Dust Bunny (2026)

At this point, I see Mads Mikkelsen is in a movie, and I put it on my watchlist. I happened across this from the library and added it to my pile to check out. Hadn't heard of it before, didn't care. Was intrigued.

The movie features a little girl named Aurora looking like Wednesday, with her double braids and her deadpan earnestness. She tells her parents that there is a monster under her bed and they should avoid walking on the floor during nighttime hours. She is so spooked by this fixation that she hops from her bed to the windowsill of the apartment and spends the night out on the fire escape with a worry doll, and her special blanket with a tree of embroidered eyes. She wishes on a shooting star that something would get rid of the monster and notices a firefly take an unusual path which highlights a strange man (Mads) in the alley below.

The next morning, she sees the strange man in the apartment lobby getting his mail and decides to observe whether he is the answer to her wish. The following night, she sneaks out the fire escape and follows him on a night's walk to Chinatown, where he confronts some dragon dancers and takes them all out. The girl sees the dragon shadows and determines the strange neighbor is indeed a monster slayer and determines to hire him for her needs.

During the night, Aurora huddles in her bed, as the floorboards shift and she heard the screams of her parents.

The next morning, Aurora, still superstitious about her rule of not touching the floor, uses an ornate copper hippo as a land boat in her apartment, with a hobby horse as a gondola pole for momentum. She checks her parents' room and finds it full of fluffy feathers and destroyed furniture, with both of them disappeared.

At this point, I, as an audience member am fully confused and excited. I get a weird little girl, beautiful camera work with an action fight sequence in Chinatown, and wonderfully whimsical sets and wardrobe. And of course Mads Mikkelsen.

But the next scene is a musical church sequence of a choir clapping and singing down the aisles for a collection plate. At the end of an aisle seat, Aurora decides to make off with her row's collection plate, making a custom envelope with construction paper to offer the Lord's money to the mailbox  of the stranger across the hall to be her salvation from the monster.

Mads's character is bemused by this handwritten request and reads it by lamp in his apartment, where the switch turns on a light in a taxidermied chicken's butt. He soon has to answer the door for Aurora following up on her request to hire him. He is skeptical of her story and asks why she thinks he will be able to help? And she replies with full confidence that she saw what he did in Chinatown.

This is a problem for the mysterious Mads whose neighbor character never has a name. He happens to be a career hitman and he does not need this attention in the apartment, or otherwise in his discretionary career. He is aware that something is going on with his small neighbor across the hall, but he assumes that her parents' disappearance might be related to his kind of work where the contract misidentified the apartment number. Does he feel some responsibility? Maybe, but that is a hazard, and not enough for him to decide to extend that guilt to assume responsibility for the daily wellbeing of Aurora, whose name he can't even get correctly with his dutch accent.

 

Honestly, I had a marvelous time with this film. I was even more delighted as the credits rolled and I saw that it was indeed a Bryan Fuller directed project with a screenwriting credit. Fuller worked with Mads before in Hannibal, where I first got a taste of that European man's ability to steal a scene with his physical aura. And Fuller is responsible for my favorite TV series in "Pushing Daisies". He is able to blend whimsy with threat, with excellent use of colors and music to accent scenes and swerve deftly between genres. He is a master of bright cheery scenes and darker menace and tension. This has elements of Leon the Professional without the French lens of "What is a hitman doing with a literal child? This is a lot to process and explain." While there is also a lot to unpack here, the threats in this film are handled with such a deftness, that feels so specifically tailored to my wheelhouse of delight and wonder instead of suspicion and worry.

 

 

I Dream of You: Time - JJ Heller

There is a specific feeling when a friend you haven't seen in a while drops back into your path and you get the joy of unexpected recognition. This album of covers of songs about time, youth, and aging is absolutely so warm and lovely. Heller's voice is so suited to these tracks being filled with lightness and the production amplifies this effect like a living room furnished for a comfortable holiday visit. I did not know that I wanted this album to give me a sense of centeredness and contentment in assessing where I am in life. It has a presentness to it that is not dwelling in the past, as much as acknowledging it, and not longing for the future as much as it is honest about hoping for close of grace. It opens with "100 years" and also features a cover of one of my favorite tracks of all time in "Landslide". I often forget to record when something interesting crosses my path and inspires me to find someone to tell about the experience. I wanted to thank JJ Heller for the thoughtful reframing of these songs.

Eraserhead - David Lynch

A local theatre is showing the films of David Lynch over the course of this year. I went into Lynch's feature film debut blindly and exited it nearly as blinded.

The movie is an exercise is showing rather than telling. So therefore, there can be many takeaways and interpretations for what its core themes and morals are.

I can see it being understood as a Midwestern horror film: The main character doesn't talk much, but dialogue scenes take longer than expected. There is a theme of a footlight stage performance of a Beauty Pageant queen with cheeks like a chipmunk stashing walnuts. Sometimes the characters just sit around and wait for someone to signal them with a cue. A neighbor shows up unexpectedly and hospitality and courtesy are imposed upon to challenge how far "Midwest Nice" can be pushed.

It is a film which explores the relationship of parent and child - how having a little one rewires the brains and lives of both parties. You are suddenly responsible for new life whose needs are dependent on your intervention to be met.

But it is also a film which explores the question of "What if your kid has such bad vibes that it absolutely wrecks both parents' sleep schedule and sanity, maybe to the point of straining your relationship as a unified team?" Yes, everyone tells you that life is a miracle, but this child is really giving a new definition and understanding for what that looks like. It is alien with its cries, its ability to generate waste at a volume like a reverse black hole, it is stubborn and doesn't accept help or feeding in a reasonable manner.

One overall theme is that the movie is shot at such an unexpected and unconventional pacing throughout. The visuals and sound in the theater environment were immersive and overwhelming at times, as it did not feature consistent dialogue to drive the plot. The protagonist's approach to life is as if on a zoom or podcast recording with an out of sync delay for any question asked of him. Often, the viewers witness the internal calculations of characters as they process what their next action will be. The protagonist's facial expressions flit between being worried, concerned, and pensive, all of which with wide guileless eyes.

It is a film which probablyis a foundational example to other directors for how and what a filmmaker can decide as important in presenting a film on screen. It messed with my expectations for what I thought it would be under typical film structure and conventional narrative beats. It is jarring for the dialogue to be so straightforward and the actions of the characters to be layered with only some of their intended meanings revealed over the context of the rest of the runtime.

The Last Picture Show (1971)/Texasville (1990)

Sometimes serendipity finds you at the crossroads of ignorance and stubborness. I borrowed the Criterion copy of The Last Picture Show from the library and didn't know it was a double disc. The liner notes were on the left side of the case, so, last night, I pulled the disc from the right hand side as is the customary location. The dvd menu popped up as "Texasville", which I had glanced at on the case as being a bonus feature.

