Tag Archives: Christian Slater

disassemble [2021)

Way behind on Pauly Deathwish.

Right off with XTRMNTR.

Shoot speed.

Kill light.

Spirit of rock and roll.

His most popular track at this time.

Straight rock.

Bad boy.

Drugs flowing through the veins.

Overdose of light.

God is the ultimate drug.

Coming back from depression.

Girlfriend goes on a date with another bloke.

Big depression.

Drugs consume.

Always creative.

From London to Paris.

Vintage keys like French band Air.

Every touch from two tracks imbued with Radiohead experimentation.

Pink Floyd bass.

Waters lives.

Here come the warm jets.

Camera clicking photos.

Virgin suicides.

Tomita.

Amazing groove.

Levon and Robbie Robertson.

Rhythm of the saints.

This bloke has nothing to live for.

His girlfriend is a total fucking bitch.

Alone in the world.

Short circuit.

Trying to overcome.

She don’t give a fuck.

Melancholy.

Info op birthed.

Suicide Girls.

Anti-Antifa.

Bloke has sophistication in attack.

Philosophy.

Wars back started BLM.

Kept powder dry.

Amazing hip hop.

Stevie Wonder.

Shaft.

The Sea and Cake.

Jazzy Jeff.

Fresh Prince.

Young MC.

Stereolab as always.

Trump supporter smart.

Assessment of coup against Deep State.

Progress report.

Situationism.

Velvet Underground.

The balls to review his own albums.

Balls?

Toxic relationship.

Electronic music.

Chemical Brothers.

Dark side of the moon.

Fever dream.

Of the wall.

Oasis.

Noel feeding back.

Liam blowing harp.

Ringo’s son on drums.

Don’t believe the truth.

Soundtrack music.

Hanna.

How she lives now.

Soylent green…2022.

Beastie Boys.

Nigel Godrich as always.

Big Star Third.

Kanga Roo.

As important as the Velvets.

Drug withdrawal.

Big Star early albums.

Chiming.

Like The Byrds.

Phil Spector lives in the glockenspiel.

Lester Bangs lives here.

Lavage.

Many disappointed patriots.

Lamenting the shitty U.S. military.

While honoring the 13.

And Colonel Scheller.

A handful of gems in a culture of shit.

Astrology.

Drag balls.

Berlin.

I love faggots as much as anyone.

David, Lou, Iggy.

Heroes.

God is the only hope.

So I prayed tonight.

Twin peaks.

Nobody loves me.

Keeping real.

Mercury Rev.

See you on the other side.

Rolling the dice.

So long, Charlie.

I’m guessing you got the vaccine.

Poor bastard.

BBC.

AstraZeneca.

Elvis.

Gene Vincent.

Eddie Cochran.

Happy Hairy (?) Hardon Q.

QAnon Christian Slater.

The first of a long succession.

The Verve.

Anthemic melodies befitting Handel.

Air.

Matrix done right.

First song to mention Event 201?

“Follow the White Rabbit”.

Shhh/peaceful.

Very Jefferson Airplane.

Psychedelic march.

Woodstock.

Altamont.

Power to the people.

Pro-Trump psych rock.

Fucking awesome!

AMERICA!!!

Be a rebel.

Kanye poser.

No vaccines, asshole!

Good job.

Adapt.

Drozd.

Great snare work.

Verging on adrenochrome.

Hefner and Monroe.

Sexy dead bodies.

Pay to grind for eternity.

Absolute Flaming Lips.

Transmissions from the satellite heart.

Keith Cleverley.

What is God gonna do for America?

What is America gonna do for God?

Nation falling apart.

Amnesiac.

Hail to the creep.

Rollerskate Skinny.

Darth Vader.

Lloyd Austin.

Scorsese Glass Kundun soundtrack.

Well-done!

Carl Stalling project!

Helmut Lachenmann.

Deserter’s Songs.

Underture.

This is a SOPHISTICATED FUCKING RECORD.

Violent Femmes.

Tom Waits.

Bobby McFerrin.

AUSTRALIA, WAKE UP YOU CUNTS!!!

Invading Sydney!

Give me ANZAC!!

Let’s go!!!

ACK-ACK!!

Fucking awesome return to Bobby Gillespie.

Great fucking song!

“Australia, Here I Come!”

Even uses the comma correctly 🙂

Riot city blues.

“Nitty Gritty”

MC5.

Baby won’t ya?

PERTH!!!

BON SCOTT!!!!

Love and Rockets.

Bitch who dumped me.

How?

By not giving a fuck.

By proxy.

By not participating.

By being a selfish cunt.

Q Team, come in!

How many years?

Second American Revolution.

Miles Davis.

There’s a Riot Goin’ On.

Late-Godard.

Second Pauly Deathwish song to mention Jean-Luc.

Who the fuck is this nigger?!?

Def Leppard.

She’s a fucking black hole.

