Wow, just wow...

So apparently the US government can more or less do what it wants, where it wants. International borders be damned.

A clothing boutique owner in Denmark has had $205 frozen by the US government for buying dresses from Pakistan.

Basically, the owner (in Denmark, mind you) ordered some dresses from a man in Pakistan, and the US government claimed she was suspected of supporting a terrorist organization and froze her funds. While the boutique owner did her best to comply with the US, she stopped short of tracking down her dress supplier's date of birth, and is currently out $205 and six dresses.

At first I was confused as to why the US would be involved in an international transaction between two people in two countries, neither of which are the United States. Well, if you read the article linked above, turns out since 9/11 the US has been monitoring transactions made over the Swift bank transfer system. No one knew about this until 2006, when the EU caught wind of it, but then let the US continue anyways.

In short, the US is refusing to let a Danish woman buy dresses from the Pakistani dress supplier, monitoring bank transactions all over the world regardless of jurisdiction, and the EU has about as strong a backbone as Congress.

What a world...

Two of my favorite things

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

“Am I dead?”

In a bizarre and convoluted connection to the Southland Tales experiment, this post will be about a movie called Right At Your Door. When I rented Southland Tales, I also tried to rent Kill the Moonlight. The video store didn’t have it, so instead I rented Southlander. I had seen Southlander before and it was the closest thing to Kill the Moonlight I could think of (prompting the guy at the video store to say, “You’re all about the Southland, aren’t you?”). Southlander stars Rory Cochrane (remember him? Lucas from Empire Records and the über-stoner from Dazed and Confused?), who is also the star of Right At Your Door. Maybe not a big deal, but seriously, when was the last time you watched a movie with Rory Cochrane?

Right At Your Door is a taut, low budget thriller, featuring Cochrane as Brad and Mary McCormack as Lexi; a young, newly married couple living in Los Angeles, Brad being the struggling out of work musician who is being supported by the more professional Lexi. One bright, sunny, LA morning, Brad dutifully prepares his wife’s coffee, warms the shower for her, and even listens to the morning news to catch the traffic report for her morning commute. She begrudgingly gets up, showers, and just before she leaves, Brad warns her to take the side streets into downtown, since the highways are all jammed. Everything pretty much goes downhill from there.

Shortly after Lexi leaves the radio is interrupted with an emergency report. Terrorists have set off bombs all around downtown LA. After some frantic calling, Brad sets out to go and find his wife. He quickly discovers that getting anywhere near downtown is impossible, as the police are blocking all roads. The radio reports that the bombs were dirty, lacing the billowing smoke with some kind of unidentified hybrid toxin. Brad grabs as much duct tape as he can carry and rushes back home to wait for word from his wife.

Upon arriving home, Brad resumes his frantic calling until he is interrupted by his neighbors’ handyman, Alvaro. With the roads blocked, Alvaro can’t get home and pleads with Brad to let him stay. Brad relents, and as the swelling clouds of smoke and ash spread over the city, Alvaro convinces Brad to begin sealing the house before the toxins reach their neighborhood. Shortly after they finish, a panic stricken Lexi arrives at the door. What ensues is a slow, tense, emotionally devastating sstory, as Brad and Lexi are forced to deal with the realization that she has been infected, and he can’t let her in.

Right At Your Door amounts to 30 minutes of fast-paced, frantic confusion followed by a slow-burning 60 minutes of watching the couple deal with their tragic situation. The film relies heavily on, and makes good use of, the rampant confusion following the attacks. The radio news that plays almost constantly throughout the film disseminates bits and pieces of vague and contradictory news, facts, and conjecture. Authority in the abstract becomes the savior, while any appearance of actual authority inspires skepticism and fear.

Over all, the film is good. Great at times, and frustrating at others. The biggest problem is that the filmmakers don’t seem to know where the narrative tension lies. The fear of authority and the appearance of the military sometimes distracts from the real tension of watching Brad watching his wife slowly dying in their backyard. The confusion caused by the media and the distrust of authority can, at times, turn pretty hackneyed. And the ending, while not unnatural, does seem unnecessary.

Those problems aside, Right At Your Door is a well made, tense, and emotionally devastating film. The acting by McCormack is serviceable, but Cochrane is great. Large amounts of time are spent watching him anxiously pacing around his house or sitting distraughtly next to his wife, separated by a thin sheet of plastic. A difficult task for an actor, and Cochrane makes it work. There are solid visuals, such as a quiet moment of watching the toxic ash falling gracefully on the neighborhood, looking like a gentle and beautiful snowfall.

