https://open.spotify.com/track/0siRMpaOiZx0o3jyzudgdZ?si=d6da623efdff4fbe
Recommended if you like Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Tag Archives: Harvest
41020 [2021)
A silver mt. zion.
Montreal.
Hotel tango.
Sighing synths.
Leonard Cohen.
Getting cold.
Lee Hazlewood.
Arizona into the Rockies.
Wyoming.
Road music.
Music of wide open spaces.
Charles Mingus checks in.
Bob Dylan.
Tumbleweeds.
Was QAnon bullshit?
WFMU seems to think so.
And all their hipster listeners.
Missing the Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Chris Isaak.
My Bloody Valentine.
R.E.M.
Automatic for the people.
Rightly asking if this guy, Pauly Deathwish, is Borat.
Elvis working at the truck stop.
Nevada.
New Mexico.
Into French philosophy at a Barnes & Noble.
Film criticism.
Cinematic music.
The great philosophers.
Taking on Philip Glass.
Rachmaninoff.
Swedish version.
Poor girl with grey teeth.
Dirty bra.
Addicted to Kardashians.
And meth.
Smoking candy cigarettes.
Brutal, cold world.
No fall back.
Withdrawal back.
Wanna lock me for blood pressure.
It ain’t no cakewalk.
Ripoff.
Tech moves fast.
Write anything.
Better than nothing.
Bad press.
No press.
You have a printing press.
The Innocence Mission.
Miles.
Porgy and Bess.
A thousand planes.
Two ambient instrumentals to start this album.
Setting an amber tone.
Pensive.
Ex-pensive.
Time is a luxury.
And Miles comes in.
Bending notes.
Sighing again.
Like music from Big Pink.
John Simon.
Leonard Cohen.
Very much of the Deserter’s Songs type.
Song cycle.
Van Dyke.
And Coltrane leaps in.
No bends.
Solid sax.
Honky.
Low mids.
Leaping up.
Transposition.
A little noodling.
And WHAT THE FUCK.
Now we are in Blue Hawaii.
On a jukebox in Nashville.
Sawdust on the floor.
Just spit that tabaccy anywheres.
It really is Elvis.
Loaded.
Lou Reed.
Doo-wop.
We’re in east Texas with George Jones.
Straight country.
Classic country.
Bona fide redneck interpolation.
“Daisies on Your Doorstep”.
Troubled relationship.
Robert Altman.
Nashville.
Hitchcock.
Traut.
Birds.
Grandaddy invades!
Modesto!!
And back to EXPANSIVE verb.
Cathedral.
Serious shit.
Country gothic.
Phil Spector would have loved this.
The plandemic that killed Phil Spector.
Biggest celebrity to buy the farm.
Buy the farm?
Or sell the farm?
During this whole plandemic.
Write copy.
Boilerplate.
You have no publicity.
I block all reposts.
I wanna EARN it.
Organic.
Diminished 7th.
Dissolve into what?
More Mercury Rev homage.
Drums from “Desperado”.
Another lonely bloke ended by “Holes”.
Favorite song ever.
Happy end.
Drunk room.
Tom Waits.
The chord.
Spring.
Le Sacre.
Back to regularly scheduled programming.
Knife in the Water.
Austin.
R.E.M. again.
Big Star.
John Cale droning away on the viola.
No tremolo.
Swing it.
Ragged time.
Texarkana.
Arkansas.
And Texas.
Definite Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci nod.
Nick Drake.
Again The Innocence Mission.
Birds.
Pink Floyd.
Fairport Convention.
Psych barn.
The Byrds.
Gram Parsons.
Neil Young big time.
Stooges meet Beach Boys meet Messiaen.
But the Bowie knife is orange.
Made in Germany.
Kanye West and Wayne Coyne drop in.
An anti-hit.
When you can sing, but you get raped by auto-tune.
Loosen that shit up.
Going all Arabic on me.
Raga.
Spinal Tap.
Clouds of sound on almost every track.
A very ambient album.
Mood set.
Mood retained.
