Quick "I'm still here post"

Just wanted to say "hi" to all you out in blogland. I haven't forgotten you, I swear!

This blog isn't going to go live on a farm with Firefly and Community and mainstream horror movies that aren't found footage.

So I'm just going to post some of the crazy search terms that get people to my blog:

"psychedelic prison" - probably because of my post on Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise post. Or that's what the internet thinks my blog is.

"united trash" and "united trash movie" - well, there probably aren't many reviews of this movie, especially since it doesn't appear to have received any official American release, much less one with accurate subtitles.

"cornucopia wow" - either I mentioned World of Warcraft at some point, or people are just really impressed by this blog.

"galactus vs celestials" - I'm going with the Celestials, since they can hold entire worlds in their dreaming subconscious.

"it rains on the just and the unjust movie" "it rains on the just and the unjust alike" - because of my thoughts on Watchmen and my love of that quote, I guess.

"silver surfer 1970s" - well, John Buscema's art is definitely still amazing, but Stan Lee's scripts haven't held up as well.

Because Eve Tushnet always has such interesting posts...

Eve challenged her readers to think of Christian films and atheist films for hypothetical film festivals. Apparently, it's been easier for her readers to think of atheist films than Christian ones.

For the purpose of this post, she's talking about films that represent those worldviews, not necessarily films made by Christians or atheists.

Christian films

The Trial of Joan of Arc (d. Robert Bresson) - Not just because the subject is Joan, but because Bresson is focused on the suffering and humility of Joan, even her very human weaknesses, and her faith enables her to endure and transfigure those elements of her life. That transfiguration is the miracle we see in the film, not some fantastic magic trick (which is how film usually defines them).

Love Exposure (d. Shion Sono) - Actually, this film can probably be interpreted multiple ways. And while there is a fair amount anti-religious material here, it's notable that the worst behavior is of people who turn religion to their purposes. The hypocrites and those without humility are those that cause the most suffering, and it is love (both secular & religious) that gives the male protagonist the strength to struggle on against a world that is turned against him. It's also about the way that outcasts can find fellowship & express Christian brotherhood for each other. I'd love to see Eve's reaction to all the complex & weird ideas about religion, love, gender & sexual orientation that overflow this film.

Terri (d. Azazel Jacobs) - This film, focusing on an intelligent, perceptive but troubled boy & his attempts to reach out to the world, deals with the injustice and pain of engaging with a flawed world and the broken, foolish people who inhabit it. Despite all the heartache and pain that engagement brings, the movie shows us the need to reach out to our fellow sufferers and sinners, since only that outreach can shape our suffering and pain into something better.

That's all that I can think of, off the top of my head, at the moment. But there are two relatively recent films and one older film that promote a Christian humanist worldview, to balance out all those despairing films Tushnet & her readers have thought of so far.

Another blog post about blogging...

Once again, sorry for the huge gaps between posts. I'm co-producing that short film I mentioned last post (new content on our official website, along with the trailer), I've been volunteering at the amazing Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre a lot (buy me a drink and I'll tell you about the angry mob at the Natural History Museum), and I've been writing and revising a scene for an alumni showcase that's being performed the week we start shooting Women and Men and Women. On top of that, I'm obviously still trying to write a new screenplay and find a permanent day job. Finally, I'm going to the Midwest for about a week next Wednesday to meet The Best Girl Ever's family.

Just typing all that has me exhausted. I'm hoping I can get back to posting more regularly once I get back in mid-May. I might even fit in a post or two before then. No promises, though.

And check out the Women and Men and Women website!

Everyday I write the script...

Sorry I've been away for a while. Life keeps interfering with blogging, as it tends to. The good news is that part of the reason I've been so busy is another writing project, about which I plan to post more soon. The bad news is that, between that project, keeping my hand in at attempted screenwriting ("Do they give a Nobel for Attempted Physics?", I can hear Sideshow Bob whine) and my family coming to visit this week, it might be a little longer before I can post more.

So while I'm away, check out some of the blogs on the sidebar, especially The All-New, All-Different Cigarette Smoking Blog (for all your Catholic & historical nerd needs), Shadowplay and Antagony & Ecstasy. Those latter two will certainly fulfill all your cinematic nerdery needs.

I'm listed MIA...

Whoah, thanks to everyone who checked out my post on Hangmen Also Die! as part of the For the Love of Film Noir Blog-a-thon.