The film belies its low budget nature through good acting, solid cinematography, and a tense story constructed around a single location. It can be a difficult task to set a movie in a single place with a limited cast (see 90% of movies adapted from plays), but Right At Your Door does an admirable job. It is a tense film about choices, both rational and irrational, and dealing the inevitable consequences of those choices.

Two Experiments Gone Awry

As I mentioned last post, I was planning on engaging in what I had deemed “The Southland Tales Experiment,” which basically consisted of me watching Southland Tales and drinking lots of whiskey. Somehow I figured the addition of whiskey would drastically alter the experience of watching a movie that has been called “an incomprehensible, self-indulgent mess” (Austin Chronicle) and “a prettier, younger, and developmentally-challenged sister [of Mulholland Drive]” (Modern Fabulousity). Well, it didn’t really happen that way. At least not in the drastic way I expected. Basically what you’d probably to expect would happen did happen. I got a little drunk. That was really it. Oh well. On to the movie!

Southland Tales is, without a doubt, a big sprawling mess of a film. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I found it to be pretty enjoyable. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start with an attempt at a plot synopsis.

If you had to pick a lynchpin for all of the convoluted, interweaving subplots, it’d probably have to be Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, AKA “the Rock”). Boxer Santaros is a Schwarzenegger-esque action star who has married into politics and has strong ties to the Republican party (married to the daughter of a prominent Texas senator running for president in the 2008 election). Oh wait, let me back up a moment. The film opens in the “near future” of July 4^th, 2005 (FYI: this thing has been delayed for years), when terrorists set off some nuclear bombs in a couple of Texas cities. In the wake of the attacks, the US government has instituted a state of martial law, issuing interstate visas, creating USIDent (a CIA/Homeland Security nightmare that spends its time spying on US citizens, including but not limited to monitoring stalls in public bathrooms), amongst other crazy dystopian style stuff. So, back to Boxer. Oh wait, I totally forgot about the tide-harnessing, perpetual motion machine that is destroying the universe. But first, let’s get to the Neo-Marxists. Or Justin Timberlake as the Revelations-obsessed, Iraq vet narrator. I’m sorry, is this frustrating? Well, welcome to the world of Southland Tales.

Let’s try this again. In 2005 terrorists set off nuclear bombs in Texas. In turn the US government declares war on numerous Middle Eastern countries, institutes martial law, creates the aforementioned USIDent, reinstates the draft, and generally tightens the noose around the public neck. Jump ahead a few years to 2008. The election is looming and civil unrest permeates the nation. With the war in the Middle East cutting off US access to oil, all collective faith is placed in a new form of alternative energy, Fluid Karma. A scientist has been able to harness the ocean tides to create a sort of force field of free energy off the Pacific coast. Now we can get to Boxer. Shortly before the start of the film’s story, Boxer has disappeared near Lake Mead, but is known to be somewhere in southern California. The presidential hopeful (also Boxer’s father-in-law) is desperate to find Boxer for the sake of his campaign. Turns out Boxer has amnesia and is shacking up with former porn-star turned entrepreneur Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), and the two of them have written a screenplay together about the end of the world. While this is going on, there is also the Neo-Marxists, a revolutionary group, who seem determined to rig the election, bring down the US government, and cause just general craziness. The Neo-Marxists have kidnapped a UPU2 cop (Sean William Scott) and talked his disturbed twin brother (also Sean William Scott) into impersonating his cop brother in an attempt to stage a racially motivated shooting, thinking a racist cop in LA will somehow spur massive social reform. Well, at this point, it’d just be quicker to say that the Neo-Marxists, Boxer Santaros, the porn-star, the would-be president, the scientist and his perpetual motion ocean machine, the cop and his twin brother, and probably some stuff I forgot to mention all crash into each other, creating an intensely confusing web of plotlines that involve time travel, blackmail, drug use, war veterans, environmental-disruption-induced-epidemic-of-mob-violence, a bunch of stuff about souls and the apocalypse, and other wackiness.

There are a lot of ways to describe this movie. Sprawling, convoluted, overly ambitious, garish, nonsensical. The tone of the film is incredibly uneven, oscillating between near slapstick level comedy and end-of-times Biblical prophecy drama. Laugh out loud moments often transition uncomfortably into confusing, earnest, pseudophilosophical ramblings about the nature of existence and souls and identities and what not.

The biggest complaints that can be leveled against Southland Tales would have to be Richard Kelly’s mishandling of the more serious, dramatic elements, and the uneven nature of the film as a whole. That being said, the film is an incredibly fun ride. Kelly is able to effectively create a bizarre, thoroughly engrossing version of the future that is both wildly foreign and frightfully familiar. Terrifying and wholly believable elements like USIDent are mixed with comically despicable caricatures of our own popular culture (e.g. Krysta Now’s talk show, which features her and three other pornstars sitting on the beach discussing current events). If the two biggest problems are the drama and overall tone, the two biggest strengths are the comedy and the dystopian world Kelly creates.

