the highland cinema

I Saw the Devil

2012-01-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

The lighting was real good.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

2011-10-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

What a bunch of weirdos.

Bukowski -- Born Into This

2011-10-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

I don't like to say that my father drank himself to death because I feel like that implies agency, like Dad set out and to kill himself with booze rather than what actually happened, which is that he plain gave up and drank Miller High Life until his body did the same.

And that last part, it's probably the biggest reason I'm here on the Highland Cinema today. It's why I was so excited to see the Mentors a few years ago, why I search "most disturbing films" in Google whenever I reactivate my Netflix account, why I can never muster up the nerve to call a girl. All because of my dad. It's why I watched No Direction Home or bought Cat Stevens' Catch Bull at Four or why I tried to read a book on Richard Nixon. For years without me knowing it, Dad was the reason I couldn't help but put up defense mechanisms and deflate your enthusiasm with cynicism. He's why I felt it necessary to convince myself that the reason I bought used copies of Ham on Rye, Post Office, and Women wasn't because I couldn't pull myself away from sad, middle-aged alcoholics, but because I thought that Jon Daly and his Bill Cosby Bukowski character were just hilarious. Seriously....Jelloems? My God. Inspired.

If Bukowski had genius, it was in his fearlessness, a fearlessness that was rooted in defeat and completely without bravado. His finest moments are exercises in emasculated machismo: waking up and vomiting stomach acid into the bathroom sink or pulling out and telling her you can't cum because you're just too fucking blitzed, hon. Bukowski's charm is this gallows humor, the matter-of-factness with which he celebrates a homely woman's fat ass or talks back to his boss as he's getting chewed out about his far too frequent trips to the water fountain. Bukowski was prone to rambling and incoherence, but that's why we remember him. We like that he was a self-professed dirty old man who drank beer by the case and spent his nights in front of a ramshackle typewriter in an even more ramshackle welfare hotel. His adult existence was rejection letters and soulless shifts at menial jobs. But that's what gives us hope. Maybe someday our own brooding and half-ass will could amount to something so great as literary fame and fortune.

But then there's the mean-spirited sorrow of Charles Bukowski, a bleary-eyed insensitivity and inadvertent nastiness that make me want to take back everything I just wrote. There's the way he calls his girlfriend a bitch and a fucking whore while they're in front of the cameras. Or the way he opens his mouth and makes me nervous that his staggering intensity is about to trap me in a conversation peppered with bloodshot glares and sweaty finger pointing. Born Into This shows us Bukowski slur his way through horrible poetry readings while co-eds and burnouts cheer him on and he sucks down Screwdrivers. These scenes are book-ended with footage of agents and sunglasses-clad celebrities who speak with a glowing fondness for Bukowski's legacy as a drunken Bard of the Los Angeles streets. The whole time I can't help but think of the sadness and pain he'd gone through. I can hardly get over how offensive it is that anyone could mythologize or encourage such hurtful and melancholy behavior. It's almost unbearable.

But even after all of that I still feel a romance for the lonely alcoholic, awake and creative at one in the morning. Which is why tomorrow I'm still going to buy Factotum even though I didn't like Ham on Rye, and I thought Post Office was just okay.

Here's my favorite passage from Charles Bukowski. From the final two paragraphs of chapter thirty-eight of Women, published in 1978:

That night she drank half a bottle of red wine, good red wine, and she was sad and quiet. I knew she was connecting me with the racetrack people and the boxing crowd, and it was true, I was with them, I was one of them. Katherine knew that there was something about me that was not wholesome in the sense of wholesome is as wholesome does. I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.

The fucking was very good that night, but it was the night I lost her. There was nothing I could do about it. I rolled off and wiped myself on the sheet as she went to the bathroom. Overhead a police helicopter circled over Hollywood.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

2011-08-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

I pretty much take Matthew Timmons' advice on everything, probably because we had the same PE class in seventh grade and he had a Metallica t-shirt. In recent years, Matt's been all, "You should move up to Seattle," and "You should buy that guitar," and "Dude, that TV! It's just like mine!" He's also been, like, "You totally need to call that girl," and "Eh, probably shouldn't call her again," and "It's Always Sunny is incredible, Booth. What am I, an asshole?"

So far it's all worked out pretty goddamn well.

Bad Biology

2011-08-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

I like RA the Rugged Man because he's a tough white dude who raps about offensive things and I listen to a lot of Necro. But I also like boxing because of a Larry Sanders extra and I decided to go to Prague after I saw some Polish animation, so my logic isn't always the most sound.

Jonathan Richman -- Take Me to the Plaza

2011-08-18T15:37:00.001-07:00

I'm kinda tired of the story where I went to see ArnoCorps and got blackout drunk on a few PBRs and one whisky sour and I vomited all over a girl I liked in the back seat of her car. But the story I'm not yet tired of is the one where I got home the next day reeking of of hangover and remorse and I put on Take Me to the Plaza just so I could watch Jonathan Richman sing about how beautiful it was to live in a world where the sad sun stared at you through the trees and men sat in the cafe crying in vain and your heart hurt so bad you can't eat, you can't sleep, you just wandered around. After that, I knew everything was going to be okay.

The Door in the Floor

2011-08-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm halfway certain that my ninth grade English teacher wanted me to read A Prayer for Owen Meany because of how pleased he was that he looked like John Irving's dust jacket photo. I knew this at the time, but that didn't stop younger me from really really digging this book, so much so that during the year I read as many Irving pieces as I could.

