Therese Raquin

I had to get the images of Fear and Loathing out of my system, so I decided to finally watch Therese Raquin @ home. The picture above is deceiving; all is not so good. This movie had everything I like about European films - tragic characters, tragic situations, and a not very happy ending. The play turns out to be even more tragic.

Not Working

Been there, done that.  It really was an everyday struggle  not to just stay in bed. I was one of the lucky ones who were able to reinvent themselves. I want to emphasis the word luck.

I heard a bit about DW Gibson's new book, Not Working: People Talking About Losing a Job and Finding Their Way in Today's Changing Economy. , on NPR. Rumor has it he interviewed folks from Indy too.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Gimme Shelter

 On the bill for movie night @ Alex's - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. One of the worst movies I've seen in quite sometime. Really bad script -  I'm taking drugs...again, oh...more drugs....again...got old fast. The camera work  didn't do much for me either. It's always funny when they try to use a camera to give the audience the feel of taking drugs. Yes, drugs make you see dinosaurs and army jeeps. Yep.

Yes, I get the whole -Gonzo journalism thing. That's the point; the joke is on them/him. Hunter S Thompson hit the nail on the head. His own head, in fact. He was a product of the failed sixties movement himself. He was a product of the failed American dream. He just couldn't see it through the self induced, me-so-hip, I-can-afford-lots-of-drugs haze. I do lots of  drugs, ergo, I can see the truth.  Riiiight... This kind of hipper-than-thou life style made a show like Behind the Music so fascinating.

I've always liked Ralph Steadman's art. His style was pretty much ahead of the curve at the time. There are so many folks now who are clearly influenced by him. 

Anyway...the best part of the movie (no, not Dr. Gonzo's shining like the North Star gut) was hearing Gimme Shelter at the end. It made me think about Let It Bleed, the last Stones' album with Brian Jones. Brian had become so lost in his own drug-world, that he only played on two tracks and was replaced by Mick Taylor. He was sacked by the band, and died a few months later. Let It Bleed was released in December of 1969 and it is probably the best Stones' album ever. I download it from iTunes when I got home last night and I can't quite get the opening riff of Gimme Shelter out of my skull. Keef can play.

It's quite clear from the above picture that Mr. Jones has some dependency issues. Back in the day, it was cool to be considered elegantly wasted; people turned a blind-eye to drug abuse. Today, a quick trip to rehab would've been in order. Maybe we would've got a few more years out of Janice, Jimi, or Jim.

Speaking of drug abuse, I stumbled (sorry, (I couldn't resist) onto this picture of Courtney sporting a rather nice bit of ink work on her arm.

The Big Sleep

 The Big  Sleep is a bone fide classic everyone who is into movies needs to watch.

Bogart can act and Lauren Bacall is  probably one of the most beautiful women to ever live. Her beauty is timeless. She could walk down the street today and turn heads.

The Phillip Marlowe character reminded me of The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Well, a lot of things reminded me of that movie. General Sternwood and "Big" Lebowski" are both wheelchair-bound men of money. Instead of a wayward daughter, "Big" has a wayward wife. The wayward daughter throws herself and Mr. Marlowe and the wayward wife throws herself at The Dude. Eddie Mars' wife is missing and "Big's" wife is missing. Both Phillip and The Dude get beat up a lot. There's an empty purse and an empty briefcase. Both Phillip and The Dude unravel the case despite the beatings and madness around them.

Call me crazy, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the titles of both movies are so similar.

The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

There is a house along the way to Canterbury Park, on my way to the Monon Trail, that usually plays music that I like. This guy has it blasting, nicely, out of his garage. Sometimes it's Pink Floyd, sometimes, it's the Stones, sometimes it's something I've never heard before. A couple of weeks ago, I passed by this house and heard this very haunting tune that I had never heard before. I knew I'd run across it at some point; tonight was the night.

I stumbled onto Amy Hanna's blog and read a bit of an interview on this blog. Lo and behold! Before I even clicked to play The Civil Wars video at the bottom of the interview, I knew I'd found the artists I'd heard that day on the way to the Monon.

MesrineL Killer Instinct, Cutting Loose, and Detropia

I've had Mesrine: Killer Instinct in my NetFlix queue for a while. I remember hearing about it on NPR several years ago and thinking....File that away. Jacques Mesrine was quite the character: he pulled double bank robberies (hey, there's another bank across the street, let's rob that one too) and he was a master of disguises (hey, someone broke into  your house, we're with part of a team of  police investigating the crime). Vincent Cassel becomes Mesrine. Ahh....this is one of those lovely movies as only the French can create - Characters with depth and attention  to detail (my eyes were all over the place trying to catch all the day to day items in a scene),

 

 Cutting Loose won Best Matter of Fact - Short Film @ the Indianapolis International Film Festival this year. This film caught my attention in the festival flyer - Convicted murderer and two-time champion Francis defends his title at the Scottish Prison Service Hairstyling Competition - but he's distracted by his upcoming release. This was not a reality show view of someone's life we can't imagine, this is a look at the lives of folks we can quickly identify with.

Detropia won Best Matter of Fact - Feature Film. Detropia is not just a film about the end of  manufacturing jobs in Detroit;  it's about the end of middle class America as we know it. At one point 1.8 million people lived there, now the population is less than 800,000. Hipster artists moving into once luxurious apartments next to abandoned, destroyed neighborhoods gives me cold chills.