I shrugged and figured I might as well lean into that choice and see where this lesser known film goes. I chose the director's cut over the theatrical, because, why not? In for a pound - this is a Criterion collection, why would I want a normal experience. I learned two things in the opening titles: 1) that Texasville had Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd as headliners, and  (2) this version was in black and white.

What I did not know at the time was: 1) Texasville was a sequel to The Last Picture Show, released 19 years afterwards with substantially the same core cast list. 2) Both of these films were based on Larry McMurty novels, respectively. 3) the black and white photography of this cut was a new one from 2022, following the death of the director, but was in line with his reconsidered vision. As the first film was in black and white, the theatrical release of Texasville in color set them without a common visual niche to better tie them together.

Being ignorant of all of this at the time, I thought it was a distinct framing of future-past nostalgia motif and set it apart in a felt experience. References to the more famous, previous film's characters and key events were beyond my ability to fully know. But weirdly, it was very engaging and effective to me - I thought that the filmmaker was demonstrating trust with his audience to pick up context by those omissions, to be paid off through later revelations to these early hints. 

After watching "The Last Picture Show" for the first time tonight, I think that I still prefer the sequel in some emotional ways, even as blind as I was to the full weight of the continuity. The Last Picture Show is a brilliant bridge, as has been raved about, between celebrating old Hollywood and advancing motifs of new Hollywood in a blend. "The Last Picture Show" is a coming of age in generational divide both in style and in the eyes of the characters. There is tension and melancholy loneliness in this new age, where potential is full and all these actors are young and hot, even the older adults in this film are quite striking and lovely to look at in contrast to the "high school" grads figuring out their lives and taking chances with consequences. The movie is shocking and sad in some consequential ways and moments as you feel with the characters in large and small moments.

But "Texasville" is meandering and overwhelmingly dense with small drama and moments. The core cast is older and more weathered. Everyone is bored and so tired of the monotony of life and make wildly bold impulsive choices to wreck Jeff Bridges' Duane's plans and force him to try to navigate and pick up the pieces in the wreckage, like everyone is expecting him to hurry up and do. Bridges is the straight man in most of his life, he has silver fox charisma with many hot and bothered moms, but is haunted by his oldest son who is a young buck and is a thoughtless horndog with enormous potential with his charisma and an even bigger libido, which sets him at odds in his schedule of having a fiancee, while also being a homewrecker to at least two of his dad's old friends' households. Duane has a daughter who is a single, hot mom with designs of getting a ring, as well as a set of twins who got kicked out of church camp for raising hell with prepubescent flirtation and attempted violence. For the first part of the movie, Duane is continuously being informed by other characters that two other townspeople are hooking up in a new configuration for the novelty of thinking it will fix their boring lives finally, and it now becomes Duane's assignment to either try to comfort the scorned and heartbroken lover who is having a breakdown AND/OR talk sense into the pair, as a pillar of the community, maybe they will listen to him and realize how stupid and inconvenient that that the new couple is being with their selfish and thoughtless chaos. 

Duane is confused and exasperated, but ever accommodating, however bewildered and frustrated he is at being given these errands. Everyone else's lives must be put above his own, and he got so used to this being the status quo, that he is not present in his own life as a successful oil tycoon who is over leveraged in debt and needing to strike a new vein of oil to keep his life afloat. But whenever he has to consider whether he enjoys his life and wealth, he would have to pause rather than knowing a good reason other than "People are relying on me to provide and project this life to enable them to continue their reckless choices" Or, to be bailed out on his ability to show up and save them with his time and/or money to smooth it over." There is something Ecclesiastical about "Texasville", where life is going too fast and yet there is a responsibility to still try to chase it down for those you care about who need your help. 

The later part of "Texasville" is like a repetitive oil derrick bobbing in the desert. A whole lot of nothing really except surface activity, but something eventually is hit deep in the bowels of the film, and this bubbling crudeness is valuable and useful in the right hands and situations. When these characters run out of surface diversions of chasing happiness, sometimes they are struck by vulnerable epiphanies of how sad, tired, and lonely they are. Even when surrounded by familiar trappings of luxury, comfort, and beauty, there is a longing for fulfillment and connection, of being seen, valued, and cherished. And this hunger consumes, even as beauty and energy fades, as old habits send people down familiar paths, wondering if their heart is in the destination, the pursuit, or the sheer routine of existence continuing.

The Last Picture Show is about potential and the tragedy of it being squandered by young fools and old romantics longing for that bit of nostalgia. "Texasville" is about being Atlas, knowing there are younger gods who will eventually supplant you and your generation. You are tired, oh so tired, but you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Can you manage to keep it there a little longer, while the young fools caper about and learn to mature enough to maybe take your place and keep the community intact into a future? "Texasville" is the lesser film in dramatic arc, but in the aggregate mosaic of how it reshapes the characters from the first film to a new Hope only for a new tragedy of humanity to take place? It is relatable and beautifully rendered in its series of small moments of being alive, tired, and messy with one another. 

The Long Walk (2025)

I don't particularly love Stephen King. A good friend of mine has him among his favorite writers and I read through the Dark Tower saga in tribute to my friend and that fondness. King is the prince of pantsers, and I am as guilty of that tendency as many, but "On Writing" struck a chord. There is something beautiful in betting on yourself to wrap up a story, a "high" akin to gambling like a high roller. But just because that is King's preferred method of operation, doesn't mean that he might always do that, as his shorter stories have transitioned into film.

The director, Francis Lawrence, has a knack for films where the system is damned and the characters struggle to wrestle against the hand of fate and fatalism. He made Constantine with Keanu Reeves, I Am Legend with Will Smith, and the Hunger Games trilogy and prequel. 

Which is only proper, because as I was emotionally affected by the characters and their motivations. I thought "This is a tragedy of human life that I wished came through clearer in The Hunger Games." The rules of the film are simple: 50 young men, one from every state, chosen by lottery. When the starting gun goes off, the candidates must walk on the pavement at a minimum 3 mph pace, with three warnings given to get back up to speed or be executed. The last one walking will receive a massive cash prize and one "wish" or "special request" granted by The Major. 

America's economy has fallen to shambles, and the Long Walk is broadcast to inspire the productivity of the everyday American. Witnessing such a human march motivates a productivity boost to gross national productivity and THAT IS ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY DOING IT. Except, as the young men are stumbling day and night, they find more in common with each other than with the soldiers and authoritarian regime enforcing this system. 

It is cruel. It is heartless. It is brutal.

But the film is shot and lit beautifully, and the comradeship and camaraderie is truly inspiring. The characters find more in common with helping each other to keep walking and you genuinely start to care for each walker's story as they reveal their hopes for a better life on the other side of this Walk. I didn't expect that this film would stir me and give me hope to carry on, and it is pointedly not because the circumstances are supported reasonable, necessary, and justified, but because the characters know that all of those elements are lacking, and persist for the love of the man walking next to them in defiance of fatigue, sanity, and death.

