Onslaught comedy is always daring

In 2023 I saw this split screen frame of Dasha Nekrasova and a phone and was intrigued. What could this be? It looks so innovative, new, fresh = novelty was born. It’s from Wobble Palace (2018, Eugene Kotlyarenko), and for me it was everything I could ask for in an independent film. Gross I know I’ve been using that word a lot, like way too much lately. How did I put it? “a film that takes you somewhere boring to watch boring people do something boring, yet you want to be there.” Wobble Palace is basically mumblecore through iphones. 

     Totally unrelated, 2023 was probably also around the time I saw Assholes (2017, Peter Vack) for the first time, which was different. I love shock. And I thought Betsey Brown was amazing. The first 2/3 of Assholes is some of the funniest shit I’ve seen. Actually before that I think I might’ve heard didn’t Jane Schoenbrun say they pulled out of a festival because it was screening Actors (2021, Betsey Brown)? I loved Actors, but it also brought back my craving for what happened to independent films? And why have I forgot about them? And where can I find more like this? 

I hate social media. It makes me want to vomit when I go for a walk and everybody’s sucked into this vortex in the palm of their hand as they walk, heads bowed into their lap as they drive; texting; screens, the whole. But I accept it. It’s a part of life. Although why would I wanna see it non-stop for an hour and a half in a theater?
     The Code (2024, Kotlyarenko) is like this screwball comedy that bombards you with more cuts than Natural Born Killers; it kinda feels like, remember Tarnation (2003, Jonathan Caouette)? Like diy home movie editing footage-software at hyperspeed. I can love too slow movies just as much as I can love too fast movies, if they work for me. Have you ever noticed something like His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks) or One, Two, Three (1961, Billy Wilder) have dialogue that speeds by faster than anything the mtv or tiktok medium has influenced-resulted in? Way faster. It’s nothing new.
     Okay but anyway, The Code works best for me as a comedy when the couple are trying to uncover some dark secret about each other. Mostly the guy, JAY, really. There’s this bit about how much porn is on his girlfriend CELINE’S phone, and like I guess I don’t wanna spoil it but the types of stuff he finds is delightfully hilarious. And her tiktok tutorial voice same.
     But the material in the hands of these performers is even better. They’re all skilled, experienced at being provocative, outspoken, adept at discourse on culture witty in real life. Especially so with Ivy Wolk. She’s actually funny, and moments that we feel her personality translates, unlike, is it me or did she seem underutilized in Anora? Ivy Wolk also represents this new, if you’re old this stuff isn’t for you, rebellious, forward-thinking voice in culture-entertainment now (because now the two are merged), but she, like The Code, are really just entertaining and legitimately funny. 
     Like I said earlier, this stuff makes me want more. Although I can only take so much at a time. It’s kinda throwaway. But so is most entertainment. There’s a lot to be said though about the way it experiments with the language-form of cinema and culture, yet not at the sacrifice of being fun to watch. Leaves me very happy to have got to see this.
 
4/21/2025 Plaza Theatre
Atlanta, GA

So ugly slow you'll either swing too early or miss it entirely

Do you ever feel like when someone starts making some analogies they cross a line and it no longer works for you? Because I’m about to dabble. I’m so taken with this philosophical line the Mark Wiener character says at the end of Palindromes (2004, Todd Solondz) about two kinds of people: the depressed type or the mindless happy type, that I think it accurately can express my favorite types of movies. 

     The depressed type, or what others have always described my entire life as “those dark weird movies” I like, are the ones that I take seriously—the important ones. In the last 10 years the only truly great movie I could think of was I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020, Charlie Kaufman). Ordinary types of characters with unusual or difficult conflicts or aesthetics?
     But I also love what I’m gonna describe as the mindless happy types. Genre films. Entertaining films. They can still be dark, and weird, and amazing though too. So through this entirely separate filter, in answer to the question what truly great films have I seen in the last 10 years, in that case I’d say: Tenet (2020, Christopher Nolan) and The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn), along with everything by Joseph Kahn. 
     However, beyond knowing the kinds of movies I love, what’s left isn’t the types of movies I hate. Sure, the rest, most movies then, don’t do anything for me. But the middleground are the movies I go to watch because I enjoy watching movies. I wanna pitch the idea that usually movies made in the context of a corporate infrastructure, or business model can be fun, but afterwards leave me empty, sometimes even remorse-disappointed; but the beauty of what we call independent movies is that even if you don’t really get anything out of it, the experience can be uplifting, illuminating, rewarding, because whether you call it art, or the little guy, or authentic, I have always pursued that specific joy you get from independent movies. If the bug hit you like it hit me, there’s such a charming magic the first time you see something like Down by Law (1986, Jim Jarmusch), My Own Private Idaho (1991, Gus Van Sant), or Kids (1995, Larry Clark). Admittedly, the term independent, when referring to a movie or director, can get muddy. But you know it when you feel it.
     When I forget about independent movies, something new always comes along. First it was Dogme 95. Then mumblecore. Most recently, Peter Vack, Betsey Brown, Eugene Kotlyarenko do it for me. It’s an exhilarating feeling watching indie cinema you can’t compare to anything else. But like punk and grunge, you gotta be careful, because mainstream interests wanna sell it to you, and sometimes it's crap counterfeit. 
 
