where should we sit?
•
where should we sit? •
policies of an anti-film reviewer
policies of an anti-film reviewer:
a list of wills and won’ts.
I only review what movies I’m interested in.
I will spend 70% of the time about my experience in watching the film and spend 30% talking about the actual movie.
I am aware that Hollywood and the mainstream entertainment industry has its own issues and I am loathe to go into detail of said issues on my own personal website. (Trying to keep those cortisol levels LOW.)
Most films I watch will not meet the ridiculously impossible standard I have set: Be the best thing I have ever seen.
I will eke out some joy from the experience and share that joy with my readers.
I will use my AMC Stubs A-List membership to the fullest extent, except for upgrading to a large popcorn because I am trying to stay alive until 100.
I will ALSO support local and independent theaters, including, but not limited to:
theatres with confusing calenders
theaters whose patrons have difficulty interacting with the general public
theaters with cafes that serve artisanal teas and do not accept cash
theaters that have limited refreshments, do accept cash, and have impeccable taste in media overall
theaters that are convenient for me to go to
I’m sorry, I’m not hoofing it all the way to NoHo to see something at midnight, I am tired and cranky. Matinees only
If I watch it at home on my projector, that still counts, baby
theaters that begrudgingly serve your food to your seat
theaters that encourage you to bring your own food
If I don’t review the film, either I didn’t see it or I didn’t care about it enough.
The following genres of films are prohibited:
dudebro comedies
horror/slasher with the exception that there is a feminist, absurdist or subversive element, eg; The Ring, Midsommar.
Aggressively CGI animated films such as Pixar/Dreamworks or Disney films
romantic comedies unless
there’s absolutely NOTHING else to see
they’re written and/or directed by a filmmaker whose work and taste I trust.
there is a crime/action thriller or choreographed martial arts component
it’s real fuckin’ old. like from the 30’s or 40’s.
musicals. Operas screened through AMC do not count. Still too much singing though.
I fully recognize and can distinguish the differences between film, independent film, student film, mainstream movie and summer blockbuster as well as adjust my expectations for each.
I understand that I am primarily motivated to watch movies in the theatre as a reason to get dressed, see and be seen, enjoy air conditioning, and eat refreshments in a comfortable and dark room.
The longer the film the better it is. I want to get my money’s worth.
IF THERE IS A TIP JAR AT THE CONCESSION STAND I WILL TIP.
the christophers: lost time
I used to be an artist.
Painting used to excite me, and I lived in two distinct worlds. The real world, the one that we all participate within, and My real world, the one that mattered to me. The real world could have been on fire a thousand times, and it is on fire now, just as it was on fire then, and I never fully cared nor fully invested in the emotions of it because I. had. my. real. world.
My real world was big and limitless, and anything I could desire or think of, all I had to do was just paint it or bring it out in a sculpture, or a song, or a birthday cake, or a joke, but most of all I could see and feel and taste all of those things, because they were real. Painting takes a lot out of you, right alongside all the responsibilities of The real world, and, after a certain point, one world has to make the cut. Some people are lucky, they can balance their worlds and exist within both. Some people can monetize their worlds. Some people don’t have to choose work. I chose work, partly because it was how I was raised:
“You have work and find a job so that you can just paint.” was something repeated to me over and over until I gave in, and I believed.
But before that concession, I painted and drew everyday nonstop for nearly 25 years, and I always believed that I would “make it”, and that my real world would eclipse the standard, liberating me permanently.
Naturally, I starved, especially at first.
I worked part-time jobs and avoided invitations to move back home. I survived on instant oatmeal, brown rice, and bananas. The work flowed easily. I became vegan to save money on groceries and impress a boyfriend who was bad in bed, but baked me bread.
I painted large canvasses and did two installation shows. I became anemic due to lack of protein. My work went from 2Dimensional, to interactive and multimedia. I had to have a wisdom tooth pulled and when the bleeding didn’t stop, I swallowed it and fell asleep, waking up to vomiting up my own blood on the futon. I made project after project and website after website. The weeks towards the end of every month got very scary. I found myself in a relationship, and he said I was wasting away. I took a management job and finally had money to buy paint again, instead of solely making art from trash.
It happened slowly, at first, I really believed that I would be able to finally fully support my passion as an artist. My new job had multiple connections for young artists, and I saw this as a joint-stepping stone for not-starving and being successful. Obviously, this was the wrong choice. It was a mess, the hiring was bad, for weeks, many of us cried in backstock, and little by little, my real world became damaged. Five years later, I finally quit working full time altogether.
The buoyancy of my 20s was gone, my materials had aged, I was single, and the landscape had shifted. It was over, but at least I felt alive. I picked up right where I left off, but I was off. The innocence was gone and I’d seen just how things could go really wrong. My real world packed up shop and left, and I was stranded in The real world. When the excitement of finishing a painting was over, I turned to video art, then “multimedia art” which could be anything, and then a short film shot inside a sweaty apartment, then insanity, then Covid, then more screenwriting, then more death (Father and Grandma died four years apart), more insanity, more hustling, more writing, and here we are.
If you haven’t been introduced to the magic of art, the magic of creating art, creating meaning from scratches and abstraction, or turned meaning into abstraction, if you haven’t allowed yourself to escape into sculpture or gluing random shit down, if you haven’t fallen asleep on your 5 foot drawing on the floor, haven’t flirted with a guy so he’d buy your painting so you’d have bus fare for the month, if you haven’t sat in a cab with your friends after returning from a punk show pooling your crumbled dollars together to get home safely, if you haven’t lurked around artist residencies smoking the half-smoked cigarettes from random ashtrays, if you haven’t tried to paint during your lunch breaks, if you haven’t had potential models or photographers flake on you at the last minute, if you haven’t peeled dried acrylic paint off a wooden floor, if you haven’t painted your friend’s car with a giant can of white housepaint just because, if you haven’t had to store all your paintings because you couldn’t sell them, if you haven’t had to store all your drawings and sketches and zines and jewelry and journals because you couldn’t move back home, if you haven’t had a storage unit you could no longer afford because you lost both part-time jobs due to Covid, if you haven’t had to have the conversation with the person working at said storage facility that your entire life’s work would be abandoned because you couldn’t pay, if you haven’t lost your dreams, if you haven’t lost your time, if you haven’t lost your youth, if you haven’t lost your world, if you haven’t lost people, then watching The Christophers won’t really mean much to you, but it did to me.
mortal kombat ii: fun, weird, easy.
My feet started hurting around 3:30, and since the Devil Wears Prada 2 didn’t start until 4:30, I cancelled my reservation and quickly purchased a ticket for Mortal Kombat II.
It started at 3:47, but really somewhere closer to 4:15, with all of the trailers. I have an A-List membership through AMC stubs, meaning, if I purchase online, I can see up to 4 free movies a week. That’s a lot of movies, and it’s really worth the 29.99 per month for someone who goes to the movies all of the time.
Most of the time I don’t enjoy myself.
Most of the time I’m going so I have somewhere I can sit in the dark, escape other people, and enjoy the free air conditioning. The people working there look like they want to kill themselves, and as someone who used to work exclusively in customer service and did want to kill themselves, I understand their pain, and their hostility only adds to the moviegoing experience.
The guy that runs AMC used to be the head of cruise lines, and I can expect him speaking gruffly and casually to someone underneath him, that “people don’t want art, they want to be entertained. They want the best value their money can get.”
He imagines waterslides and lounge chairs, and a lot of symmetry. I hardly remember what going to the movies used to be like. I’m not too upset about the chairs though. I do remember not enjoying the chairs when I was little, and some of the more pretentious independent theatres in and near West Hollywood are still old-school style, and you can still fall in between the chairs, just like I did as a kid.
Nothing looked good at the concession stand, and I only barely heard the cashier say he’d be right there to help me when I was ready, but I could hear the hatred and fatigue in his voice. Usually I pack something with me, but I forgot this time, so I went upstairs empty handed.
Sometimes the air conditioning goes out at these theatres, and there’s never any signage, they just leave the doors wide open throughout the entire thing. A couple of times I’d gone in and sat in swampy hot recycled air before leaving to go get a refund. The doors were open upstairs, but the AC seemed to be working fine, which was good, as this was a fairly packed house. I found a loose protein bar in my bag and quickly found my seat.
A couple had been sitting in it, and they politely moved to the row ahead of them while I asked. The girlfriend had been reclining with a blanket, and when I sat down the seat was already warm. I pre-opened my protein bar so it wouldn’t crinkle during the show, and half-watched a slew of violent upcoming trailers that everyone groaned at when an impaling was involved.
Nicole Kidman’s face came on the screen, that horribly annoying dance break interlude broke through and then AMC thanked the shareholders after asking us all to silence our phones.
A few people kept texting in the darkness. One depressed summer, I made a habit of going to the same movie at different theatres, long after its release date, so I could get more AC and more solitude. I always ended up sitting in a back row, and enjoyed reading over people’s shoulders as they texted back. Some people would record parts of the film. So much had already gone on on-screen that I dissociated and by the time I came back into my body, I’d forgotten I’d be watching new material. I got so used to being unimpressed or disappointed at what I’ve seen that I was actually surprised when I found myself enjoying the film.
People were behaving in it as though they were in a video game. In this case, the over-the-top graphics, extensive color saturation, cheesy and camp dialogue, and simplistic plot actually fit the genre of the film. I wasn’t watching anything dumbed down, that had been dumbed down by accident.
This was purposefully dumbed down, which made it intelligent.
Every scene fit, every scene of someone getting sliced canonically made sense, and the clean resolution made me optimistic about life.
Good job.
My feet stopped hurting, I sipped my water. Nobody heard me chew on the protein bar, as there was always a big “OH” at the really bloody parts. There was one guy who sat in the middle who had an obnoxious laugh, and I’m beginning to believe that this is not a real person. That this guy is not a real person who exists and has feelings and emotions and lives outside in the real world. That this is someone whom the studio hires for the promotion of a film. They make sure he purchases a ticket in the center, dead center, and they also hire two other guys to sit on either side of him. His laugh is unlike anything in nature. It’s a bully’s laugh. He always has a hat on, and a tshirt, and whistles at women who are projected onto the screen and not actually in front of him in the flesh. He was there yesterday and he’s at every blockbuster, making sure you hear every joke and every stab and every flirtatious giggle, so you too can get your money’s worth.
I played Mortal Kombat as a kid, not successfully, but I still played. The killing used to scare me a little bit, and I didn’t understand all of that heady existential metaphysical crap that they explored in the film, but this viewing was nostalgic for me nonetheless. We’ve been seeing so much ultra-realism, everything is too real, everything is authentic, everything is defined, we’re all sharing too much.
The fight scenes in every movie have to be so real that you believe the actor is actually that good at fighting, and maybe they are. Then we have to read about how they wore themselves to death training for a year to be that good, and then you see it over and over again.
People doing martial arts and looking good in movies, the same scene over and over again.
Not everything has to be real, some things are allowed be dumb and fun in the correct context. Watching this was like watching me play fight with action figures and, it was 100% appropriate in the context of a videogame movie. It felt good to escape our garbage reality in favor of beautiful and stylized garbage, just as it felt good to escape my childhood in favor of video game violence as a 10 years old.
It did not make me feel like I was on drugs, so it loses a few points there, as I tend to rate how good a film is by how much of an altered state I’m in by the time I leave the theatre.
A few of us, trained from years of absorbing Marvel movies, stayed throughout the end credits. Nothing there, but a guy next to me did spend the entire length of the 16 minute credit sequence to take a phone call and speak at full volume. He gave his full review during the conversation, he liked it too. The guy, the one that’s paid for by the studios, stood up throughout the credit sequence, gesticulating wildly and joking with his friends. So he was real. I left the theatre sober, but happy, which are two very rare things for me, and when I went to the bathroom, after, I faintly heard the guy’s his trademark laughter outside. He was waiting for his friends.
I have to respect perspective, for this is some young person’s Bloodsport, this is some kid’s important Kumite. And in all of my cynical musings, I have to leave room for somebody else to be inspired.
After all, I saw it for free.