Mature.
Duran Duran.
Peaches DJ Berlin.
Where’s Warhol?
Nigel Godrich.
Jonny Greenwood.
Thom Yorke.
Grinderman.
Roger Waters again.
Microtonal blues.
Straight into Bjork.
Does she umlaut?
Sounds of a Mac.
Swan.
Alarm clock.
Gentle waking.
Paganini.
Rachmaninoff.
Elton John.
Stevie Wonder.
Sly Stone.
James Bond in Rio.
Drax.
Os Mutantes.
Jobim.
Korean frogs.
Shinto.
Spy guitar for reprise.
Tom Verlaine.
Richard Lloyd.
Paul Simon.
Rhythm of the saints.
Graceland.
Beethoven emperor concerto.
Slow.
Beloved.
Tokyo.
Press roll.
Sushi.
Kill bounce.
Phil Selway.
Colin Greenwood?
A masterful track.
“Icelandic Pastiche”.
NOW WE’RE TALKING.
Papa Trump back in the house.
For the apocalypse.
Rocky Balboa.
L.L. Cool J.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Second coming.
To save.
Vengeance is his.
Everyone given a chance.
A fair chance.
NASA.
I hear a single.
“Landslide”.
Wisconsin decertified.
Ramthun came through.
About fucking time.
There’s a riot goin’ on.
Paperclip Nazis.
Eric Carmen.
Smokey Robinson.
Tears of a motherfucking clown.
Oboe.
Michael Stipe.
Gil Evans.
Having the French horns get groovy.
Amelie.
Sketches of Spain.
Sunday morning.
Loveless.
Kevin Shields.
Belinda.
The Soft Bulletin.
Christ coming down from the clouds.
Like a ton of bricks.
Anvil.
Don’t call it a comeback.
Not all the way.
Staple Singers.
Rick Danko.
Rocket pans across stereo field.
Jesus talkin’.
Crucified.
Died.
Buried.
AND ROSE AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKERS.
Jesus more space than NASA.
Really a masterpiece of sample placement.
Crystal-clear mix.
Clouseau.
Peter Sellers.
Bass solo.
Absolute Mingus.
Bloody jaw-dropping.
This is like a fucking lost Roland Kirk album.
This track!
Concerto for Booty and Orchestra.
Montreux.
Can never spell.
System hacked.
No more spelling.
Adieu au langage.
Flute loops.
Cocteau Twins.
Ties together album.
Last track coming on like Faust.
Built to Spill.
Silver Apples.
In memory of a bloke who bit it.
End of Night on Earth.
Real recorder.
Charity.
You will live forever, my friend.
I never knew you.
You aren’t forgotten.
Thought of you put in this track.
Catharsis.
Yerself is steam.
Smashing Pumpkins.
Siamese.
Great album by Pauly Deathwish.
Spotify.
iTunes.
Solid.
-PD
drugs [2021)
We are finally catching up with Pauly Deathwish.
Here on his sixth album, drugs.
Good psychedelic surf start.
The romance must have seemed possible.
Christian trappings.
A great opening track.
Psychedelic Christianity.
Think of those private press releases from the ’60s and ’70s.
I’m hearing the joy and gravity of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.
The breakdown of this song “An Ocean of Cough Syrup” is where it’s at.
Maybe a bit of Kevin Ayers.
Wasted innocence.
After the party.
The party at the end of the world.
Certainly song lyrics reminiscent of Wayne Coyne.
Sonic Youth.
Yummy Yummy Yummy.
Pop psych.
Monkees.
Maybe the romance has faded.
Tabloid.
Even Dire Straits.
Walk of life.
Track 2 with acrobatic chord changes.
Music school.
Straight-up Fort Leavenworth presentation.
A pop song about biological warfare, economic warfare, psychological warfare, and divide/conquer.
This is some serious shit.
Not sure whether to call Billy Bragg or Glenn Greenwald.
This is the kind of shit that wins Nobels.
So maybe we are hearing the new Dylan here.
