3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): God is a Bullet

2023, Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) -- download

Interesting. The last movie Cassavetes made before this was The Other Woman also starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau almost ten years ago. Hollywood's an interesting place in that despite having a few bit acting roles in a few movies, there is not much on the books that can account for his absence. What does someone do during a ten year absence? Usually the answer is "live life" but that can encompass a lot. A quick Google of "Nick Cassavetes Hollywood Reporter" shows that he has pretty much been working to get his next thing made at all times, so I guess a lot of that decade was spent having lunch on brightly lit patios with the purple suits.

That this was the product of those ten years, after the middling romcom (I won't say "that he is known for" for he does cover a wide range of styles in his career), is surprising. Its a hell of a slap-in-the-face movie about the most degenerate of America's underbelly.

Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones) finds his ex-wife and her new husband murdered, horribly, and his 15 year old daughter gone. He is a low-key policeman, not much more than a desk jockey, and his colleagues have very little to go on. That is, until he is approached by Case (an almost unrecognizable Maika Monroe, It Follows), an past victim of the cult that kidnapped his daughter. This ultra-violent group embraces the "left-hand path" of occultism, a mix of Satanism, anti-establishment ideology, anarchy and hedonistic violence. Their leader Cyrus (Karl Glusman, Devs) likes to kidnap teen girls and convert them to his world. Case eventually escaped but she has been haunted ever since, and offers to help Bob get his daughter back.

But first she has to bring Bob into their world. I am not quiet sure why as there is very little of an attempt to infiltrate the group, but she convinces Bob he has to be full-body & face tattooed, like she is. It might be more of right of passage for Bob, to leave his safe little world of "sheep" and enter her world of violence and debauchery. She may have left the cult, but she has been left a product of its indoctrination. Together, the newly tattooed, barely healed Bob follow the cult across the south US hoping to find them and, somehow, get the girl back. Case, and Cassavetes, never really reveal how that will happen, but I am thinking Case is just embracing the chaos and do whatever needs doing, when she and Bob get there.

The movie is upsetting, the world she drags Bob into is upsetting. Bob is a "good Christian" and has trouble reconciling his own world view with all that he sees, and especially with what he has to do, to keep him and Case safe until their goal is reached. We never know if Case is leading him for her own reasons, or to truly help. There is a lot of ideology conversation and accusation about being a "sheep" vs living in the world exactly how you choose, abandoning conventions. In the end, their goal is accomplished by embracing what the cult always did -- ultra-violence. They all have to die.

3 Short Paragraphs: Inherent Vice

2014, Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master) -- download

No, not Paul WS Anderson of Resident Evil "fame".

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of those directors I expect is on the "needs to be watched" lists created by film aficionados. I still remember the buzz when Magnolia came out, with all the intertwining stories and extended cast. All of his movies get a lot of critical acclaim but I still wonder if they are popular with audiences. Not that it matters; I respect a creator that sticks to their ideal without all the bullshit we get when trying to make a movie popular & box office generating.

At its heart, the movie is a noir detective mystery. We get Doc, a hippy pothead in the 70s who runs a private eye business out of a medical clinic in Gordita Beach. His ex Shasta, the ex that he never got over, visits him and tells him of a conspiracy involving her new boyfriend, a local land magnate. And thus begins a twisted, convoluted tale that may or may not be exacerbated by paranoid drug delusions on Doc's part. Murder, conspiracy and politics all interweave, as they do in all the best noir, with the weird hint of humor from wacked out hippy culture.

There are a lot of characters in this movie, a LOT. From Bigfoot Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), the abusive cop with self image issues, to the dentist cum crime lord Dr. Blatnoyd (Martin Short) to land baron Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) to police informant / musician Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson) to... it goes on. There's even a noirish narrator who doesn't actually seem to be part of the story, so maybe just a voice in Doc's head. It's a fun ride, all 1970s LA style where we focus on the flat, laid our architecture and geography as we do the clothing and cars. The paranoia of state vs hippy is as much a theme in the movie as a bad trip. I was just never quite sure the plot was as convoluted as Doc made it out to be.

P.S. The posters are a real treat, so I broke my unwritten rule and posted the best one.

Notes for the End of the World: Goodbye World

2013, Denis Hennelly (Bold Native) -- download

Fingers are pushed through the remainders of hair product, forcing the hair up in madman stance. The stress the man on the bed is feeling is palpable, mirrored by a single vein pulsing on his forehead and the tautness of the tendons on his neck. He is over 40, wearing much more age in weight and lines around his eyes. He has been crying.