Also of note is the performance of Dwayne Johnson. Since he left the WWF (or WWE, or whatever), I’ve seen him in a few things here and there. I have to say, the more I see of him, the more I like him. He’s not the best actor by any means, but he definitely possesses an affable charm. One of my favorite bits in the entire movie is the expression Johnson makes when he is shocked or scared (which happens a comical number of times, given his enormous stature), wherein his eyes bug out, his brow arches, and he does a sort of rapid finger-tenting motion.

Along with the Rock, Buffy, and Stifler, Southland Tales manages to wrangle together one of the most bizarre ensemble casts I have ever seen. Mandy Moore, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, John Larroquette, Bai Ling, Lou Taylor Pucci, Wallace Shawn (i.e. the Sicilian from the Princess Bride), Kevin Smith, and countless others play roles of varying size. This movie is a veritable parade of B, C, and D-list actors. It’s almost as if Kelly’s casting agent had never heard of extras.

Overall, I enjoyed Southland Tales. It is without a doubt not a film for everybody. Viewers will need to let go of trying to make sense of it, and even let go of trying to remember how all of the characters and plots relate to one another. In order to really enjoy it, you’ll need to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Turning your brain at least halfway off would go a long way. You know, maybe all that whiskey helped after all.

Oh, happy day!

Believe it or not, the Octopus Motor has now been cluttering up the Internet for a full year! For a number of reasons, I decided to avoid SXSW like the plague this year, so no long-winded recap of all the awesome bands I saw. Sorry. But worry not, I would not forget you on this, the most exciting of days. Instead, I have assembled the Octopus Motor Paper Anniversary mix-CD. Below you will find a track-by-track listing of the mix, complete with comments about each song, and, when available, videos for each track. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for exciting, year-two entries, like “the Southland Tales Experiment” where I watch Southland Tales and drink lots of whiskey. Fun!

The Octopus Motor Paper Anniversary Mix:

1. Toilet Boys – Another Day in the Life

I first heard this song my freshman year of college, and it has never ceased to kick ass. It’s one of the most simple-minded songs I have ever heard. That may be why it has stayed in my collection for so long. Really it all just boils down to fun, gritty rock. And I think we all could use a little more grit and a lot more fun in our lives.

2. Chris Connelly – Spoonfed Celeste

At the time that Chris Connelly was recording this song, he was doing vocal/keyboard duties in bands like Ministry, the Revolting Cocks, and the Killing Joke, amongst other industrial luminaries. Connelly has always fascinated me. I first noticed him after seeing him live as a member of Pigface, and I started to realize that this guy was wholly different from the rest of the industrial metal circus. Then I heard this country-tinged piano romp. Needless to say, Connelly and the industrial music scene eventually parted ways. Both parties were probably better off for it.

3. Brother Ali – Take Me Home

My brother played this song for me a few times over the holidays as he was assembling his annual holiday mix-CD. The first time I really listened to it, though, was the afternoon of December 31^st. I was driving south on I-35, heading home from Round Rock, feeling particularly unpleased with life. I was in a foul mood following some particularly foul turns in life. As I was driving, listening to the aforementioned holiday mix-CD thinking about how life wasn’t “all rainbows und sunshine,” this song came on. I was blown away. I have never heard anything so self-affirming and uplifting. I played the song on repeat for the remainder of the drive, and ever since then I can’t not listen to this song and feel better about life, myself, and the world in general.

4. Faith No More – Surprise! You’re Dead!

Mike Patton may be the greatest man ever. Literally ever. Is there anything that this guy hasn’t done or can’t do? I seriously doubt it. I mean, listen to this thrashing, proto-rap/metal gem, then put on some old Mr. Bungle, and maybe finish off with some Fantómas or Peeping Tom. I wish I could say more, but really, I just want to take him behind the middle school and get him pregnant.

5. Liars – Plaster Casts of Everything

Liars are by far the greatest band around today. They never cease to surprise with their unbridled creativity, combined with their “fuck ‘em” attitude towards fans’ and critics’ expectations. (Though, we all know how I feel about them.) “Plaster Casts of Everything” is a driving, muscular rock song, unlike anything they’ve done before. Pulsing, repetitive, and catchy, it’s probably the closest they’ve ever come to a straight up, non-weird rocker. Which means, it’s still pretty weird.

