Been occupied this summer, and though the blog isn't necessarily a primary goal of mine, I'd like to at least get something up during this time to diary the immense highlight of stuff I first took in since the last time I did one of these freestyle write-ups. So much more that is great that isn't mentioned here, but I want to keep it essential to the very best. Let's be celebratory today.
FILM:
SORCERER (1977) (Dir. William Friedkin) - Given how much Friedkin already meant to me, it's really no surprise that I'd end up digging this with everything I had known and seen prior, and despite my expectations of it delivering as a masterpiece and likely being his career best (which both proved right), this still ran over me with the weight of two monster trucks plowing through the toughest of all elements. This is quite simply the undisputed king of the American New Wave's plagued auteur machismo. Condenses the blistering, white knuckled, tough guy violence Friedkin pinpointed best in The French Connection and The Exorcist into a harshest of harsh film dedicated solely to exploiting that very thing. Until, of course, it all of a sudden pierces the veil into pure phantasmagoria. I was putty in this film's hands. This and Texas Chainsaw Massacre for me are the crème de la crème of New Hollywood auteurism so far.
NO NO NOOKY T.V. (1987) (Dir. Barbara Hammer) - Just one of the coolest avant-garde projects I've seen all in all. Breaches its binary vessel to advocate for a more fluid sexuality and individuality of being that isn't.
CHOCOLAT (1988) (Dir. Claire Denis) - Slightly more structurally binded than what I'm use to getting from Denis, but to no fault by any means. Whether an intentional move or not, I quite like that the start of her directorial career is a rather transparent reminiscing of her origins growing up in West Africa as a white French settler, while simultaneously laying the appropriate thematic and aesthetic groundwork for her future films to come. A lovely example of going back to one's past to pave way for their future. I'm also obsessively enamored with Denis casting Mireille Perrier as herself ostensibly, and the paired resemblance could not be anymore uncanny. It's perfect.
A (1998) (Dir. Tatsuya Mori) - I can speak long on its sheer comprehensiveness and detail alone as cultural artifact, but how Mori's subjects effortlessly play to his lens, surpassing what many couldn't even dream of accomplishing in fiction itself, is startling. I won't say that the best of non-fiction unfolds like the opposite, but for those who ride hard on that notion, this absolutely proves it.
READY PLAYER ONE (2018) (Dir. Steven Spielberg) - Amazing that the strangest thing to come from the studios in the past decade was helmed by none other than the most well known and palatable filmmaker in the world (and no, I don't think that's arguable). Downright feverish. Punctually works as a severe voyage into the last expanse of humanity's creation. A garish redress of the Campbell-ian hero's journey in popular American fiction spiraled into eternal overdrive, leading all the stories and characters it built into a digital heaven (or hell). I'm not a big defender of complete CGI productions, as stylization of the form's aesthetics most often just fall flat for me personally, in turn only further pushing me away from everything, but the seemingly full (and earnest) embrace of grotesque maximalist presentation rendered in the most uncanny animation I think I've ever seen just overstimulated my senses unlike anything cinema regularly treats me with. Contrary to how many perceive the scenes within the Oasis as simply nothing more than cut scenes from modern video games, the constant toggling of unreality and the sweet spot of proximity between what we see as real or fake as far as recognizable anthropomorphic patterns and movements go on obvious computer generated images in the way this does it signifies a new frontier in the medium entirely. Felt as if parts of my brain previously barred off were finally triggered and stimulated, giving way to new sensations. Made me genuinely ponder what cinema's future holds in a curious and spirited way. Of course, also not vouching that everything be like this either.
MUSIC:
LAMENTATIONS (2020) (by William Basinski) - A bit amusing to me that something this emotionally dismal and despondent is also Basinski's most formally accessible to date. Real grungy, forboding, and zombified. Have seen more than a handful of comparisons to The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time which I guess is to an extent fair and reasonable, but Basinski's overall deviation from the former's grand showiness, opting for more individual directness in each track works exponentially better for me. Obviously Basinski is best in longform ambience, but I also really don't mind this more casual approach either. Faves off the album are: The Wheel of Fortune & Punch and Judy.
SAY SO (Song Only) (2019) (by Doja Cat) - I know, I know. Only began hearing this on the radio/in public places just this year and could not identify it for a good bit (I don't have any kind of Shazam type app actively installed and on me the few occasions I need it). Having heard Doja's other stuff, I'm not necessarily sold yet and so my love stays with this one song and one song only. It's a glossy bop, but also don't expect to catch me following any radio/Top 40 stuff from this point on either. Just every now and then something real palatable to my ears pops up among the rest, but contemporary pop remains not my thing.
BOOKS:
NORWEGIAN WOOD (1987) (by Haruki Murakami) - The first and only literary work to completely wash over my emotions and I into a sea of turbulent sadness and obsessive reflection upon finishing it. In fact, I'm still not done ruminating on its effect and I repeatedly still read the final couple of chapters to be in its void of love and death as to not have it escape me. Never have I existed so vicariously through the lives of such beautiful and flawed characters whom will never be scrubbed from the annals of my memory and written in prose that sadistically always keeps me one step behind its truth. Don't want to preemptively declare anything, but when the year is over, above any films or music, this is most likely to be the one piece of art I clutch closest. A new all time love of mine.
OTHER:
CONTRAPOINTS/NATALIE WYNN - Late to the party on Natalie's work but she's undoubtedly the greatest discovery I've made on the platform in some time. Her videos, which ride somewhere between the essayistic format that's blossomed on the site in the past couple of years and the more classical DIY, skit-based presentation any long term user would easily recognize, appear to me as a sort of formal apex as far as the advancement of this kind of "content" creation goes, proofing the long-form investigative-topical video as a matured art unto its own. And most importantly, I couldn't be more enthusiastic that such work is ultimately done in purpose of arguing real and messy ideological conflicts on the contemporary Left, that while many would argue otherwise, may currently be just as scrambled and lost for cohesion as the Right. There's also the integral self chronicling of Wynn's own transition as a person throughout the series which when watched in retrospect, not only signifies an amazing bodily change and emergence into her truer self, but a maturation into her modulation of leftist thought that has been so rewarding to see. And the guise of her criticism being done through a philosophical lens, often as to be a welcome hand to all in relating her ideas, is incredibly useful in grounding the air of political talk as a debate for ethics and morality first.
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