Afternoon Delight (2013)

7/10

Now this was a tough one to grade. On the one hand, some of the most painfully awkward hilarious moments ever devised are contained within this film, but on the other hand, the ending is absolutely bizarre. And no, not bizarre in a funny way or an inventive way or in a way that is remotely a positive. No, it’s bizarre because it’s a complete sell-out. Afternoon Delight spends the entire film telling us the main character is insane, then completely reverses its position. Well, not actually insane, but insane in the manner that makes for an traumatically awkward (but also interesting) film.

This woman single-handedly destroys her community, the relationship between two of her friends, and her own marriage. And then after all of the insane actions by this woman (which I should add are frequently very funny) the film decides to go all Hollywood and wrap everything up neatly and bring her marriage back together.

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Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Ahhh, so after that stream of excellent high school movies (The Way Way Back, The Spectacular Now, and The Kings of Summer [though I’m sure you already know the titles by now since I repeat them every other posting and because you are completely addicted to my writing – aren’t you? Aren’t you… yes… yes… yes… that’s it… stare into the spinning circle… yes… you’re getting sleepy… very sleepy… now when I snap my fingers… you will remember nothing from your previous life… nothing at all… because you are now a bird… a bird who flies high above the treetops and the wooden blocks and the crystal blue oceans… when I snap my fingers you will be a bird… and only a bird… and have always been a bird… now… fly away… *snap*]) we now finally reach those oft-troubling years of middle school.

I looked this film up because I had remembered always seeing the cover in my local videotape store. I’m dating myself by referring to a time when video cassette tapes were used and there was such a thing as a brick and mortar video shop within five miles of my home. I could also rent Sega Genesis games there so that shows you how far back we are talking. No, I’m lying. Not about the Sega Genesis, but about the reason for watching the film. I was actually researching an article I was tentatively planning on calling – “Awesome Little-Seen Debuts By Great Directors.”

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The Room (2003)

2/10

Of course, I heard about The Room years ago, but I avoided seeing it until now because it’s a terrible movie. And by “terrible movie” I mean, it’s a terrible fucking movie. And by, “it’s a terrible fucking movie,” I mean, it’s totally awesome.

My favorite aspect of the film is Tommy Wiseau’s constant creepy child laugh that emits from his mouth with the almost clock-like regularity. This dude finds everything funny. He enters the room and sees his friends – “Hehehehe.” He says goodbye to someone – “Hehehehehe.” He finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend – “Hehehehe.” Well, maybe I’m not remembering that last part completely correctly because there was a very small period of time between when he learns the truth about his whore of a lover and when he blows a hole through his skull with the fun end of a handgun.

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As Tears Go By (1988)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Wong Kar-wai movies (well pretty much every beautifully exotic foreign film too, I guess) offer great incentives to get out of the country and head back to strange lands on the opposite side of the Earth. The brilliant lights and colors and sounds of Hong Kong blend together with stunning women and sweeping operatic scores and mafioso and it’s easy to imagine myself standing in the rain in the middle of a bustling unusual city crying and begging my former girlfriend or wife or love or lover to come down from her apartment so we can talk and repair the broken strands of Us. There’s almost always a scene in the heavy rain in these movies, but I’ve never cared strongly enough about a disintegrated relationship to stand outside and beg for a small glimpse of her formerly familiar eyes, so it’s odd I would imagine myself doing it in Asia.

I told one of my ex-girlfriends, “No one’s going to love you more than I do,” (I was listening to a lot of Band of Horses at the time) and, of course, at that time, in that room, with us on her bed and her mouth spilling out the words that were cutting us apart, sure, I believed it. She, on the other hand, instantly saw through my bullshit, and simply laughed. Not in a mean way like she was making fun of me, no, but in a way that signified she knew she had more knowledge of the situation and that she knew she was the most mature person in the room and the one required to make the decision that must be made. She wasn’t mad at me, if anything she felt sorry for me. She felt sorry I was older than her and a whole lot more emotionally stunted.

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Primer (2004)

8/10

We’re gonna have to start putting the “auteur” title on Shane Carruth if he keeps this up. First Primer, then Upstream Color – quite the impressive one-two punch.

I reviewed Upstream Color a few days ago so just keep scrolling if you’re interested in my thoughts on that. As for Primer, no it isn’t as peculiar of a film as Upstream, but it is good. And as a debut it is very good. And as a film that was made for $7,000 it is very, very, fucking good.

But it really is a call to arms. It’s a loud heralding to greet the rising sun. It’s the head of a newborn poking through the amniotic sac. It’s a breath of fresh air in a room of rotting fruit. Or maybe I’m heaping too much praise upon it simply because I saw Upstream Color first and loved it and I expect great things to come from Carruth. Sure, it could be that, but the film is interesting in its own right, and it’s exciting to be present at the beginning of an artist’s career.

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Upstream Color (2013)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Director Shane Carruth (or perhaps we should now call him auteur?) is a man on the rise. This movie is a breath of fresh air in every possible respect. It is complex and weird and wholly original and will possibly (likely?) warrant a higher score upon repeat viewings. What is going on here? There’s some sort of mystery, there’s some sort of romance, there’s a whole lot of freaky connections between people and pigs, and it’s all painted with the beauty and the precise skill of an artist with a original vision.

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The World’s End (2013)

8/10

Let’s just get it out of the way and say it; Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were both better. Alright, alright, but The World’s End is still pretty funny and more than worth the time spent sitting in front of a computer, television, or movie screen to watch it.

The film did cause me to start skipping down one of my mind’s back corridors in search of an imagined future where I will reunite with my friends for an End All Drinking Expedition similar to the one undertaken by the group pictured on the poster above. We’re going to have to go with my college group of friends here, because, (and you would know if you’ve been following my writing) I didn’t have many friends in high school, and those friends and I certainly never had any drinking experiences. I didn’t have any drinking experiences until I got to college (with the exception of a few beers pilfered from my father and drank in our basement bathroom in the middle of the night; a shining moment in the history of my young life right there…).

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Best Unintended Uses of OkCupid

I added some new edits to my OkCupid profile yesterday. There’s a constant ebb and flow between presenting myself in a manner that would be appealing for “normal” people and diving headfirst into some of my more unusual characteristics and mannerisms that signify I am unsuitable relationship material for most of the globe. And therein lies the rub: Do you display your freak flag proudly? Do you string it up the flagpole, pour gasoline throughout the fairgrounds, and then immolate the land as a beacon to individuality? Freaks attract freaks and weird follows weird and if I am looking for a relationship, shouldn’t I be wearing my honesty like I do my favorite pants – daily, through every holiday and every season, and regardless of stains or clumps of dirt or affinity to attract the snaring hook of a drawer or a corner of a desk?

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Certified Copy (2010)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Turkish auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s first film outside of Turkey is a pleasant commentary on the changing state of relationships over time. When I watch one of these films (and by “these” I mean films with middle aged actors trying to figure out why their relationships went wrong or how to spend the rest of their lives or any number of other midlife crisis problems) I can’t help but wondering how my reaction to them will change over time.

I am currently young and able and as experienced in love and sex and relationships as one normally is at 25, so I look at these “midlife crisis” films from the far off perspective of an outsider. I can identify with the feelings and the situations, sure, but I will never truly understand the content until I have lived through it and have made similar mistakes and have had similar successes and conquests.

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Animal Kingdom (2010)

9.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Oh yes. Oh Hell Yes.

David Michod is a director on the rise and this is a very, very good film.

Hey, you know me by now, right? I make some jokes, I talk a lot of bullshit, I generally speak in terribly grammatically incorrect circles and tangents, but I’m not going to do that for Animal Kingdom. I’m not going to do it. I want to do it, but I can’t and I won’t. The movie is just too good to do anything except give it a proper standing ovation. The film is sort of like going to a monster truck rally when you are eight and being all excited to both see giant machines crushing and crashing into each other and waves upon waves of mullets and then, to top it all off, the lights drop off the earth, the engines become machine guns of explosion, and the trucks fly off their jumps and into the stratosphere,

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