For instance: I have often made subtle references in my column as to why the Film Series is better than Eclectic. For instance:
“Four days a week. Every week. No cancellations. Full refunds in event of force majure. Boo yah.”
Here a few more reasons to tack on:
Nobody gets taken out on stretchers. Nobody gets arrested. Everybody gets in. Everybody enjoys themselves. We will even show rancid piles of butt pus like “Broken Flowers” because there are people who want to see it. We like you and care about you.
FRIDAY (11/4): BROKEN FLOWERS. 8 p.m.
Directed by Jim Jarmusch.
Here’s something for the WesConfess board: “I hate Jim Jarmusch. Lots of people like him. I don’t. I had to write a paper about him once. I do not want to ever do that again. I would rather jerk off to the Holocaust.”
I wish every time Jim Jarmusch urinated, it ricocheted off the toilet water and ended up in his eyes. Maybe that would explain his piss-poor aesthetic sensibilities. Zing! I am discovering there are a lot of people who feel the same as I do. We all want to pee on his face. There is a tacit bond among this covert group. It typically manifests itself as mutual disdain for Eclectic as well.
Admittedly, I wrote a paper about Jarmusch once. It’s true. Know your enemy. The point of the paper was to succeed, albeit very subtly, in deconstructing how bad a director he is. I did this by not giving examples for any of my points. And then I made sweeping generalizations like: “Jarmusch accentuates boredom to the point of it being experiential for the viewer.”
I should have gotten an A+ and a gold star. Nobody does boring like Jarmusch. Jim Jarmusch takes a story and characters that are more boring than our lives and he aims a still camera at it, often far away from the subject. A film major would say this: “stylistic flourishes are eschewed in favor of consistency.” Voila: the viewer can now watch paint dry.
What people like about him most is you can pick out lots of stuff that is “Jarmuschian.” The only positive statement I have to make about him is, yes, he is very consistent. That is why people call his films “Jarmuschian” and that they are filled with “Jarmuschian moments.”
I think it is very valid to like a filmmaker because all his films are the same. Then you can pick out similarities between them and feel smart because you have seen more of his films than other people.
“Wait, that part was really boring and non-sensical.”
“No, dumbo, it was Jarmuschian.”
Originality is for the narrow-minded. All of you budding auteurs, pat yourself on the back. “Broken Flowers” is Jarmuschian. You will recognize a lot of similarities between “Broken Flowers” and Jarmusch’s other films. Yay. The instrinsic rules of the film stray from conventional norms. There is totally a minimalist aesthetic of deadpan ironic realism. Tubular! So organic. So hermetic. So spare. So meandering. And such witty use of cliché. He’s not just being clichéd. He’s, like, subverting the clichés. It’s purposeful. Don’t you get it? It’s almost like he has a formalist’s sense of humor. Look how in “Broken Flowers,” he gives us a non self-conscious illumination of the character’s idiosyncrasies. Oh, minor character, you like mystery novels. That’s so idiosyncratic. Congratulations. I find you charming. And precious. Oh and it’s so cool when something almost happens but then we don’t see it. It’s like I expected something but like that’s the point. My expecting it. It would have been so like what I expected if those characters had actually interacted. It would have been so lame.
Let’s give Jarmusch a plaque in God’s private screening room.
SATURDAY (11/5): THE LAST WALTZ. 8 p.m. FREE.
DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE.
DANCING/GOOD VIBING PERMITTED.
I don’t know much about music. The kids say it “soothes the savage beast.” So it might be good to see this in case “Broken Flowers” turns you into a raving, film-hating sociopath. The kids also say “music sounds good.” If music sounds good, then “The Last Waltz” is the best concert film ever. Martin Scorsese said so. And Jim Jarmusch would lick the sweat off Scorsese eyebrows if talent was transferable through DNA.
WEDNESDAY (11/9): MOOLADE. 8 p.m.
There is nothing funny to say about female circumcision in Africa. The film has a lot of serious stuff to say about it though, and it was one of the best and most unheralded of last year. There are a lot of funny things to say about male circumcision though. Like I hope they botched Jim Jarmusch’s so he cannot reproduce.
THURSDAY (11/10): BABE 2: PIG IN THE CITY. 8 p.m. FREE.
How can an affront to humanity like “Broken Flowers” get so much love while “Babe 2” languishes in the discount rack of shopping mall video stores? George Miller (Mad Max trilogy) made the best kids film since “Newsies.”
“Babe 2” is a dark masterpiece featuring a fire in a children’s hospital ward, drugs, paralysis, scantily clad women, a biker gang, and a menacing metropolis that is far more “Dark City,” “Blade Runner,” and “City of Lost Children” than the Smurf village. It is also a thoroughly enchanting, warm-hearted family film.
There has never been a film like “Babe 2.” Wait, maybe originality is good. Come to think of it, Babe 2 is better than all of Jarmusch’s films put together (which makes one film. Maybe.) Suck on that Jarmusch, you abnormally-coiffed hack. Go cry in your coffee and cigarettes. EUTHANIZE YOURSELF!
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