I Think We're Alone Now

Unfortunately, I was formerly friends with a pathetic perverted fellow (lets just call him "Big H") that claimed he was in love with famous women that he had obviously never met. To show his delusional imagined love for porno star Riley Mason, big H wrote her a pop song on his folk guitar with melodies inspired by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. Big H also talked incessantly about the various women that he would never meet, let alone fornicate with. Unsurprisingly, Big H had many vivid sexual fantasies involving being sexually degraded by the women of his often advertised dreams. Once, Big H boasted that he would love to drink a freshly pissed cup of redheaded miscling Alyson Hannigan's urine. Naturally, I became very tired of Big H's pathetic behavior as it was no longer funny. Fortunately for Big H, he finally found a girlfriend (despite being a 23 year old virgin at the time) in the ferocious form of a husky rich bitch Jewess. To Big H's fanatical glee, his Jewish American princess physically abused him during sex and he would show off the battle wounds covering his grotesque body with overstimulated pride. I bring up Big H as he reminds me of the mentally perturbed Tiffany fans in the documentary I Think We're Alone Now directed by Sean Donnelly. Not since the vintage days of my friendship with big H have I felt embarrassed by the pitiful sounds of a gravely lonely person as I did after viewing this documentary. 

Before watching I Think We're Alone Now, I had never heard of 1980s pop singer Tiffany nor her smutty pop songs. Tiffany's greatest aesthetic achievement was not her forgettable music but being featured in the April 2002 issue of Playboy magazine, a desperate comeback publicity stunt that she apparently had a hard time explaining to her 9 year old son. Tiffany's appearance in Playboy also probably did not help her already annoying problem with fanatic fans like Jeff Turner and Kelly McCormick, the two graceless 'stars' of I Think We're Alone Now. Jeff is a 50 year old uber-nerd-turd that suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a social disorder which allows him to live off the generous fruits of the taxpayer via welfare. Since Asperger's causes the individual to become immersed in various obsessions, it no doubt plays a huge part in Jeff's life commitment to Tiffany. Fellow I Think We're Alone Now subject Kelly is a hermaphrodite that also has the government foot the bill for her pseudo-career of swooning over Tiffany. While watching I Think We're Alone Now, I found myself completely repulsed by both Tiffany fans. The fact that both of these wackjobs live off public assistance while actively stalking a 1980s pop singer almost caused me to forget the fact that disproportionate members of certain minority groups exploit the welfare system. 

Being the slightly more masculine of the two, Jeff is the more assertive and aggressive Tiffany fan, even having security guards subduing him at one of the singer's appearances. At the very beginning of I Think We're Alone Now, Jeff states quite confidently, "Tiffany and I have know each other most of her life and we are in love with each other." It is quite obvious that Jeff is a mastermind of self-deception but not so much when it comes to deceiving others. Jeff also believes that Tiffany can time travel and talk to different various alien races from outer space. Despite having a hard time speaking coherently, Kelly is marginally less annoying than Jeff. Although born with both the key and the hole, Kelly lives 'her' life as a woman, albeit as a lesbian woman that is infatuated with Tiffany. I think Kelly may have been exaggerating a tad bit when she describes herself as the most popular person in High school. Let's just hope that when her former classmates see I Think We're Alone Now that they do not drown her in the punch bowl at their class reunion. Kelly also used to be some kind of high school track star but she runs so awkwardly (whilst acting like quite the braggart) in the documentary that I thought she might be wearing a diaper. When Jeff and Kelly meet up for a Tiffany appearance, there is an unspoken rivalry of social retards that reaches a climax when Jeff ruins an extra special reflection moment of Kelly's. 

I Think We're Alone Now was obviously made on a used shoestring budget with next to no production values. In fact, the documentary features no titles but instead film pieces of paper with writing on them. Of course, the minimalist approach taken no doubt works to the advantage of this highly engrossing yet disturbing documentary. I am sure some would see I Think We're Alone Now as exploitation but the documentary is far from it. The filmmaker could have decided to not mention Jeff's Asperbergers but instead the documentary features various insights into his life, including interviews with friends and church leaders. At the end of I Think We're Alone Now, Kelly comes out on the top as the greater Tiffany fan. Despite having more contact with Tiffany, Jeff never seems to fill the lonely void that is at the center of his dubious fanaticism, even becoming a fairweather stalker by later deciding he would rather wed Alyssa Milano. Kelly seems to fill an enormous portion of her empty life just by meeting Tiffany, coming away from the experience with a noticeable amount of new self-esteem. At the end of I Think We're Alone Now, both Jeff and Kelly are still alone but isn't everyone (even Tiffany) to some extent?

-Ty E

Rolling Thunder

 

With promises of enlightening me with an all-American experience in vengeance and psychological trauma, Rolling Thunder pulls no strings in acquiring instant favoritism of all the films I've seen from the seventies. Starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones, Rolling Thunder is an absolute treat as I was expecting a trashy exploitative motion picture of relentless gun play in the name of several fallen souls. Could you imagine my surprise when the central whore character was martyred early on in front of the withdrawn Major Charles Rane by Brainscan director John Flynn? Besides from the pivotal and expected scene of retaliation towards his attackers, Rolling Thunder encompasses many American influences of hatred and gender prejudiced cinema. What is slowly unraveled over the entirety of the film is what First Blood could have been had the character of Rambo been written into the cold-blooded killer that he is in the Morrel novel of the same name and not the pacifistic pussy that Hollywood made him out to be.

A prime element of Rolling Thunder in which dazzled me is the emotional crucifixion of the military spouse. Upon returning home from a POW camp after 7 long years of torture, Major Charles Rane greets his wife and child with eyes that reflect calm but hide a seething inferno behind his glasses. After the initial car ride home, a police officer named Cliff expresses curious sentiments with Major Rane's wife which is later revealed to be her secret lover since his capture. Instead of a sordid affair continuing or trying to patch up the relationship that died in the camp along with Major Rane, the creature known as Janet promptly tells him that Cliff and her are currently engaged and she refuses to call off their ceremonial coupling. After he silently sits on the same couch that he once comfortably sat on some years earlier, Janet becomes enraged with his dead eyes, goading him to present displeasure, as this is where the sluts derive their complacent ego from. This very facet of spousal abandonment reflects an age-old consistency not just in film, but based in and around reality as well.