But then, once I got out of high school I found myself at the community college, and I all but stopped reading entirely. Sometimes I would sit there in pretend-class and start feeling bad about myself and think, "Man, didn't I used to read all sorts of real books all the time? Didn't I do more than scroll through the GWAR FUQ while eating Taco Bell and drinking Dr. Pepper?"

Finally, one afternoon I decided I had to do something about this, and I drove down to the used book store and bought the first copy of Son of the Circus I saw. With all sorts of good intentions I got home and plowed through the opening thirty-five pages, but before I knew what had happened, I found myself bored, I'd slid a bookmark between the pages, and I'd slipped this New York Times bestseller right back onto the shelf, right back into the spot that'd been recently vacated by the X-Cops CD I'd picked up a few weeks before and which had almost as recently taken up permanent residence in the bedroom stereo. As I pushed play, I silently pledged to myself that I'd give John Irving a shot in just a few days, once I got over the momentary thrill of loud, offensive music and was back in the right frame of mind. Yep. In just a few days.

I still haven't made it to page 36.

Such Hawks Such Hounds

2011-07-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

This movie was alright. I like it when gnarly old goat dudes talk about gnarly old goat tunes.

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?

2011-07-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Seriously? It took me this long to find out Cheeseburger's Gang's All Here cover art is just a take-off of Nilsson Schmilsson?

Graveyard of Honor

2011-07-02T22:43:00.001-07:00

I don't have a lot of goals in life, but the few I have usually come from musings like, "I wonder how many Greg Ginn solo albums I could sit through" or "You think I could see every Takashi Miike film by the end of the year?"

Exit Through the Gift Shop

2011-07-01T18:27:00.001-07:00

Kinda made me wish I did something neat and creative, but then I realized that when it comes to "street art" I tend to side with law enforcement.

Black Sun -- The Nanking Massacre

2011-06-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

I'm just gonna believe everything in this movie actually happened if for no other reason than Iris Chang eventually killed herself.

No Direction Home

2011-06-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

I defy you to look at this album cover and tell me it doesn't represent everything you want from life.

The Boys -- The Sherman Brothers' Story

2011-06-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

Normally a movie about the guys who wrote the songs for Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks wouldn't pique my interest, but after I heard David Feldman gush about this on his podcast, and after I found out that the director is married to a certain comedienne named Wendy Liebman who just so happens to follow me on Twitter...well, I was SOLD.

Great movie. Great story. Great movie. Good story.

Thirst

2011-06-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

I just met this girl who taught English in Korea. Thought I'd give Thirst a whirl.

No Way Home

2011-05-29T12:56:00.001-07:00

How come it took me this long to realize that Tim Roth was such a terrific actor? Is it because I never saw Rob Roy?

My Life as a Dog

2011-05-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

Most of childhood is stupid and embarrassing, but eventually you realize that it's all pretty funny.

American Grindhouse

2011-05-22T17:59:00.001-07:00

I wanted more Joel M. Reed and less Kroger Babb.

Solitary Man

2011-05-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Someone should hurry up and start http://fuckyeahmichaeldouglas.tumblr.com

Reality 86'd

2011-05-15T19:09:00.001-07:00

During the summer of 2001, back when I was but a college livin' man at the University of California, Berkeley, I listened to Rollins Band's "Joy Riding With Frank" every single goddamn day. Each and every day from May to September whether I was sitting on BART, cruising to Safeway in my 1986 Mazda, or shutting my eyes trying to fall asleep at two in the morning after I'd finished watching The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, I had nothing but thirty-two minutes of hollerin', guitar bloops, and slappy bass fills rattling through my head. My roommate totally (deservedly) made fun of me for it, probably because he knew that it wouldn't be long before I'd come home late one night so jonesing to hear this song I would wind up snapping my headphones in half as I stumbled toward my bed.

This bed, I should point out, wasn't really even a bed at all. It was a twenty-five year old sleeping bag on top of a mattress pad on top of my olive green shag-carpeted bedroom, a bedroom which, I should also point out, wasn't really even a bedroom at all. It was our living room that'd been partitioned into a pretend bedroom by a plywood sheet that was screwed into the ceiling and decorated with charcoal-drawn orchids.

That was pretty much how I lived all through college. I slept on the floor and listened to shitty rock music from 1987.

Life Is Hot in Cracktown

2011-05-13T13:56:00.001-07:00

Buddy Giovinazzo has no choice in life but to make movies about dopesick panhandlers who mentor child prostitutes, pre-op trannies who are flat-out gorgeous, and teenage gang-bangers whose hearts ache for their departed sisters with such intensity they pee on rape victims and beat old men half to death just to get through the day.

Sherrybaby

2011-05-13T13:54:00.001-07:00

I knew Maggie Gyllenhall was a great actress when I saw that part in Secretary where she dabbed water off her blouse and you could see the shape of her boob.

Vengeance

2011-05-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

I don't read reviews anymore so I have no idea how highly folks regard this thing, but I'm confident that if Vengeance had come out in 1973 Tarantino, Eli Roth, and Patton Oswalt would fucking love it.

