In Her Skin

Everything I’ve experienced since last March could be categorized as confusion, depression, relief or frustration. Now, I find myself surrounded by a cloud of uncertainty and worn down by waves constantly banging at my cliff face and eroding my already fractured foundation. I’m not battle ready, but rather battle weary. To use a legal expression, I keep wanting to make myself whole again. In this pursuit, I’m plugging holes but always leaking. Trying to follow a path while being continually knocked off my tracks.

Right around the time of having watched Friends with Benefits and Crazy, Stupid, Love I made an interesting life decision. My angel and I are moving in together sometime this summer. She’s moving back to Texas from Florida and taking a job that pays $4k less per year. My “sacrifice” is far less impressive. I’m moving back to Lewisville, where I lived before getting sick, which is 10 miles closer to where I work. And speaking of work, I recently made another interesting life decision that has me chewing ice during the day and grinding my teeth at night while I sleep. A full-time position opened up at work and for the past 3 weeks I’ve been participating in a tryout process, along with two other candidates. I won’t say that I deserve this job, but I’ve certainly earned it. What that translates to remains to be seen.

Last week I started looking at apartments. Which apartment we get depends largely on our collective income. Earlier today my angel called me to tell me she got the job she interviewed for and was excited that they were offering more money than expected. My understanding (which isn’t worth much) is that I’ll be finding out about the result of the tryouts by the end of next week. I’m not used to things working out, at least not with respect to any plan I’ve ever made, but we’ll see. Getting this job will make a lot of things easier, but I don’t remember the last time life made anything easy for me. If you combine the apartment, heart, career, and relationship toppings you have my diet of stress pizza with extra stress sauce. The oven baking it all is my current residence that, even with all doors and windows open on a rainy day like today, is determined to stay between 85 and 90 degrees.

Going back to the above mentioned movies for a moment, there is an annoying trend in rom-coms of mocking the genre for its lack of realism, fairy tale expectations and bow-tying endings, then hypocritically going with the conventionally sappy ending (see the flash mob and graduation speech). Surprisingly, I still enjoyed both films, even though I don’t think I would call either good or recommend them as anything beyond background noise. Friends and Crazy aren’t the reason I decided to give it another go with my angel, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t, at the very least, make me reevaluate the relationship.

I put more stock in making someone else happy and having that be one of the pillars of life. Still, I think cinema needs more movies like (500) Days of Summer and The Break-Up. Art is duty bound to be a reflection of life. I don’t think most people go into relationships expecting failure, as I do, but there’s no denying that some couples build Lego castles while others make Jenga towers. Did I mention that this is our second attempt at cohabitation? The last time, seven years ago, I made an ass of myself, which she is more than happy to remind me of, and, based on that alone, I’m shocked that we’ve been in contact all these years and have maintained a reasonably positive relationship. She made an amusing comment yesterday, comparing herself to Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory. My goal this go-around is to not tear at her wings, and instead make her sacrifice worthwhile. I hesitate to call that maturity. But I do recognize that I’m thinking more in terms of “we” than “me.”

For those of you who are trying to connect the dots, In Her Skin has absolutely nothing to do with what I’ve mentioned above. Thematically, it’s very different from the love stories I’ve written about in recent months. I did, however, watch Mystic River a few weeks ago, and before that, Gone, which was a huge disappointment. I don’t run across many disappearance movies, excluding, of course, the garbage you still find on Lifetime and other similar B networks, which probably explains why this movie came out of Australia. Australians are well represented in American film and television, but I don’t recall seeing any content originating form the continent.

Miranda Otto, who most know from The Lord of the Rings, is a native Australian, but Guy Pearce (Memento) is English, and Sam Neil (Jurassic Park) and Ruth Bradley and are from Ireland. As something to fall asleep to, I recently watched Lockout. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen this year, but it is a tragic waste of Pearce’s acting talent. I’m interested to see how he comes across in Prometheus and Iron Man 3. Neil was one of the highlights of Daybreakers, but I cringe at the idea of a Jurassic Park IV.

My interest in Bradley goes beyond filmography. I knew from the moment I saw her in this movie that something didn’t add up, especially after her topless scene. Bradley has some of the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen, both in shape and size, but her arms and legs were unusually thick and her face looked like someone who just underwent a dramatic weight loss (thinned out face but fat body). I kept thinking to myself “she’d be more attractive than the girl she’s jealous of if she lost a few pounds.” From certain angles, Bradley reminded me a lot of Natalie Portman. After doing a little research, I found out that Bradley gained weight for the role, going from a size 10 to 16 within just a few weeks. Bradley’s weight gain and the overall filling out of her body is almost a cautionary tale of what can happen if you stop exercising and start eating like an American.

