Tag: cody clarke

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants: That Weird Penis Guy Made a Great Movie

rants

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants (2013)
Directed by Steve Durand, Bryan Gaynor, Gavin McInnes
68 min.

Most of the people reading this probably have no idea who Gavin McInnes is. My first introduction to him was through his weird penis. I’m a big fan of Terry Richardson’s photography, and many years ago I saw a couple photos by him of some guy with pointy facial hair and a very pointy foreskin*. These photos forever stuck with me, and it wasn’t until about a year ago that I saw this mystery man again, on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. Turns out the pointy foreskin man is a smart and funny writer and comedian who has a lot of great outside-of-the-box opinions on stuff. And now, with this movie, I’ve been surprised by him once again—the man has some serious acting and filmmaking chops.

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants is one of those sorta-documentaries containing some real scenes and some fake scenes. This kind of gimmick is usually annoying and unsettling, because you never really have a sure foothold, and you spend the duration of the film trying to deduce what’s real and what’s fake rather than just following the actual story. This film gets that, though. The switch-offs between real and fake here are so goddamn tongue-in-cheek and good spirited that by the end, the whole damn thing approaches transcendence, satisfying both your funny bone and your heartstrings in ways you will never have thought possible from what is essentially a standup comedy film.
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How To Watch A Film

shreddervimeo

See this rectangle? Not like this.

There’s a great YouTube video from 2008 called David Lynch on iPhone in which he discusses the ridiculousness of watching a film on such a device. The footage of him talking originates from the bonus features on Inland Empire, and music from an Apple commercial has been added over it as an extra fuck you to the empire. Watch it now, if you haven’t seen it already. It’s one of the best pieces of found object art on the internet.

What Lynch has to say in the video, everyone in their right mind pretty much agrees with: an iPhone is certainly no fucking way to watch a film. But please, those of you who have an iPhone or some sort of iPhone-esque smart phone near you right now, do me favor. First, open up the David Lynch video again, if you closed it. Now, pick up your phone. Place the phone over the YouTube video. It’s pretty much the same fucking size.

What this means is that you probably shouldn’t watch a film on a fucking YouTube or Vimeo or Hulu or Netflix window either. Yet plenty of people do this. In the world we live in right now, I might add; not some future dystopian Idiocracy world or whatever.
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To The Wonder: Fuck You, It’s Good

wonder


To The Wonder (2013)
Written & Directed by Terrence Malick
112 min.

Everybody likes Malick. Anyone who says they don’t is full of shit. There are moments of pure transcendence in each one of his films, whether you like the whole thing or not. Shots where the light coming from the sky is godly, or where an actor or actress looks better than they’ve ever looked, or where the camera makes a perfect yet seemingly impromptu motion. You can’t love movies and not go crazy over that sort of shit.

However, he can be quite frustrating at times. This is almost entirely due to the fact that he’s a very subjective editor. Most films that exist are edited fairly objectively—and I don’t just mean linearly, I mean that most of the cuts are for purpose, not for feeling. Malick, on the other hand, cuts mostly for feeling and vibe. This gives each one of his films its own personal wavelength, and you’re either riding it gleefully, or watching it pass you by, wondering what the hell is going on.
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Not All Movies Should Have Jokes, But All Movies Should Have a Sense of Humor

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Click for bigger version.

There is a moment in Fargo (I’ll never stop talking about Fargo) that makes me die with laughter every single time I watch it. The movie is packed with black comedy and irony and brilliant deadpans (the license plate joke, holy shit) and some basic but perfect physical gags (Jean Lundegaard bursting out of the shower draped in its curtain like a kid in a homemade ghost costume), but I ain’t talking abaout all that stuff. I’m talking about the stills above. This moment seems to be more of an editorial in-joke than an actual written joke, but of course you never can tell with the Coen brothers. After Jean’s dad and Stan Grossman and Jerry discuss the plot’s central ransom over breakfast, Jerry is at the counter. The beaming cashier asks how Jerry’s meal was. After he answers rather shortly, he comes back with an affable “How you doin’” and when it cuts back to her, we see her cock her head to the side before it cuts again. All she does is cock her head to the side. No response, no change in expression, just a slight pitch. It’s hilarious. It’s insanely funny.
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Blue Jasmine: Woody Allen’s Most Visceral Film In Damn Near Ever

jasmine


Blue Jasmine (2013)
Written and Directed by Woody Allen (Duh)
98 min.

Woody Allen is my absolute favorite filmmaker, so it’s kind of funny that I’ve never reviewed one of his movies on here (not counting my brief glowing endorsement of Zelig in my 10 Films Every Libertarian Should See list). I guess I just don’t really have much to say about his films, which isn’t true, but fuck you I just don’t feel like it. Basically, I like, or like like, or love all his movies, and I definitely have lots of things to say about them, but where to start? Do I just do a series of lists, each covering a different decade? I guess. That’s probably the best way to go about it. But fuck you, that sounds like a lot of work. So I’ll just review Blue Jasmine for now, and do all that other stuff in the future, which most scientists agree is far, far away and not at all worth thinking about.
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