Doug Stanhope -- No Refunds

2011-05-06T15:06:00.001-07:00

Like everyone else I've always enjoyed comedians. I remember lying in bed watching Comic Strip Live on Saturday nights, downloading the audio for Chappelle's Killin' Them Softly off Napster (I didn't actually see the video for another three years), and talking close personal friend Chris Daly into driving me around for an extra forty minutes just so we could listen to the rest of Skanks for the Memories in his car. But over the past two years I've decided that I don't just like stand-up comedy, I love it. It all started in February of 2009 when Matt Timmons told me I should listen to Adam Carolla's new podcast. I'd been listening to Fresh Air and The Sound of Young America for a few years by then, but hearing Carolla's show changed everything. I remember sitting at work hearing Carolla and David Alan Grier bullshit for an hour, Grier telling stories about his parents' divorce and how his psychiatrist father wrote Black Rage, and all of the sudden I realized how much was missing from my life. From then on, all I wanted was to have clever conversations with smart people, reference Billy Jack with 40 year-olds, and have a dad who penned a treatise on Black Power.

I spent the rest of that year listening to every episode Carolla put online. And then when I got tired of that I switched to Marc Maron's WTF and Greg Fitzsimmons. I spent the entire summer listening to Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, and anytime I had two and a half hours to spare and a hankering to hear about DMT and pornography I didn't hesitate to download the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. Comedy has really spoken to me, and it was all because of the podcast medium. Thinking about it made me realize that what I like about stand-up had nothing to do with wanting to laugh and everything to do with the comedians themselves. I liked their miserable and bitter lives, so full of loneliness and 12-Step Meetings. I liked their failings with women and their arguments with...everyone. It all made sense to me, and I could relate to nearly all of it.

So for the past two years this enthusiasm has turned me into a bit of a lunatic myself, drunkenly haranguing friends and family with tales of my own self-loathing and non-romantic non-entanglements, every minute of every one of these debacles I fantasize as training sessions for my own Evening at the Improv. I know it's after last call and we're standing on the corner outside your building, but in my head I look like Rick Shapiro and sound like Bill Burr.

Sinbad -- Nothin' But the Funk

2011-05-04T22:13:00.001-07:00

Hey, c'mon. Sinbad's funny.

Sleeping Dogs Lie

2011-05-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of Bobcat Goldthwait since I was a child, and when I say "fan" I mean I saw him on television and he made my dad laugh. The guy also had a funny voice and walked out onstage with his pants around his ankles. It was a three-point frozen rope right into a young boy's heart.

Goodbye Solo

2011-04-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

I really liked this movie. I spent a long time sitting on the sofa trying to remember why I wanted to watch it in the first place, and then I finally gave in and looked it up on my phone's IMDB app. Turns out it was written and directed by the guy who made Chop Shop. I liked that movie too.

Entre Nos

2011-04-13T07:03:00.001-07:00

Movies in Spanish remind me of when I went to Mexico. That was a great few weeks of my life. I drank a lot of Nescafe and wore a big stupid hat. And then my sunglasses and camera got stolen and I stopped shaving. And to think that I came awfully close to talking myself out of going. Such foolishness!

The Missing Person

2011-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

Michael Shannon is dark and intimidating, and he worked with Billy Friedkin. He is my new favorite actor.

Wendy and Lucy

2011-04-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

I like some sad and miserable shit.

Which Way Home

2011-04-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

And to think that at 14 all I wanted was to watch Assault of the Party Nerds on late night USA. Some kids grow up a lot faster than others.

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy

2011-01-31T13:45:00.001-08:00

Kinda scared this might be movie about wood nymphs and pan flutes 'cause the title makes me think of the box art for that Calista Flockhart Midsummer Night's Dream, but the Woodman came through with a picture that was goddamn charming and poignant as all hell.

Night Shift

2011-01-18T14:21:00.001-08:00

I liked Michael Keaton, but I loved Winkler's corduroy blazer.

And Everything Is Going Fine

2011-01-17T19:44:00.000-08:00

The hi-def's not worth it, but what a great movie. All hail the ghost of Spalding Gray.

Dog Eat Dog

2011-01-17T19:02:00.000-08:00

Shaky, gritty, sweaty. Violent? Sold.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence

2011-01-07T10:02:00.001-08:00

If you were part of the Human Centipede, which segment would you be?

I think most of us would want to be the guy in front. But honestly, isn't that the guiltiest of segments? Think about it: you can use both arms, turn your head, and hold a conversation. You can even eat a tasty meal! As far as a Centipede existence could go, life is pretty darn great. But here's where the horror comes in, and it's the most evil type of horror, a psychological pain that you will never escape since all the while you know, you know, that some poor fucker has his mouth sewn into your butthole, and behind him? Another poor fucker whose mouth is sewn into that guy's butthole. So while you have a wealth of creature comforts and get to enjoy the freedom of pretend mobility, you will never ever ever forget that each and every one of your natural instincts contributes to the suffering of at least two other kind-hearted souls. Do you honestly think you could live with that burden? With that guilt on your conscience?

The middle segment, now that's the one conventional wisdom abhors.We wouldn't even have a movie if it wasn't for this segment. But to all of you, I posit this: maybe, just maybe, you're the type of person who likes the status quo. Maybe you routinely accept your position in life. If that sounds like you, then maybe this middle segment ain't so bad. Sure, you may subsist on a diet of raw feces and shit in the mouth of a stranger, but you have the luxury of knowing full well that there is nothing you can do about it! You are bereft of any and all decision-making capabilities. Harboring illusions that you can get yourself out of this and improve your life? Impossible. That's actually kind of comforting, right? It's not like you can waste your time devising an escape plan because you can't even talk! And hell, talk? You can't even make eye contact. Everything in your life from crawling across the front lawn to swallowing a quart of diarrhea is going to happen whether you want it to or not. A life without choice, without all free will. How liberating.