My main criticism of In Her Skin is that there was a good chunk of the middle of the movie that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. This is because the director wanted to convey the perspective of a soon-to-be murderer and her increasing loss of touch with reality. I can understand the desire to tell a story from a crazy person’s viewpoint, but it doesn’t take much to completely confuse a narrative, especially when you have time jumps and time periods played by different actors representing the same characters. Gone is much more effective in blurring the line between delusion and reality.

This movie is a great example of what happens when a community continues to cover for and justify the actions of someone who shows clear signs of mental disturbance instead of turning them over to the proper authorities for psychiatric treatment. Still, the only difference between this and Lifetime movies is better acting and accents.

http://www.ifcfilms.com/videos/in-her-skin-2

Late Marriage (Hatuna Meuheret)

I watched Late Marriage over a month ago but, as was the trend with April, I was putting everything off. That includes taxes, which I filed an extension for on the deadline that was already pushed back due to national holidays, my expired car inspection, which I got pulled over and ticketed for, my next LVAD appointment, laundry, and writing this blog entry.

I just left the Studio Movie Grill in Lewisville half an hour ago. Thanks to who I will now refer to as “my angel,” I had two Groupons and a May 3^rd deadline to use them. Unfortunately, the cinematic options these days are horrific. Given the sparse selection, I chose to use the first Groupon on The Raven, which exceeded all expectations as the understudy to both From Hell and Sherlock Holmes. The thought never occurred to me, but I left realizing I know little to nothing about Edgar Allan Poe. From the film I was given the impression that Poe’s views on death may be right up my alley.

Think Like A Man and The Hunger Games have dominated the box office this past month, a vomitous truth. As soon as I heard The Five Year Engagement came in fifth at the box office this weekend, I knew it was the movie for me, and chose to use my second and last Groupon on Engagement. I have little to no faith in the general public’s taste in movies (see the box office leading and vomit inducing titles mentioned above).

I am inexplicably drawn to Emily Blunt, one of the stars of Engagement. Blunt isn’t a very good actress and she was an insufferable bitch in The Devil Wears Prada, the first movie I saw her in, yet she melts whatever it is currently masquerading as my heart (see also The Adjustment Bureau). Since I was a child, I’ve always had an affinity for British accents and red hair. I believe she had both in Prada. Blunt may also be the only woman I find attractive when she cries. It won’t make sense to a “normal person,” but it’s almost as if she radiates with red, watery eyes and tears trickling down her cheeks.

Engagement brought me back to movies like When Harry Met Sally and Forget Paris, which are great entertainment, but horrible movies to glean relationship expectations from. Whoever started the idea of “the one who got away” did the lonely world a terrible disservice. I always assume there is a reason two people don’t end up together, as we are constantly changing what stage in life we’re in. If we change our friends and cells every seven years, why should our relationships be any different? I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand how to cultivate a healthy relationship with any person, which brings me back to Late Marriage.

I’m one of those people who will never marry, at least not for love. I don’t believe in love. I believe in sexual attraction and infatuation, both of which are fleeting, yet more real to me than the concept of love will ever be. The older I get the more the idea of an arranged/status/asset marriage makes sense. However, I draw the line where someone else is the motivating factor for the union, as with Late Marriage.

I don’t know where the idea of living to meet your parents’ expectations came from but I would expect it has something to do with a gross misinterpretation of “honor thy father and thy mother,” another archaic notion I don’t subscribe to. You don’t get to choose your parents and it’s insane to suggest that honor or respect is automatically bestowed upon a person by virtue of succumbing to carnality and engaging in coitus that results in childbirth. Even a bitch can get pregnant, give birth, and raise pups to adulthood (if asked, that’s exactly what I’ll say my cunt of a mother did).

In Late Marriage, the main character’s parents, aunts and uncles all wanted him to marry, even if it meant marrying someone who is generally considered to be a child. The disturbing part to me is that his relatives didn’t want him to wed because they were worried about him finding companionship. Instead, they seemed more preoccupied with making their son suffer as they had all done. One of the few things I think America has right is the concept that children are supposed to have better lives than their parents. One of the things that makes my own mother such a cunt is her resentment that I didn’t have to suffer an abusive drunk of a father, deal with mulatto racism, or have to split affection, attention and the like with three siblings.