If you've paid attention to film then you will not be surprised with examples of a classic case involving a  callous woman removing a significant male from their life only to replace it with the next best thing, preferably with a steady source of income. a prime example of women objectifying men while shrieking vice versa: Dear John, Pearl Harbor, and Cast Away (a misdemeanor in this case). These are but a small handful which fit the bill. In contrast, the films in which men refuse to give up their idea of a sanctified reunion mark the same redundancy seen in cinema and the "real world." The biggest myth commonly regarded as fact is that women are more romantic than men. This assumption is ridiculous and insulting as one only can wonder how being needy has replaced the definition of true romance, giving it all and investing into a commitment and not shoes and blouses. But yet again, no one ever really expected anything from a military spouse other than trust, which very few reciprocate. Rolling Thunder just goes to show that "forever" means nothing to a whore. Hell, even B-rate international action films like Wasabi tend to the real nature of men with Jean Reno's insistence to pine over a woman who left him many years back. Fear X is another shining example; Nicholas Winding Refn's tale of a man refusing to let go of his past in hopes for new love and maintains a debilitating obsession with a woman who is now dead. To spring into more recent territory, John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness is another film concealing an obsessive love that is unknown to women.

Also present are the themes of S&M and homoerotic tidbits scattered throughout. For example, the Texan constantly referring to Major Rane as a "macho motherfucker" and the slow spreading of lips to reveal teeth as the pain rolls right off of Rane's shell. Major Charles Rane refers to himself as "dead" throughout Rolling Thunder. Apparently all of his persona was squeezed out of him, forcefully, by the gooks that had him imprisoned for those seven years. In one of the most iconic scenes out of the film, Major Rane convinces Cliff to rope his hands behind his back and "pull it up in the air like you're gonna take me clear on up to the ceiling." After Cliff reveals to be noticeably troubled, Charles grunts "Higher, man, Higher! Till you hear the bones start to crack". This thesis on shell-of-a-man is frequently at work within Rolling Thunder. While one man would demonstrate a compromised behavioral approach to vengeance, Charles Rane doesn't seem to seek vengeance on a count of his family, rather, it's the appropriate, human, thing to do. One can argue that this very same notion is applied to Showtime's Dexter as Dexter Morgan was taught to flaunt emotion and actualize trigger responses. To quote Major Rane, "you learn to love the rope. That's how you beat them."

With a screenplay written by Taxi Driver's Paul Schrader, also director of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Rolling Thunder dons many similarities with Taxi Driver as the common denominator is social decay and an unwillingness to the world. I've always been disinterested in the angst chronicles - the mediums that encapsulate post-Vietnam Americana and the "War = home" that near every film of this era is guilty of portraying. Better yet, Rolling Thunder, while taking the slogan of such, avoids making it a highlight of the film and would rather focus on annihilating Mexicans with merciless glee. In a later scene, my favorite, Charles Rane reunites with fellow soldier/prisoner Johnny Vodhen (Tommy Lee Jones) and tells him simply that he found who killed his son. Saying nothing more, Vohden replies that he will get his gear with a smile on his face and a purpose about him. Collecting his Winchester Model 1897 Shotgun, Vohden quietly bags it as they prepare to head out to a whorehouse located in Juarez. Upon arriving, both Vohden and Rane make it very clear that they both don't care who is injured in the upcoming shootout. Every Mexican character that was encountered in Rolling Thunder proves to be perverted degenerates; the sleazy folk who still hang onto the ideal of a Reconquista Mexican Texas. It's in this violent philosophy of exterminating the various Mestizo cockroaches that Rolling Thunder becomes one of the few films that wrap around the American virtues of crushing the weak and undeserving.

Rolling Thunder is single-handedly one of the most contemptuous movie experiences I've sat through as of recent. The silent pain barely expressed by Charles Rane is among one of the more powerful performances I've seen in a film. Rolling Thunder also aspires to be more classy than the average revenge film from the seventies. From the sheer violence left to the imagination and to Rane's unwillingness to love anything but his son, what is evident in Rolling Thunder is its fascinating portrait of an empty dead man. Major Charles Rane is a thousand times deeper than Paul Kersey and with his prosthetic hook-hand, more iconic as well. This Vietnam volume also ends perfectly, with Denny Brooks' "San Antone" filling the debris coated hallway as the two heroes return from another battlefield, one of which seems to purify and recapture the essence of life these soldiers had lost. Rolling Thunder is a goddamn masterpiece of wit and brutality and should be seen by every citizen of the U.S.A. This film will make you a better American, guaranteed.

-mAQ

The Rig

To be honest, when I learned of the massive oil spill at the hands of BP in the Gulf of Mexico, my constant lingering thought wasn't of the destruction of the environment nor the hundreds of photos flooding social networking mediums of creatures covered in oil, dying. No, my constant was the slow realizing that soon we will be faced with an amassing of substandard horror films tacked on to adrenalize current events, sort of like what Bong Joon-ho accomplished with his tidy monster film The Host. Starring the incredibly bloated William Forsythe and Art LaFleur, The Rig only exists to profit off of the natural disaster. If anything, The Rig only manages to kick the ecosystem while it's down and out. Nothing of any value exists within The Rig, even for a fan of deep-sea terror as myself. It couldn't possibly be as challenging to invent a distinguishable creature as The Rig proposes through their lack of effort. In fact, the beastly hunters in The Rig seem awfully familiar. Oh, that's right. The supposed prehistoric monsters seem to be a rubber modeling of the "Sleestaks" from Land of the Lost painted black.

The Rig is similar to that of a scorned dog whom begs for forgiveness with doe eyes. As a dog would cower to your feet with its chew toy, The Rig hopes to amend its short-comings with likenesses to James Cameron's Aliens. As if casting a butch Puerto Rican replacement to Vasquez wasn't enough, the off-shore rig is under the ownership of a Weyland Drilling Corp. Opening up with a submersible view of the drill penetrating the ocean floor, purplish steam begins to vent, confusing the gentleman in the manned vehicle. Suddenly, a disembodied jaw is shown snapping at the camera, destroying it and severing the feed to the control room. This character doesn't think much of it, however, as he and his crew are all vegetables, slave to the paper. The worst offender is the token heroic icon Faulkner, as he tirades endlessly about his past tours with Special Forces and manages to suffer the most hilarious, albeit predictable, fate of all the crew. Several progressive fixtures are installed early on but hardly linger in the memory, such as Freddy and his little brother Colin. After awhile, you start to wonder if the "script" these actors are reading from aren't just daily calender quips.

The Intruder Within is a film of questionable meaning to The Rig. Perhaps the BP oil spill brought back fond childhood memories of the TV movie, but then again, that's highly unlikely as any comparison is drawn at the plot and not the now-antique execution. It's a silly thing that low-budget monster films put together before the millennium retains a certain charm that renders them highly watchable and enjoyable. It seems that no matter how close the current generation of creature-features try cutting it to the mold the result will also turn out to be a deformity and a near unwatchable abomination. The Rig is a prime offender in this instance. A shallow fit of comatose digital horror that refrains from excitement or amusing its own humble guests. It's trash like this that makes me ashamed to hold horror close to me as it seems more likely that an inept horror film be made then, say, an incompetent drama. For the first time in quite a bit, I'm actually at a loss for words as to this lifeless garbage before me.

-mAQ

Kustom Kar Kommandos

Coming of age, I never could understand the infatuation other guys had for swooning over automobiles. Of course, I loved the freedom and convenience of driving but unlike other guys, I never had the desire to put thousands of dollars into a car that was probably worth less than my CD collection at the time. It has been over a decade now since I originally obtained my license and I still consider putting money into a car to be one of the most worthless investments a person could ever make. In the 3-minute long Kenneth Anger short Kustom Kar Kommandos, we watch as a Nordic Northern American Superman engages in foreplay with his stylistically audacious automobile. Despite my overall repugnance towards car worship, I found the short to be another example of Kenneth Anger's commitment to creating the most striking and sumptuous Mise-en-scène. Also, it does not hurt that the short was shot in 1965, a time when cars seemed to more resemble custom automotive art as opposed to the tacky jalopy four-wheelers that now flood American streets.

The soothing pop song "Dream Lover" by The Paris Sisters is played while the unnamed young man in Kustom Kar Kommandos buffs his shimmering automobile. Kenneth Anger makes the automobile symbolic of the young man's genitals and the revving of the engine acts as a auditory state of arousal. Of course, I am persuaded that Kenneth Anger wishes he was the car in the film so that he could be buffered by the young dream lover. Unlike most other films directed by Kenneth Anger, Kustom Kar Kommandos disguises the director's homoerotic scopophilia by making the car the main subject instead of the young rebel. Irish dandy Oscar Wilde once wrote, "Yet each man kills the thing he loves" but I prefer subscribing to the inverse of that piece of wild exiled wisdom. After all, was it not James Dean's beloved Porsche 550 Spyder that led him into a time-pausing fate of infinite cinematic youth? It is also one of the oldest stories in the world that man has always been willing to risk his life or even lose it to stay in favor of the woman that exploits his heart. Kustom Kar Kommandos ends climatically simply with the young man finally driving off. Upon first viewing the short, I anticipated seeing the young man mutilated in an accident but instead Kenneth Anger leaves the fate of the subject to the viewer's imagination. 

Kustom Kar Kommandos was originally supposed to be a much more ambitious feature-film about young males with car fetishes but Anger's grant money of $10,000.00 from The Ford foundation ran out quite swiftly. It is a depressing thought to realize that revolutionary experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger has never directed a feature-length film. Not since Aryan auteur F.W. Murnau (one of Anger's greatest influences) has there been a director like Kenneth Anger whose Mise-en-scène even strikes the jaundiced eyes of those that see cinema without artistic merit. Kustom Kar Kommandos is just a meager taste of what could have been a cinematic masterpiece yet is still highly notable in the aborted state that it is in. Luckily, the short caught the Sicilian eyes of Martin Scorsese as seen in the various extravagant car scenes featured in Taxi Driver and his various mafia films like Goodfellas. After all, a couple minutes from a Kenneth Anger film usually contains more Occult power and aesthetic magick than your typical Hollywood film director's entire filmography. Anyone can direct a film if they have the monetary advantage to do so but few have the gift of the all-seeing artistic eye and an enchanting organic vision that Kenneth Anger was blessed with. 

-Ty E

Death in June: Behind the Mask

I can say with the utmost sincerity that my favorite musical outfit that is still in existence is the English neofolk group Death in June. I like different musical groups for a variety of reasons ranging from novelty to a deep emotional connection but Death in June is one of few groups whose entire aesthetic package I am completely enamored with. Although the Di6 has been around for over 30 years, the only remaining member of the group from their early days as a post-punk project is the charismatic and undeniably charming front man Douglas Pearce. In the 2006 documentary Behind the Mask Douglas P. gives his most revealing interview in regards to his personal life as well as the equally personal artistic influences behind Death in June. Due to Death in June's use of imagery associated with the Third Reich (on top of being of a shamelessly occidental cultural nature in general), the group has always been attacked (having shows picketed and canceled) by the kind of bourgeois white liberal types that read Mao Tse-tung whilst drinking decaffeinated pisswater at Starbucks which is hilariously ironic when you consider the early political backgrounds of the men behind Di6. Founding Death in June members Tony Wakeford and Douglas Pearce were originally in a punk group CRISIS which Pearce describes in Behind The Mask as a leftist Agit-prop project which had the conscious goal of being more extreme than the so called "New Left," a perverted political persuasion they felt was already too old and far from extreme. 

During the beginning of Behind the Mask Douglas P. cleverly bastardizes one of Friedrich Nietzsche's most famous quote to fit his own experiences with the witty remark, "Once you truly look into the abyss you get a bit of the giggles." Pearce then goes on to discuss how he grew up in a dysfunctional post-World War II working-class English family where both of his parents hated each other, no doubt a critical influence on his fairly introverted personality and staunch individualism. Despite his Father being an English World War II veteran, Douglas P. developed an early fetishistic obsession with the bold aesthetics of Nazi Germany. When Pearce's Father found out about his son's romantic longing for figuratively bedding the enemy he was unsurprisingly enraged.  Pearce even jokes in the documentary that he was a demon seed son sent to haunt his war torn Father. Douglas P. is not joking when he states during Behind the Mask in a matter of fact manner, "Every war has it's artistic consequences." Pearce's Father finally allowed his son to prove that he was being genuine in regards to his affection for Teutonic trinkets by allowing him to buy an unearthed German helmet, so long as little Doug promised to refurbish it to a like-new condition. After telling this anecdote in Behind the Mask, Douglas P. concludes the story with a "bit of the giggles" by mentioning that although he made his Father proud by fixing up his German helmet, he died soon thereafter. It is obvious in Behind the Mask that out of all his family, Pearce only had strong feelings for his Father whose death left an emotional void that even seems to be apparent in the sorrowful 2010 Death in June single Peaceful Snow as expressed in the following lyrics:
In the Pearceful snow
As my father knows,
I will go into the, into the snow

Original Di6 lineup Douglas Pearce, Tony Wakeford, and Patrick Leagas

During Behind the Mask Douglas P. reveals the obvious (at least to Death in June fans) when he mentions that the founding members of Di6 (Douglas P., Tony Wakeford, and Patrick Leagas) all carried a strong misanthropy, especially for the leftists punk rockers who they used to be in camaraderie with. All three original Death in June members had the goal of producing the musical mirror image of most people's ugliness. Douglas P. goes on to explain in Behind the Mask that he and is musical comrades realized how all the self-righteous leftists they knew treated people worse than any other group. The Death in June song C'est Un Reve, which is one of the most "controversial" musical pieces ever written by the group due to the song being about Gestapo "Butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie, was written as a bold political statement that there were worse "Barbies" in the French resistance. Douglas Pearce would also go on to say that despite being recognized as heroic freedom fighters nowadays, members of the French resistance killed around 250,000 of their own people after World War II. These kind of politically ambiguous statements by Pearce, along with Di6's use of Nazi Germany imagery, have given enough evidence for leftist types to pathetically attempt to censor the beautiful music of the group as being of a fascist nature which in their true believer eyes makes it non-art that must be destroyed. Nazi imagery or not, the typical cultural Marxist turd would consider Death in June fascist for the mere fact that their music is pro-occidental and a true expression of the European soul and not deracinated noise (the true soundtrack to culture-less multi-"culturalism"). Another aspect of Death in June that infuriates the band's detractors is that the group produces truly revolutionary and inspirational musical which gives artistic credence to "fascists."

Another thing that causes discommode in the enemy combatants of Death in June is the fact Douglas Pearce in an open homosexual. Flaunting his racial chauvinism and gayness, Douglas P. once stated, "I prefer to suck white uncircumcised cocks of a certain age so I suppose that rules out quite a few races and religions in one huge act of sexual discrimination. However that's natural selection for you. It follows on that, of course race is important to me." No doubt, Pearce's statement would cause a public outcry of race hate and confusion had he stated that for the mainstream media in the United States. I cannot imagine some repulsive homo singer like Michael Stipe ever actively displaying the personal integrity that Douglas P has always diffused. Death in June is also often labeled fascist because of the groups use of a grinning SS totenkopf skull. To show his proud commitment to Euro-libertinism, Douglas P. recently altered the Di6 totenkopf to include a gay rainbow flag in the background. During Behind the Mask, Pearce admits that he is fond of men that are old enough to be his Father. At age 20 Douglas P. was with a man that 58 years old who tagged along with him at punk shows and chatted with Captain Sensible of the legendary punk group The Damned. I cannot help but think that Pearce's odd fetish for buggering old men is the dejected result of longing for the Father he lost at a very tender age. I make music videos for a certain American neofolk project that will go unnamed. The singer of this group told me that when he saw a clip of Douglas Pearce piercing an elderly man's anal staircase in a gay porno movie, he was left in a state of distressed melancholy for months to cum. Despite being repelled by circumcised kosher sausages, Douglas P. played a Death in June show in Israel where he notoriously stormed the stage waving an Israeli star of David flag with a Di6 flag totenkopf appearing in the background. Only a man of refined charm could get away with flaunting a totenkopf (the SS symbol probably most associated with death in concentration camps) in front of the most fanatical of Jewish nationalists in their own holy land. 

Despite being worth more than it's weight in gold to Death in June fans, the Behind the Mask documentary dvd has fairly barebones production values but I say this without complaint. The documentary is almost entirely made up of Douglas P. elegantly lurking around in macabre poses, resembling a phantom German soldier in his iconic mask and military fatigues. Behind the Mask also features snippets of Pearce in typically somber and snowy settings bringing visions in my mind of a ghost from the battle of Stalingrad, often making the documentary feel like a collage of Di6 album covers. By the end of Behind the Mask, I was astonished to realize that Di6 probably would have never existed had Douglas P. not engaged in acid trips as the saintly sinner singer credits his drug experimentation as opening his mind's eye to realizing that creating art would be appropriate path to take in his life. During Behind the Mask Douglas P. also mentions how ex-Death in June member David Tibet told him he would probably have severe mental problems had he not found his fate in music. After 30 years of playing live, Pearce has also pretty much confirmed that he will no longer be doing live shows which is certainly a heartbreaking and unimaginable realization for Di6 fans. During Behind the Mask, Pearce makes it very clear that he's sees anonymity as one of the greatest virtues stating, "you can do a lot behind the scenes." In the documentary Douglas P. also mentions how the Japanese Samurai (Japanese nationalist Yukio Mishima being one of his favorite writers and a huge influence on Di6 Lyricism) virtue of secrecy also provided him with a critical influence in reinforcing his ability to find a warm well being during cold seclusion whilst sticking to the rule "many enemies bring much honor." As the great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once stated, "A man can be himself only so long as he is alone." 

Despite the fact that Death in June is the musical group that essentially prompted the neofolk movement (with their revolutionary album Brown Book) in Europa, Pearce states in Behind the Mask regarding his albums that he does not "put them in those ghettos (of generic genre labels)." Douglas P. clearly articulates in his typically eloquent manner that upon finishing every Death in June album  in the studio, his majestic musical creations end up being a magical surprise as he allows his organic occidental nature to unconsciously conjure up something that is truly "neofolk" instead of attempting to assemble the same generic formula like a lot of musicians do. Even after over 30 years of Di6 albums, Pearce is still able to reinvent his völkisch music with each subsequent album as he once again proved with his newest effort Peaceful Snow, a completely deconstructed masterpiece of love and murder featuring only his haunting voice and a piano. Douglas P. has hinted that Peaceful Snow is probably the final chapter in the marvelous Di6 song saga. At the end of Behind the Mask, Pearce states that he hopes to produce two new Death in June books in the near future: An autobiography (a Di6 biography was recently released but it is only available in the Italian language) and a scrapbook which I anticipate almost more than a new Di6 album. Despite being literally behind the mask most of the documentary, Behind the Mask is truly the most revealing (aside from his music) priceless package of Pearce anecdotes. In media interviews, he often seems slightly agitated by the ignorant nature of many interviewers who lack the artistic sensitivity that a songwriting genius of Pearce's caliber deserves. Behind the Mask was shot in the most appropriate place for a Douglas Interview session at 40 feet below the surface of a New York City skyscraper, giving the Di6 poet the perfect atmosphere to express himself in the solace of secrecy that he has always found comfort in. If there is ever another revolutionary renaissance in Europe, the leadership will no doubt take metapolitical influence from Death in June just as Adolf Hitler and Zionist founder Theodor Herzl were influenced by the operas of Richard Wagner. Like all great art, Death in June purifies the soul and inspires in a way that no Hollywood film or modern major record album ever could. 

-Ty E

eXistenZ

The majority of eXistenZ can be attributed to the aesthetic and visual motifs seen throughout Cronenberg's career spanning such volumes of bio-synthetic lascivity as Naked Lunch, Videodrome, and Crash. Much of eXistenZ's imagery can be spotted in many of Cronenberg's earlier works from the mutated corporate espionage of Naked Lunch to the anti-technology sentiments of Videodrome. It's where these influences of projects past really adhere eXistenZ into such an exquisite category. You see, eXistenZ was released around a month after The Matrix premiered. The Matrix was one of those films whose vibrations through word-of-mouth increased at an alarming rate, sent screaming off into every magazine, catalog, and film connoisseurs mouth. Lucky for us then, now we have eXistenZ all to ourselves. It really is a shame though, especially since Inception seems to have borrowed many pockets of ambiguity and reality-twisting turns from Cronenberg's more coherent film and has only reached a fraction of the acclaim.

What's interesting to me is Jude Law's performance of Ted Pikul in eXistenZ. Having the much maligned Repo Men fresh in my thoughts, both characters are set on a similar stream of avoidance and violence, although one is less passive and merciless than the other. In Repo Men, the comparison can be drawn at the plot fixture of bio-organics. The pricing is irrelevant and not to be found in eXistenZ but the means to achieve technological and psychotropic escapism through synthetic flesh is where the lines meet. For the perfect antithesis of video games and the need to immerse oneself into a fantastical world of digital manipulation, avoid films like Stay Alive and stick with Cronenberg's definitive demonizing of console gaming. For those uneducated to eXistenZ, the film opens up quickly in the midst of a trial seminar to world famous game designer, Allegra Geller, showcasing her newest game, eXistenZ. By utilizing neural-sensors in a squid-like host, Allegra Gellar connects each "game pod" with umbilical cords wired in through Bio-Ports, located in the base of the "victims" spine. From here is where the film spins wildly, leaving you clawing at conceptions of what is real and what isn't. Soon after the game is launched, an assassin reveals a weapon constructed out of tattered flesh and bone to execute the "demoness, Allegra Geller." 

Soon aspiring PR Ted Pikul is on the run with a wounded game designer with a contract on her head. This is where eXistenZ slips in and out of dream states as many questions are raised inquiring as to which reality is the game and which is the real world. Cronenberg makes excellent theoretical terror out of a virtual hallucination that will no doubt be emulated in the far future. Just think, what if Nintendo's Virtual Boy did what it intended to do? I'm not referring to headaches either. Later on in the film, minuscule evolved pseudo-Mugwumps appear to Jude Law's immediate surprise. eXistenZ is a strange delight in this manner which crossbreeds Cronenberg's best into a universal piece of science-fiction. What developed as Interzone in Naked Lunch is later created by the hivemind program, eXistenZ, in the realization of the Trout Farm. Various extraterrestrial beasts are dissected in a crude and seedy manner. A manner in which will spark a craving to shower. The dingy plastic sheeting only adds to the slimy sensation that rolls right off the screen. Given these examples, eXistenZ could be considered Cronenberg's filmic concept of a Greatest Hits album - a scrapbook, if you will. 

What eXistenZ provides is a galvanizing science-fiction odyssey that indeed tips the scales in the favor of gamers. Had you never experimented with gaming, most of the thematic way-points of eXistenZ will fall upon deaf ears. Cronenberg continues to promote hard fact as to his status of auteur. Viewing a single scene in any film of his will immediately draw a conclusion to being "Cronenbergian." It's a shame that The Matrix shadowed the release of eXistenZ as it is the superior virtual plane of existence. What eXistenZ accomplished dutifully in a single film took The Matrix three films to match, but to the point of a wilting franchise. Cronenberg's world of metaflesh continues to amaze and feed that which hungers morbidly inside us. Faults may be found in the constantly evolving world of eXistenZ but like any great game, isn't perfect. It's scenes like Jude Law's constructing of "the special" into a skeletal weapon that make Cronenberg's cinema into the force of grotesque vitality that they remain to this day.

-mAQ

Prince of Darkness

 

Following the box office stroke that was Big Trouble in Little China, John Carpenter grabbed his tool bag of familiar faces and set out to return to the reigns of horror with Prince of Darkness. Carpenter's career has been an odd one, for sure. The fellow has directed an extremely diverse cast of individuals with inventive and fresh story lines so in some respect, it's as if Carpenter was a peddler of quality, more than the average film maker with cult acclaim. Prince of Darkness is the second film in Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy", beginning with The Thing and ending with In the Mouth of Madness. It would seem so the arbitrary opinion of the masses have crucified this film for obvious reasons - the intellectualism behind it. Fusing science and religion seamlessly, Prince of Darkness offers you two doors, one encompassing the mundane world of horror concentrate and the other brimming with pseudo-scientific explanations and theoretical sacrilege. For these reasons, Prince of Darkness should be a film universally accepted as a masterpiece in horror storytelling. Even with the monument I have built around it, its flaws don't put any cracks in the hull nor endanger the ultimately woeful and haunting climax.

I firmly believe that John Carpenter borrows many ingredients from Lamberto Bava's devilish discourse, Demons, whether he realized it or not. What first lent the idea was the similarly styled soundtrack in which Carpenter fashioned himself, perhaps in the mold of Italian prog-rock maestros Goblin. My next clue was the particular attention to detail of the systematic infection and the confinement within a "marked" piece of historical architecture. Prince of Darkness maintains the similar layout until the actual thesis of antimatter and he also known as Satan are divulged. For what it's worth, the beginning and the end of this film highlight the peak of horrific success. The opening scene, while shuffling through the credits, is magnified with silent instances of conversation amidst the influenced soundtrack. The anxiety present on certain faces sets the tone for what is sure to be a hell of a night. A romantic rendezvous with obsession is even met while Brian Marsh quietly longs for Catherine Danforth from afar, a student of a rivaling reality. This alone makes the final scene almost intoxicating, achieving the same affect that 1986's The Hitcher and Goosebumps - The Haunted School had on me at such an impressionable age.

Following atomic theory, Carpenter left not a single instrument of mathematics out, leaving Prince of Darkness exactly that of an equation. Using the clues left by brief moments of academia, one can determine the fate and origins of the "dream tape". Spoilers will be present in the remainder of this paragraph so resume with caution. Early on in the film while the students discuss the lucid crossroads each and every volunteer has been subject to, Brian Marsh brings up a likely hypothesis of the images being linked to tachyons, which are subatomic particles that travel faster than the speed of light. Due to the tachyons nature of relativity, you would not see it but two visible impressions of it departing and arriving. Fast forward to the ending in which Catherine is revealed to be stuck in the "mirror image", it's hinted that the warbled person narrating could in fact be Brian, as the voice hopes to alter past events. Given that tachyons are clued to travel back in time, throttling backwards, it's only obvious that Brian's detailed obsession with Catherine has led to the evolution of this equation, giving him access to the past in an attempt to rediscover his love in order to tell her that which he did not. I have not even begun to highlight the subversion of reality that Prince of Darkness so shamelessly conquers. Let the fine filmmaking speak for itself. 

On account of the entertaining aspect of horror, I must divulge the second side to Prince of Darkness. As you'd guess, eventually the canister containing the primordial ooze that is the son of Satan is unlocked releasing pure and utter terror into the narrow halls of this ancient church. So in some regards, Prince of Darkness takes the throne of holy horror after I was left underwhelmed by what I have seen of Soavi's The Church - also considered a sequel of sorts to Demons. To switch from my stern approach to this underrated horror classic, Donald Pleasence's character credited as "Priest" is known as "Father Loomis" with the English subtitles turned on. Just another log in the fire, I suppose, as Carpenter had already established his date with the past by including many regulars in Prince of Darkness. Carpenter is that very rare directing force of which I could not state a personal favorite. I can spend hours discussing my affection to all three films in the trilogy but If I were to be challenged to pick a single, I'd be lost without words. All I can issue is my determination to get others to see Prince of Darkness for what it really is - an absolute success in menace and faith. Easily one of his best directorial efforts in which startled me and left me in a somber daze.

-mAQ

Funny Ha Ha

I recently discovered an American independent film movement known as “mumblecore.” Last night I had the misfortune of watching Funny Ha Ha, the very first mumblecore film. I assume the name of the movement has to do with the fact that the pathetic actors featured in the films, despite being college graduates, have a hard time speaking proper English as they constantly mumble, whisper, stutter, and have an overall difficulty being linguistically assertive whilst speaking. The main character in Funny Ha Ha, a girl named Marnie whose cutesy good looks are ruined by her feebleminded personality, certainly personifies the verbal mumble to the very core. The question I had to ask myself after watching Funny Ha Ha is how anyone could find anything at all interesting or engaging about the film. I assume the title of the film is supposed to be ironic in the most hipster fashion. The fact that critics have compared the banal realism of mumblecore films to the gritty realism of the works of John Cassavetes is nothing short of cinematic blasphemy and complete ignorance in regards to authentic emotions. After all, Cassavetes’s film A Woman Under the Influence has more emotion in 2 seconds of Gena Rowlands desperate cries than all of the silly slacker scenester scenes in Funny Ha Ha combined. 

The protagonist Marnie in Funny Ha Ha is a recent college graduate who cannot find work nor a decent man. As a college graduate myself, I can honestly say that I have met some of the stupidest and most impressionable people (both students and professors) whilst obtaining my liberal arts degree. Marnie certainly shares many of the characteristics of the typical hipster dullard girl that one could easily find while roaming a college campus. Probably the only thing of value I learned in college is the way of the enemy and the overall intellectual bankruptcy of modern academia. Although I am the sure New-Left counter-culture revolution of the late 1960s might have been entertaining for students during those times as it was something new, now these Frankfurt school inspired ideas have turned into the dogma and gospel of banality, fundamentally flawed ideas to start with that have never advanced past their initial theories for they are mere critiques and not living ideas. As the great German political philosopher Carl Schmitt once wrote, “The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.” Schmitt’s statement about liberalism certainly holds true in regards to the liberal nihilists of Funny Ha Ha as they endlessly talk about nothing, giving no evidence that they have real personalities, let alone the will to power. 

Marnie knows that she needs a real job and a boyfriend but is completely unable to assert herself in actively fulfilling her desires. To say she does things half-ass would be too generous of a description in regards to Marnie’s monotonous behavior. Marnie is obsessed with an equally pathetic slacker named Alex. Unlike Marnie, Alex cannot make his mind up whether or not he should start a relationship with a beautiful lady that fancies him like no other. Out of nowhere, Alex ends up marrying a Jewish American princess without telling his friends and family. I found Alex's quick marriage to be the most enlightening aspect of Funny Ha Ha. After all, most liberal ideas (both young and old) are of Jewish origin (especially those promoted in academia) whether it be Spinoza, Marx, Trotsky, Marcuse, or Tim Wise. Although liberals describe themselves as “progressive,” one does not have to look too hard to realize that the rise of liberalism parallels the decline of the occident. Europe became powerful through hard work, tradition, self-control, and with strong uncompromising idealism. Of course, liberalism promotes self-gratification of the individual, cosmopolitanism, weakness, acceptence of most things degenerate, and various other poisons that have sickened the Western world. The Jews, being an alien group to Europeans, do well in a liberal globalized world as they could never collectively live up to the standards of the traditional western world, hence why they were early proponents of liberal ideas in the first place. European Jewry reached it’s peak in power in Weimer Republic Germany, the most degenerate era (up to that point) in German history. That being said, it is not hard to understand why many German nationalists saw Jewry as their greatest enemy. In Funny Ha Ha, the Jewish girl certainly knew what she wanted and married herself a good little goy boy while in her aimless Marnie could not even find the energy to attract Alex with anything more daring than infantile fart jokes. I guess all those feminist classes really destroyed Marnie’s female instinctual seducing powers. 

