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Into The Wild (2007)

By Michael Patano

There are all kinds of movies that could’ve be made from Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, which recounts the short life of Christopher McCandless—a young man who left everyone he knew to live off the Alaskan wilderness, and wound up dying of starvation in a bus. Sean Penn has directed two of these and crammed them together, letting them jostle for position for more than two hours.

One attempts to understand McCandless’ reasons for doing what he did; the other just wants to know what it felt like.

The answers to the second question are a lot more interesting than anything that emerges from the first. When you find yourself futilely trying to cook a moose in the shadow of Mount Denali, the “why” starts to seem a whole lot less important.  Which doesn’t stop Penn from asking.

Into the Wild is bogged down by a load of weak psychoanalysis, much of it provided in voice-over by Jena Malone in the role of McCandless’ sister, who ponders Chris’ unhappy childhood, his obsessive wanderlust and the lessons he was trying to teach in his journey. There’s also a good bit of mindless drivel about Chris as Christ—“You’re not Jesus, are you?” asks a fellow traveler, only half joking—or at least as some kind of modern Thoreau, inspiring us to simplify. I’m all for simplicity, but I’m going to venture that failing to take an adequate food supply into Alaska is not an example to celebrate.

But counterpoised against these ponderous and silly elements is another approach. Into the Wild traverses the same route McCandless hitchhiked, and Penn follows the exuberant actor Emile Hirsch as he bounces up the California and Oregon coastline, detours east into Dakotan wheat fields, and camps out for a long while along the Slaton Sea. Hirsch carries on conversations with an apple core, explores landscapes with palpable enthusiasm, and smiles for the camera. Hirsch’s interactions with other actors have a similar freedom, but the encounters are tinged with an increasing melancholy: Every time he makes a new friend, it’s another person he’s going to leave behind forever. “You look like a loved kid,” observes Catherine Keener’s hippie mama when she first meets Chris. If he isn’t a loved kid at the movie’s beginning, he is by the end: Countless people become his surrogate family, only to watch him recede down the road. 

Into The Wild winds up being infuriating, self-indulgent, bewitching and poignant—which is appropriate, since McCandless was all of those things as well, yet as the film possesses one quality that its hero apparently lacked: It understands the feelings of people not named Christopher McCandless. Most of all, it recognizes how the youngster’s journey ripped a hole into the people he met; each person who hoped to adopt him was met with an extended goodbye. “Just get your pack and get out of here, OK?” Keener weeps as she sees the boy off. “I don’t think I could take a hug.”

From Beyond (1986)

By Michael Patano

Director Stuart Gordon made a couple of superb horror films and then lapsed into a slump which happened to many other horror directors like John Carpenter, Tube Hooper and Wes Craven to name a few. Gordon made this horror make-up effects spectacular and the even better Re-Animator, which is considered one of the best horror films ever made. Then Gordon fell through and tried to make films like the blatant Dolls, sci-fi shit like Fortress and mediocre films like Castle Freak which wasn’t bad on a particular level. 

From Beyond has an older scientist named Doctor Pretorious who invents a machine called The Resonator. This device provides the sixth sense or ability to see into another wacked out dimension which inhabits all sorts of nasty stuff like monsters, light reacting killer organisms and the like. Pretorious opens up the dimension one evening and gets sucked in. The authorities arrive on the scene and arrest his assistant Crawford Tillinghast played by my favorite genre actor Jeffery Combs. Tillinghast gets thrown into a mental hospital for his actions and crazy assed story. 

While in the hospital Combs character meets Dr. Roberta Bloch (Barbra Crampton) whom he tells his story to. The Doctor decides to investigate Combs story so they both go up to the old house where everything happened but this time they’re accompanied by Ken Fore of Dawn Of The Dead Fame for protection.

Once in the house a lot of awry shit goes down. Barbara Crampon’s character turns into a sex kitten persuaded by the presence of horny old Pretorious, Foree gets ripped to shreds by those nasty little organisms, Combs body gets inhabited by some creature which sticks out of his forehead until Crampton bites it off.  The machine creates amazing looking monsters and the finale of the film has Combs doing battle with Pretorious butt ugly creature by going inside of it and sacrificing himself while fighting in a puddle of its guts and goo. Crampton is the only poor soul who makes it out alive but with a busted knee and only by jumping out of a house window before the house explodes. 

This is an over the top grand splatter flick with a loose H.P Lovecraft adaption of a short story. The characters names like Tillinghast and Pretorious are Lovecraftian if you didn’t notice. Great characters make up effects and an interesting story delivered at a fast pace and with lots of energy, what more could you ask for in a horror film.

Copyright C 2007 Michael Patano

Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

By Michael Patano

Jacques Rivette’s masterpiece is a deceptively light-hearted film that begins and ends similar to David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Bespectacled librarian Julie (Dominique Labourier) pursues amateur magician Celine (Juliet Berto) across a city of dreams , though Rivette doesn’t distinguish between the real and the imagined. Theirs is a world of limitless, initially aimless possibilities (reflecting the film’s own improvisational genesis) that are slowly honed to a sharp precision point.