The main character’s relatives were also concerned about perception, another oddity I don’t quite understand when it comes to people who think like this. He wanted to marry a divorcee with a child, who the family referred to as a whore, but it was forbade because of how unseemly it was, in their deranged minds, for their son to marry a single mother. These same people thought it was kosher for their son to bed a girl who, if my memory serves me right, was still in high school.

Without ruining the ending, Late Marriage ends in a way more aligned with my cynical and loveless world view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0EHSUGZflw8

I don’t know if I watched Late Marriage in Georgian (which I didn’t know existed until moments ago) or Hebrew. Either way, it was my first non-documentary experience with the language.  

Quiet Days in Clichy (Stille dage i Clichy)

Clichy is one of those rare movies that made it into one of my DVD binders without me ever having watched it. When I finally did watch it a few days ago, I was surprised by how little dialogue there was, and that what dialogue there was happened to be in English. I was also shocked by the pornographic sex scenes, reminiscent of Baise-moi (I know this movie came decades later), that dominated the first part of the film. When I say pornographic, I mean close ups of vaginal penetration. My friend and his girlfriend just happened to come back to the house when I put in the Clichy DVD and I felt compelled to text him “No, I’m not watching loud porn” and “I think the technical term is ‘experimental artsy fuck film from the 70s’” because of all the loud moaning I imagined coming from my bedroom.

Clichy is almost a slight perversion of what I imagined my life being like after graduating from NYU, save for double teaming prostitutes and turning a retarded 15 year old into my domesticated sex slave, and spoke to my inner misogynist. I still have the theme song stuck in my head and am jealous I didn’t come up with the phrase “she's got all her brains in her cunt.” It amazes me that I still have romantic dreams of living as a starving artist abroad, considering my current circumstances and career path. As an uncelebrated painter or fledgling radio man, I’m still starving in the end, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather be starving with paint on my clothes.

If the makers of Clichy concentrated more on the story that developed towards the end of the movie instead of focusing on being provocative or experimental it would have resulted in something enjoyable. They could have even further explored the strange concubine scheme and I would have been content to watch it unravel. As it stands, Clichy is either a bad drama or a bad porno, take your pick. I don’t imagine myself watching it again, except to hear the song again, and that’s only assuming I can’t find it on You Tube.

There were two girls from the café
We picked both of them up one day
We took both of them to our flat
And the red-headed one gave Carl the clap

The dark-haired girl took off her shoe
She smiled at Joey and then she was through
He tried everything but just as luck
The one from Jamaica just wouldn't fuck

Oh quiet days in Clichy
Oh quiet days in Clichy

Little Colette she has no sense
Serving the breakfast without her pants
Spoiling the coffee, burning the eggs
All of her brains are between her legs

Baby Colette she's all grown up
Sweeping the floor and washing the tub
Cleaning the dishes and ironing the clothes
What she's thinking, God only knows

Oh quiet days in Clichy
Oh quiet days in Clichy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDI456BsBuU

I was watching the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory the other day and the weirdest thing happened to me.  When Leonard got out of bed to investigate a sound that ended up being Sheldon playing bongo drums in the middle of the night, my first thought was “don’t forget to unplug from the wall.” The LVAD has officially infected my thought process. I sometimes catch myself watching TV or a movie and trying to find out where the actor or actress is hiding their LVAD under their costume.

On Thursday I have my next monthly LVAD appointment. I don’t know which I dislike more, the monthly appointments in Dallas or the weekly blood draws in Denton. Even assuming that the techs don’t fuck up my echocardiogram again, I’m not expecting any improvement. Why? Because they don’t actually work on strengthening my heart at UT Southwestern. They only work on maintaining the purgatory that is my time with the pump. I haven’t worked out in weeks because of my recent blood pressure/med issues and my recent weight loss and insomnia aren’t exactly indicators of increasing health.

Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (Bôhachi bushidô: Poruno jidaigeki)

I think it’s pretty obvious what I was thinking about when I bought this DVD. Unlike some of the cover art I’ve seen online, my version of Bohachi came with a topless prostitute on the front. It may surprise you, but I was crossing my fingers that Bohachi wasn’t just straight up porn, and instead something closer to the sexploitation of Perfect Education 3 (Jin shi pei yu, xiang gang qing ye). Me thinking it was porn is probably what kept the DVD unopened until now. They say you shouldn’t shop for food when you’re hungry and I guess you shouldn’t shop for movies when you’re horny. I’ve also been fooled by vampire movies in the past that were softcore porn in disguise. I hate softcore porn. It’s not even “just the tip” and is barely dry humping. My criticism of softcore porn is both literal and metaphoric.