These are the opening words of my fictional novel. In it, our hero (??) is immersed deeply in apocalyptic fiction. He reads about the coming of The End and the science fiction days long after The End. He watches movies where The End is upon us, the earth shattering and plagues being released. War and famine and death in heart shattering multitudes. But like all, when the evidences are apparent in our real world, he misses them, he ignores them, until his droves of fictions come together like prophecy. And he sees what is really, truly happening around him. Madness or awareness? Not really sure. And definitely not autobiographical. Nope.

In Goodbye World we see The End through the eyes of the 20-something somewhat counter culture kids. Not, the young and poor on the streets on skateboards & smoking weed, but the new hippies and hackers and politicos, all thick with money and not hurting at all. Despite their very very apparent dependence on a world of plenty, they consider themselves apart from it all, one way or another. In a plot not unlike The Big Chill, where old friends are gathered for a weekend after a long separation, we see the gathering of these counter culture kids (I say kid, but late 20s early 30s is the demographic) along with their already tangible issues with each other. The End is happens around them, floating to the forefront and occasionally seeping out from under their personal trials.

 James (Adrian Grenier; Entourage and not-Aquaman, but no stranger than Jason Momoa being cast) is the center figure, a back-to-the-earth guy who could have only got there because he had tons of dot-com cash available to him, after a tense sale of his company. He is married to hippy extraordinaire, Lily, who also happens to be a hacker. She is the ex-fiance of his ex-business partner, now yuppie (what is the new term for well dress, heavy working lot?) Nick who is married to Xian, stuffy, ex-college roommate Becky (outstanding Caroline Dhavernas, who was schtuping Hannibal of late). Late to the party is hacker Lev, hipster dressed and a little upset about something he recently did, and politico Laura, who kinda wrecked her cred by blowing her boss and becoming a YouTube star. And then we have revolutionary Benji, fresh out of jail and preaching Against The Man with his college age fuck-bunny Ariel. We stuff them all together in James' hidden away north California home, off the grid (but great wifi) with water and power and food and weed and medicine, while the End of the World happens because of a nasty cell phone virus that is Taking Everything Down. Its not a question of recovering, The End is happening so its about riding it out.

This is a mostly talky kind of movie about survival and the state of human being. James is a bit of a dick, a bit of a survivalist but really has it together enough to survive the coming new age.  The problem is that some of his friends believe he should think about more people than those in the current gathering. What about his neighbours? What about the rest of the world? He is able to ignore them. Then again, add in a bit of a marital spat and he is able to kick out his friends and his wife. It takes a bit of violent, nasty reality for him to start getting it. As for the rest, some get it almost immediately, so fade out and some just get stoned. But none seem to get that the world is ending. They probably think a little bit like my fictional hero, that the end of the world might be a bit cool and that humans might just deserve it. They actually spend a few scenes sitting in lawn chairs watching something big in the distance burning away, like it was a beautiful sunset. Insert commentary on how morally vacant tech culture kids are.

The End is based on a cell phone virus. Turns out (**SPOILER**) two of our central characters are responsible for it. They. Have. Ended. The. World. Yes, a single virus spreads from cell phones to every system in the world. Its that standard myth that because all systems are based on computers, all computers are somehow connected and can talk to each other. So, a cell phone virus written in whatever code could end up talking to the power company and the streetlights and flight navigation and whatever. And if all those systems are gone, the world as we know will be gone too. Not. I think the world could be royally fucked for a few years, but it wouldn't be gone. It wouldn't become a Road Warrior wasteland, just one where computers would likely become more separated, the Internet a little less world wide and our freedoms even more curtailed. We would recover until the next time we fucked ourselves over. My hero would have to envision a much more devious Skynet kind of connectivity before he could become hair wringing depressed.

3 Short Paragraphs (no pun intended): Unhung Hero

2013, d. Brian Spitz


Patrick Moote, actor and stand-up comedian, became internet famous in one of the most embarrassing and devastating ways. He proposed to his then-girlfriend in a very public setting, on a kiss-cam at a UCLA basketball game, and was shot down. I can't really even bring myself to watch the video, which has over 5 million hits on youtube (at least from where I pulled the one below, and many more hits elsewhere around the site and internet). But this film isn't about that devastating moment, it's about the fallout in Moote's life after that upsetting and very public failure. The reason he was rejected was (he tells us, second-hand) was due almost entirely to his small penis size... something that has mentally crippled him, occupying far too much of his time and attention. This film follows three threads: the first being Moote's emotional journey, the second his first-hand experimentation with penis enhancers, and third a look at the history of global culture and the penis.


