2 movies, 2 books
the other night we watched Inglourious Basterds. the netflix DVD had been sitting by the TV since April. despite a huge love for both Tarantino and Pitt, whenever i was looking for movie to watch, i couldn’t bring myself to watch it. finally, we did. and during the first scene, the first 20 minutes, i almost turned it off. it wasn’t the violence, although i did put my hands over my face during every violent scene in the film, it’s that i have never been able to watch films about the holocaust. i have never seen Schindler’s List. every fiber of my being revolts against this fact about our history – that such widespread, unbelievable sociopathy occurred – and i get physically ill. and that first scene: the farmhouse. the farmer. the nazi. the children. i really almost couldn’t take it, especially faced with the thought of another 90 minutes of witnessing such wrenching, diabolical evil incarnate. while not based on actual people/events, it is based in something that happened in reality, and that just wrenches me inside. and then later in the film, during the glamorous movie premier, the wives of the Nazis, dressed in their furs and diamonds and sequined gowns: how did they live with themselves??
at first i was a bit put off by the Pitt character, the introduction of a humor element into this scenario. Tarantino has the balls to introduce dark comedy into the holocaust?? but then i was thankful for the comedic relief provided. it’s what enabled me to watch the rest of the film (that and i fell totally in love with Mélanie Laurent). (interesting sidenote: Laurent’s father is the voice of the French Ned Flanders!)
.::.
i also recently watched Slaves of New York (1989), starring a supercute Bernadette Peters wearing 80s outfits exactly like what i wore in the 7th grade and are totally now back in fashion! (are we over the reprise of the floral print yet? seriously.) it stuck with me and has been on my mind because 1. the script (based on a short story by “brat pack author” Tama Janowitz and written by the author for Andy Warhol but then he died) is actually pretty awesome and 2. although 21 years ago and very dated visually/aurally, the scene portrayed is one i encounter frequently/move around in/empathize with: artists’ loft spaces where the doors fall off if you pull too hard, parties where everyone is trying really hard to be a persona and/or convince you to love their art/music/thing and the socializing is exhausting, how or when or why to like or support your friends’ conceptual art, etc. but it was the truly congruous things like the fact that Peters’ character makes these AMAZING SCULPTURAL HATS (just like my friend Caley Johnson!), and her Allen-esque character saying something to the effect of “i don’t like going to parties because socializing and anxiety feel the same for me.” ahem.
.::.
speaking of “brat pack authors” who write about scenesters, i am slowly reading “Glamorama” by Bret Easton Ellis, which is the literary equivalant of watching trash TV for me. i am definitely a bit over the “i am so rich and so hot and so oblivious” thing with all his characters, but i love his writing style so much i can’t stop reading his books. i think it’s the unbelievably obsessive use of details that gets me. if you’re super into Ellis and his subject matter check out “Sting Like A Bee: A Critical Exploration Of All Things Bret Easton Ellis“.
.::.
i recently read and loved and recommend The Anxiety of Everyday Objects by Aurelie Sheehan, about an “Artist in the Office” type who works a day job at a staunchy firm but is secretly working on a film. that exists only in her head. much like many of my unmanifested art projects.
i loved the cadence of this novel, the mundane but telling details combined with an inner monologue that presents a feeling of surreality caused by the intersection of constant daydreaming and a “real world” of satirical situations, making you wonder – which one is bizarro, and which one worth living?
Filed in tv, books and movies | Tagged with bret easton ellis, NaBloPoMo | Comment (0)(fame) puts you there where things are hollow
ELLIS: But people can create their own kind of fame with tech now. You can set up websites devoted to yourself. You can very easily live out that visual fantasy of yourself as famous. What may be different is that with such a culture of immediate gratification, the desire to actually move your ass, become talented at something, and then try to succeed at something like acting or singing or dancing is no longer necessary. Sometimes you watch those elimination rounds on shows like American Idol and wonder, “Do people really think this about themselves?”
BOLLEN: It’s gotten to the point that embarrassing yourself has overstepped talent. Talent is far less interesting or consumable than public spectacle.
ELLIS: Do we judge that human craving for attention? For fame? Doesn’t that need seem human in a way? “I’m here. I exist. Look at me.” There’s something weird about people putting that need down or judging it. I don’t know. I feel too contradictory when I discuss this. One side of me thinks, “This is ridiculous.” And then the other side says, “No, it’s also human.” I guess I just don’t know if I’m really that interested in complaining about the culture anymore.”
– full interview with Bret Easton Ellis @ Interview Magazine, regarding his new book, and the LA culture he has become famous for writing dispassionately about:
Filed in QOTD, tv, books and movies | Tagged with bret easton ellis | Comment (0)Sentimentality has no place in Ellis’s worlds—so much so that it is a wonder when any character thinks in the past tense at all. But now, 25 years after Less Than Zero launched his career, Ellis has made another shocking departure by going back to where he started. In June, Ellis releases Imperial Bedrooms, a sequel to his debut, which drops in on Clay, Blair, Julian, and other Less Than Zero denizens who, now in their forties, are haunting and haunted by the post-glamour, post-shock, post-moral, post-purpose Hollywood scene. Clay is now a screenwriter. Upon returning to Los Angeles from New York to work on a film, he slowly falls back into old ways—parties, drugs, sex—as the plot teems with more-graphic Ellisian tropes like murder, ghosts, dismemberment, and paranoia. For anyone assuming that the author has created something of an upbeat 90210 reunion, the opening pages clarify the difference between Hollywood’s favorite export and the actual on-the-ground circumstance: “The movie was begging for our sympathy,” says Clay, referring to the 1987 film version of Less Than Zero, “whereas the book didn’t give a shit.”