Under the umbrella of Asian sexploitation, the closest I’ll knowingly get to softcore porn is Perfect Education, and I prefer movies like Freeze Me (my first introduction to Japanese women with naturally large breasts). Freeze Me would have been a fine movie without the nudity, but the skin served the purpose of making the rape scenes more graphic and the heroine more sympathetic. To expand the cinematic scope a little further, when I think of Caligula I think of a movie that was full of nudity with no purpose. The aim of all that bare flesh was to demonstrate Roman decadence, but it came across as no more than an excuse for Playboy to make what it perceived to be a legitimate non-pornographic film. To be clear, I enjoy watching the human form on film, not necessarily in a “tasteful” way, and I think we’ll all agree that at times the less tasteful or tactful a thing is the more enjoyable it is. Caligula does not apply.

On the exploitation scale, Bohachi is a lot closer to the spoof Black Dynamite, but better executed. Bohachi’s execution reminds me of the scene from Tropic Thunder and the conversation between Kirk Lazarus and Tugg Speedman. Dynamite went full retard. In a spoof you never go full retard. If you put Dynamite on VHS and threw it in a discount bin with actual blacksploitation movies from the 1970s you might not be able to tell the difference, which is an art form in itself, and should be appreciated, but should also be recognized a failure when it comes to being an accessible and enjoyable movie.

Where Bohachi is successful in not going full retard is evident in my favorite scene from the whole movie, the fight scene between the nude prostitute bodyguards and an assassin. It was silly but artful (I smile just thinking about the choreographer and what rehearsals must have been like), and self aware in a way that made the first Austin Powers fun. Bohachi’s only flaw was the opium sex orgy scene near the end that seemed to drag on, ruined the pace and tone of the movie, and almost crossed the line into purposeless softcore. Thankfully, that nonsense ended right about when I started looking for the fast forward button. Even with this minor setback, Bohachi was still very enjoyable.

Part of me wants to look up other Teruo Ishii movies but I’ve been disappointed by Japanese directors in the past (Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano). My first inclination after finishing Bohachi was to look up 120 Days of Sodom instead (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma), but the only version I found on the internet didn’t have English subtitles. I may be taking a trip up to Hastings in the near. It seems I’ve gotten my nude comedy fix and am on the prowl for something dark. I’m the exact opposite of the ronin in that I serve multiple masters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8wx15iHh4

On the Edge (Así del precipicio)

I don’t recall ever intentionally investigating Mexican cinema. I have a hard enough time dealing with Spanish cinema, which I think we’ll all agree is a rung or two above. The only Mexican film I remember watching prior to On the Edge is Y Tu Mamá También (the only memorable thing from Y Tu Mamá También is the sex scene). I’ll openly admit my own prejudice against what I may misinterpret as Mexican culture. I see a country’s art as a reflection of its culture, and there’s nothing that really interests me about anything having to do with Mexico, other than remembrance of the Alamo and The Battle of San Jacinto.

My prejudice starts with what I’ve seen of Mexican television. I live in Texas and was encouraged as a child to try to learn Spanish. Between elementary school and high school I took several years of Spanish. I don’t speak a lick of the language now, but that has more to do with the failings of the Texas education system and my distaste for the sound of bastardized Spanish. As part of my attempt at immersion, I watched countless hours of Mexican television. What I saw was bad acting, poor production, an insane emphasis on sex, and lots of dancing blondes with ridiculously large breasts.

The idea that any Mexican attempt at art completely lacks skill or sophistication has stuck with me. That negative impression has since been reinforced by the often horrendous acting by one of Mexico’s stars, Salma Hayek, and the pitiful directing of the inexplicably popular Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez.  My detractors will point to Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Antonio Banderas, and Jordi Mollà  as paradigms of excellence in Mexican cinema. And I will happily point out that they are all Spanish.

While there is some great acting in On the Edge, it is also at times cartoonish in a way that makes Mexican television unwatchable. Often, I couldn’t tell if I was watching a bad comedy or a bad drama. The acting is constantly undermined. The end result is a movie that’s hard to take serious, which is unfortunate because On the Edge deals with the very serious topics of suicide, addiction, gender and sexual identity, divorce and death.  If you enjoy M. Night Shyamalan movies you might enjoy On the Edge. I don’t and didn’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jP1_dwrrr4

 

I wonder how many people out there are going to a movie tonight or rented a flick to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I honestly don’t know what people do to celebrate, as I’ve only partaken in the festivities twice since being old enough to date. Like most holidays, I’ll be spending this one alone, which really doesn’t make it different than any other day, and I would argue that holidays are no different than any other day.

