thirty-four reviews

eric andre.

boiling point (1990)

/psychological realism doesn't have much credo and yet I find a definite gap between some director's ambitions and other's. Credit to the filmmaking practices which honor "the dreamy look" or heighten the everyday boredom we all face.

old forester bourbon

originally I thought it had a nutty taste but now I'm not so sure. all whiskey starting to taste like soda to me. tried "angel's envy" at my friend's wedding and it was like, not top shelf? but it had that tasty burn with the flavor in the high notes

dead man, jim jarmusch

my friend (roommate) kept going gaga over the textures in this film, her friend too, talking about how black and white movies often the filmmakers want to bring out the textures, three or four textures in this film, linear, floral, feathers/hair, and a weird beehive one she couldn't place

edward saint albee's "alice"

I just bought this because it was cheap and signed by the author. the bookstore I bought it from was the fence for theft from the library system I work at.

heaven can wait 1948

old style of gentleman which was a sexuality in this face and lips, delicate and gentle. kind of winning presence you immediately feel like you could trust. don ameche takes this trust and abuses it

the paintings of zak smith

I mentioned this in my "frostbitten and mutilated" review but I don't care for portraits drawn from photographs. it's dumb to say that considering how do I know what is, and what isnt, drawn from a photograph. I usually miss the appeal w.e.

squidbillies-- seasons 2&3 are good

tommy tone "bad to to the tone"

listened to this uhh twenty three times

wigle's rye whiskey

rye tastes like flowers and shit but wigle's is good enough to stay appealing. although I hate rye I can get it

stonecutter volume 5

good

kero blaster

bosses are good played 1/2

bayonetta

hate how the scope of the game narrows to be about this generic classical architecture + industrial setting especially since at the beginning it promises to be world-hopping

simpleflips

what's the appeal of simpleflips? he's sorta rotten at the core and always on the verge of falling over. he's not that good despite being talented. watching him is like someone trying to renovate a too-old skyscraper

tfue (a twitch streamer- simpleflips too -ed)

I keep thinking of david foster wallace's tennis youth in "infnite jest" who have nicknames and have a sort of pecking order eaten away by sheer athleticism, that there's something worth pursuing... comradely sort

communism

talked to some maoists who might see this. afai can tell viewing the cultural revolution in a mostly positive lens is bleh, seeing anything but all the usual negative patterns of communism in the great leap forward is eye-and-ear shutting. plus all the stuff about stalin and like, didn't the bolsheviks establish a secret police almost immediately??

did some research on the movement, learned maybe for the first time that some topics are wide enough to encompass several international views. that being said I feel 48% confident that these maoists are relying on conspiracy theories to wipe clean the slates of their heroes

anarchist coffee down the street

it's actually called "artisan's coffee house". zeke is friendly but the coffee's never been good, and even the good stuff, although the chai is to die for I've heard

kraynick's

best bicycle shop in pittsburgh epicenter I wonder if it's the case that as an artist your job is to go find a budding community and sit over it like a fat toad sharing criticism and free talent

barry lyndon

not actually all shot in natural lighting kinda ruins the movie once my friend john told me this. that being said though:

--the scene with the german farm wife
--the scene where barry throws the glass at leonard rossiter
--leonard rossiter is so hype
--the natural-lit scene with the english flag, like the second scene
--steven berkoff


the duelists 1977

fantastic but the ending sucks

johnny depp

johnny always gives the movie something to work with albeit it's often wasted. that's all there is to say

drive (the movie)

I didn't have much appreciation for the film outside the kissing scene and the opening, however in retrospect I like some of the settings, like the pizza shop, I like bryan cranston although he's underused, and I retroactively like oscar isaac because he's my crush

annihilation (the movie)

there's only two good parts, the first scene where natalie portman is grieving, and then the videotape near the end where oscar isaac is talking to his double. I like the interior of the lighthouse, I like jennifer jason leigh although she didn't save the end

the hateful eight

"quentin taratino can just shit out good movies" - the red letter media guys, paraphrased

el topo (already reviewd, albeit this review was written before the previously published review -ed)

quite excellent and jodorowsky gives a fucking excellent performance especially in the last 1/4

fellini satyricon

I watched the opening of this movie like the first forty minutes that my free trial of wondershare file converter managed to convert every third day for about a month

impressionism about anthropology and history is the way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!

