Stranger than Paradise ***Warning Spoilers***

It takes a certain amount of confidence to dedicate an entire movie to nothing. Jim Jarmusch made it happen in the culturally bare 80s. Parts of the movie feel so naked I get worried. The characters act so natural it seems like voyeurism, as if I’m spying on them from my position of privilege. 

A few things are added in that make the appeal to me a little more personal. For one, Eva’s lack of interest in nearly anything is amazing. I simply adore her deadpan delivery on everything. Perhaps I can relate to some degree, since I’ve been told that I lack emotion in how I speak (I talk to you in monotone) so kudos for that.

“I put a spell on you” has to be the strangest reoccurring joke in a movie. There’s no purpose to it, besides Eva being interested in it. Whenever she’s bored, she simply has a tape recorder right next to her to keep her entertained. I wish I had the guts to just carry around a tape recorder with me, but I don’t even travel with an IPOD, or listen to music when I’m driving (whenever that rarely happens). 

The black and white looks glorious. Devoid of color, you get to focus on the truly crummy details of their surroundings. Willie’s apartment looks like total trash. Cleveland doesn’t appear to be much different. Everywhere is the same indeed, Eddie even states so himself. 

Bored with stealing from other people (something that lets Willie and Eva bond) they go to Florida for no real reason. Nothing happens. They look cool in sunglasses. Willie and Eddie gamble while Eva is left lonesome. Annoyed at being left alone, she steals a hat (as she usually does, she’s a kleptomaniac) and gets mistaken for a drug dealer. Given a huge amount of money by Rammellzee (Far Rockaway represent!), she leaves some for the two of them and goes to the airport.

What’s funny is how unwilling she is to go back to her home country. Apparently that’s the only flight she can still make, and she finds that very annoying. I guess she takes up their advice that it is the same all over, and waits for the flight the next day. Willie boards the Budapest bound flight to look for her and leaves. 

 The Cleveland parts are the best. Parts of the dialogue read like how I speak with people, which freaked me out. How they act as they intrude on her boring date and steal his popcorn. How they mock her geeky boyfriend. All of it works for reasons that aren’t easily explained. 

Casual films bore me most of the time, but this one did it for me. There’s something more underneath all that monotonous landscape, a real honestly and heart that you don’t find in movies very often. 

Start Watching: Here

Imperialist Swine Must Die!

                North Korea is a beautiful, blessed country under the enlightened rule of Kim Jong Il. For years he created a true worker’s paradise. In fact, so great was this paradise that people no longer had to eat, allowing us to use the money on our military. Independent North Korean film festivals in Pyongyang are a must for the dear leader, whose subjects attend the films more than the decadent imperialist swine from South Korea who wallows in their own waste.

                Sadly, I am writing about my concern regarding the recent movie shown to all proud North Koreans. The practice of Juche (self-reliance) has been forever sullied. Ruining the vibrant arts community that exists in North Korea is not the best way of introducing 100 years of Juche reigning supreme over our illustrious country. People deserve better than to be fed the filth from the corrupt capitalist regimes.

                Of course I’m talking about the airing of the movie: “Bend it like Beckham”. Presented on North Korean television, I truly grew offended at what it proposed. Who was this Beckham person, and why would we ever want to bend it like him? What specific abilities did he have that our own soccer champions did not possess? And besides, what country did this take place in? Last time I checked, the “UK” wasn’t one of the five countries North Koreans were told about. Obviously this is part of a Western-inspired plot to provoke unrest within the peaceful kingdom. 

                The amount of absurdity knows no bounds in this travesty of a sham of a movie. Soccer is our best sport; the mere suggestion that there are others winning it is so silly. Whenever we face another team, the other team sees the determination and motivation of our players and stands down, allowing us to score goal after goal. Due to our nuclear weapons, they know how foolish it would be to upset us, knowing we would scale a full-out assault on their homeland with our victorious army.

                Kim Jong-Un must put a stop to these instigators. How they managed to break into the country and gain access to an hour’s worth of television programming is beyond me. I know that North Korea faces many foes from the outside, but I was assured that Kim Jong-Un had eaten most of them. At least that’s what I had been advised by high-ranking party officials upon inquiring about his waistline. 

                What bothers me most is the unsettling feeling that our people might have actually chosen this rubbish as an example of ‘good cinema’. If that is the case, perhaps our glorious leader needs to create “re-education” camps to show them good films. Though I hope our people didn’t choose this, we must have Kim Jong-Un guide the poor sheep to true taste. Perhaps an idea might be to kidnap various directors to produce movies for North Korea, something we’ve done before. That way we could help our wayward brothers and sister realize what is good. Below are some directors who ought to be kidnapped and brought back to North Korea. Most of them share North Korean concerns about the temptations of wealth and fame, so they would be suitable:

1.       Wes Anderson – I know he is free. All of his movies show how dissatisfied his wealthy characters are, and they end the same way: with all of the characters coming together in slow motion to sing the praises of North Korean self-reliance.

2.       David Lynch – David Lynch shows the true colors of American capitalism. Movies like “Eraserhead” show how concerns about wealth lead to the birth of disgusting pig children and how erasers are made. 

3.       Jim Jarmusch – showing the emptiness of life in America and its hostility towards foreigners, I know his movie would make a good fit for North Korean cinema. 

4.       Coen Brothers – Their exploration on practitioners of self-reliance (Juche) make them superb. When I saw how the Big Lebowski lived in accordance to Juche, I nearly cried at the industrious work ethic of “The Dude”.

Those are by no means the only directors. But I feel they would help inspire selflessness amongst all of our citizenry. After our investigation, I hope that we do not discover our citizens have poor taste and that it was simple infiltrators. Let us give praise to our glorious leader!

Nerve City – Sleepwalker EP 8.0

Whoa, I never enjoy EPs this much. Music releases in general usually involved some sort of fat to be trimmed, or the expectation that at some point the musician will skimp out on that indefinable quality known as “good”. Here we have one of those few releases.

Right from the get-go, it sounds Lo-Fi. I know that term gets thrown around, like a gimmick for bands to hide behind. Like “Oh, we’re lo-fi, it doesn’t have to be catchy.” Nerve City didn’t get that memo, it sounds like pure infectious pop. As I listen to it, it delivers on the promise bands like The Black Lips guaranteed us, only to give it to us periodically.

“Sleepwalker” is such a sweet, sweet track. It is a great beginning, so great that I wondered whether or not the rest of the EP lived up to that expectation. Would the lyrics be as interesting, or the melodies as infectious? Actually yes would be the answer.  

“Armory” removes some of the dreamy quality for a big stomp with a serious Western twang. Think of an acid cowboy movie soundtrack and you are there (looking at you Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man”). And “Runaway” sounds beyond lo-fi, like some re-discovered blues track from the early 30s.

I’m shocked they come from Miami. First Iron & Wine, then Jacuzzi Boys, if I didn’t know better I’d say there’s an undercurrent in music which works against its environment. Rather than take the easy approach and just accept how tacky Florida can be, they look for the authentic. Nerve City do this to a tee. Below is a delightful link to some of their youtube videos. Enjoy!

Nerve City