Imagine if Thom Yorke actually had something to say.
The bends.
Lift.
Leonard Cohen.
John Cale.
Anthemic.
This dude is definitely right-wing.
I guess you could say.
Imagine if Bob Dylan was actually in the John Birch Society.
That’s what you get here.
Hey, take it or leave it.
Ezra Pound!
But this dude is all about ‘merica.
And i got no problem with it.
Climax.
Constitution of the USA.
Time’s up.
“memes at the ready”.
Information warfare taken into the realm of head music.
Songwriting.
This guy is a danger…to the lame liberal establishment.
THIS MOTHERFUCKER HAS RELEASED 7 ALBUMS THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!
Kraftwerk.
Jon Spencer.
Martin Rev dipping Copenhagen.
Ministry?
Butthole Surfers?
Dabbling.
“Latinas for Trump”.
Wow.
Track 3 is a trucker song.
Set in Switzerland.
With production like Nigel Godrich.
It’s a long track.
But enjoyable.
Drum machine and acoustic guitar.
And funky clavinet.
Jerry Reed.
Amos Moses.
Yodeling!
FUcking hell.
Haven’t heard this since Jerry Lee.
Dwight Yoakam.
Chris Isaak.
But this is the kinda shit cognizant about There’s a Riot Goin’ On.
Spaced cowboy.
Travelogue of Swiss sites from cinema history.
I have a feeling this guy would drink Klaus Schwab’s blood.
This conspiracy platter is fine listening.
Variety.
French/German.
No Italian.
Except Cortina d’Ampezzo.
No Romansch.
Motorik.
NEU! meets Gram Parsons.
Who is/was this “Swiss Alps Truck-Driving Gal”?
Cosmic funk.
Like French band Air.
Great bassline.
Dancy filler track of highest quality.
Mike Lindell needs to hear this shit.
mark_packet.
recieve_good.
What if Wayne Coyne and Dave Fridmann actually made songs that spoke to something larger?
They’ve hit it occasionally.
You gotta have Jesus in your heart.
Brian Eno first four records spun out again and again.
Cornelius.
Stereolab.
And WHAT THE FUCK?!?
Delta blues?
Country blues???
Yes, indeed.
“COVID-19 Blues”.
Like late-period Dylan.
Seriously.
If Dylan passes, this dude is next up.
I know it sounds implausible.
Communism used to be risqué.
Now the tables have turned.
Paul Joseph Watson needs to hear this shit.
The human condition.
Dr. Steve Pieczenik needs to hear this song, “COVID-19 Blues”.
This is Stax.
Muscle Shoals.
Atlantic.
Booker T.
But with that San Antonio twist.
Pauly Deathwish from the Alamo city.
Augie Meyers.
Flaco Jimenez.
Is Trump still the President? 😉
When was this written?
Why that move to Bedminster?
Cabinet meeting.
A unifying song.
Like “Dixie”.
Ask Abraham Lincoln about “Dixie”.
Masked and anonymous.
QAnon line as money shot.
Sweet harmonica.
Linn drums.
Beck.
Loop.
It don’t matter.
This record rocks the Walmart parking lot.
GUITAR SOLO!
Jimmy Vaughn.
B.B. King.
Richard Manuel tickling the ivories.
Band brown album.
Call Q.
Call Mojo.
Call Uncut.
Side two for all you vinyl lovers.
“Let’s Get Creative”.
Floyd delay.
Sexy song.
J. Spaceman.
Jeff Tweedy.
Kid A.
Really special production.
Which just goes to show that anything can be done with an iPhone.
Except privacy.
Tim Cook cocksucker.
In shitty record store.
Radiohead were our Beatles.
Or their Beatles.
Now many friends have left.
You can’t say White Lives Matter.
Can someone please tell Pauly Deathwish this?
Not that he SAID it.
Because he didn’t.
Trail of Dead.
Which makes sense.
Read this motherfucker’s bio on Spotify.
No slouch.
I happen to know some extra details which I may divulge at a later date.
Lots of training in music composition.
