertisements, but the inside was a little bit different. Margret noticed first that when the doors opened there was a rose scent coming from the inside, and when she boarded she noticed that the seats were made with red velvet, and the ceiling contained black lights. All of these choices were confusing to her, but as she looked around an old Asian man with a large salt and pepper beard, who had introduced himself earlier as John, told her that the director was known for doing things to confuse his actors, the strange bus probably being only one of them.

Seating was empty enough for most people to sit on their own, however some of the younger people sat with their older copies, interested in getting acting advice. Margret’s elder turned out to have also had the maid type cast when she was younger, but never complained because it was still steady work. The problem, she explained, was getting older and having to have to start fighting for different roles, hoping month to month that you could pay your rent.

Frankie had been watching all this back at the film site. He had arranged for cameras to be set up on the back of every seat, and was watching a large wall of monitors, different conversations all going once, people sometimes obscured by the smoke he exhaled. Three days he was in the monitoring room, where he also had a bed, land line, toilet, shower, and computer set up. There were no lights inside except what shone from the monitors, his eyes were bloodshot, and the whole place reeked of cigarettes. He would only be greeted by bright light when his assistants would come in to bring in food, take out trash, get him more cigarettes, or other miscellaneous errands. This was his first film where he had full freedom, a large studio budget behind him, so he was guaranteed to be able to fulfill the artistic vision of what would surely be his last film, and an undeniable horror masterpiece.

Several years ago he had gained widespread attention from Revolver, an amateur film he directed that ended up contending for several awards at a prestigious film festival, although the controversy that came from it made sure that he would win none. The film was based around religious concepts of suicide and hell, and was mainly about a man who had decided to kill himself after his son drowned in a pool. The man had a revolver, spun the chamber, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger, all in the span of 30 seconds, which served as the intro to the film. However the man never died, and instead the audio from the spinning chamber was looped while memories of his child’s death, sins he had committed, and words such as “FAILURE”, “COWARD”, “SINNER” would show up in the screen, all in a frantic succession. After 10 minutes the intro was played again, this time with new audio that overlapped with the repeating, and instead of the visuals repeating they were instead overlayed onto the intro, which was now looping, so you would both see his sins, but also the repeating process of him getting the gun and going to kill himself. This repeated to a nauseating amount, and, in the last five minutes, the visuals were replaced by a scene of the gun finally going off, the inside of his head splattering against the wall, and his body lying motionless on the ground as the audio continued to loop, all until the movie just sort of ended.

Controversy from the film came when the director, during the Q&A portion, was asked if his religious beliefs motivated him to make the movie. He said, “My only motive was to display what I viewed to be a realistic interpretation of hell, the man wanted only death to free him from the world but instead he was greeted with an infinite and repeating life sentence.” When somebody in the audience said that it did not accurately depict Christian hell, Frankie simply said that “Religion is bullshit and its all made up anyways, so who cares.” And then attempted to prove his point by pulling out a live revolver and repeated the first 30 seconds of his film, but was tackled to the ground before he could finish the deed and instead sent a round into a light on the far wall. He was kicked out of the festival, put on suicide watch, and lifted up into fame.

His second film, which was made only two years prior to his last, was backed by an independent film studio and titled “Trip”. It started out with several youths meeting up at one of their friend’s houses because his parents were out of town, and they were going to get high. The first twenty minutes were very intentionally campy, and were also the only scenes that were advertised in the commercials, so a lot of people thought it was going to be a teen stoner comedy, and many went to the theater only to be surprised. After the main character, some tall lanky kid, one of those shy “always gets the girl in the end” types, took a hit of the joint, he noticed that nobody else is willing to smoke it, they all start laughing, and then the screen begins to shake violently. The rest of the movie is just fast moving, psychedelic visuals with the sounds of the main character’s thoughts playing over it. The visuals themselves are quick, intense, and rather jarring, some people would become nauseous. At first the protagonist would only be confused about what was happening, but the visuals would only grow more intense, and he would react to them in the same way the audience members would, sometimes a viewer would shout something that would be thought of by the protagonist only seconds later, voicing their fears. In the last twenty minutes he begins to question if they will ever stop, questions if this is what his life has become, forgets who he even is, and then deteriorates into blind screams of agony, both emotional and existential.

