It was only a matter of time: my laptop broke. I am composing this on sweat-drenched napkins, from the halls of a seedy Tijuana cafe. I feel my days are numbered. My hand is cramping from holding a 6B pencil that’s been ground down to the size of an infant’s pinky bone. The gin tastes clearer than water.
I can only assume my laptop’s failure was orchestrated by the sinister hands of a conniving and covert conductor: potentially the CIA or, if my worst fears have been realized, the Marty Supreme publicity team. Through tar-stained windows, I can spy a blimp circling my cafe. The server says it’s for monitoring the birds, but I don’t buy that for a second. I know every bird in the Americas is currently employed by Robert Eggers for his new historical furry flick. Word on the street is that they’re snuffing out Letterboxd users who rate Marty sub four stars. I’ve found it safest to avoid the film entirely, but I fear that recommending films beyond the Safdie colossuses may inevitably beg the snuffer to fall silently over my delicate flame.
Despite my flaccid grasp on the future, I feel an overwhelming, almost cosmic, accountability to share these four films with you. If these are the last words of mine you read, please know that Donnie Darko isn’t that good, and people who say they understood it the first time are either losers or are probably concealing that they watched a YouTube explained video when they were younger and now have the necessary context clues to assemble the narrative in a meaningful manner, despite Richard Kelly’s failure to provide ample and salient clues, thus commanding a sense of ego and intelligence based on a farce that I don’t believe those people are prepared to admit, even to themselves. Anyways, here are some movies.
Dream With The Fishes (1997) dir. Finn Taylor
This one came to my mind for *gulp* obvious reasons. Also, I’m going to try to keep these write-ups a little shorter than usual. Not because over-explaining a film that you are simultaneously recommending is inherently contradictory, rendering the format of this column antithetical to its purpose, but because I am running out of napkin space.
Picture this: a sad-sap voyeur named Terry (David Arquette) stands at the edge of a bridge ready to do one of those trendy Norwegian Instagram death dives. Nick (Brad Hunt), who is the most Nick-looking guy of all time and one of Terry’s unknowing peep subjects, walks by and asks for Terry’s watch. With some slick talk, Nick convinces Terry to trade his watch for a handful of painless sleeping pills. Terry gobbles them down at Nick’s apartment but gets cold feet. Nick drops him off at the hospital, and Terry later realizes he’s been duped out of eternal silence with vitamins. After confronting Nick and his dazzling new watch, Terry learns that Nick is terminally ill. That’s when Nick offers an arrangement: in exchange for a little help realizing a road trip odyssey of adult make-a-wish fantasies, Nick will either: A) sign Terry on as the beneficiary of his $50,000 life insurance policy, or B) Nick will play grim reaper for Terry.
The dark dynamic of a dying man constantly tormenting a suicidal coward for not truly wanting to leave this world embues this flick with a necessary wit and weight. Aside from its beginning, Dream With The Fishes touches on the familiar beats of the bucket list genre, but it looks damn good while doing so. The soundtrack is packed with late-90s deep cuts, the voyeurism and heroin keep the atmosphere dark, and Brad Hunt offers a pleasantly manic sex appeal; kind of like a less cringe Tyler Durden. I recommend watching your neighbour watch this film, with your brow tightly tethered to binoculars—sweat plastering your poorly cut bangs to a forehead filled with shame.
It’s Such A Beautiful Day (2012) dir. Don Hertzfeldt
When I was younger, I used to stay up late tearing through streaming service catalogues in search of the most bizarre pieces of media I could find. It was before I had developed any real taste for experimental cinema; the search was purely driven by a desire to make my friends laugh at sleepovers. When it came time to put something on, I would proudly exhibit my rolodex of unimaginably stupid or chaotic finds—movies like Rubber (2010) or Tusk (2014)—and I’d kick back as we all giggled at their absurdity. It’s Such A Beautiful Day started as one of those movies. I would commonly play the first fifteen minutes, chuckling as the narrator discussed crotch level fruit stands or the little boy with hook arms, yelling “Boon” as he chased a seagull into the ocean. For some reason (most likely the transition from humour to drama) I never watched beyond those first fifteen minutes. One night I went to switch the movie off, and my friend Rhys told me to keep it playing. We watched the film through its entire sixty-minute run time, and as the credits rolled I had tears streaming down my face. It’s Such A Beautiful Day is easily in my top ten favourite films of all time and is a necessary watch for lovers of animated cinema.
The crudely drawn animated picture follows the protagonist Bill, who is diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder closely resembling dementia. The intricacies of Bill’s disorder are never fully explored, and this ambiguity serves the film immensely. Not only does the lack of reasoning justify Bill’s confusion and frustration—feelings that are true and inherent to a diagnosis of the like—but the lack of medical explanation makes Bill’s experience the centrepiece of this film, not the condition itself. The lack of explanation also plays to ‘the stranger’s’ perspective. We interact with each other constantly, passing one another on the street without context. It’s Such a Beautiful Day offers a clean, authentic reminder to be patient with judgment. Wow, maybe it’s just the adrenaline, but I’m getting sappy.
Despite its heavy subject matter, It’s Such a Beautiful Day is also an incredible piece of comedy. Don Hertzfeldt seems preoccupied with the randomness of existence, and a common byproduct of inspecting the uneven carousel of life, is humour. I’ll admit that at times the writing can have a certain 2015 forced cheesy philosophical feel, but that’s nothing more than a symptom of the decade. I recommend watching this beautiful work of art with your parents, well repeatedly asking them if they know the definition of the word, ‘senescence.’
