Enter the Void

Thursday, December 2, 2010 08:29 PM

Not being able to sleep can make me crazier than I already am.  I used to feel trapped by my  thoughts, imprisoned in my head.  And there be monsters in there.  Watching movies has been helpful at escaping, and writing has been even more effective.    Recently, I found myself thinking, “What better film to view in the predawn morning than Gaspar Noe's latest film, Enter the Void?"  I had been hearing about this movie that seemed to be more of a psychedelic journey than anything else for over a year and had been looking forward to watching it.

To say the movie is visually stunning is an understatement-it is amazingly trippy. Tokyo turns into a neon glowing fantasy world.  The line between what was shot with camera and what was computer generated graphics is so thin that the viewer is constantly off guard, trying to keep up with the sifting and changing scenery.

Oscar's hallucination

The story is told from the point of view of Oscar, a young American living in Tokyo with Linda, his sister. For most of the movie, the camera acts as his eyes, complete with blinking. He spends most of the film under the influence of powerful hallucinogens.  The sequence where he smokes DMT, a powerful hallucinogen,  is beautiful and eerie . The colors, shapes and lights swirl hypnotically, creating a constantly changing womb like galaxy.

Oscar needs to pull himself back when the phone rings, leaving little, dancing sparkles flitting about his periphery. That brought back some memories! After watching something transform into something new, then having to focus, there would often be little remainders of the dancing transformations, tendrils of light rising off the corners of a mouth, concentric lines like the age rings of a tree around their faces, still objects come to life as they breathed, growing and shrinking.  Colors would be brighter and the air would filled with glowing embers. A good computer generated approximation is the Electric Sheep Screensaver.

Oscar goes into the night

The night turns into a
 glowing, fantasy land

As Oscar and his friend, Alex go out later that night, Alex explains what happens to the soul after death, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The dead rise up like ghosts and can see and hear what goes on in this plane of existence, but are unable to interact with it. Then they relive their lives, and can either move on the a higher level, or if they are too attached to move on, they stay here watching until eventually being reincarnated.

Alex's summation is useful for the viewer in understanding what happens in the rest of the movie. Oscar and the viewer go on that journey; we both look down on his memories and the present, stirred together in a confusing mixture. Oscar watches how his friends and sister struggle with the impact of his death from his ceiling vantage point, passing through walls and across the night sky. Occasionally he floats down, closely observing their lives. Sometimes what he witnesses is real, sometimes surreal. At one point, his soul travels through a Love Motel and observes the couples having sex. Phallic shaped glow sticks replace men's penises, and white, ectoplasmic smoke drifts out of the women's genitals.

In a memory, Oscar and Linda walk
through an already psychedelic Tokyo night

Always bewildering and maze like, Enter the Void is occasionally difficult watch. Linda spends so much of the film in hysterics that I found myself rooting for the sleeping pills when she attempted suicide.

Sometimes the best thing to be said about a movie is the illusion of motion, produced by a rapidly projected series of still images and that is certainly true with Enter the Void. I found myself completely immersed by the artistry and beauty as Oscar's night passed.  The last time I experienced anything as stunning was watching a sunset from a mountain top in Vermont; the colors became so intense they made their own sounds, filling the air around with light and music until the sun disappeared below the horizon, leaving me to find my way home in the dark.

Sunday, December 5, 2010 08:33 PM

HP 5

Thursday, December 2, 2010 12:00 PM

NB: The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book,  Harry Potter and the Something something, part one,  has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will beSPOILERS !
The fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix doesn't make too many big changes in the wizarding world.  Voldemort's power continues to grow, the students at Hogwarts arre divided between loyalty to Dumbledore and aleigence to Voldemort.  

Bellatrix Lestrange

Female characters are often under=developed in the Hrary Potter films.  Despite being Harry's companion since the beginning, Hermione Granger is a mystery. And aside from casting an occasional spell or helping brew a potion, she mostly rolls her eyes and “harrumph-ing” at her male companions. She was born of two muggle parents and respected for her intelligence, 

Even arch villain, Bellatrix Lestrange is given little to do except kill Sirius in the final battle.

A major exception is Dolores Umbridge, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor From the Ministry of Magic. Her public face is a sweet, elementary school teacher in pink. In private, she twitches and quivers with secret passions and ambitions. Stephan King called her “ greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter....” 

