A doomful prophesy and CAT DANCERS

We thought we'd cured it Joe, but gosh darn it's back again.

I have a theory, a rant, hell, a doom-laden bit of prediction that's been clinking about my tin brainpan for a bit. And, well, I thought who better to infuse with my fears and hypochondric insecurities, then you the gentle-minded readers of Criterion Quest.

Thus, a rant:

I'm sick. I've been sick for weeks. Everyone I talk to is either getting sick or is "on the mend." I hear people talking about their varied "cold-like" symptoms disappearing and then jumping right back. Alex has been on-and-off sick with a variety of lung-laden diseases for months now. My house feels a bit like the cheeriest tuberculosis ward you've ever stepped in to.

And everybody's just blaming it on the "flu season." Well, I'm calling foul: I think this flu season is dead. I think humanity is on a sickness-based spiral in to the afterlife.

Oh I know, Old Man Sanders is up on his soap box again, twiddling his beard and predicting the end times, but seriously, take a look around. Doesn't it seem like we've all been sick, that we are all still sick, and that we (you, me, the entire world) have been this way for as long as we can remember? When's the last time there wasn't some super-flu cutting down children and old folk? I can barely remember. Doesn't it seem like the time between when Dr. So-and-So is telling you to get a flu vaccination is getting shorter and shorter? Yup, indeed, that's because flu season is dead and gone my feeble friends - this is just how it's going to be.

That nagging cough, that stuffed up nose and a bit of tiredness in the middle of the day, that's called sickness. But you know how usually that sickness, those symptoms, they disappear after a while as your body gets better, well that's not an option anymore. We've weakened ourselves people with shitty diets and chemically based food products and pharmaceuticals and pollution and on and on, and in true Darwinian fashion, the natural world has taken advantage of this. You thought our societies doom was going to be melting ice caps and 300-foot tidal waves? Guess again, folk, we're just slowly, but surely going to keep being sick, and then sicker. And as we keep telling ourselves that this is just a "season" and we keep pumping ourselves full of medicine to keep the illness "at bay" we're going to get weaker and weaker over such a slow period of time that it won't even see noticeable. Until one day we all look up and we're just a nation/world/civilization of feeble folk, barely able to take care of ourselves, waiting for whatever's next to just swoop on in and pick us off. Evolution's a stone-cold killer folks and I think our collective jugulars are sprawled on the chopping block.

Or maybe I've just been slightly sickly for the last month and need an overblown description to give me hope that this wheezy cough has greater meaning.

Or maybe I just like to ramble.

And now, Cat Dancers.

The Film: Cat Dancers

The Director: Harris Fishman

What Is It?: The story of the world's greatest dancing cat performance act, Cat Dancers, and their, surprisingly tragic end.

The Experience: Alex and I wanted to get some cheery films for our T-Day Weekend, instead we ended up with the depressingly subpar Bruno and this not-so-zany film about erotic trysts, imprisoned cats, very sad people, and grisly grisly deaths. At least our cornish game hen was tasty.

Something Interesting: Ligers, though fascinating, are actually the inbreeds of the wild cat world. Because of their cross-breeding they can't breed and share the oft times conflicting traits of a tiger and lion (should I swim? should I hang out solo? should I have a pride?). Thought you might want to know.

Quick Notes:

1. This is not your average tale of cat dancing.

Cat dancing, for you the horrifyingly unknowing, is the practice of training wild cats to, ahem, "dance" with you, i.e., perform with you in a mock circus. This applies to jaguars, tigers, panthers, etc. Ron and Joy Holiday were world-famous dancers (and nude photo celebrities) who in their second stage of life turned towards the dangerous world of cat dancing. Cat Dancers follows the ups, downs, and really awful demise of this supposedly world famous trio of cat-waltzing folk. And where you'd think this film would just be your sort of Home Movie look at a quirky subset of people, it is not. It is story of love, lust, immense heartbreak and grisly death. A snapshot of sadness unlike any you've seen previously. I can almost assure of this. Alex and I, expecting sequined outfits and immense zaniness, sat in dumb-shocked horror trying to get a hold on this horrific tale unfolding before us. And it just keeps getting more and more shocking. Cat Dancers is not smile-laden pick-me-up we thought it to be, and I warn you, don't ingest it as such.

2. Florida?

I think a three-way-love-affair between a family of cat dancers who almost entirely meet their untimely demises at the claws of a near-retarded white tiger named Jupiter can only happen in Florida. I sometimes just want to buy a camera and go to the first town in Florida, talk to the first family I meet, film there lives for one week, edit it, send it to the Academy and win seven Oscars. Florida, you are the haven for strange.

3. Ron Holiday.

Ron Holiday, the narrator and only survivor of Cat Dancers, is as interesting a character as any you'll see in movies right now. On one side he's exactly what you'd think, a slightly gay Floridian who loves wild cats, lives by himself with three dogs (yes, the cat dancer himself now owns dogs) and glues his hair on in the morning. A man who prides himself on sequined gladiator outfits and can catch a jaguar in mid-leap. On the other this is a man who's clearly lost everything that meant anything to him - his wife, his lover, his beautiful cats - and his ability to keep on moving on is both inspirational and terrifying. When asked at one point in the film, "Have you been to move past this tragedy?" He breaks in to angry tears, barely able to choke out the fact that he'll never move past this, only figure out a way to keep living, any way possible. Sure, this is a story about wacky people, Florida's local celebrities, that danced with cats, but more so this is about life and what it dishes out regardless of who we are or what we do.