I’d never gone to watch a sporting event before. Last year I was invited to a baseball game. It was the Atlanta Braves vs somebody. Detroit I think. I forget who won. The thing I was really looking forward to though is how on tv when they go to all those commercials during the game I think that’s so obnoxious. I wondered what a live game would be like. But when I went, it had just as much loud, obnoxious advertisements that there really wasn’t any difference at all. I don’t like sports though. That’s just me.

   
Eephus (2024, Carson Lund) has the quality of an independent film that takes you somewhere boring to watch boring people do something boring, yet you want to be there. I mean that’s basically the point of any movie, if you think about it: to make you forget about what time it is, what’s going on outside the theater, your life, your job, your phone, and not wonder when the damn thing’s gonna be over. Usually the gimmick is to make something with a built in figurative “ticking clock,” to keep the audience invested. The sublime is when you get what the movie is and, like in Eephus, realize once the experience has begun, there’s no payoff, because it’s one of those rare movies that don’t operate like that. Or I mean, it doesn't bait you to wait for the payoff at the end. Maybe think like that dude said in Heat, "for me the action is the juice." Like Cassavettes, or Altman, or Jarmusch movies.
     Here’s where I hope I’m not overdoing the metaphors but: the baseball game in Eephus feels like an independent movie. The players aren’t there ‘cause they care about each other, or care about winning or losing, or money, or any other sort of gain from it. They’re there because like us, something in them realizes it only exists because they’re there for it to. 
     That’s why no fans in the bleachers, or corporate advertising, or any capitalist mechanisms are present. When that food truck shows up, the one old dude in the stands says something about you don’t eat pizza at a ball game, you eat hot dogs. Eephus is fun. It really made me appreciate an understated beauty in tradition. And all of the players are very different in their approach. But they’re all a part of it in their own way.
     And when I use my criteria for appreciating movies (plot, character, dialogue, genre, and setting), I don’t find many movies that really manage to masterfully use setting. That field in Eephus packs so much atmosphere as soon as we get there. How many baseball fields have I been to in my life? And I don’t even play baseball. It brings a comforting familiarity with it. And what’s up with how even the players in the movie sometimes lose track of someone? Yet nothing stops the game. 
     Eephus is proof of what an independent movie can do that a commercial movie can’t. And it’s well done in the sense it doesn’t ever feel sentimental, or go for the easy tropes of say, a sports movie. I suppose the proof you’ve experienced a great indie movie is that afterwards you have felt something, thought something, or laughed, had a good time, in a modest, simple way. But it’s okay. If you have ventured off the beaten path and come away without any of that, there’s a name for that too: an art film. Unless of course it really sucks, then there's a name for that too: a low-budget movie.
 
4/16/2025 Tara Theater
Atlanta, GA

Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus

Has there even been a truly great movie released in the last 10 years? First sign there’s trouble is how long it took me to come up with an answer to this question, which ended up being I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020, Charlie Kaufman). Although this does tell me a lot about my taste. Ordinary, plain, flawed characters inhabiting domestic spaces charged with fear or sadness? Yet still funny at times. Or formally experimental. Like Luis Buñuel, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Alan Clarke, Hal Hartley, Todd Solondz, Lars von Trier, Claire Denis and Michael Haneke.
     I don’t think I’ll ever give up on the state of contemporary movies. I’m just really picky. And it’s one thing if a personal favorite, a great movie, holds up over time. It’s another when you come back to a movie you enjoyed and over time you find it to prove itself to be even better.
     In the 90s I’d seen Todd Solondz’s first few films on vhs. But I was living in Portland, OR at the time it came out and saw Palindromes (2004, Todd Solondz) at the Fox Tower theater. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it since. So when I saw a new 4K restoration was screening in my neighborhood I wondered what it’d be like to see it after all this time in a theater again.
 