Shortly after arriving at Hogwarts she begins to insinuate herself into it administration, eventually replacing Dumbledore as headmaster and turning the school into a totalitarian state, with her installed as chief despot.

Once installed as headmistress, she rules the staff and students of Hogwarts with an iron fist, using her position with the Ministry of Magic to bully and coerce staff and her powers as a witch to subject the students to painful tortures and illegal drugs for interrogation.ses.

She is last seen being dragged off into the woods by a herd of angry centaurs. I hope to see more of this conniving, unconscionable villain. Things are much more interesting when she is around.

Saturday, December 4, 2010 03:00 PM

Insomniac Theater Presents Previews of Coming Attractions

Saturday, December 4, 2010, 6:06 AM

I've been awake for over 24 hours, the longest I've been conscious without special circumstances such as intense pain or intense pleasure. I know my heart is racing without using instruments to check it, my breathing is shallow and my skin is layered in a thin rime of cold perspiration. It is still full dark and I try to convince myself that there is no movement out there beyond the range of the porch lights.

I am at my weakest now, and I clutch my talisman, praying that dawn will come and bring salvation to me for one more day.

In the meantime, I will continue to work on my future posts; the one on Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void is nearly done.  The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  one has to be finished soon because I watched  Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince  last night so I need to organize my thoughts on that film before I can see the latest HP film.

Then there are the ones from New Orleans,  Salt v. Machete, if I can read my hand written notes, and the personal one about the going through airport security in a wheel chair.

The dogs are barking, something is approaching the perimeter; where is Commander Adams?

Harry Potter and the fall from Grace

Monday, November 29, 2010, 11:16am

NB: The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book,  Harry Potter and the Something something, part one,  has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will be SPOILERS !

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, (2005, directed by Mike Newell) , the fourth installment of the Harry Potter franchise, is the darkest so far in the series. Several references to Biblical stories and characters add gravity to the story allowing comparison between events in the wizarding world and mankind's fall and pursuit of grace.

The muggle world doesn't make more than a cameo appearance, beginning with Harry already in the wizarding world. He f irst appears, waking up fr om a troubling dream, in the home of his magical, adoptive family, the Weasleys.

Like his twin from the Bible, Voldemort
brings evil to the wizarding world

Harry's dreams show Voldemort 's efforts to regain his power. Like a messianic figure , Voldemort wants to return to flesh and lead his followers to victory, bringing his apocalypse.Once reborn, his countenance resembles a large snake head.

Lord Voldemort's minions, known as Death Eaters, bear the Dark Mark. The Dark Mark closely resembles the Mark of Cain, placed on Cain by God for murdering Able, his brother. The Mark of Cain served two purposes; to signal Cain's cursed status and as a warning that no one could kill him, he was God's alone.

The senseless killing of Hogwarts student, Cedric Diggery at the film's climax, mirrors the first post-lapsarian sin of murder. By unwittingly helping resurrect Voldemort, Harry has brought about the fall of the peaceful wizarding world. When he brings Cedric's body back to Hogwarts, yelling that Voldemort had fully returned, he is announcing the fall of the wizarding world from its graceful state. The evil he sought to escape in the muggle world and had fought so hard to prevent in the wizarding world has been unleashed.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione ponder their future

Rule 34 picture

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ends with Harry and his friends preparing themselves mentally for the new, darker world that is being born.

The Child Molester

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 09:35 AM

This is the complete version of a post I sent over to Kindertrauma.  The following story is true.  The names have been changed to protect me from libel suits, but you know who you are!

Something so frightening happened to me as a child that for most of my life I  wondered  it was real or not. I was in a strange school's cafeteria with my mother. Instead of the happy, playful atmosphere that I had associated with places like this, it was grim and foreboding.There were other kids and mothers there, but no one I knew.  Mom kept me close to her side and I felt very alone.

Part of my anxiety came from the fact that I had no idea why we were there. The other part was from the look on Mom's face.  She had her “You're in trouble” look on her face.  Had I done something wrong?  Was I going to be punished in this frightening place?  

I was half right, I hadn't done anything wrong, but what I was about to experience was so frightening that it would seem like punishment. I think  Mom was concerned about what we were both about to go through and it showed on her face.

