For all of the modern gunslingers and ne’er-do-well’s who can’t seem to take a step forward without one step back or maybe even two or three or the entire continent or further, we salute you. In all of our unconnected personal journeys for success or simple ambivalence, there remain those select few who remain rocking back and forth back and forth squarely on the bottom rung of the ladder, unable to raise themselves up and out of the muck and unable to allow themselves a chance at inhabiting any realm apart from the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the shit.
Misc.
12 Years a Slave (2013)
9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval
So, I realized what is wrong with America today. I know, I know, that sounds like a terribly arrogant foolish stupid thing to say, and I don’t disagree with you about that.
But I stand by what I said anyway! Today I was reminded of the terrible, terrible people who inhabit this grand land of sweeping plains, vast meadows, cavernous caverns, mountainous mountains, and valley-ous valleys. Ohhhh sayy can youuu seeeeeeee byy theeee dawwwwwnnssss earrrrrlyyyyyyyy liggghhhhhhhhhhhhht.
Closer (2004)
8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval
I like Closer a bit more than I probably should. Not that there’s any problem with liking the film or anything, but I happen to think it’s maaaybe not worth it’s 8.5 score. It’s teetering on the cusp, but this scene puts it over the edge into Grilled Seal of Approval territory. What a great scene!
I watched Closer for the second time because I had been looking for Anti-Valentine’s Day movies or The 10 Movies Not to Watch on Valentine’s Day. Closer, with its near-continuous stream of lies and infidelity, certainly fits the bill.
Frances Ha (2012)
9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval
Truly the kind of film you want to live inside, with the people you want to know, and doing things you want to do. Greta Gerwig is excellent excellent excellent. The whole cast is excellent. Adam Driver is becoming reliably excellent. Noah Baumbach is becoming one of my favorite directors. Ooooooooh. And also, on this day (which is actually the 14th not the 6th as I am still trying to catch up), on this day – my FIRST OFFICIAL PAYING ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED. So, fuck yeah! Dreams of Brooklyn nights and skyscapers and hobos huddling together in the cold and stepping carefully through half thawed pools of sludgy sludge ice and snow and salt and grime mixture and the wind whipping down through the long corridors of my buildings, up my coat, through my hair and back into the sky like a hawk flitting through the air after a kill. Brooklynnnnn. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, Brooooooooooooklyn stand up! When I move you move (just like that?), when I move you move (just like that?), when I move you move (just like that?) hell yeah mutha fucka now bring that ass back!
Don Jon (2013)
6/10
New Joiesy. I’m from New Joiesy, ya heard? Da fuck ya lookin’ at? Yer a fuckin’ mook!
This is how people from New Jersey talk, or at least this is how they talk in Don Jon, because where I’m from (“The countryside, the central Jersey side, apple pies so good you can cry – side”) nobody talks like that. So, Donny Don, you don’t mind if I call you Donny Don, do you? No? Okay, good. So, Donny Don is addicted to porn. He likes to beat his meat. He enjoys strangling the chicken. He gets a kick out of stroking the sausage. He has fun rubbing the Orangutan. He clearly doesn’t mind spending time putting a bind around the thick line between his thighs. So, fine! And perfectly understandable. Though I think I understand for different reasons than are in the film. What is the difference between a one-night-stand and jerking off? Both are climactic releases of energy (and semen) that don’t go any further than that one single moment. There’s no romantic intimacy, there’s no true connection. It’s just a man and a woman (or a man and a computer/magazine /tablet/photograph/memory/whatever) fucking. The man puts his dick inside a hole in the woman. The man pushes in and out a bit. The man says something like, “Ohhhh” and grunts and shudders and then pulls out and rolls over and goes to sleep. And the woman stares up at the ceiling and wonders what the fuck she just did that for and why it was so unsatisfying and what and what and what and just what the FUCK. Damn! Damn!
Dominick Grillo 