Frankie has an expert from a review review for Trip that he cut out from a newspaper and always carries around in his wallet, it reads: People can’t decide if the movie is good or bad, but all can agree that its more effective than the D.A.R.E. Program. He also had read plenty of praise from religious groups about how the movie successfully warned teenagers about the dangers of narcotics, and that lead him to make an appearance on a lat night talk show-a rare event since he almost never communicated with the public-saying that the movie was 100% fiction, and was intended to express not reality, but the distorted view that had been constructed during the Regan era. And, to prove his point once again, he decided, much to the host’s dismay, to light up joint,  but couldn’t find a lighter. Embarrassed that he forgot his lighter, he repeated his suicide attempt from the Q&A session from Revolver, but the host tackled him before he could even spin the chamber.

At that point in his career he was thought of as a cash cow in the film industry, his movies would bring in ridiculous amounts of viewers who were curious to see if the movies were actually as scary as they were said to be, who only went to spite the protesters who they thought of as pathetic, or who would take their kids to scare them away from drugs or suicide. He received offers from large studios, almost daily, for him to work with them to make another movie, but he never budged until he was guaranteed full control of his next film. Rumors had gone around that he only wanted to make one more movie, before retiring as a director, so eventually his demands were met.

Sitting in that control room, watching the actors on the bus, constantly ignoring phone calls, he was ready to make his last movie. Everyone thought the secrecy he devoted to the film was because he wrote an amazing script and was just trying to keep it as a surprise, like he did with the plot of Trip, but they didn’t know that there was never really a script. Some thought his behaviors were because he had a religious devotion to film, and that’s why he had scorn for Christians, because in his eyes they worshiped a false idol, but they were also wrong. Some thought he just wanted privacy, didn’t care about large studios and was basically just walling himself off from bullshit, but they were also wrong. What nobody was able to guess about Frankie’s next movie was that he didn’t care if it was ever seen, because the horror aspect of it wasn’t the movie itself-which was guaranteed to be disturbing to many-but the fact that they had trusted him with so much power without realizing who he even was.

It was an idea he got from the Jimmy Saville controversy. He was reading the story online, late to the party because of his isolated nature, and he realizing how horrible it was that he was supposed to be such a nice person, but was really just a horrible monster inside. There was an aspect about the story, though, that really bugged him: it had been too much of an open secret, and that really dampened the surprise. Then he got the idea for his current film, this was during the filming of Revolver, and although the idea almost sickened him he couldn’t shake it off. One  thing people never realized, because of his isolation, was that Frankie wasn’t too right in the head, there was something about him that he felt was evil. Constantly he would fantasize about hurting people who had done as little to annoy him, he connected too often with villains in movies, he had trouble understanding morals, and because of this, and various other things, he was isolated in the first place. Because of this dark thing inside of him he was worried that he was going to do something really bad, and when Revolver was met so positively he tried to kill himself, not to prove the point he cared about, but because he knew that idea might actually be possible. Instead he never died, was thought of as a tortured genius, and that idea was about to be made.

Margret woke up when the bus had stopped, apparently she dozed off after a couple hours and she was surprised to see that it was dark outside. She got up with the others as they moved off the bus and went into their apparent destination: an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere. Although the walk up to it was unnerving, a lot of the actors were whispering, questioning what the hell was going on, she became relaxed when they found that the inside of the building was actually refurbished, well lighted, and had an appearance similar to a five star hotel lobby. There was marble flooring, pillars spanned around, counter tops and walls fit with mahogany, and from hidden speakers the sounds of harps played. There were plenty of couches and chairs, all made of red velvet, around and the actors relaxed for quite some time, talking more comfortably than they had on the bus.

She found a nearby bathroom and decided to take advantage of it since she had fallen asleep, missing the chance to relieve herself on the ride up. After she dumped everything out of her, she decided to wash up and reapply her make up at the sink. Frankie watched all of this, he was in the phase of his plan where he had to actively switch the monitors, from room to room. “Don’t bother with the makeup, you look acceptable as you are.” A voice said from somewhere in the bathroom, and it confused Margret at first, then she realized it was from a hidden speaker. “Tell the others to head into the back of the lobby when you all are ready to begin filming. There are rooms designated for each of you.”

Looking for a camera, she asked “Oh, what’s this movie about? Are we going to get scripts, or..?”

“Just head into the back.” He had to light up a cigarette, he was impatient to finally begin.

Margret went to tell the others and they all shuffled towards the back, finding a door that led into a long hallway. There were doors spaced out on either side of the hall, each with an actors name on it, placed on a cliched star. When Margret found her door and entered she was surprised to be in a small, cubed room, made completely of concrete that appeared to be painted in a bluish color. The wall to her left was made completely of thick glass, where she could see into the other room that, similar in build, was painted in a shade of orange. She was surprised to see the actress who looked like an older version of herself on the other side, and then she heard the door lock.