I’m trying to remember what I was doing this time last year and can’t recall, but it’s a safe bet I was working. I guess I should be thankful that having a heart pump has left this aspect of my life unchanged. Speaking of things staying the same, I am still just as ignorant as to the status of my heart regeneration. Some foolishness at UT Southwestern has me waiting another month for the echocardiogram. At my last visit they did do an EKG to try to figure out if an irregular heartbeat was causing what I’ve been feeling in my chest. Just like my morning deuce, my beat was regular.

Adrift (À Deriva)

So, apparently my favorite French actor, Vincent Cassel (it’s a shame most Americans only know him from the Ocean’s movies), speaks Portuguese. I was actually proud of myself that I could tell it was Brazilian Portuguese, something I would have known beforehand if I looked at the back of the DVD cover. I’ve been looking for a Brazilian Portuguese movie to watch to help with learning the language, especially the slang, and I’ve had this thing sitting there in plastic for who knows how long. According to his biography on IMDb, Cassel speaks English, Portuguese, and Italian, and learned conversational Russian for Eastern Promises. Don’t you feel dumb right now?  I know I do. While I’m TRYING to learn French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and German he’s actually DOING it. Another gem on IMDb is Cassel’s marriage to Monica Bellucci, which makes revisiting Irréversible more interesting. By the way, Bellucci also speaks at least French, Italian and English.

*****SPOILERS*****

What is it about me and watching coming of age/dissolution of a marriage movies recently (Blue Valentine, Submarine)? Adrift also reminds me a little of Remember Me, My Love (Ricordati di me), which only coincidentally stars Bellucci. During the car crash scene I actually thought Adrift was taking a page from Remember Me, but I think the drifting scene in the end was the perfect cap. If it was an American film they would have stayed together for the kids (I don’t understand why anyone considers this the best option) and Cassel would have found his daughter just in time to preserve her virginity/innocence (Taken). What causes a couple to separate has to be as mysterious as what brought them together in the first place, and the way Hollywood tries to tie bows on something so obviously messy is…you already know what I’m going to say. 

Camilla Belle, who plays Cassel’s lover, has a Brazilian mother and an American father.   I think Belle would make a great subject for a painting but there’s something odd/off-putting about her. She fits in movies like 10,000 BC, where her bushier eyebrows make more sense, or as Snow White, who you don’t imagine plucking her eyebrows. Kristen Stewart was inexplicably cast as Snow White for Snow White and the Huntsman (skin as white as snow and hair as black as ebony?), while Lily Collins was more appropriately cast as her in the soon-to-be-shit film Mirror Mirror. The point of all of this is that I wouldn’t cast Belle as Cassel’s lover, especially not if she’s supposed to typify an American homewrecker vacationing abroad.

In my last post for Water Lilies I brought up young female sexuality and how that translates to film.  Adrift follows what I was saying about Europeans tending to cast more age appropriate actresses for teen roles. Laura Neiva, 16 at the time, plays a 14 year old who goes through a sexual maturation process, which is made all the more confusing by watching her parents’ marriage deteriorate, and who also, presumably, loses her virginity to a man old enough to bartend. Like with Belle, I couldn’t stop looking at Neiva and finding something odd about her appearance. This stick of a girl, out of nowhere, had the nicest ass in the entire film (I know she’s Brazilian, but don’t you have to do a bunch of squats, lunges and elliptical machining to get it to pop like that?). I wasn’t the only one who noticed, as evidenced by the camera following Neiva’s hindquarters every time she was walking on the beach in a bikini. Maybe part of the reason I found Belle’s casting so weird is because the underaged Neiva exuded sexuality while Belle didn’t even slow drip anything resembling sex. I wonder if that was intentional by the director. There were, after all, some weird father/daughter dynamic undertones going on (I could get on a whole other thing about the daughter being jealous of the lover as a sexual rival, but I won’t).

It’s hard to believe that one of the best foreign movies I’ve ever seen was just $3.99 on a clearance rack at Hastings, while Best Buy sells shit like the Real Steel Blue-ray for $24.99. I watched about half an hour of Real Crap with my friend’s kid, Chuckles, yesterday. I feel bad for the cinema youth of America (and also Wolverine, the X-Men franchise, and Hugh Jackman’s career).