6. Skeletons & the Girl-faced Boys – Git

I first gave this band a try based on their name alone. I mean, c’mon, “Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys” is bound to lead to something at least mildly excellent, right? Skeletons’ music is like old, funk-influenced Prince, but played by a bunch of white futurists. The digital sheen, electronic blips, and fuzzy keyboards combine with leader singer/songwriter Matt Mehlan’s falsetto voice to make catchy, strange, funky pop music. If you like your music fun, synthetic, and with a healthy dose of good-spirited experimentalism thrown in, I recommend checking these guys out. (Though, they tend to change their name a lot, so I’m not sure what they’re going by these days.)

7. Of Montreal – Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider

There are a lot of Of Montreal haters out there. Stuffy hipsters who have decided that the band has become too commercial and is no longer cool enough to acknowledge that they’re pretty fucking great. Fuck off, hipsters. They are great. The entire Hissing Fauna album is great; wrapping gloomy lyrics about divorce, bi-polar disorder, and nervous breakdowns in gleaming, upbeat, shiny pop songs. Not to mention that this song in particular is one of the rare instances where Kevin Barnes lets himself give a big “fuck you” to the source of his many problems.

8. Scissor Sisters – I Don’t Feel Like Dancing

Despite about not wanting to dance, I can’t listen to this and not dance. I wonder if they planned that…

9. M.I.A. – Bamboo Banga

It took me a while to warm up to M.I.A., maybe it had something to do with the fact that every time I saw one of her videos or album covers I instantly got a migraine, quickly followed by a seizure. Her music is pretty good, though. The old school, Casio-style synths and her chanting staccato delivery make for a particularly engaging combination. This song more or less won me over with the lines “Now I’m sitting down, chilling on gunpowder/strike match light fire/who’s that girl called Maya.” Just don’t look directly at her.

10. Saul Williams – Black History Month

The production by Trent Reznor is fantastic. The lyrics, though maybe not the best, are delivered with such fiery conviction that it easily makes up for their shortcomings on paper. The particularly awkward spoken word portion is saved the moment Williams yells “Let these suckers know the cost of making Harriet run” just as the thundering drum line creeps back into the mix and takes over.

11. Powerman 5000 – Car Crash

Following the uber-earnestness of Saul Williams, I think it’s time for a little reprieve by way of the slums of goofy alt-metal. Maybe one of the dumbest songs I have ever heard, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s awesome. Well, maybe “awesome” is too strong a word, but how many songs include references to Mad Max? Not enough.

12. Alice Cooper – Desperado

A moody ballad by a Detroiter about an old-West style gunslinger, this song strikes a particular chord with me. Not that I’m a gunslinger or anything, but I am a native Michigander who made the unlikely journey down into the heart of Texas. Maybe it’s a stretch, or maybe it’s the understated guitar accompanying Alice’s brooding vocals that explode in tandem into a wicked double-barreled snarl. Alice lamenting “You’re a notch/and I’m a legend/You’re at peace/and I must hide” in a deep, gravelly voice over thick, powerful guitars.

13. Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down – Fear and Convience

I find this song to be extremely comforting. Sort of like crawling under a blanket after coming inside from the cold, or taking a hot shower after walking through the rain. The playful guitars and mid-tempo rollicking drums perfectly compliment Nguyen’s coy, woman-girl lyrics and vocals.

14. Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You

I wonder if the Black Kids will be able to survive the huge amount of hype surrounding them. Regardless, they will at least always have this song. Fast, kind of messy, and begging to be sung along to, this song always makes me want to shake it. Too bad your boyfriend’s just going to “bite my moves.”

15. Dresden Dolls – Girl Anachronism

This is the first Dresden Dolls song I ever heard. Which might have been an unfortunate thing for me, because no matter what else I hear by them, I always compare it back to this. The spastic pianos and frantic spouting of lyrics about self-mutilation and child birth make for an insanely enjoyable two and a half minutes. As much as I enjoy their other stuff, nothing compares to the piano stomp of “Girl Anachronism.”

16. High on Fire – Rumors of War

This band renewed my faith in modern, straight-up metal. The brief pause after the line “spit in the evil eyes” before the guitar, bass, and drums explode under Pike’s growling “Stand our ground with hate and fury/Fear that comes will die” gives me chills. And sort of makes me want to shake some people by their collars before punching them in the face. Of course, this really isn’t new news.

