Nostalghia (2019, Mike D'Angelo) (Patreon)

As many of you know, once upon a time there was a Yahoo chat group in which myself and a bunch of my friends spent what seems in retrospect like a truly astounding amount of time and energy arguing about what we called the films of the cinema. The group went almost entirely silent about a decade ago, as its members transitioned into true adulthood and parenthood and whatnot, and now Yahoo is about to delete the archive—over 60,000 posts spanning 19 years. (Though, again, the vast majority were written ca. 2000–2008.) Consequently, I downloaded all of the data, and have been rereading random posts that I haven't seen in nearly 20 years. Here's one that made me laugh several times, though maybe you had to be there. I'm replying to a friend shortly after the 2002 Toronto Film Festival; none of the films discussed are identified by their actual titles (because I instead created the fake titles for them that you see in brackets), and several of them are now all but forgotten, but I'll provide a key at the end. All misspellings and grammatical errors by both parties are intentional; it was part of the group shtick. Oh, and FUCK = TIFF, I don't even remember why anymore. (I think we started using "tiff" for "fuck" at some point and then it got reversed as well.) Anyway, this kind of extended riff for a tiny select audience is what I spent most of my thirties doing, and I miss it sometimes.

_______________________________________________

thanksbud:

It is pretty too bad more people did not see this wonderful crowd pleasing documentary about spelling bee kids [The Spelling Bee Kids].

This picture was so crowd pleasing that it was impossible to get the tickets for it. I tried to rush it twice and both times the rush line was longer than fuck.  (Assume for the reference that fuck is pretty long.) Fortunately I discovered upon returning to New York that it was playing in the documentary film festival here. This picture is not as awesome as thanksbud claims but it is pretty good. It is sort of like The Chain Camera in that there are too many kids and we do not spend enough time with any of them to glean the real insites. I especially wanted more time with the amazing dork kid who talks like a robot even when he knows he is being videotaped for the documentary film and mutters obsessively to himself even when he is on the national television. That kid was awesome. Also he points at the boom mike and says Is that thing edible.

Anyways I believe this film will get the distribution.

In this exhilaranating piece of pure cinema [Dance Before My Virtuosic Camera, Puppets of Doom] Mr. Brian De Palma audaciously and movingly lends compassion and conscience to the traditionally heartless titular genre stock character. Why does D'Angelo dismiss this picture as "hollow" while still desperately trying to convince anyone who'll listen that Christopher Nolan's arid artless transposition of a literary conceit to film is "about something."

What literary conceit.

Also The Momento is about something, it is about the way we (re)construct our memories to conform to what we want to believe. This is the astute observation about the human nature. The De Palma picture by contrast astutely observes that Rebecca Romaine-Lettuce looks hot gyrating around and kissing other chicks.  Quick where is my notebook.

Was anybody moved by this picture. Did anybody give a fuck about anybody in it. Remember in The Double Indemnity when Walter Nerf and Phyllis Dillerson were the stock noir characters speaking the stylized Chandlercain dialogue but you still cared what happened to them and also there was no clip from The Double Indemnity to tell you what kind of picture you were about to watch. That was awesome.

You sick fucks. This movie [I Hate the World and Everybody in It, Now Get on Your Knees Bitch] is horrible. This movie is two hours of a woman getting slapped and humiliated and raped and then she says I Am Woman and then also there are some muzzled dogs fucking and some dudes screaming.

That is incorrect. This movie is approximately 38 minutes of a woman getting slapped and humiliated and raped and then you flee the theater in boredom and disgust and that Greek calls you the impatient hack in his exhaustive engaging insiteful awe-inspiring FUCK coverage which can be found here.

To me the style of this picture [People Strung Out on Crystal Meth Are Hilarious Except No Wait They Are Actually Tragic] is completely invigorating.  

This picture will invigorate you into a stupor in my opinion. Fortunately there are some funny parts to distract you from your headache.  This picture needed more soliloquies about porno by Mickey Rourke and less of Max Fischer pining for his respectable ex-girlfriend.

Far be it from me to defend this picture [Muskrat Love Except With a Bear], which is not good. But jesus it is just an inoffensive earnest clumsy fairy tale it is not the death of cinema as we know it.

This picture is pretty bad. It is not just that it is stupid, that would be forgivable. But it is also boring and incoherent and the running time is the rest of your life give or take 20 years. Even the stuff with the shape shifting bear is so tame and tasteful and dull that you cannot laugh at it. This picture is like if John Irving and Jewel teamed up to make a motion picture.

We forgive [funga.geo] for the B+ for Little Voice and the A- for The Horse Whisperer already.

I am curious to know what grades the current hardassed funga.geo would allot to these once loved pictures.

Also Das Experiment is right Spirit Ed Away is not that great. It is certainly no Toy Story Part Two. I have seen both the dubbed version and the subtitled version now and they both have the same halfassed story. It is like And then the piece of paper turns out to be uh um okay how about it's the crone's identical twin sister yeah that is it. And she turns the enormous baby into a rat and the bird into a smaller cuter bird and then she goes home and they all have to take the train to her house and help her knit a sweater. What the fuck in my opinion. Remember when Buzz met Deluded Buzz and had to confront his own former existential identity crisis. That was awesome.

Sorry guys there are some pretty major SPOLIERS there for Spirit Ed Away. I sure did not see that sweater coming.

md'a

_______________________________________________

KEY TO THE FAKE TITLES:

The Spelling Bee Kids = Spellbound

Dance Before My Virtuosic Camera, Puppets of Doom = Femme Fatale

I Hate the World and Everybody in It, Now Get on Your Knees Bitch = La Vie nouvelle

People Strung Out on Crystal Meth Are Hilarious Except No Wait They Are Actually Tragic = Spun

Muskrat Love Except With a Bear = Bear's Kiss

Spirit Ed Away = duh

My alternate title for Femme Fatale was what really cracked me up, as that pretty much encapsulates my opinion of De Palma in general. Also I just looked up Philippe Grandrieux's ultra-arty and disturbing La Vie nouvelle for the first time since walking out of it at TIFF '02 and am truly stunned to discover that its male lead is Zachary Knighton, who I know now as Dave on the non-hit ABC sitcom Happy Endings. That's quite a career trajectory.