patokon blog

And don’t forget the chimp, the gimp, and the swarms of six-legged creatures. Jennifer Connelly stars as Jennifer, an American at a creepy European boarding school (see Suspiria). She’s pretty and rich, but lonely. Her parents have abandoned her and she’s WAY too friendly with bugs.  What’s a girl to do? Why become friends with a slightly creepy entomologist dude, that’s what. I’m sure she only had an eye for his bags and for his cute assistant, a chimpanzee. Something that is now a thing, I’m sure. Like many Argento flicks, there are decapitations and attempted decapitations. Also lots of blood and broken glass. And mirrors. And useless cops. An excellent follow-up to Suspiria which I’d like to talk about in the future.

This film happened to express some recent thoughts I’ve been having regarding sin and the nature of forgiveness as well as regarding the possibility of an idyllic small town life. The smaller the number of variables, the more chance of effecting a utopian ideal you might think. The same weaknesses exist everywhere and in all of us. I don’t make Grace’s mistakes as much anymore. I’m not out to change the world or martyr myself for the greater good. I just do what I can with what I have and try not to be a rat’s ass (see quote from last post). The way the movie is filmed is fascinating. Even though it’s stafe-like, you’d still have to shoot it on film for it to work. Brilliant. Dogville is like America seen through the eyes of the brilliant Shirley Jackson. Anyway, the format of my commentaries is still in flux. I hope it’s not too incoherent.

I'm trying out a new format for talking about movies. It's a work in progress. I actually want to do more illustration and the sketch of Jennifer Jason Leigh doesn't do her any justice. Once I turned on this movie, I wanted to look into Susan Tyrrell as she always plays highly-interesting broken characters. I plan to rewatch her in Angel (1984) sometime soon. She has a great quote on IMDB : I'm a loner. I don't like beautiful people, but I find beauty in the grotesque. And in the sweet soul inside someone who has been able to get through their life without being a rat's ass. I love all the connections that I listed up here. Hauer is one of my absolute favorite actors and I can't believe I waited so long to see him in this. Or maybe I saw the casting and ran far away, cuz this is some bizarre casting! Verhoeven is a very interesting director as in he's not afraid to do things differently. He apparently experimented while making this film and...

My good friend Mr. Fujita passed on one of his treasures to my mentor Mr. Hashimoto BUT FIRST he allowed me to share some photos and a quick flip through with you, loyal readers.  In this box is a tiny reprint (a minibon) of the first issue of weekly anthology magazine CoroCoro comics (5/15/1975, featuring Doraemon) which was given away to only the people who attended the editor’s end of year party in what I assume was 2005 as it says 30th anniversary on the box and inside.  I love the mini-bon format and I was sorely tempted to buy the set of Tezuka mini-bon that were sold once. But they’re not the best for research or for reading when your eyesight starts to go like mine has. In the poorly filmed flip-through below, you can see some early Doraemon, a few other series, and some color inserts related to Sadaharu Oh, a Japanese-born Chinese baseball legend who played on the Yomiuri Giants team and holds the world lifetime home run record of 868 home runs. A ...