the cook the thief the wife and her lover

I watched the first forty minutes of this film an awful lot, too. fellini satyricon just stays really fucking good the whole movie though and this film only knows how to do 2 scenes

the rum diaries (2011)

this movie only knows how to do three scenes and it just vacillitates between three: johnny depp is doing something, aaron eckhart says "sea of money", amber heard blue balls johnny

aaron eckhart

kind of our george clooney if george clooney had to retire

ex machina (2014)

think about this all the time. not bcause of technology but bcause of oscar isaac weird sexiness he imposes on "domhnall". "I put a port in her and if you fucked her she'd like it". modern male tech sexuality dominance stuff like who else doin that???

the tech industry's full of nerds

guardians of the galaxy vol 1-- bad

a woman under the influence (1974)

a bunch of good scenes and can't give enough credit to how it was filmed, handheld with an attention to and somewhat sloppy focus. think about gena rowlands gesticulations. stopped at the 2/3 point never got around to the end

eric andre show

in the eric andre show, isn't he filming himself grabbing at people's genitals or getting his staff to do that? if you watch the series as I have there's a lot of eric reaching for people's genitals or his staff doing that to irritate the guests/people.

lamentations of the flame princess- good but my developing dm style, the harsh stuff, is drawing criticism... is an instadeath trap so inappropriate?

luke kennard's "cain"
Luke Kennard is FUCKING AROUND with this one. "31 anagram poems [of] Genesis 4:9-12". around each of these is a frame of red text transcribing a fictional DVD commentary. can't figure these out

wuvable oaf: blood & metal

wuvable oaf is good and queer baby

marquis de sade's "juliette"

somewhere within this tome is the chapter wherein juliette goes to visit kinda a bluebeard guy who has a castle full of human furniture. read that excerpt in andre breton's anthology of black humor. can't find that part

Anointed skeleton Class for lamentations of the flame princess

Your corpus was blessed by necromantic energies and blessed again by an ancient ritual applied widely within Vecna’s ranks. As a result you are an animated skeleton with intelligence, devoted to Vecna, who is missing as of late. You have a gem embedded in your forehead and may be painted.

Stat adjustments:
int = 10
cha = 1
dex +2
no con score.

Immunities:
Skeletons are not affected by cold and cannot eat, sleep, drink, or breathe. They can speak.

Darkvision:
Skeletons can see 60 feet without light in black and white.

Damage Reduction:
A skeleton has damage deduction 5/bludgeoning. They are destroyed at 0 hp.

Purpose:
You may never act against Vecna in thought, word, or action.

Starting Hp d12, minimum hp 6. Hp increase as Dwarf.

Saves/xp as fighter, BAB does not increase.

"the heart, she holler" reviewed

the heart, she holler review

i could do a review of PFFR and like vernon chatman but I don't have the biographical skills to really get anywhere with that. PFFR with uh wonder showzen xavier and the heart she holler does tv horror comedy. grossout, internitonally terrible social critique, apocalypse, extremely high joke density. heart she holler has 4-5 great comedic actors doing their damndest in a free-spirit environment. patton oswalt heather lawless jonathan hadary amy sedaris. everyone else on the show is at least a good support. 

drawing out the horror and weirdness in southern soap operas and then riffing there, bristling visual and auditory excitement. you could talk about joke structures but its sort of pointless; there are a lot of jokes. sfx are profuse immaculate and perfectly self conscious. my favorite horror bit is amy sedaris's kids who are like "the room" kids, they live their whole lives in a space beneath her well-used mattress. they're filthy, speak in neutral monotone and have quiet smiles on their faces... being led back in to their hole one says "is this part of the joke? Ha ha, I get it". 

part of horror is the bristle, taking you to that place and squeezing, "ha ha I made you uncomfortable!" its just what I needed... make it mean, make me suffer...

 .  .  .

some of my favorite tv producers like brendon small seem like they're boring california creatives. jon h benjamin the exception probably bc he's like a california creative who takes up a public persona. But they all look grapes of wrath people:

Still from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)

Vernon Chatman.

Still from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000)

H Jon Benjamin.

Brendon Small.