Multiple touches with Nadia Boulanger.
Sexy song.
T. Rex.
Bolan.
Jonny Greenwood.
Scott Pilgrim.
Edgar Wright needs to hear this shit.
No cap.
Dead ass.
Trans.
Neil Young.
Dead Man.
Thurston Moore needs to hear this shit.
Funny mention.
Watch the water.
August 20.
Rollerskate Skinny appreciation society.
St. Johnny.
Boo Radleys.
First Stereolab album.
Grandaddy.
Harvest drums.
Like it!
Like a Sonic Youth country album.
Made in a barn.
Nothing Ween about this shit.
Except for the trucker song.
Which is funny as fuck.
This dude definitely a QAnon.
“Midnight Rider”.
Paul Revere.
One if by…two…
Mercury Rev.
Suzanne Thorpe.
Applied memetics.
Oh shit.
First Eno record.
Desert island.
THIS is impressive.
Turns out to be motto of 4th Psychological Operations Group (4thPOG) at Fort Bragg.
The PSYWAR just got real.
Vietnamese ghosts amplified.
But this is Chinese.
China bio attack.
Fauci through China.
Focus on Peter Daszak and his absurd opera-singer brother.
There is going to be hell to pay.
Q-uantum of solace.
PCAPs.
Obviously, Pauly Deathwish loves the instrumentals from Bowie’s Low.
This is a constant touchstone.
Trance.
Meditative techno.
Ugh.
When the bass drops in on “Verbum Vincet ’72”.
Who was Q?
Who is Q?
Was Q a psychological operation?
From whence might it have emanated?
Roger Waters.
Hell to pay.
Criminal networks wiped off the face of the earth.
Peking opera.
Sue me.
LeBron James is a worthless cocksucker.
I think I would get along with this Pauly Deathwish guy.
8964.
We have it all…in Utah.
“Bluffdale” like Marquee Moon.
Meets chiptune.
Super Marquee Moon.
Even a bit of John Bonham.
Good drum sound.
Dubstep?
Riots worldwide.
No vaccine passports.
Here’s where BLM and MAGA come together.
Don’t vax us, man.
A unifying event.
The real racists are the totalitarian Democrats.
Am I doing this right?
Pepe Lives Matter needs to hear this shit.
Klaus Voorman bass.
Leave it in.
Smacked out of your gourd.
Phil Spector murdered by the Rona.
Lee “Scratch” producing The Clash.
People want to sleep forever.
Sleep through this global nightmare.
Gotta wake up.
But the reality is crushing.
So God gives us solace here and there.
Black ark.
Meandering.
Oar.
Moby grape.
Hal Blaine back in the barn stoned on some world-class shit.
Nodding.
Space-age.
Astral weeks.
Nick Drake.
Ending album on serious note?
“Cotton Ball Soup”.
Will the masses win?
Against the vaccine passport bastards?
Montreal.
Where’s GYBE?
No heroes can be found.
Where’s Thom Yorke?
Radiohead?
Bob Dylan?
WWIII.
iTunes.
Spotify.
-PD
zenith [2021)
Jesus and Mary Chain.
Black tar.
Caramelized sugar.
A dangerous confection.
Hit to Death in the Future Head.
Summer is here.
I hear.
Vacuum cleaner solo.
Theremin.
Race cars.
Boys peel out.
High-speed boats.
And again with the UPC scan.
Breaking up on reentry.
Serious audio fuckery.
