MY APPEARANCE ON SYNDROMES & A CINEMA WITH NICK ZEDD!!

Hey all! The guys at the Syndromes & A Cinema podcast were kind enough to have me on as a guest/co-host on their most recent episode with legendary filmmaker Nick Zedd! Not all of you may be familiar with the cinema of Nick Zedd, but if you've seen any kind of transgressive, surreal or weird movie, chances are you've been exposed to his signature style.

Listen as we chat with Zedd about comedy, snuff films, mexico and a quick encounter he had with Quentin Tarantino in a men's room once...

EPISODE 10: NICK ZEDD

Also, be sure to check out past episodes from this excellent podcast when you have the time. I came across it last year while searching for Claire Denis-related podcasts (great episode, guys!) and I've been a fan ever since...

THE KID WITH A BIKE

I really want to love this film just as much as all the other art-house conesiuers did a few years back (the reviews were generally positive and it did win the grand jury prize at Cannes in 2011) but I just can't. It's not that I dislike the Dardenne's latest coming of age tale but I feel like I'm one of the very people aware of the film's existence that hasn’t put it on a pedestal since its release over two years ago. The Kid With A Bike is ok overall but its also pretty uneven. I've seen this coming of age story on the big screen numerous times already, especially in the case of the Dardenne Brothers. Why has no one ever called them out on essentially making a slight variation of the same story since Rosetta? I'm really not trying to sound like a dick, but if you're familiar with their work you know what I'm talking about. Almost every one of their films is the story of a lonely troubled teen (or immigrant prostitute) with shitty or no parents, living among the Belgian lower class trying to survive. And half the time there’s always a positive surrogate/parental figure trying to help the young teen in some way. The Kid With A Bike isn't any different...
The Dardenne's latest is the story of "Cyril" - a troubled pre-teen living in a foster home. On the weekends he stays with his part-time foster mother; "Samantha" (played by the wonderful Cecile De France) - a hairdresser with a heart of gold who genuinely cares about Cyril even at times when he makes her life a living hell. Although Cyril has a positive/non-dysfunctional parental figure in the form of Samantha, he still tries to seek out acceptance from the wrong people like his deadbeat father (played by Dardenne Brothers regular; Jeremie Renier) who clearly wants nothing to do with him and a local teenage criminal who takes Cyril under his wing.

Cyril has a strong attachment to his bicycle because it's the only gift his father ever got for him...

The Bicycle has become somewhat of a staple in arthouse cinema starting with the obvious Bicycle Thieves all the way up to more recent stuff like; The Cyclist & Beijing Bicycle. The Kid With A Bike actually has a similar vibe to Bicycle Thieves so it's bound to make you think of the classic Italian film.

Although Cyril's bicycle becomes less important as the story goes on, it's what initially bonds him with Samantha (his parental figure). By a chance meeting early on in the story they cross paths with each other and Cyril takes a liking to her. Eventually he asks her to be his weekend foster parent and she agrees.

This is a part of the film that I found to be a bit random. I understand the instant bond that the Dardenne brothers wanted to create between Cyril & Samantha but it just seemed a little sudden that she would become his foster parent so quickly. 

...But maybe that part of the story doesn’t need an explanation. Perhaps I'm being picky. She could just be one of the rare human beings out there with a good heart and a soft spot for troubled kids.

This may quietly be Cecile De France's best performance. I get that she's most known for films like High Tension, The Spanish Apartment, Mesrine & Hereafter, but in terms of acting, she's pretty brilliant & natural in The Kid With A Bike. Her acting seemed effortless. This is the kind of female performance that could have easily been played way too emotionally with tons of crying & screaming but Cecile did the opposite.

No matter how many times Cyril pushes Samantha away or breaks her heart (especially towards the end of the film when he goes too far) she still remains strong & resilient and tries her best to show him love.

Cyril clutches to Samantha

Another gripe that I have with this film is the ending....or should I say endingS. For a movie that’s under 90 minutes, I don’t understand how it took so long for it to come to a close. It's difficult to talk specifics without giving away too much (this film is still fairly new and I'd prefer more people watch it while it's still streaming on Netflix) but there were two different places where The Kid With A Bike could have ended but The Dardenne's just kept going. The very last 10-15 minutes of this film went from being chaotic, to depressing, to happy, then suspenseful and then we finally got that abrupt Dardenne Brothers-style ending. They went in & out of too many moods too quickly to the point where it makes you feel schizophrenic. I also felt the young criminal character who takes Cyril under his wing was very transparent, cliché and bordered on feeling like an after school special. I wish the Dardenne's focused more on Cyril's father (there's only two scenes with Jeremie Renier). The Samantha character is also in a romantic relationship that starts to fall apart to due to Cyril's presence. Maybe they could have gone in to that a little more.

I still appreciate any film or filmmaker that shines a realistic light on youth and shows them as, to quote Todd Solondz from his 1996 Charlie Rose interview; "the complex human beings that they really are." No matter how many issues I have with the Dardenne's I still recognize that their intentions are good. They're one of the few filmmakers left that don’t portray children & teenagers as over-the top caricatures. 

There are other elements in the Dardenne's work that I love like the guerrilla/documentary-style cinematography and the presence of Olivier Gourmet (one of my current favorite actors and the Dardenne's most frequent collaborator). I also like that their cinema represents a working/lower-class society in a country that's often overlooked by outsiders when it comes to cinema. Let’s be honest, when it comes to French-language cinema, France obviously gets most of the attention. Sometimes I come across reviews of Belgian films that are incorrectly labeled as French films. The Dardenne's are an important voice for their country. I just think that if they tried something completely new from time to time and took a break from the depressing coming of age/"teens on the outs" genre that they wouldn’t seem so one dimensional and The Kid With The Bike would feel more fresh*. 

I remember back in my early 20's the Dardenne brothers felt like those important modern filmmakers I was supposed to like. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I used to kinda force myself to like their movies. They won all these awards (one of the few directors to win best picture at Cannes twice), Olivier Gourmet gave a great performance in The Son, and Rosetta, something I came to realize was extremely overrated a few years ago, did have an impact on Belgian culture outside of just cinema (the film, about a young teen girl working a minimum wage job, inspired the Belgian government to pass a new law which allowed teen workers to be paid higher wages). 