17. Blur – the Universal

I don’t really like Blur all that much. I mean, they’re OK, but I’m more or less indifferent to them. But “the Universal” is one of the greatest songs I have ever heard. The strings and lyrics lend a dark, surreal undercurrent to the song (e.g. “No one here is alone/satellites in every home/yes the universal’s here/here for everyone”), before it the music rises into the anthemic chorus of “It really, really, really could happen/yes, it really, really, really could happen/and the days they seem to fall through you/well just let them go.” For whatever reason, it always bring to mind a generic movie ending, where the main character walks down the street, back to the camera, as the camera slowly pans back, higher and higher into the sky, and we know that no matter what trials and tribulations our hero suffered through, he’s going to be alright.

18. Hefner – Hello Kitten

There’s always room on a mix for a folksy rock song about masturbation.

19. David Bowie – Golden Years

Along with jam bands and house music, I can’t stand blue-eyed soul and white funk music. And yet, it’s as if Bowie keeps creeping up on me and whispering in my ear, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” This is straight up white funk, but it’s also really good. I don’t know how he does it, but I love walking down the street, my giant, goofy, DJ-style headphones on, listening to that bass line and hearing Bowie tell me “Don’t let me hear you say, life’s taking you no-o-where.” It totally makes me strut like I have a moustache.

20. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – Ballad of Broken Seas

I love Mark Lanegan’s voice, but I’ve always been a little frustrated by it. He seems to have a problem finding the right style of music to make full use of it’s deep, whiskey and cigarette soaked sound. Who’d of thought that an ex-Belle and Sebastian member would be the one to bring it out? “Ballad of Broken Seas” might not be the best song on their duet album, but its gentle pianos, plaintive cello, and tales of self-destruction seem like a fitting end.

“Ok, we’re going to freak out now, but don’t worry.”

Last night marked the end of my blitzkrieg on the Austin nightlife. No more interesting weekend activities on the horizon, but I do know the Dirtbombs are coming to town at some point.

Anyways, the final event on my social calendar was a fitting climax. I went to see Liars at Mohawk. It’s fitting considering I love these guys more than Super Furry Animals and Crispin Hellion Glover. I’ve been wanting to see them live pretty much since picking up their debut album back in 2001, but haven’t gotten the chance. They rarely tour, and the only time I can remember having the chance was last year when they came through Austin opening for Interpol. I wasn’t about to pay $40 to see them, and then have to sit through Interpol. But this time around, it was $10, they were headlining, and No Age was opening (check out their website for pictures from Austin!). Much better situation.

Some quick notes about the venue. Mohawk is a two-story bar that has an enormous outdoor stage. The stage is on the ground floor, and there is ground level floor space for the audience. There are also two more tiers for the audience, making a three level outdoor venue. Pretty cool place. Unfortunately, on the night of the show, it was 40 degrees, it had rained all day, and the outdoors was just generally unpleasant. Since the stage is outdoors, and it had been raining, the stage and ground level was covered in tents. This basically meant that you couldn’t see anything from the upper levels, meaning everyone in the venue had to be crammed down on the ground level. So everything is wet, cold, crowded, and even on the ground floor the tents obscured your view. Less than ideal, but oh well. Better than canceling the show, that’s for sure.

First, let’s start with No Age. I’m vaguely familiar with their music. My brother, Brad, likes them, and made me a copy of their album Weirdo Zippers, but I haven’t really given it a whole lot of attention. Listened to it enough to know what they sound like, but not enough to know their songs very well. They’re a duo (drummer/vocalist and guitarist) that plays noisy, artsy, punk-ish kind of stuff. The show was good. They basically stood on stage and played their instruments, nothing too crazy. Sounded good. Pretty much it boiled down to a good show, but not knowing their music very well kind of rendered me indifferent.

Now on to the main event, Liars. For those who aren’t familiar with Liars’ music, they are a trio (foursome for the concert) who make music that is so varied they are nigh-impossible to describe. From album to album, their sound changes drastically and unpredictably. Their first album, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, was filled with jittery, confrontational, quasi-experimental dance-punk. Their second album, They Were Wrong, so We Drowned, is a dense, sprawling concept album about witches that was steeped in arrhythmic, difficult layers of noise, tape-loops, drumbeats, and just general grating unpleasantness (this is my favorite album– I seem to remember thinking the first time I listened to it, “oh my god, my brain is melting out of my ears…”). The follow-up to the unfairly reviled They Were Wrong was the critically acclaimed Drum’s Not Dead. It is a delicate, atmospheric, beautiful, and tribal album. Their fourth, and newest, album is the self-titled Liars, which marked a move away from the sprawling, experimental concept albums of They Were Wrong and Drum. Liars is a muscular, varied rock album that reigns in their seemingly uncontrollable weirdness into more traditional rock structures. There are mind-melting, Stooges-esque primal rock, fuzzy shoegazer/Jesus and Mary Chain pop, and even at least one faux-80s mid-tempo dance/funk song (mixed in with the usual unpredictable craziness, of course). They are probably the most unpredictable, exciting modern band around.