And from this right into kung fu. Peter Sellers on Bowie’s Low. Trance. But really what we have here is excellent counterpoint. Lunatic Harness. Polyrhythms. Album breaks down soon. Fast. Abruptly. Mental block regarding Wuhan origin. Harmonic outline you would never find in China. Terry Riley. A Rainbow in Curved Air. Eno. Visconti. And the others involved. A beauty that inspired Philip Glass. This is what we have. Low and heroes. Symphonies. Glass. Riley. Minimalism. Album called zenith. Track two already hits “Nadir”. What’s the arc here? Arc-en-ciel? Arkansas? Immediately pensive. Very unnerving. Pop rock track. Into existential oblivion. Abrupt modulation. Uncomfortable. Eccentric. Was there a thought process behind this? Commerce ruins everything. Imperfect masterpieces. The rules of the game. Radiohead. Joseph Arthur? Sparklehorse. The Magnetic Fields. Gay baritone. Sad sack confessional poetry in the world of Berryman’s Dream Songs. Brian Jonestown Massacre. The Verve. Strung out in heaven. J. Spaceman shooting up while praying. Don’t knock it… Drug addiction is real. Mental problems are real. Here we are. 2020 fucked us up. And now we wait for the next shoe to drop. Smashing Pumpkins. “Silver Fuck”? Into Sonny Rollins? Epstein. Gene Ammons. Hard to tell it’s (not) real. Which parts? Yes. No. Fooling the ear with Dave Fridmann. A totally schizophrenic record so far. Here we go! “Belgian Lace, Pale Black Mascara…” This is more like it. Rollerskate Skinny. Martin Rev. Lots of counterpoint here. Fux me up. Disney xylophones. Internal rhyme-sanity. Dylan puking up brilliance. Always Roger Waters with the bass. Always The Wall. Pompeii. Hail to the Thief. Again and again. Trying to break new ground. And it does. Yerself is Steam. Album starts to make sense after five tracks. 1 & 5. This is not bullshit. I don’t know about the jazz. I don’t know about the monotonous instrumentals. Absolutely “Car Wash Hair”. Suzanne Thorpe would be proud. Seems to be talking about tits. A good ride. Drum machine chugging away. Can still have a good groove. Wild Acoustic Chamber Orchestra. W.A.C.O. Woodwinds and glockenspiel. Boces. What the fuck is this shit? O.K. computer. Sounds like some QAnon stuff. I feel Carlos Santana coming on. This is what Assange jams out to. Lots of plays at Fort Meade. Salsa. James Brown. Puerto Rican funk. As AOC goes to jail. Serious national security issues for lyrics. Fictional charges? Tracers everywhere. This theory involves an actual conspiracy. Criminal conspiracy outlined. By players. Event 201. Short circuit. Johnny 5 is alive. Legalistic funk. QAnon wet dream. FISAgate. “Spy Gate”. Somebody send this to Sean Hannity. Obamagate. Where is John Durham? Ryan Dark White knows the truth about Rosenstein. How many coup attempts by the Left? Back to Billy Corgan. Ok, so we have an Alex Jones connection. Early-’90s goodness. Butch Vig. Dream pop. James Iha. Bet this guy knows the real story about the Standard Hotel(s). Great lyrics! Must be some inside jokes here. But HOLY FUCK! He nailed the “Holes” trumpet solo. Deserter’s Songs. God damn it. How did they do this? The liner notes say Pauly Deathwish has also produced all four of these albums. Kind of a Jimmy Page thing going on. Great drum sound. Yo La Tengo. “Mayonnaise”. Siamese Dream. Benjamin Britten reference? Slick! So this guy basically had a music education on par with Jack Nitzsche. And then went for scumbag rockroll like Phil Spector. Gotta respect this weird marriage. This fascination with grunge. Dinge. And the facility to clean it up like a chandelier. Very fucking impressive. No record label. Kinda sounds like no funding. No budget. The Delgados. Hate. The Great Eastern. More Spiritualized telephony. The Wall. Which is to say, Bob Erzin. And as dark as Berlin. Which is to say, Bob Ezrin. Neil Young vibe. Tonight’s the Night. Some dark-ass shit. Nick Kent, where y@t? IV Thieves. Coulda done this. What if Chris “Frenchie” Smith had produced this? This kid like a protege. I hear the moniker (stage name) was bestowed by Frenchie