Palindromes is an abortion-pedophile comedy. Its protagonist is a child named AVIVA, who’s portrayed by several different actresses. But there’s nothing cringe about it. Its tone vacillates between tender, sad, shock, jawdropping, and hilarious. 

     Seeing the new restoration on a big screen for the first time I noticed right away that it’s shot on 16mm. I never noticed that before in all my years. It wasn't until later in life that I was able to recognize the difference between 16 and 35 projected. Something else I noticed for the first time: almost all of the actresses playing Aviva speak in a wispy babytalk withdrawn kinda way. I guess it's fitting because if this movie’s about anything, it’s children. 

 
I can’t believe I’d never wondered if the structure of Palindromes is a palindrome. Duh of course it is. I mean I don’t think it’s overt. Okay it’s made up of 8 chapters, right? Chapter 1 “Dawn,” and Chapter 8 “Mark,” each have a moment where Aviva asks if she’ll end up like Dawn Wiener; in “Dawn,” we hear Dawn Wiener killed herself because (according to Missy Wiener) she was pregnant from a date rape, and in “Mark,” we find Mark Wiener has been recently accused (according to Missy Wiener) of being a child molester.
 
In Chapter 2 “Judah” Aviva wants a baby (not love) and offers herself sexually to some dude, and in Chapter 7 “Bob” Aviva falls in love with some dude and offers to have sex (not to get pregnant) with him.
 
In Chapter 3 “Henry” Aviva’s forced to get an abortion, and pro-life protesters yell at her. Also in this segment Aviva’s mom warns her against having the child because of risks children of young mothers very often face: “What if it’s deformed? If it’s missing a leg or an arm or a nose or an eye? If it’s brain damaged or mentally retarded?” In Chapter 6 “Mama Sunshine” Aviva boards in the house of a pro-life Christian family, where there’s a scene with Peter Paul who prays for all of the unborn babies in heaven “even the ones that aren’t wrapped in plastic bags; even the ones that were strangled, suffocated, drowned, or incinerated; even the ones whose bodies were pulled apart limb by limb and cut off, eyes plucked out; even the ones who had no fingers or toes, missing ears or noses, no brain or heart.”
 
In Chapter 4 “Henrietta” Aviva runs away and hides in the back of a semi as a stowaway. In Chapter 5 “Huckleberry” Aviva runs away and drifts down the river in a boat.
 
I remember at the time it was first released I’d picked up on how it was the first Solondz film that didn’t have one of those surreal fantasy scenes, y’know (everyone loves Dawn, Maplewood mass shooter in the park, Scooby on Conan). But Palindromes instead has this kind of children’s story aesthetic thing going on throughout, with the lullaby, and pastel hued chapter cards.
     Palindromes also could be the first Solondz film to feature a scene with his philosophical dialogues. And who better but Mark Wiener to deliver them? It’s that scene at the end when Mark gives his speech about genes and randomness. That’s what sticks with me. That counterpoint. At one point in his speech, Mark mentions the “depressed type,” and the “mindless happy type.” Aren’t these 2 the only types found in all of Todd Solondz’s films? But in Palindromes, it’s clearly Aviva who’s the mindless happy type. And when depressed nihilistic Mark says: “You might lose some weight. Your face might clear up. Get a body tan, breast enlargement, a sex change. It makes no difference. Essentially, from in front, from behind, whether you’re 13 or 50, you’ll always be the same.” And I don’t need to put it into words, but in the “Huckleberry” chapter, times having changed quite a bit, when I saw that little boy actor playing Aviva, it meant a little more this time.
 
