Fear and Loathing Quotes

Published by me January 24th, 2006 in Fear and Loathing. 0 Comments

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

Never lose sight of the primary responsibility. Cover the story. But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say.

Ah, devil ether. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel… total loss of all basic motor skills; blurred vision, no balance, numb tongue — The mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with the spinal column. Which is interesting, because you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?

Let me make sure I have it all lined up. You want me to throw this thing into the tub when “WHITE RABBIT” peaks. Is that it?

FINISH THE FUCKING STORY! What happened?! What about the glands?

Jesus, that stuff got right on top of you, didn’t it.

Maybe you could just… shove me into the pool, or something…

If I put you in the pool right now, you’d sink like a goddamn stone. You took too much. Jesus, look at your face, you’re about to explode.

There was evidence in this room of excessive consumption of almost every type of drug known to civilized man since 1544 AD.Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten french fries? These puddles of glazed ketchup on the bureau? Maybe so, but then why all this booze? And these crude pornographic photos smeared with mustard that had dried to a hard yellow crust…
These were not the hoof prints of your normal god-fearing junkie. It was too savage, too aggressive.

The Player [rave]

Published by me September 12th, 2006 in The Player. 1 Comment

This is the first movie I’ll write about, since its one of the first movies that made me really think about how movies were manipulating me. Its key since its a movie for anyone who gives an extra thought at the end of the film as to how they were entertained, how the tension was built so much in that one scene, or why that line was so funny. Etcetera.

The Player is probably one of the most self-referential films of all time. The backstory of it actually makes it even MORE ironic than one could imagine, Altman during the making of this film had kind of hit bottom, and this revitalized his career. Having not translated well from his 70’s very long films of Nashville, MASH, etc., into the 90’s, he went a different direction with the Player, making it a reasonable length, with his signature multi-character plot threads, but with one very strong plot thread that makes it much more traditional-style Hollywood than any of his other films. But perhaps he thought it was okay, since he was making fun of traditional Hollywood films while doing it.

The first scene is a perfect explanation of the entire film, where two characters are discussing the longest ‘continuous shots’ in Hollywood. Touch of Evil is mentioned (which I will write about at some point as well) and its clear that one of the guys is a really good film buff, and the other is a posturing idiot. But while this discussion is going on, the camera is panning around other parts of the studio lot/set, introducing almost all key characters in the film, all in one shot. A long shot, 6 minutes. The rest of the movie has many of these self-references. Many are not even going to be caught by the typical viewer, referencing inside jokes that only one very familiar with old movies or current celebrities might recognize. For instance, later on in the film, an announcer mentioned ‘leave it to Cher to show up in red at a black and white affair’ which is funny, but funnier if you know Cher hates red. Almost 70 people play themselves in cameos, giving an extremely realistic look to the Hollywood studio portrayal.

more to come . . .

The Life Aquatic [rant and rave]

Published by me September 13th, 2006 in The Life Aquatic. 2 Comments

This movie has so much going for it. The preview was brilliant. Willam Dafoe is in it. Jeff Goldblum is in it. Bill Murray, Angelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson all also star. It had an great premise, and an amazing set to go with it. The music was suble but if you paid attention it was brilliant, all Portuguese renditions of David Bowie songs. If you dissect the plot, a LOT happens, there are build-ups, climaxes, fight scenes, humour, sex, everything. What happened?

If afterwards I start to like a movie better than I did while watching it, I tend to fault the editing. I’m not sure why. Maybe because its the only thing left to blame. If the plot was good, the acting was good, the directing in reference to the acting and to the cinematography seem fine, if all key elements were present, nothing felt missing, and the mise en scene was great, and if remembering scenes after the movie ended made them seem better, what is to blame? I think editing. A lot happens in this movie, and its not that long, and remembering it rather than watching it makes it not drag. And I think the dragging is the fault of the editor. Something about the scene transitions in this film give too much pause between every moment, and the movie stutters through the plot. Like when someone is telling a great story, and continually getting interrupted, you might remember the story better later on, but during it, you’re annoyed, you’re impatient, you’re wondering why this great story seems to stop and start and stutter. And the clincher, is that the preview is one of the best I’ve seen. I bet the preview was edited by someone else. Someone who understands better how to transition from moment to moment in a way to entice, excite, and build rather than to delay, pause, and decay the audience’s reaction.