Those bracing themselves for, or already baffled by, David Lynch’s Inland Empire, will find the seeds of that film’s madness in Celine and Julie Go Boating, what with its pervasive Lewis Carroll references and seamless doubling effects. Celine and Julie’s friendship adheres to an emotional dream logic, so we never question the developmental gaps. These women clearly belong together and it’s thrilling to watch them sever all real-world ties in situations where they’re each surreptitiously disguised as the other so that they may focus on the main drama: the rescue of a young girl (Nathalie Asnar) from a haunted house that continually replays the same murderous melodrama. This story-within features Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, and Barbet Schroeder going through a series of hilariously deadpan motions is what you make of it.

More important is that Celine and Julie, after several false starts and with the Proustian aid of a magical memory candy, eventually realize they can be more than spectators to the unfolding drama. The duo’s final assault on this interstitial Mobius strip is liberating and brilliantly sustained, though it nonetheless resonates with a variety of discomforting implications that contradict the overall amusement of Rivette’s presentation.

Copyright C 2007 Michael Patano

Under The Blacklight (2007)

By Amber Hall

Even though I haven’t bought any other albums by this band, I really dig their music. This weekend, I decided to buy their newest, "Under the Blacklight", because I was feeling in the mood for something that sounded upbeat but was slightly cynical, as I’ve found a lot of their songs to be.

One of the best things I can say about this album is that it’s cohesive. I really like it when a CD is cohesive because it allows me to get a vibe and classify the CD into a mood category. Then, when I’m in that mood, I just pop the disc in and listen. It’s wonderful.

I’ve filed this album under ‘upbeat bitterness’… not because all of the songs are angry or anything, but because the underlying attitude is one of a tongue-in-cheek pop irony. I like it.

The mood is set off immediately with the first song, "Silver Lining", which I can really identify with at the moment. Of course that put me on the road to liking the entire CD. From that song to the title track to the end, "Give a Little Love", I was amazed at how much attitude could be packed into toe-tapping pop music. In terms of the sound, the music on this album is different than that on other albums. Jenny Lewis comes from her side project with the Watson Twins and it’s easy to hear a vaguely different style to her voice and the way she sings. To me, it actually sounds more mature than earlier Rilo Kiley tunes. There’s more of a rounded out feeling to the way she sings on the album as though she’s done a lot more acoustic work recently, which she probably has. She’s stronger and her vocals are clearer.

Some may argue that the music is too "pop" on this album, and compared to earlier work, that may be true. However, if one were to take just this one album and listen, it’s easy to hear how well all the songs work together for the overall theme of the CD. There are a lot of retro-pop and very clear melodies and harmonies that, again, give this a more mature feeling. The effect of the stronger melodic lines on the stories and ironies in the lyrics is one that shows me that this band doesn’t take itself or its work to be the be-all and end-all of their lives. So while I still love their earlier music, I am extremely pleased with this album.

Once I learn the words I’ll be able to sing along and that’s another thing I look for in a CD. A good purchase? Definitely.

Copyright C 2007 Amber Hall

Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness (1995)

By Richard Fish

“They’re like Nirvana,” my friend John said to me when I first asked if I’d like the Pumpkins one day back in high school in 1999, and he recommended I buy their biggest selling album, the double-disc 1995 release Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. He wasn’t talking about the Buddhist state of “highest happiness” of course, but the early 90s pop/grunge band from Seattle, now so well-known in a generation’s collective memory that I’m sure they need no further introduction. 

And so it was with a feeling of surprise and bewilderment that I got home and put the first disc of MCIS into my cheap hi-fi, only to hear the melodic and solemn tones of the instrumental, piano-led title track bleeding out into my teenage bedroom. I quickly learned that this band was so much more than a Nirvana sound-a-like, through the musically diverse assault of the first three tracks: the aforementioned title track, followed by the unique pop grandeur of Tonight, Tonight and the blistering metal of Jellybelly. In fact, my initial reaction to the latter wasn’t a good one: “It’s a bit too… metal,” I said to John when he said it was one of his favourite tracks, and regardless it has since become one of mine too.  

The rest of the album is similarly diverse, from the more heavy rock moments like An Ode to No One to the quiet, reflective peace of By Starlight or To Forgive, and at first listening this 2-CD, two-hour onslaught can feel bloated and confusing. However, the songs are of a consistently high calibre, and the only time Billy Corgan, chief songwriter and band leader, really seems to drop the ball is with the painful Tales of a Scorched Earth. This track is essentially just blistering non-stop metal riffing and tuneless screaming through a list of insults and nonsense, for example “cause you’re all whores and I’m a fag / and I’ve got no mother and I’ve got no dad”. Charmed, I’m sure. 

Of course, it is in some of these more over-the-top moments of lyrical desperation that I was able to find solace as a 16 year-old high school student. And as much as I now cringe slightly at lines like “nobody nowhere understands anything / about me and all my dreams / lost at sea” from the acoustic Stumbleine, it’s a sentiment I’m sure most of us have shared at some point in the stages of growing up. 