Smith. Strings good. Eastern European orchestra. Must have cost a small fortune. Arcade Fire. French cinema. Romantic-era harmony. But pierced. Sophisticated. Absolutely Floyd. “In The Flesh”. Last track on Harvest. Words between the lines. The promise of the ’60s went to shit in the ’70s. Where’s QAnon? Where’s Nakasone? Where’s CYBERCOM? Keith Alexander on Amazon board. Velvet Underground feeding back. Les Rallizes Denudes. Primal Scream. “Swastika Eyes”. ADAT. DAT machine. Sampling. Stereolab. Back to another standout track. “Chaconne”. Will Smith in the summertime. Some slick shit. Messiaen. Jonny Greenwood. Lyrics world-class. All those sand paintings. Write and destroy. Suicide girls. Thom Yorke’s brain doesn’t have this facility. He’s a great stylist. Definitely an homage. And to Godard. Snow white and psycho. Heavy shit for Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane to check out. Not far from Faust IV. So sweet. John Paul Jones. Ramble on. Charlotte Gainsbourg. Keren Ann. Last track noisy as fuck. Lo-fi. Tom Waits. Sticks together. Some sad shit. Music from Big Pink. Mournful trombone(s). John Simon. “Bird on a Wire”. They don’t make records like this anymore. David Bowie not dead. Great phrasing. Sinatra. Mark Linkous. It’s a Wonderful Life. Believable bass. Upright citizen. Bayou curious. Noise floor drops out. Some perverse humor here. An “album”. It is. Ten songs. Ten different directions. Some tracks stick together. Like a deck of cards shuffled. Lots of variety. Circus peanuts. The orange ones. Pure sugar. Chewy. Strange texture. Lots of melancholy here. What’s this bloke so sad about? Tell Thurston Moore. You gotta hear this shit. Pauly Deathwish’s 4th album (this summer!). Is this guy trying to set a Guinness record or something? And he already has a 5th one out. Christ!
-PD
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story [2003)
Happy Birthday to Thora Birch, my favorite actress of all time!
Yes, I know…I know.
A film critic whose favorite actress is a young 35-year-old whipper snapper???
Yes.
That’s alright.
Laugh at me.
If the question was, “Who was your favorite classic Hollywood actress?,” then I would answer, “Lauren Bacall”.
But I said favorite actress of all time.
You can search my “Thora” category here on my site for why exactly this actress is my favorite.
Because otherwise, we’re going to be here all day.
And I have a movie to review!
One of my favorites: Homeless to Harvard.
It is, indeed …The Liz Murray Story, but I will be using the shortened title hereafter for brevity’s sake.
It is my contention (and I have made the point elsewhere…probably on this very site of mine) that Thora Birch produced a trilogy of acting performances which are more-or-less analogous to Bob Dylan’s classic trilogy.
Let’s start with Dylan.
The three (at unity from a similarity of intense expression):
–Bringing It All Back Home
–Highway 61 Revisited
and
–Blonde on Blonde
And now the Thora films which correspond in my mind:
–American Beauty
–Ghost World
and
–Homeless to Harvard
Sure…Birch didn’t direct these films.
But her acting is so strong, she might as well have.
By this point she was no longer a prodigy.
She was a mature actress. A master of her craft.
And the story here is one to really sink teeth in.
[In which.]
We recently touched on homelessness here in the review of Alicia Vikander’s stellar turn as Katarina from Till det som är vackert.
Pure.
But the esthetics of Homeless to Harvard are different.
This isn’t European arthouse. It’s a Lifetime made-for-TV film.
But don’t go running anywhere!!!
This is as gritty as any Lou Reed tale.
And it’s all real.
Too pure.
Heroin addict parents.
Mother schizophrenic.
Blindness.
Genetic.
Mother with HIV.
Father with AIDS.
Vice versa ice Ursa.
Father in homeless shelter.
Mother wielding knife. Vomiting.
Alcoholism.
Really appealing, eh?
But you gotta stick with it.
This isn’t Darren Aronofsky mise-en-scène.
It’t not, “Let’s win an award at Sundance.” Or, “Let’s sweep at Cannes.”
It’s more like one of Aesop’s fables.
It’s the message, man!
And so first, let’s honor the director.
Peter Levin.
Who knew a television film could be so artful?
Well, when you combine the history of Histoire(s) du cinéma with the precedent of Twin Peaks, you should know by now that television can produce good stuff.
Hell…
Your TV can even WATCH YOU! (as per WikiLeaks Vault7).
But I digress…
The weeper (no masonry) sob story…had me crying in my Junior Mints…we must attribute to the excellent writing of Ronni Kern.
Who the hell is Ronni Kern?!?
Male? Female?
I’ve had less trouble finding the gender of completely unknown foreign movie people.
But Kern is pretty invisible on the Internet.
And maybe there’s a point here.
- It doesn’t fucking matter.
- You should judge someone on their work, not their gender.
Hopefully Ms. Birch will appreciate this flash of liberalism should she read this review.
[I’m not holding my breath]
But we have just celebrated International Women’s Day.
And the fact that Birch’s character here is a “feminist” is a running pseudo-joke.
Which brings us to the performances.
Michael Riley is stellar, stellar (I know…) as Liz’s father Peter.
Kudos to the styling department.
That beard. And that hair!
Crazy, man, crazy!!
But Riley’s performance is really special.
It touched my heart.
Long ago.
When I first saw this film.
And dare I say, this movie made me appreciate my own family.
It made me miss my folks.
And so I salute Peter Riley and Lifetime and all involved for that effect on my heart.
Jennifer Pisana is really fabulous as the young Liz Murray here.
It’s an unenviable task.
To precede Thora Birch’s entrance.
But Pisana is indispensable to this little masterpiece.
Those sweaters.
And the full pronunciations…”Mommy”…”Daddy”…
Ms. Pisana affects the necessary naïveté to be juxtaposed against the sad schizophrenia of Kelly Lynch (who plays Liz’s mom).
And Lynch is great.
Think Cries and Whispers.
[cris et chuchotements…(( (( ((…et chuchotements]
Robert Bockstael does a fine job as Liz’s teacher David.
Very convincing. Excellent craftsmanship.
Makyla Smith is piquant in her depiction of Liz’s best friend Chris.
[God…the Magic Marker…and the pine box…fuuuuuuck]
Yes, friends…this is Lifetime Television.
So the brisure (bonjour, monsieur Derrida) is “crap”.
“Crap happens.”
Whoa…watch thy mouth, Kelly Lynch!
So again…Peter Levin does a fantastic job shoehorning a true X-file into PG territory.
We see a syringe here and there. A tourniquet.
Riley cleaning a spoon.
But the real heartbreak is Wheat Chex with tap water.
Yeah…
Hello Gummo.
Ellen Page has a small role here.
And she’s good.
Fine actress.
But we’ve been waiting to roll out the big gun.
Thora Birch.
On this, her birthday, I am only just now getting towards a handful of reviews honoring her unique thespian gift.
What to say?
That every look is magic?
That every glance is gold?
That she has crafted her microexpressions in solitude…and wielded them like an Arthurian sword for the duration of this flick?
Yes, yes, and yes.
[and an Oxford comma]
Because kids take it for granted.
Rich kids.
Harvard.
Penn.
Princeton.
Maybe…
But even more so the lesser ivied walls.
I won’t name names.
But the spoiled kids.
Not turning in homework.
Bragging about shortcuts.
Those, ultimately, will be life’s losers.
But Liz Murray worked her butt off to get into Harvard.
From sleeping on the B Train.
Four years of high school in two.
And Thora Birch has worked her butt off too.
She hasn’t gotten the roles her talent deserves.
But the roles she has gotten, she has largely smashed out of the park.
Like the Babe Ruth of leading ladies.
And so there are other actresses I admire.
But Thora Birch was the first.
The first to give me that magical feeling which only Neil Young has adequately described:
“I fell in love with the actress/She was playin’ a part that I could understand”.
Happy Birthday, Thora Birch!
And may all your days and films be filled with the joy which you have put into the world through your cinematic brilliance.
-PD
paulydeathwish 