THAT MOMENT : One

Magnolia (1999)

I have been a film fan for my entire existence. I would obsessively watch Beetlejuice over and over again at a tender age, fill my backpack with piles of tapes from the video store, and try to catch something cool on Bravo. My exposure to quality cinema was very limited until I turned sixteen. That's when it kicked into high gear.

The first time I watched Magnolia was on a double VHS. I had never even heard of it. I remember sitting through the opening sequence, which is probably the best prologue in cinema, and being unable to breathe.  PTA wastes no time setting up the theme of the movie: we are bombarded with three separate set pieces knifing our guts with the reality of the randomness of life and massive coincidence that is our existence. He achieves this with the caress of a gentle paintbrush, smoothing over the horrors that be, with ease and beauty. Then the DP closes the lens, (a faux cut to black) and our singer/storyteller confronts us with a cover of "One", and as the song crescendos we have our opening title, which for me, felt like my first orgasm. It's an explosion of sound, color, movement, and collage. All of the incoherent layers upon layers of maps and song notes should be a blundering mess, but instead are a lyrical transcendence. It perfectly illustrates that, while everything is essentially chaos, there is a beautiful symmetry to to it all, if you stop long enough to smell the flowers. The movie could have ended right there, with this enormously radiant punctuation following our trio of mini movies. Fortunately we are blessed with several more hours of film perfection, which in turn, changed me.

I was no longer just a fan of film, but an inspired artist and cinephile. Everything in my life, including the partner I chose, needed to be equally drenched in the medium of cinema. For several years after this initial viewing, the little girl that was obsessed with Beetlejuice that was still in me would put in my Magnolia DVD and watch just That Moment over and over again to feel that complete bodily takeover that so few pieces of art of any medium have ever come close to doing. 

- Babes

STATIC SHOTS

Peanut butter, bread, and cigarettes

THAT MOMENT : Sydney's Work Walk

Hard Eight (1996)

My parents kept a handful of Movie Reference and Film History books in their library when I was growing up, but the most useful (and utilitarian) one was The Video Movie Guide by Mick Martin and Marsha Porter. Useful for when we needed to know a date of release or an actor or director's filmography, and utilitarian because that's all it was good for, as we largely dismissed the "reviews" that accompanied each film listing because they often clashed with our own tastes. (We tried Leonard Maltin's guide and it resulted in his literature and likeness being banned from our home forever!) Anyway, the point of this is that, while the end credits of Boogie Nights were still scrolling up my TV screen for the first time, I was scanning the index of the Movie Guide, trying to see if this guy had made anything else.

That singular lone credit in microscopic font - Hard Eight. I'd actually known it -- or I'd known of it, I remembered the poster(!) from the video store I briefly worked at with my mom, and it stayed in my mind because I remember thinking, "Wow, if the guy from Midnight Run and the guy from River Wild are the main stars then this must be a really cheap movie." But I certainly wasn't scoffing when I learned of the talent behind it. Obviously I knew which video store to find it in, and added to that, the movie actually aired on Showtime shortly thereafter, so that led to me having my own taped copy (in the very short period before I bought a real copy). But this isn't really about how I discovered it or the first time I saw it or even the 100th time I saw it, but actually more about my most recent viewing. 

There's a lotta debate and rankings and listicles floating around now that he has a new movie out, but for a megafan like me I don't really need to break my back for any big "reevaluation" - I've held my finger on this pulse from the very beginning and I'm able to assess and digest every new work with much joy and little effort. For me, any minute of Hard Eight is more exciting than the entirety of One Battle After Another, and most of that is rooted in the evidence that this is a first time filmmaker with something to prove, and a unique style and a shitload of talent to prove it. And that style comes into focus at about 30 minutes into the movie, as P. T. demonstrates his now signature move of leading/following behind his character as they walk from A to B. He didn't invent this simple camera move, but he somehow managed to make it his own; the height of the camera, the distance from the subject, the speed, the smoothness, the lens -- hell you've seen it, I barely have to describe it. But it's here, in this fist feature, that his intentions are made clear; for a freshman effort in the mid 1990s the Crime Thriller was an obvious (almost mandatory) choice, though this isn't a ballet of bullets intolerably edited to a buncha Classic Rock songs, but instead a showcase for a director's favorite actor, and a portrait of a character illustrated in fine detail -- not through pages of expository dialogue, but with natural actions and reactions. Like walking. 

- Paul

I SAW IT ON TAPE - Boogie Nights

I loved Titanic when it came out - I still do. I didn't get addicted to it the way the megafans did (I think my father went back over a dozen times) but I enjoyed sampling the mania from a safe distance. What I did find exhilarating was that, for many months, the most popular thing in the world was a movie - whether loved or hated, it generated a lotta discussion about the medium as a whole, and just having that in the air brought my interest in the art form to even greater heights. The sorta peak of that excitement for me was Oscar night in March of '98 - it's still the highest rated Academy Award telecast to date, and watching it made me feel like I was part of something; suddenly the entire planet was into the same stuff I was into, and we were celebrating with this glittery pageant. I'd watched the show faithfully, since the beginning of the decade, but suddenly I became real invested in Academy history (like past winners, nominees, etc.) which provided me a kinda built-in "watch list" for the foreseeable future. 