The set list for the show was a mix of They Were Wrong, Drum, and Liars. They didn’t play anything off of They Threw Us All in a Trench, and as Craig (a pleasant dude I met in line for the bathroom) pointed out, they 86-ed two of the original four members (Liars was originally a four-piece outfit, but after their debut album, the drummer and bass player left, and a new drummer was brought in, making them a trio) between their first and second albums. Craig thought they didn’t play any of those songs because the new drummer couldn’t handle it, but I prefer to think they don’t play them by choice. But whatever. Most noteworthy about the set, though, was that there was no “There’s always room on the broom” which is odd. Basically, I dig everything these guys have ever recorded; so set list selections aren’t really an issue.

In terms of what songs were best live, pretty much my opinions of their albums dictated which songs I liked best. Stuff off of They Were Wrong were best, followed by songs from Drum, and finally the new Liars stuff. Which is not to say any of it was even close to bad, just all relative levels of kick-ass. Notably, though, their live rendition of “The Otherside of Mt. Heart Attack” was spine-tinglingly awe-inspiring.

The performance was captivating. Angus Andrews makes for a charismatic and amazing front man (even with his recent back troubles); spazzing out, waving his arms around in an almost shamanistic manner; howling, screaming, and crooning his way through their set. Their “encore” was great mostly because Angus just got on the mic and said, “This is the part where we would go and sit in a little room for a few minutes then come back out. If it’s ok with you, I think we’ll just stay here.” Personally, I think encores are stupid and annoying. I don’t want to have to stand there for 10 minutes just to hear another two songs, so it was nice that they forego that bit of tomfoolery.

Overall, great show. The experience in its totality was a little rough, given the aforementioned weather/crowd problems. But I guess you can’t always have your cake and eat it, too.

Once again, Pitchfork has provided pictures of their show (again, not from this show specifically, but from the same tour).

On a side note, I noticed another developing stupid hipster trend. Ugly-ass camo tights. An unfortunately large number of female concertgoers were wearing tights that had camo patterns on them that basically made it look like they had some kind of gross, splotchy skin disease all over their legs. I guess it fits in with the whole looking-disgusting-and-having-poor-personal-hygiene-is-hot aesthetic.

Oh, and one more thing. When I got home from the concert, I went to go to the bathroom, only to discover a giant-ass spider in my toilet. INSIDE MY TOILET!!! Ewww….

“The Snowshoe Hare is a cross between a Rabbit and a Snowdrift”

On April 20^th, year of our lord 1964, a miraculous thing happened. On that stormy morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, amidst the thunder and rain, a child was born into this world. This child was born to lead us, lead us all, into a new enlightened age. This child would change the course of mankind forever. I forget his name, but you know who else was born on April 20^th 1964? Crispin Hellion Glover, that’s who!

I assume that if you’re reading this, you know me, which invariably means I have probably lectured you at one time or another about the greatness of Crispin Glover. Just in case you managed to stumble across this little blog without actually knowing me personally (very unlikely), or you do know me but have managed to escape my “Crispin Glover is the greatest man alive, and here is a 90 minute presentation explaining why” speech (slightly less unlikely), here’s a quick recap.

Crispin Glover is an actor, appearing in such mainstream fair as Back to the Future (playing George McFly, Michael J Fox’s nerdy father) and the Charlie’s Angels movies (playing the Thin Man, the mute evil assassin who fought the Angels to Prodigy’s “Smack my Bitch”). He is better known for appearing in films of varying degrees of “indie” (his cameo in Dead Man is one of the best parts of that movie, River’s Edge is an absolutely amazing film, and his undertaker in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is hilarious). He has cultivated a devoted following of rabid fans with his offbeat performances of offbeat characters in offbeat movies. There are movies that I have sat through just to see him in tiny roles. I watched the first Charlie’s Angels movie just to see him, same with Nurse Betty and the People vs. Larry Flynt. His very unique and intense charisma on screen has made his a living legend and veritable cult hero amongst his scarily devoted fan base.

Crispin Hellion Glover is less famous for his work behind the camera. He has written and directed two very low budget films (both feature length, shot on film, costing $150,000 and $250,000; for those who don’t know much about movie budgets, this is insanely cheap). His films, first What is it? and the follow-up It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE., have gained a certain amount of notoriety for their graphic and offensive imagery as well as his casting of actors with Down Syndrome (What is it?) and cerebral palsy. These films are little seen outside of his fan base, due to the fact that they are not released theatrically nor are they on video. Instead, Mr. Glover takes them on tour as part of a three-part performance (consisting of his Big Slide Show, a screening of one of his films, and a Q&A).

