2018 - The Year in Film: A Personal Confession and List

November 30, 2018 Josh Gaines

2018 was a depressing year—not for cinema, for me (and—dang it—wasn’t 2017 a rough one too?). As of December, I have watched roughly twice as many films, if not more, than I have in any previous year and probably broke a personal lifetime-record amount of time in front of a TV or cinema screen.

I attribute this to several things. Most prominently, finding myself deeply depressed, anxious, overwhelmed and generally discouraged about life. I was stagnant, paralyzed and afraid, and movies served as a temporary escape for me. (It’s worth noting that I don’t believe this is necessarily always a bad thing. Letting one’s mind get lost in a story for two hours can be lovely, inspiring and quite restorative.) But in my case, I was using movies (and junk food, and marijuana) as salves for my sadness and as distractions from the things in my life that I didn’t want to deal with, the things I was terrified to address head-on (still am).

Another facet that played into this was my “decision” in January 2018 to go ahead and become a director myself, despite the fact that I had only one short film under my belt, almost no other film experience, no notoriety, very few connections and have been in the same non-film related job for twelve years. “Oh, I’m doing my homework,” I told myself. “I’m educating myself in filmmaking by watching a wide array of great and terrible films, learning a little something from each of them.”

This ended up being more or less true, actually, and despite bad habits and generally feeling like a lazy, worthless shit of a person, I did learn a great deal and filled half a notebook with notes on film stocks, aspect ratios, lens brands and types, notable lines of dialogue, quotes from director interviews, camera movement ideas, color-grading observations and more. Also I wrote a feature length script so maybe it isn’t all for naught.

All that to say, I watched a lot of movies this year, and while my reasons for doing so are arguably unhealthy, it was a lot of fun and I do believe I grew as an artist and a storyteller because of it. Movies mean a lot to me. I think they can be powerful and inform our experience. I think they can communicate great truths. And I really do want to, and intend to, make more of them. Perhaps even good ones.

But for now, here’s what I saw this year, in chronological order, with a few annotations on the particularly great or horrific ones.