But if it's nobility and honor that you crave, then you have one and only one choice. The final segment. Absorbing twice-filtered poo is, of course, a nauseating way to live out your final days, but doing so will only build you into the ultimate martyr. While you may be on the receiving end of the most miserable of miseries, you absolutely cannot make anyone's life worse. Your sphincter releases now-thrice-filtered poop onto...what? The floor? Big deal. You are like Jesus, you are, dying a slow death so that others may live. Choose the caboose, and you will be live for eternity.

60 Spins Around the Sun

2010-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

Randy Credico uses crowd work to fight unfair drug policy and sleeps on the floor of a disorganized NY apartment.

Directed by Laura Kightlinger. Tweeted by David Feldman. Enjoyed by stand-up fans with Netflix streaming and an hour to kill.

The New York Ripper

2010-12-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

I expected eviscerations and eyeball impalements, but I sure didn't anticipate any big toe frottage, razor blade nipple slicin', or broken bottle lady stabbin'. Not sure about this Fulci character.

Joan Rivers -- A Piece of Work

2010-12-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

Joan Rivers is amazing. While it's easy to see her on HSN and forget that she's still a comedic genius, it's even easier to never ever realize that she works like a goddamn maniac. Fifty years in the biz, folks. If she wasn't great, you wouldn't know who she is.

Good Will Hunting

2010-12-09T20:57:00.001-08:00

I didn't see Good Will Hunting until it came out on video and it made me feel fucking terrible about myself because Matt Damon was a genius who chose to break rocks with his dipshit friends and I graduated second in my class and chose to live at home and go to community college.

Today when the movie popped up on the Encore and I stuck around so I could laugh at its corny setups and contrived dialogue, but I stuck around too long and pretty soon I started feeling fucking terrible about myself because I spent an evening trying to make fun of a movie I didn't even like when I could have been out doing something with my life.

The King of Comedy

2010-12-05T19:41:00.001-08:00

Does this Sandra Bernhard have screeeeeeeeen presence or what? Not only does she hold her own against Bobby D and take that nasty slap from Big Joey Levitch, but she plays Masha with a pitch perfect sense of desperation and bravado that you're can't help but be frightened, annoyed, and increasingly attracted to her all at the same time. It's impressive stuff, man, and it bums me out a little that I didn't manage to hone in on her career any sooner.

Notorious (2009)

2010-12-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

I've now seen more hip-hop biopics than I have Hitchcock films.

127 Hours

2010-11-28T13:58:00.000-08:00

127 HOURS WAS MAXIMUM SELF OWNAGE. HE DRANK HIS PEE & ALMOST BEAT OFF.

Slumdog Millionaire

2010-11-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

Danny Boyle's a real deal auteur motherfucker, son. I'm all in.

The Color of Money

2010-11-21T20:57:00.001-08:00

I like these low-key Scorsese flicks because I think we all need to be reminded of how great a filmmaker Marty really is. Now it's not like we ever forget that Goodfellas is the greatest movie ever made every time we watch it on TNT, but, see, that's the thing....it's on, like, every other Saturday. Color of Money, though, ain't never on no Turner network and I have yet to see Loni Love or Paul Scheer talk about it on a VH1 clip show, so when you sit on your couch and fire it up, hell, it's ALL up to you.

Music by Robbie Robertson, script by Richard Price, knock-it-out-of-park cameo by Forest Whitaker, and one seriously tremendous fucking actin' performance by one Paul Motherfucking Newman. Witness the goddamn manliest sonofabitch the world's ever seen. Let's hear it for King Marty. He never let New York, New York get him down.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

2010-11-20T23:46:00.000-08:00

Finally saw this and only watched it for the Joe Bob Briggs audio commentary 'cause, well, let's be honest here, John Bloom is a bona fide genius. And when I say "genius," I of course mean that Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In single-handedly changed my life.

No, really. My life. Come on, let's check them Highland Cinema/JBB stats:

1993 -- walked to junior high on Friday mornings talking about Midnight Tease and Robert Davi.
1995 -- emailed JBB from my CompuServe account to get the free copy of The Joe Bob Report newsletter. Afterward, looked up stills of Pamela Anderson from Raw Justice.
1996 -- New Year's Resolution to see every movie starring Billy Blanks and/or Dolph Lundgren. Nothing to it.
1997 -- Video Picks column in the high school newspaper. Highlights included Attack of the 50 Foot Centerfold/Frankenhooker and Redneck Zombies/Basket Case. Excited when I found Joe Bob's article about Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in a box of old issues of Rolling Stone.
1999 -- Drove by a used bookstore in downtown Denver and immediately thought, "I wonder if they have a copy of Joe Bob's Guide to Western Civilization." They did.
2000-2005 -- College-informed Woody Allen/Michel Foucault hiatus but stayed true to the cause by sandwiching Eaten Alive and The Hills Have Eyes between Chaplin's The Circus and Sayles' Men with Guns. Finally came back around with Cannibal Ferox and Hiroku the Goblin.
2006 -- Launched The Highland Cinema. Have shamelessly replaced "-g's" with apostrophes ever since.

