Last Night in Soho [2021)

First off.

I am in love with Thomasin McKenzie.

I think Saoirse Ronan has lost her touch.

Kat Dennings doesn’t even bother with films anymore.

And Thora Birch is too much of a liberal moron.

But then all actors are liberal morons, aren’t they?

Except for a precious few.

Jon Voight.

James Woods.

Rob Schneider.

Kirstie Alley.

Robert Davi.

Jim Caviezel.

Secondly.

This film is a masterpiece.

Edgar Wright is the best filmmaker in the world right now.

Is he better than Jean-Luc Godard?

No.

But Godard is not making films for mass consumption.

Is he better than Wes Anderson?

BY A MILLION FUCKING MILES!!!

Don’t get me wrong.

Wes Anderson made one perfect film.

And that film was The Grand Budapest Hotel.

And that film wouldn’t have been perfect without Saoirse Ronan.

That’s how important her presence in that film was.

Saoirse has made another perfect film.

Hanna.

But her others are mediocre.

Brooklyn.

Meh.

Lady Bird.

Even more meh (not a good thing).

Saoirse has gone astray.

Just as Thora Birch went astray.

Ghost World is a perfect film.

And American Beauty is close to perfect.

For my money, Homeless to Harvard is her other perfect film.

Kat Dennings films kinda suck.

Her masterpiece is actually 2 Broke Girls.

I’m serious.

But that’s not cinema.

Twin Peaks is cinema.

Even though it’s a TV show.

Histoire(s) du cinéma is the best film ever made.

And it was made for TV.

Homeless to Harvard is a Lifetime movie.

Made for TV.

It is not cinema.

Not exactly.

But it may be a perfect film.

Wes Anderson made his perfect film with Saoirse Ronan.

And he made a good film (Tenenbaums).

The rest are shite.

I did not understand Edgar Wright’s film language when I first saw Shaun of the Dead.

I thought it was crap.

How wrong I was!

Here is my contention.

Every Edgar Wright film is perfect.

Shaun of the Dead?

Yes.

Hot Fuzz?

Yes.

The World’s End?

Yes.

Baby Driver?

Yes.

Scott Pilgrim?

Yes.

And this film is perfect too.

But this is not quite the Wright you are used to.

This is a genuinely scary film.

But it stands up with Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining as one of the four best horror films ever made.

Edgar Wright films are all about detail.

But not the twee obsession with detail that Wes Anderson has.

Edgar Wright is overflowing with talent.

Wes Anderson is not.

Anderson needed Saoirse Ronan to make his perfect film.

And there was a bit (just a bit!) of grit in Grand Budapest.

Saoirse is missing from his other films.

And there is no real grit in any of the others.

Tenenbaums is good.

But the Wes Anderson players are tiresome.

Is Bill Murray amazing?

Yes.

But are his performances in Wes Anderson films his best work?

Absolutely not.

No more Jason Schwatzman (for fuck’s sake!).

Is Luke Wilson a great actor?

Yes.

What’s his best film?

Masked and Anonymous.

Maybe it’s Paltrow and Hackman which make Tenenbaums good.

For my money, Luke Wilson is the one who makes that film go.

But it is not on the same level as Grand Budapest.

Last Night in Soho is the Grand Budapest of the ’20s.

We’re in the ’20s now.

Are they roaring?

Like a fucking mouse.

Last Night in Soho is a gazillion times better than No Time to Die.

This film has everything the Bond film didn’t.

Substance.

Competent directing.

A story worth sticking with.

And so it is fitting that Diana Rigg’s last role should absolutely trump the death of James Bond.

The one George Lazenby film was WAY better than No Time to Die.

The death of love is more sad than the death of the hero.

Diana Rigg is the linchpin in the Bond franchise.

Pull that thread, and the sweater unravels.

Léa Seydoux is boring as fuck in the Bond films.

She was great in Blue.

But she was nothing compared to the one who carried that film (Adele Exarchopoulos).

Exarchopoulos made one perfect film.

Blue is the Warmest Color.

None of her other films are even good.

Wright makes what Youth in Revolt might have been.

He is not glib.

This is not a hipster film.

Michael Cera (who has made one perfect film [Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist]) is, mercifully, NOT in Last Night in Soho.

[correction…Kat Dennings DID make one perfect film]

Thomasin McKenzie’s obsession with ’60s London music is real.

It’s not a fucking Austin Powers joke.

Rita Tushingham is wonderful as Gram.

Excellent casting.

[take note, Bond franchise]

Thomasin hooks up with a black dude.

No big deal.

Take note, Bond franchise.

NOT EVERY FUCKING PERSON HAS TO BE BLACK IN ORDER FOR A FILM TO BE VIABLE!!!

Thomasin’s love interest is a black fellow.

I have no problem with that.

He does a good job.

For fuck’s sake…he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page!

Michael Ajao.

Fine acting!

There can be important black characters WITHOUT A FILM BEING A WOKE FUCKING JOKE (like the recent Bond film).

No big deal.

Don’t make it a big deal.

It has to fit with the story.

The story is the most important thing.

The writers of the Bond film (Purvis and Wade) have allowed their name to be attached to the fucking pathetic shit of No Time to Die.

So you get a kiwi to speak in a Cornish accent.

GREAT ACTRESS!

Thomasin McKenzie.

Say that name with me.

Jacinda Ardern’s father (or mother?) was a horse.

Ugly bitch.

Ugly soul.

Thomasin McKenzie is the best thing to ever come out of New Zealand.

However, there has been one perfect kiwi movie:  Eagle vs Shark.

Synnøve Karlsen is so fucking annoying in Soho.

And she was supposed to be.

So, good job (I guess).

Every film needs a villain.

And Jocasta (Karlsen’s character) is the real villain of this film.

Thomasin is different.

Jocasta beats her down.

Mentally.

A stingy spirit.

Can never share in any of her joys.

Do you know anyone like that?

But Thomasin is troubled.

Hallucinations?

Maybe.

Seeing ghosts?

Maybe.

We’re trying to solve a case here.

Cold case.

Maybe a lot of cold cases.

Maybe a serial killer.

To the Belle and Sebastian bedsit.

Salad days are short-lived.

Don’t underestimate Sandie Shaw.

Always something there to remind me.

1964.

Puppet on a string.

Gotta pay your dues.

As a wind-up bird girl.

Brian Epstein.

Giorgio Gomelsky.

Andrew Loog Oldham.

ABKCO.

The influence of Vertigo upon Last Night in Soho cannot be understated.

The red of the Café de Paris.

The blonde of Anya Taylor-Joy’s hair.

And Thomasin’s hair.

[also, don’t underestimate Bergman’s Persona]

The glance to the side.

It’s not Jimmy Stewart.

It’s Thomasin.

Allusions to The Way of the Dragon and The Lady from Shanghai in the mirrors.

Sure, a bit of Pulp Fiction.

But that’s just for the kids.

Edgar Wright’s grasp of cinema history is way deeper than some Tarantino bullshit.

And yet, he likes zombies.

And shitty horror films from the ’80s.

I mean REALLY shitty, camp ones.

Slasher films.

Back to Vertigo.

Kim Novak’s apartment is bathed in green neon.

But Thomasin’s bedsit is a red, white, and blue homage to Godard.

An homage to Une Femme est une femme.

Dancing.

Dancing girls.

Prostitutes.

Vivre sa vie.

Pink dress fembot.

Pew pew.

Thomasin is way sexier than Anya Taylor-Joy.

Thomasin is the girl next door.

The frumpy hair of Homeless to Harvard.

I love it.

It must be this way.

To juxtapose the transition to Swinging Sixties glamour.

Is Trump just culture jamming with his vaccine tack?

Either that, or the hero has become the villain.

Did the D.C. swamp make Trump into a swamp zombie?

Maybe no one comes out clean.

International law was broken.

War crimes.

All these Wright films have zombies.

Or robots.

Faceless automatons.

A bit of Dragon Tattoo.

We all like a good microfiche scene!

Is Terence Stamp her father?

If Sandie is her mother?

Could be.

Otherwise, she would be the daughter of a prick.

But Stamp tried to save Sandie.

Arsenic and old lace.

The ones you never suspect.

Sicario.

“Buried” in the walls.

Decomposing.

Poe.

Gacy.

Wright’s “sympathy for the serial killer”.

What happened to these people that made them monsters?

Don’t underestimate Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (his only English-language film…and a flat-out masterpiece).

In the world of Edgar Wright, it is records.

Vinyl.

Not books.

And sometimes the elderly want to die with their memories.

They are not going anywhere.

They are not fleeing.

It’s been a good life.

Going down with the ship.

Up in flames.

The shitbags want their deaths avenged.

After all, they were just horny, well-to-do dads who needed a little excitement.

Prostitution.

It’s the law, after all.

Murder is murder.

Crimes of passion.

By reason of insanity.

Not guilty.

Not insane.

But traumatized.

But Thomasin has been on the adventure.

She knows what Sandie has been through.

Trump was abused for four years.

That is true.

And he fought like a champ.

Is there no justice?

Is it culture jamming (I ask again)?

Confusion.

Keeping his enemies off balance.

Getting a foot in the door.

Truth Social will censor “hate speech” with a Silicon Valley AI bot.

In order to get on Apple App Store and Google Play.

But the roll out is delayed?

Lie about the vaccines.

“Safe and effective”.

Move in for the kill shot.

Against whom?

Big Pharma and the New World Order.

But we have to call out serial killers for who they are.

If you are saying the COVID vaccines are “safe and effective”, you are spreading misinformation that is endangering the lives of those who hear and trust you.

CDC:  11,879

  IMG_6975

Open VAERS:  23,149

IMG_6976

IMG_6977

Neither safe,

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality

nor effective.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-covid-deaths-2021-vaccines-b1963790.html

IMG_5785

10,000-20,000 vaccine deaths should be read as 100,000-200,000 vaccine deaths because of this:

https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/underreporting-vaccine-adverse-events

IMG_6468

IMG_6469

And correlation does not necessarily equal causation…unless this (peep the myocarditis…you think that’s all JnJ? [nigga please!]):

https://openvaers.com/covid-data

IMG_6981

But the election was stolen.

Or was it allowed to be stolen?

When will the other shoe drop?

Or does the other shoe even exist?

This charade is going to go on until 2024?

Maybe Sandie is not her mother.

-PD

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

Batman Returns [1992)

Born in a cage.

Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Shreck.

Weimar.

Blackmailed like Pence.

Selina Kyle.

Vicki Vale.

Meow.

Sewn together.

From scraps.

A staged rescue.

Ring a bell?

Missing children.

Cage man’s pedigree.

Shreck Soros.

But not as much as Penguin.

George.

Eye bags.

Black teeth.

That gum you like…back in style.

Alex.

Rubber duckies.

Instagram.

Killing children.

Which super-rich dream of this?

Only dream?

Shreck Trump.

Why did Hollywood hate Trump for so long?

Electronic warfare.

Countermeasures.

Old crows.

Lisbeth’s kiss.

-PD

Mad Max [1979)

Crunch time.

Ghost rider.

Motorcycle hero.

Chain Bowery.

Hand.

Mind games.

Fifi McAfee.

IMG_0865

Toecutter is Wayne Coyne.  Hugh Keays-Byrne.  On Highway 61.  In a forrest-green Ford Focus?  Oklahoma plates.  Near Emerald Mound.  Flaming Lips poster tucked into the back of the driver’s seat.  Soft Bulletin era.  Before Yoshimi.  Dead in December of last year in New South Wales.  Peacefully?  In a hospital?  At age 73?  12/2/2020.  Gay Bubba is Marc Almond.  Satanist.  Now says it was a joke.  This is quintessential Antifa.  As if Johnny the Boy had his eyes gouged out.  Dumb driver runs away.  Left his woman.  Pitiful.  Steve Bisley with compassion.  Goose is Max von Sydow.  We are going to win Australia back for Australians.  And win Canada back for Canadians.  And win the U.K. back for the English and Scottish and Welsh.  And the Irish of Belfast.  My mates in The Answer.  Google me.  No one showed up.  And Johnny walked free.  It’s time to show up, Australia.  Here is your song, Australia.  We will make it together.  https://soundcloud.com/paulydeathwish/australia-here-i-come-original Bernard Kerik is now on our side.  Goose.  We won’t lose.  Lori “Eraserhead” Lightfoot. IMG_0853

That THING is not the Mayor of Chicago.  Intel from Bobby Piton that she is a CCP operative.  Interesting.  Singer licking her lips.  Could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.  Goose’s last taste of life.  Went out with a bang.  But burnt to a crisp.  And not out.  Alive and suffering.  Bike in the back of a fuck-ugly ute.  Under which Goose is cooked.  Antifa tactics.  Mean, nasty people.  Cowards.  Sadists.  Unhappy adolescents who remain unhappy adolescents for their entire lives.  Sick utopians.  If only everyone saw things their way, then the world would be a wonderful place.  They think.  Rebels without an understanding of their cause.  Which is to say, without a cause.  The cause is only a prop.  And so nebulous as to be virtually nonexistent.  West side story.  Cascadia.  Rosa Brooks.  Nils Gilman.  Transition Integrity Project.  Brooks involved in Soros projects like Open Society Foundations.  Gilman with Berggruen in California.  Which is to say, China.  Intimate connection.  Berggruen Institute.  Satellite offices mainland.  Tries to quit and get out.  Some good times.  Family time.  Swimming.  A child.  Tender moments between man and wife.  Sharing childhood memories in vulnerability.  Fifi needed him.  McAfee.  Abandoned.  Had to make a choice.  Chose family.  I chose family.  And now I can buy Bitcoin and shrink Abbey Road to the size of a matchbox.  More or less.  At least as passable as Radiohead glitch fidelity.  Sprog is sperg.  Autists activate.IMG_0647

IMG_1221

Reconcile.  Contempt meets Rambo.  Again it’s Cascadia.  Twin Peaks.  Knives in movies.  They drew first blood, not me.  Paul Hogan.  Mel Gibson never finished fixing the fan belt.  If you wait, it’s too late.  Death Wish.  True romance.  It would seem they needed Toecutter for the sequel.    Good versus evil.  The Flaming Lips versus me.  Versus the Devil in fuckery.  You can saw through the cuffs in 10, or your ankle in 5.  Joanne Samuel beautiful and great acting.  The Mel Gibson contingent is taking back the world.  Just you watch.

-PD

Män som hatar kvinnor [2009)

Research will be the star.

QAnon.

You must know the history of Scandinavian film to understand this movie.

Wild Strawberries.

Nordisk Film A/S [later].

Sjöström = Taube.

But also Nyqvist.

Flashbacks to idyllic female visions.

WarGames.

B2 = Bill Barr.

Stealth.

No leaks.

No deals.

Durham.

Twin Peaks.

Laura Palmer = Harriet Vanger.

Photograph.

Speaking from beyond the grave.

The gaze.

Always return to the photo.

Motif.

Vertigo.

Hire the investigator.

So close.

Who will it be?

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

The bathroom tile.

A sickening act.

Whore bath.

Survival.

JFK.

Retracing steps.

Book depository.

George H.W. Bush.

Of the CIA.

In Texas.

In front of depository?

Study the photo.

Study the angles.

Jim Garrison.

Blowup.

Resolution.

Strangers on a Train.

Robert Walker is uninterested in the tennis match.

tennis

What is he so (dis)interested in?

Hard Candy.

Consequences.

Cryptography.

Codebreaking.

Kryptos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos

Key (book).

National Treasure.

Research will win the day.

Serial killer.

Black Dahlia.

Elaborate dissection.

Exquisite corpse.

Lost Highway.

The hunter has become the hunted.

Vengeance (is mine).

Revenge.

Vigilante.

BTK.

“factor X”.

Refer to the possession of Ray Wise.

Justice.

Silence of the Lambs.

Ted Bundy’s photographs.

Symbolism will be their downfall.

Ordet.

Rising from the dead.

Visionary + nerd.

Cage.

Riley.

2011 Norway attacks.

Youth summer camp.

In a cage while they had dinner.

Podesta basement.

For “film installations”.

Ayoola Ajayi inquiring about soundproof basement.

Hell is hot.

Vredens dag.

The things that make people crazy.

And yet the survivors press on.

Requiem for a Dream.

Niels Arden Oplev directed a magnificent film here.

Noomi Rapace is marvelous.

Michael Nyqvist is perfect.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/03/german-prisoner-named-as-suspect-in-disappearance-of-madeleine-mccann

-PD

Transylvania 6-5000 [1985)

5’40”

“Loretta Lynch:

–indicted

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

–2 counts of obstruction of justice

—3 counts of lying to Congress

Sally Yates:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

—3 counts, obstruction of justice

John Brennan:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

—3 counts of lying to Congress

–2 counts of lying to investigators

-1 count of conspiracy to commit treason

—3 counts of obstruction of justice

James Clapper:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

–2 counts of lying to Congress

Four CIA operatives:

–indicted

–no charges listed

[…]

James Comey:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

——6 counts of perjury

—-4 counts of obstruction of justice

—-4 counts of falsifying government documents

Andrew McCabe:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

–2 counts of perjury

—3 counts of lying to Congress

-1 count of falsifying documents

Bruce Ohr:

—3 counts conspiracy […]

-1 count of falsifying documents

Baker:

–indictment

–charges unknown

Strzok:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

—-4 counts of perjury

—3 counts of falsifying documents

[…]

Page:

—3 counts, conspiracy to overthrow the government

—3 counts of perjury

-1 count of obstruction of justice

Rod Rosenstein:

—–5 various charges

–exact unknown at this time

Susan Rice:

–illegal use of government systems

—3 counts of perjury

-1 count of obstruction”

Let’s recap, shall we?

First, lets group those who (if the information in the link I provided above [and here ] is correct) are rumored to have been indicted for CONSPIRACY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT of the United States of America:

–Loretta Lynch [former Attorney General of the U.S., 2015-2017]

–Sally Yates [former Deputy Attorney General of the U.S., 2015-2017]

–John Brennan [former Director of the CIA, 2013-2017]

–James Clapper [former Director of National Intelligence, 2010-2017]

–James Comey [former Director of the FBI, 2013-2017]

–Andrew McCabe [former Deputy Director of the FBI, 2016-2018]

–Peter Strzok [former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI (Counterintelligence Division)]

–Lisa Page [former FBI attorney]

Could this list, ostensibly leaked to a radio show run by “James R” (who goes by realpersonpltcs [sic] on Twitter) by an anonymous U.S. Department of Justice source, be true?

It sounds like the stuff of tabloid journalism, doesn’t it?

Except for one thing:

it’s completely plausible.

Tabloids are curious.

And that’s where this hidden gem of a movie comes in.

Because, after all, this is a film review.

What if tabloid journalists (who usually cover sensational, “engineered” stories) ACCIDENTALLY came across the real thing?

In other words, what if they actually found a real-life Bat Boy?

It bears mentioning at this point that Avril Haines, one of the “players” in Bill Gates’ amazingly-prescient bat coronavirus simulation Event 201 which was held in NYC on 10/18/19, worked for one of the aforementioned conspirators listed above:  John Brennan.

Screen Shot 2020-04-27 at 5.59.58 AM

 

Jeffrey Jones [Ferris Bueller] plays the corrupt mayor.

Laughing with incredulity.

Michael Richards is absolutely genius here.

And the head of the local police is in on the corrupt conspiracy with the mayor.

Geena Davis looks stunning!

Joseph Bologna plays the mad scientist.

He laments that his father’s reputation was maligned for injecting viruses into animals in his lifelong quest to cure the common cold.

Human experiments.

A “monster” fleeing from a laboratory.

There is even a delineation of evil (in the sense of “demonic possession”) which mirrors the tone of David Lynch’s television masterpiece Twin Peaks.

The evil is in a place.

Enter that place and you may become possessed.

This happens to Bologna’s character in textbook “Jekyll and Hyde” fashion.

The missing child is a trope from Frankenstein.

Those who are trying to tell the truth are arrested.

Because the truth, if told, would reveal the criminality of this particular police force.

So what, I ask you, will happen when Frankenstein enters the American psyche from stage left?

What will the shock be like?

How will CNN and MSNBC (and ABC, CBS, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post…) attempt to spin it?

Jeff Goldblum is excellent here.

Ed Begley, Jr. does a great job.

Carol Kane is as hilarious and adorable as she was on Taxi.

And Rudy De Luca, against all odds, created a minor masterpiece with this film.

There are two lit lamps in the window of the Old North Church.

 

-PD

The Opposite of Sex [1998)

It was a very good year…

1998.

Unlike the year experienced in this film by Martin Donovan’s character.

And, perhaps, unlike the year 2020 which we are all currently living through.

Spoiler:  Christina Ricci does not get nude in this film.

Carry on!

We start in Louisiana and come to Indiana, Los Angeles, Canada, and back to Indiana again.

This film deals with a lot of things.

Being a widow(er), for one.

Being gay.

Particularly, being gay in a conservative locale.

But at the heart of this film is a very strange series of lies and poor decisions.

But there are also some good decisions interspersed.

Mainly, there is a shitload of chaos.

And most of it is caused by Christina Ricci’s character Dedee Truitt.

Or sex.

Sex is a unifying principle here.

The stupidity of sex.

How sex can lead to a whole concatenation of events which were unintended.

In a strange way, this film is a cautionary tale.

But our narrator (Ricci) couldn’t give two fucks about ethics for most of this movie.

The whole tone of this film is sarcastic.

Sardonic.

If you like your comedy dark, you might like this.

But it’s not a particularly funny movie.

It’s watchable.

And, one might say, good.

Not great.

Lyle Lovett plays on an archetype perhaps established by Sheriff Harry Truman in Twin Peaks.

The resemblance of gesture and demeanor are remarkable.

Lisa Kudrow does a nice job here.

Her character is annoying as fuck.

And she pulls off that personality deftly.

But the real star is Martin Donovan as Bill.

His acting exceeds that of all the other players.

Really, to my eyes, this film revolves more around him than it does around Ricci’s hellbent character.

And so this film is not bad.

It is a little disappointing.

It is a little half-baked.

Half-assed.

Boring.

Even amidst all the chaos, it feels hackneyed here and there.

In the end, it was worth watching.

But just barely.

 

-PD

Lost River [2014)

There’s something very weird going on in Hollywood.

And it has been going on for a long time.

You can look for yourself in Kenneth Anger’s books.

Strange stories about Clara Bow.

The first “It” girl.

From the film of the same name.

And how she kept her skin so soft (ostensibly).

But the range of weirdness in Hollywood seems to move along a continuum.

There are levels.

Not unlike Freemasonry.

Or Scientology.

The hedonism of Henry Miller would be a very low level.

But what we are dealing with here, in this film, is an allusion to a higher level.

Really, the highest level.

There really isn’t a more mot juste for this phenomenon than Satanism.

And, perhaps, even that word does not fully describe what is at issue.

If one was hard-pressed to boil it down–to refine it further, perhaps “evil” would be the essential element.

Recently, the internet collective known only as QAnon “dropped” a crumb of information regarding an establishment in Los Angeles known as the Cannibal Club.

You can find all Q drops here.

The drop in question is #3917 from April 8th of this month.

Here is the website to which Q linked.

It indeed follows the train of thought I delineated above.

You will see the Henry Miller quote (an author I deeply admire).

But then you will see a perversion far beyond (to my knowledge) anything Henry Miller ever wrote about.

What you see on the Cannibal Club website appears to be a restaurant which serves human flesh.

However, with a bit of research, I came to the conclusion that this particular institution (as it is presented) is likely fake.

Why?

The names of the principals all come back empty.  None of them have a digital footprint that I can find.  Sophie Lafitte.  Elspeth Blake.  Hero Conners.  Raven Chan.

The photo of Cannibal Club’s proprietress, Elspeth Blake, was first cached as a stock photo in 2012.

The photo of Raven Chan also was first cached (before it was used on the Cannibal Club website) as a stock photo.  Both photos appear to have originated on the website istockphoto.com .  They are generic pictures.

The Cannibal Club website went live with content in 2009.  Neither the menu, nor the “events” have changed.

My conclusion was that this was a joke made by demented, artsy liberals in order to seed panic in America’s conservative population.

That was my hypothesis:  it is almost certainly a sick joke.

But here’s the rub…

Things like this very well may exist.

Indeed, they probably do.

And thereby we come to the film Lost River.

It came out a mere two years before Trump was elected.

Before Harvey Weinstein was convicted of sex crimes and sent to prison (where, last I heard, he had coronavirus).

Before jet-setter Jeffrey Epstein “hung himself” in a Manhattan jail cell.

You know, Epstein…the guy who flew Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey to Africa.

All this was before Kevin Spacey had numerous sex crime charges brought against him.

And two of his accusers recently dropped dead (over the past year) bringing both cases to a halt.

Lost River.

I appreciate the style.

Very heavy on the David Lynch (with a modicum of Harmony Korine thrown in).

The focus on “place” is very similar to the technique David Lynch and Mark Frost used to ground the town of Twin Peaks in the TV series of the same name.

Evil.

In the woods.

Underwater.

Underground.

And in secret clubs.

Director Ryan Gosling did a pretty good job with this film.

We will forgive him for lifting the ambiance of that Orbison scene from Mulholland Dr. to repurpose it in his Lost River blood-and-guts cabaret.

Because the reason I watched this film at all was for Christina Hendricks.

She has the potential to join a modern pantheon which, at this time, includes only Thora Birch and Kat Dennings.

Though we are never told this in the film, it is set in Detroit.

And that makes sense.

Deserted neighborhoods with crumbling houses.

But it could be anywhere in America if China’s economic warfare (COVID-19) is not soon countered.

Matt Smith does a good job as Bully:  the embodiment of serial-killer animalism.

The thug.

The gangster.

The cartel head.

Extreme cruelty.

Sadistic.

Gosling did a great job location scouting for the zoo scene.

The abandoned zoo.

Very much like the film Hanna and its scenes in the abandoned Spreepark of East Berlin.

Ben Mendelsohn is a fucker.

Such a prick.

But smart.

He’s not an animal like Bully, though he has rage inside him.

He is more of a predator.

And he is much more powerful.

His character, Dave, is a banker.

And Dave tells us, during the course of the film, that he sets up a little “club” in each of the towns he goes to.

Seems Dave gets moved around a lot.

Comes in.

Fires people.

Gets the books on a firmer footing.

And moves on to the next town where he can oblige the poor and demented with a bit of blood lust with his clubs.

Lots of blood.

Lots of lust.

Dave overlaps nicely onto the persona of Harvey Weinstein.

Christina Hendricks is immediately propositioned by the bank manager.

Dave is a thoroughly-unscrupulous scumbag.

Hendricks just wants to hang on to her home…dilapidated though it may be.

Saoirse Ronan does a nice job in a relatively-minor role here.

She glitters occasionally…as she plays her Casio on her bed with sparkly finger polish.

Whispering out a little song.

Or as she tucks in her pet rat for the night.

But it is not the ginger Ronan we are used to.

Her hair is black.

To fit with the landscape.

And to let Hendricks (also a redhead) stand out as the star.

Saoirse is the “girl next door”…literally.

In the tradition of American Beauty.

By this method we can trace Gosling’s influences.

The overarching one is David Lynch.

This film is creepy.

Plenty creepy.

Much of the creepiness comes from the casting.

It really is an amalgam of Lynch’s freaks with Harmony Korine’s amateurs.

There is the grief of the mute grandmother.

Caught in a loop of family films.

Mourning her late-husband who died tragically.

It is sad.

It happens.

The inability to talk for some time after a shock.

Extreme PTSD.

The family films are sad.

Watching how they used to be.

The way they were.

And the grandmother still a widow…with a fishnet veil for mourning.

There is some rubbish in this movie.

Kind of how the second season of Twin Peaks went off the rails.

Eva Mendes is good here.

And scary.

In the basement is something very Ex Machina (also 2014).

And even more so John Cale’s Vintage Violence.

Shells.

Mortal coils.

Simulation.

Apparently, customers can come down and “murder” real people in these shells.

The shells are of a hard, clear plastic.

And formfitting.

The shells supposedly prevent any real bodily harm.

But we never really see them in action.

Iain De Caestecker is pretty good here.

There is a realness in the urgency of his running.

Gosling’s editing crystalizes this.

Running for love.

Panic.

Running to save.

To set off running.

Unprepared for how long the journey really is.

Something special here.

Good vs. evil.

To give.

Charity.

To be selfish.

To ignore the needs of others.

To follow the voice of God.

To follow the instruction of the Holy Spirit.

To be humble before God.

To fear God.

To feel evil all around.

When it comes, and when it goes.

But the most quizzical scene is when Christina Hendricks cuts her own face off (in simulation, of course) in exactly the way we have heard about in the infamous, rumored Frazzledrip video.

In 2014.

Two years before such a thing came to light.

What a strange coincidence.

Let us synthesize more.

Could there be clubs (in L.A., for instance) where children have their faces cut off (for real) in front of an audience of sickos?

Further question, how does Hollywood (in L.A.) have the “imagination” to write these sorts of scenes?

Sure, there’s the old French film Eyes Without a Face.

But that was cosmetic.

It wasn’t for the thrill of spectators.

It was a medical procedure gone wrong.

Gory as it was, it was to SAVE the face of his daughter that the misguided doctor went on a hunt for faces.

Here, the faces are potlatched (apparently).

Or eaten.

But again, this is just a “cabaret”, we are told.

We see behind the scenes.

“Fake blood”.

So where is the truth in these “jokes”?

What kinds of personalities find humor in this?

John Podesta famously jokes about cannibalism in Time magazine and elsewhere.

He jokes about the cannibalistic Donner party.

He had cannibal art hanging on his office wall (a loan from his art-collector-brother Tony Podesta).

Strange fixation, that.

Very creepy.

Verging on Silence of the Lambs.

Ed Gein.

Dahmer.

Really vile stuff.

This is an interesting movie.

Gosling has talent as a director.

He should make more films.

This was his debut.

He has directed nothing sense.

My only quibble is this:  Christina Hendricks was so misused here.

Saoirse Ronan was almost equally misused.

Gosling needs to watch more Godard.

More Hitchcock.

You don’t cast Grace Kelly only to have her wear the same sweater for the whole film.

But it’s also Hendricks’ fault.

She has talent.

But she must embrace who she is.

She is not a good enough actor to be a puritan.

 

-PD