We were there to see a movie about two little girls who took candy from a stranger and got into his car.   A fat and greasy man kidnapped two little girls while they played by enticing them with candy. He took them to the woods and after satisfying his monstrous desires, killed them. The ending was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen; the girls' bodies lay, sprawled on the ground, looking like lumps of bloody meat wrapped in children's clothing. The tiny actors were dressed like real murder victims, whose bloody crime scene photographs were used.  The bloodied children's corpses drove home the point that THIS WAS NOT JUST A MOVIE, it was real.

This was why our  mothers were there, to calm the hysterical children after the most frightening experience of our young lives.  Although I am certain many of them had nightmares themselves.

I was never sure if this actually happened or was one of the frightening dreams I was prone to, until I found it by accident on the Internet. My recollections were correct, even down to the clothes the children wore. The movie was called The Child Molester, a public service announcement made by the Highway Safety Foundation in 1964, the year I was born. What I attended with Mom was evidently a traveling roadshow, where the film went from town to town to educate parents and children about the dangers of talking to strangers.

Just what every six-year-old needs to see.

The movie had one major flaw, its purpose was to frighten children away from a phantom terror.  Most children are abused by someone known to them, a relative or trusted family friend.  It makes national news when a stranger does it. When it is Mr. Battles on Linwood Avenue, it barely gets a mention on the local news, so great is the community's shame.

The Child Molester did its job well; forty years later, I am still queasy about taking candy from strangers on the street and I seldom allow myself to be driven to isolated places in the woods by them. If any parents are worried about these things happening to their children, they may want to consider showing it to them.

I found the movie at the Internet Archive, where it can be streamed or downloaded for free.

Blogging Harry Potter

Sunday, November 28, 2010, 12:06 PM

I don't consider myself a huge Harry Potter fan. I have found that the books can be over long, over complicated, and tedious to read. But I couldn't wait to get my hands on the next one.  The movie versions, although epic in length, are stripped down to a bare minimum of plot and move along at a fast pace. The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Something something, part one, has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will be SPOILERS!

I downloaded all six movies from a USENET newsgroup and started re-watching the films during our recent vacation in New Orleans. My plan was to write about each film as I saw them, but didn't have the energy after our long trip.  It was easier to watch the next movie. I ended up watching the first three together, and write about them in one post.

Some of the things I wanted to write about are but couldn't fit in are:

• I do some of my best thinking in the shower.
• Not a lot happens until the end of the first and second movie. The previous 2/3rds are exposition about the characters and location.  The real mystery doesn't present itself until the end, when Harry fights against his nemesis.
• The third movie is beautifully made, using many interesting and stylish effects.  A great example is the glorious montages that depict the changing of seasons.  Sometimes the visual style threatens to overwhelm the movie, but it is totally worth it when you can't sleep.

We first meet our protagonist in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) , directed by Chris Columbus. His further adventures are chronicled 2002's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Chris Columbus. The third installment in the Harry Potter franchise is 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, this time directed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron.

Harry Potter is an orphaned adolescent whose parents were murdered by evil wizard, Lord Voldemort when he was an infant. He divides his time between the nonmagical world of his aunt and uncle and the magical world of his parents. Each film takes place during a single school year and chronicles Harry's growth, both as a wizard and as an adolescent heading for adulthood. The films have a similar three act structure; Harry's relationship to the nonmagical world of “muggles” (non-wizards or non-witches), his life during the school year, and a final segment that is part climactic battle and part epiphany.

Each movie begins in the muggle world, the non magical world, in the home of his abusive, adoptive family, the Dursleys. Harry struggles to fit in with them, but they treat him with contempt, believing him responsible for the death of his mother, sister of Mr. Dursley. Life with the Dursleys is work and and humiliation.  Their dislike of Harry is so great that they bar the windows and padlock the door to his room.

As Harry's strength and maturity grows in the wizarding world, so does his ability to defend himself in the muggle world.This arc is reflected by how he leaves the house; in the first two films, he needs help to leave the house, but in third, he is able to walk out on his own.  