My newly-increased craving for old classics generated a weekly routine for me wherein I'd consult the list and rent a stack of videos every Friday for nearly the entirety of 1998 (I pulled out part of this list when I talked about my Bad Lieutenant adventures). Alongside the parade of "significant" Cinema, I was still keeping up on new stuff (this was, after all, the 90s), up to and including all the very prestigious pictures of the moment -- like the movies that threatened the Titanic momentum during Awards Season: L.A. Confidential, Good Will Hunting, As Good as It Gets, The Sweet Hereafter, and the whimsically titled Boogie Nights. For as much as I was paying attention around this time I really knew nothing about it, except that it was a big deal that Burt Reynolds was nominated for (and then lost) an Oscar. At that point I was already burnt out on heavy-handed Dramas with depressing sex stuff - at 15 years old, nudity and intimacy was fast becoming a signifier of shame and violence, and for the most part I found it to be equal parts distressing and boring. Based on its mountain of accolades, that's what I was expecting from Boogie Nights. 

I rented it on some Friday night in April or May of '98, along with I Shot Andy Warhol which I watched first because I was admittedly more excited about it (of course, by the end of the evening nearly every detail of that movie escaped me). I didn't intentionally construct a double feature of 20th Century Period Films but it definitely helped to better accentuate how Boogie Nights was and is the best to ever do it; 90s Cinema seemed obsessed with the 60s, 70s, and 80s and this was the first to feel truly accurate to me. My journey in watching this movie was probably similar to everyone else's: a fun, vibrant, funny first half, then the "80s" title card comes up and the level of talent and ingenuity starts to really sink in, and then the Alfred Molina scene plays out and suddenly it becomes apparent that this film is actually better than most of the great movies it draws its inspiration from. At least, that's what I felt. Never have I been hit with such a surprise: having a mild interest in something and it becomes love at first sight. I immediately sought out Hard Eight (which is another story) but I was most excited for whatever this filmmaker did next (which, of course, is yet another story). 

- Paul

STATIC SHOTS

February is PTA Month!

Ready to Go Go Go?! Our boy has been at the forefront of entertainment news and social media squabbling ever since his most recent movie has generated the most raves (and revenue) of his career. Now with the awards buzz mounting into actual awards, we're seriously wondering, "Could this be his year?" It also raises other questions like "Where does One Battle rank amongst our favorites?" and "Which of his movies have gained or lost supremacy with us over time?". Obviously the best way to drill these areas is by revisiting the features, the shorts, the features that inspired the features, and maybe even the music videos too, and finding fun ways to share the experience with you here on the site. Cash to tokens, Pynchon to pudding, join us as we celebrate the ranks of the freaks in need of salvation (and a few small beers). Here we go.

FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part VII: "Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight" and Arby's Seasoned Curly Fries

We're not entirely sure who the core audience was for Full Moon movies - we assume twentysomething party people(?). Personally we mostly knew these films only by their covers on the video store shelves and the full page ads in Fangoria magazine -- always wondering if the movies themselves lived up to their vivid artwork. 

One such memorable ad was for 1993's Mandroid. We've seen Mandroid, and still the only thing we remember is the artwork, so it took some time to orient ourselves when we realized that 1993's Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight was a direct sequel. Like, they were clearly shot back to back (just like Lord of the Rings), but as it turns out, Invisible is much more lively and playful; it's still a dizzying mess of plot threads and fake science jargon, but we get a lot less exposition because most of it was covered in "Part One". It's pointless to explain the plot - all you need to know is that wheelchair-bound Wade Franklin and his mind-operated Mandroid robot have joined forces with invisible scientist Benjamin Knight to fight returning bad guy Drago. There's nothing about this that doesn't feel like a Full Moon Production, from the Romanian exteriors to the soundstage interiors, from the synth score to the damsels in dungeons, they know which side of their bread to butter. Having said that, this is easily the most fast paced, big budget, action packed Full Moon movie we've watched to date. 

What's the deal with curly fries? You get like three or four curly fries and then a million slightly curved potato shards. That's typically the scenario at an Arby's Restaurant, so it's entirely accurate that a bag of Arby's Seasoned Curly Fries contains exactly that. You might even be tempted to suggest that these are the exact frozen fries they keep in the back of any given Arby's because these are actually as good, if not better! They say "seasoned" but that just means they're not bland; the seasoning simply comes across as well cooked, well loved potatoes. We can't exactly say "well cut", again because of the shards, but size and shape aside, they pass the test of being tasty on their own, without the aid of dipping sauces. 

The Movie: B-

The Fries: A

NAME THAT MOVIE!

Loud is the music the sky is ringing, out of my head as the Winter marches on.

January's almost over. That means this year is practically over. What a ride. But before we start putting the Christmas lights back up let's carry on with naming these movies. Lotta players pitched in on the last round and we love it when that happens - though Fatal Attraction was, to coin a phrase, "ignored". Damn that Glenn Close, she's so crafty! It did prove to be a remarkable experiment in style and genre when everyone started to lean towards Sleeping With the Enemy -- kinda like that time when people thought the Poltergeist frame was from E.T.

This house has many hearts. 

EASY

FAIR

DIFFICULT

GROOVE APPROVED