Let The Right One In (2008)

I have been on a horror kick lately, and trying to be more intentional about using the library streaming app Kanopy. I heard vague but positive things about this movie and checked it out. It starts really quiet with titles, and I soon realized that the film was being dubbed from another language into English, and that out of sync audio threw me, so I switched it back to its original audio in Swedish and allowed subtitles.

The film opens with Oskar, a pale twig of a boy with a platinum bob cut, as he stares out at the night and whispers threats of making someone squeal like a pig. It is his way of processing a bullying incident at school, where three kids are led by their ringleader, Connie, to antagonize and taunt Oskar's days.

What if you are stuck being young and stunted, shunned by your peers without a real friend in the world other than a guardian? How would you discern whether the slightest kindness is heartfelt or you are just that hungry for affection and regard?

That is the central question upon which this film revolves, as one night, Oskar encounters a girl shaped creature named Eli in the common yard of the apartment complex. Both recognize a kindred spirit, as the days are full of misery and pain. And the nights are a refuge in the company of each other. Eli is a child of divorce, with distracted parents and a fascination with gristly news stories of death and violence. And Eli is the cause of many of those news stories, as a vampire trapped at an age of "12, more or less", and a Renfield who is struggling to find involuntary candidates for the harvesting of blood for the needs of his charge.

One night, Oskar offers Eli a Rubik's Cube puzzle as a measure of trust and overture of friendship. He comes out to the commons on the following morning to find it solved in the snow. 

While in school, Oskar learns Morse code and is excited at the idea of sharing this information with his new friend as a means of communication and shared secret, only to be confronted by Connie for what he stayed back in class to write something down. One of Connie's minions is stared down to punish Oskar by whipping him in the legs with a branch, Oskar patiently waits it out with his eyes closed, and a final blow to his cheek draws blood. Connie taunts him to explain that to his mom when he gets home, but the bullies retreat. Oskar makes an excuse about tripping at recess, but opens up to Eli later that night. She encourages him to stand up for himself and hit back instead of being such a passive object offering no resistance to their escalation.

Eli's Renfield requests that his mistress stay away from Oskar, as it is an unnecessary risk of exposure. But Oskar is a trusting, vulnerable, and hurting kid, and Eli relates to his loneliness. Oskar and Eli dance around a relationship, as they talk and confide in one another about the pains of this coming of age and being stuck in a weak and vulnerable frame where a more stable and adult future is tantalizingly out of reach.

The performances are excellent and its innocence reminded me of "Good Manners", a 2017 Portuguese coming of age film about a boy afflicted with lycanthropy. Stories about children monsters with moments of great violence and tenderness are a unique tone, somehow encapsulating the liminal space of the experience of childhood in literal metaphor. 

There is a relatable humanity to the characters' interactions, between a selfish lashing out as vengeance for pain experienced and a strong urge to shield and protect those you love from the worst moments of themselves and others.

Until Dawn (2025)

I watched this movie tonight because I was in the mood for horror and had borrowed it from the library based upon seeing a trailer in theatres for it last year.

It is a movie based on a PlayStation video game which I hadn't played, but also heard good things about. With these vague bona fides and expectations around such an adaptation, the most likely outcome would have placed it in the realm of the Resident Evil cinematic universe, which like that franchises' most famous antagonists? It just doesn't stay dead.

I did not expect that this Until Dawn would actually turn out to be one of the more effective horror films I have seen in a while. The cast is composed mainly of actors I haven't seen previously in anything, except maybe character actor Peter Stormare, who likely disappears as a supporting role in many features. But the performances were solid, the music cues kept tension, and the special effects weren't cheesy. This movie was better and scarier in its framed shots and jump scares were earned rather than just cheap thrills. I actually cared about the survival of the characters as they were defined, even though the back stories were not fully outlined, I didn't need them to be laid out more than they were.

This film is a less goofy "Cabin In The Woods" setting blended with the plot device of "Happy Death Day", even though I found enjoyment in both of those comedy horror films, this particular combination trimmed the comedy and doubled down the stakes of the horror.

The premise of the movie is that a group of friends is supporting Clover Paul, a girl who lost contact with her sister about a year ago. The group of five friends are retracing the stops from her lost sister's video posts as a means of attaining a sense of closure for Clover. As they make it to the stop where the last video from the sister was posted, they get a lead that there is a place nearby where a lot of people seemed to have gone missing. As the group drives off, a rainstorm in a forested road obscures the path, until it mysteriously tapers off to reveal a lodging house in the middle of a clearing. This phenomenon of a wall of rain just stopping like a bubble is slightly eerie, but the sun in the clearing is late afternoon and it is nice to have a break from the downpour. The group investigates the lodging house, but it appears abandoned as if the hosts have gone fishing for a short lunch break. One member wanders in the back officez looking at a bulletin board covered with "lost notices" with faces of the missing. There is an hourglass on the wall with a skull motif under it like a casual pirate decor vibe. Another member opens the guest book and finds it empty, but figures it should be used for it's intended purpose and signs her name.

This triggers a subtle shift in events, as something catches everyone's attention and they congregate to confer over what exactly is going on? The sun has set and suddenly the log book of guests is no longer empty, it is filled with names of repeated guests, with deteriorating handwriting scrawls into gibberish. Only to be replaced with a fresh new guest's signature only for the pattern to be repeated. The group is attacked by a masked freak with a machete and are hunted down one by one. Only for the hourglass in the lobby to mechanically flip back over and reset to the beginning of the dusk, with the party all drawing a startled, hard breath at the memory of their demise. They quickly learn the mechanics of their test - survive the night until dawn, but the night's events are not a firm loop as much as a bizarre escalation of new events to confront and avoid each iteration, so past pattern recognition is of limited utility for what MIGHT happen again.

But the group gets tired and weary, wondering how to keep their sanity and whether there is a limit to the number of chances to solve and resolve the puzzle for how to survive for one full night.

Departures (2009)

Sometimes you don't get to choose what you are good at doing. Sometimes fate gives you a talent or knack and you have to figure out whether you will live into it or in contrast to it.

 I was vaguely aware of this movie when it was released. A Japanese film about a young cellist who has to change his career to be a mortician assistant in the art of preparing the departed for a final farewell from their family and friends.

But my mother has a similar knack to me in serendipitous curiosity and capriciousness, as she picks films that cross her path in her volunteer work at library sales. She watched this film and wanted to see if she could connect with me over it. I was pretty accurate in guessing when the movie has been released, but had missed that it was scored by Joe Hisaishi. Which between my mom's recommendation and the Studio Ghibli composer really interested me.