This of course is just a guess. but I will watch it again and analyze further. The pacing is interesting in his other films as well, but for some reason not as problematic. Its a style that seems to work better with certain characters and plot structures. Here it didn’t go with his overall design. I think the stuttering works in Rushmore, it reflects on his main characters, stumbling nerds who also have pacing issues. But I have to say, I liked Rushmore better in retrospect as well.

Buckaroo Banzai [rave]

Published by me September 17th, 2006 in Buckaroo Banzai. 0 Comments

The epitome of the cult film. This movie has some of the best quotes ever:

Buckaroo Banzai: Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

Lord John Whorfin: Laugh-a while you can, monkey boy!

Lectroid: We are not in the Eighth dimension, we are over New Jersey. Hope is not lost.

Buckaroo Banzai: It flies like a truck.
John Parker: Good, what is a truck?

It rides the lines between campy and humour and ridiculousness perfectly. I think every other b-movie type film at least falls once or twice into the grave error of either taking itself too seriously or, worse, adding more camp than needed. Unapologetic for its ridiculousness, not explaining bizarre names or history of the stars of the film, it begins as if we were familiar with the troupe, a brilliant maneuver for a B-movie. The ‘this is a fake sequel to a b-movie, and what could be more fully b-movie than that?’ tactic.

continuing to add here . . .

Lost In Translation [rave]

Published by me October 30th, 2006 in Lost In Translation. 0 Comments

“What you miss in “Marie Antoinette” — and in “Lost in Translation,” for that matter — is the burning human urgency and aesthetic wit Coppola brought to 1999’s “The Virgin Suicides,” her first and still her best movie.”

This quote, read in a review of Marie Antoinette (which I have not seen) made me want to write about Lost in Translation. Another quote “Sometimes Marie Antoinette feels like a knowing knock on tourism (let’s make a movie about the French with American accents!), and a more intentional jab at American cluelessness than Lost in Translation, which for all its prettiness reduced Tokyo to a sideshow.” also felt like it needed a response.

Now, not that the reviewer, Wesley Morris if you care, will read this, but I would guess he hasn’t been to Tokyo, and if he has, he was there only briefly and as a tourist. He didn’t live/work/become lost there as I have, and as the characters have. If you ever live in Tokyo, you won’t be able to adequately describe how the white noise becomes so engulfing of your whole person. How you start to feel like you are living underwater. Something about being so foreign, in a country where there are so many people, and where there is no personal space but infinite emotional space, where you could be in a crowd of people with no one really seeing you, eats away at your sense of self. I felt this movie captured that feeling, a feeling I hadn’t even tried to put in words. And while Mr. Morris felt like it was lacking in burning human urgency, I would argue that it was, but it was dulled by the constant buzz and underwater feeling that Tokyo can surround someone in.

Sofia Coppola seems to distance herself from her movie subjects, in ‘Virgin Suicides’ the whole tale is told by the boys next door, so even if Mr. Morris felt ‘burning urgency’ it was still filtered. In ‘Lost in Translation’ the characters are older, the humanity that she depicts is less hormonal and therefore both more real and poignant. But still it is filtered, this time through Tokyo.

As for his other comment, the ‘aesthetic wit’, ironically, I don’t see it in the ‘Virgin Suicides’ as much as in ‘Lost in Translation.’ Every shot of Tokyo was one that I understood - the shots that also resonated in my mind after my stint there. The crowds juxtapositioned with the lonely hotel rooms, the mix of long shots with closeups reflecting the brief moments of the characters’ connection - as if two people find each other while both lost in the sea.

more later . . . .

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