fall into it

"People being bullied and hurt isn't funny.  You'd probably spend your whole life giggling at other people's hurt."

I watched a Russian torrent of the Steve Bannon Joker movie because I didn't want to support the Steve Bannon Joker movie because the endeavor of remaking King of Comedy without Sandra Bernhard is a fruitless endeavor at best.   The only thing that makes King of Comedy King of Comedy is Sandra's agency.  Without a strong woman at the center and the edges, you end up with a Steve Bannon biopic.  Who wants that?   I don't.  I'm not an incel.  

The whole debacle bums me out because I love movies that look like money, and the Steve Bannon Joker movie looks expensive!  It's got amazing costumes, a great performance from River Phoenix's brother and a New York City backdrop that actually looks like New York City, but it ultimately has nothing to say because it's a movie made for straight white men who feel persecuted by society and not a movie commenting on the their role in society because the movie is made by a straight white man who somehow still feels victimized despite being the absolute worst.

The Urban Dictionary defines incel as "involuntary celibate," a person (usually male) who has a horrible personality and treats women like sexual objects and thinks his lack of a sex life comes from being "ugly" when it's really just his blatant sexism and terrible attitude. 

From Psycho to Fade to Black (and even Texas Chainsaw), horror has had its fair share of incels - but one Canadian movie (filmed in Wisconsin) manages to rise above the faggoty fold.  Almost forty years before Joker, we had a far superior film about the clown prince of crime.  The Pit.

"I can't see anything, it's just a big hole."

The Pit is a movie about a tweenage boy named Jamie who gets bullied by an entire town so he starts to act out by sexually harassing his babysitter and by throwing his oppressors in a pit where they get eaten by monsters.

I get it.  Middle School sucks.  We all do weird shit when we're figuring out our hormones.  I once made my neighbors parents watch my rented copy of The Doors because there was a sex scene in it.  A college friend of mine used to rub herself on the swing-set for hours at a time.  We're all just animals at the end of the day.

The Pit has fun with its subject.  It's never saying "look at this - aren't we twisted - never-mind you don't even get it!" like the Joker movie does.  Even at his most unhinged and unwell, Jamie's villainy is relatable.  He's 13.  Life sucks when you're 13.  This behavior (killing your enemies, whining about being misunderstood to potential sex partners, blaming your fucked up childhood on your inability to adapt to hardship) spewing out of a 44 year old man is less charming. 

The team making The Pit understood that this story is a parable.  Jamie's inability to integrate speaks to a broken society.  Turn on the news and you'll see an America that's judgmental and ugly at its core.  Maybe people deserve to get shoved in a pit full of tra-la-logs.  

There's so much to love about The Pit.  For starters, it's set in Autumn.  For seconds, we get to see Jamie goes through puberty on camera as the movie progresses.  From it's deranged score and side characters who are obsessed with aerobics and never miss an opportunity to use the best coded-homophobic slang, it's a gift for this or any season.

Knowing Me Knowing You

Today is election day here in California and I'm going to ask you to do your part in the betterment of America by going to see Splice.

Splice is the greatest thing to come out of Canada since hockey and David Cronenberg.

It's smart. It's scary. It has more ideas than it even knows how to wrap inside a three-act structure. Both science fiction and horror, Splice explores the terror inherently engendered in raising a child. A newborn can't communicate. It can't rationalize.  You don't know if it wants to eat or poop. You don't know if you can trust your baby around strangers. You may not even necessarily want to be left alone with it.  There's a responsibility in that. This is fascinating business for what's basically a three room chamber play.

Sarah Polley is incapable of being inauthentic. She just doesn't care enough - she's like Cher that way. Her performance carries this film. Along for the ride, Adrien Brody is lovely as her long-suffering better half. I had nearly forgotten how I used to adore him back in the early-aughts.  Before he was obnoxious (post-Oscar), when he was only known for burying Maura Tierney alive and wearing vintage, I followed him for about five blocks home from the Angelika.  He's still got it.