I Spit on Your Grave is thirty years old and even with all of the overwrought, overblown critical hoopla that the film carries with it, and even with all of the signature Joe Bob analysis and pre-Information Superhighway trivia, this flick is still as uncomfortable and squirm inducing as anything that's come out before or since. Defending it will make you feel like a real jerk, but I think we oughta hand it to Meir Zarchi and Camille Keaton for wholeheartedly committing to a movie that's not about much more than castrating rapists and taking 'em to task with the business end of an outboard motor. I'm not sure I would have "enjoyed" this picture without Joe Bob's voice talking up the camera's feminist gaze, detailing the resumes of every last actor on the screen, or taking apart Siskel and Ebert's oft-mentioned lambasting of the film piece by piece, but I had all of those things and I came away with an even greater appreciation of the finely-crafted Briggs persona and half a mind to send What Have You Done to Solange? to the top of the queue.

Check out Joe Bob as he waxes phi-lo-sophically on H.G. Lewis' Blood Feast. I'm already smilin'.

I Am Comic

2010-11-18T19:04:00.001-08:00

I used to hit every metal show that came to town, but at last Saturday's Goatwhore / Watain twofer I spent the entire night agonizing about how best to tweet my desire to make fun of everyone in the venue.

So, yep, guess it's official. I'm done with music. The future belongs to stand-up.

The Hurt Locker

2010-11-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

Renner played Dahmer. We're down.

The Cove

2010-07-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, here's something I didn't know: dolphins are FULL of mercury!

Clockers

2010-07-17T16:04:00.001-07:00

When I was a sophomore in high school I told everyone that Clockers was better than Braveheart. I'm sure they thought I was nuts, but I think I was ahead of the curve.

After Hours

2010-07-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

I have no idea why it took me so long to see this. Absolutely none. Classic.

The Burning Plain

2010-06-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

I may be terrified of the sun, but I sure like me some Southwest landscape.

Lucky Louie

2010-06-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

I love ya, Louie, but hearing Rick Shapiro on Greg Fitzsimmons' podcast blew my goddamn mind.

Nirvana -- Live at Reading

2010-06-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Dr Pepper --> Cool Ranch --> Boss DS-1

She Hate Me

2010-06-12T14:14:00.001-07:00

Total bullshit garbage, but I'm so fucking down with Spike Lee I don't give a fuck. Stay tuned, Miracle at St Anna's on deck!

Alice (1990)

2010-04-11T12:33:00.001-07:00

When I was first getting into Woody Allen I wouldn't see any Woody Allen movie unless he was in it because I knew half of my attraction to his work was seeing Woody Allen do the neurotic Woody Allen persona. I'm glad I waited because if I'd seen Alice as an 18 year-old I'm sure I would have hated it.

The Wire -- Season 4

2010-03-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Last year I had some free time on my hands and rather than spending it at the singles bar or collecting passport stamps, I watched sixty hours of The Wire. Awesome shit and totally the right decision.

This year I had some free time on my hands and rather than spending it at the singles bar or collecting passport stamps, I re-watched season four of The Wire. Still awesome shit, but not really the right decision.

Mary & Max

2010-03-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

I listened to this episode of the WTF Podcast where Maron and a Fantagraphics dude gushed over Charles Burns' Black Hole. It really made me want to buy the thing, but I'm such a cheap bastard that rather than commit $20 to a super interesting comic book of all things, I drank coffee, listened to an Adolescents record, and watched a "don't-tell-the-Feds" DIVX version of Mary & Max.

And, shit, what an unbelievable movie! The odds-on favorite for the Highland Cinema's Greatest Thing I've Seen in 2010 award.

Pieces

2010-03-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

Eli Roth loves this movie. The Highland Cinema does not.

Funny People

2010-03-07T22:54:00.000-08:00

I've come around on this Apatow cat. Dude's got himself some solid tastes in the musics.

Greg Giraldo -- Midlife Vices

2010-02-25T08:15:00.001-08:00

As soon as I heard that the guy graduated from Harvard Law School, Giraldo and his Caroline's routines went straight from "kinda sorta funny" to "side-splitting and profound" in a New York minute.

I guess if I'm infused with juridical reverence like that I oughta register for the LSAT pronto.

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley

2010-02-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

Finally, a cannibal flick suitable for yer Bad Movie party! Maybe that's 'cause Massacre in Dinosaur Valley ain't really a cannibal picture. See, no matter how much the trailer emphasizes terror, loincloths, and screamin' naked ladies, the actual flick's more Andy Sidaris doing Romancing the Stone than Herschell Gordon Lewis doing culturally insensitive. Still okay, but be forewarned!

District 9

2010-02-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

Huh, a new release? For the Highland Cinema? I know how strange that must seem to you all, but I figured that once I got one o' them fancy big-screens and wired some classy speakers into my Nixon-era hi-fi, I owed it to myself to fire up an honest-to-goodness blockbuster and let my neighbors know that I mean business. Turns out, this particular box office stunner was super cool! I'm not lying when I say I District 9 was really great, what with all its deep-space sea-creature aliens, non-stop nausea-cam, and frequent gloppy, sloppy, tinnitus-inducing explosions. But my favorite part, you ask? The obvious socio-political overtones! They somehow managed to avoid bein' preachy, overbearing, or condescending and I'm still trying to figure out how they pulled it off. Some feat.

The Bicycle Thief

2010-02-15T11:29:00.000-08:00

My first foray into Italian Neo-realism. I finally understand that scene in Precious!