The middle section of each film takes place at Hogwarts, a school for people with magical abilities.  Hogworts is also where Harry makes his friends and meets his enemies.  His greatest enemy is the mysterious Lord Voldemort, the wizard that killed Harry's parents. Voldemort is known as a “dark” or evil wizard who was unsuccessful in his attempt to kill Harry when he was an infant.  He is without physical body in the first three movies, relying on humans to do his evil bidding.

Draco Malfoy and his toadies

Among Harry's mortal enemies is the Malfoy family, whose son Draco also attends Hogwarts. The Malfoys preach racial superiority, based on how the magical talents were inherited. Like white supremacists, they often refer to them and their kind as “pure bloods.” Lucius, the patriarch of the family, uses his position at The Ministry of Magic, the governing arm of the wizarding world, to foment discriminatiuon against half bloods, wizards and witches with one magical parent, and mud bloods, those with two muggle parents.

Near the end of the school year, also the final section of the film, Harry does battle against his enemies, using the tools he picked up inn the middle section.  As the series progresses, Harry's strength and skill also increases.  

Hermione helps Harry save himself

In the first two films, Harry receives aide off-screen; the first is a spell cast by his mother to save him from Voldemort, the second by two magical items that appear, well, magically.  In the third film, Harry is able to save himself by going back in time to save himself when failed to cast a spell correctly.  Even though his loyal friend, Hermione, provided him with the means to travel back in time, it was his increased confidence that allowed him to succeed where he had failed earlier (or failed at the same time? Time travel can be so confusing.).

Thus far, Harry is well on his way down the path of his own bildungsroman,  his journey from adolescent to adult.  I can't wait (maybe I am that big of a Harry Potter fan after all) to see what happens in the next movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Sunday, November 28, 2010, 9:30 pm

Banner courtesy of Logo54.com

Watch this space for further announcements

We returned from our trip to New Orleans late last night and I am glad to be home;  I missed my couch, my pets, my reliable Internet connection, and my coffee maker.

I have some things that I would like to put here, about the city, about some movies I watched, why I want to see a lot more of...  Well, that is neither here nor there.

Hopefully I will be able to read my handwritten scrawl well enough to remind myself of what I found share worthy.

Spoiled by living in the land of free Wi-Fi

We left New Orleans on Monday after having a great time. Adrienne and I really enjoyed each other's company while touring around the city. We will be in Mobile, Alabama until Thursday, visiting a childhood friend of hers. I can not wait to see what interesting things I discover about my sweetheart!

The hotel in NOLA (the new, short hand for New Orleans) had no free access to the Internet (or Continental Breakfast!), so I am behind in my correspondence. I had plenty of great experiences and thoughts about traveling as a handicapped that I am sorting through right now and I am sure that writing about them will help.

Carrie (1976)

Monday, November 15, 2010 08:31 PM

In the fourth grade, at my friend Jeff's house, I spotted a book that his older sister had finished reading. The cover showed the face of a lovely girl, half in shadow, the other half in a silhouetted and masculine profile. His sister Judy asked me if I wanted to read it and I, being too scared of her to say no, said yes.

This was the first book written for adults I had read. It also introduced me to an author whose body of work would grow and mature as I did. I am talking about Stephen King's first novel, Carrie.

Years later, sitting in my literature classes at Miami, I hoped that a hundred years from now future students would be reading and deconstructing The Shining or The Stand just like we were doing with novels like The Red and Black or Death in Venice.

Not just an author of scary stories, King has also captured the minds, the thoughts, and the attitudes of Americans in the twentieth century with his writing. More than once during my years in Vermont did I meet someone who could have been one of King's New England characters.

Due to my parents strict "No R rated movies" policy,I wouldn't be able to watch Brian Depalma's 1976 adaption of Carrie until several years after it was released. It was maddening to listen to other kids, whose parents seemed not to care about movie ratings, talk about the movie (and give away the ending.) But at least I had read the book and could do my own compare and contrast exercises in my head.

The transition from book to screen went smoothly; Brian De Palma bought the rights to Carrie at the encouragement of a friend and easily found a studio interested in funding him. The film was a commercial and critical success, with two of its cast members earning Academy Award nominations.

King did not have any thing to do with making of Carrie, although he has reportedly said that it was a good movie. After watching it again recently, I think he is underestimating it. Not only is it a good horror film, but also a well made movie. De Palma brings a well crafted visual style to the movie while Lawrence Cohen's script imbibes the main characters with much broadness and complexity.