About Time, 2013 - (Director) Richard Curtis - 7/10
The Shape of Water, 2017 - Guillermo Del Toro - 8/10
Silence, 2016 - Martin Scorsese - 9/10
Prince of Darkness, 1987 - John Carpenter - 8/10
The Color of Money, 1988 - Martin Scorsese - 7/10
People, Places, Things, 2015 - James Strouse - 4/10
Brawl in Cell Block 99, 2017 - S. Craig Zahler - 9/10
The Island of Doctor Moreau, 1996 - John Frankenheimer, Richard Stanley - 2/10
Heavy Metal, 1981 - Gerald Potterton - 4/10 film overall, 9/10 animation
Phantom Thread, 2017 - Paul Thomas Anderson - 7/10
Child’s Play 3, 1991 - Jack Bender - 6/10
The Running Man, 1987 - Paul Michael Glaser - 7/10
Blade Runner 2049, 2017 - Denis Villeneuve - 9/10
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948 - John Huston - 8/10
Gremlins, 1984 - Joe Dante - 8/10
Moonstruck, 1987 - Norman Jewison - 9/10
M*A*S*H, 1970 - Robert Altman - 6/10
Annihilation, 2018 - Alex Garland - 7/10
Dark Star, 1971 - John Carpenter - 8/10
Night of the Living Dead, 1969 - George A. Romero - 8/10
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 1985 - Steven Spielberg - 4/10
The Soultangler, 1987 - Pat Bishow - 7/10
Good Time, 2017 - Josh & Benny Safdie - 9/10
A Ghost Story, 2017 - David Lowery - 9/10
The Deer Hunter, 1978 - Michael Cimino - 6/10
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, 1981 - George Miller - 9/10
Friday the 13th, 1980 - Joseph Zito - 6/10
Carnosaur, 1993 - Adam Simon - 5/10
The Omen, 1976 - Richard Donner - 6/10
Red Heat, 1988 - Walter Hill - 5/10
A Stupid and Futile Gesture, 2018 - David Wain - 5/10
The Lawnmower Man, 1995 - Brett Leonard - 6/10
Paris, Texas, 1984 - Wim Wenders - 8/10
Buddha’s Palm, 1987 - Taylor Wong - 7/10
Nocturnal Animals, 2016 - Tom Ford - 8/10
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982 - Amy Heckerling - 6/10
Duets, 2000 - Bruce Paltrow - 7/10
Carlito’s Way, 1993 - Brian De Palma - 6/10
48 Hours, 1982 - Walter Hill - 8/10
Night Shift, 1982 - Ron Howard - 8/10
Screamers, 1995 - Christian DuGuay - 5/10
Wizards, 1977 - Ralph Bakshi - 5/10 story 9/10 animation
Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2017 - Jon Watts - 8/10
You Were Never Really Here, 2017 - Lynne Ramsey - 6/10
Heat, 1995 - Michael Mann - 7/10
Spawn, 1997 - Mark A.Z. Dippe - 6/10
Johnny Mnemonic, 1995 - Robert Longo - 6/10
Avengers: Infinity War, 2018 - Joe & Anthony Russo - 9/10
D.C. Cab, 1983 - Joel Schumacher - 5/10
Hannibal, 2001 (unfinished) - Ridley Scott - N/A
Solo, 2018 - Ron Howard - 2/10
Hellraiser II: Hellbound (unfinished) - Tony Randel - N/A
Little Shop of Horrors, 1986 - Frank Oz - 4/10
Hereditary, 2018 - Ari Aster - 8/10
Loving Vincent, 2017 - Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman - 4/10 story 10/10 animation
Saturday Night Fever, 1977 - John Badham - 9/10
First Reformed, 2017 - Paul Schrader - 10/10
Tightrope, 1983 - Clint Eastwood &Richard Tuggle - 6/10
Deadpool 2, 2018 - David Leitch - 8/10
Dogville, 2003 - Lars Von Trier - 8/10
Ghost in the Machine, 1994 - Rachel Talalay - 5/10
Incredibles 2, 2018 - Brad Bird - 8/10
Point Break, 1991 - Katheryn Bigelow - 8/10
Ant Man & The Wasp, 2018 - Peyton Reed - 7/10
The Killing of a Sacred Deer, 2016 - Yorgos Lanthimos - 9/10
Suspiria, 1977 - Dario Argento - 7/10 story, 9/10 atmosphere & color
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, 2018 - J.A. Bayona - 7/10
Sorry to Bother You, 2018 - Boots Riley - 1/10 Fuck this movie. Yes, I understand it, and Yes, still hate it. This movie can “S” my “D.”
The King of Comedy, 1983 - Martin Scorses - 8/10
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, 2018 - Gus Van Zant - 8/10
Batman & Robin, 1997 - Joel Schumacher - 2/10
Logan Lucky, 2017 - Steven Soderbergh - 8/10
Alien: Covenant, 2017 - Ridely Scott - 8/10 I was quite taken by surprise by how much I enjoyed this. Far stronger narrative and execution overall than Prometheus.
Mother!, 2017 - Darren Aronofsky - 9/10 Wow. Deeply upsetting and disturbing, but beautifully done.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (unfinished), 2017 - Luc Besson - 2/10 Oh, lord… Unbelievable visuals, but painfully bad dialogue and wholly disjointed plot.
Talk Radio, 1988 - Oliver Stone - 8/10 Damn, what a film. Seek this one out. It’s really something. Every bit as relevant today as thirty years ago.
Eighth Grade, 2018 - Bo Burnham - 6/10 A series of emotionally affecting moments, but it did not work for me as a cohesive film. Love you though, Bo.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 2017 - Martin McDonagh - 9/10 Pitch perfect.
True Romance, 1993 - Tony Scott - 4/10 Tarantino’s script has its moments and Gary Oldman’s brief inclusion is stellar, but the protagonists are irritating as shit.
The Big Sick, 2017 - Michael Showalter - 9/10
Mission Impossible: Fallout, 2018 - Christopher McQuarrie - 7/10 Tom Cruise FALLS. OUT. OF A PLANE.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2017 - Rian Johnson - 8/10 Having no stake in the matter, I actually thought this was pretty damn decent. Franchises need new life breathed into them.
Star Trek: Beyond, 2016 - Justin Lin - 6/10
The Florida Project, 2017 - Sean Baker - 10/10 My mind continues to mull over this movie. Inconceivable how well it works for its simplicity. Really a thing of beauty.
Platoon, 1986 - Oliver Stone - 6/10 Apocalypse Now is a better Vietnam War film.
JD’s Revenge, 1976 - Arthur Marks - 5/10
Free Fire, 2016 - Ben Wheatley - 1/10 It baffles me that A24 put this out, easily their weakest movie. High-Rise sucked too. This is an emotionally vacant, plotless piece of shit. All aesthetic, no emotional core. Garbage.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society, 2018 - Mike Newell - 5/10 My wife wanted me to watch this with her. It was “cute.”
The Dark Crystal, 1982 - Jim Henson, Frank Oz - 6/10 story, 10/10 puppetry & art direction
The Thing, 1982 - John Carpenter - 10/10 Umpteenth time seeing this. A flawless movie from start to finish.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (unfinished), 2001 - Steven Spielberg directing Stanley Kubrick’s script - 4/10 This seems like it should have been a no-brainer winning combination and I very much wanted to like it, but it was painfully bad. Disjointed, too playful and silly, the tone was all wrong. Couldn’t bear to finish it.
Election, 1999 - Alexander Payne - 8/10 Payne is one of my favorite directors and is a fellow Nebraska native. Despite that this film is billed as a Comedy, it is remarkably smart and is a starkly honest political satire. Even more relevant today.
Blackkklansman, 2018 - Spike Lee - 8/10 Wild, brutally honest, important. His best film.
The Matrix Revolutions, 2003 - Wachowski Sisters - 5/10 Every couple of years I revisit this movie, thinking that magically over time it will get better, except that it doesn’t. The weakest chapter in the trilogy.
Downsizing, 2017 - Alexander Payne - 5/10 So many good elements, somehow, do not add up to a good picture. Very disjointed, lopsided, tonally off.
Let the Corpses Tan, 2018 - Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani - 3/10 Visually very interesting, but waaaaaaaaaay too French for my tastes.
Barry Lyndon (unfinished), 1975 - Stanley Kubrick - N/A I have tried three times to watch this movie, and every time, I’ve turned it off after about an hour. Technically interesting from a filmmaking side, but painfully boring.
The 6th Day, 2000 - Roger Spottiswoode - 7/10 I’ve made it a personal goal to watch every Schwarzenegger movie. Silly, explosive early 00’s fun.
Citizen Kane, 1941 - Orson Welles - 8/10 One of his few good films before he became a self-absorbed, grossly overweight, arrogant hack.
Chinatown, 1974 - Roman Polanski - 10/10 This movie continues to reveal its brilliant qualities and careful nuance every time I rewatch it.
Eraser, 1996 - Chuck Russell - 6/10 Remember what I said about Schwarzenegger?
Hold the Dark, 2018 - Jeremy Saulnier - 8/10 Saulnier is killing it. He has made and is going to make some great films in his life.
Free Solo, 2018 - Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi - 8/10
Iron Warrior, 1987 - Alfonso Brescia - 4/10 So silly.
Parenthood, 1989 - Ron Howard - 7/10 Great cast, very funny.
Unsane, 2017 - Steven Soderbergh - 7/10 Soderbergh’s ability to pull off widely diverse genres and tonal approaches amazes me.
Mandy, 2018 - Panos Cosmatos - 8/10 WHOOOOOOOOAAAAAA!!!!! A. BLAST.
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 - John Schlesinger - 8/10 A beautiful picture.
Straw Dogs, 1971 - Sam Shepard - 8/10 Unsettling in all the best ways. A very bizarre and controversial film, especially for its time.
Dressed to Kill, 1980 - Brian De Palma - 7/10
Isle of Dogs, 2018 - Wes Anderson - 9/10 The story was a bit strange to me but this is a technical masterpiece. I can’t believe it was made by humans. Visually perfect.
Beyond the Black Rainbow, 2010 - Panos Cosmatos - 7/10 Amazing aesthetic, sound design, visuals and music. Closing scene is unfortunately very weak and half-assed compared to the rest of the picture.
Empire Records, 1995 - Allan Moyle - 7/10 Silly 90’s feel-good fun. If you enjoy High Fidelity or School of Rock, this one is worth a watch.
Europa (Zentropa), 1991 - Lars Von Trier - 8/10 The more I reflect on this film, the more brilliant I realize it is. Unique and technically impressive use of actors interacting with front and rear projection, also an interesting mix of film stocks.
Legend (unfinished), 1982 - Ridley Scott - N/A UN-BE-LIEVABLY BAD. Tom Cruise and Tim Curry as the Devil?!? This should have been great! How did this movie get made? Painful to watch.
S is for Stanley, 2016 - Alex Infascelli - 8/10 If you love Kubrick, watch this.
Magnum Force (Dirty Harry 2), 1973 - Ted Post - 8/10 One of the best in the series.
The Enforcer (Dirty Harry 3), 1976 - James Fargo - 5/10 The worst in the series, haha.
Good Guys Wear Black, 1978 - Ted Post - 3/10 I wanted to see young Chuck Norris kick some tail but, unfortunately, he does not kick many tails in this one. Like a bad TV movie.
The Boss of It All, 2006 - Lars Von Trier - 8/10 Von Trier makes a comedy. Smart as a whip, irreverent, satirical, great.
Suspiria, 2018 - Luca Guadagnino - 9/10 Standing ovation.
Ready Player One, 2018 - Steven Spielberg - 7/10 This. Movie. Is. Bonkers.
Fantastic Beasts 2, 2018 - David Yates - 2/10 story, 8/10 CGI Went to this with some Harry Potter fanatic friends. Incredibly weak material, a thousand new characters no one gives a shit about, Hollywood trying to squeeze more dollars out of a franchise by watering it down to appeal to the lowest common denominator. To be clear, the HP films and books are great, but this is not.
Fellini Satyricon, 1969 - Frederico Fellini - 4/10 story, 8/10 aesthetic Crazy, crazy, crazy. Has some amazing visuals and set pieces. Bizarre, sacrilegious, wild. More interesting as an important piece of filmmaking history than it is as a film.
Epidemic, 1987 - Lars Von Trier - 8/10 I’ve been watching through all of Von Trier’s films this year. While they don’t all land as great movies, he always does something unique and approaches each film as a wholly new thing. I think he’s an utter genius who exists in a caliber all his own and each of his films has taught me something.
The House That Jack Built, 2018 - Lars Von Trier - 9/10 So much to unpack here. I could (and might) write an essay about all the layers of this film. Evidence of a filmmaker at the peak of his craft and comfortability. Brutal, but very lovely as well.