Demons

2010-02-14T12:27:00.000-08:00

And in one fell swoop, Lamberto Bava brought giallo horror to the Less Than Zero set.

The House By the Cemetery

2010-01-31T23:17:00.000-08:00

Of the four of Fulci flicks I've seen so far, House By the Cemetery is by far mah least favorite. Now to be fair, I'll credit Big Lucy for his adeptness in creatin' a genuinely spook-tastic atmosphere and for givin' me the heebiest of heebie-jeebies during that scene where the screechy bat starts chewin' on that one dude's hand 'til he stabs it to death and makes it bleed Sherwin-Williams blood onto the kitchen counter, but when it comes down to it this picture is a lame-o slasher flick without enough gnarly effects to make up for a story that doesn't make a lick of sense. And could they have picked a more annoying voice-over actor to dub in for that blond-headed kid? Oof. I think not.

Facing Ali

2010-01-27T12:55:00.000-08:00

If there ever was a case for outlawing the sweet science of bruising, Facing Ali might be it. These guys went from real-deal heavyweight champeens to dudes so slurred we need subtitles just to understand 'em. Ouch.

Until the Light Takes Us

2010-01-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Norwegian Black Metal? Don't we all know this by now? You want to talk about Darkthrone instead? Alright!

Eaten Alive (1980)

2010-01-20T08:10:00.002-08:00

While you'll be surprised that director Umberto Lenzi had the gall to combine religious cults with topless cannibal gore so soon after Jonestown, you'll be seriously fucking flabbergasted that the people of New Guinea never sued the guy for defamation. Good lord.

The Beyond

2010-01-20T08:10:00.001-08:00

So I think the story's got something to do with a hotel that sits atop the Gates o' Hell, but if ya ask me all you need know about The Beyond is there's this five-minute scene where tarantulas gouge out a man's eye, eat his tongue, and then tear the shit out of his face. I haven't squirmed that much since I watched the circumcision episode of that Penn & Teller show. Outstanding!

Knocked Up

2010-01-17T22:59:00.001-08:00

Some time ago I got it into my head that comedies weren't real movies and that there was no way I was gonna waste my time on 'em no matter how many fawning Terry Gross interviews I heard. But now that I watched the Knocked Up on the tv and found it pretty great, pretty funny, and pretty well-made I guess it's time I admit I was wrong. Damn.

Tyson

2010-01-16T23:33:00.001-08:00

Hey, don't listen to them talking heads, 2009's best films were clearly this one right here and Bobby Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad. Seriously, nowhere have we ever found such an entertaining collusion of exploitation, brutality, sportswriterly romanticizin', and sheer motherfucking thuggery as in this ninety-minute pugilisticacious gem. James Toback, you are forthwith known as the AJ Liebling of the new millennium. Bravo.

Swamp Thing

2010-01-03T21:14:00.001-08:00

Hey, who'm I kidding here? Really just wanted to see Adrienne Barbeau's boobies.

Command Performance

2010-01-02T19:08:00.001-08:00

Big Dolph Lundgren mans the drumkit and kicks some Russkie hiney. Well-done like the Dolph movies I loved as a youth, but still kinda boring like the Dolph movies I watched as a just-past-a-youth. There's also a hot babe.

King of New York

2009-12-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised more folks don't quote this movie.

The Godfather: Part II

2009-11-25T09:00:00.001-08:00

Don't believe what they said in that Scream movie -- The Godfather: Part II does not trump The Godfather: Part Original.

The Godfather

2009-11-19T07:53:00.001-08:00

I rented this movie in the summer of 1990 when I was nine years old. You had to switch tapes after the scene where Sonny gets killed. I was a pretty awesome kid.

Mad Men -- Season One

2009-11-15T14:42:00.001-08:00

Ooooooh, look how different things were back then.Hey, where are all the seatbelts? Dresses and pearls? On a Monday??? My goodness, is that a Xerox machine?!? Weiner's constant reminders that we're watching a period piece are insulting, condescending, and unnecessary. Did you know that underneath that happy family exterior everyone was enveloped in sadness and Glenlivet? Please.

Elite Squad

2009-11-11T14:28:00.001-08:00

Man, does Brazil get a bad rap or what? All the movies are about drug dealers, paid-off officials, thong bikinis, and dudes with bleached-blonde afros. Seems like the country's tourist board should get in touch with those guys behind the Las Vegas campaign or something 'cause the media sure ain't doing Rio any favors.

Falling Down

2009-10-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

It surprised me to see Joel Schumacher's name in them there opening credits, but once I put aside my seventh-grade nostalgia for No Fear hats and free Showtime weekends, I realized Falling Down really isn't that far removed from nipples on the bat suit.

Sons of Anarchy -- Season One

2009-09-19T11:38:00.001-07:00

This felt like a TV show so I quickly lost interest, but Katey Sagal was so good I stuck around through the finale.

Shakes the Clown

2009-09-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

Let's see what I wrote about Shakes the Clown on the Electrical Audio forum all the way back in July of 2006:

that one clown, she has the peanut butter pussy: brown, smooth, and easy to spread.

doesn't adam sandler have a cameo?

only saw some of this on hbo over ten years ago. time to netflix it.

when i was but a mere child I thought bobcat was hilarious.

Wow, I'm actually pretty impressed with this comment. I know it's a prime example of internet-bred triviality, but look at how well it encapsulates the Highland Cinema's style! Notice how now that I've finally sat down and watched this thing I still don't have anything to say 'bout it other than a vagina joke and a memory from my childhood. Can you think of a better juxtaposition? Didn't think so!

