Sorry I missed ya last night, but I didn't have a movie to review because I went down to the third annual "Reseda Rising" art & music walk on Sherman Way. Grimsley met me there and we strolled around for a couple hours, checking out the various booths that featured all kinds of works from different artists. There was a lot of Goth art on display, and a booth with local 'Zines for sale. Reseda has a punk history dating back to the 1980s, when a store called BeBop Records (located next to the Reseda Theater) hosted local bands and spoken word artists. Many of the founders and sponsors of the "Reseda Rising" movement are Mexican-American locals who want to bring back the artist culture that thrived here during that time. Reseda has always been somewhat Bohemian, and tonight they even had a drag queen dance exhibition followed by a chance for folks to get their pictures taken with the dancers. The LGBT community is well represented in both Northridge and Reseda. In Northridge the promotion of acceptance would come mostly from CSUN, but ironically I don't think a drag queen performance would go down as well in the 'Ridge, maybe because it is slightly more affluent - and thus a little more conservative culturally (though not politically) than is Reseda, which is a little more "street". As you know, I am a Dual Citizen of both Reseda and Northridge, being born in the former and having lived most of my life in the latter, and I love both towns and appreciate their differences.
Anyway, Grim and I had fun at the artwalk.
We ended up spending most of the evening watching a local band playing off to the side against a stucco building wall. They were called "Wild Ride" and consisted of a male/female guitarist/drummer duo, like the White Stripes format. They played all kinds of covers, from Jimi to Pink Floyd to Motorhead, and were very good. /////
Tonight (Sunday) I did have a movie : "You Were Never Really Here" (2018) starring Joaquin Phoenix. Lemme see what I can tell ya about this particular flick.
Um, as you know, I don't watch too many current movies. It's not because I'm a snob, or because I'm entirely hooked on the TCM era (though that is part of it), or because of the "get off my lawn" factor. I'm not a curmudgeon to new stuff, and in fact I have always kept up with the changes in popular culture. I can even whistle the tune to that song by Fun that was a big hit several godforsaken years ago (and as an aside, don't get Grimsley started on Fun).
But getting back to the movies, the reason I don't go to many of the new ones, or seek them out on dvd, is because most of them suck. Plain and simple, sorry about that if you are a fan. But the thing is that I've been a fan of movies for my entire life. I've watched probably close to 5000 of them, including all kinds from all eras, and - again, sorry and don't mean to offend - but for me, this is the worst era for new movies that I can remember. I will exclude the Marvel Comics blockbusters from consideration because I am not a young person, and I am sure those films are well done and make a lot of young viewers happy. But as for all the other releases out there.........(er, I don't wanna offend)......but man they are bad, and I include the recent Oscar contenders in there. I only go to the theater these days for "It : Chapter Two" or "Dunkirk" or something equally mega that I know for certain is gonna be spectacular. I'm not even gonna go to "Ad Astra", even though the title sounds like I could be in it, because I just don't think Brad Pitt is a very good actor. Sorry. And you know me - I love Space Movies. But I just can't deal with crummy new films any more, and I don't care how highly touted they are.
All of which brings me back to "You Were Never Really Here". I mean, man....I wish that title was true, regarding myself and the movie. I'll try to be brief in my criticisms. It wasn't a horrible picture, but it was very morbid, dark and violent. "But Ad", I hear you say, "you're the guy who considers Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be one of the greatest films ever made". And you are correct in saying that. But "Chainsaw" had substance. It had wit, and style. It had tension and comic relief (well, maybe not so much of that), but it had script and storyline in spades. And it had filmmaking technique beyond just putting pretty pictures up on the screen.
The photography in "You Were Never Really Here" (and I am thinking that I do love that title cause it gives me an excuse), is beautiful and very artistic, but it doesn't compliment the movie because there is nothing to compliment. Instead, it stands out as a sideshow : "Well, at least the photography was good".
There is no script to this movie, or to be fair, very little. Joaquin Phoenix is a guy who, for a fee, brings back underage girls from locations where they have been held captive by the Jeffery Epsteins of this world. The subject matter is very unpleasant, but I can understand the filmmaker's desire to tell it in all it's brutal frankness, the director being a woman named Lynne Ramsey. The problem is that she presents it as a horror show, and an entirely unrealistic one at that. Phoenix, whose brooding visage occupies most of the 90 minutes of screentime, walks into the lairs of pedophiles as a hired gun, and he proceeds to beat the pedos to death with ball been hammers he has recently purchased from a hardware store. The only cops that are involved are ones who are in on the pedophilia.
This is a sick movie masquerading as arthouse.
I might as well have watched "The Toolbox Murders", a B-Movie from 1978 starring Cameron Mitchell. Again, to be fair, the director is trying for a hypnotic effect, and she intersperses quick flashbacks of the child abuse Phoenix himself suffered as a kid, and also flashes of the horrors he witnessed as a soldier, but these flashbacks are "blink and you'll miss 'em", and their importance is never explained.
Most of the movie is close ups of Joaquin Phoenix scowling, and this is supposed to pass for great acting. Phoenix is good in the role, no doubt, but the director - who also wrote the non-existent script - gives him nothing to do but scowl.........and hit people in the head with hammers.
I've said enough about this movie, and even though it does have a hypnotic pull, that is entirely offset by the fact that it's really bad, and also brutal and gross, and really there is no reason to watch it, unless you have a revenge motive to watch Jeffery Epstein get what was coming to him.
And in that way, I can understand why Lynne Ramsey made her film, just to let it all out about what these guys deserve, especially from a female point of view.
But please don't watch it, even if you are female and even if you feel that revenge in your heart.
"You Were Never Really Here" is nothing more than a trashy and extremely violent B-Horror movie, dressed up as an art film, and you will gain nothing from it, indeed it will make you ill. /////
That's all I know for tonight. Sorry about the awful movie, but we had good singing in church. And the Rams won, so it was a good day after all. Plus, I am sending you Tons Of Love at this very moment, and I will see you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxo :):)
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