Still from "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940)

brief reviews of some explicit movies

Duane Hanson's "Woman Eating"

visitor q

necrophilia scene is the best, plus all the followup. and the kid who beats his mom with the carpet beater's good. also the opening scene at the love hotel. what's not to like? the quality of the film online is not good as much as I would want it to be. 

caligula

blowjob/marching scene is good, that happens like near the end when caligula is prostituting all of the senator's wives. overall this movie is a boner (the bad kind) and malcolm macdowell's acting which isn't good anyway is destroyed by his makeup. Like there's a lot of sorta porno camerawork where the edit will go to a close up of someone's genitals. But there's also a surprising amount of restriant believe it or not, as much as it's mostly heterosexual it also at times seems like a genuine attempt to bring out some gravitas. the husband/wife newlywed rape by caligula scene is also good at least conceptually.

der samurai

a german queer cinema film, kinda low budget, has some good acting, some really good action choreography, at times, with Pit Kukowski at least. you have to give the queer message credit (the killer is the prophetic lover of the protagonist) but I think there's a more uncomfortable deeper sexuality, animal lust, that the movie doesn't credit or use. I mean yeah in the final scene Pit's dick is out and he's getting a boner but... he's not using it? 

Like, emerging queerness is alike a killer with a sword, cool yeah, it's like a wolf, little more cliche... where's the sex.

bullitt

relentlessly pro-police but still a good movie. one of those films with a really complicated plot; but executed with the as-advertised genuine police dialogue. I love scenes of political power struggle set up by dialogue set up by overlapping and conflicting professional social scripts

letterkenny

dialogue, yet again... but also action, and music. there's a good and complete understanding of albertans and 3-4 different slices of the social pie: jocks, indians, the more traditional farmers, meth-heads. Each group, the farmers especially, has a total patter, a complex, constantly funny, wide social band of emotion. The show often kinda stops there and it's good enough, it's really fucking good.

there's this constant dreamworld of sex and young adults where all the older people are gone; there's a sense and a hint that the main family, most of the family, are survivors of child abuse... and what happy survivors... what a community, an idyll, could be, even with meth.

the show  eventually dissolves into just really good wordplay, which is like saying "my sex life eventually dissolved into just really good nipple play".

westworld 1973

best scene, the loser-turned-hero finds a damsel strapped up in a cell in Medievalworld. he rescues her and offers her water. she refuses, he insists, he pours the water into her and she short-circuits. about half the movie seems interested in drawing out that message but there's a lot of wish-fufillment too-subtly undercut by it. that being said we all know the movie's success is due to the concept which is pretty good; I mean they're running through Pompeii and everyone, robots and guests, are stabbed dead on the ground, there's some shots of them getting all stabbed to death too.

a clockwork orange

did I already review this? more and more convinced it deserves to be watched on a bigger screen, I have a chunky old huge HD crt. U have to watch from the start and focus on the red and then u can kinda not mind as it zooms out and just take the music in. and yea the rape scene that comes in a little later is well-coordinated fersure. But I really like the music am sort of convinced of Beethoven's power. But yeah other than that the social dynamics wherein these mod beefed-up guys are everywhere, are sort of the child protectors vs. ppl like alex, that's cool... you have to get into rape scenes like I'm getting into and then you enjoy the singing in the rain scene pretty much but I think I like the stuff in jail even more, not any prison-rape but just Alex studying the bible, having these slow, procedural conversations with prison officials... kubrick good at bringing those to a fever pitch

eyes wide shut

in 1080p the blue light used behind nicole kidman in the dream confession scene seems super artificial, and if you watch a documentary you can pick out the parts where tom cruise is on a treadmill and they're using front projection. thought about hyperrealism last time I put this together. specifically duane hanson's "Woman Eating", bc, you know, every scene outside of the orgy scenes are built to be hyperrealistic and that's what you can appreciate, depiction of reality with all the cues. Also Tom Cruise is eternally lovely as Bill, I noticed the moral struggle outlined in the semifinal scene for the first time a couple watches ago, Bill in his social script having to outline the moral compromise he is going to make with his superior Ziegler.

the devils 1971

pretty much perfect, the decline starts with oliver reed's limited range but michael gothard swings in and reinvents the picture. trap me in a convent, baby!!!

the plumber

better than I expected, despite the post-bourgeoise leanings it still goes on a great tear with Ivar Kants and it's quite sexual.