The one thing that really really sticks in my craw is my damn "cameo" remark. Talk about ignorant! Sandler's in over half of this darn movie and there I am acting like he was Glenn Close in Hook. Now Steve Albini will never think I'm cool.

Thrilla in Manila

2009-08-29T14:52:00.001-07:00

Jesus Christ, man. The sweet science sure fucks you up.

What We Do Is Secret

2009-08-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've listened to (MIA), read Lexicon Devil, and seen What We Do Is Secret.

There ain't a medium yet that'll make me like this band.

Rocky Balboa

2009-08-24T10:36:00.001-07:00

My friend's lady told me that if I was serious about wanting to ramp up my flirtations with that gal at the coffee stand then maybe I should try to engage her in conversations about, say, a good movie I saw over the weekend.

Considering I like to watch Nekromantik and Rocky Balboa I might want to try something else.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

2009-07-20T23:07:00.001-07:00

My entire life is a Larry David moment to the point where I strangely look up to the guy. Is that a bad thing? Such a seriously funny show that the Cinema is this close to paying for HBO just so we can watch season seven.

Faces of Death

2009-05-13T09:48:00.001-07:00

When I was a child the mere mention of Faces of Death gave me nightmares, but now that I'm an adult and the thing's thirty years old I think it's the greatest piece of exploitation I will ever see. Hilarious and outstanding.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

2009-04-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

That last third of the movie where Warren Oates is all batshit crazy and talkin' to a maggot infested severed head? That shit was fucking awesome.

Wassup Rockers

2009-04-06T07:42:00.001-07:00

Some folks say Larry Clark must like boys 'cause his movies have lots of scenes where shirtless fifteen year olds make out and act silly. The Highland Cinema says Larry Clark must like boys because Wassup Rockers feels like it was written by one.

Fugazi -- Instrument

2009-04-02T10:08:00.001-07:00

Totally not into Fugazi. Sorry, guys.

Crazy Love

2009-02-17T08:53:00.001-08:00

When we were in fifth grade we adored Paul Simon's Graceland. And we think that when you like something at that young of an age that even when ya get older and find out how lame that thing really was ya can't help but still enjoy it. Sure, we've long known that Graceland is about as embarrassingly yuppie-fied as you can get: it's got that awfully dated '80s gated reverb production, that middle-aged, upper-class worldview, and that shameful appropriation of Apartheid folk music masqueradin' as enlightened multi-culturalism. Oof. And just recently discovered that ol' Rhymin' Simon downright stole one of Los Lobos' working tunes, put it on his record, and then didn't give the guys any credit for writin' it! Geez, that's pretty indefensible, right? What a jerk! Makes us wanna chuck that Graceland cassette out the car window and listen to Big Black instead!

But then when we hear a line like "Crazy Love, Vol II"'s "sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon" and start thinking 'bout when we learned long division...well, we just put all that stuff aside and smile.

Rory Gallagher -- Live at Montreux

2009-02-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

Rory Gallagher plays the kind of blues music we can't stand, but he has some great guitar tone and an even greater fashion sense. This Montreux collection spans the R-man's performances from '75 to '94 and it's a mixed bag of Robert Cray-isms and funny-faced skull-meltin' freak-out guitar solos. Totally recommended for guitar nerds like us, but your results may vary.

Joy Division

2009-01-25T15:56:00.001-08:00

The cool thing about Control, Anton Corbijn's 2007 Ian Curtis biopic, is that it never tries to convince you that Joy Division are a bunch of geniuses. The whole movie is just a great looking black and white tale of some twenty-year old kids playing music in run-down pubs. It's nothing special, it's nothing extraordinary, and it's fucking fantastic. Control saddles itself with the Sisyphean task of making the guys in Joy Division real people and strips them of all the bullshit mythology that twenty-five years of NME-infused hagiography has bestowed on "She's Lost Control" and Closer. Somehow it succeeds. What a great film.

This American Life -- Season One

2009-01-22T07:34:00.001-08:00

This Showtime series sucks, but you guys should all go out and download Episode 207 of the This American Life radio show. It's called "Special Ed," it costs ya a buck, and it's the most heart-breaking and charming thing we at the Cinema have ever heard. It's got three stories about people with developmental disabilities, and while the second two are respectively depressing and boring, the first one is so fucking great we've kept it on our iPod for almost as long as we've had a portable mp3 player! Don't wait any longer -- the sooner you get some Ron Simonsen in your life the better!

Cat Stevens -- Majikat

2008-12-28T00:59:00.001-08:00

We think it's pretty cool that Cat Stevens could fly around on a private jet and have backup singers and magicians and still make a big ass US tour stop like this feel like a sit-down club gig. Majikat is about half early Cat's acoustic troubadourin' and half mid Cat's synthesizer garbage. We dug the lack of corny hippie cut-scenes, and those awesome clips of him yelling at his backing band, and fiddling with the flowers clipped to his microphone stand. What a guy!

James Ellroy's Feast of Death

2008-12-27T18:33:00.000-08:00

Man, Ellroy's fucking great, ain't he? It's rare we come across an author who can affect us so profoundly, but when we read My Dark Places we knew we were onto something goooood. The guy's a goddamn beast, pure and simple. His tone is flawlessly brilliant, brutal, and oozing with a cynicism that's as pragmatic as it is malicious. Every novel comes with a plot only a hair shy of the unnecessarily complex, but one that's wound tighter than a drum.