I take it all back.

A pathetic bleeding vagina.

Money soothes all pains.

Paul Simon.

She’s a loser.

Jack Nitzsche all the way.

Rips your heart out.

Fucking hell.

I will die lonely.

Having given it all away.

Hear the typewriter click.

Are there two people?

Or one?

QAnon stylometric analysis.

Switzerland.

Obvious split in styles.

Who?

Final track.

Primal Scream.

Manchester.

Manchester City.

Gimme the rain, the rain, the rain, the glorious rain!!!!

Luton.

I got close.

Freezing your tits off.

Seeing your breath.

We coming for the sexy bitches.

With stellar boob jobs.

Jazz funk.

Acid.

Trip hop.

Acid house.

World party.

Factory Records above all.

Baggy as fuck.

Gimme them saggy titties.

Real better than fake any day.

Ain’t returning my messages.

Would love that bitch like Cleopatra.

Suck her toes.

Conspiracy theory king and queen.

Blew it several times.

Because heartless bitch usurper.

Same birthday as Lester Bangs and Nostradamus.

Ends with Pocket Symphony.

Everybody hertz.

Ya feel me?

iTunes.

Spotify.

-PD

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Masked and Anonymous [2003)

Some years ago, San Antonio (my hometown) had a cheeky ad “campaign” which struck a little too close to home…which is to say, it was perfect.

Our neighbors to the north in Austin (my home of some 15 years) have cashed in on a perceived eccentricity which that college metropolis embodies (to a greater or lesser extent):  Keep Austin Weird.

San Antonio’s riposte?  Keep San Antonio Lame.

I shit you not.

And, thus, tonight…Bob Dylan in the Alamo City…and a dream come true for me…sort of.  It took 17 years from when the album Time Out of Mind really convinced me of the man’s continued genius.  Seventeen years.  The amount of time it took Joyce to write Finnegans Wake.  At my pace it will take me as long to read Finnegans Wake.  But I digress…

It was poverty.  I was a musician.  Bob Dylan is/was/always will be my favorite living musician.  I could never afford the exorbitant ticket prices.  Tonight, luck was on my side…sort of.

The hoi polloi at tonight’s concert at the Majestic Theater disgusted me to an extreme degree.  People 30 to 45 minutes late…standing in front of me.  The incessant in and out of thirsty “fans” headed to the bar or shitter.  And to top it off, a brother/sister duo behind me who wouldn’t shut the fuck up.  Their never-ending running commentary finally snapped my patience as I turned around exasperated with a “I give up” look followed by the international pirate sign for throat-slitting.  Sure, I felt bad about it afterwards…but goddamn, I am shocked by the sporting event etiquette which greeted the true poet laureate of the United States to my fair (foul) city.

And so, Masked and Anonymous…

I rewatched it earlier today.  Such a fabulous film.  One of a kind.  Timeless.  There are no words for the cutting dissertation of Bob Dylan in his pseudonym screenwriter persona Sergei Petrov.  Larry Charles tags along as “Rene Fontaine” (cowriter) and as the cinematic auteur in charge of mise-en-scène.

I can’t really sum up how much Bob Dylan (as singer Jack Fate in this film) means to me.  That’s why it pissed me off so much as people filed out early from tonight’s concert to beat the rush…as if the Spurs were down 10 with 30 seconds remaining.  The bourgeois mass which sullied my night epitomize the artless throng which runs San Antone.  Don’t be fooled by the River Walk.  There is no life here.  Looking for the zombie apocalypse?  I can personally vouch that S.A. is chock-full of walking dead.

It is a prison.  And only a shrill voice can pierce the malaise.

In so many ways, Masked and Anonymous is a prescient film.  The flag.  North American Union.  The Midas-Judas Building.  Dr. Benway:  Psychiatrist.  And John Goodman as a thinly-veiled Albert Grossman:  Uncle Sweetheart.

Yes, the music industry is fucked.  It is a wonder that Bob Dylan gets out there every night and slogs it out.  In some ways, he is analogous to our Tim Duncan here in San Antonio (yes, our one pro sports team is truly the sole saving grace of this shithole…because they have class and are not obnoxious prima donnas).

Let’s give due to those vets who acted for the minimum recompense here:

Jeff Bridges as a slippery rock journalist.

Bruce Dern in a pithy role (powerfully acted) as Bridges’ editor.

Jessica Lange as a smoldering TV producer.

Penélope Cruz (so goddamned good in this) as a paranoid yet feather-light religious zealot.

Luke Wilson as Jack Fate’s old roadie.  [Side note:  I once walked up to Wilson in a Whole Foods and told him how much I appreciated his performance in this.  As I was wearing a white, polyester suit in the dead of Texas summer, it goes without saying that I probably shocked the shit out of poor Mr. Wilson.  He was, however, a good sport about the whole thing.]

