WHAT about the storks???
Friday, Nov. 25, 2005 at 7:36 a.m.
Hello again, kids! Yesterday was spent not so much with gluttonous shenanigans but with working. Yep. It�s a holiday, but since I work in a technical support call center for hospital and medical software, we kinda need to be here 24/7/365. However, it was a nice slow day, and I was able to watch my movies, and I�ve been seeing some doozies lately.
JeffTowne -- This is a student film from 1998 or so, a first-time prject for our auteurs who work with this Down Syndrome fellow named Jeff Towne. He is 38 years old, watches porn and TV wrestling for 10 hours a day, gets free beer and food, and generally hangs out with the crew at the local movie theatre. Since the usual expected life span of a Down Syndrome person is 30, it�s pretty amazing that he�s done so well. His adoptive mother is 94 (!) and still takes care of him to some degree, but he pretty much has the run of the place. The amazing thing about this film is that these first-time filmmakers were presented with a showing at the Slamdance film festival in Park City, Utah, where an average of 1500 films are entered but only about 24 are shown! There�s a fun film of this showing on the disc as well as an �update� film of Jeff and how�s he�s doing in 2002. His mother is currently in a care facility and Jeff has been taken in by the ARC agency and is now living in a supervised group apartment and actually has a JOB at the movie theatre. He�s the �head usher�. Happy endings all around!
Flesh + Blood -- This was also released in an edited version in the US called The Rose and the Sword. This disc, however, has the full blood, guts, rape, nudity, plague, and Susan Tyrell version that was the director�s (Paul Verhoeven) vision. Ruetger Hauer leads a merry band of mercenaries through the countryside, where they rape and pillage to their heart�s content, kidnapping their former bosses� son�s fianc�e Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh) along the way. I was a bit disconcerted by the anachronisms, in particular the amount of available glassware in 1501. Anyhoo, the reason I got this movie in the first place was for Susan Tyrell, a rather underrated character actress that was probably best known for her role as Ramona Ricketts, the grandmother in Cry-Baby. She�s a hoot as Celine in this one as well, playing the spurned lover of Martin (Hauer) when he takes up with the hotsie-totsie Agnes. You get to see a lot of fully naked Jennifer Jason Leigh in this, if that blows your skirt up. Oh, and apparently if you�re exposed to bubonic plague, you apparently go full-blown and die within 10 minutes. Right. This movie is also filled with �Hey! That guy!� sightings, in particular, Bruno Kirby, who played the limo driver (�Fucking Limies.�) in Spinal Tap.
Man Bites Dog (It Happened in Your Neighborhood) -- Um, it�s French. Or Belgian, I�m not quite sure of the nationality and I don�t want to offend anyone. This is another student film, but extremely well-done. It�s a violent mockumentary that follows Benoit, a fellow that simply likes killing people. Not like he�s a mercenary for hire or anything, he just kills people. One of the opening scenes shows him getting a body ready for dumping in a river, and he discusses the necessity of ballast and how much is needed according to various victims. It is oddly funny in a very black sort of way, the same way that Natural Born Killers is funny. It�s interesting how the film crew gets so wrapped up into this way of life and actually start participating. As a bonus, you get to learn how to make the alcoholic beverage, �Dead Baby Boy�. I dare you to go to a bar and order one.
Also on the disc is a short film made by the same fellows that is a spoof trailer for a secret agent film. Very funny as well.
Good holiday fare, huh? Time to watch Christmas Story for about 24 hours straight so I can dream about Red Ryder BB guns instead of post-apocalyptic worlds where we all will die unless we continue to follow the path of the above flight pattern of storks. I swear. We need to stay under the flight pattern of the storks, and we will all be okay!
Speaking of nightmares, I wonder if there�s a clause in my auto insurance that covers for this:
