A Tribute to Discontinued Cereals
I’m both bothered and thrilled that someone did all this research on nostalgic breakfast cereals.
http://grub.gunaxin.com/a-tribute-to-discontinued-cereals/11570
(cinema) We Need to Talk About Kevin, d. Lynne Ramsay, 2011. The IMDB entry for this movie says: The mother of a teenage boy who went on a high-school killing spree tries to deal with her grief and feelings of responsibility for her child’s actions. I lived in Colorado at the time of the Columbine High School murders and I’ve thought a lot about what life must be like for a parent whose kid has does something so awful. It’s an intriguing script idea but it doesn’t happen to be what Kevin is actually about. The high school mass murders here are a sort of foregone conclusion to the story of a mother who is emotionally terrorized by her son, beginning when he is an infant. This is a unique piece in that the story is told in non-linear flashbacks and the cinematography is experimental. Yet the story to me plays closer in genre to horror than to a psychological drama you might see at the arthouse. I can recommend this movie if it’s only on the multiplex at the mall level. Otherwise we’re looking at something that it is on the edge of camp. Witness the
scene where the mother tries to explain reproduction to her little boy via the Mama Bear and Papa Bear and the boy interrupts, “Is this about fuckin’?” If it isn’t highbrow horror Kevin is just Mommy Dearest with the abuse roles switched around. Did you want the gays to love your movie like that? ๏๏๏… Afterschool, d. Antonio Campos, 2008. The actor who plays the
sociopath in We Need to Talk About Kevin was in this earlier movie where he also plays a disturbed kid but with a bit more subtlety. Ezra Miller is great actor in addition to have grown up to be pretty hot. Anyway, in Afterschool, Miller is a nobody kid at a prep school who accidentally videotapes two popular girls die overdosing on tainted cocaine. As the school goes into damage control trying to shake out all the drugs, Miller starts to act erratically believing he is under surveillance. Surveillance, public image and acts of watching are huge themes in movie. Apparently a lot of people don’t care for the slow pace of the story and static camera scenes. I could write a book on why every shot matters. I think it’s brilliant.๏๏๏๏๏
Addendum: If you want to a see an excellent movie about the psychology behind school shootings I recommend Zero Day, from 2003. Both Afterschool and Zero Day stream on Netflix.
Fear of the Dark (2002, d. K.C. Bascombe)
A 12 twelve year boy old lives with chronic phobia of dark places. Is it a psychological disorder, immaturity, desire for attention, or does the boy see really see terrifying things in the dark that can’t be seen in the light? His torment comes to zenith when one stormy night he and his older teenage brother are at home alone during a blackout. Evil spirits come from the walls to attack the boy, and big, macho brother starts to see them too.
This is a horror movie that falls in-between being to0 scary for kids, and too arrested for any adult with an IQ above 80.
Clownhouse (1989, d. Victor Salva)
Just back from an unsettling night at the circus, and home alone, three young brothers are terrorized by three escaped mental patients dressed as circus clowns. This movie is about confronting childhood fears, identity questions, and sexual anxiety. Taking it more logically, I didn’t understand why the clowns wanted to get into the house or why they thought disguising themselves in white face and hoop-waist pants would make them inconspicuous.
This movie became notorious years after its release when one of the young cast members came forward that the director had molested him during production. Somebody who wants to pick it apart will find a lot of analogous behavior between the scary clowns and the decision by the director to frequently show the tween boys in their underpants. It left me feeling a little dirty. But to anybody who pervs on that, I say. “Bon appetite, Short Eyes!”