Go see Splice.  It's completely original and thoroughly entertaining.  If we don't go see these kinds of movies, they're not going to make them anymore!  Do your part, kids.  Make me proud!

The Best Little Coal Mine in Canada

"No women in the mine!"

Congratulations, kids.  Another Valentine’s day came and went and we’re all still here. 

I, for one, adore the holiday. Valentine's day is my own personal new year's eve upon which the rest of my year hinges. I love a handmade card and a Whitman’s sampler. I love decoupage hearts in pink and red atop paper lace doilies.

 Years may pass, but still nothing says “I care” like a fresh pig’s heart left in a Tiffany box on the doorstep of the object of your affection.

This time of year makes me nostalgic for all the great romantic scenarios: making love in the woods just before being hung upside down by my belt and having my throat slashed; covering my ears to mask the deafening roar of rattling chains while being chased by cenobites through austere, art deco white marble hallways; having Freddy tear into my arteries at the wrist and ankle, puppeteering me like a marionette in a mental health facility where I’ve been doing my best to sleep the night without taking ativans; and, best of all, having our annual crafting party in the old, abandoned coal mine.

Allow me to point you in the direction of a little art film that I know of - a film that’s tasteful enough to open on a couple making love whilst wearing full mining gear (the woman pouting her lips, caked in hot pink bonne bell lipstick, stroking the man’s breathing tube ever so suggestively while his gloved hand gropes a heart shaped tattoo above her left breast).  This is a film that merits discussion. This is My Bloody Valentine (1981).

I grew up in a fishing town where people had kids at seventeen , drank at the pubs every night, and never washed their hands. Being the fanciful little boy that I was, I had no interest in a story about rural, working class folks with dirty faces. Despite having been transfixed by My Bloody Valentine’s VHS cover, the last thing I wanted in my horror was verisimilitude free of washboard abs, high-waisted jeans and shaggy hair.  

Like my now well-worn dvd copies of Thirtysomething, My Bloody Valentine was a film that required me to grow up a little in order to appreciate it. 

There are no teenagers experimenting with their sexuality in this film, there's no angst, no fashion.  The median age of the protagonists is somewhere around thirty-three.  This is a movie about the kids who didn't "make it", the kids who never left the fishing town.  Townies.  Townies who love to dance.  Who am I to say that these kids don't deserve to be served up hibachi style by a pickax wielding maniac just as much as anyone else? 

My Bloody Valentine is not just a two-bit slasher film, it's also a morality play about how no one should have to work on Valentine's Day. 

One year, while the town of Valentine Bluffs was having its annual dance, a couple of miners were left working the night shift. A terrible accident left one of them, Harry Warden, trapped under piles of rubble until he went criminally insane. Like a modern day Maleficent, Harry vowed to slash his way through the entire town should they ever have another dance without him (talk about a drama queen!). Twenty years have passed since that fateful night and the kids want to dance! They’ve had it with living in the shadow of some tired queen with a mask fetish. 

Having decorated the entire town to the hilt, they go ahead and have a Valentine’s bash to end all. But, like all embittered queens, Harry holds a wicked grudge and the body count rises!

If you have a penchant for getting  hammered on Molson Ice and meander off to the local coal mine to sleep it off, this movie is for you. If you like pre-9/11 Roseanne, you’ll love My Bloody Valentine.  If  you enjoy ancillary characters who are inexplicably dressed in 1950s sock hop attire or various, elaborately staged scenarios involving the removal of the human heart, run don’t walk! 

The many similarities to Friday the 13th(1980) were not accidental. Friday' was a big hit for Paramount and they rushed 'Valentine into production (6months from script to release). While My Bloody Valentine is a bit more layered in its structure and character development, Friday the 13th is hands down more glamorous and iconic. 

I may have grown up, but I'm still petty. I prefer my slasher movies to be like my life, a bit heightened and gorgeous to look at.