4/13/2025 Plaza Theatre
Atlanta, GA

This town ain't got no hat-size no how

The key to interpreting Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973, Sam Peckinpah) is the line of dialogue spoken by Garrett: “This country’s gettin’ old and I plan to grow old with it.” I mean duh. But what makes the film so compelling is how the Garrett character embodies, let’s say this mythical restructuring shift depiction of America growing up; and that in doing so, it seems he’s encumbered with the sole task of getting rid of the Kid; yet throughout the entire course of the narrative Garrett does everything he can to prolong its completion. Because Garrett’s got morals. And he knows once he goes through with it, he’ll lose that part of himself. But he goes through with it anyway. And it’s at that final decisive moment that he suddenly realizes he loses all of himself.
     Garrett’s conflict is so profound because he thinks he’s doing what needs to be done according to the law. Although in Peckinpah’s film, the US government establishes a law that’s not about justice, but about the interests of power elites who’ve bought the control to protect their own interests—and of course there’s nothing subtle about Peckinpah’s coda crawl he wants to link this corruption to the present. And in the legend this elegy mourns, it’s of course that much more emotional with the added father-son dynamic Peckinpah imbues it with. 
     Garrett’s stubborn willful ignorance or denial about the whole thing is his fatal flaw. When he’s in Lemuel’s (Chill Wills) saloon, we see this emphasized when the proprietor confronts Garrett with this painful truth, to which an angered Garrett defensively berates Lemuel because his “eyes ain’t seen nothin’ but the bad side of news since he been in this territory,” then goes on to literally pull the wool over Lemuel’s eyes. Was this darker side of Garrett always there, or did it emerge out of necessity? And by Garrett I mean American justice. Recall the vitriol in Garrett’s spite over the capitalist motivated politicians and power wielding business men like Gov Wallace and Chisum early on.
     But James Coburn as Garrett is the best part of the movie. His moral deterioration and cool detached bitter condescension above everyone else is handled perfectly through the performance. And his blackhat costumes throughout with that cigar clenched in his jaws, as stylish as they are, and as much as they fit a stock villain, can’t make us feel like he’s the real bad guy here. Or is he? It’s metaphorical.
 
And what about Billy the Kid? In contrast to Garrett, every scene the Kid’s in he’s only ever either fucking or killing by the end of it. But in all of the Kid’s scenes, we see him smile. Billy only kills to live. Pat only kills to enforce the law. The irony is that the only time we feel a sense of justice, like they had it coming, is when Billy murders someone. 
     Notice how every time Billy sleeps with a Mexican woman, it’s sweet and tender. But once Garrett puts on the badge he treats his wife like shit. And while in the scene where Garret has sex with every prostitute in the house in that montage, although equally sweet and tender, he will later lock all six of them in that same room and then throw them in jail. These moral ambiguities allow for a more nuanced comparison. Also, when the Kid tells that dude he’s trading his brown horse for the buckskin, in that quick scene, the disappointment conveyed here really hits home that the Kid isn’t always all good. 
     I’d always felt like the Kid has a reluctance proportionate to Garrett’s. But he doesn’t. How could I have missed that for so long? The Kid is often nudged towards goin’ off to Mexico if he doesn’t want to die by staying in the US. But after the murder of Paco, the Kid vows to go after Chisum. There’s no way that can be taken as a realistic endeavor. But I’m also not sure it’s as overt as a deathdrive. Maybe the clue lies in the Kid’s outstretched Christ sacrifice arms pose he enacts both times Garrett catches him.
 
Recently I’ve been asking myself what movies really stay with me after they’re over. And that’s when I came across rediscovering Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. After watching it 4 or 5 times in the past few weeks, I’d realized that as a whole it really makes me feel that it has this tone of overwhelming inevitable loss. And I can’t get enough of it. Every death is significant.
     How could the Slim Pickens death not move you? (I only watch Peckinpah’s final preview cut, and I like seeing that scene without Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which isn’t to say I don’t think that it’s a great song.) Recently I’ve also been wondering if I tend to process movies more rationally than emotionally. So the death scene of the character played by Elisha Cook, Jr has stuck with me more and more because of the words from his soliloquy: “I’m tired. Tired of looking for yellow rocks. Tired of trying not to look at your ugly face. Tired of seein’ the land get crowded. Tired of bein’ snake-bitten, sunstruck, waiting to be killed.” Such gloom. 
     Finally, it’s PETE MAXWELL who ultimately really depression knocks me down. Pete seems to be this symbol of tradition. When Billy shows up at Pete’s place, the way Pete instantly goes into nostalgia storytelling mode, while Billy and the lady he’s with walk out on him still talking is poignant; even more so in that Pat sneaks in, and is also known by Pete, and that Pat takes advantage of that to sit and wait for the Kid to walk in and gun him down. That bond. It’s like it links them. Because they both know Pete = they both value enjoying life/enjoying the company of a good friend/a good conversation/enjoying the moment. Until it’s gone.