The pictures at the end of Adrift were a nice touch.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/adrift/international-trailer               

On a side note, I have my monthly appointment tomorrow and they’re doing an echo to see if there’s any regeneration.  I’ve actually felt my heart beat through my chest and neck in the past few weeks, which I hope is a good sign, and not me having mini heart attacks/strokes.

Wish me luck.

Water Lilies (Naissance des pieuvres – 2007)

There is supposed to be give and take in every relationship, but I want to say, instead, that there are, more accurately, givers and takers, the selfish and the selfless. But what about everything and everyone in between? The collateral damage of our codependent relationships. This got me thinking about spatial relationships, gravity, the universe, and our place in it.  Some of us are stars.  Others planets or their moons.  Even fewer, like myself, are the Plutos, classified somewhere between the planets and planetesimals of the galaxy. And who knows what to make of asteroids, dark matter, space dust and the rest? The Water Lilies cover describes the movie as being a love triangle. I think my metaphor is more accurate.

A star will shine bright, giving life to the planet and contrast to the moon. Those same rays that radiate life will also radiate a cancer. And when the star shines no more it will consume the entire system. In a star’s eyes this is just because what would a system be without its star? What would they revolve around? Nevermind the billions of other stars. A moon will revolve around its planet, if only to find a purpose that is not completely defined by the star.  The impact on the planet’s tides is coincidental.  The moon is always there, but shines brightest at night, and can still get lost in the dark sky it is all too aware it shares with a billion stars. The planet has no function, outside of existing at the whims of the star.

I wouldn’t consider Water Lilies to be about lesbians either.  The relationship between the different girls is more complex and less sexual in nature than that. Still, it falls in the same category as Lost and Delirious and Wild Things. (Water Lilies is French, Lost and Delirious is Canadian, and Wild Things is American). All three movies are, with varying accuracy/realism, representative of high school girls experiencing and defining their respective sexualities. I thought, based on the love triangle description and overly sexual posing on the cover of Water Lilies that that’s where I was headed. In my last post on Cold Fish I wrote about being tired of Asian sexploitation but still being open to exploring European sexploitation. I came in to Water Lilies with my exploring gear on and full of arguments about the legitimacy of portraying mid teens as sexual objects. I left more critical of how North Americans tend to show young female sexuality on film.

The girls in Water Lilies are supposed to be 15 years old. Adèle Haenel (star) was 18, but showed no nudity, despite her characters reputation of being a slut and constant sexual antagonization.  I didn’t find a birth date for Pauline Acquart (moon) or Louise Blachère (planet) but they were supposed to be around the same age as the characters they were playing. Blachère, the only one to be nude in the entire film, could be as old as 19, but more likely 17. Acquart struck me as being something closer to 13, which made her scenes with Haenel uncomfortable (it’s not often I’m confronted with the idea of prepubescent sexuality, mostly because the idea of the inability to consent makes it moot in my mind). Something about this movie struck me as being authentic, which made me able to relate to every character, which, I think, makes Water Lilies a good movie.

Considering what I wrote in the beginning, this is how I classified the relationships in Lost and Delirious and Wild Things. I included their ages because I think it’s an important factor in considering how the people from these different countries attacked the issue of the muddied sexuality of a teenage girl.

Lost and Delirious:

Jessica Paré (star) – 19

Mischa Barton (moon) – 15

Piper Perabo (planet) – 25

Wild Things:

Denise Richards (star) – 27

Neve Campbell (moon) – 25

If child pornography laws were changed, I wonder what impact it would have on this subject in cinema, more specifically in North America. Maybe you wouldn’t see actresses in their mid-twenties or early thirties playing characters ten to fifteen years their junior, or those same actresses enacting improbable sexual circumstances, which never passes the eye test anyway. But maybe changing the laws isn’t necessary.  There was something more powerful about Water Lilies, which showed the least skin of them all.

I’ve come to the same conclusion I always do.  American cinema is doomed, regardless of what laws restrict them or what cinematic rules they choose to follow.  I’ll seek refuge elsewhere (still waiting for the people from my planet to come scoop me up).

http://www.waterliliesmovie.co.uk/trailer/

Cold Fish (Tsumetai nettaigyo)

I can’t remember the last time I watched a Japanese movie, but I can’t remember a lot of things.  I do, however, remember the first time. It was my freshman year at NYU in 2002.  A girl from my building let me borrow her Battle Royale DVD, suggesting that she knew it would be to my taste.  I loved it.  I’m still puzzled by her assumption to this day.  I don’t remember ever having a meaningful conversation with her and am still not aware that I give off the Battle Royale vibe, at least not to most people.  The next year, when I relocated (reluctantly) to Denton, I spent countless hours and dollars trying to find more Japanese movies that would be to my taste.  It’s harder than you think to find something to your taste when you don’t even know what your taste is.  The matter is made more complicated when you add in the factor of it being cinema from a completely different country.