Cheech Marin in 30 seconds (?) of pure genius…especially paired with the droll acting of Dylan.

Ed Harris as…Emmett Miller???

The list goes on and on…Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi (great segment on the bus), Christian Slater, Val Kilmer (slithy toves), Angela Bassett…

Of special note is Mickey Rourke as a bizarre mashup of George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales.

Somewhere between the positively fuck street of “Pay In Blood,” the agony of “Long and Wasted Years,” and the exiled ecstasy of “Autumn Leaves” Bob Dylan managed to transcend tonight at the Majestic.  Maybe he was channeling his old buddy Doug Sahm.  Nothing but a beer joint with a cloud machine.

-PD

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激突！殺人拳 [1974)

[THE STREET FIGHTER (1974)]

Cinema lets us enter a new world.  When we get off that ferry with Bruce Lee and his uncle in The Big Boss, we are entering the world of Hong Kong fighting.  There’s something about that green suitcase which Uncle Lu totes along the gangplank which makes the whole thing believable.  That cheap green suitcase.  It is sad somehow.  A day’s change of clothes, perhaps.  There is something so humble about the mise-en-scène to indicate that we are not in Kansas anymore.

Our eyebrows raise as the opening credits roll on this excellent Sonny Chiba flick.  Japan!  The wah-wah guitar beckons us into a world which no longer exists–a place in history.  But we are fortunate that Sonny Chiba lives!  He is 76 years old. What an impression he makes in The Street Fighter!

It is not completely clear early in this film what is going on.  In fact, there are several times when the storytelling becomes a bit convoluted.  Don’t misunderstand:  this isn’t a complex film.  But somehow, the storytelling is very…different.

We remember Christian Slater at the beginning of True Romance when he unsuccessfully tried to pick up a girl at a bar…

Girl:  You want to take me to a kung fu movie?!?

Slater:  Three…kung fu movies.

Yes.  I’ve taken a couple of jabs at Tarantino on my site.  Perhaps I’ve been too harsh.  I mean, maybe Quentin has it all figured out.  No doubt the masters like Godard were initially impelled and instructed by the likes of B-movies, gangster films, pulp…from Nicholas Ray to Samuel Fuller.  Silly me…I thought QT grew up in Knoxville, but that isn’t quite right.  That said, his upbringing sounds about as shitty as I imagined…just transposed to various urban sprawl appendages of Los Angeles.

And so, from “one inch punch” to “oxygen coma punch” we dovetail into Chiba’s oeuvre.

Nothing about the beginning of this film foreshadows the touching moment late in the film when Ratnose (Chiba’s sidekick) finally gets his friend’s attention.  This subplot between Terry Tsurugi and Ratnose is really remarkable…almost a Clouseau/Cato dynamic early on, which proceeds into a harrowing/endearing funnel of climax.

Yeah, Slater was right:  Chiba is a rough customer.  He’s hard to like.  You have to stick with it.  Slowly, his unique morality comes to the surface.  Tsurugi is a damaged character, but the hardships he has experienced make him one of the toughest people on the planet.

Interestingly, Tsurugi’s rampages are in the context of big oil.  Though it was 1974, we feel a palpable thrill as he deals with the dealers.  It is still relevant.  Consider this recent story, for instance:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/20/wall-street-journal-reporter-david-birds-body-found-in-a-n-j-river/

Likewise, Chiba plays the role of an anti-mafia loner.  In other words, this guy’s not afraid of anyone.  Pretty powerful stuff!

Although Tsurugi doesn’t really have a way with women, his “beast” mode wins over the beauty Sarai (Yutaka Nakajima).  Chiba is all action–very few words.

And if you think Bruce Lee makes strange sounds in his fights, Chiba takes the cake…perpetually clearing his sinuses while trying to self-induce a heart attack (or so it sounds).  It is mondo bizarre!

Shigehiro Ozawa manages to make this a particularly artful film at times…especially the fight between Chiba and Masafumi Suzuki.  The focus on fists bears a striking resemblance to the famous “gun” shot from Hitchcock’s Spellbound.

The Street Fighter diverges from Bruce Lee movies in that Chiba gets his ass kicked pretty severely throughout this movie.  I suppose there is a proto-Rocky element here:  Chiba is the guy who can roll with the punches.

Another couple of nods to Lee occur at the beginning and then much later in the film.  Milton Ishibashi is made fun of by the prison guards who say something like “he must think he’s Bruce Lee.”  More importantly, we later learn that Chiba’s character is half Japanese (hi Jad Fair). His father had tried to combine “Chinese boxing” and karate.  This reminds us of Way of the Dragon…where the restaurant employees mock Lee’s “Chinese boxing” in sneering tones (until they see what it can do).

I won’t give away the bizarre ending, but suffice it to say that Junjo (Ishibashi) will be singing “Kumbaya” like Ned Gerblansky from here on out (if at all).  Who’s ready for some pie?

-PD

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