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) Dir. Jim Jarmusch
It’s time to lighten the mood. Especially while I’m held up in this Naked Lunch-esque Mexican dive. I saw a flash of something red through the window. The dogs have stopped barking. I must power through.
Cigarettes and Coffee is pretty much The Avengers, but for pretentious sweat-soaked nineties art-house nerds that enjoy looking over their 65% tinted Fl-41 lenses and using the word ‘vignette.’ It’s the only film that has Bill Murray discussing herbal remedies with the Wu-Tang Clan while wearing a paper service hat, Tom Waits tricking Iggy Pop into smoking again (because the beauty of quitting is now you can have one), and two Cate Blanchetts playing tug-of-war over an incredible split-screen scene. This thing is jam-packed with all sorts of random names: you got Jack and Meg White, Steve Buscemi, Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, the Lee twins, and more—all of them engaging in the sacred ceremony of coffee, cigarettes, and conversation. Oh, and if you thought this thing couldn’t get more pretentious, it’s shot in black and white.
This is one of the greatest films about nothing, and a great appetizer to my Dinner with Andre if you’re hungry for a double feature. Each vignette (oh, there I go; I’ve become what I sought to destroy) oozes the cheap, essential, and addictive quality of a Marlboro Red paired with a soothing dark roast. The atmosphere is consistent, snarky, surrealist, and approachable all at the same time. While the cast’s conversation rarely strays from smoking and caffeine consumption, each anthology entry feels like it’s scratching at something beyond itself. The segments have a real cumulative effect, which many films in this genre fail to establish. Jarmusch is toying with the paradoxical search for meaning in meaningless ritual, and I’d say he comes up with a decent armful of musings on human nature. There are enough overindulgent essays on this film’s subtext on Letterboxd, so I’ll save you mine. Anyways, this sweet treat is better enjoyed for its simple laughs, spacey energy, and cameo blitz. Obviously, I recommend watching Cigarettes and Coffee while sipping a cappuccino tucked into a gingham-clad table, taking healthy tugs off a smouldering Marlboro.
Slacker (1990) dir. Richard Linklater
My life, my loves, where are they now? But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct for life somehow asserts itself. The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it completely. Only later will it clarify itself and become coherent.
I bet you thought that was Shakespeare. Naw, man; it’s from Slacker, man. I love this movie so much I got its name tattooed down my thigh—big style. There is a good chance you’re already familiar with Linklater’s two more popular stoner classics, Dazed and Confused (1993) and Waking Life (2001). You got to complete the trifecta, man; you got to watch Slacker, man.
Slacker uses a warm beer-guzzling 90s backdrop to stage nearly a dozen esoteric individuals, who beautifully waltz rambling monologues—unmoored from modernity and structure. Similar to Waking Life, Slacker forgoes linear narrative in place of esoteric vignettes (oh, here we go again), accidentally defining the 90s cinematic indie movement. Without Slacker you wouldn’t have films like Clerks (1994), SubUrbia (1996), or the aforementioned Waking Life. One of Slacker’s greatest technical strengths is the art of transition. Linklater is sparing with his use of cuts, and new characters seem to just slide into frame with the same finesse as that one homie who always seems to trap you in a conversation at parties. You’ll find yourself faced with that familiar reflective thought: when did we even start talking? Anyways, this stream of scene works hard to enhance Slacker’s form. It deceives you into thinking Slacker has a narrative.
Linklater seeks to redefine the term ‘slacker’ in this cascading hypnotic ode to the outsider. In a self interview, Linklater wrote:
Slackers might look like the left-behinds of society, but they are actually one step ahead, rejecting most of society and the social hierarchy before it rejects them. The dictionary defines slackers as people who evade duties and responsibilities. A more modern notion would be people who are ultimately being responsible to themselves and not wasting their time in a realm of activity that has nothing to do with who they are or what they might be ultimately striving for.
If you’re thinking to yourself, hey this guy seems to be suddenly overusing quotes; is he trying to burn words, my response would be: no way, man. The thing about form is it’s just a construct. Just as the urge to destroy is a creative urge, collage or even the lack of form itself, is a configuration. Do you ever stop and just consider the opposite of something—like, I mean really dwell on the idea of polarity? It’s a brilliant little thought exercise; it teases out the nuance collecting in the corners of our reality. Take nostalgia for example. What’s the opposite of nostalgia? It’s trauma. It’s like why does nostalgia still kind of hurt, man? It’s like the traumatic good. The imprint of yearning. Like just look at what’s in front of you, and see if you can put together a list of foils, because once you know the opposite of something, you can find the opposite of an opposite—which is just what the thing is, man. I recommend not watching this film at all, man. You don’t need to fill your head with some contrived post-grad pseudo-wisdom and shit. You’ve got enough thoughts for yourself man, and those are the ones that count, man. Take a walk—look at the leaves or something. I don’t know: movies are cool and all, but sometimes they make me feel like I’m going crazy, man. Like, what’s the opposite of a movie—reality?
That’s when a sniper’s round cuts through the window. The sound is surgical and precise. A dropped glass would have ignited more commotion, but I’m up—bunching the schizophrenic napkin scrawls into my pocket like cash. Vested individuals with their faces covered in black kick in the cafe’s door, and I drop to my hands and knees. I had noticed a back patio earlier, and I shuffle towards my final chance at escape. The mercenaries move through the cafe like it was choreographed. One of the troopers has their back to me for a moment and that’s when I spy a tastefully weathered copy of Maggie O Farrell’s, Hamnet, tucked in their back pocket. My heart sinks… for this is where I die.