I walked with a zombie

hatian houseman with a guitar sings a ballad and walks up to the female white protagonist, and it's supposed to be menacing. really great scene with the white guy's alcoholism, there's drums in the background slowly getting faster throughout a dinner scene confrontation. there's that sequence where the females go out wearing lowing flowing robes towards the voodoo ritual in the woods and its quite magical, like a genre transposition into fairytale. so many scenes with the surprising good lighting. you watch old movies sometimes and this is one of those which is actually good and holds up, it's trying to make horror out of white people having to deal with black people and in the process manages to showcase some black actors / culture which is like, exceedingly rare in 1943, it's what gives the film life

el topo, the holy mountain

recently some buzz in pittsburgh about how row house cinema disclosed to its customers right before a midnight screening of el topo that alejandro jodrowsky apparently filmed live rape which is in the movie. no credit to alejandro for phrasing it that way for fifty years or whatever, and you can't know the conditions of the actress and so on, so who's to say? I'm fading into "never giving a shit about the ethics of the filmmaker, or maybe even of production", trying to figure out the theoretical props for that statement. anyway el topo is through and through a master's movie, the holy mountain is actually worse. u could say "it reclaims the western" for el topo and it'd be fair. I prefer some other movie to the holy mountain I forget what it is

charlotte rampling

you know what's funny? C.R. is really good in "zardoz". in a movie that is overfull of practical fx and a stupid hippy ensemble cast that's used quite well anyway Charlotte has these sharp three second reaction shots, does the dramatic scenes with the full of her vigor, to bikini'd sean connery. and she gets on a horse and rides the fuck out of it, furious... 

dark souls: briefly reviewd

anyway dark souls is a game about killing  your opponents with overly slow melee attacks. exaggerated windups! yes ladies and gentleman it's largely inspired by mmos. it's just diablo.

diablo is good and what was always good about diablo was the playerbase around it. how clear it is in dark souls's intentions to create a playerbase. and how generous!

privates on parade (1983)

everyone loves postmodernity if it means specifically: taking something old and remaking it but doing it really well. Is that what postmodernity means? yes.

a lot of the benefits are strictly technological, like just the quality and craft. but there is also the reverse of nostalgia there which is so important. it doesn't have to be more than an honest backwards look, because nostalgia is never honest.

this film tho is also really smart as well as honest like I said. it knows all the ins and outs of military stuff enough to get all the actors' military acting right, the military dialogue, the military traditions. the purpose of this accuracy is to better lampoon...

that this film is ultimately not just a lampoon is maybe overreach on the filmmaker's parts. but it's original so... at least it's original for Peter.

d100 city encounters

still from 1978's "Jubilee"

if necessary roll 2d6x10' for encounter distance.

