Burning Out the Next Twelve Days

School is around the corner and I'm burning up the last few days.  What's in store for Better Live?

Well first, I'm planning a Stanley Kubrick movie marathon.  Won't be a mind-bender like the Lynchathon but should turn us deeply introspective.

The plan:
The Killing  (1956)
Dr. Strangelove  (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey  (1968)
Eyes Wide Shut  (1999)

Spans his entire career (ignoring a couple movies before The Killing) and four different genres.  Genius-level inspiration- highly anticipated.


AU and D.C. will give me plenty to write about especially when I rejoin forces with the Tin Can Partier- Benjamin Miller.  I see only glory and fortune in the future.  Pretty similar to what I see in the mirror...

"I suppose if it was 9:45, I would think it is after midnight."

So here it is- the post on the David Lynch movie marathon.  What's that?  You weren't anxiously awaiting its arrival?  Hush your mouth, young one.

David Lynch is one of those crazy bastards that directs movies so intense he dares you to ridicule them.  Assuming, of course, you weren't lobotomized by the time the credits roll, and rendered able to only groan in anguish.  I approach these guys like a challenge, to see if I can beat them.

My friends and I watched, in this order-

Blue Velvet  (1986)

Mulholland Dr.  (2001)

Inland Empire  (2006)

Eraserhead  (1976)

Total play time: approx. 8.9 hours.

We didn't give much thought to the order before watching.  We started with Blue Velvet because my friend had already seen it.  As for the others... it was whichever downloaded first.  Turns out, we watched them in  the perfect order, from the most straightforward to the most abstract.  

Blue Velvet tells the story of a young man investigating the origins of an ear he found in a field.  He uncovers a terrible underworld of drugs, sex, and evil within the charm of his small town.  Starring Kyle MacLauchlan as Jeffrey Beaumont and Laura Dern as Sandy Williams.  Isabella Rossellini plays Dorothy Vallens, a singer mentally ensnared by Frank Booth, played by Dennis Hopper.  I'll say this here:  Dennis Hopper is the most effed up actor in a mainstream movie.  Take an early scene for example:  Jeffrey Beaumont is hiding in a closet, hid there by Dorothy Vallens.  Frank comes in to her apartment and begins what we can only assume to be a ritualistic rape, heavily breathing in a drug and crying out for his mommy, stuffing blue velvet in his mouth and Dorothy's.  My friends and I were terrified.  We were also dreading the rest of the night.  Would things get worse?

With Mulholland Dr., yes and no.  The tone of the movie was not so violent but started to feel more like a nightmare.  Hailed as Lynch's masterpiece, Mulholland Drive is a ceaseless avalanche of his thoughts and imagination.  I would try to give you a synopsis or a summary, but it's damn near impossible with a movie this abstract.  Basically, Naomi Watts goes to Hollywood, meets Laura Harring, they have some steamy lesbian sex, and before you know it no one is who you thought they were.  Or maybe they were all the same person.  Like I said, the tone is nightmarish.  I consulted Roger Ebert (hail the bastion of all things reel) to make some sense of the movie.  His advice?  

"This is a movie to surrender yourself to. If you require logic, see something else. "Mulholland Drive" works directly on the emotions, like music. Individual scenes play well by themselves, as they do in dreams, but they don't connect in a way that makes sense--again, like dreams."

So that's what I did.  I sat back and let the scenes and colors and sounds wash over me.  I feel stupefied.  I felt drugged.  But I did not feel happy.  Ebert called them dreams, but I still disagree.  Nightmares all the way.  One thing did make me happy and that was the arrival of this character:

That is Billy Ray Cyrus being an asshole, mullet and all.  WTF?

Midway through the marathon, the sun had set, dinner had been noshed on, and we were content in our seats once more.  Time for Inland Empire.

                                     

Key locations: I was on the right side of the television with my laptop open in front of me.  Lauren was directly across from me with a blanket.  Lydia was behind me clutching a pillow.  Tyler and Carolyn were far back into the room sharing a couch.  These are important details.

Inland Empire is the Arc de Triomphe of abstract film.  David Lynch calls upon Laura Dern's acting talents once more, to play an actress struggling against the temptation of her costar.  An actress playing an actress struggling against an actor playing an actor.  Inception, anyone?  

Laura Dern has come a long way since Velvet.

At first I was \=, then I was [=, then I was D-:<

That final picture is one of the many startling scenes from Inland Empire.  The plot barely kicks in before the crazy takes over.  Allegedly, the movie is the projection of her psyche, going completely apeshit because of her conflicted feelings for her co-star.  Whatever it is, it scared the bejeezus out of me and my friends.  I realized at one point I was hiding behind my laptop, clutching the top of my screen.  Lauren had the blanket at her nose and all I could see were the tips of her glasses.  Lydia was trembling under her pillow.  Tyler and Carolyn were petrified but safe because of their distance from the screen. 

