Thoughts

I have seen almost all of the Coen Brothers’ films, but Barton Fink (1991) continued to slip under the radar. And how? This is easily their most creative and inventive story! It follows John Turturro as the titular character, a neurotic young man who writes plays for the theater in the 1920s.

The story has been adapted to the screen at least twice, most famously by Spielberg in 2005. This time, they took the overdone “everything is on the computer screen” approach and stuck Ice Cube front and center to put on a show. But he does anything other than put on a show, he practically sounds like he's reading the script for the very first time with his finger dragging across the lines as he reads.

All this to say, I did start the week off strong with a viewing of each of Gregg Araki’s entries in his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy from the mid-to-late 90s. The trilogy includes Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation(1995), and the conclusion to the saga, Nowhere (1997). The films are loosely connected by themes of queer alienation, rage against the establishment, and an inherent nihilistic perspective on life and the future.

The story follows Luke Wilson as a quite literal average Joe who gets roped into an army science experiment to be frozen, which, of course, goes wrong. He wakes up five hundred years later, as everyone has become insanely dumb through generations of inbreeding and bad traits passing down, he is the smartest man in the world.

This is a notorious, or rather infamous, film for a number of reasons I’m about to get into. But I’ll start with this: Paul Thomas Anderson accomplished what this film wanted to be with his late 90s hit Boogie Nights (1997). PTA skillfully, and more importantly, tastefully weaves pornographic story elements with clever cinematography. Caligula is not that.

Hazy recollection of the recent week’s days. It was a full and long week of work, and I was really feeling the monotony this time around. You know you’re cooked when you show up to work and immediately start creating checkpoints for yourself. “Okay, we just gotta make it to nine o'clock”… Then, “Now, ten”…

The story follows Kyle MacLachlan as a young man back from school in his small, idyllic American suburb when he stumbles across a severed human ear in a field. After taking it into the local police station, his curiosity gets the better of him as he sets off into the secret underworld of a town once thought to be innocent.

With themes reminiscent of Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000), this film takes a comic approach to the horrors of drug abuse and addiction. It follows four friends united by opium addiction and a life of robbery and crime overall to sustain the habit. Ewan McGregor leads the cast as Renton, a soul grappling with the harsh realities of his present and (lack of) future as he fights to find a way out of the vicious cycle.

In the twilight years of his career, Mr. Kurosawa blessed us with his legendary retelling of William Shakespeare’s King Lear; Ran (1985) is a war epic surrounding a medieval Japanese warlord as he desperately seeks to retire, all by giving away his vast empire to his three sons.

Requiem for a Dream earns every ounce of respect and infamy it has earned over the years. This is not for the faint of heart whatsoever. The story follows an interconnected group of diverse characters in the slums of New York City in the 90s as they struggle through progressively worse addiction. Jared Leto leads the cast as a young son and boyfriend who comes across a “great idea” to start slinging the drugs he and his friends are so hopelessly addicted to.

This one I hold close to my heart just due to the immense weight of its emotion and how it digs its claws into your soul and carefully dissects it by the time the credits are rolling. The story follows Charlie, a young high schooler who doesn’t have any friends and is simultaneously dealing with some harsh personal trauma. What strikes me about this film is the direction by Chbosky, who clearly had a vision for this novel coming to life prior to his making it.

There is something special about hiding indoors amidst the cold. Trying to remain positive here.

“…Because I’m champagne, and you’re shit. Until the day you die.” One of the final lines uttered by Jon Lovitz’s character...