DOGVILLE - a comment

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.

Comments

FLESH + BLOOD mini-review (Rutger Hauer, Verhoeven)

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 wasn't ha…

Phenomena - Dario Argento, Jennifer Connelly, and Donald Pleasance

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.

Karate Kid, IF "Similar" and SCBWI Tokyo Art Show

The Karate Kid changed my life.
The movie, of course. Not the Legion of Superheroes comic character.
I'm watching it right now as I type this blog and I was thinking about how many of my perceptions about karate were shaped by Mr. Miyagi. I was never big on "sports" movies, I never saw Rocky.
But I knew what it was like to be the little guy. The new kid on the block. And I knew what it was like going up against an institutionalized system of separating the "winners" from the "losers".
Luckily, I had friends in and out of school that liked me for who I was and not for who I desperately thought I wanted to be. It took me a little while and Karate Kid 2 to realize what I did want. The summer that KK2 was the summer where I decided to take control of my life and stopped worrying about what the @$$holes thought. It wasn't even a gradual thing. Once I had made that decision, suddenly things started changing around me. I had confidence and that made it easie…

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