For years I have imagined an "ideal film". This hypothetical ideal film would be something I would try to make in another life. This ideal film is a film that defies narrative structure and the assumed but non-existent demands to tell a story with any governing narrative principles; and yet this ideal film is not an avant garde film—it is a film with well-drawn characters, a defined setting. It is coherent, smooth and never ambiguous. It is pure pleasure, moving…
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Showgirls 1995
35mm, The Royal
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Remind me to never see this with an audience ever again.
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A ruthless and clear-eyed indictment of American culture captured in the form of a backstage melodrama in Vegas where people have sold their souls long ago for dreams they think are their own. The hyperbolic consumerism and dehumanization of Vegas serves as a microcosm through which to view capitalist American ideology at its purest. Bodies as currency, sure, but worse, all people are on… -
Two Lovers 2008
One of the lowkey darkest films that is also warm, human and fully rounded, distinguishing it as a film that doesn't shy away from the human condition's contradictions. Projections of desire, emotional need's oppression over our true heart's calling, our environment's icy grips, the comfort and prison of family—Gray's themes are all here with his epic aspirations subtracted, resulting in one of the best observed dramas in recent memory, guided by a lead performance so fully realized without any concern…