Something that I noticed immediately was the cartoon-style blood squirting, which has always truck me as being more intelligent than the gratuitous gore it appears to be on the surface. Another thing was the obsession with breasts. Whenever a Japanese man in a movie wants to express his desire for a woman he excessively squeezes her breasts. Makes you wonder what the breast feeding habits are of the modern Japanese woman. I had no idea that Japanese women were so voluptuous or were even capable of having ample bosoms without the aid of surgery. The reason why I’m fixating on the breast thing is because it’s something that stood out to me, again, while watching Cold Fish.

Here, again, I’m confronted with the theme of relationships, which brings me to a movie I watched last night, Blue Valentine. I’m a big fan of Ryan Gosling so the only reason I can figure it took me so long to watch Blue Valentine is because I find Michelle Williams as annoying as Reese Witherspoon. (I’ve also, to date, avoided The Notebook, but I actually like, or used to like, Rachel McAdams). I know it’s because I keep clear of sappy Hollywood love stories, but sometimes I wonder if the only other alternative is the ultimate downer like Barney’s Version, Blue Valentine or Cold Fish. It amazes me when American and Japanese movies carry similar themes, downer or otherwise. It’s a small world, but within that world there is so much variation, especially when it comes to storytelling. In both Blue Valentine and Cold Fish there’s a similar portrayal of a father’s affection that isn’t reciprocated by a wife who doesn’t know how to say she wants a divorce.

I really couldn’t tell what Cold Fish is about by reading the description on the back of the DVD case. The only details it really gave away were that someone’s daughter steals which causes something bloody and suspenseful to happen. I really wish they would have done a better job of marketing the movie for what it was, because I wouldn’t have taken so long to pop it into the DVD player.  On its face Cold Fish reminded me of, and did little to change my mind that it was just like, Chinese Cat III movie Naked Poison.  Several years ago that would have been fine, but I think I’ve outgrown my Asian sexploitation phase.  French, Spanish and Italian sexploitation is still fresh enough to be engaging. Cold Fish, while it utilized some gratuitous sex/nudity was actually a serial killer movie that reminds me of a cross between Clay Pigeons and a series of nonsensical narratives similar to my hospital dreams/delusions. Cold Fish was a nice welcome back to Japanese cinema.

I’ve decided that Japanese women are the most beautiful women on the planet.  This was reinforced after watching Cold Fish.  I also remember that they come with red hair. Logic would dictate that if something comes with red hair it has to make it that much more awesome. I don’t actually remember seeing any Japanese women outside of at UNT, and that even includes in New York.  I’m sure there must be a dating website for it. There’s a dating website for everything. Unfortunately, “JDate.com” is already taken. Don’t remember seeing any young Japanese women when I got sushi the other day either.

http://www.sushi-typhoon.com/films/coldfish

Submarine

The last week or so of December I moved into my friend’s house.  I actually lived here in 2005 when he and his now ex wife first got married and bought what has become this dump.  It’s almost sad to see all the half done remodeling, undone seven years later.  I’ve been very critical of my friend the past few weeks.  He does, after all, live in a pigsty.  In all of that criticism I’d forgotten two very important things. 1) He hasn’t been a dick about paying rent because he knows how bottom rung radio doesn’t even make you hood rich, and 2) All of these undone projects will always give him something to do, well into his retirement, when he’ll finally finish doing whatever it is he’s doing to this house.

He’s hardly ever here and we have opposite schedules which means I’m basically living alone again, just like PHPE (Pre Heart Pump Era).  The negative, as stated above, is that his house is suffering from neglect.  The positive is that I’ve finally had some time to hear my thoughts.  I think I actually went through a secondary depression when I finally had a clear head to process what it means to be 27 with a heart pump.  I still don’t know, but I think I’m further along in these few weeks than I’d been in the seven prior living with my cunt of a mother.  Just like with Rudolph, if you ever saw it…

It doesn’t amount to the neglect of not having a functional dish washer or clothes dryer, but my friend is and has been without cable for some time.  He will shamelessly go to his parents’ or girlfriend’s house if there’s something on TV he wants to watch. Fortunately or unfortunately, I still have some sense of what is and is not socially awkward/acceptable.  Not near as awkward as when that same friend gave me the keys to his parents’ condo to crash on the couch for a few months while they were moving, but awkward nonetheless. Did I mention that he didn’t tell them I was coming?  That gem also goes back to 2005.