I have been fortunate enough to see both What is it? and It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. And now that I’ve taken up a large part of your time with a lengthy and ultimately useless introduction, let’s begin my review of the dark, twisted world of Crispin Hellion Glover.

Again, much like my SFA review, I’m completely and hopelessly in love with Crispin Glover. Everything that follows is replete with nerdy adoration for everything this man has ever done. So keep that in mind. There’s a very good chance that nothing I say from here on out can be trusted in any way, shape, or form.

The first part of Glover’s touring performance is his Big Slide Show. This consists of dramatic readings from eight of his books. That’s right, he also writes books. He reads selections from his books while projecting the pages on the screen. The books are a mix of pictures (found objects ranging from Indian paintings to turn of the century clinical illustrations of animals carcasses) and text that is either scrawled across the page in strange, often misspelled handwriting or large blocks of typed text with portions blacked out. The books are by-turns hilarious, creepy, confusing, surreal, and utterly fascinating. The Big Slide Show alone is worth the price of admission. My personal favorite is the book Round my house, telling the horrifying/hilarious story of a man conducting inhuman experiments in his home, culminating in a “witch hunt, in which I am the witch”. The nonchalant way in which the narrator talks of his “ideas” and his persecution and betrayal is absolutely amazing. In all honesty, even if you have no interest in his films, I’d suggest seeing his tour, just to see the Big Slide Show.

Following the Big Slide Show, Mr. Glover then screens one of his films. Years ago, back in Ann Arbor, I went to see What is it? This was a while ago, and I unfortunately don’t remember a whole lot about it. Basically it was a nonlinear story about a young man who ventures out of his house, gets lost in a park, and is harassed by bullies while he pours salt on snails. While this is going on, there is a separate storyline (presumably the young man’s subconscious) wherein Mr. Glover plays a tyrannical ruler of a cave-like underground world. The world is adorned with pictures of Shirley Temple in a Nazi uniform, a minstrel in black face delivering insane soliloquies, and a man with cerebral palsy being manually stimulated by nude women wearing rubber animal masks.

Mr. Glover has stated that the film is a reaction to the constraints Hollywood places on filmmakers, and the film industry’s refusal to address anything outside carefully constructed social norms. It’s a grand, surreal statement about the nature of taboos and forcing the audience to confront that which is uncomfortable and forcing them to think about issues without dictating to them what they should think of as “good” or “bad.” Plenty of people hate this movie, and fair enough. It’s an uncomfortable viewing experience for any number of reasoning. The majority of the cast has Down Syndrome, the snails wail in a grating ear-splitting scream as they die, and there is graphic sexual scenes involving a severely handicapped man. Many claim the film is exploitative of its cast, only interested in shock-value, poorly made, and ultimately meaningless. I prefer to give Glover more credit than that. True, the production values are very low, the picture is grainy and the sound quality is poor. There are many things that don’t seem to serve a purpose beyond shock-value, but when the point of a film is to confront its audience with squirm-inducing taboos, well shocking imagery is kind of important. Obviously this sort of thing is not for everybody, and I’d be hard pressed to argue against someone who hated it. I’ll just say that I am grateful I got to see it, and leave it at that.

Recently I was able to see the second film in Mr. Glover’s “It” trilogy, It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. This film was written by Steven C. Stewart, the man with cerebral palsy from What is it? Central to understanding the film is understanding Steven C. Stewart. Mr. Stewart has severe cerebral palsy. When his mother passed away in his twenties, he was sent to live in a nursing home, where he was neglected and abused by the staff. His disability renders him almost incapable of communicating, and it took him roughly a decade before he was able to get out of the nursing home. Through a convoluted series of acquaintances, a screenplay Mr. Stewart had written ended up in the hands of Crispin Glover, who in turn felt that no matter what it took, he had to make this movie. Within a month of completing shooting for the film, Steven Stewart died at the age of 62.

Unlike What is it?, It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. is much more linear and narrative based. Steven C. Stewart stars as a man named Paul, who while living in a decrepit nursing home, meets and starts dating a woman he meets at a party. Paul falls in love with this woman, eventually asking her to marry him. She rejects him and Paul strangles her to death. After killing the woman, Paul then goes on to seduce her nubile daughter, and after having sex with her, proceeds to strangle her as well. After the death of the daughter, Paul begins venturing out in the world to seduce and murder more women all with long hair that he is obsessed with touched/washing. After murdering one of his victims, Paul falls out of his wheelchair, experiencing a dream in which he is using a Rapunzel-like woman’s hair to climb a mountainside. She cuts her hair, causing Paul to tumble down the mountain, wheelchair and all, finally landing headfirst onto the tile floor of the nursing home. We soon realize that the entire film was the violent, sexual fantasy life this man lived in his mind while trapped in his palsied body.