"The Outlaw Album" by Daniel Woodrell - Book Review - Short Story Collection

February 8, 2016 Josh Gaines

This post includes affiliate links that support independent bookstores (instead of Amazon!), from which I make a small commission.

I picked up this short volume at a library used book sale for one dollar, and am now so very grateful that I did not spend anywhere near the $24.99 retail price (highway robbery for a book that has a large font and is not even 200 pages long). After reading through it, I got the sense that this collection was hurriedly assembled and released as little more than a cash-grab in the wake of the success of the Oscar-nominated film Winter’s Bone, based upon Daniel Woodrell’s novel. I myself read Winter’s Bone and found it to be decently enjoyable. It was not anything mind-blowing, but was entertaining and had compelling characters and an engaging plot, and was the reason I decided to go a little further down the road with Woodrell’s work.

The Outlaw Album, on the other hand, read like a series of college-level in-class writing exercises, and unfinished ones at that. The majority of these stories felt incomplete, like ideas jotted down but never fleshed out. Very few of them had character, and the characters themselves were not memorable. On certain stories, it seems that Woodrell tried to employ a minimal, jump-cut sort of storytelling that often left me bewildered because the scene changes and implied action made very little sense, as if he was attempting to be dark or ironic by leaving the reader to read between the lines and not quite succeeding.

On a more positive note, I will say that a few of the stories were pretty good and had plot arcs that actually made sense and were interesting. Woodrell also occasionally lucked out with a very strong sentence here and there; vivid, eloquent one-liners full of stark detail or metaphors that landed just right. But those two compliments are about as kind as I can be towards this collection, a book that, believe it or not, I had set out with the expectation to enjoy. Very rarely do I feel the need to rip a book up and down, but this volume came across as an amalgam of largely undeveloped stories that whoever edited them must have barely glanced at before giving them the stamp of approval.

Woodrell’s writing is, in this case, like a second rate Donald Ray Pollock, or a third rate Cormac McCarthy. He has neither the devastating punch nor the literary touch that those men do. If you want some quality Southern fiction with grit as well as heart, read those authors instead.

-D.G.

SOMETHING BROKE IN ME: Thoughts & Experiences Surrounding Derek Cianfrance's "THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES"

November 4, 2015 Josh Gaines

Let’s get something out of the way first: I am not much of a crier.

It is not that I have some male chauvinist tough guy complex about not ever letting myself cry, but rather that things in life--be it movies, books, music, experiences, things that are supposed to be sad or emotionally compelling, etc.--simply do not bring me to tears very often. I have a dead, stone-like heart, perhaps, or a broken part of my brain that simply does not activate that inherent human emotion that says: It is time to cry now.

That said, let’s begin.

“The Place Beyond the Pines is a movie about fathers and sons,” a friend had told me one morning over coffee at a small Denver roastery on South Broadway Street near my home, “and you should watch it. I don’t want to say much more than that, but… just watch it. It gives you a lot to think about.”

This was March 2014. We had spent a bright weekend morning discussing movies and various other things. Among them, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel which had just come out, and The Conjuring (both of which my friend recommended, for I had not seen either at the time), as well as Akira and The Shining (which I urged him to see). We talked about books, got refills of coffee, talked some more, then said our goodbyes and went our separate ways to get on with the rest of the weekend.

Jump to two weeks later. It was a rainy, overcast Saturday afternoon. I was settled comfortably onto my purple IKEA couch--which, damn it all, looked undeniably grey, not purple, when my wife and I picked it out in the IKEA showroom some weeks earlier--with a Sierra Nevada IPA in hand and a copy of The Place Beyond the Pines in the BluRay player. I had put a copy on hold at the library, as had a number of other folks, apparently, because there was a two week wait on availability. My wife, eight months pregnant at the time, was out--it’s true--photographing a wedding, even with a sizable baby-belly swelling out from her middle. I specifically waited until I could watch Pines on my own because I knew from reading a short synopsis that it would probably be too much of a “downer” for her to enjoy.

The film began and I was struck by the quiet intensity of the opening scene. Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), shirtless, covered in black and green tattoos, skin shining with sweat, breathing heavily and pacing back and forth in a small room while flipping a butterfly knife open and closed, hyping himself up. Cut to a lengthy one-shot that remains fixed on the back of Luke’s head as he, now clad in a red leather jacket, weaves through the colorful pandemonium of a carnival surrounding him. He arrives at a red and white big top tent where inside an announcer is shouting his name to wild cheers from a crowd as he approaches a dirtbike, already running and chugging with anticipatory life. From the first moment I was intrigued by this character but also got the immediate sense that something about him was very unsafe.

The film progressed and I was fully enveloped in its first act; a quickly-paced back and forth narrative of aggressive heist scenes blended with the mellow, somewhat tragic personal life of Luke Glanton, his illegitimate infant son, and the woman Romina (Eva Mendes) with whom he has a complicated bond.

Aside from this first third of the movie being wonderful all its own (if painful to watch), I enjoyed the added luxury of knowing absolutely nothing about the film prior to seeing it, save for the ambiguous recommendation of my friend. Thus, I was jarred (and delighted) upon discovering, slowly and subtly, that this movie was something wholly other than what I had been expecting. The way in which the plot unfolds has an amorphous and deceptive quality (in a good way), leaving the viewer walking away from a film that feels very different from the one that they stepped into, even though the story itself remains fluid and intact.

To describe this any further would be to ruin the pleasures lying hidden within Pines that the person seeing it for the first time ought to have the privilege of discovering for themselves. While it does not contain the hard-hitting, jolt-to-the-system twists like that of Gone Girl or The Usual Suspects, that is not to say it is a film without surprises.

Derek Cianfrance is a master of quietness and subtlety who seems to have a fondness for exploring characters with regular, less-than-fantastic lives. In regards to the quietness: there are long segments in Pines without a soundtrack, or with music mixed so softly it serves only as a delicate undertone to the action on the screen, providing the performers enough vulnerable space in which to glow. As to the subtlety: Cianfrance’s characters often tend to be melancholy in such a way that even they do not realize they are melancholy, however to the viewer it is abundantly clear. They are not pathetic per se, and yet there are parts of their lives that make us cringe. Perhaps they are not openly depressed, and yet there is an undeniable sadness intertwined in their person. These are people whose lives appear to be just a little bit worse than our own; utterly, exhaustingly regular.

It was during one of these “regular” moments in The Place Beyond the Pines that I experienced one of the most jarring emotional incidents of my adult life.

The second act of the film began and I was being introduced to Officer Avery Cross, Bradley Cooper’s character, who had just been injured in a shootout with Luke Glanton. He was being legally coached at the hospital by his superiors into changing his story regarding the altercation, saying Glanton had shot first, even though Avery knew that was not the truth. What begins as Avery being in possible legal trouble flips instead to him becoming a hero among the local police force; one of “the good guys” injured in the line of duty. Avery’s discomfort with being heralded is visible on his face in the scenes following. He is sorely aware of his dishonesty, yet he never discourages the praise being poured out on him, nor pipes up to confess the truth about what happened. I could not help but feel a sort of misguided sympathy towards him for the tricky situation in which he had been placed, and found myself wondering what choices I would have made given the same scenario.

Back at home, Avery’s wife had recently given birth to their first child, a son. A scene opens in which nothing special is happening. Avery and his wife settle down on the couch with their newborn in a small, cozy-looking home to watch television (a news program singing more praises to Avery Cross’ heroism). It is not a crucial scene in the film, and its inclusion serves only two basic purposes: to give us a small peek into Avery’s new life as a father, and to remind us via the TV program that he is still a local celebrity.

And yet something caught in my throat.

That will be my life soon passed through my head in a whisper.

The inconsequential elements on-screen added up to something strange and overwhelming: that humble disheveled look of the Cross family’s living room, in need of picking up but neglected because that’s what new parents do. That warm simplicity of a family’s quiet evening at home together. That delicate infant boy in his clean onesie, pure white.

Suddenly I’m weeping. It started small, a few streams down the cheeks that took me completely by surprise. I had a fleeting thought that I was being ridiculous because this was hardly the sort of scene to be crying at, but the tears kept coming. And growing.

Remember that my wife was eight months pregnant at this time, so the looming certainty of having a child (and becoming a father) was hovering over my thoughts constantly, whether up front or in my deep subconscious. Knowing that there would be a baby in my home in roughly a month’s time was a bizarre and emotionally-loaded sensation. Fear, joy, excitement, uncertainty, feelings of inadequacy, questions as to whether making the decision to have a child was a mistake, and a million other things all rolled into one. Sitting there crying on the couch, I realized more fully than ever that there was going to be a little person whom I had never met before living with my wife and I very soon; an actual human with a heart and a personality and a face; a tangible thing of flesh and blood to hold and nurture. Seeing that quiet little family at home together on the couch opened something up inside me that I had never known was there.

