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thehefnerI was going to write a BLIWTEOTW follow-up post where I've bashed my head and awakened to discover that I'm the sole survivor in my household... except I don't know it's my household, as I'm too busy wondering where the heck Smokey, Dino, and Ol' Blue Eyes are at. Then I raid the liquor cabinet, thinking I'm making off with a pretty good haul from some poor sucker's stash, and start plotting out the best way to Vegas.
That's what I tried to write (even making this icon for the occasion). But I just don't have it in me. Not like how I had the first entry in me, anyway.
I sincerely hope everyone figured out what I was doing there. I still kinda have nagging fears, between the people who didn't know about the BLIWTEOTW meme and the folks who think it's kinda creepy to mix fiction with what's actually happening in my life. All in a dead-serious, irony-free, heartfelt way.
Because yeah, all the stuff about Dad in there is real. That happened no more than two hours before I went on LJ and discovered the meme. Now, me being me, I *had* to get in on that. But in the mindset I was in...? Well, I thought, "Heck, doing this might be more interesting than just saying, 'Hi guys, I'm miserable, Dad's dying, blah blah blah.'" I know most everyone else was doing tongue-in-cheek-at-most posts, but I just set out to write the entry I'd write if the zombie apocalypse was really happing right that minute in my life.
But yeah. Stuff with Dad is not going well at all. I'll be seeing him tomorrow, after we've both had a day to mull over the news. I still haven't quite recovered for my numbness here.
Little by little, certain details and realizations sink in. The most recent one is the knowledge that (barring a miracle) I'll never, ever hear my father's voice again.
So I'm gonna throw myself into movie geek stuff, if you don't mind.
Since my brain wasn't exactly in a creative capacity outside of that entry, I decided to take today to finally watch HOSTEL. Now, I only watched this because I kinda wanted to watch HOSTEL PART II, and the only reason I wanted to watch THAT was because one of the killers is played by Roger Bart, A.K.A. the flaimingly gay Carmen Ghia from THE PRODUCERS. Let that sink in for a second.
Also, I've come to kinda like Eli Roth himself based on the interviews I've read, and I thought the fake trailer for THANKSGIVING in GRINDHOUSE was blood("... son of a BITCH")y brilliant. So I thought I'd finally check out HOSTEL.
...
I want to remake HOSTEL someday. No, seriously.
Look, here's the thing about HOSTEL. I didn't come away from it like I thought I would, thinking it was little more than "torture porn." No, see, I saw that Eli Roth was genuinely trying to make a film with substance and commentary. AUDITION director Takeshi Miike's cameo appearance there explained it all to me. At the same time, Roth made sincere attempts at social commentary, between the boorish ugly Americans' disdain for other cultures and their subsequent treatment at the hands of the non-Americans, combined with comparing the rush of how the Ugly Americans felt fucking and getting stoned to the rush another Yank (the rich white businessman) got from torturing and killing an innocent.
See, even that right there was like the movie's commentary itself: convoluted, unfocused, and done in broad strokes. Because the sad fact is that Eli Roth isn't Takeshi Miike. And he sure as hell ain't George Romero.
I mean, look at the plot. Ugly Americans travel around Europe being loud pushy assholes and looking to fuck hot chicks and do drugs. They run afoul of a hostel that is, in fact, a front for the wealthy (usually non-Americans, but there are Yanks there too) to pay to torture and kill somebody (Americans cost the most money). There are quite a number of possible perspectives rich with satirical potential, albeit in the blackest sense.
So if I were to remake HOSTEL, I'd crank up the social commentary, bringing the pitch-black satire up on the same level as the violence. At the same time, I'd also try to pull an AUDITION and make the non-violent, "normal" world firmly grounded in mundane reality, with rich and human characters rather than the frat boys we saw here. And at the SAME time, I'd take cues from the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE for the torture scenes themselves, make them gritty and psychologically powerful... and with minimal soundtrack.
(HOSTEL had several "and now the music swells up to show how tense this scene is!" moments, and I'm a firm believer that the more sparse a soundtrack is, the scarier it is. ERASERHEAD and EXORCIST III both had little to no music, save for a varying, constant growl, and were fucking creepy for it. THE THING (the scariest movie I've ever seen) had Ennio Morricone, one of the greatest composers of all time, doing nothing more that a musical heartbeat. And it was brilliant!)
Really, there's potential for a great film in here, as long as someone with real artistic vision took the reigns. I honestly believe Roth made a sincere attempt here, and I'm glad for that, but I think he failed. In the end, he was still too Hollywood-y and slick, rather than sharp, scathing, and thought-provoking in anything more than the broadest senses.
That was the problem with HOSTEL. It was... too damn Hollywood. Too damn American.
That's what I tried to write (even making this icon for the occasion). But I just don't have it in me. Not like how I had the first entry in me, anyway.
I sincerely hope everyone figured out what I was doing there. I still kinda have nagging fears, between the people who didn't know about the BLIWTEOTW meme and the folks who think it's kinda creepy to mix fiction with what's actually happening in my life. All in a dead-serious, irony-free, heartfelt way.