That’s not to say there aren’t moments of joy and melodic optimism, despite what the album title may cause you to imagine. As one of the five singles to be taken from the album, Thirty-Three was largely ignored in the wake of the departure of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin due to drug charges and the death of the band’s touring keyboardist, but it still stands in the album as a unique moment, where Corgan truly epitomises just what it’s like to feel love. “I know I’ll make it, love can last forever” being one of the most charmingly reassuring lines Corgan has written, and it feels like he means it, even though his personal life may have sadly remained turbulent and unstable. Perhaps the distorted droning buzz of Love better explains how he feels: “Love, it’s who you know.”  

This isn’t an album that everyone will love, and it isn’t an album that listeners will like all of straight away, but then I prefer my music that way. If there remains something to discover then I’ll be back for more. After 8 years and countless spins of these CDs, I can still listen to and enjoy the swooping majesty of songs like Muzzle and Here Is No Why and get lost in the epic seascape of Porcelina of the Vast Oceans. As an artist and songwriter, Billy Corgan has never been predictable, and it’s the diversity here which has hooked so many listeners and forced them to listen to things they might not otherwise have heard. 

It was in fact the famous single Bullet With Butterfly Wings which first captivated my attention, and as I told my friend John that I really liked that “rat in a cage” song, he sort of sneered and now I understand why – it has become over-played and sadly I now find it difficult to enjoy. Perhaps it was the quiet-loud dynamics of this song that reminded me of the Nirvana I was expecting to hear when I first listened; but it’s the more the Buddhist nirvana, the happiness and enjoyment I still find through listening to this album again so many years down the line, even though my days of teenage angst and grunge are gone, that will ensure I’ll keep coming back for more.

Copyright C 2007 Richard Fish

All Sleeping Together

By Ben Latini

I was locked out of my apartment, and I moved a pebble around with my foot and listened to Puerto Ricans argue and it started to get dark. Marijuana did its acrobatic tricks in my nose as smoke wafted through holes in a broken-down fence. I always felt like smoking pot was a kind of reckless existentialism that belied a perverse level of comfort with your place in the world– Fuckin’ A… In my head, I could picture the key on the table, next to the Chinese food from other night. I reached in my pocket and put my fingers on three crinkled dollar bills. Enough for coffee and a few minutes shelter from the storm.

I took a walk in the beginnings of rain and I found myself on a diner-stool next to a man who hadn’t shaved in a few days and wore a hat that made him look like a photograph from 1942.   He took a newspaper, slowly, from the fold of his coat and shook it open. I could tell from his face that the sports page told him nothing that he wanted to hear. He look at me and tried a smile. I followed suit. “How are you?”

He said, “I’m not sure how to answer that,” He took his hat off, and his wrinkles made his forehead look like a tilled field. He said, “I love my wife,” as though that were an answer and examined his hands.    I said, “Is she still alive?” And then, to be sympathetic, added, “My mother is dead.”

The man looked like he’d done a lot of things in his life–types of things that he just doesn’t do anymore, and if I reached out and touched his chest, no doubt, I’d have felt his heart breaking and the brittle shards of it bouncing around against the inner walls of the body that was now constantly letting him down. But you don’t just touch another man. He’d have to settle with me giving him a look, which I hoped he could read, which expressed, or was supposed to express everything I thought that he might have wanted to hear.

I imagined the two of us holding hands, balanced on the rail of a bridge–any bridge–and we close our eyes and jump. And when we hit the water I wake up and shiver from a monumental cold. But it’s warm in my room…so the cold is the cold of life, or something like that.

Or he pleads with me not to jump–but I do–and he can’t, so he’s got to watch me all the way down. And he could call the cops, but what makes most sense is to walk away. And sad as he is that I’m gone, sadder still is the fact that he can never visit that bridge again…’cause of what happened. And it was a bridge he liked too. “A marvel of modern construction” he called it. And then people stopped listening to him. Now he lives at the YMCA

If only this were a dream, and I could wake up somewhere away from the pain in his eyes.

“My wife has passed on.”

I get a call from the locksmith and I give the man a polite nod before I head to the door.

Copyright C 2007 Ben Latini

Aborted

By Justin Kibbe

  I’m sorry
  
  No. You’re not
  
  pregnant
  
  anymore
  
  Enlightenment
  
  George W. Bush uses the word enlightenment
  in the same ignorant way I do.
  
  Love Poem, Take 1
  
  True, it lacks poetry
  but its passion is quiet
  unstoppable, even
  refusing to love
  by appointment
  preferring ambush tactics
  to quench your doubts
  without words or craft
  
  Love Poem, Take 2
  
  My love, and this poem
  are yours.
  It’s the best I can do
  without clichés to assist me.
  I’ll try again tomorrow.
  
  o!
  
  it does not do
  to leave men
  out of your
  calculations
  or to deny
  women
  are better
  hung
  today
  than men
  when you are
  married
  to one

Copyright C 2007 Justin Kibbe