This may sound made up, but my weeping got to the point that I had to pause the movie and go into the bathroom for tissues. I remember thinking in some distant part of my brain What in the world am I doing? and Where is this coming from? even though I knew the answer to that. I stood in my bathroom and continued to cry until I was hunched over, wet tissues bunched in my hand and my arms crossed over my stomach. My shoulders trembled as the waves of emotion washed over me, and I just let them keep coming until they were finished. I was not sad, nor was I necessarily happy, but I can say that what was happening felt cathartic and wonderful, like a great release after being closed up and under pressure for far too long. It felt like something secret and beautiful and true had blindsided me from the most unexpected of places. And while to this day I don’t understand exactly what happened that rainy afternoon, I do believe it was necessary and, in a way, a gift.

The tears finally stopped and I splashed some water on my face, then went back to the living room to finish the movie. I was in something like a euphoric state for the rest of the film, and damn if that Sierra Nevada wasn’t the best thing I had ever tasted.

My friend was right, The Place Beyond the Pines is a movie about fathers and sons, but it is also a movie about parents and children. I watched it a second time a few months ago (with my wife this time, and she liked it just fine) and my perspective was wholly different after having had a child. The scene I described earlier did not bring me to tears during this second viewing--that was a moment of inexplicable magic which I would be foolish to expect twice--however it did conjure a sweet memory of that strange tumultuous experience I had enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) a year and a half earlier.

I said at the start that I was not a crier, but that is not quite an accurate statement anymore. It would be more honest to say that I did not used be a crier. Since our child was born in April of 2014, a girl, I’ve cried plenty, and it’s wonderful. Sometimes those tears are out of sheer exhaustion, yes, but mostly they have been borne of laughter and joy that goes far beyond myself.

The Place Beyond the Pines is not my favorite film, but it is one with which I will always share a unique bond, for something unutterable and lovely broke open in me the first time I watched it. If that rainy afternoon served as a foreshadowing to something beautiful, the birth of my daughter was undoubtedly that beauty brought to fruition.

-D.G.

"Lunar Park" Book Review - Bret Easton Ellis

September 3, 2015 Josh Gaines

This post includes affiliate links that support independent bookstores (instead of Amazon!), from which I make a small commission.

Bret Easton Ellis ventures into horror, weird and supernatural territory; who knew he had it in him?

The story is that of Bret Ellis, an author whose work made him famous from a very young age, and who has enjoyed a life of extravagance, wealth and relative ease apart from the drama in his private life. The book begins with an exposition of Bret's history (which contains both fact and fiction), beginning with his college days and the hugely successful publishing of Less Than Zero that made him a celebrity almost overnight. The opening chapter goes on to expound Bret's various troubled relationships with men and women, his drug use and partying, his gallivanting around New York and Los Angeles through expensive hotels and restaurants with his author friend Jay McInerney, his book tours for which he was scarcely sober (or coherent) and the repercussions of the terrible relationship he had with his late father.

Fathers and sons is a strong them in the novel. One of the most curious elements (when held up against Bret's actual life) is that he marries a fictional actress (in real life Ellis is gay) of substantial renown who has two children; a girl of seven or eight and a boy of eleven. His relationship with the boy, Robby, is strained from the start. At first, Bret seems disinterested in pursuing either of his step-children but becomes increasingly obsessed with making right with Robby in particular as the story goes on. Meanwhile, he wrestles with anger towards his dead father and the lack of closure they had when he passed.

Much of the weirdness of the book (which builds slowly and is expertly subtle—until it isn't) revolves around Ellis' previous books, as well as his father. For example, a young man named Clay (same name as the main character of Less Than Zero) shows up to Bret's Halloween party dressed as Patrick Bateman (the psychopathic killer from American Psycho). Bret keeps receiving blank emails at exactly 2:40 a.m. from the bank where his father's ashes are kept in a safe deposit box. He keeps seeing a cream colored Mercedes Benz 450 SL—the same car that his father owned and he himself drove as a teenager—parked outside his house or at the college where he teaches. To top it all off, preteen boys have been mysteriously disappearing all around the city... All that only scratches the surface; there's plenty of other weirdness that happens, as well as sections that are downright creepy and wrought with suspense.

What comes as such a surprise (though perhaps it shouldn't) is just how damn good Bret Easton Ellis is at combining a genuinely engaging story of a broken man and his troubled relationships with elements that are absolutely bizarre. Somehow, he makes this combination work. I suppose it is surprising because, apart from one short story that involves a vampire in his collection The Informers, Ellis' work always remains in the realm of the “real.” So to read material of his that would be perfectly suited inside a Stephen King novel is a unique pleasure.

There is a careful amalgamation going on in this book of factual Bret mixed with fictional Bret melding into an altogether strange central character whose reliability is questionable (not for his narrative dishonesty, but for his paranoia and abuse of drugs and alcohol). Additionally, I loved the meta quality of the novel—a literary gamble, and not an easy technique to pull off well—how it was written to be self-aware, self-referencing, branching outside the norms of a typical narrative and inclusive of Ellis' other works.

Having read all of his other works prior to this one (with the exception of The Rules of Attraction), Lunar Park became my new favorite before I was even halfway through it. I'm a sucker for strange fiction and already enjoyed Ellis' work so I may be biased, but I consider this book a triumph. Not many people can so expertly blend the dramatic with the weird.

-D.G.

"The Jaws Log" Book Review - Carl Gottlieb - The Making of JAWS (1975), a diary from the set of the hit movie

July 8, 2015 Josh Gaines

This post includes affiliate links that support independent bookstores (instead of Amazon!), from which I make a small commission.

For the hardcore Jaws fan, this is fun and certainly worth a read. However, after finishing this I watched the two hour documentary featured on the Jaws BluRay and essentially most of the same stories surrounding the production are told there as well, and more colorfully.