Three hours later, we could finally breathe easy.  We had subjected ourselves to the most random assortment of nightmare imagery ever assembled this side of Holocaust documentaries.  The time?  Nearly midnight.  We were exhausted, but not because of the hour.

Last on our list was Eraserhead.  We started it, unsure of what we would encounter, but determined to finish the marathon.  Nearing the end, we were emotionally drained and jaded.  Nothing could freak us out, right?

Bzzzz, wrong!  Look, the tagline of the movie even says, "Be warned.  The nightmare has not gone away."  A prescient statement for his earliest movie of the bunch.  

Little in the movie made sense.  The guy on the movie poster is a scared man in an industrial nightmare (look, that word again!).  A mutant baby is thrust into his life, a temptress sucks him into a pool of metaphorical sex fluid, his head is turned into an eraser, and a woman with ovaries on her cheeks stomps on large, rubbery sperm.  Oh God.

If someone can explain this video to me, I would love to hear you try.  I need a good laugh.

And yet, for all the absurdity, I couldn't tear my eyes away.  Eraserhead was the shortest of the four films, but certainly the strangest and the most atmospheric.

At the end, I was scared silly, drained of energy, and ready to collapse.  One of the best ways to spend a day.  Or three days... or maybe it was all a dream...


Cheesy endings aside, here are a couple links.

A more emotional account of the marathon by Lauren Hank

My intense narrative written sometime during, but I don't remember doing it.

The list of David Lynch's works, in case you want to dive in for yourself.  Just be careful.

Your Mind on David Lynch

I'm planning two posts about the affects of seeing it live, one about David Lynch and the other about the difference years can make.

The David Lynch post will tell the story about how I and four other impressionable young minds subjected ourselves to the madness lurking in David Lynch's cranium.  Who is he?  One of the most prolific, effed up directors to grace Hollywood.  He created dirty gems such as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.  And what was the level of subjection?  We watched four of his movies in a row, which is equivalent to an eleven hour nightmare.

In this post, I want to share with you my mental state near the end of the marathon.  The following day, I was closing out programs on my computer, and found a document open on Word.  I don't quite remember typing this out, and I'm a little impressed with it.  But DAMN.  Here we go:
...............

Look at the couch.  It’s one of those couches without armrests, you know, the ones for laying down.  Fashionable from the 20’s, Gatsby-style.  Look again, it’s the piece your grandmother burdened on the family.  It’s where you had your first kiss.  There’s the cigarette burn from Aunt Tara.  Underneath, a foot pulls itself under.  It curls up. 

Now get closer.  The cracks between the cushions, separate them, push them apart with your finger tips.  Really dive in next, slide your hands down, palms facing out.  Inexorably, you push down, arms akimbo.  You’re afraid.  You touch something sticky.  You remember the foot.  It is disconnected, and you’re really looking down now, you know if you look up, look up at the wall, you will see the face of the man it belongs to.  You know he will be smiling, lips pulled back framing crooked teeth. 

Lost in these thoughts, you stop.  You’re in front of the couch again.  The foot is sticking out from under the couch.  Out from under the couch.  Why?  You slowly crouch down.  It’s an exercise to see how slowly you can move, not make noise.  So quiet you can hear the joints in your knees groaning.  The foot is always there.  What’s under that couch?  You slip onto your knees, and then onto your hands.  A noise behind you.  The foot?

You walk into the room and see an old couch, God, what a piece of trash.  Burns and stains.  You close the door, but you struggle against the warped frame.  The bolt slips into his housing.  Finished, straightforward, case closed.  Door closed.

“And that’s it.” 

“That’s it?”

“The whole dream.  Almost a nightmare, I guess.  You can’t tell me how you arrived or why, but you were in front of that couch in that house.”

“What does it mean?”

................

So yeah, I'll probably be doing another Lynch marathon in the future, and watch for when I finish my post.  It should explain everything.  And by everything I mean nothing.  

"Inception": A Review Within A Blog

Was Inception better live?  Silly question, given the medium, but yes.  Oh God yes.

Don't worry, Cobb, your crazy problems don't bother me

Never have I ever walked out of a theater feeling so satisfied and fulfilled.  The action, the dialogue, the cinematography, the vision, the crowd experience, the sour skittles (how you burn my tongue)… wonderful. 

I usually choose to pick on some aspect of a movie.  Some obvious plot hole, a glaring omission in thought process, something that gives me an itch to scratch, but this time… oh no.  Not for Inception. 

Now, I’m not some rabid fanboy, suckling at Nolan’s teat (although come to think of it, Memento and Dark Knight are among my very favorite movies…).  I’m sure if I watched the movie again I could point out a few issues.  But the rest of this blog will be nothing but gushing and cooing.  Sorry, film elitists, but sometimes a boy’s gotta express himself.

First off, what an attractive and well put-together lead cast.  Leo?  A no-brainer.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt?  Plays an awesome action hero.  Intelligent and calculating, reminded me of Daniel Craig's Bond.  Then there's Tom Hardy, who hasn't had too many lead roles, but plays the wise-cracking tough guy like he was born into the role.  Christopher Nolan once again taps the talents of Cillian Murphy who has the chops to casually mention his $10 million insurance from kidnapping and make it seem natural.  Out of the primarily male cast, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page stand out prominently.  Page is adorable as ever, but Cotillard manages to evoke that crazy heavy-lidded sensuality that she procured in La Vie En Rose.

She doesn't need a gun to stop me in my tracks.  Just sayin'

And the action.  The most beautiful fights scenes ever choreographed (okay, forgetting classics like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)… I could weep for the inventiveness.  I’m sorry, but a zero-g fight like that will be hard to top.  Also, the car chases are straight out of Dark Knight scenes, but I don't care, Nolan practically made the car chase relevant again.

Also, I've read that Inception is "Kubrickian" and I feel that statement must be referring to The Killing, which I mentioned in my previous blog.  Both are perfect heist films, but Nolan eschews Kubricks taut dialogue and still camera shots and instead uses inventive movie magic and clever timing to keep the audience on the edge of its seat.

Overall, it's the perfect summer movie.  It's the big-budget thriller that appeals to a huge audience- Appealing cast, excellent action from a director known to deliver the goods, thought-provoking dialogue on dreams, and an ending that keeps you guessing.  Ebert pointed out that the film will be discussed on the internet for ages to come and that's what makes it so great.

Oh, and the audience... dead quiet for two and a half hours up until the very last moment when we all erupted with the same response.  Perfect.  HNNNGG

And for those who didn't like the score.... BRAHHHHH BRAHHHH.

Rain or Shine, Make Up Your Mind!

Before you start reading, load this youtube video and listen.  





Due to the past few days of finicky, irritating weather, I have elected to stay inside where the air is a regulated 72 degrees.  And during these past few days, I've done a lot of reading and watched a lot of movies.  Here's what I accomplished:


Finished reading the Harry Potter series.  Nothing remarkable here, just continuing the tradition of the summer read-through.  I have determined that the third book is the best in the series, hands down.  The tone of the series starts trending toward darker themes (although some could argue that the extinction of mudbloods in book two is pretty hardcore) and the story stands on its own quite well.  The plot twists are gripping and the characters believable.  I'm pretty sure every other fan wishes they could read the series as if for the first time.  Obliviate!


It's not quite the same, but I'm almost done watching the Harry Potter movies, too.  Damn, they suck.  I probably could have avoided disappointment had I watched the movies and then read the books, but it's impossible not to compare the gaping flaws in the movies to the books.

Masters of ruining a beloved childhood tale.  The four most ironic smiles I've ever seen

I also did more than reading children's books.  I finished The Great Railway Bazaar by the master, and arguably the inventor, of the travelogue, Paul Theroux.  

                                                          

He travels from London, into Turkey, across Asia, over to Japan, back across Siberia, and back into London over three months, using railways as much as possible.  He recounts the entire tale with sharp observations, a keen sense of humor, and a traveler's intuition.  The man can write.  I've always wanted to travel to Asia, but this book made me ache with desire for an adventure via railway.  

In movies, I watched She's Out of My League.  It's an exercise in formulaic movie-making, and nearly the definition of bland.  It has its moments- Jay Baruchel plays an endearing, almost painfully shy young man named Kirk who is genuinely easy to root for.  His best friend, Stainer (played by the poor man's Seth Rogan, T.J. Miller) is a delightful asshole who pushes the plot forward, but in a very funny way.  Unfortunately, the movie seems a little disconnected at times.  Kirk and his unlikely hottie girlfriend (I think he used Sparkling eyes technique.  If you get that reference, high five) go through the paces of a comedy movie, but the real stars are Stainer and Patty, the respective friends.  They stand outside the storyline (and sometimes out of the realm of social norm), while Kirk and Molly (the hard 10) are trapped in a circle of hell, destined to awkward situations and the peer pressure of their friends.  Anyway... this mini-review was still too long for a movie this inconsequential.

I also watched The Killing, but Stanley Kubrick.  You could say I have a bit of a crush on Kubrick.  This is one of his earliest films, in his black and white era.  I'm not going to touch it with a review.  I will say that it's one of the finest heist films of all times and it influenced Tarantino when he made Pulp Fiction.  That should be all you need to know, anyway.  So go watch it.  Now.

Now, for that song I made you listen to.  St. Germain is the pseudonym of Ludovic Navarre, French electro-jazz musician.  And it's a truly wonderful experience.  Sorry about the terrible quality of the Youtube video, a good version can evoke visions of a night time stroll along a lit waterway.  No homo.