Hot Water From a Height.

[Music: Jan Jelinek]


Invariably Subjacent.

They through-and-through kumtux floorboards of copacetic and over-enunciated girls seaside and sandhazard (up and out) of fireseason druthers. Ever since the shaded stars swiveled their afts and slid down waxed cells while swimming moons ransacked the telecast, the ability to balance a sword on the bowstring finger has long-since been terminated. But hold steady, urchin. Gale-nuzzling soldier SAD executions allowed to bypass Indian summers would be lighting up ambrosial candles within half a darkyear's longeivty. Questions---Death---Life---Answers---> and what from this point? Swish twice and coach will plunder old lockers to find jockstrap dreams; sequestrated dry runs at the signature echo of your sandpeople parents. Climbed over the counter just to kiss you. Not the pharmacy, either. You know the one. The one the wet socks dehumidify upon; the one where I nailed you down and dug up your hanging garden so my hatchery could strike oil. A small tent with blue and white lights. Music coming from inside. People at a sideshow, couldn't figure out why they would want to wait in line. Fortunes read and lyrics spoken adds up to more than fame and hospitalization. Annexation junctures. Goodnight to the gates of ruination and poor audio quality.

Shipshape daybreak, would not They say it? Just like that? For all to eavesdrop and screach over phones about twenty-seven moments ensuing.

Wearisome to gawk up dominantly when so much is on your mind, weighing your head down.

[Suruaseht a desu I skniht yma]

--

Stylus wants me to contribute film reviews for them. I'm glad. Worked hard on that application. I applied once before, for the music reviews, but that's when my writing peaked on nothingness and the inability to restrain. I have substanciously augmented since then. Though I would rather review music than film, I am still excited that I have been selected. This will be a great opportunity.

Proof.

One of the application requirements was to write a review of a film not already appearing in the Sylus archives. I chose Last Days (I was actually surprised that they had not reviewd it). Here it is, for those of you who are dwelling on, "How did he get to write for Stylus?":

Movie Review
Last Days

2005
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Michael Pitt, Lukas Haas, Asia Argento, Scott Green, Nicole Vicius, Ricky Jay, Ryan Fellner, Kim Gordon, Scott Patrick Green, Harmony Korine
A-

Endless canopies and moss-covered stonewalls loom around the exterior lot of a backwoods castle, unknown to the majority of the living world. The harmonies of songbirds and rustling of foliage against a cold breeze overtake the landscape with ease. Deeper, against the personal backdrop of aimlessness and confusion, the grumblings of a man can be heard. Never has the incessant and seemingly meaningless routine of a long-haired, rail-thin drugged out rock star’s solitary confinement been so imperative to fully apprehend and sympathize with the mental and bodily state of malfunction through subconscious self-abuse. All of this is able to be perceived solely from the familiar yet distinctive local of Gus Van Sant’s final entry within his damn-near career-defining Death trilogy, Last Days.

The bleak and multitudinous desert of Gerry and the consistently glowing and elongated corridors of Elephant both align consummately with the tilted green-gray haven existing within Last Days. Each and every one of the environments present in these pictures directly connects with the situation at hand so seamlessly that they act as that single mirror you unquestionably glance in before heading out the door for a night of who knows what. Through my eyes, Elephant accomplished this feat with surreptitious skill, while Gerry, the first entry into the trilogy, fleshed out the work behind the camera so all watching the film with their eager fingers scratching chins could see precisely how much work went into each individual tracking shot (the longest being about a quarter of a mile, which is documented on the DVD) right there in the framework. What Van Sant achieves in Last Days, based “loosely” on (yet, as the final slate details, dedicated to) the downfall of the rangy Nirvana front man, so expertly is manifest three separate film-ecosystems revolving around Cobain look-alike Blake (Michael Pitt, of Bully and The Dreamers fame), whereas Gerry and Elephant hold single domains each. The three terrains (both cerebral and tangible) consist of Blake’s mentality around people, Blake’s mentality amongst nature, and the almost one-sided views of Blake’s bandmates and fellow borders within the house. While Van Sant juggles these varying scenarios as best as any ambitious filmmaker is able to, sometimes scenes just do not feel right at that precise moment in the reel. This does not necessarily subtract from the overall tone and mood of the film because, in actuality, Blake’s entire mumbling mantra does not feel right for the center character of a film. When shots repeat themselves unwittingly, and previous displays go through time lapses (also present in Elephant, but not in Gerry) the viewer gets an intense feeling of reliance on exactly what Blake will do next, and they consequently hope for the best (or the worst, depending on your reaction to the film).

Kim Gordon’s cameo appearance (as herself) is the uncommon interval in which Blake is given a choice, an ultimatum, to escape from the incarceration he has been placed in. She offers him an “easy” way out and a return to the certainly more lavish lifestyle prior to his initiation into an isolation period. But what Mrs. Thurston Moore is unaware of, and even Blake himself does not come to the realization of until that crucial attempt to grasp music one last time at a local bar, is the fact that this man came here to waste away. This is his final resting place, without any ounce of ambiguity. Phone calls come in by the hour requesting Blake’s consent for an 86-day tour, but he says not one word. He would rather don a woman’s dress and carry a rifle around like some territorial transvestite hunter of the grasslands. It is in Blake’s indecision to partake in life that the predominant significance of Van Sant’s three films comes full circle. Death does not have to be justified, and it does not have to be the result of some sort of dysfunction within a certain specimen or within society as a whole. It comes as it does and no other way. Quick and violent as in Elephant, needful and almost sexual as in Gerry, and slowly falling as in Last Days.

There is one scene in the film that incontestably ties the beginning to the end, and the film to the remainder of the outside world. Two young boys from the Church of Later Day Saints arrive at Blake’s home and begin reciting the origins of their faith, much of which involves Jesus Christ (who else?) to Blake’s fellow border Scott (Scott Green). As this conversation is taking place, shots crosscut with Blake standing in a room making half-hearted moves from one side to another. The fact that the idea of Jesus arises at this exact spot, and the decipherment that the opening of the film saw Blake bathing (baptizing?) himself in a nearby stream, recalls past thoughts of Cobain as some kind of messiah to rock and roll.

But, the difference is, when Jesus died he rose up to heaven in a glorious fashion (do not let Scorsese fool you). When Blake dies, his spirit nakedly climbs the window panes of an adjacent garden shed door and disappears out of the top of the frame. Two different kinds of saviors for two different breeds of minds. Here is to hoping that Van Sant continues to make films that feature that exact variety of dichotomy.

--

Shut.

They made us do it; to each other we ever encountered.

After the first day, senses divided and went home. Nuts and talc were all that mattered to the heads of boards in the days that followed up.

Noticing where memory was recovered nightly, gave me an idea of what needed to be explained in pictograms.

Hope is poured for sealment of the deals.

Help is measured byit's overbite's reach.

Clavicle ocularity meets with periodic inclusion whenever we want it badly enough.

Well, do we go that far?

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