The point of all that is to give background as to why I have no cable and have resorted to watching TV and movies online.  Some of my co-workers recently revealed that they haven’t had cable in 5 plus years and provided me with some websites. I’d like to take this moment to point out that I actually have no issue with paying for cable, there just isn’t an adequate web based cable provider and I’m not paying $3 for an episode of anything. You have to remember, being in the hospital for 2 months and being out of work for at least double that time kind of fucked up my credit/ability to obtain cable by conventional means.  Plus, I find myself broker than ever, both physically and financially.

I started out watching the last season of Dexter.  Then someone turned me on to Parks & Recreation. I just recently, within the past several days, started watching movies online.  It’s actually proven to be a great avenue for finding artsy/indie movies that take 6 months to come to Dallas if they come at all. First was Sleeping Beauty.  Emily Browning has a gorgeous face but it’s odd to think of her as anything but a child.  Then I watched Another Earth.  I haven’t had a movie speak to me like that in a while. I also discovered Brit Marling.  There’s something hauntingly beautiful about Marling’s character in Another Earth. Marling is my age, yet she has accomplished so much more.  My biggest accomplishment will be getting this hurt pump out, which is to say my biggest accomplishment may prove to be nothing.

While looking for more movies to watch online, I watched the trailer for Submarine.  And then it hit me.  I own this movie.  I immediately thought of this blog, which I’ve been neglecting, in part because commenting on streamed films seems like cheating on the original premise of going through my unwatched DVDs.  (You’ll notice that guilt didn’t stop me from mentioning them above).  I completely misunderstood where Submarine was going based on what I remember of the trailer. I thought Submarine was going to be a “love story,” something akin to 500 Days of Summer.  It was really more about male adolescence and imperfect adult relationships.  I know too much about imperfect adult relationships. 

I’m almost convinced that the best a relationship can ever be is when you first meet someone.  (I just watched Swingers, so bear with me). For example, earlier tonight I went to pick up the first sushi I’ve had in over a year.  I forgot my wallet and had to drive back to get it.  When I came back I had awkward small talk with the unconventionally gorgeous waitress while she rang me up and got my food. For the next few days I’ll remember her gorgeous smile that distracted from whatever piercing she has. But, I know if I pursued that further, if I even did so much as ask her name, that superficial one-time relationship and memory would be forever ruined. 

In contrast, I also saw my cunt of a mother earlier in the day while gathering the last of my things from her house.  I don’t know how I would describe that relationship.  I get guilt trips like a husband, picked on like a little brother, and burdened like a father.  It’s a bloody mess, worse than the sty mentioned above.  (Of course I’m jaded when it comes to relationships.  And fuck you for being judgmental). There were two main stories in Submarine.  One was of the main character’s first relationship with a girl.  The other was of the dissolution of the main character’s parents’ marriage. I never had the fortune/misfortune of seeing my parents go through a divorce. I think it happened when I was 2. I think because I have no memory of it at all.

The main character decides at some point that he has to choose between what I’m characterizing as a meaningless relationship with some high school nothing and saving his parents’ marriage.  I see this a lot in films. One or more of the children attempting to reconcile parents. I’m assuming this happens in real life, only because art imitates life.  My only frame of reference is Catch Me If You Can and, to a lesser extent, Stepbrothers. I’ve been put in a vaguely similar situation with my cunt of a mother’s (you should know by now that it is an official title she has more than earned) boyfriends, and in each case I’ve encouraged them to leave.  

Even thinking that you have to decide between puppy love and family obligations reminds me of how skewed my priorities were in high school. I don’t know why I spent so much time thinking about that one crazy chick (you’ll notice from CT and the ol’ cunt that I have a history of crazy women in my life). The boy in Submarine describes his girl as being perfect, which is funny because all I saw when I watched her were glaring flaws, physical and character. Even with a looming death, I think he made the right decision according to the circumstances. I did, as well, deciding to go to New York instead of waiting out a dysfunctional and fizzling relationship with a less than sane person.  I won’t ruin how Submarine ends. I’ll just say that I’m disappointed.

I’m still trying to grasp how Friday the 13^th slipped by me.  It’s historically been my lucky day, but Saturday the 14^th has also been incredibly unlucky.  I don’t know exactly what luck I had today, but I do know several things that can muck up my 14^th (2^nd day at studio in Arlington, second blood draw, life).

http://warp.net/films/submarine