Gottlieb is an okay writer, but he tends to go off on small tangents throughout the book that are not directly relevant to the making of Jaws. Granted, he wasn't shooting for some grand literary feat with this small volume, and basically the book consists of nothing more than collected stories and interviews from before, during, and after production. The whole book has a somewhat cutesy, lighthearted quality, full of all the fish, bite, and water puns one might expect. Part of this, I suppose, is a product of it being a book from 1975; there is a playful tongue-in-cheek vibe about it, reminiscent of “simpler” times.

Reading this gave me a whole new appreciation for Jaws as a film (even with it already being one of my favorites) because the making of it was truly a disaster. One key reason for this is that filming a giant mechanical shark that was painstakingly made to look real had simply never been done before. Pair that with Spielberg's perfectionist approach and the fact that they filmed 12 miles from shore in order to appear being far out into the sea, and you've got a perfect storm of things that can go wrong—and they did. Admittedly, a book could probably be written about the making of nearly any major budget movie and the slew of obstacles that come up during production of a film, but what makes the story of Jaws remarkable is that somehow Spielberg and his editor, an industry veteran named Verna Fields, were able to scrounge together reels and reels of footage from a disastrous shoot and turn it into one of the most beloved films of all time.

There were a few things mentioned that would certainly not fly by today's standards. For example, the crew members were actively killing sharks for sport in between shots while out on the water. The author mentions this with an air that communicates he actually found it humorous, and says that it was the crew's way of taking revenge on the fact that they were miserable, homesick, and far over schedule. Not cool. Additionally, there were passing comments about crew members drinking beer throughout the shooting days. I'm fairly certain that alcohol is strictly off-limits on set these days, at least for crew (the talent may be another story).

Anyhow, I came away from this with a greater fondness for Spielberg and the passion with which he approaches his work (plus the fact that he was twenty-seven when he finished this film; my current age, by the way). On the contrary, my perception of a few of the film's stars was tarnished, but not greatly. They're actors, they live in their own world and sometimes they're divas, and there is nothing we lowly common folk can do about it.

Film buffs or avid fans of the movie will probably enjoy this. It was a quick and entertaining read with some interesting behind the scenes stories.

-D.G.

"The Martian" Andy Weir - Book Review

May 27, 2015 Josh Gaines

This post includes affiliate links that support independent bookstores (instead of Amazon!), from which I make a small commission.

Plenty well enough has been said about this story (and its pending film) already. By the time I received the book for Christmas in 2014 (at which time I had never heard of it), it was already quite a phenomenon. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts anyway.

First of all, the publishing history of how this book came to be in its current form is an interesting story itself. This can be heard firsthand by Andy Weir over at the Inquiring Minds podcast—great interview, too. I must confess, I love to hear these “success stories” from indie authors who simply write something because it brings them joy, then they gain an online following that they weren't even trying for, then end up releasing something to universal acclaim. Hugh Howey comes to mind.

As to the quality of the writing in The Martian, it leaves a bit to be desired. Without meaning to sound condescending, it reads exactly like it what it is: a fictional narrative written by an engineer who could out-quiz the lot of us under the table. It is clunky in places, corny in even more places, and much of the character dialogue consists of typical, familiar tropes. Despite these things, Weir manages to pull off what is ultimately a well-paced and -developed plot, even if his phrasing is nothing original and his characters are fairly cookie-cutter apart from Mark Watney himself.

Watney is, for the most part, an enjoyable character (if corny at times), and I think he probably had to be a fun character for all the lengthy passages of oration detailing mathematical and scientific processes. Were he flat, many readers would probably give up by Page 20. Reviewers have praised the humor in this book, although to my ear it came off as eye-rollingly bad in places, chock-full of the worst pun-fodder your dad could ever come up with. But at least the author was breaking up the monotony that could have come from so many explanatory sections describing Watney's many survival tasks. Also, it will be interesting to see how much of the humor makes it into Ridley Scott's film, as Matt Damon may be just the actor who can pull off the sort of deadpan delivery to make such cheesy lines believable.

I found the most intriguing part of the book to be the lengthy descriptions of Mark's farming, repairing the HAB, regenerating water for himself, and all the hundreds of other things he must do to survive on Mars. From reading other reviews, I believe I am in the majority with this opinion. To the layman (referring to myself here), there is something so utterly foreign and fascinating about these space and physics concepts that Watney encounters, and it is even more mind-blowing to recognize that there are thousands of people working on these very things every day. The mark of Weir's writing talent comes through in that he was able to explain extremely complicated processes in such a straightforward, easy-to-follow way. And, goodness sakes, do some of them sound exhausting. There is a reason only a select few out of billions were ever destined to become astronauts.

In all, The Martian was an enjoyable read, even if it is not necessarily great literature (and granted, it has never claimed to be). What you'll get is a fast-moving space thriller surrounding a nugget of scientific research that is entertaining and—so the experts say—pretty close to accurate (or as close to it as Weir could get).

-D.G.

The Unsettling Allure of On-Screen Horror

October 24, 2014 Josh Gaines

I wrote a new piece for Muzzleland Press regarding unsettling films, on-screen deaths, and the movies that defined for me what was true horror. Read it here!

Let's Talk About "The Shining"!! - Part 2: The Film

September 24, 2014 Josh Gaines

(Re-posted from October 2013)

I had the privilege of seeing Kubrick’s The Shining for the first time within about three days of finishing King’s book. A local historic movie theatre called The Esquire apparently screens it as a midnight showing every October around Halloween. Not only was this DE-LIGHTFUL timing, but what a treat it was to see this iconic and very visual film in high def on a full screen, much less with the book so fresh in my mind. To add a dash of seasoning salt to this whole business, the kooky documentary Room 237 had just been added to Netflix, so I also watched that after reading the book but before seeing Kubrick’s film.

I know, it was a real week full of Shining for me there, but what more perfect time than Halloween month?

I specifically refer to the film adaptation as Kubrick’s, meaning it ‘belongs’ to him, whereas the book (obviously) belongs to King. I say this in the sense that, as many have observed before me, Kubrick took King’s story and made it very much his own. There are many major changes from the film to the book, all the more clear when going from one to the other in such a short amount of time. I probably don’t need to list some them here, but guess what?