Sissy Spacek & Piper Laurie
practice family values at home

The cast's performances raise  Carrie above  most horror films from 1976.  Sissy Spacek gives an amazing performance as the titular character. She takes Carrie White from a shy and immature little girl to a mature young woman and then a vengeful demon sating its blood-lust on her Bates High School class in a short time. I found myself sharing her prom date Tommy's infatuation with her. I would have fallen in love with her too. This ebullience makes her final transformations in the last half of the film all the more frightening. It is subtle and delicate work; Spacek is absent for most of the first half of the film after its horrifying beginning. 


The contrast to her naiveté is the truly malevolent Margret White, Carrie's mother. Piper Laurie exudes her fervent religious insanity with a powerful intensity that casts her as one of the screen's most monstrous mothers. Both Spacek and Laurie earned Oscar nominations for their performances in Carrie.

Nancy Allen

Spacek's other supporting actors give fine, but less powerful performances. Carrie's high school nemesis, Chris Hargensen, played by Nancy Allen (RoboCop's partner!) is mostly a mystery; other than that she has Farah Fawcett hair, is dating hoodlum John Travolta, er, Vinnie Barbarino, er, Billy Nolan, and hates Carrie, nothing more is known about her. King seldom provides explanations or back stories for the evil that visits his characters; it just exists.

John Travolta as Billy Nolan or Vinnie Barbarino

Sue tries to use her boyfriend to redeem herself

Often King's characters cause calamity by acting in misguided or misinformed ways. This is personified by Sue Snell, Carrie's classmate, neighbor and a tormentor in the the film's opening scene played by Amy Irving, It is her attempts to redeem herself for harassing Carrie in the locker room that set the Rube Goldberg type chain of events in motion and results in the doomed dance.

Roger Daltry as Tommy, Sue's boyfriend

Sue's terror in the final scene, where Carrie attempts to drag her to Hell in a dream, might stem less from her fear of Carrie and more from guilt over her role in the demise of most of Bates High School's class of 1976.

The final act of the movie begins with Carrie near the height of her triumph-she stood up to her mother and has made a successful entrance to the prom. Her descent to vengeance seeking, blood spattered, homicidal demon is quick. Carrie ends the film a scared child, seeking comfort in her mother's arms, her transformation complete.

Prom Queen Carrie

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 06:30 PM

The coffee ritual

Saturday, November 11, 2010, 11:47 PM

Oxford has been unseasonably warm for the past few weeks, temperatures up in the seventies! Since it was too hot to be outside much this summer, I have been trying to take advantage of the warm temperatures by being outside as much as possible. I got to spend this morning drinking coffee with my neighbors while their kids played with Frannie and Eloise.

My coffee ritual is one of my favorite parts of the day. Sharing its mysteries with my neighbors made me feel like an evangelist for Starbucks (or a drug pusher).

Preparing for the ritual doesn't need any special raiments or a pure heart, but clean tools are needed for successful completion. I start by carefully cleaning out my stove top espresso maker. Next I carefully put water in the bottom, being careful not to go over the steam valve. Then I put in the basket and two or three scoops of espresso ground coffee (I only buy beans in stores that have grinders with an “espresso” setting); usually I use a bold, dark roasted bean, like French Roast or Sumatran. On the opposite end of the scoop's handle is flat disk that is used to tamp the coffee down. The final step is to screw on the pot on top put it on the burner, set on high.

Soon the water will boil, turn to steam and push the hot water through the grounds. I can watch the thick, black stream of coffee come out of the spout inside the pot. Soon the coffee covers the bottom of the pot and the crema (layer of foam) starts to build up . This is the best time to stick my nose over the pot and inhale the delicious sweet, almost peanut like aroma of the freshly made coffee. Because of its delicate chemical nature, the smell quickly disappears like the green flash at sunset in the tropics.

Watching the steam rise like the tails of invisible kites, I reverently bring my mug of espresso to my nose and think about all the promise for today that is within. I focus my concentration to the brown black contents of my mug, beckoning me to share its mysteries. Gently inhaling the promise and hope to be discovered today, I softly recite the magic spell, “ Coffee good!”

I can’t believe it is nearly noon and I’m still in my pajamas.

3:13 PM