The hardest part of the film to take is Moote's "character story", which sees him visiting family and friends, shanghaiing ex-girlfriends and talking about his penis size in a way that doesn't always seem genuine. Particularly there's a "meet-cute" element to the film which seems somewhat put-on. The conversations seem to be reflective, rather than reactive, as if revisiting a conversation and pretending it's the first time it's been had. It's clear Moote's been dealing with this issue for some time (rather than just starting to deal with it after the failed engagement). But these awkward elements certainly reveal some truths in Moote's outlook on life, and one's empathy can certainly see the pain in his eyes, particularly a desire to change his situation. Moote winds up investigating "size enhancers" (pills, pumps, injections, surgeries, "exercises") Morgan Spurlock-style only to either chicken out or learn that they're not what they're sold to be (and in some cases may be counterproductive). This is a rather fascinating, first-hand examination backed up with some therapist and medical opinions, really dispelling the myths of the most infamous products and casting a wary eye at some of the others. The journey through penile culture in history and other civilizations (the Korean penis park was something else) was equally fascinating, though not directly illuminating on the whole "size" issue. I think a deeper look into the heterosexual female and gay male perspective on penis size would be fascinating, as the broad range of opinions weren't collected into any coherent data. In the film's most daring and ultimately shocking sequence, Moote even visits a dojo where they practice the martial art (?!) of lifting weights with your penis.

This film will prove an uneasy journey for most men, and perhaps somewhat frustrating to many women. For men, this kind of frank talk about our frank and beans isn't something that's generally dealt with, certainly not with any honesty. Nobody ever wants to admit they are below-average in size, and almost every guy would probably like to be bigger than they are. A meeting with the current record holder for largest penis says that having something that big isn't all it's cut out to be either (though his complaints and insecurities seem to be far less). As pundit (and sex columnist) Dan Savage comments in the film, it's a product of the porn culture which has penetrated society incrementally for the past forty years, putting some of the societal pressure of "measuring up" on men that women have been facing in "beauty standards" by advertising and popular culture for even longer. For women, it may prove genuinely interesting as insight into the male psyche and how much stock we put into our penis size (it's called our "manhood"), but for some women it may kick in a schadenfreude reflex, or at least reduced sympathy given how much focus and attention they're pressured to pay to every part of themselves. Some women may just not see what all the fuss is about.

3 shrt pgrphs: Shut Up, Little Man: An Audio Misadventure

2011, Matthew Bate -- netflix

There were memes before the internet.  They didn't spread nearly as quickly, and as such they had a longevity that memes today don't enjoy (I've almost forgotten Gangnam Style already).  Memes back in the old days were spread physically instead of virtually, largely as a result of tape trading, whether it be VCR or audio mixtapes.  To wit: "Shut Up, Little Man", a subculture phenomenon from the mid-1980's that resulted from two friends moving into a thin-walled, dive apartment in San Francisco that was directly beside two (allegedly platonically) cohabitating men, Pete and Ray, who were like Bert and Ernie, if they were in their 50's, drunk all the time, and arguing incessantly (okay, that last one's exactly like Bert and Ernie).

The two friends, after a frightening encounter in which Ray threatened to kill one of them, decided to start recording their neighbour's arguments.  The recordings were played to the amusement of friends, copies were made, and excerpts wound up on mix tapes.  It started getting around, and eventually became a phenomenon in the underground counter culture of zines, audio verite, way-off-broadway, indie comics and the like.  There was even a record deal.  It was big, but not all pervasive, and this film serves as yet another continuance of a meme that won't die.

This doc finds the original recorders, Mitchell D and Eddie Lee Sausage reuniting to track down Pete and Ray's surviving sometimes-roomate in order to discern the true nature of their relationship.  The film also delves into the fact that D and Sausage have never quite abandoned their involvement with the distribution of the recordings or anything off-shoot related (including a potential Hollywood film), and more seem interested in the commercial side (and protecting thier "creation" from poachers) than any sort of creative expression or sense of Creative Commons/public domain.  The whole scope of the picture is actually quite astute, as it takes this fun, amusing tale of youthful adventure, and then carries it forth through the decades showing how the fun gets sapped out of it when mired in legalities and monetary considerations.  It's especially damning when Pete and Ray become humanized (Pete especially as a video interview made late in his life kind of showed that he didn't really appreciate the joke).  Pete and Ray remain fascinating, through and through, but Mitchell D and Eddie Lee Sausage go from goofy punks in the early telling to douchey guys who want to get rich off of something that they didn't create, so much as facilitate, in all it's legal shades of grey.  That the entire story goes from amusing to pathetic (both for Pete/Ray and for Mitch/Eddie) is at once a satisfying and somewhat sobering arc.