We Are The Sprocket Holes vol. 404

 stand-out viewing for the month of August (which felt especially like 2020 just kept dive-bombing blood/piss/shit/puke cocktails right into my face)

(July)

WHERE THE WIND BLOWS (1986, dir. Jimmy T. Murakami)

THIS IS FINE: THE MOVIE. a frustratingly tender reexamination of the "last persons on earth" narrative, eschewing the mutant-fighting "humanity will go on" heroics and hitting at something much closer to what the reality of that situation would be; numbing yourself with near-aggressive reassurance that banal activities and structured routines will return once "this all blows over". 

WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS (2019, dir. Marc Meyers)

a sharp, subversive Satanic Panic period piece that thankfully understands who the real monsters are. 

NIGHT ANGEL (1990, dir. Dominque Othenin-Girard)

like if Danzig's Verotika had been made thirty years earlier and with a budget... and film... and a camera. a gloriously incomprehensible piecemeal collage of innumerable fever-stroking late 1980s after hours cable fixtures. 

MIKEY (1992, dir. Dennis Dimster) 

part gritty reboot of Problem Child, part made-for-TV remake of Benny's Video, part infuriatingly idiotic nth-tier slasher... the kind with one-liners that would make post Dream Warriors Robert Englund blush with audience-sympathetic embarrassment... the kind where you're screaming at the television "HE'S THE SIZE OF SANDWICH COOKIE JUST FUCKING BONK HIS HEAD WITH A NERF FOOTBALL AND ATOMIC DROP HIS FETAL ASS ON THE TOILET SEAT GAHHHHL". 

LEAVE BEHIND A GROOVE IN THE EARTH (2020, dir. Duncan Wilder Johnson)

a thorough retrospective / overdue celebration of Sam Black Church; one of the most important and influential underground bands of the 1990s, who still-unique style served as a blueprint for many of the bands that ended up spearheading the New Wave of American Heavy Metal in the early 00s... bands that were still but a pale echo of SBC. 

DEMONLOVER (2002, dir. Oliver Assayas) 

a New French Extremity take on Videodrome, where an implausibly glossy exploitation TV channel is swapped out for an implausibly glossy 3D animated pornography studio (i think?), and similarly dated in a way that gives it a woozy time capsule quality. and in case you're still on the fence; yes... that's Wonder Woman's mom in a Rubberman outfit. 

COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1990, dir. Paul Schrader)

a quietly chaotic foreign-and-domestic horror that has Schrader touching upon the works of Roeg, Fassbinder, and Lynch while remaining in tune with his own vision and perspective. 

CLASS ACTION PARK (2020, dir. Seth Porges, Chris Charles Scott III)

Six Flags for Dirt Bags. 

THE BRAVE (1997, dir. Johnny Depp)

before he became solely focused on WhHiIiImMmMssyyY, Depp tapped into something a bit darker, but also more pure and direct, with his woefully under-available sole directorial effort, based on the startlingly bleak novel by Gregory MacDonald. 

THE ANGEL'S MELANCHOLY (2009, dir. Marian Dora)

emotionally lacerating. mentally ruinous. wearyingly oppressive. i watched this film on the first of the month, and i feel like it cast its pall over the next 30 days.