I finally got time to watch it, and was very affected by its arc. The change in careers was embarrassing for the protagonist, as his orchestra folded just as he secured his dream job, and he has to admit to his young wife that he can't fulfill his proposal's promise to travel the world performing. Instead, he has no job and a deep loan on a professional cello he had invested in faith of his career success. He has a house in his hometown, inherited from his mother who had to covert the business side from a coffee shop to a bar after her husband deserted her when the protagonist was 6.

The protagonist sees an ad in the local newspaper for a good paying job with no experience required, involving "departures." Thinking it has to do with travel, he gets his interview suit ready and shows up to a small office. The office manager summons her elderly boss, the owner of the business, and the owner asks the interviewee if he is willing to work hard for very good pay and hires him on the spot, telling him that the ad was a misprint - it was not "Departures", but "the departed". But he has a good feeling about the kid's ability to do the job, and gives him advance pay.

The rest of the film unfolds slowly, as the character has to reassess whether he is truly suitable for this job. There is a grace and dignity which the owner demonstrates in preparing each of his clients, and there is a draw to seeing a job done well with professionalism and competence. It is beautifully scored, and patient in its shots for the slow reactions of grief and having the honor and responsibility of holding the memories of the friends and family to be reflected in the deceased. Death is a part of life, and it is often something that people shy away from as ingracious, indelicate, and terrifying. This film gives you time to gradually acclimate that there is peace and calm in the unknown, if you are open to learn to handle whatever aspects can be understood and controlled.

This film is cathartic and gives voice to quiet moments where words fall short. 

Hard Truths (2024)

This movie might do more without dialogue than many films do with words. So much of this film's dialogue is unkind and ingracious words that the non-verbal scenes bring attention and relief. And this film is beautiful and tragic by these two contrasts intertwining.

Sometimes life has hard truths and scars run deep, so the healing involves pain to try to address the core issues. 

Pansy is a 60-something African-English woman who has the temperment of a traumatized small dog. She barks at anything that moves, is paranoid that the world is too big and mean for her, and so rarely ventures outside her pristinely clean house. She has Curtley, a henpecked plumber ,for a husband and Moses, her 22-year old unemployed quiet giant of a son. She berates them day and night for whatever they are doing to exist in her house and disturb her peace.

In contrast, Pansy's  53-year old sister, Chantelle, is a hairdresser and single mom to two daughters near their twenties. Their scenes have such intimate joy and pleasure, it is hard not to feel like a fourth member of an in-group in their element. Chantelle's clients feel heard and supported in her chair, and tell her about her lives and hopes with their relationships in life.

These two sisters are the core of the movie, and how they handle day-to-day life and conflict. Pansy's interacts with the world with the sensitivity of an open wound, raising tension with her personal thunderstorm in her wake. Chantelle isn't perfect, but her wake is more of a gentle rain to soothe the soul. Chantelle wants Pansy to visit their mother's grave on a Mother's Day Sunday, urging her to leave her house, do something together, and share a meal.

I saw the trailer for this film in a theater and it looked like a hard pill to witness and swallow. And it is, but I didn't see the representation that was Chantelle and her slow honey from a spoon. Grace is patient and steady, and has a habit of catching those quick to anger by surprise.

I am so glad that I saw this film, though it pulled no punches on the speed bag of cutting remarks, it held in the moments and showed love and compassion in the face of deep fear and careless hatred. The last scene lingers with unspoken tension, and lets the audience sit without commentary for how it will be resolved.

All That Jazz (1979)

I watched "All That Jazz" tonight. I do believe this is one of the most insane accomplishments caught on film.  I am beside myself with awe at the ego and audacity to write something like this and the sheer determination and humble exhibitionist grit to pull it off.

Bob Fosse. I had heard of this choreographer's work before, but had never experienced it. And this is a movie about effortless perfection, and the cost of a body and soul to reach that ideal. 

The film follows Joe Gideon, a creative genius who has spent his whole career defying gravity as a director, choreographer, and writer. But Gideon's story is like multiple Greek characters in their glorious blessing and cursedness at once. Straining ever higher towards the sun like Icarus, with a restless partying hedonism like Dionysus in Gideon's downtime, and the fate of Tantulus in everything at which he grasps is just out of reach of his desire. He has the Midas touch, but his perfectionist tendencies come with a heavy weight of time to carry out.

The film allows for Gideon's genius to be undeniable and yet exasperating in that working with him brings others to justified tears. By the time his vision is realized, yes, he has managed to sharpen it, but it is branded with his stamp of style, burning every stable relationship he has as fuel to his fire, all with catchy songs and choreo to his fever dream downfall. It is cutting, brilliant, and tragic. Everything is firing at all levels to see this guy's workaholic efforts consume him in his glorified work. It is a metaphor realized and made flesh. I don't know how someone has this vision to tell this honest story and then the ability to make it be accurately depicted and shown.

I don't think I will ever want to watch it again. It is insanely well made in every frame. But it is an enchanting mirror like in the fable of the Ice Queen, where ugliness is amplified and you cannot remove the mote from your eye. Everything works here from the music to the dancing to the performances. It is a staggering work of creative brilliance and the broken bodies and minds it leaves to pick up the wreckage when that flame is snuffed and the music dies away. It is a haunting tale to see myself in the film, knowing the director has managed to convey the agony and ecstacy, the loneliness and insatiability of having the best taste in every room you enter and having to shape the flawed people around you into suitable tools to reach that vision. I can't live this way and yet now that I know it is possible to do something like this? What excuse have I not to give it my best shot to craft a shadowplay of whatever was accomplished in this piece of work?

Next Exit (2022)

I am not doing this on purpose, but this is another piece of media about people driven by self-annihilation. I heard about this indie movie on the Feeling Seen podcast hosted by Jordan Crucchiola, when the guest was Rahul Kohli, who was promoting this film. It sounded interesting and I was vaguely familiar with the actor as a Twitter lightning rod for his strident opinions on mostly benign topics that somehow hit viral nerves.

Anyway. This film is premised on a world in which a recent scientific discovery pierces the veil of the afterlife, causing everyday people to get windows of interaction with the shades of the dearly departed. The leading researcher in the field is stationed in San Francisco, and is accepting participants in a "right to die" waiver to track them into the afterlife for study. Two volunteers cross paths in a New York car rental and have under a week to get across the country to make their appointments.

This could be framed as a black comedy with the brevity of my description, but it is more like a mirror image of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", except only in an automobile. The two characters are Blossom Rose, who is haunted by her past and Teddy, who is haunted by his lack of a memorable one. Both are hoping that the opportunity to be a ghost will solve their unresolved selves to be at peace with their respective lives. But Teddy haunts Rose with his optimism about making something of his life by being a pioneerij the study of death. And Rose refuses to live but can't go through with ending her own life, so she determines to push away any hope or connection with others, like a cursed Jonah crying to be swallowed by a whale.