If I did not know that Funny Ha Ha was supposed to be a serious critically acclaimed art film, I would have assumed it was an exploitative parody of the all-embracing impotence of white liberals. If the average white college graduate is as pathetic as those featured in the film, maybe the white race deserves to cease to exist. One of the flaws of your modern white person (especially college educated) is listening to and honestly believing wholeheartedly in the lies of the liberalism that are being fed to them. While your average “minority” knows that liberalism is a tool (used by those with slave moralities, who cannot take control by merit/action but instead demand rights as a “victims”) of war used against whitey for power and the destruction of everything that is of European origin, liberal whites actually believe the fantasy of world peace and equality. As the great German philosopher/historian Oswald Spengler, a man that predicted many of the modern ills that now contaminate the West, long ago wrote, “Pacifism means letting the non-pacifists have control ... Pacifism will remain an ideal, war a fact. If the white races are resolved never to wage war again, the colored races will act differently and become rulers of the world.” Marnie and her friends cannot rule their own lives, let alone provide stability for future generations to fight for their very existence. After watching Funny Ha Ha, I felt that I was mediocrely mumbled at to the core, hopefully never again will I have to endure such a deplorable cinematic chore. At the end of the film I truly felt sorry for Marnie, an undeniably beautiful girl lost in a sterile sea of purposelessness.

-Ty E

Pandemonium

It's truly saddening to see such masterpieces of cinema sunk to such obscure depths. Haydn Keenan's Australian black comedy, Pandemonium (1988), is officially now one of the most bizarre excursions in silliness that I have ever been pleased to witness. The plot(s) develop as such - A girl thrown to the dingoes is instead raised by them only to return after all those years to Sydney in search for her betrayers. In case you're not up to speed with Australian news considered legend, this happenstance is based on Azaria Chamberlain's disappearance which inspired the phrase done to death by pop culture - "The dingoes ate my baby!" Upon finding the mansion of her parents, many crazy events begin to unfold including but not limited to: a four foot tall Hitler and his 2 dyke-Reich assistants, a mad doctor inspired by Frankenstein and his zombie henchman, and an end-of-the-world scenario. All this in what I would refer to as an incestuous affair between Saban's short lived Beetleborgs and The Rocky Horror Picture Show without lyrics. Starring David Argue with an accent permanently reflecting a sense of achievement and Playboy model Amanda Dole, who is topless for more than half the film, Pandemonium is criminally panned the world over for not making a lick of sense. But you see, that's just where the magic comes in.

Hitler getting a handjob to spread the perfect seed

Pandemonium earns its chips with its bizarro nature of religious and political satire, as sharp and esoteric as humor towards a non-Australian citizen can get. Pandemonium not only breaks every rule cinema ever set in stone but incites a riot in which to vandalize every standard with its crude and intelligent message. This atrocity can only be the work of some surreal, anarchic infection left behind by the assault of nonsensical hi-jinx. Once the gorgeous "Dingo girl" arrives at the place of residency, several characters bumble directly into her path, which ignites pagan sacrifices, forced surrogacy in order to create a new strain of Aryans, and a caveman with "animal magnetism". If I could compare the frenzied manner of Pandemonium to any sense of reality, it would be to compare the images projected on screen to having your brain inserted into a pinball machine. Maintaining its absurd composure is one thing Pandemonium does best. Only in the last 15 minutes of runtime does the film show any hints of slowing down. But for what it's worth, the endless barrage of the incredibly lovely Amanda Dole's breasts leaves a feeling of euphoria spread evenly over every hormone. You will never be able to take your eyes off them - the real stars of Pandemonium.

It's a damn shame that films as critically developed and ripe with insanity as Pandemonium remain impossible to find. Only through VSoM (Video Search of Miami) are you able to order a copy, that or rare video traders. DVD companies like Severin Films give me hope for Ozsploitation to appear in American markets though. The prime exploitation label currently, Severin has given sight to many genre classics such as Stone, another piece of Australian history. Director Haydn Keenan might be either a cinematic genius or an absolute loon. The effects of Pandemonium are exactly what the title implies. So many characters, juggling many horror legends, from vampires to mummies, are introduced throughout with little reason other than the further the adventures of the messianic Dingo girl and her obsessive would-be lover, Kales Leadingham. After consummating with God in the guise of a jazzy Negro, the Dingo girl is reborn in a true tale of Christian fiction, as believable as any other book of Christ. My current state renders me damn near a blubbering idiot. The psychotropic adventures of Pandemonium have overloaded my senses to the point of indistinguishable. I don't think I could ever tire of Pandemonium as a single scene features many deranged, madcap happenings all at once, leaving much lost during the initial viewing. You will observe the mania relapse to the point of coaxing you to rewatch the film, picking up on more maladjustments in a purely meta fashion. I have no idea what I had just watched but I assure you that like me, you will enjoy every panicked and blasphemous minute of it. If you're brave enough, you can purchase the film here.

-mAQ

GEN-012

Some, some time ago I reviewed an abomination to cinema and porn, even cinematic porn. That [GEN-018] vile creation was my introduction to the radical redesigning of fetishism courtesy of the Genki studio. This studio, head by Daikichi Amano, specializes in a niche unpopulated by faces and names, rather victims and masochists. Featuring the new standard in degradation, many volumes chronicles women being sodomized with various insects, vertebrae, and invertebrate alike. GEN-012 features similarities to what 018 had so fondly dissected onto the quivering flesh of a nubile Asian woman in a manner that begs the question "How much are they getting paid?" Unlike the previously reviewed 018 entry involving fish, volume 12 concerns loaches and eels. To rip the roughly translated title to further give depth to the plot - "The loach's punishment and lesbian's desire in eel's crime". Further apart from its later predecessor, GEN-012 also bares a semblance of plot as our three leading ladies are witnessed gagged and blindfolded perched on the rim of a large metal drum, feet immersed in the cool water within. Upon further inspection, the water is revealed to contain swimming eels, assuredly amidst their own unknown thoughts and instincts. To think of the creatures reaction if they were to discover just what forms of sodomy await. This alone derives new meaning of the term "sadism". Hell, de Sade himself would be cowering at the voracity of Amano and his crew, voyeuristically speaking.