I draw attention to the following not in a critical sense, but merely in a factual sense, and for the benefit of those who have not read the book.

First of all, there is no hedge maze in Stephen King’s book. Nada. Nothing even close. Oh, yeah, in the book there are demonic hedge animals that attack both Danny and Jack, but who could have pulled off that special effect in 1980? Plus, it would have been hard to get right… Some things are better left to the imagination. Other changes to the film that do not occur in the book: Jack doesn’t get seduced by the nasty bathtub lady, nor does she ever manifest herself as young or beautiful. Jack raises hell on Wendy and Danny with a roque mallet (I know, me neither. It’s like what is used in croquet); no axe is ever mentioned in his destructive last thirty pages. The bullet-ridden mafia men Danny sees in the Presidential Suite are absent from the film, whereas the famous scene of the twin girls chopped up and bloody in the hallway appears nowhere in the book (although it is mentioned that the previous caretaker of The Overlook murdered his family with an axe). Jack never says, “Here’s Johnny!” in the book. There is no blood wave from the elevator. Danny does talk out of his finger, but rather has an invisible friend named Tony who appears in full body form and suggests Danny do things which are usually foreboding and sinister. The line ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ is never used. Hallorann does not die (in fact he saves Wendy and Danny on a snowmobile). The Overlook Hotel does not freeze over, rather the boiler in the basement explodes and it burns to the ground. Ullman is way more of a pretentious prick (which is hardly important, but notable). Jack finds numerous scrapbooks in the cellar full of newspaper clippings relaying horrible incidents at the hotel over the years; this is left completely out of the film.

Those are the main ones that come to mind. Some of them seem like pretty reasonable changes for sake of keeping the pace of the film up and not lingering on less-than-crucial information, or leaving out elements that would be honestly hard to reproduce on film. Yet other changes are very strange indeed, and seem to reflect the state of mind Kubrick was in while making this movie. The man was clearly a creative genius, though an extremely particular artist and sometimes rather obsessive and mad, though not one tic or titter appeared in his films by accident. It is these reasons that make the film as a unit all the more fascinating. The more you know about Kubrick, the more interesting and mysterious his choices on The Shining become.

It has been noted many times over that he often incorporates elements that either explore or distort sexuality (notice the rather phallic-shaped carpet patterns in the hallways and Room 237? A bit of a stretch, but once you notice it, you can’t not see it). The connection has also been made that Jack is a centaur of sorts, guarding (and terrorizing) his labyrinth, with Wendy and Danny being his captives. This is one of the most curious changes to the story, for while it does not occur in the book, it still encompasses, in a way, the theme that Wendy and Danny are trapped in this remote place with Jack, and in the end he does hunt them for blood. Plus, the folklore of a centaur and his labyrinth is a mysterious concept all its own.

I mentioned in the book review that I felt the novel is primarily Danny-centric, while the film is very Jack-centric. While Jack Nicholson played the part fantastically and is a fascinating enigma to watch in most any role, he really only captures the crazy side of Jack Torrance. This, I believe, is simply due to how Nicholson interpreted the character personally (or perhaps together with what Kubrick wanted Jack Torrance to be). They were making a scary movie after all, so Jack was going to act kinda crazy in the start and go downright ape-shit crazy by the end. This is only a bit of a shame because in the novel Jack is a very sympathetic character whom we are sad to see unravel. However entertaining (and often darkly humorous) his performance was in the film, he’s really just ‘the crazy guy.’

That said, I feel that this is one of the rare occasions where a great book and a great film can be accepted and appreciated as separate entities, with very little ‘loss’ from one being translated to the other. For all its differences from the novel, The Shining as a film stands on its own because of great dialogue, heavy foreboding for the duration of the film, gorgeous cinematography, and deep, suggestive undertones that can be interpreted endlessly.

Before I finish, three curiosities. First, The Shining was, in fact, not filmed at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. This is a popular misconception, especially among Colorado natives, and is probably rooted in the fact that the crappy, made-for-TV 1997 remake of The Shining was filmed at The Stanley. Kubrick’s film was shot primarily on a sound stage in Hertfordshire, England, and the exterior shots of the hotel are of Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon. It is true that King stayed at The Stanley once in 1973, and it has been claimed that the hotel was his inspiration for The Overlook, though I’m not sure that has ever been confirmed by King himself.

Secondly, the window. Specifically, the window in Ullman’s office at the very start of the film, the first time we see Jack walk in to meet with Ullman about taking the job of hotel caretaker. If you watch the film, notice: in the layout of the hotel lobby, there is clearly a hallway geographically behind Ullman’s office. We even see this hallway in later shots, both when Danny is riding his Big-Wheel through the lobby, and again when Wendy is looking for Jack, running chicken-like and with knife in hand. In other words, Ullman’s office ought to be completely walled in, and yet when Jack enters, there is a large, bright, very prominent window directly behind the desk. Consider this: that scene was a pre-built sound stage, not a real hotel, so this inclusion of the ‘impossible’ window was particular and intentional. Most folks (I presume) would never even notice, even watching the film multiple times. What was Kubrick saying with this hidden clue? Perhaps he was hinting that things in this hotel are more than a little off-kilter…

Lastly, the final shot of Jack in the ballroom picture from 1921. Again, not in the book, but a beautiful close, suggesting (to me) that the hotel ‘absorbed’ Jack Torrance into itself, as it has probably done to many others before him. Kubrick ends this film with a puzzle, giving viewers something to discuss while walking out of the theatre, and an odd little itch to watch the thing again to maybe figure it out.

-D.G.

Claymation, Stop-Motion, & The Master of Claysploitation: Lee Hardcastle

July 3, 2014 Josh Gaines

I have been a fan of stop-motion animation for as long as I can remember. The magical quality of inanimate objects coming to life—sometimes smoothly, sometimes with an endearing imperfection—continues to fascinate me. I have always been amazed at just how much time, work, and dedication goes into stop-motion animation; it has to be one of the slowest animation mediums, but also has the potential for huge, satisfying payoffs.

