My dad has four brothers; the oldest, Gary, was born in 1951. Gary was a hippie for a while, and saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater (probably on acid, shh). He’s a blue collar intellectual, a salt-of-the-earth fellow who knows about cars and Greek philosophy and cooking and political theory and electrical stuff. Gary worked at a newspaper in Port Huron, Michigan for 25 years and then retired. In 1985, his left index finger was severed in half by some machine. When he removed his work glove he felt something dangling which felt like a string, and later he asked the doctor what it was, only to receive the reply, “that was your tendon, it had been pulled out”. (That detail has no relevance to anything—I just wanted to make you shiver.)
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Hell Baby: The Best Summer Movie of 2013
If that ain’t masterful mise-en-scéne, I don’t know what is.
Hell Baby (2013)
Written and Directed by Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon
98 min.
Today’s review was slated to be Blue Jasmine, because I saw that last week and I certainly have a lot to say about it (sorry, next Monday, I promise) but then I realized that I’d somehow forgotten to ever write about Hell Baby, which I saw a few weeks ago when it came out on VOD and enjoyed a great deal. I suppose I could’ve written about Hell Baby next week, and stuck to writing about Blue Jasmine today, but fuck it—the mere moment the words ‘Hell Baby’ were back in my head, I couldn’t stop giggling. In fact, I’m still smiling, as I write this. And if that ain’t the textbook sign of a perfect summer comedy (and of a more fun thing to write about) I don’t know what is.
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The Hollywood Shuffle: Tales From a Showbiz Bigshot (Part One)
Compared to you, I’m still a Showbiz big shot. Trust me on that. I’ve made a lot of money, I’ve got a shitload of impressive credits, and in a few small circles, I’ve been afforded cult star status—but I won’t bore you with the resume. Look it up for yourself, or just take my word for it. (You ain’t gonna do either, and don’t think I don’t know that.)
However, it’s not much solace that most of my glitzier credits now wave to me from my rearview mirror despite the fact that some of my best work has been done within the last twelve months. (You know, I promised myself a long time ago that if I ever used the phrase, “Some of my best work,” I’d hang myself in a closet and hope the press attributes it to kinky sex gone awry. Hey, it worked for David Carradine, right?)
Continue reading The Hollywood Shuffle: Tales From a Showbiz Bigshot (Part One)
An Interview With Mike Jacobs, Director of ‘Audience of One’
Audience of One (2007)
If you follow my posts at all, you’ve probably noticed that I’m fascinated by cinema vérité. In fact, someone once told me that I used the word ‘vérité’ too many times in one of my pieces. Well fuck that. What else are you supposed to call it? Anyway, the concept is interesting to me: you tell a story by just filming people in their daily lives. How do you know when to stop shooting? Or start, even? How much does your observation have an effect on what’s happening? (I have a theory that Mark Borchardt finished Coven BECAUSE he was being followed by Chris Smith’s camera in American Movie).
Vérité is one of the most naked modes of storytelling. You’re out there without a script or even an outline, you shoot on instinct and rely on your wits and intuition to build the story in your head, only to stitch it together later in your editing suite.
I was fortunate to sit down with Mike Jacobs, whose documentary, Audience of One, is one of the most fluid, interesting, and hilarious examples of cinema vérité ever made. It’s about a pentecostal pastor, Richard Gazowsky, who receives a message from God that he has to make the biggest science fiction epic of all time, telling the story of Joseph. He then embarks on this lofty pursuit with the help of his congregation, and of course, their donations. As one might assume, they run into many, many ups and downs along the way.
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10 Films Every Libertarian Should See
Dogville (2003)
I don’t really get into my political leanings here at Smug Film, for the obvious reason of this being a site about movies, not politics, but also because I hate creating arbitrary ‘dividing lines’ in my work. It’s petty, and I can’t stand when others do it. For instance, I’m a huge Woody Allen fan, I think he’s our greatest American filmmaker, but I cringe whenever he peppers little jabbing jokes against the Right in his films when the story doesn’t even call for it. Those sort of winks to the audience take you out of the film momentarily, whether you agree with them or not. It’s distracting and wholly unnecessary. So rest assured, people who disagree with me politically—there will be no lazy digs, or insults, or other ‘playing to the base’ bullshit in this post whatsoever.
This list will be of particular interest to libertarians, that’s a given, but even if that ain’t your particular alignment, it should at least be a unique window in the the sort of things we, or at least I, care about, both politically and philosophically. And don’t worry, there are no propaganda docs on here; these are simply great movies, many of which (hell, probably all of which) aren’t even made by libertarians. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they just so happen to contain, within their myriad elements, certain elements that we get a kick out of. Enjoy!
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