On Silence by Karen Gill
Casafoscitas, Casafoscitos, in between and further, it’s an honor and a quirky pleasure to share this dwelling with yal <4
My little lodge will be devoted to the sonorous aspect of the 7th art. And what better way to commence this discussion than by delving into the topic of silence? However, silence is a funny FuckFace. Whenever you attempt to discuss it, it vanishes. Nonetheless, we practice a form of martial art where silence struggles to remain concealed. The possibility of capturing it wasn't feasible at the outset of cinema; the trap became possible with the introduction of sound in the film ‘’The Jazz Singer’’ (1927). Prior to that, films were mute but not silent. Mute films often used live music and live sound effects during their screening to get around the lack of sound. Silence is something that is constructed; it is a deliberate choice. This choice becomes viable through the stark contrast brought about by the incorporation of sound in movies. The capabilities of SuperFuckface are truly astounding. Let's perform some quick calculations. There is a widely held belief that one image conveys 1000 words. 1 second of video consists of 24 images, so 1000 x 24 = 24,000. However, there's another factor to consider in this equation. It is said that a moment of silence can be worth a thousand words, so 24,000 x 1000 = 24,000,000. In conclusion, one second of silence in a movie is equivalent to 24,000,000 words. If you ever feel that your existence is meaningless, imagine how Shakespeare must be feeling in his grave right now. To illustrate this quick calculation, I recommend watching the 'School scene' in 'Laurence Anyways' by Xavier Dolan, which can be found on YouTube. My Tio once told me that the ability to share a collective moment of FuckFace in the darkness of a cinema theater is one of the most beautiful aspects of our practice.
Silence is one of the most precious things in this world, protect and give them light as much as you can. If you feel like this text improved your IQ even slitty, please consider sending me money to support the cost of my poppers. If not, that’s ok. Will try to do better next time.
Take care Fam,
Una casa para todos y todos para una casa
Whatever Connected to Cinema by Alexander Norton
There are so many ideas in the edge of the mind of someone who watches a lot of films. Whenever they watch a film they envision themselves making it and doing every action. They see the credits and become flabbergasted by the all the seemingly made up job roles. The concept that everyone in the credits got paid at least something, boggles the mind. All these people, to make that, for 90 minutes of my life? On average. They worked so hard so I could say uneducated philosophy around film theory I don’t know the name of.
They all had my attention from the moment I bought my ticket. It was there for us all to see, an iconography born from the beginning to make it as a film maker in some ways for some unknown reason.
Let’s get it right, The blues brothers is the best film in existence. It balances great cast, best police chase and comedic references that generally are part of a folklore inside my brain. This film changed everything. I wrote it down first in my top films of all time, when I was 11 years old.
A film stirs something inside your body, your mind and reaches in and touches your heart if conveyed correctly. Sometimes I am frustrated when I feel like the director is mocking me with their story line and length, knowing I will not leave the cinema because I paid money to enter.
Lower your expectations, firstly.
It’s not possible to make the film that you intended, always. Sometimes the film is “good for a first film” which sounds like an insult but it’s correct. There are so many things you did in this film that would be better if you had everything else. No one cares for the first time film maker. No one knows anything about you before and after. You push through the barrier to show something, to say something and to engage a group of people to invest in something, to make it real, to make it something. It gathers dust, eventually.
It will always exist. That’s what motivates, and one day someone will care about what we put together. Someone will think it’s funny. A film is the most expensive punch line I’ve ever made.
I spent 924€ to tell my dad that he shouldn’t have abandoned me, and he’ll never see it. But someone will.
Perhaps its existence is enough.
A short review if the Nun II:
“This exists?”
Sweating Life - a poem by Violeta Capella
the average human being sees anywhere between 90,000 and 42.5
million faces in their lifetime - likely something closer to 3 million.
and only can remember between 0.007% and 3.33% of them.
We only retain a 0.1% of faces.
That being,
1 in every 1,000 faces for most of us.
You wake up, often,
can’t tell if you are still sleeping
Some places existed for a long time,
evoking the past, (as a quality guarantee) sweating life.