I believe my earliest encounter with it was the intermittent Claymation bits on Sesame Street (most of these created by Claymation pioneer/legend Will Vinton), such as the catchy tune “Lucille” which featured a shape-changing orange ball with bright red lips.

Not long after, I discovered the thirty-minute television special The California Raisins: Meet the Raisins!, as well as Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas, both of which I recorded from TV onto a VHS tape the soonest chance I got (these were both on frequent rotation on The Disney Channel, as I recall). I didn’t see the second California Raisins special (or even realize it existed) until two years ago when I purchased both on a combo DVD (which also included the 13-episode season of the California Raisins traditionally-animated show, which is decent, but only if you’ve had a lot to drink). Unfortunately, The Raisins Sell Out! is nowhere near as clever as the first special; the jokes are juvenile and the animation feels slapped together. Will Vinton’s work since then has been hit or miss as far as stories go (The Adventures of Mark Twain has its moments but is largely hard to sit through), but his style and the quality of his animation are second to none.

My love for Claymation continued with the discovery of Wallace and Gromit (the first three shorts, primarily), The Nightmare Before Christmas (a film my mother was strongly opposed to), James and the Giant Peach (which is stop-motion blended with CGI), the horribly-creepy-how-can-they-call-this-a-children’s-movie Return to OZ (the Nome King sequence is damn impressive), and the obligatory Rankin Bass productions (Rudolph, Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town, and the delightfully trippy Rudolph’s Shiny New Year).

The Nome King from Return to OZ — The Nome King from *Return to OZ*

As a ten- or eleven-year-old with conservative parents, I would secretly tape episodes of Celebrity Deathmatch from TV and watch them at night in my room; I found these equally fascinating and gross.

Several years ago, I Google-hunted for every stop-motion feature or short film that I could find, many of which were from foreign directors and obscure, and I gobbled up every one of them that I could get ahold of. Some of the more notable ones were Blood Tea & Red String (a bizarre feature-length with creepy rats and no dialogue. It took the director, Christiane Cegavske, thirteen years to complete, and she did all the animation herself), The Book of the Dead (which is impressive but not altogether interesting), Mary & Max (a sweet and humorous comedy from New Zealand), $9.99, and Jan Švankmajer’s Alice (a mixed live-action/animated surrealist take on Alice in Wonderland). More recently, I very much enjoyed Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a film I watch at least once a year.

Earlier this year, I was going down some YouTube rabbit-hole or another (probably the ten best villain deaths, the best one-liners from Schwarzenegger, or something equally as absurd) when I happened upon a video called Claycat’s Evil Dead II; a two-minute Claymation film with crudely-modeled cats acting out Sam Raimi’s film in rapid time. I was mesmerized, and immediately went to the creator’s page—Mr. Lee Hardcastle, a twenty-nine year old writer, director, and animator from the UK—subscribed to his videos, then watched another handful of his films (by this point I’ve watched them all, most more than once).

Lee Hardcastle began doing Claymation full time in 2010 after online success with his video The Evil Dead in 60 Seconds with Clay. In 2011, he sold all his belongings to support an unpaid career in creating short films, some of which screened at Cannes Film Festival. His short T is for Toilet won a spot in the feature film The ABC’s of Death, and the sequel, Ghost Burger, is Lee’s longest film to date at 22 minutes (currently available for HD download at Vimeo OnDemand. I highly recommend). He has gone on to work with Momentum Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Adult Swim, E4, as well as the bands Kill the Noise (for which he won MTV’s Video of the Year), Portugal. The Man, and Sufjan Stevens. His fan-film Claycat’s The Raid was included on the DVD release of the actual film.

Lee has managed to blend the gore, humor, and over-the-top element of 1980’s horror and exploitation films with the vibrant medium of clay animation. It’s a strange sensation, seeing a figure have his eyes forced out and his face crumpled inward, or a man vomiting his innards onto a birthday cake—the most violent, bloody things imaginable, basically—and not feeling too sick to your stomach about it because, after all, it’s just clay. Lee’s early videos are good, but he has clearly continued to hone his craft over time, and his most recent films are masterful. The handmade quality is still apparent, but there is nothing lo-fi about his work. In addition to his skillful hands—Lee animates all of the films himself—he is also a talented storyteller (again, Ghost Burger).

In early 2014, Lee created a mock-trailer and launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his full-length, 3D feature film, Spook Train. The trailer itself is gorgeous, and makes one giddy with excitement to see the full film; it is a colorful and terrifying teaser in all the right ways. But alas, the campaign was unsuccessful. Lee explained that a film as ambitious as Spook Train would take him at least two years to complete, and he would need enough funds to live off of during that time, not to mention the many production and distribution costs. Lee’s YouTube page has 136,414 subscribers (as of July 3, 2014), and some of his videos have gone into the millions of views, so one would think that he could easily reach the £40,000 needed to fund the film (he ended up reaching a little over £12,000). I guess his subscribers aren’t so loyal after all.

It’s up in the air as to whether Spook Train will ever get made, but in the meantime you can subscribe to the Spook Train Newsletter for updates.

So why all the info about Lee? Because he’s a damn genius (I would say he’s a f*cking genius but someone might get upset), and you need to absorb his entire YouTube channel into your eyeballs. Lee Hardcastle has created a genre all his own, and his work deserves to be seen and appreciated by even more people. This isn’t some gimmicky YouTube user who posts funny but pointless talking-head features of themselves complaining about celebrities or showing girls how to utilize their make-up and somehow gaining thousands of subscribers; this is one hard-working dude with some serious talent and dedication. His claymations are darkly humorous, unbelievably violent, and completely brilliant.

Oh yes, and they’re not for children.

* * *

My personal favorites are:

-Spook Train Trailer

-An Alien Claymation

-Claycat’s Evil Dead II

-Claycat’s The Thing

-T is for Toilet

-Ghost Burger

-Quentin Tarantino’s Ghostbusters 3

Now go watch some stop-motion.

-D.G.