But a few years ago I found myself watching The Child (their 2005 Cannes best picture winner) and it just hit me - their movies are boring. That's a pretty shallow reason for not liking someone’s work but I'm sorry, I just can’t get in to their cinema like others do. Plus, if you know anything about me, you know "boring" movies usually don’t faze me. In fact, I often embrace them (See: PINNLAND EMPIRE Boring Masterpieces). But The Dardennes are usually the bad kind of boring. To confirm my newfound distaste for their work, The IFC Center just so happened to be doing a retrospective of their work a couple of years ago (in conjunction with the release of The Kid With A Bike) and I went to see Rosetta on the big screen. I used to love that movie in college. I thought it was a representation of what was "real" in Europe (I read a review back then that compared their cinema to John Cassavetes so that instantly made me a fan). But now that I'm in my 30's, it just all feels flat to me along with just about everything else they've done (with the exception of The Son). When I start watching something by them now I find myself wanting to watch a Maurice Pialat film instead.

I eventually came around to finding more legitimate reasons for not being crazy about the Dardenne Brothers (as you've already read) but it was The Pink Smoke's Chris Funderburg's scathing rant about The Child one night last year that pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. Obviously I don’t remember word for word what he said so I had him recreate his rant for this write-up...

The main crux of my argument is that they seek to advance a leftist/progressive social agenda that romances the poor and poverty at the expense of being honest about the nature of their characters. Their main method of getting an audience "on their side" is to have their difficult main characters be monosyllabic and frequently pursuing a single noble motivation (like looking for a job, trying to find their parent) while being passive in almost all other aspects of their life. They romance the notion of working class struggle at the expense of creating interesting and/or realistic characters - they make their characters quiet, inexpressive and inscrutable with opaque mental lives as a cheat. Audiences don't have to then deal with what human beings are like in real life and can say "aw, everybody should have the right to work" or "foster kids just need a compassionate system" - I don't precisely disagree with them, but they essentially lie to make their argument. - Chris Funderberg 11/09/13

Chris' rant also ties in to some other subconscious (borderline unfair) issues I have with The Kid With A Bike. In it, Jeremie Renier plays Cyril's father. Years before that, Renier played an immature teen dad in The Child (at one point in the film he actually tries to sell his baby). As I watched Renier be a horrible father in The Kid With A Bike I couldn't help but think he was playing an older version of the same character he did years ago in The Child which causes me to think that character never matured and it makes me hate The Child even more.

Top: The Son / The 400 Blows
Bottom: L'Enfance Nue / Nenette & Boni

Thomas Doret's debut performance as Cyril is pretty great in my opinion. He's fearless & precocious yet insecure & sad at the same time. With his blank stare (like Nenette in Nenette & Boni), outbursts of rage (like Francois in L'Enfance Nue) & his age (12, just like Antoine Danielle in The 400 Blows), he's like a mixture of every French-speaking coming of age character through the years. But more than anything, he reminds me of Francis from The Son which is the one exception to my indifference towards the Dardenne's work. The character of Francis in The Son almost feels like what Cyril's life would have turned out to be had he not found Samantha in his pre-teens. I guess that's why I don't hate The Kid With The A Bike at the end of the day. It's most connected to the one Dardenne Brothers film that I consider to be a masterpiece.

I'd much prefer The Son be someone's introduction to The Dardenne's but I wouldn't be mad at The Kid With A Bike being an entryway to their work either.

UNDER THE RADAR: THIS IS MARTIN BONNER

What sets This Is Martin Bonner apart from so many other American indies that are in the same lane is that the director had the balls to take his time and keep things simple. And in keeping things simple, the film brings about many topics of discussion (redemption, faith, family, etc) and gives us interesting characters. There isn't a single moment where someone shouts or screams and there's no scenes of violence. What's crazy is that the story takes place in a fairly grimy/shady place ( Reno, Nevada) and there's no debauchery at all (minus one very quick moment).

As I watched This Is Martin Bonner I kept thinking to myself that whoever made this must have watched old Wim Wenders or Jim Jarmusch films (that's the only example I could think of. Please don’t watch this at my suggestion expecting to get the equivalent of Kings Of The Road or Stranger Than Paradise). This Is Martin Bonner also has some of the same polarizing shots as Buffalo '66 or 2002-2007 era Gus Van Sant. In doing a little research I came to discover that the man who directed it, Chad Hartigan, was the first ever winner on the cancelled IFC show; Ultimate Film Fanatic. Not only did I used to watch that show (and do pretty well as I played along) but I remember this guy! I think it's great that a genuine lover of cinema with a ton of movie knowledge went on to become a good filmmaker (according to IMDB he made another film prior to this, Luke & Brie Are On A First Date, which I have yet to see). I wonder if Chad Hartigan used his winnings from the IFC game show to fund his filmmaking career. This reminded me of a time when I was in college and I saw an episode of The Price Is Right where a filmmaker made it to the main stage and was in the position to win $10,000 and he lost it all in the end. He looked devastated. You could tell by the look on his face that he needed that money to make some kind of short film or something and he lost it all...

KINGS OF THE ROAD...

This Is Martin Bonner may not be a road movie like the other films (actually, calling Gerry a "road movie" is a bit of a stretch) but it still has the same simple/minimalist vibe as road stories like Kings Of The Road & Stranger Than Paradise. All of these stories have the same kind of ambiguity and open endedness too...

Kings Of The Road (1976)

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Gerry (2002)

This Is Martin Bonner (2013)

If you refer to my review of Nebraska (a film I like to think takes place in the same universe as Martin Bonner) you’ll read about my disappointment in how some filmmakers these days don't really seem to be cinephiles anymore. Chad Hartigan is definitely an exception. If you watch This Is Martin Bonner and are familiar with the cinema I compared it too earlier, you might think I'm crazy at first but if you watch it a few times you'll see where I'm coming from. Hartigan focuses on the sparse landscapes of the American west which might remind you of how Wenders shoots Germany in Kings Of The Road or Portugal in The Shape Of Things. The few moments of humor in the film are dry & deadpan and there's lots of quiet moments just like in Stranger Than Paradise or Permanent Vacation. Again, Hartigan's latest film may not be on the same level as the aforementioned works but in my opinion it still deserves the comparison.

Social work plays a big part in this film. I've never been a social worker but I've been around that field my whole life. My Dad has been a social worker in almost every capacity for almost his whole life. He's worked with drug addicts, he taught prisoners on rikers island and saw to it that people with physical & developmental disabilities got a fair shake at employment. Before teaching high school kids, my mother worked as a teacher at school for abused children. My girlfriend works in public health and two of my closest friends (who happen to be brothers) have worked with underprivileged youth in Chicago & Miami, respectively, for their continued education. I guess that's why some of the characters & events in This Is Martin Bonner seemed so familiar to me...
Again, this is a film set in Reno with some characters who are ex-cons & prostitutes yet Hartigan didn't craft the typical story that you'd expect with these kinds of cinematic prototypes.

This Is Martin Bonner is the story of a divorced 60-something year old father of two (...Martin Bonner) who used to work for a church (on the financial/business end) but had an unexplained crisis of faith and stopped believing in god.

I just woke up one morning and decided I didn't wanna go to church anymore – Martin Bonner

Martin's son & daughter, who we never actually see, are grown (he has a good relationship with his daughter who he calls regularly, but we never see him speak to his son even though Martin makes an effort to reach out to him). He lives alone in Reno working in some kind of a halfway house program for recently released prisoners. Martin eventually forms a bond with one of the new ex-cons in the program ("Travis") who was in prison for 12 years for vehicular homicide (he killed a guy while driving drunk). Like Martin, Travis is also having a crisis of faith and is trying to mend his relationship with his daughter while adjusting to life on the outside.

Richmond Arquette's performance as Travis is an interesting one. He plays him in a vulnerable, almost childlike way. I'm a little conflicted because he represents that "hey, we all make horrible mistakes in life but I'm really a good person"-character, but part of me doesn't wanna feel sympathy for him (which Hartigan clearly wants us too) because he's an idiot who killed a guy while drunk driving. There's just something about me where I don't have much sympathy for that. But then I question if that's fair given my sympathy for the Josh Hutton character in Hal Hartley's Unbelievable Truth who also killed someone while driving drunk.

Richmond, whose one of the lesser known Arquettes, is probably most known for his small roles in the films of David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Benjamin Button & Zodiac). This Is Martin Bonner is his first "major" starring role that I'm familiar with and he does a good job.

Paul Eenhoorn’s performance as the title character is a bit wooden & subdued but still effective (it's kind of required that his character be a little subdued & calm). Hartigan gives us just enough info to piece together the basics about Martin then leaves little hints for us to come to our own conclusions about other aspects of his life. Was the divorce between him & his wife ugly? Why don't we ever see Martin speak to his son? Why did he stop being a musician?

I know the crisis of faith thing is one of the most run in to the ground themes within indie & art house cinema but this felt different. There isn't a very strong religious presence weighing down on the story. We get a few minor supporting characters in the film who are religious but they aren't a huge part of the story in my opinion.

This is one of those films that could easily get overlooked (I mentioned it briefly in my end of the year wrap-up) but thanks to popular cinema podcasts like Filmspotting: SVU & The Cinephiliacs, This Is Martin Bonner is getting some deserved attention.

I definitely recommend watching this on a lazy Sunday afternoon...

MR. TURNER TRAILER (NEW MIKE LEIGH!)

LOVE STREAMS COMES TO CRITERION!

I don’t normally post about upcoming Criterions because ever since I started this blog I haven’t been too excited about much new stuff they’ve put out. Obviously there have been a few exceptions (Thief, Repo Man, Breaking The Waves, The Long Day Closes) but generally speaking, whenever new Criterions are announced I end up shrugging my shoulders in indifference. But THIS calls for a celebration! Love Streams, John Cassavetes’ unofficial "last film", has been one of the biggest speculations on all the criterion forums for many many years, but after years of no solid evidence I started to give up all hope. But actually seeing the cover art above (which could be a little better if you ask me, but whatever…) just gives me goose bumps!

This gives me hope for another major speculation that’s been on the radar of many criterion junkies for years…

The Wim Wenders Road Trilogy (Alice In Cities, The Wrong Move, Kings Of The Road)

Love Streams comes out on August 12th (my birthday is August 7th, but I’ll accept a late gift)

MY RECENT APPEARANCE ON THE SCHLOCK TREATMENT PODCAST...

I recently made a guest appearance on one of my favorite podcasts (The Schlock Treatment) to shoot the shit about The Running Man and promote the site.
Listen as Kirk Howle, PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor Doug Frye and myself discuss everything from Arnold Schwarzenegger's grunting to Maria Conchita Alonso's all around awkward screen presence.
There's a few episodes of The Schlock Treatment that I've had on heavy rotation for quite some time (The Miami Connection, Dangerous Game & Street Fighter) so it was an honor to be on the show.

Enjoy...

TREATMENT 174 - THE RUNNING MAN!

Also be sure to listen to the latest episode of You Hate Everything where they discuss my forever changing top 10...

Blue Velvet

Taxi Driver

The 7th Continent

The Piano Teacher

Eraserhead

The Mirror

Beau Travail

Shadows

Stranger Than Paradise

The Shining

honorable mention:

Nenette & Boni

Welcome To The Dollhouse

Safe

Coup De Grace

Clockers

George Washington

The Belly Of An Architect 

Trouble Every Day

US Go Home

LISTENER TOP 10: PART 2

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN AND MY PERSONAL ANNOYANCE WITH POST-9/11 CINEMA...

The Unknown Known is Errol Morris' latest documentary on the political career of Donald Rumsfeld. Like anything I’ve seen by Morris so far this is an excellent film, but whenever I mention it to my friends & co-workers, I usually get the same general response – “oh god I hate Donald Rumsfeld. I can’t sit through a whole movie about that guy.”

This says two things: 

1). People are still clearly not as familiar with Errol Morris as they should be, and aren’t aware of his ability to make just about anyone seem interesting. Hopefully his appearance on The Colbert Report last month will get him a little more notoriety.

2). This defiance towards seeing a Donald Rumsfeld documentary also shows how close-minded some folks are. Do people really just hear “Donald Rumsfeld documentary” and think it’s going to be some positive film dedicated to all the work he’s done over the years? Do these same people think Idi Amin was a documentary made to put the Ugandan leader in a positive light? I wonder if they also think Downfall is a film made to tell Hitler’s side of things...

I give Donald Rumsfeld respect for essentially stepping in to what could have been a lion’s den. Not only is Errol Morris on the opposite political spectrum, but this documentary's core audience is mostly made up of people on the political left (like myself, I guess). But for some strange reason, Rumsfeld was completely cooperative and allowed himself to be interviewed.

I also give Errol Morris a lot of respect. He had the upper hand as the filmmaker and could have easily edited & manipulated the documentary to misrepresent his subject but he didn't. Not to throw shots at Michael Moore, because at the end of the day I guess we are on the same team (we just sit at opposite ends of bench), but his brand of filmmaking sometimes falls in to that category of heavily edited material and sensationalism (along with other filmmakers like Nick Broomfield). And what's funny is that when you have such a slow moving target like George W. Bush (it's no mystery that Michael Moore spent close to a decade of his life going after GW), you don't need to rely on heavy editing. Just let the cameras go and Bush Jr. is bound to make himself look like the idiot he really is. 

Most political films these days have a left-leaning agenda (especially documentaries) so I'm surprised Donald Rumsfeld was so cooperative. What would make a major conservative figure like him open up to a filmmaker like Morris with a fan base of mostly liberals? Towards the end of the film, Morris, off camera, bluntly asks Rumsfeld; "why are you talking to me?" to which Rumsfeld responds; "...I don't know." I know we're only in May but that quick exchange may go down as one of my personal favorite movie moments of 2014. 

Whether you like him or not (I'm certainly not a fan), Donald Rumsfeld is an intriguing guy with plenty of stories to tell. He was right there when Gerald Ford was shot at, he was a onetime vice presidential candidate, he served as secretary of defense during two separate terms, Nixon described him as a "tough little bastard" and he was at the center of the abu ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Like it or not, he’s a small part of America's political history. 

The Unknown Known is bound to draw some comparison to The Fog Of War (Morris' academy award winning doc about another secretary of defense; Robert McNamara). I have to give some credit to my friend Chris Funderberg as he made an immediate comparison (and contrast) between the two films after we saw it. Donald Rumsfeld is a far more interesting subject than McNamara. He's a complex guy. At some points in the documentary Rumsfeld comes off totally clueless and/or in denial about some of his missteps & blunders while at other points in the documentary he comes off as witty, intelligent and very calculated. 

I’m surprised I enjoyed The Unknown Known as much as I did. I'm pretty jaded & apathetic towards most films concerning the Bush Administration, 9/11 or the Iraq war (it's no mystery that Rumsfeld is synonymous with all those things). Between Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty & Hurt Locker), Oliver Stone (World Trade & W), the random guy who made Loose Change & Morgan Spurlock (Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden) all the life & energy has been sucked out of that subject matter to the point where I find myself sighing and rolling my eyes just hearing a synopsis of a film about anything Bush and/or 9/11-related. This must have been how baby boomer cinephiles felt with all the Vietnam war films still going on well in to the early 90's. It's like once Apocalypse Now came along there was really no reason to explore that territory anymore (with the exception of the first 45 minutes of Full Metal Jacket).
And what's worse is that all the films I listed earlier are either overrated (Fahrenheit & Zero Dark Thirty), "ok" I guess (The Hurt Locker), pointless (Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden) or just awful (World Trade Center & W). 

There's this unspoken thing with half of these films where Michael Moore, the loose change guy & Oliver Stone felt like their work was going to be impactful and they were going to "expose" Bush and everything/everyone associated with him. But it’s all over. With the exception of the mess that's still going on in Iraq (still a very relevant topic), all that stuff is over. Bush didn't get impeached and 9/11 wasn't a fucking inside job. Either find a new angle to attack (which Morris certainly did) or find new topics to make films about.

These days, the only post-9/11 cinema I can stomach is Team America: World Police and Hal Hartley's films of the late 90's-early 00's (which were actually made before the 9/11 attacks).

a reoccurring image on PINNLAND EMPIRE - An eerie image of the twin towers in Hal Hartley's The Book Of Life (1998)

Morris didn't really seem to have an agenda with Donald Rumsfeld (and if he did, he hid it pretty well). At no point in the documentary did I sense Morris was attacking his subject. He certainly drilled Rumsfeld with questions and lightly challenged him occasionally, but not in an attacking way. Instead, he makes Donald Rumsfeld seem like a normal guy. The Unknown Known is full of political insider jargon and the film spans every president Rumseld served under, from Nixon to Bush Jr., but its more about Rumsfeld the person. 

There are moments where Errol Morris does expose some of Rumsfeld's contradictions (like the confusion he & the Bush administration tried cloud the American people with when it came to making a case for going to war with Sadam Hussein instead of focusing Bin Laden) but that stuff felt secondary to me.

Errol Morris has faced a bit of criticism with The Unknown Known. Some people feel he didn't "grill" Rumsfeld hard enough on issues concerning war, torture practices and the weak reasons the Bush administration used to go to war with Iraq. But these criticisms bring me back to that jadedness I expressed earlier. We already know the reason Bush went to war was bullshit. Why do we need another film, book or exposé on the subject? What good is that honestly going to do now? It reminds me of how people like Tucker Carlson & Bill O'reilly criticized John Stewart for not grilling his political guests with tough questions (clearly they don't know The Daily Show is a fucking comedy show and not a real news source).

On a side note, I don't want the tone of what I'm writing to come off as completely apathetic. Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, GW and plenty more folks in office between 2000-2008 completely fucked us (Americans) over. I'm not asking anyone to forget. I hope every generation going forward questions & challenges those in power no matter how "cool" or progressive they may seem. But to still make films with the hope off exposing or shaking things up (which is clearly what political filmmakers want to do) seems irrelevant. You'd swear some filmmakers still thought Bush & Cheney were in office long after 2008.

As always, there's plenty of "Morris-isms" here that make his films what they are (quick awkward moments of silence from the interviewee, a few funny moments here & there and scenes that straddle the line between eerie stock footage and reenactments/moments of fiction).

I was surprised to see that Danny Elfman did the music for Morris this time around instead of Philip Glass. Between my gripe with popular film scores these days (specifically 12 Years A Slave) and the complete dismissal of film scores that are actually pushing the art forward (namely the work of Cliff Martinez & Shane Carruth) I'm quite sensitive to music used in film these days. The score for The Unknown Known could have been worse (and little less loud) but at the end of the day it wasn't too distracting like Elfman's traditional music for Tim Burton (it was actually reminiscent of the The Thin Blue Line score from time to time).

I honestly left the theater wondering what a guy like Donald Rumsfeld does on his personal/down time which is something I'd honestly never given thought to before. If you weren't a fan of Rumsfeld before, this film probably won't change your opinion, but The Unknown Known got me to think about this man on a human level which is an interesting angle to take in my opinion.

PINNLAND EMPIRE'S PERSONAL FAVORITE SCENES OF THE DECADE SO FAR: PARTFIVE

Lists used to be a regular thing here at PINNLAND EMPIRE, but for whatever reason I gave them a rest in favor of writing longer articles that most of you probably don't even finish reading once you start. It recently hit me that although its way too early to start deciding what the defining movies of the decade are, there's already quite a few isolated moments from the last 4+ years that are either so visually striking, prolific, heartbreaking, frightening, hilarious or a combination of everything that they deserve to be mentioned.

So, as part of a new ongoing series, we're going to list my personal favorite movie moments of the decade so far.

I put an emphasis on the word personal because its just that. My own personal opinion. This list in no way speaks for anyone else. And please keep in mind that this is ongoing (as you're checking this fifth installment I'll already be putting the final touches on part seven). So if you don't see something listed that you feel should be, give it some time. It may show up eventually. There's no order or hierarchy in what gets listed either.

FYI...three of the seven films represented in this installment are currently streaming on Netflix instant and two are easy to come by on DVD & Blu-Ray just about anywhere, so I don't wanna hear any of that; "no one has heard of or seen any of these movies" (again...I will admit that two films on this list aren't easy to watch or come by on DVD/Blu-Ray)

So, here's part five. Enjoy...

Simon discovers his teacher's dead body (Monsieur Lahzar)

Monsieur Lahzar was one of the more underrated films to come out in recent years but thanks to TIFF, The Lincoln Center Film Society, Netflix and the Oscar Nomination it got back in 2011, it’s getting more attention. When I saw this at TIFF I honestly went in knowing nothing outside of it being about a substitute elementary school teacher and his students, so I really wasn’t expecting this scene (especially so early on in the movie).

A sad realization (Michael)

Talk about a slap in the face... 

Here’s an extremely hard hitting/heartbreaking moment from the 2011 film Michael where a young boy whose been kidnapped by a pedophile comes across a flyer for a missing dog and he comes to the realization that there’s been more of an effort put in to finding a dog instead of him.

What's most memorable about this scene is that this is the first time the young boy shows any real emotion or vulnerability. Due to his circumstances, he gives off a rather empty/dead demeanor in an effort to survive (when you're in his shoes all you can do is remove yourself from reality as best as you can). But in one moment, everything becomes too much and he finally breaks down...

Seizure-inducing intercourse (Hors Satan)

I'm still not sure what to fully make of this scene (or the movie as a whole) but this part, where our Jesus-like character has anonymous (extremely aggressive) sex with a woman, who has a seizure mid-coitus, has been stuck in my head ever since I saw it.

The dance sequences in Attenburg

Bane vs. Batman: Part One (The Dark Knight Rises)

Ok ok ok, listen – I know this movie wasn't that good. The Dark Knight Rises did a backwards domino effect for me and how I view Christopher Nolan’s filmography of convoluted nonsense. But Bane is an underrated villain/character (it's tough to follow Heath Ledger's joker) and I really love this scene...

(I seriously can't stress enough how much I don't want you guys to think I consider The Dark Knight Rises to be a good movie)

Survival... (Essential Killing)

This scene from Jerzy Skolimoski's Essential Killing represents desperation at it's finest. Nothing says survival like holding a random woman at gun point so you can breastfeed from her. After escaping from his captors, who had been torturing him, Vincent Gallo's nameless main character hadn't eaten in days, all while fighting off danger at every turn. In an effort to not die of starvation, he did what he had to do, which is what the film is ultimately about...

"Must be some kind of...Hot Tub Time Machine ..." (Hot Tub Time Machine)

GREAT MODERN FILM SCORES: GHOST DOG

We had about three or four conversations and then started talking about music and RZA's name came up. RZA really wrote the music to pictures or he wrote after he saw the film. He was inspired by it. He'd write pieces and send them over to Jim, and Jim cut it where it fit. The album's quite unique: it's inspired by the film, including those sparse tracks he had in there, like the opening one you hear while you see the bird flying. And they're so different on the album than on the screen.

- Forest Whitaker (popmatters.com) 

Jim Jarmusch has a new film out right now and The Rza is prepping a new Wu-Tang album (with an interesting marketing campaign) so they've both been popping up in the news recently. With a few exceptions, my Facebook timeline consists of either movie news or music news, so I've been seeing a lot of Jim & The Rza pop up on my timeline as I mindlessly scroll and it got me thinking how much I miss the two of them working together and just being associated with one another.
For those that don't know, outside of just Ghost Dog & Coffee & Cigarettes, Jim worked on a Wu-Tang album with Rza once and he also selected Rza's Wu-Tang partner; Raekwon to perform at an All Tommorrow's Parties concert (a famous UK-based music festival that allows artist, musicians, actors & filmmakers to curate the line-up).
It goes without saying that both of those guys are two of my personal favorites in their respective fields. With the exception of Olivier Assayas/Sonic Youth (Demonlover) & Nicholas Winding Refn/Brian Eno (Fear X), there hasn't been a collaboration between one of my favorite filmmakers and one of my favorite musicians, so I’ve always been extra appreciative of the music Rza did for the under appreciated/misunderstood Ghost Dog, even when I used to not like the movie itself back in the day. It’s been documented that I wasn’t a fan of Ghost Dog as a teenager, but after a college professor encouraged me to go back and re-watch it with a different mindset, it become one of my favorite movies of all time.

Besides taking unwarranted/immature shots at Quentin Tarantino (which I do later on in this write-up) & over-praising the work of Claire Denis, complaining about the use of music in modern film is another common theme here at PINNLAND EMPIRE. From Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard to Danny Elfman & Howard Shore, scores are becoming more & more distracting to their accompanying films these days. I prefer scores that don't force me to feel a particular emotion that I already know how to feel based on the scene that's in front of me. Be honest - didn’t it feel like Hans Zimmer’s score for The Dark Knight Rises was a bit overwhelming? Everyone complained about not being able to understand Bane’s altered voice but I honestly couldn’t understand what ANYONE was saying because the music was so damn loud! What happened to subtlety? What's wrong with playing your part and just composing background music?

Jarmusch used Rza’s sound on Ghost Dog in a somewhat unconventional way. For a film with such an important score, there's lots of quiet moments or important scenes without any music at all. Besides the rooftop martial arts training sequence and the opening credits, a lot of the important scenes in Ghost Dog don’t feature any background music. The bear hunting scene, the scene on the bench between Ghost Dog & Pearline, the rooftop boat scene, the part where Ghost Dog storms though Vargo’s mansion and kills everyone, the finale where Ghost Dog is killed, etc. None of these crucial moments feature ANY music. This makes you appreciate the score even more because after long stretches of silence or minimal dialogue, which happens often in Ghost Dog, it's nice to hear some good atmospheric background music.

Just watch how much more effective some of the more important scenes from Ghost Dog work without music...

If you think I’m talking out of my ass, just look at how Rza’s music is used in other films versus Ghost Dog. From Blade: Trinity & Kill Bill to The Protector & Derailed, Rza’s music is used in a more conventional way – either paired with a tense moment or an action sequences, or it’s playing during a scene with important dialogue where music isn’t really needed. And I’m willing to bet that besides Kill Bill, you all forgot or didn’t even know Rza did a good portion of the music for those aforementioned films I just mentioned, thus adding to my point (I give things like Afro Samurai & The Man With The Iron Fist a pass because Rza's music is supposed to be a prominent factor in those). 

Picking Rza to do music for a film in the late 90's was perfect timing since the last 3 music projects he worked on prior to that we're cinematically themed (Bobby Digital, A Prince Aming Theives & The Gravediggaz 2nd album). 

Jim Jarmusch was the first filmmaker who worked with The Rza before any other filmmaker. After that, everyone jumped on board...

I didn't discover how music and film could work together until Jim Jarmusch had me do Ghost Dog. I didn't know that these two things had such a poetic wavelength that went together until Ghost Dog.

- The Rza (interview magazine) 

No one attached themselves to The Rza post-Ghost Dog like Quentin Tarantino. It should also be noted that not only did Quentin Tarantino essentially "hi-jack" The Rza from Jarmusch, but he also borrowed heavily from him (and other notable filmmakers) in terms of style & storytelling. I've explained this theory before but I'll do it again...

Jim Jarmusch makes Down By Law (1986), a film where a major crime takes place (a prison break) yet we only see the aftermath, Tarantino makes Reservoir Dogs (1992) in which another major crime takes place (a jewel heist) and, like in Down By Law, we only see the aftermath. In 1989 & 1991, Jim Jarmusch makes Mystery Train & Night On Earth, respectively, which are two anthology stories surrounding multiple intertwined characters (one film featuring Steve Buschemi and a lot of nods to Elvis Presley, and the other film featuring important scenes inside taxi cabs). In 1994, Tarantino makes Pulp Fiction which is also an anthology story surrounding multiple intertwined characters (with a quick appearance from Steve Buschemi and another important scene inside a taxi cab shot similarly to Night On Earth) with multiple references to Elvis Presley as well.
Oh...yeah...let’s also not forgot that the Tarantino-scripted True Romance (1991) features a scene with the ghost of Elvis Presley just like the scene in the middle of Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989)…

Mystery Train / True Romance

In 1999 Jarmusch explores the martial arts genre and its influence on western/american culture with Ghost Dog, and he gets the Rza to do the score. A few years later Tarantino makes Kill Bill and gets the Rza to score his film. Both movies also heavily reference older martial arts films & samurai films. True, they reference and tip their hats to completely different movies, but that mix-tape/mash-up style of filmmaking is the same. Jarmusch's style is just slightly more subtle.

I know at this point calling out old movie references in Kill Bill is a lil' played out, but when done alongside Ghost Dog you can see whereo Tarantimo may have gotten some influence from...

Game Of Death / Kill Bill

Ghost Dog / Branded To Kill

Kill Bill / Lady Snowblood

Ghost Dog / Le Samourai

For someone with such a great knowledge & understanding of art, I wish Rza continued to work more with Jarmusch instead of aligning himself with folks likes of Tarantino.

On a personal note, I appreciate Jim Jarsmuch’s relationship with The Rza over Tarantino’s, because Jim doesn’t go out of his way to use urban slang or prove he’s “down” while we all know Tarantino does shit like that right down to using the n-word.

When I first finally got to meet RZA at three in the morning in some studio in Midtown, I think Raekwon was there. I don't know who else was there, but they were saying, "Wait a minute, is this the guy that made that film Dead Man?" Apparently, the Wu-Tang had been passing that film around, which is kind of a shock to me. They started quoting the film, and they were really happy to meet me. RZA and I got along really well and just launched into a lot of strange conversations. We just clicked.

-Jim Jarmusch (pitchfork media)

Ghost Dog was just as much new territory for Rza (being his first film score) as it was for Jarmusch. This was his first time working with a musician/producer who didn’t use live instrumentation (John Lurie, Neil Young & Tom Waits), so it makes sense that the music in Ghost Dog is used somewhat differently than in previous stuff like Permanent Vacation, Night On Earth or Dead Man.
Naturally Rza had to adapt his style as well. He couldn’t sculpt a beat with rappers in mind (to this day, Ghost Dog might be his one and only true instrumental project). Gritty drums were once synonymous with The Rza’s production. From beats like C.R.E.A.M. (36 Chambers) to Ice Cream (Only Built For Cuban Linx) he’s always used melodic samples (chimes, xylophones, etc), but the drums (mixed with a little bit off hiss, mugginess & raw mixing techniques) trumped everything else that went in to his production. 

Some people attribute Rza’s studio flood in the mid-90’s, in which he lost over 100 beats, with the changing of his signature sound, but personally I think it was Ghost Dog (...or Supreme Clientele). Sure, if you listen to everything that lead up to the score, from the 36 Chambers to Bobby Digital, you can hear the progression in his sound, but Ghost Dog really opened up his melodic/slightly non-loopy/operatic side more than anything.

Rza’s signature sound prior to Ghost Dog…

Sample from the Ghost Dog Soundtrack…

Post-Ghost Dog Rza…

Putting aside the fact that there’s a slight novelty to the Ghost Dog score (hip-hop production used for an arthouse film), it’s seriously some of Rza’s best work (prior to his new sound which didn’t sit too well with some harcore wu-tang fans like myself) and it honestly compliments the film rather than take it over like so many other film scores do these days. There's sounds and samples that he'd never used prior to this (accordions, harmoniums & ambient background noise). You could tell there was some serious experimentation. Even though the music is only used in probably only 50% of the film, Jarmusch still gives Rza a spotlight (most of the individual tracks are under two minutes long). The music is used in the right spots – interludes, transitional scenes, atmospheric moments and periods of no dialogue. All those pivotal music-less scenes I referenced earlier feature music just before & after instead of throughout. Sometimes filmmakers, critics & fans get so caught up in the idea of a popular modern musician working on a film score that that’s all they seem to care about til it trumps everything else concerning the movie. Jim Jarmusch didn't really use Rza's name as crutch to promote his film too heavily like Tarantino did with Kill Bill either.

The Ghost Dog score still stands up to this day and has a serious cult following. Even people who don't like or listen to hip-hop regularly still love it which makes it a success in my book. This is also very much an album to listen too in the headphones completely separate from the film. I guarantee you'll notice little intricacies that'll give you a better appreciation/understanding of hip-hop production beyond it being just sampling other people's music...

STRANGER BY THE LAKE (FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR SO FAR)

I've said it before on here and I'll say it again - anyone familiar with modern French art house cinema who denies Bresson's influence is an idiot. These days when I say things like; "the film was very French", all that really means is that it was very Bressonian - prolific, stripped down and (intentionally) emotionless yet somehow still full of emotion at the same time. I'm aware he's not the only major influence on today's French auteurs. Charbol, Godard, Melville, Truffaut and a few others are all also highly influential, but these days I see Bresson in people's work more than anyone else. From Camille Claudel, 1915 & Hors Satan (both directed by Bruno Dumont who was once considered the "heir to Bresson") to The Pornographer & The House Of Tolerance (both directed by Bertrand Bonello who had his actors watch Bresson films to prepare before filming), Bresson's dent, both major & minor, on modern French art house is undeniable.

Stranger By The Lake is just another recent example of this...

Have you ever wondered what Cruising would be like had Bresson directed it instead of William Friedken? Chances are you probably haven't, but still...that's pretty much what Stranger By The Lake is. In fact, it’s the kind of film that makes you reevaluate something like Cruising and how distasteful it is (even though I do enjoy watching Crusing from time to time). In Alain Guiraude's latest, we follow "Franck" - a young guy cruising through life both figuratively and literally. Not only is he content with being unemployed at the moment, but he also spends his summer taking daily trips to a notorious gay cruising spot (the lake of Sainte Croix). The only problem is that there's a serial killer on the loose targeting all the gay men at this cruising spot. And to make things extra strange, Franck discovers who the killer is early on but instead of going to the police, he starts a relationship with him (this mysterious killer has no idea Franck knows his secret). In the beginning we're lead to believe the mystery of this film is finding out who the killer is but that's revealed within the first 20 minutes (I haven't given any spoilers away). The real mystery is the relationship that develops between Franck and the unnamed killer. Will Franck be next? Why is he so drawn to a cold blooded murderer? Is he suicidal? Or is he just drawn to the danger?

For a film with such deadpan & sparse dialogue, Stranger By The Lake has a sharp script. Early on in the story Franck befriends a local man, "Henri", who hangs around just outside the cruising spot, even though he's straight, and through the course of the film Franck & Henri engage in dialogue that challenges sexuality, friendship & love.
The most interesting part of Stranger By The Lake for me was the part of the story where we're introduced the police inspector whose hired to investigate the killings. Because he's heterosexual and not familiar with "cruising", he's not only investigating a murder, but he's also investigating a particular lifestyle. I was immediately reminded of Harvey Keitel in both; Clockers & Bad Timing. In both films Harvey Keitel plays a cop that’s not only investigating a crime, but a culture/lifestyle as well. In Clockers, Keitel is trying to solve a crime in an urban environment that's foreign to him while in Bad Timing he's trying to make sense of a couple's torrid relationship. In Stranger By The Lake, this nameless inspector asks the local "cruisers" just as many questions surrounding their sexuality as he does questions surrounding the crime.

Now...although Stranger By The Lake is an early contender for PINNLAND EMPIRE's Top 10 of 2014, Alain Guiraude did something I absolutely HATE that so many filmmakers are guilty of...

At the Q&A after the screening I went to, he downplayed the homosexuality in the film and was very dismissive towards all the questions surrounding that topic. I'd understand Guiraude's frustration/dismissive nature had Stranger By The Lake been a story with characters who just so happened to be gay, and it had nothing to do with the plot. But the story takes place exclusively at a gay cruising spot and is about a killer who only targets gay men. The film also quietly touches on issues like denial & self-hatred. Without giving away too much, it could be interpreted that the person committing the murders in Stranger By The Lake has some serious self-hate/inner turmoil about their sexuality (although we aren't made to feel any kind of sympathy for this person, because...well...they kill people). There's an emphasis on condom use and talk of HIV. Even the sex in this is extra graphic, unedited & unapologetic, yet Guiraude, said things like "I don't know if Stranger By The Lake has anything to do with homosexuality" and "I didn't really think about things like homosexuality when making this" 

Can filmmakers just stop doing stuff like this? Guiraude's obvious denial/borderline trolling is like George Lucas saying Star Wars has nothing to do with space or science fiction. Again, I know filmmakers (especially art house filmmakers) don't like to have their work oversimplified. I also understand wanting to be progressive and not being boxed in as the director who made a "gay film", but sometimes you gotta call things as they are. On some level, Stranger By The Lake is a comment on gay repression and society's aggression towards gay people (specifically gay men). That's not even an interpretation as much as it is a clear fact. I don't care what the person responsible for the film says either. Stranger By The Lake isn't Alain Guiraude's first time touching on homosexuality either. His 2009 feature; King Of Escape, deals with a gay man who falls for a teenage girl. His earlier film; Time Has Come (2005) deals with gay characters living in a made up/imaginary world. Any time Guiraude, who is gay, touches on homosexuality in his work, it's always done in some kind of challenging way.

Seeing this in a theater with a group of gay men (one of whom was a friend) really heightened the themes in the film for me as I imagine it may have for them as well. I hate to be presumptuous but given that this is clearly about aggression towards homosexuality on some level, I'm sure quite a few of the gay men in the theater have faced some form of aggression, oppression or ignorance in their life which makes Stranger By The Lake even more impactful.

UNDER THE SKIN: THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH...

I was a bit disappointed by Under The Skin but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. It just wasn't the masterpiece that a lot of people made it out to be. The first half was excellent while the second half really dragged its way to a sloppy finish. It was "ok". Certainly not in the same realm as the films of Kubrick, Lynch and all the other so-called "weird" modern cinema it’s being compared to by film critics.

I guess the David Lynch comparison is somewhat understandable. Under The Skin features a constant droning score, has lots of dialogue-less moments between the actors and it's a very surreal film where lots of random stuff happens and you don't know if you should laugh or be scared. These are all classic traits of David Lynch but at the same time that comparison feels lazy. These days any movie that's even slightly weird or "different" draws an immediate comparison to stuff like Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive. David Lynch, who is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, didn't invent surreal, experimental or weird cinema. But film critics who write for The Huffington Post, Indie Wire and the million other nameless movie blogs would have you believe otherwise. Go a lil' deeper or look for a less obvious influence. If anything, Under The Skin looks like Jonathan Glazer tapped in to his inner-Chris Cunningham (for those that don’t know, both Glazer & Cunningham were prominent music video directors working around the same time). I always felt Glazer & Cunningham had the same spiritual connection as Spike Jonze & Michel Gondry. Each pair has worked with the same/similar music artists, and their visual styles are very similar. In fact, I used to get Jonathan Glazer & Chris Cunningham mixed up with one another. 
There's a scene in Under The Skin where a nameless man sinks in to some kind of a liquid abyss and has his insides sucked out of his of body until he's just a formless blob of skin floating along, and I was immediately reminded of Chris Cunningham's Only You music video for Portishead...

Only You (Cunningham) / Under The Skin (Glazer)

Only You / Under The Skin

There's another scene in Under The Skin where Scarlett Johansson picks up a man off the side of the road with a deformed face and I suddenly felt like I was watching an Aphex Twin video directed by Chris Cunningham. Both Glazer & Cunningham shoot deformities in the same fashion – darkly lit with just enough lighting to catch little glimpses of images that are supposed to scare us...

Rubber Johnny (Cunningham) / Under The Skin

I honestly don't get the Stanley Kubrick comparison tho. It’s evident from Glazer’s past music video work that Kubrick was an influence on him, but I just don’t see it with Under The Skin. In fact, I don't understand why any surreal film or filmmaker is always compared to Kubrick. He made ONE partially trippy film in the 60's. I know 2001: A Space Odyssey is a heavily influential film (probably top 10) but I wish critics had more to reference than that and Mulholland Drive. Have prominent film critics stopped watching films regularly? Or are they just not aware of the likes of Maya Deren, Stan Brahkage or selected works of Luis Bunuel, Andrei Tarkovsky or even Matthew Barney? Hell, someone make a Man Who Fell To Earth reference. Besides the fact that both films have a similar plot, there's some serious visual similarities as well...

The Man Who Fell To Earth (Roeg) / Under The Skin

The Man Who Fell To Earth / Under The Skin

Maybe the average people who read movie reviews don't know the aforementioned films & filmmakers and need a more recognizable name like Kubrick as a reference. But still - who hasn’t Stanley Kubrick influenced on some level? It's becoming redundant to mention Kubrick's influence on anyone in modern cinema...

this scene, used in Jonathan Glazer's music video for Massive Attack's Karmacoma, is so cliché but I had to throw it in...

I’m also shocked at how hardly anyone has made any kind of a link between Under The Skin and Leos Carax’s Holy Motors. Both films are darkly comical surreal stories about a nameless protagonist driving around getting in to unexplained adventures. I’m not saying the connection is as strong as Blue Velvet & Something Wild or Vertigo & Lost Highway, but I definitely see some strong similarities between the two…

Jonathan Glazer definitely went back to his music video roots with his latest feature and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand - Under The Skin is wonderful to look at. But after 45 minutes it does start to feel like a really long music video or one of those “artsy” playstation ads you see on European television. Glazer seemed to be more concerned with style instead of telling a story. Under The Skin comes off like the feature film debut of a young former music video director but the problem is that this is actually the third feature film from an older/experienced former music video director so I don’t know if I can give this film a pass on certain things. Putting style over everything else, which is certainly the case with Under The Skin, is the kind of thing I don't personally go for (outside of my strange love for Nicholas Winding Refn) but I can let that go as long as the filmmaker is either young and/or new to feature filmmaking and their stylish visuals are exceptional. Jonathan Glazer had his time to purge and jerk-off to his own visuals with Sexy Beast & Birth (his first two features). Now that we're on movie #3, I'd like to see a stronger plot and/or a memorable performance (not to take anything away from Ben Kingsley's performance in Sexy Beast).

The plot for Under The Skin is a pretty typical sci-fi scenario - an alien (Scarlett Johansson) disguised as a nameless beautiful woman drives around Scotland and lures men back to a secret lair with false promises of sex, but instead they're hypnotized, captured and have their bodies harvested for some unexplained reason (presumably because their bodies provide some kind of energy for the alien race that Johansson's character represents). In the midst of doing her job, she has a sudden change of heart and goes rogue. After that, the film doesn’t fall completely apart, but I definitely remember checking the time more than once or squinting at the movie screen with a facial expression like; “…huh?”

It should be noted that the basic plot to Under The Skin is similar to The Man Who Fell To Earth. In Nicholas Roeg's film, David Bowie plays an alien who disguises himself as a human in an effort to get water back to his dying planet (there's also a crucial scene in both films where their true alien-self is revealed in a similar fashion).

I had to look up the plot for Under The Skin on Amazon (its based on a science fiction novel) and upon finding out what the story was really about, I was even more disappointed with the film adaptation. Glazer doesn't really delve in to the story that much. Instead he focuses more on Johansson's beauty and setting up cool isolated shots. I know not all films need to have a straightforward plot (or a plot at all) but there was an emptiness to Under The Skin that made me want more information. And the film was actually based on a story that had a plot! If you’re going to adapt a book, then adapt the book. Don’t just cherry pick what you want until it becomes a shell of what it once was. Just make your own story and call it something else if you’re going to do that.

Under The Skin also feels like a half executed comment on the male gender and how easily we fall prey to superficiality and/or sex. Through the course of the film, Johansson’s nameless alien character crosses paths with so many different male prototypes – The jocky/bro-ish sports fan, the sleazy night club guy that I imagine every woman dreads running in to, the insecure loner, the helpful sincere gentleman, and the aggressor/rapist. Almost every man Johansson comes in contact with in the film approaches her in a somewhat similar fashion: aggressive, sleazy, alpha male-ish or they try too hard to be cool. The story suddenly shifts when Johansson picks up the man with facial deformities. He’s quiet, shy, clearly depressed and doesn’t hit on her. In fact, he barely looks at her (he later reveals he’s never even been with a woman before). Because this is new for out protagonist, she’s thrown off and can’t comprehend that a man wouldn’t hit on her or instantly take to her aggressive flirting like all the others before him. This character brings her to the realization that not all men are the same and some have a soul. Her reevaluation of the male gender is ruined later on with the final man she comes in contact with...

Under The Skin has the makings of a cult classic (or at least a cult film with a solid cult following) but the problem is fans & (most) critics want to make it something bigger. Can’t we just call this a cult film and leave it at that? Putting aside the half-ass theory abouy this film being a comment on the male gender, Under The Skin isn’t that deep (no pun in intended) and I think we all know if the star was a random no-name actress or a model it wouldn’t get half the attention it’s getting, and a lot of you would write it off as just another strange artsy flick. Although props to Jonathan Glazer for not packing this film with a ton of recognizable faces. He could have easily made each nameless male character Johansson comes in contact with a known actor, but thankfully he didn’t as it would been distracting and would have probably taken us out of the (mostly empty) story. Between American Hustle & Grand Budapest Hotel, I just can’t take the ensemble casts anymore. It’s overkill. And Scarlett Johansson may not have given a phenomenal performance but I honestly can't see anyone else playing the part she did.

I feel like I'm in the minority with my lukewarm reception. I'd love to hear what you all thought about this. Perhaps there's something I missed...