The film is filled with graphic sex and constant violence against women. Again, the production quality is low, so the picture is grainy and sound poor. Like What is it?, this film is strange to judge. It really doesn’t matter what my opinion of it is. Most people would absolutely hate it, and there really aren’t any counter-arguments to that. You don’t want to see a man with severe cerebral palsy get a very graphic, X-rated blowjob? Well, fair enough. I will say that I am again grateful I got to see it. It had moments that were absolutely fantastic. The final scene, in which Paul tries to talk to the other nursing home residents who cannot understand him, lends a truly fantastical element to the earlier portions of the film, where the women Paul meets understand his speech perfectly even though the audience cannot. Crispin’s father, Bruce Glover (who was at the screening, FYI), was fantastic as the first victim’s brutish ex-husband. The police “interrogation” wherein they invite all the suspects for lunch and give them all bendy-straws (because they found a bendy-straw at one of the murder scenes) was awesomely hilarious. It’s odd to think about whether I “liked” it or not. It’s not an enjoyable experience, it’s uncomfortable, strange, and actually quite unpleasant. But that’s the point. The point is to do something that no one else would ever do. Make people confront things like the sexuality of the handicapped, etc and so on. So it’s odd to say I “liked” it. I will say that I’m glad I saw it, and I will most definitely see the third “It” film (tentatively titled It Is Mine) when he tours with that.

After screening the film, Glover then holds a Q&A. He is surprisingly frank and open during this portion. For instance, at the end of the film, before the credits role, there are two title cards. The first stating that Steven C. Stewart died a month after filming ended, the second stating that he had fallen in love with one of the actresses and bequeathed all of his proceeds from the film to her. An audience member, naturally, asked which actress did he fall in love with. Glover, not answering it because he felt it was a little too gossipy while acknowledging he would also want to know had he been an audience member, goes on to tell a very long story about Steven C. Stewart. Glover acknowledges that he thought part of Stewart’s motivation for the film involved his chance to act out these sex acts with the actresses. That the graphic nature of the sex scenes were a way for Stewart to experience these things that he may have never been able to experience in real life. Glover said that the scene that most struck him when he initially read the script was the scene when Paul’s marriage proposal was rejected, and had no doubt that that scene played itself out in one way or another multiple times in Stewart’s real life. He claims that while the film is obviously not a documentary, it is a documentation of both Stewart’s real life (as seen in the nursing home scenes that bookend the film) and his frustrated, fantasy-filled inner life.

The Q&A is not all frank discussions about Stewart’s sexual frustrations. Glover is charismatic, strange, well-spoken, serious, and funny all at once. Someone asked how he came across Stewart’s script, and as Glover launched into a long story that didn’t look like it was getting at the actual question, he stopped to explain what he was getting at. He basically had some convoluted explanation about how answering simple questions with long-winded stories helps to shorten the Q&A by answering multiple questions at once. I don’t really buy his explanation, seeing as he went about 20 minutes over his allotted time (making the Alamo staff visibly nervous, since there was a line out the door for Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation which was being shown after Glover), but it was a funny explanation for his long-windedness nonetheless. I do think there was some credence to his thinking, though. I don’t know that any audience member would have the balls to ask up front if Stewart just wrote the script so he could have sex with actresses, but in his rambling, Glover did answer that lingering question.

The reasons for the post-screening Q&A seem to be three-fold. First, it gives Glover a chance to explain/defend his difficult, offense, and downright weird films. Second, it allows the audience to engage in a thoughtful discussion about the creative process and larger sociophilosophical issues. Finally, it gives an adoring audience the opportunity to ask Glover whatever the hell they’ve always wanted to know about him. Case in point, when someone asked what the deal was with the infamous Letterman interview. According to Glover, it was all a big practical joke that was actually going somewhere, but that Letterman surprised him by walking out on the interview, and he never got a chance to finish his joke. Also excellent was when one audience member asked if Glover had gotten a haircut during the movie, claiming his hair looked shorter. Glover, confused, responded that he hadn’t gotten a haircut during the movie, but had, oddly enough, cut it himself the day before.

At this point, I’ve rambled on way too long. Basically, if you love Crispin Glover you’ll go see these screenings. If you don’t, well then, you probably won’t go. These performances are engrossing, one-of-a-kind experiences. I love them, and will continue to go to them as long as Glover is touring.

As a reward for your patience, I leave you with one of the greatest moments in Glover’s illustrious career: