Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib reviews Of recent DVDs The Wolfpack -Directed By Crystal Moselle Do you like documentaries about charming but creepy outsider weirdo artists or families? Who doesn’t? I keep thinking that film makers are going to run out of odd but relatable weirdo families to follow around. Lucky for me, and director Moselle, that hasn’t happened yet.  I don’t want to spoil it much, but the premise is simple. An alternative couple who find the world around them to be super toxic, decide to have a lot of kids, and to home school and raise the kids in public housing in the lower east side of Manhattan. They have seven kids, 6 boys who don’t seem to have much age difference between them, the oldest being maybe 20 or 21, it seems. They rarely venture outside, but of course make their own fun in the apartment. they do so by recreating their favourite movies from scratch, using quite ingenious home made costumes and props that bring to mind that cult hit from a few years ago, Be K...

Glib reviews of recent DVD/Blu Ray releases. Night Moves - Directed by Kelly Reichardt This is not your father’s ‘Night Moves,’ that one is an under appreciated Arthur Penn flick with Gene Hackman. Both do crucially involve boats though. I wanted to like this film a bit more than I did. As a big fan of Reichardt’s films in general, I was looking forward to this quite a bit. It may be though my least favourite of the bunch, but that by no means says it’s a bad film, just not quite as good as the previous three films. If you like creepy atmospheric slow paced gorgeously shot in Oregon kind of movies, you will dig this. Jesse Eisenberg is at his broodingest best, here, you barely ever see under his hooded eyes, he only ever really expresses emotions over the things he perceives with horror, like the dead deer he moves from the edge of the highway to save the dead doe the dignity of not getting run over again and again, at least. The basic plot has Jesse (as Josh, commu...

Glib Reviews of Vaguely New Release DVDs Big Bad Wolves - Directed by Aharon Keshales , Navot Papushado This film was heavily hyped to me by  a customer, and others who have seen it. Weirdly, they used Reservoir Dogs as their touchstone. It really has very little in common with Tarantino’s first flick, other than people getting tortured in chairs, not to spoil it too much.  That said, it is an engaging, suspenseful film, that gives you some empathy with all main characters, even the ones you know you shouldn’t feel any empathy for. It’s far more about how far a person will go to get the truth (or 'a truth') out of another person. Some obvious political overtones, of course simply with this being an Israeli film.  There is lots of outrage to go around, as a suspended cop, and a dead girl’s father stalk the man they ‘KNOW’ did it. There are lots of creepy torture scenes, none of which show the torture, as much as they make you feel it; as the film makers...

Yet Another Rave Review for “Her” Her - Written & Directed by Spike Jonze I include the written & credit in this case because despite all the awesome subtle Directorial touches to this film, what makes it work for me more than anything else, is the beat for (bang fucking on) beat, script. On just one viewing, this is hands down the best scripted film I’ve seen in months. The small weird sci-fi-ish conceits of the picture also lend it an authenticity that it wouldn’t in any other picture where there would be all this exposition about why this manic depressive high waisted pants wearing not nearly the nerd he appears to be Joaquin Phoenix, can afford to live in the Beverley wiltshire by writing (pretty awesome) letters for people.  For my money, this portrayal of a middle age approaching guy who is sometimes suaver than Errol Flynn chatting up a tavern wench or Lady Pirate, and sometimes as effective in communicating as Jerry Lewis being a drooling bellboy is ...

Another update. I'm planning on publishing a chapbook that includes a series of poems I wrote based on a suite of classical music, some random Haiku, the first third of my very own Arthurian Cycle, and at least one biblically inspired (if heretical) inspired piece. It just might be called "A Cure For Mirrors".... Tentative title from one of the poems. Figuring out the how to finance on my very limited budget is what I've been concentrating on all morning. It looks at first glance that my idea of doing Print On Demand is a no go, mostly because of the prohibitive pricing, and distro options (most bookstores pretend these kinds of books don't exist) and lack of being able to do the book exactly how I want to. I looked into a local "Espresso Book Publishing Machine over at Oscar's Books on Granville. Too steep again, they've raised their prices since my initial inquiry in the summer, also my chapbook is too short for many of these options. I do also pla...