Feels like a return to form of sorts in it's playful naivety and wonderment of a world that Giuseppe obviously feels very outside of. These later films can be weighed down with themes of impending doom, which sounds better than it is as signs that he was being swallowed up. But Birth of the Pool is explorative and easy like Sunday morning. He expands his understanding of a space by imagining the invention of the swimming pool, the film is…
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Pig Death Machine 2013
It's interesting to finally see a Moritsugu film from the digital era. I love how he uses the medium, even if at times it feels at odds with his hyperactive punk style. I was fascinated by Lipton Sweet's psychic counterculture Poison Ivy portrayal. Amy Davis always brings the heat.
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Creepy Clowns 2016
Leans suspiciously toward Elsagate dark web no-no place tickle king territory. Not exactly good clean fun like a W.A.V.E. thespian getting strangled with a necktie in chloroformed quicksand; this feels distinctly impure and predatory. Fans of Clown House will love it.
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Backwoods Marcy 1999
South Jersey Plays Itself. Inverse W.A.V.E. to the grave with Dawn Murphy's specifically feminine yet Sharkey made/informed by Gary Whitson's presence, directorial perspective. Very much framed and styled like it's peers but the logic of Backwoods Marcy is a bit more supernatural and elliptical, similar to her short "Last Resort". Dawn goes far out of her way to make the character she plays very ugly, covered up and hard to fetishize. The character is hammed to the moon, affecting a…
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Before I Die 2003
Scenes from an Erotic Jersey Ghost Spider Woman mUrder Story. 3 Married couples make an anthology with found locations and raw materials. One of my favorites in the whole Jersey scene, features one of the few directorial moments of Dawn Murphy <3. Phil Herman's wraparound has grown on me; a more-surreal off-brand sleep paralysis layover between the first horrortales.666 and something referential and disorienting like Lisa's Nightmares, but better.
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His Motorbike, Her Island 1986
Such a uniquely experimental vision of young love, no one does this like Obayashi. It is like a comic book, but weirdly touching and also with his signature commercial style. Constantly oscillating between color and black and white, even within the same frame. There seems to be no obvious rhyme or reason for this, possibly related to memory/nostalgia and the feeling of shared independence. The freedom they feel while riding and the freedom to be independent spirits. The most romantic and avant-garde Kawasaki commercial ever made.
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Something's Gotta Give 2003
If ever you wanted to step inside an issue of Martha Stewart Living and experience a most specific Coastal Grandma Romantic Fantasy, there really has never been a more pure vision. Nancy Meyers' catalog eye and total complete beige presence/absence from reality creates the perfect universe for Diane Keaton to shine in white turtlenecks. The male leads are written as manic pixie nobodies (despite Jack Nicholson narrating he is second fiddle to Diane's dynamic performance) they are the stereotype of…
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Distortion is a Woman 2022
A short video art essay, made by me, on Donald Farmer's Red Lips. The influence of artistic women, transgressive cinema and corporate vampirism.
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Flux Gourmet 2022
While poking fun at the artworld it also gleefully alienates with it's vagueness and superficiality. Quirked out kitschy, almost impenetrable to me in it's made up fart logic. Occasionally niche indulgences lift long enough for someone to do or say something funny, or we're treated to a number of interesting food noise performances, but the structure of the film, the narrative style and the characters aren't very compelling unless you have a vested interest in this director, which I guess I don't.
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