Even if you’ve never been there before, you feel like rembembering
Some days everyone looks the same to you
(they look like people but, there’s something off about them)
Other days people is so different from each other
you doubt you’ll ever fully understand
anything
anybody
thus
yourself
You’ve been told that you can’t eat people.
and then
you love
believe you speak the same language
understanding and
being understood
you remember them
and they remember you
You can’t eat people (texto en pantalla)
you feel like eating them.
eating their faces, chewing their flesh to their bones.
But you can’t, because then: they would disappear.
And with them
their faces
but most of all
the feeling of being understood.
And what would you do with all of the things you know about them
Where would their faces go
If only we were like computers
That rembember all of the faces they’ve seen
But computers, they can’t remember
Because they don’t have the ability to forget
Recordar: tornar a passar pel cor
On John Waters’ Serial Mom by Tiago Felicio
In what is probably John Waters’ tamest film we are presented with a woman being bashed to death with a leg of lamb, a teenager being purposefully set on fire on stage at a punk concert while the crowd cheers on, another teenager being impaled with a fireplace poker that consequently removes his liver, among many other incidents. Again, probably John Waters’ tamest film.
1994’s Serial Mom follows Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), a seemingly stereotypical suburban housewife/mom while she goes on a murderous rampage killing everyone that slightly inconveniences her or her family.
Often, in movies involving serial killers and murders, the audience may find itself yelling at the screen and the characters. “No, don’t go there!”, “Don’t go back, run away!” or “Don’t trust him, don’t let him in!”. However, in Serial Mom you may find yourself yelling at Kathleen Turner to be more careful in the ways she kills so she doesn’t get caught so early on in the film’s 93 minutes of runtime. “Wipe your shoe, there’s blood on it!”, “Wait a second, there is a witness right there!” or “Literally everyone knows you did it, lay low for a little bit!”. But she can’t hear you, and she does things in her sloppy, bloody, careless way. However, this doesn’t seem to be a problem, as in the end she is found not guilty and still finds the time to murder a member of the jury that granted her freedom in between post-trial interviews.
The film starts with a message claiming it is based on a true story, and that only the names of the innocent characters have been changed. For an unsuspecting audience, this might be believable for maybe the first 30 minutes of the film, but after that it gets so ridiculous that no one could possibly reach the end credits still holding that belief. Nevertheless, Waters raises an interesting question by doing this. Until what point is it ethical to use other people’s real suffering for our entertainment? Why would someone reenact and embellish real atrocities and try to turn them into a profit? Where does our fascination with true crime and serial killers stem from? Can we blame it on our mothers, as we do with most of our other mental defects?
These themes are carried out in the film by the hands of Chip (Matthew Lillard). Beverly’s son, a teenager who is obsessed with horror movies and loves the fact that his mother is a serial killer. During the trial, he begins to act as her “agent” making bookings and selling merchandise based on the “Serial Mom” to loving and ravenous crowds of fans.
The most surprising thing is that this film was made right before the O.J. Simpson trial. It was made well before all the Netflix true crime documentaries and all the true crime podcasts and shows that surround us today. Yet, it brilliantly depicts and satirizes the obscene fetishization of murderers and their crimes that we, as an audience, have created. We want to watch more bloody slaughters during the film, we get off on the fact that it might be a true story, but at the same time we understand how wrong it is to do that and Serial Mom macabrely lets us laugh about it.
Nevertheless, no matter how gory, funny and shocking this film may be, for a John Waters movie, I can’t help but feel like there is an edginess missing. You feel like you keep waiting
for that next step of depravity to kick in, but the movie reaches a point where its delirium stagnates. It is overall still very enjoyable, but when usually one thinks Waters goes too far, it seems like he did not go far enough here. After all, they don’t call him “The Prince of Puke” for no reason.
Overall, this suburbia core, murder fueled comedy holds up surprisingly well and is a guaranteed good time. Kathleen Turner blesses us with a ridiculously fun character that is certain to be remembered for many years to come. John Waters’ handprint is clearly there, though maybe not as visible as some of his hardcore fans may wish for. The themes seem as fresh today as they did back then. It is honestly surprising that no reboot or remake of this film has been attempted, although it is probably for the best.