I am intrigued by stories about people wanting to be unusual things, and this one explores what could drive a person to want to become dead, even as they have to sit with this decision while on a long drive with a stranger with the same destination. It takes a while, as that is the nature of car trips, and their respective masks and walls begin to dissolve. They were not always hopeless or full of blustery gallows humor, there are memories at their core that they gradually admit to each other. "I was not always this way, but something happened to me and I was overwhelmed by its shadow. I can't see the light outside this dark veil shutting out sunlight and life. I could have been different, but I am me."

The scenery through the car windows along their journey is lovely and gave me wonderlust. The soundtrack builds quiet moments as these two have to weigh their decision for these to be their final days. There is small stories pondering what life means in the wake of this discovery of a shadowed afterlife. What this means for faith and criminal behavior declines in the curiosity of whether there will be consequences for a life when considering the afterlife as a probable fact.

It is a film about death that speaks honestly on what it means when a person chooses to live rather than to fade into a shade or shadow in a cloud of quiet despair and darkness.

We Could Be Rats - Emily Austin

I picked up this book for its title off a library shelf. It was a hardcover book with a pink dust jacket and images of sketched people in blue on a amusement park giant swing.

The contents of the book concern self removal at the least inconvenience to the schedule of other people's lives. It is apologetic and tells anecdotes from a small town childhood where the protagonist and her sister have to navigate a volatile household of parents constantly fighting. The reader learns of the family and people in this small town through the lens of scenes throughout the life of a twenty year old high school dropout with a job at a discount store. There are sweet gems of moments of joy, and honest moments of struggle to communicate just why the road has led to this irreversible, but ultimate conclusion to leave this mortal plane at such an early age.

The older sister of the suicidal young lady handled the trauma of waking on eggshells by trying to appease and make peace, avoiding triggers of conflict. This caused some strain as the younger sister is constantly blundering into triggers, setting off emotional bombs and being blamed for the mess of shrapnel in her wake.

The sisters are both shaped by this household, by their mutual love of their grandmother, who has been an anchor in their stormy waters, and their aunt who was an occasional lifeboat with one oar to try to have a temporary break from the unstable ship, but could only circle them back to where they started.

The older sister headed off to college, as an escape from the small town and it's gravity, leveraging her perfectionist path of coping skills and practice of navigating people's moods.

The book shifts gears both light and heavy with deftness and care. People are imperfect, and can let you down in disappointment from the dreams of how it could be if they cared to stop and listen.

I found this a fast read and tender in a broken spirit of things found too late, and held up like a kaleidoscope to try to make sense of a mundane and monotonous world.

Maniac Magee - Jerry Spinelli

How do you describe this book? It is about a legendary kid, with threadbare sneakers and breakneck speed. It is about an absolute innocent savant, a male Pippi Longstocking. Except he doesn't have a house, a horse, and isn't a shameless liar. He is just Jeffrey "Maniac" Magee, a kid who runs off the page and into the prejudice of a small, divided town.

I read this book as a preteen kid and it captivated me. Rarely do I see an immediate need to reread a book, but this had me in a chokehold for about a year and a half. It was told like a tall tale, but had moments of vulnerable poverty of soul and spirit as this homeless 12 year old survives through persistent and unrelenting sweetness, to take shelter from those with a spare seat, cot, moment, and have their lives changed and beliefs shaken by this strange vagabond child.

He is an athletic savant, with quick reaction time, and blazing speed, who is like Pablo Sanchez in Backyard Sports, preferring to lead with actions and not words. He is beloved by young kids, who see themselves in this innocent big kid who does not understand skin color or cultural mores, as he untangles their "rat nest" shoelace knots and patiently reads story after story to them. He is a paradox who refuses to attend school, but has a voracious love of reading; a kid who is a prodigy at running, but has nowhere to go; a kid who longs for a home, but can't stand still long enough to be pinned down; a kid who loves so hard that he doesn't understand hatred.

He wanders through people's lives like a modern kid Jesus, blessing them with his gifts, but unsettling whispers surround him that "It is straight up unnatural that the kid is the way he is. No one is that good, he must be hiding something awful." He is not a tame kid, but he is good. And though his footsteps are quick, he can't outrun a sorrow fate from the bitterness in the hearts of man.

We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021)

I was haunted by the eerie resonance to the world building of Jane Schoenbrun's "I Saw The TV Glow". Which intrigued me even with the trailer for whatever it was. And then I heard a podcast host mention the same weird identification to that director's work, in the atmospheric sense of unfamiliar familiarity to the specificity of the subject. And the host recommended checking out the director's previous film, as it had similar seeds of the most accurate depiction to "the experience of being extremely online".

"I saw the TV Glow" encapsulated being obsessed by a niche piece of media culture at a formative time and how powerful a connection that is to share when you are seen by someone else who shares that exposure. How deep and fragile that bond rests as you explore how it shaped your personality and perspective to where you arrived now. There are people who root their identity to things they saw and admired and wanted to embody for themselves. And when you are rooted in something mainstream, that can be a broader connection to others. But what if your formative experience was to something obscure and fleeting? At best, it might be a pop culture thing that might have a resurgence in niche nostalgia to laugh at it being dated in its time.

But this film, this earlier work by Jane, yeah, I can understand some threads, but this is much more small scale in scope and narrowed vision. While "TV Glow" has a parallel in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and other, even more doomed teen TV pilots and shows. "World's Fair" is influenced by "LonelyGirl15" and other niche online video communities and creepypasta forums. 

It is a matter of timing for being caught in the wave and riding it down a rabbit hole of specific momentum in tandem with others in a chatroom of private and long distance Marco Polo with a specific password and frequency. For people in this period, they heard about a specific online trend of a "horror role playing game", documented through an uploading an online video of repeating "Wanting to go to the world's Fair" and shedding a small amount of blood while watching a specific video. Something between Bloody Mary/Beetlejuice and The Ring. Then the participants continue to document what changes in their lives over time by performing this ritual.

The main character is in her early teens and rehearses what she is going to do for the ritual at night before going live in her room and filming it. The perspective is from her MacBook camera into her room as a fixed shot. After she turns on the video, the activating video's colors wash over her face, illuminating and shadowing her place in an inconsistent pattern. It is extremely personal and unsettling to be this unfiltered. It is almost a relief to leave the room's fixed camera and see short fixed shots of the suburban town in the dead of fall, at various big box stores at the mall and the road of passing cars. Then a sequence of the main character walking along a fence in a handheld shot before switching to tracking her at a fixed distance behind like a normal walking shot.

Eventually, the camera shows her back in her room as she sets up her camera to take a video of her sleeping at night, trying to document what changes will happen from the ritual. But she can't sleep and starts looking up videos from other accounts who report going to the World's Fair and being changed. One guy is on a treadmill and his video title announces that "I CAN'T FEEL MY BODY", as he runs, he keeps slapping his face and not flinching. The video finished and queues up a follow up in the World's Fair participant playlist, where an attractive girl is smiling and making duck faces at the camera with a title of "I'm turning into plastic" and a description of "I don't know why it feels so good." The main character leaves her room and goes out to the barn, where she lays on a couch and watches an ASMR comfort video with a young lady stroking gently at the camera with long nails telling the viewer softly "You're okay. you can go to bed and have sweet dreams" as the camera changes angled to show the projector perched on a pool table and slowly pans in to the screen to be filled with the ASMR video. The video wraps up, queueing a followup video, one in which the main character, Casey, is featured in a still image from her first video we watched, distorted and with coal black eyes. Discordant music plays, and there is cuts to scrawled text that "You Are In Trouble" and "Please Talk to Me".

Casey gets up and stands in front of the screen. The next morning, she looks up that user and contacts them on Skype. This user goes by the moniker "JLB", is middle aged, and doesn't turn on their camera from showing a ghoulish sketch as a profile icon. They apologize that the video message was unsettling, but they couldn't find a better way to get Casey's attention to respondThere are long pauses in the conversation, as the user mentions that they only talk to serious game players and that there is deep lore and theories of the "World's Fair" and the effect it has on its participants. Casey is told to be careful and that she should contact the user if she has any questions, but to keep making videos to let them know her status in the process of her gradual horrific physical and/or mental metamorphosis.

And so begins a uniquely online and parasocial relationship between Casey as a content creator documenting her life in sporadic updates and JLB as a concerned commenter on the effect this "World's Fair" is having on her. The camera switches to JLB as they wrap up audio response videos and calls to Casey. And they live in an organized and stable large house, JLB seems to have a successful life aside from this niche community. But they are haunted by the rawness of Casey's unstable updates and care about her wellbeing.

The cinematography switches between video blog updates from Casey and other World Fair users who have various body horror elements and bizarre rambling stories of how the Fair changed them and also following Casey and JLB when they are not actively being recorded for content or calls. The lines between paranoia and real life begin to blur and the focus of the frame doesn't let you get grounded in scenes or dialogue outside the tension. There are long lingering scenes where nothing appears to happen and there is no dialogue, forcing the audience to sit and be uncomfortable wondering if there is any significance to a small detail changing our understanding of what is going on here.

The movie feels too personal and voyeuristic, the audience both knows too much about quiet moments and too little about the subjects to know a grounding context for what is true and what is performance here.

But in the final act, where the two main characters have another Skype call, this modern, awkward relationship is attempted to be navigated, with huge blind spots for the uneven nature of the extremely niche exposure they have to each other's lives. It is too accurate and unflinching, to have to witness this encounterto unveil what has been unsaid for so long. But the audience is a third party here and is at an extremely helpless disadvantage to be an active participant and satisfy a curiosity for what was happening and what the outcome of this whole thing could be.

 

I have spent time on social media, and, through trial and error, learned how to curate a persona which is a faceted extension of my identity, but not everything I am. Because everyone can wear masks in a masquerade and not everyone you meet is your friend. It doesn't do to be careless and risk exposure of your private life which is not for strangers to access. Information assymetry on the level you are willing to be comfortably known by what you reveal to be seen and understood. But this sometimes means I develop a fondness for others I encounter in the space when I am wandering these online environments and I care about their lives. I wish them well in their continued existence, but there is much about them that I know I do not know and should not have an entitlement to access. Some of them become inactive users and I have no way of reestablishing how they are doing. And no one in my offline life can quite comprehend the depth of this loss of an online companion who had amusing thoughts, witty banter, funny jokes, or interesting stories to relate. And I can't explain adequately to my real life friends and family the nature of things, because they were not there in the time and place, they don't have the context of the timing in which you find these people in these communities for a fleeting moment of season. They also can't speedrun an accurate accounting of key moments to understand the dynamic established, because that file can't be compressed like that, something was lost in trying to zip it up neatly for quick file transfer. Unpacking it in full would be likely an effective failure to transmit.

 

This film was uncomfortably accurate in what was shown and not said. It was universal in the silences to be received by those whose antenna were exposed to those frequencies at some point. Echoing resonance to the awkward memories of knowing this could be either very special and/or an extremely foolish interaction, a mutual ritual of a possible trust fall forward with both parties' eyes wide open to witness, in excruciatingly slow motion, if they will let you be shattered by falling through an illusion to an unforgiving ground of a reality check.

Boys Go To Jupiter (2025)

The equation is simple - Demi Adejuyigbe shared that he was part of this animated film in his Instagram story and I determined to watch it.

It was playing in an independent theatre nearby and I caught a showing today. The voice cast is studded and stuffed with comedic talent. The plot is that Billy 5000, a Florida high school student, drops out of school to exploit a currency glitch in a food delivery app. He hopes to make enough money to be able to move out from his nurse sister's garage. He has buddies who hang out and have no greater ambition than to snag cool stuff, freestyle rap original songs, and find out whether there is really an alien worm washed up at the local beach. There is a different plot concerning a local juice tycoon's difficulties with her brilliant, but unmotivated daughter who has vague ideas about capitalism's evils and wants to be called "Rozebud".

This movie is genuinely the most fun I have had at a movie this year. There are musical interludes and excellent bits of dialogue throughout. I was often delighted by how much space was given for time to breathe to sustain a joke or build anticipation in timing the set up for a new one.

Zaphod Beeblebrox Plays It Safe - Douglas Adams

 I was thinking about this again today, about this short story plopped in the middle of the five part trilogy collection. It has been years since I last went through Adam's work, but it is perhaps one of the more core aesthetics which I enjoy. It is like G.K. Chesterton's "Manalive" (which I also plan to reread soon) about taking a long detour of adventures with the end goal of seeing how the sandblasting and erosion of the journey will serve to allow you to see your home again in a new light and fresh delight of being alive. 

The Adams short story is constructed by a slow reveal, badly and frustratingly conveyed in the middle of a hysterical rant. A core idea of a self fulfilling loop of "short sighted spite perhaps leading to an inevitable crisis" of the future is plundering the past, so the present wants to screw them both by collecting all available fuel reserves for a one way trip into a black hole? It being derailed by a pilot who craves hometown seafood? It is absurd. It is a squandering of its premise's potential in pettiness. But it can be read as a joke itself to do so. Maybe whatever was being transported might not have been as great as blowing it all up in a San Diego fireworks show, with the camera focused on the blankets instead of the sky. This story is always better in my memory than the act of reading it.

Juror #2

I had heard good things about this film and watched it last night with a friend. It is a jury movie, except transposed in a way that 12 Angry Men has an additional complication. While in "12 Angry Men," it works as a closed room session which could be staged as a play production set, "Juror #2" needed to have the benefit of being a film.

The movie starts with Justin, a young guy with an expectant wife in her third trimester. The couple had experienced a miscarriage before this pregnancy and are still skittish about whether this time will go to term. Justin is summoned to Jury duty for a case in which a boyfriend and a girlfriend were arguing at a bar on a night with heavy rain. She walked off and was found in a ditch the following morning. The boyfriend is accused of being vindictive. But Justin in hearing the case is suddenly seized by a sinking feeling - he was at the bar that night.

It was the anniversary of the miscarriage and he was not wanting to bring that distress home. But he is also in AA recovery and is at risk of a relapse. On his way home from the bar, he hit something in the rain, but when he got out to check, it was too dark and rainy to see what it was.

And this is a high profile case, with the prosecutor wanting a conviction, as she is currently running for District Attorney and this would be a headline example.

So Justin is stuck by this unwelcome epiphany that he probably was the cause of this case, but is not sweating in the witness box facing a future of incarceration. Drama ensues.

This is a Clint Eastwood film, and so I was wondering how he wanted to resolve this story. He made his bones in western films, where there was justice and frontier justice. And you are following around this expectant father who finds himself responsible for an accident as a result of being in the wrong place at a bad time. Justin transgressed one of my mother's favorite parenting maxims of "Nothing good ever happens from being out late at night."

Does the film want to let our protagonist off the hook for his potential role? What is his responsibility to try to give this boyfriend a consideration of innocence? What about Justin's wife who would find herself effectively a single parent to an infant? What message or time does Clint want to leave with his audience as a guy who seems to want his films to carry hard truths?

 

No good path forward

Guilt carries weight of waiting 

How to save a life 

Holy Trinity (2019)

When I saw this feature pop up for a one night showing at a local independent theatre, the one line description of "A dominatrix gains the ability to communicate with the dead after huffing a mysterious aerosol can" got my attention for 'Why would you start with that premise and what are you wanting to explore with that?'

And the film appears to have spent the majority of its small budget on sets, props, and wardrobes, all of which had extreme contrast in aesthetic colors. But even as the editing style occasionally decided to go for a trippy and disorienting strobe effect, the film feels like it fits its intended purposes for its niche and target audience. It was interesting to see this film in a room of other people who felt seen and understood by the intentional visual cues and jokes through recognition and appreciation. For a stylistic choice, most of the brands throughout the movie are shown in pastel with words describing their contents. Some set pieces look uniquely distressed or modified, like a CRT TV set covered in a mane of white around the screen with shaving cream or flattened cotton balls. Or a store with the corporate tag of "Glamhag" which is also the name of the film's production company.

The cast and crew of this film looked like they were having a blast making it, as they delivered dialogue to one another in familiar tones and affects, like a group of friends deciding to amplify their mutual theatrical amusements with drama and posing. And the film's premise is absurd and plays in a heightened alternate world and setting apart from what feels connected to daily reality. But this filter on reality within the film underscores the tone of feeling like an alien having to process what normal would look like, with hypermundane branding of everyday items, and extravagant costuming. There are musical and dance performances being part of the fabric of what the film wants to display. There are extended set pieces and tangents which show flashback scenes and backstory of what drew the characters in the film to seek solace in deep and old wounds, roleplaying the scenarios to process, console, and control what had affected them.

At times the film feels extremely raw and intimate, like it is too much to display in terms of emotional and personal traumas being aired out like sticky clothing on a humid day. It is imperfect and fantastical in its dreams and yet leans into these areas even when difficult conversations must be had to resolve the characters' conflicting desires, and needing to reach out to others from humility for guidance.

Will I watch this again? Probably not, but it shows a world and perspective with an open hand and heart, one which asks some questions of joy, acceptance, and resistance against convenient conventions. The characters are messy, but delighted to participate in community with each other. It feels like a movie you would make with your talented friends and a ridiculous idea which made you laugh together and try to chase and tease out what it could do and where it could go. Speaking to the dead doesn't really go anywhere, but the experience and environment make a haunted impression of annoyed dynamically static landscape.

 

A canned response heard

An unusual echoed hum

When struck and blown out 

I saw the TV Glow (2024)

When I first saw press for this film, I was fascinated and intrigued. The dayglo visuals, the warped logic of a movie about an obsession with an in-world 90's TV show, the short window it was available in theaters and the gates to stream it.

My local library finally got a copy and I watched it tonight. I was not disappointed by the experience. It has elements of mystery, metaphor, and a pervasive surreality to it. The world feels like an alternate history with a in world show having the tropes of a 90s show in title font, blocking, camera, and dialogue. 

It reminds me of the Grindhouse project that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarentino released in the mid 2000s as a love letter double feature to a time where that mystery b-movie night would be playing as standard fare in a secondhand movie theatre. 

This generation has the epherema with the fleeting nature of 90s tv shows which were greenlit with a gold rush of prime time tv and novelty. Some of which were able to be recorded by VHS.

The main characters of this film are Owen and Maddy, the former being a seventh grader with overprotective parents who gave him a bedtime, and the latter being a cool teen girl who is standoffish, neglected by her parents and is quietly dogmatic about a show on the YOUNG ADULT NETWORK called "The Pink Opaque."

The show is about two teen girls who met in the pilot episode at a sleep away camp and became psychically linked to battle the monsters of the week, sent by a power rangers type big bad who is named "Mr Melancholy" and is a giant face in the moon.

Owen is attracted by the siren call of forbidden fruit of teen culture, as it airs at a late hour beyond his curfewed bedtime. Maddy quietly tapes the episodes on VHS and drops them off for him to watch and appreciate at school.

The film is full of Owen's asides to the audience about the timeliness of events in his life as he is narrating the constancy of "The Pink Opaque" as his favorite show from nostalgia and having his egg cracked into the world of media and storytelling. The show becomes a larger gravity as the film goes on, making the real world's allure to pale in comparison to the organized clarity and rhythm of the show and it's cliffhanger finale episode.

My experience of the film is the attention to detail and atmosphere in the setting and set pieces of the film. There is room to breathe and slowly be immersed in the lived in reality of the film and the show within. The performances of the actors is excellent for the unsettling familiarity of awkward nostalgia and desperate mania of being a teenager. I really enjoyed the quiet horror of waking up to a life that the media didn't cover. The quiet despair of settling out of fear of the unknown possibility of greater responsibility and accountability. It is a dangerous business waking out your front door. And a dangerous business to dream of a greater world, but refuse to step through the closet doors catching a glimpse of that opportunity to adventure within the dream world.

What is illusion?

Alluding to the true sight

Of false visions shown

The Banshees of Inisherin/Kneecap

Irish movies have been breaking my heart and making me ponder the arcs of a life.

I watched Banshees last night and it woke me up at this early hour to puzzle through my strong feelings about it. I heard about the film and how it was up for awards, and knew the base plot from that. It made me wonder how it explained itself. A friend recently brought it up in conversation and said that the movie did explain itself. About a year or so ago, my mother told me she watched it and didn't like it. Conflicting reviews like this convinced me I should settle the matter myself.

I like Colin Farrell, I found him especially charming and hapless when he was alongside Brendan Gleesan in "In Bruges", which also remains stuck in my mental craw for how tight that movie's plot and script is. "In Bruges" feels inevitable given its players, I follow the logic even as matters spiral into the absurd and ridiculous.

And in "The Banshees of Inisherin", Colin and Brendan appear alongside one another once again in a beautiful location, trapped in a uniquely personal drama where Colin looks to Brendan for guidance when his world spirals. In "In Bruges", Brendan is sympathetic to the younger man's cause and believes Colin has the potential to change his stars. In "Banshees", Brendan's character starts the movie's plot by losing faith that Colin is capable of change and decides to change his own life while he has a life to enjoy.

Colin plays "Padraic", a dairy farmer in 1923 Ireland who has a simple life of contentment on an island as a civil war drama plays out on the mainland. Most of Padraic's life is centered around his miniature donkey (Jenny), his pony, and most of all, going to the pub each day at 2pm to have a pint with his best friend. But on this afternoon, Brendan's character, "Colm", is unresponsive. And this breaks up Padraic's routine. He goes to the pub alone and wonders what he did to offend his friend. And everyone on the island knows that Padraic and Colm are best friends, so it is an object of conversation and minor drama on an island where nothing much happens. Colm eventually comes, but will not sit or talk to Padraic, raising the eyebrows of others.

Padraic is abashed in the eyes of his peers and tries to reconcile with his friend, finally learning that Colm woke up this morning and realized that he had had enough of Padraic. Colm is older and finds that he is tired of Padraic's dull company and conversations about his livestock, and instead Colm wants to focus on composing music for his fiddle. While Colm has time left in his life, he would prefer to spend it doing things he finds meaningful, enriching, and maybe outlive him. Padraic is shocked to learn of his best friend's evaluation, and turns to others for a second opinion. There is some shuffling of feet, as others in the pub are also forced to consider divorcing the two on their own merits. Colm is undeniably the more interesting one, as he plays his fiddle in the bar most nights. Padraic, well, Padraic is a cheerful if uninspiring fellow who is very nice, but has no great learning or skills. That would be his sister, Siobhan, with whom he shares their childhood home. 

Siobhan is a reader, and finds herself having to question her life as well when her brother mopes about his identity crisis about "being a good buddy" in jeopardy without Colm's support. Siobhan tries to find out from Colm why he decided to break off a lifetime of friendship with her brother so suddenly. Colm states Padraic is dull, and Siobhan counters that this is not a revelation and it is therefore a poor reason to justify this cold shoulder. Padraic is the same fellow he has always been since childhood, and Colm agrees, but he wants to do something for himself and Padraic may have been an anchor to Colm's life in the past, and Colm wants to drop him as dead weight.

Padraic's new branding as "dull" also forces him to reevaluate whether others think of him in relation to the town idiot. However, that position is currently held by Dominic, the local policeman's son who is in his early twenties. Dominic likes Padraic, and even more, fancies the sister, Siobhan. Siobhan tolerates Dominic's puppy dog flirting with polite, but firm rejection. Dominic always speaks his mind, but he doesn't have a wise mind and therefore speaks without a filter and tends to turn people off as annoying and vulgar. It also doesn't help that Dominic's dad is a domestic abuser of his son, and being the policeman, there is no recourse for Dominic to appeal to for justice.

Padraic is finding his social stock to be closer to Dominic's level than he hoped. So in trying to make amends to Colm, Colm expresses that he wants to be left alone, that he is cutting Padraic off cold turkey because nothing else has worked so far to hint to Padraic that discussing donkey dung for 2 hours is a good use of time. Colm says that unless Padraic takes the hint and stops trying to waste Colm's time, Colm will make him understand how serious he is. Colm vows to cut off his own fingers and send them to Padraic, one at a time for each time Padraic tries to talk to him. And the pub members look at Padraic with guilty muttering and pleas to not drive Colm to this desperation, to take the hint and figure his own life out. They don't want to lose their fiddler. Padraic does not know what else to do though, as his life doesn't have a greater purpose than being Colm's friend.

The movie's pivotal point comes during a late night at the pub where Padraic and Colm speak past each other on legacy and what people will remember about you when you are dead and gone. Colm states that art and music is a legacy that can preserve your memory in the hearts and minds of others long after you lived. Padraic protests that he doesn't know Mozart, but he comes from a line of people who were nice and decent. Padraic's mother was nice, his father was nice, his sister Siobhan is lovely and kind and beautiful and so nice. Padraic painfully does not care about the future without his friend, his sister, and his donkey - he does not have any grand skill other than being a decent guy. And if that is not enough right now in the present? He cannot understand why Colm has thrown him to the town's scorn with this desertion - it is cruel to put him in this position.

And this movie breaks my heart at this point. Because there is merit in using the talents you are given to build your life and craft your purpose. I understand and have lived just long enough to be both men in viewing the future trajectory of my life. Sometimes people are tiresome and dull, and I am in no gracious mood to treat them kindly or charitably, for I am exhausted and poor company. But as a family friend once said, "relationships are so stinkin' mutual." You both need to be invested in some way of maintaining lines of common communication. There are friends who I once had, but we went in different directions and pursued different interests. But that does not mean I do not mourn the loss of who we were to each other. I have been so so loyal to some friends, trying to grasp straws that we still have in common and keep alive the kindling of relationship. 

The movie ends around a fire, a talk, a letter, and then just music. Because sometimes music says what dialogue and discussion cannot.

And so I get to the short review of "Kneecap", a movie about young delinquents in present day Ireland who gain local and national notoriety as a Gaelic rap group. The native tongue is a means of preserving identity and culture, to communicate is a fundamental need for being recognized and understood. And England's treatment of the Irish's land and tongue has caused generational trauma. "Kneecap" is the name of the group in the film, and is composed of two drug dealing youths and a middle aged music teacher who find a common purpose in composing raps in Gaelic, which is a pretty open field to explore and exploit in reclamation.

The film is extremely creative in storytelling and minor details in visuals. It is so sincere in communicating the need for the language to be heard. The language is so pleasant to my ears, even when rapped over an 808 in songs about "sex, drugs, and cessation of English occupation." The characters in this film are genuinely heartfelt in their rawness and affection for one another, even in strong disagreement and limitations. In conflict and contrariness, it makes a good argument for free speech. That it encompasses not only for the beautiful and lovely parts which are marketable, but also for fools and the young who may be unfiltered and therefore crass, vulgar, and rude. But we all have something to say, and while we may not be heard and acknowledged as right, it is cowardly to try to silence people from protesting at all.

 

Still don't understand 

Gaelic or the Irish bands

Lovely though they are