Feast of Death is courtesy of our friends at the BBC. It's a nice piece that amounts to little more than Ellroy riffin' about his aforementioned memoir* and his 1987 hard-boiled crime novel The Black Dahlia** for a too-short ninety minutes. Our favorite author spends the screen time chewin' the scenery and leanin' in all close and serious-like while he's talkin' his no nonsense Mike Hammer speak with some paunchy off the job detectives as they dine in a swanky Hell Lay restaurant. He retells his own gnarly history and accentuates his haunted and obsessed connections between one Jean ("Mom") Ellroy and one Elizabeth ("hot mama") Short. Then, right as you think the whole thing's done and over, he tops the whole thing off with Larry Harnisch, a reporter so equally consumed by the Dahlia case he claims he uncovered the killer's identity! Whoa!

In short: captivatin' stuff. We couldn't have been happier.

Now go read a book, dammit. Might we suggest:

* My Dark Places, of course -- the tale of Ma Ellroy's murder, Son Ellroy's descent from broken-home child to panty-sniffing bottomed-out drunk, and how a publishing advance paid for a brooding author and a retired LAPD dick to reinvestigate a forgotten woman's unsolved case some forty years later

**about, well, the Black Dahlia...that and a veiled examination of one man's obsession with mysterious mutilated women [see above]

Poultrygeist -- Night of the Chicken Dead

2008-11-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing people can't stand it's shit. Poop. Feces. Hershey Squirts. Why, just the sound of a damp fart will send most of ya runnin' out the room screaming. If you wanna dish our some squirms, and we're talking some serious squirms, then you best leave that eyeball stabbin' and fingernail pullin' on the cuttin' room floor and plop yourself into the nearest toilet stall pronto.

Guess that's our way of saying, "Poultrygeist? What a fantastic film!"

The Strangers

2008-11-20T14:15:00.000-08:00

Funny Games for the learner's permit set.

Lost Highway

2008-11-07T09:11:00.001-08:00

One of our favorite movie experiences (and probably one of our favorite anything experiences) was heading out to see Mulholland Drive back in 2002. See, we'd checked us out some David Lynch during our high school days and each time found ourselves horribly disappointed. Our Clearasil-addled minds were dead set on thinkin' that if something was s'posed ta be "nightmarish" then that'd mean it'd be all gory and Cronenberg-y. You can imagine our surprise when we discovered "nightmarish" really meant "weird and slow." Guess it's no wonder we didn't like Blue Velvet. But we grew up in the next two years and once we were filling up on some good ol' university style tweed sportcoat mumbo-jumbo we thought to ourselves, "Yessir, we think we're finally ready to give that other Big Dave another try. Which way's the theatre, dude with the Peta shirt and At the Drive-In 12"?"

Armed with lotsa Foucault learnings and auteur philosophies, we sat in that cineplex and hung on every image and every word the Drive threw at us. We scratched our chins and let out a "hmmmmm" or two, and when we walked out of there we felt pretty good 'bout having seen a real-deal smart guy flick. And that feeling only got better as we headed down the block to share our pontifications 'bout Mulholland's deep meanings, character inversions, dream imagery, and sweet sweet boobies over a couple of frosty brews.

And now here we are. It's a few of years later, we've abandoned our hairy armpit constructivist affinities, and we've finally sat ourselves down for some Lost Highway. The experience was similar, yes, but this time around there emerged a difference so great that we're not sure we will ever recover. No, it wasn't that we stopped paying attention. It wasn't that we hit the sack without our gray matter a-analyzing. It wasn't that we decided against working on a Highway magnum opus. Our Achilles heel turned out to be something so simple we'd failed to consider it in the first place. It was...

The Internet.

Yup. It was a simple Google search for "Lost Highway." Before we knew it we were ankle-deep in a host of ancient frames-enabled webpages, each one more chock full o' Lynchian theorizing than the last. We never thought it'd be a big deal. Normally we love the imdb trivia and the Ebert review. We want nothing more than checking out the superhighway's infinite peanut gallery. But this time, as we sat in our chairs scrolling through David Lynch tribute pages, we felt like we were committin' adultery against our brains. Here we were, armchair Sarrises who'd put some real time and energy into putting together an amateur tract 'bout meanin' and interpretation and then what do we do? We go and ruin the whole thing with a few simple mouse clicks. We threw away the fruit of our cranial churnin' and bubblin' all 'cause we wanted to read some pretentious nerd's sub-thesis. Sure, maybe it was more thought-out than what we were comin' up with, but goshdammit it wasn't ours, and we walked away feeling a little bit sad and a whole lot dirty.

So sometime in the not so near future when we actually decide to sit down for Inland Empire we're making the commitment right now to get us a trial version of NetNanny and put "David Lynch" into the banned searches list. It may interfere with our Transcendental Meditation research, but you can bet the Empire post will be pure Cinema.

The Funhouse

2008-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

We don't have anything new to add to the canon of The Funhouse discussions (that canon being one where it is reiterated that, yes, Virginia, lightning sure don't strike twice), but we would like to point out that we were darn shocked to see Rick Baker's name in the end credits.

C'mon, dude wins an Oscar for American Werewolf and the Funhouse mutant stumbles around wearin' the kind of clawed Halloween gloves you find at Rite-Aid? Sheesh.