1. saxophone music is coming from somewhere
2. man publically selling eggs, cutting hair
3. a mouse election?
4. 3 card monte but the shill won't stop winning or let anyone else play
5. something the players would really want is on sale
6. ...at a closed store that never opens
7. competing funeral processions
8. whatever building the players are trying to get to, a horde of golems are dissembling it for complex bureaucratic reasons, all the building's staff have their possessions in their hands or in piles at their feet (original, similar idea by d. sell I think -ed)
9. fat, gross cat to accompany party
10. man selling trained bats
11. graffiti is obviously a url, if you follow it leads to clues (let's see you improvise THAT -ed)
12. quality brothel
13. street-side liposuction & other cosmetic surgeries... tummy tuck... bone reduction
14. abandoned death ray
15. folks burning a library
16. lynching
17. brick thieves tearing up a street
18. coal truck leaking coal, urchins follow
19. 3 card monte but dumbass dealer
20. herd of pigs playing flutes guided by pigherd
21. ugly and territorial goose terrorizing schoolchildren
22. superhero makes appearance, saves someone
23. leaping suicide
24. leaping suicide but there's still time to save them
25. nearby bombing
26. violent protest + suppression by
1. police
2. soldiers
3. rival faction
4. mysterious hooded beings
27. red neighborhood of gushing communists
28. chase + cliche
1. fruit cart
2. workers carrying glass
3. "kiss me!"
4. banana peel
29. evil plan they were wondering about clearly reported in blown-by newspaper
30. bicycles recently invented
31. demon inviting you into its well, inside:
1. needs people to try its demon candy, effects: (will give you a package of the candy if you try one, and will let you go)
1. horrible lust for the worst possible person
2. eyeballs permanently switch to reverse side of head, uncurable
3. genitals yell extremely loud next time used
4. snake pills make snakes grow inside your body, they never leave, somewhat friendly
2. "care for a game of chess"? willing to bet metaphysical stakes
3. you find yourself leaving the well as soon as you climb in, and some time has passed
4. needs someone to scratch its back, but only with their big toe... rewards demon jewlery:
1. stinky bone attached to rope of beads, wards against good ideas
2. toe ring that doubles your aging
3. fat bracelet, makes you unconsciously always do rude gestures
4. choker that completely removes the desire to do good from your brain when worn
32. random PC has STD flare-up
33. russian roulette street preacher (from "el topo" -ed)
34. a bunch of kids all coming this way playing russian roulette each with a gun. they all keep winning but there's some incidental fire
35. shore leave sailors en masse harass, cajole, befriend, fight, entertain, won't let you leave
36. flock of schoolkids running with scissors
37. firefighters dousing melting piano + burned pianist, another victim of the mysterious "piano killer..."
38. fancy duel
39. megalomaniac archer trying to find a kid to shoot an apple off the head of
40. public execution by strangling taking really long and exhausting stranglers, officiant wants to know if PCs can help out
41. weed-whacker style invention on the loose, pursued by inventor
42. persistent singing merchants, as if leading up to a musical number
43. speakeasy raid
44. cheap crabcakes
45. the mayor is making a speech...
1. and an evil clown is standing behind him & to the left
2. ...banning:
1. knives
2. open sale of furniture
3. all dogs
4. -- establishing a curfew due to the "piano killer"
3. presenting a medal to a heretofore unknown but somehow still popularly known superhero 
4. he's at the part of the speech where he's taking questions
46. team of horses transporting giant stone head (from: "fellini satyricon" -ed)
47. mass suicide
48. man beating wife in street
49. man beating domestic partner in street
50. panhandler is persistent to the point of archvillainry
51. giant scoby everyone ignores
52. loose, wild horse is really destructive
53. girl-watching crowd assembled and in wait
54. the emperor is visiting
55. public theatre performance features a real punitive amputation and then an incidental, real drama about a slave (also from satyricon -ed)
56. old men in quantity trying to win the favors of noblewoman who is obligated to do public tryouts, she can't leave till they all go
57. hideous, racist memorial unveiling
58. the olympics are here
59. fresh-faced youth recruiting for suicidal adventure
60. near-perfect-quality fakes being painted and sold on street; these have obvious value, there's a growing crowd
61. gang sawing off head of feminist hero statue
62. it's one of the days where a nearby factory, or the equivalent, releases so much pollution that activity has to be limited and people with trouble breathing nearly die. 
63. gang of artists stalking and assassinating cops
64. street gang with rocks really trying to hurt you
65. large and terrible fire
66. adults egging on a child protester to stall carriages and throw rocks
67. spies making contact but they're loud enough that it's obvious
68. extremely powerful rare earth magnets on travelling display and for a high price
69. accurate fortune telling from nomads
70. feast
71. you overhear a demonic ritual taking place in a building, they mean to cast Summon
72. mass shooting, one shooter many victims, underway in nearby basement
73. conmen attempting the "pigeon drop" on y'all
74. eating contest, presumably bizarre
75. people are chasing a feral cats to bag and burn
76. fan of your exploits wants to join your party, has law trouble secretly
77. crowd of your fans going "beatles"-level crazy and tearing at your clothes
78. stand selling hemlock at steep discount + a feverish rush to buy
79. rich and jealous lover burning effigy of copulating rivals... semiritual... 
80. ventriloquist + dummy have stolen crown jewels and are openly wearing them (and mocking the crown). highly powerful ppl
81. community college is offering some appealing classes
82. band playing songs with subject matter distantly about the player characters
83. dispute over plagiarized poetry about 10 seconds away from becoming a gunfight
84. drug dealers offering regional variants on meth
85. quality hand grenades for sale
86. people are looting a gun store in advance of the cops. a battle has already killed the original perps and almost all of the staff 
87. dedicated & doomed advance on the capital building, will result in a hours-long siege
88. Guru CAN teach you the secret to levitation
89. Tourists in quantity also curious about you
90. Large public dance
91. abandoned & spilled mailbag
92. posters everywhere advertise a play, tickets are expensive, going gives you 1 skill point in Art Appreciation
93. Black cat keeps crossing your path
94. Alley tank is damaged, seeping much:
1. Powerful glue
2. Lantern oil
3. Jellied Goldschläger (delicious!)
4. Plasma (can be used to refill plasmic cores or inhaled as plasmic cores, is quite dangerous)
95.  Economic boom! All characters offered reliable jobs.
96.  Economic bust! All characters with reliable jobs are fired.
97. One random character with a reliable job is fired with little cause.
98. Chance encounter with a previous villain, now reformed.
99. Uncanny doppleganger adventuring group encountered
100. Police brutality.