P.S. - Interesting bit of meta for those of you into that sort of thing; Poe (the singer not the writer) also appears in the film. She just so happens to be the sister of Mark Z. Danielewski (the writer not the singer) who wrote Christian’s favorite book House of Leaves. You might have heard him mention it once or twice.
I bet you think running this site is all fun and games. Oh sure, I have an unhealthy addiction for Mahjong that I have been trying to pass off on Anna, but that is besides the point. I don’t get to just lay around all day, watching whatever I want whenever I want. I have, like, a system. A rigorous, temperamental system.
When I first started this column it was meant to be an excuse for me to finally watch certain films I had always wanted to watch when I was younger, but for whatever reason, had simply never gotten around to doing so. But while that selfishly worked well as an initial idea, that wasn’t going to be enough to fuel a column, let alone an entire site. So thus my initial idea inevitably began to expand.
Soon I began to look for films that would push me out of my comfort zone, as well as those that would have appealed to me when I was a youth. From there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to include reviews of true independent films and hard to find foreign films as well. Finally, I began to track down movies that were out of print or simply never released in the US. And as I added on each new group of films, the list of movies I planned to watch and review grew increasingly larger and more daunting.
Finally a week in which I have plenty of options to choose from! The last several have left me grasping at straws in order to supply even a halfway decent recommendation, both DVD releases and theatrical releases are giving me a few options to pass on.
In theaters this week is the latest work of genius from Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York, which I’m sure will leave everyone scratching their heads while simultaneously praising it. So you know, a typical Charlie Kaufman film, only this time on a far grander scale.
As for DVD releases I had a bit more of a struggle in trying to choose which film to recommend. As you can probably imagine Hellboy II: The Golden Army was calling to me, but while I loved Hellboy II, I have instead decided to go in another direction and select a film I haven’t seen yet, and no one else has either. This particular film has taken seven years to make, and is just beginning to make a run as a midnight movie here in the US, and for those of you living in the Minneapolis metro area, you will be able to see it at The Uptown Theatre on November 22nd. It should be a great midnight show, so hopefully you will be in attendance. But for those of you who can’t wait, The Flaming Lips: Christmas on Mars will be released on DVD this Tuesday.
Next week’s film is one I have wanted to see for some time, only its limited release and subsequently falling out of print made this film incredibly difficult to find. But why do I want to see this film? Well, because it is the second film in history (the first being Alfred Hitchcock’sRope) to attempt shooting the entire film in one continuous shot. Not only that, it stars the immortal Bruce Campbell. That’s right, next week’s movie is the elusive, immortal, Running Time.
I must admit, I wasn’t expecting much from Turkey Shoot heading into my screening of it. I figured it would merely be a terrible little film that would be easy for me to skewer and as a result a good laugh would be had by all. I certainly wasn’t expecting a film that would somehow perfectly represent the goals of this site, and as a result somehow turn into a minor obsession.
I have always had a bit of a soft spot for Australian films. While it is probably due to my early introduction to the Mad Max films, as I slowly discovered others I realized that their was something about their visceral delivery along with their kinetic visual style that appealed to me even then , and has continued ever since.
I am totally a day late and a dollar short. I had to work early yesterday and I also wanted to finally swing by the comic book shop to pick up my comics for the past month. I really just wanted to pick up a trade from Top Shelf called Veeps, but evidently it isn’t coming out until next week.
For the second week in a row the theaters are flooded with 50,000 new releases, all of the potentially crappy. That being said, I am still interested in seeing Clint Eastwood’s latest effort Changeling, even though his last film was so awful it almost put me off his movies for good.
DVD releases are even tougher as they are limited AND crappy. I don’t care what buzz you heard about Transsiberian, it is truly terrible. Avoid it like the plague. Thus my DVD recommendation is for When Did You Last See Your Father, a film that I heard was good, but looks far too sappy for me to ever watch it for fear of crying like a 32 year old me tends to cry, in bunches.
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