I've got some follow-up posts in the works, but I spent last week in Chicago, and this week was spent with me drained by the twin demons of poor health and day jobs.

But on the positive side, I've now got a blu-ray player that is Wi-Fi enabled, so I'll be watching Netflix even more easily now. And I also ordered Warner Archive's version of The Outfit, so hopefully a review of that will be up soon.

In the meantime, I recommend my cinephile friends check out Walter Hill's little-remembered Extreme Prejudice (1987). Scripted by John Milius, starring Powers Boothe, Nick Nolte, Rip Torn, Clancy Brown, William Forsythe and Michael Ironsides, it really deserves to be better remembered. It's a very strange and uneven film, but it hangs together much better than you'd expect. It really strikes a fascinating balancing act between neo-western and action-thriller, with the tension between the two genres serving as a thematic emphasis on the way the American spirit/character has changed.

Coming soon to a blog near you...

I know I haven't been updating much lately, despite having a lot of awesome things happen and seeing a lot of awesome movies.

However, I have promised to participate in the brilliant and charming Self-Styled Siren's For the Love of Film Noir blog-a-thon (link to donate to the restoration of a great noir film here).

I'm choosing between one of two films. Haven't quite decided which to post. Hint: one involves three actors named Robert and anti-semitism, the other involves a Nazi anti-hero.

More content soon, I promise!

Welcome to the working week...

Thanks, Eve Tushnet, for the link!

Right now, I'm busy with a new temp assignment and other projects. Updates soon, including one on Peter Sasdy's Countess Dracula, possibly the late Ingrid Pitt's best work.

If anyone still reads this blog...

I am alive! In the last month, I've shoved all my stuff into a storage unit in Chicago, seen my little sister get married, spent a whirlwind two weeks traveling to London, Amsterdam & Vienna, and am now about to move to Los Angeles, with an apartment almost lined up.

Hopefully at some point in the near future, I can get up my reviews of Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 at the Globe and a revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living at the Old Vic. And maybe a brief thing about some of the movies I've seen lately. Or about reading Schiller's Mary Stuart after seeing her tomb in Westminster. Or my travels in general.

Anyway, a lot of stuff has been happening these last few months. I hope once I get to LA, I'll have more time to blog. And since I don't have a job lined up there yet, there's a chance I'll blog enough to get you guys sick of me.

Standing on the blog where nobody posts...

Dear blog,
I'm sorry I abandoned you, but I've been busy fulfilling stuff that is more essential according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, i.e. figuring out where I'm going to live.

I've seen some pretty interesting films recently, such as Don't Bother to Knock (d. Roy Baker), Marilyn Monroe's almost psycho-killer role, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Piranha 3D (which I have more and more mixed feelings about, re: misogyny & sexism, but which has some pretty clever visual gags). And I want to watch both Casablanca & Cheyenne Autumn this week. But I've also got to move all my stuff into storage and say goodbye to most of my friends.

Sorry, blog. Maybe I'll see you in September?

Love,
Robby

Words for writers to live by...

Danilo Kis' A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, a sad and moving short story collection that recounts various Soviet-era apparatchiks, traitors, criminals and dissidents, ends with the tongue-in-cheek "The Short Biography of A.A. Darmolatov". The true meaning of this piece, about a minor poet who survives years of Soviet rule without getting sent to a work camp or put on trial, only emerges at the end with this postscript:

He remains a medical phenomenon in Russian literature: Darmolatov's case was entered in all the latest pathology textbooks. A photograph of his scrotum, the size of the biggest collective farm pumpkin, is also reprinted in foreign medical books, wherever elephantiasis (elephantiasis nostras) is mentioned, and as a moral for writers that to write one must have more than big balls.

"I'm very disappointed in all of you!"

So Smoke-Monster Fake Locke would say to me for not putting up any of my promised posts this weekend. I have no excuse, except that writing about Kate-centric LOST epiosdes are the least interesting thing in the world for me. Instead, I started writing a long post about the problems with Kate as a character, which, if I can hone into something other than verbose rage, I might put up. Otherwise, you're probably better off just listening to Sonic Weapon Fence's "Kate + No One 4 Eva" which summarizes her issues more succinctly than I ever could.

But hey, if anyone other than Kate is the focus of tonight's episode, I might actually post something about that!