Beyond the extensive foreplay featured in GEN-012 is a voiced offender offering up unknown yet assertive orders to the women we can claim have no idea just what the purpose of this experiment is. Soon the fellow appears, mask and all, and kneads the womens breasts and mouths with the bodies of several eels. This doesn't necessarily shock though. If you're any advocator of Japanese culture, tentacle erotica should not be considered faux pas but as an accepted trait of the Japanese since its appearance in some time during the 1800s. Continuing on with the events, soon many wriggling eels coax screams from the written damsels. When the villain finnaly unmasks his dubious intentions, the series' consistent trademark of pantyhose in introduced over the women's faces, bulging to the breaking point with loaches and eels alike. Uttering nonsense, at least to an American audience, these women are seen hesitantly biting at each others stuffed "masks" and unleashing a torrent of slimy creatures over their laps and in their mouths. It's funny to anticipate this torture due to a purported threat over the loudspeaker.

In several ways, GEN-012 is the ultimate "grrl power" trip / feminine camaraderie adventure. This "film" just goes to show the lengths of extremities women are prepared to endure on account of an imminent threat on ones life. Being a woman surely is a hazardous occupation, one that requires little work however. As fictionally evidenced, still a viable form of proof though, enemies the world over utilize women for one thing only - sex. Before you can admire the subversive yet slimy rendition of the bare minerals Spice World had to offer, these women find themselves trouser-less being spanked with the tails of eels. Of course people reading this are going to jump to outrageous conclusions, hopefully as outrageously esoteric as this film's material is. GEN-012 is the standard for a soapy mosaic of eel penetration. However, if you're searching for films completely revolting, you might want to strafe to either of the adjacent films in the GEN series. GEN-012's introductory sentence of mundane teasing runs as long as 40+ minutes. That equates to over half an hour of women silently sobbing getting their breasts lathered with marine slime. If you entered this film expecting what I had been expecting, you would be disappointed. Amano doesn't skim though, GEN-012 is full of interspecies sadism. Disgusted women can shriek to both sides of nature, the anthropic kind or towards the plight of said species: cockroach, dog, earthworm, loach, eel, fish, scorpion - Genki does it all.

  

Something as primarily universal as Japanese tentacle fetish is singled out as revolting and adverse. These terms of speculation are utterly appalling though. The same in which you might judge a friend or foe for whatever fetish he might conceal. Point is, fetishism is something everyone masks. You might look at a co-worker or peer in a way situational to conventionalism but know this, he/she, too, hides a dark secret of arousal, the same as you or I. Soon after the traumatically timed foreplay reaches an end, dunking occurs, the sexual torture escalates, and 012 finally matures into the tarnished slice of degradation that the namesake alone promises. Long time coming but it rounds out nicely with a coupling of swings supporting splayed legs. As per Genki standard, stuffed panty hose to illustrate Eastern voluptuousness, the hundreds of struggling creatures arouse the genitals of any-a-poor-mistress. Objects of desire don't come clearer than this, GEN-012 is not safe for anybody - but withstands a trial of adultery and bestiality combined.

-mAQ

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia

Right from the get go, the wonderful short film The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia directed by Jan Švankmajer signifies with a title card that it is “a work of agitprop.” The short is easily the most political work I have ever seen by the stop-motion surrealist but also not without artistic merit. Although The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia is agitprop, it is ironic agitprop, utilizing the editing techniques of early Soviet agitprop auteur Dziga Vertov against the communist motherland. After all, Jan Švankmajer experienced persecution under communism, being banned from in 1972 from filmmaking and remaining virtually unknown in the West until the early 1980s. In The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, the Czech auteur audaciously lampoons Soviet Communism and celebrates its much deserved death. If surrealist Communist filmmaker Luis Buñuel had the postmortem opportunity to view the film in his grave, he would be most likely condemning The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia but at the same time admiring Švankmajer’s knack for magically sublime surrealism.

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia begins with a bust of Joseph Stalin being cut open on an operation table and from there a history of the 1948 Communist takeover of the Czech people begins. With the Communist occupation of the Czech people came a suppression of what was organically Czech kultur, hence the various stock footage of political personalities from the USSR featured throughout the short.  The only thing signifying the Czech people is when Stalin's head is painted with a Czech flag which is eventually cracked open, revealing nothing but human guts, surely symbolic of the cultural void that was left after the death of Czech communism. The communists were not too fond of individualistic personalities, being the good platitude-worshiping collectivists that they are. In fact, communists felt that art should be of a universal collectivist nature and felt traditional European art to be of a bourgeois nature, something they felt had to be destroyed. What the Communists did not realize is that art is one of the few redeeming qualities of the bourgeois as so wonderfully expressed in Hermann Hesse’s marvelous novel Steppenwolf. In The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, Švankmajer animated a production line of proletarian workers that are eventually lynched, finally falling into a bucket of clay oblivion. After all, in Communist countries, the individual is merely another product of the state, an object to be used from birth and to be disposed of at anytime, whether it be mauled in factory or killed in a war. 

Despite being a work of agitprop, The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia is as innovative and artistic as Švankmajer’s greatest films. After watching the short film, I have a feeling that a lot of the dark elements that dominate the Czech auteur’s work are a result of 45 years under Communist slavery. The Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe make no lie that their countries still have not recovered from communism, an internationalist materialistic legacy without a true culturally intrinsic legacy. Dark days in the former Communist states are very much alive today as expressed in more recent Slavic films like Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film, Mladen Djordjevic's Life and Death of a Porno Gang, and György Pálfi’s Taxidermi. If The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia and more recent Slavic films are anyway an expression of the dark collective unconscious of the Slavic peoples, one can probably expect a bloody (and most likely nationalistic) revolution in the old Slavonic lands sometime in the near future. 

-Ty E