Frances Ha (2012)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

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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!

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Don Jon (2013)

6/10

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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!

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Waiting at the DMV

“I’m trying to write a story about a guy that goes to a holiday music show and then – BAM – he suddenly knows everything about everyone in the crowd, like all these intimate details from everyone around him.”

“What’s the holiday?”

“What’s the holiday? I mean it’s a holiday show, around now, wintery stuff, so it’s Christmas. But it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just a concert. Could be any holiday.”

“Of course it matters, I gotta know the scene, the place, the smells, the people, the clothes, man I gotta breathe it all in – so Christmas, yeah?”

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The Crying Game (1992)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

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Merry, merry, merry Christmas! And what better way to celebrate Christ or presents or good ole’ fashioned drunken holiday adventures than with The Crying Game. I avoided this film for a long time because I already knew about THE TWIST, but, of course, a good movie is a good movie regardless if a Twist or two are revealed. And because I know now know, I think I shall reveal the twist: there’s a bomb that randomly explodes that kills everyone at the end. Haha just kidding, that’s not the twist! Or is it? Welllllll you’ll have to find out.

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“The Ones Who Knock”
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No flashlight? No worries!

When I was a kid I decided I wanted to be a counterfeiter. I’ll just get your next thought out of the way and let you know that, no; I am not currently perusing job boards looking for my way into the secretive business of currency forgery. I left that dream behind around the time I entered the lair of the mid-teen years. But let’s go back to that time anyway. Back to the days of watching movies until sunrise, back to the days of arranging my basement couch cushions into a movie worshiping throne, and back to the days of giving my heart and soul and mind to the idols on the fat CRT in front of me. Young Dom watched a lot of movies and he dreamed and he day dreamed and he dreamed dreamed and he found himself living in the (he supposed) coolest place that ever was – late 1980s Hong Kong.

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Surprise or Comfort?
You might end up with an outie when you're looking for an innie.

You might end up with an outie when you’re looking for an innie.

There are a couple handfuls of perfectly excellent films I have avoided seeing because, for one reason or another, I already know too much about them. Sometimes a scene or a plot twist or a character seeps into the public consciousness and becomes its most representative, defining characteristic. Sometimes the entire film is referenced and dissected and quoted ad nauseam and completely loses its element of surprise. And while the element of surprise isn’t always an essential criteria for enjoying a film, if you have the choice between experiencing a great film that holds a promise of originality and a great film that has already become lodged in your cognizance, which would you choose?

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Two Puddles

She’s staring at me with two great puddles of hope. Blue oval oceans with a tide that constantly threatens to overflow the shore and rain down upon those comely cheeks, flawless skin, and pointed chin before dripping into a pool beneath the shadow of her visage. I want to help her, but I can’t. I want to say, “No,” but I can’t. I want to leave, but I can’t.

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The (North) Koreans are Coming! The (North) Koreans are Coming!
Protectors of America

Protectors of America

There’s a healthy amount of “suspension of disbelief” that is needed to enjoy some films. You shelter your mind from the illogical scenarios and allow yourself to drift into a fantastical world. Then there are films like last year’s Red Dawn, a remake to the 1984 Swayze vehicle about a Russian invasion of America, that would require a “suspension of disbelief” bordering on decapitation in order to envelope yourself within the confines of the film world. Somehow I never got around to adding the 80’s Red Dawn to my “must watch” list, but I like to think it had more to do with bad luck than it did because the movie is terrible. Nonetheless, Red Dawn has joined the ranks of mediocre/cult movies that have been remade into terrible, terrible, terrible films. Perfectly enjoyable 80’s fare such as Fame, Conan the Barbarian, Footloose, and Evil Dead have all recently been remade into the same generic sludge that premieres in theaters every weekend, and 2012’s Red Dawn is no exception to that established trend.

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Stay Out of Trouble

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It’s been said that I can be a, “pain in the ass to watch a movie with.” I’m not going to attribute that quote to any one particular person, partly because I made up the quote, but also because I can imagine any of my exes telling me that. The sentiment, either in those words or similar ones, would be carried out in an exasperated tone and I would scribble a mental note to keep myself from falling into a similar situation again. I have some very particular preferences for enjoying a film, all of which are related to losing yourself inside the created piece for the entirety of its duration. So, no lights, no talking, and absolutely no questions will be permitted during the film. I’m not a masochist though, so I usually just watch movies that I don’t feel the need to invest myself in if there will be others in the room. Therefore, if Anchorman is on the screen, quip away, quip away. Comedies are fine, terrible movies are fine, mediocre movies are fine, Hollywood movies are definitely fine; in fact, the majority of movies that people usually want to watch are fine. The problem is I don’t usually watch the movies that are most often watched. I’m watching bizarre foreign films, indies, and strange experimentals that may require more than one viewing and at the minimum at least a fully attentive audience to fully understand.

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