Because yeah, all the stuff about Dad in there is real. That happened no more than two hours before I went on LJ and discovered the meme. Now, me being me, I *had* to get in on that. But in the mindset I was in...? Well, I thought, "Heck, doing this might be more interesting than just saying, 'Hi guys, I'm miserable, Dad's dying, blah blah blah.'" I know most everyone else was doing tongue-in-cheek-at-most posts, but I just set out to write the entry I'd write if the zombie apocalypse was really happing right that minute in my life.
But yeah. Stuff with Dad is not going well at all. I'll be seeing him tomorrow, after we've both had a day to mull over the news. I still haven't quite recovered for my numbness here.
Little by little, certain details and realizations sink in. The most recent one is the knowledge that (barring a miracle) I'll never, ever hear my father's voice again.
So I'm gonna throw myself into movie geek stuff, if you don't mind.
Since my brain wasn't exactly in a creative capacity outside of that entry, I decided to take today to finally watch HOSTEL. Now, I only watched this because I kinda wanted to watch HOSTEL PART II, and the only reason I wanted to watch THAT was because one of the killers is played by Roger Bart, A.K.A. the flaimingly gay Carmen Ghia from THE PRODUCERS. Let that sink in for a second.
Also, I've come to kinda like Eli Roth himself based on the interviews I've read, and I thought the fake trailer for THANKSGIVING in GRINDHOUSE was blood("... son of a BITCH")y brilliant. So I thought I'd finally check out HOSTEL.
...
I want to remake HOSTEL someday. No, seriously.
Look, here's the thing about HOSTEL. I didn't come away from it like I thought I would, thinking it was little more than "torture porn." No, see, I saw that Eli Roth was genuinely trying to make a film with substance and commentary. AUDITION director Takeshi Miike's cameo appearance there explained it all to me. At the same time, Roth made sincere attempts at social commentary, between the boorish ugly Americans' disdain for other cultures and their subsequent treatment at the hands of the non-Americans, combined with comparing the rush of how the Ugly Americans felt fucking and getting stoned to the rush another Yank (the rich white businessman) got from torturing and killing an innocent.
See, even that right there was like the movie's commentary itself: convoluted, unfocused, and done in broad strokes. Because the sad fact is that Eli Roth isn't Takeshi Miike. And he sure as hell ain't George Romero.
I mean, look at the plot. Ugly Americans travel around Europe being loud pushy assholes and looking to fuck hot chicks and do drugs. They run afoul of a hostel that is, in fact, a front for the wealthy (usually non-Americans, but there are Yanks there too) to pay to torture and kill somebody (Americans cost the most money). There are quite a number of possible perspectives rich with satirical potential, albeit in the blackest sense.
So if I were to remake HOSTEL, I'd crank up the social commentary, bringing the pitch-black satire up on the same level as the violence. At the same time, I'd also try to pull an AUDITION and make the non-violent, "normal" world firmly grounded in mundane reality, with rich and human characters rather than the frat boys we saw here. And at the SAME time, I'd take cues from the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE for the torture scenes themselves, make them gritty and psychologically powerful... and with minimal soundtrack.
(HOSTEL had several "and now the music swells up to show how tense this scene is!" moments, and I'm a firm believer that the more sparse a soundtrack is, the scarier it is. ERASERHEAD and EXORCIST III both had little to no music, save for a varying, constant growl, and were fucking creepy for it. THE THING (the scariest movie I've ever seen) had Ennio Morricone, one of the greatest composers of all time, doing nothing more that a musical heartbeat. And it was brilliant!)
Really, there's potential for a great film in here, as long as someone with real artistic vision took the reigns. I honestly believe Roth made a sincere attempt here, and I'm glad for that, but I think he failed. In the end, he was still too Hollywood-y and slick, rather than sharp, scathing, and thought-provoking in anything more than the broadest senses.
That was the problem with HOSTEL. It was... too damn Hollywood. Too damn American.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 08:57 am (UTC)I'm really sorry about your dad, John. I don't know anything about cat macros or anything because I'm bad at the intrawebs, but here's some stuff that always makes me grin, since I know you previously requested amusing things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJItACkmVlM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0WfnhVs2s&NR=1
And I'm fairly sure you're the one who showed me this anyway, but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7geU-4MPOE
In any case, I really hope today is a better day for you. Hang in there.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 02:15 pm (UTC)As for those videos, I've seen them all, and I don't care, YAY YAY and YAY once more. Thankya!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 10:04 am (UTC)And I agree about the music.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 02:16 pm (UTC)Hey, it's all yours.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 05:40 pm (UTC)Also, I loved your zombie post.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 09:47 pm (UTC)i hope you arent apologizing for dealing with the stuation as you feel you need to.
in the moment, it was a way to seperate yourself enough to discuss it objectively. at least thats what i saw.
if at any time i think you are just distancing yourself in a bad, denial kinda way, you know i'll gently address that and ask if you think you might be avoiding things.
but yeah.. process how you need to.
and go read my lj right now. you'll love it.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 09:50 pm (UTC)Of course, I know you understand, and if you were genuinely concerned, I know you'd absolutely intervene.
On it...!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 09:54 pm (UTC)