4. Just how famous were these Cat Dancers?

Sentimentality aside, there's a lot of talk about how famous the Cat Dancers (Ron, Joy and Chuck) were but Alex and I were both completely unaware of this cat dancing trio before viewing this film. They talk about their huge performances, but every piece of video footage seems to have been filmed in either a high school gym or a backyard. They claim to be number twos to Siegfried and Roy's number one, but on what Las Vegas stage did these leather clad cat-tangoers perform upon? Seems skeptical to me, but Jesus, I didn't even know cat dancing was a tangible profession until two weeks ago.

Final Thoughts: After a few weeks thought I've come to think that this is a pretty amazing documentary. A sneaky bit of sadness that creeps up when you're waiting for sequin-inspired giggles. Humanity on display folk, in all its amazing weirdness.

Thursday: Audition

DOUBLE SUICIDE (104)

The Film: Double Suicide (104)
The Director: Masahiro Shinoda (Samurai Spy (312))

What Is It?: An almost Shakespearean tragedy of unhonored love and the trappings of medieval Japanese culture. Also, if you couldn't read between the lines (or the title) a bit of a downer.

The Experience: I thought this film was going to take me a month at least, but I threw on my enormous studio headphones (what I like to refer to as my "Criterion Headphones") sunk myself in to the leather green couch of our kitchen and plowed through the first forty minutes. Though it took me a week, I wrangled a bit of "Criterion Time" (my life, ruled by this Quest!) and bushwacked my way through the second half. Only took me a week and several late fees at a local video store.


Quick Notes:

1. Somehow modern, somehow traditional.

This, in many ways, is a very traditional Japanese film based on a very traditional Japanese play (a supposedly untapped reservoir in Japanese culture). There's honor and societal hierarchy and fake samurais and overburdening relatives and the breaking of honor and of course a graphic, blood-gouting double suicide. On the other hand every set looks like a Japanese Warhol Factory and the film starts with someone talking on the phone. There's slo-mo paper chucking, freeze frames, and a handful of other visual cues wrested from the experimental arms of the 1960s. This is Japan, but filtered through the art-film explosion of that amazing decade, and wow, at times it just leveled me with inspiration and, quite honestly, confusion. You're going to have to stick it out through this entire film Criterion Kids, but it will be well worth it.

2. I think I might be obsessed with gender.

Somehow, over the course of the last year or so, gender has become a common way I view films. In the past I'd just look for nudity and explosions, but all of sudden, I'm analyzing the way different cultures and different eras portray the interactions between men and women. It's like every film I see has some sort of eye-opening moment where midway through a mental analysis of the way women are portrayed as the strong-willed characters in the film, I rub my eyes and think, "where did that come from?" I credit Alex Healy for this, my most recent mental development.

3. Speaking of gender, strong-willed women abound!

Double Suicide (104) revolves around the story of a spineless jelly-fish of a fish merchant, Jihei (Kichiemon Nakamura), and the women he loves, his wife Osan and the beautiful courtesan Kahura (both played by Shima Iwashita). Here's the thing, both of these women are badasses, complex, honorable characters that are angry, and sad and happy and a little more angry and passionate and intelligent and benevolent and on and on. Jihei on the other hand is a sniveling wretch who can barely muster himself out of his bed. He's in some deep shit at several points in the film (trying to save the lives of his wife and lover) and all he can do is mope about, throw paper around and then kill himself (and have loud passionate sex in a ... cemetary). Osan and Kahura keep this slippery eel of a man, to a certain degree, on the path he needs to be, but even they can't help but succumb to his limp-wristed chicanery. It's interesting to finish watching The Lady Eve (103) a film dedicated to the standard man-is-rich, woman-is-wife tropes of the 1930s, and see just how far gender culture had evolved.

4. Yes, there are black-hooded puppeteers in nearly every frame.

They're called kurago, and are an ancient Japanese play device used to move props. In Double Suicide (104) they play the role of a strangely interactive Greek chorus. At times they play a traditional role, moving props and such, but to a greater degree they become our eyes in to the events unfolding. One lone rogue of a kurago even seems to fall somewhat in love with our main characters, following them through their tragic final night, even addressing the camera near their last moments. Shinoda claimed he was trying to realize the "thin line between truth and falsehood" a theme that runs throughout the film. What it made me feel was like I was watching a play on acid. I didn't feel closer to the characters or stronger in my role as an audience member, I just felt like someone had spiked my punch, and I purple caterpillars were going to start crawling out of my ears. But, hey, isn't film great?

5. A complex film about the trappings of honor and family.

This is a heavy of a film. A dialogue-heavy, theme-heavy, mood-heavy, mind bomb of a film that starts slow, burns slow, and wrenches the emotions out of your body slow and painfully. Jihei and Osan and even Kahura are characters ruined by the Japanese tradition of "saving face." There was, and perhaps isn't, any room for error in medieval Japan (as evidenced by a line about how samurais had to kill themselves if they forgot their swords) thus when Jihei becomes obsessed with a prostitute his only options are to redeem here (and then have a 'tute living in his abode) or forget her forever (an act he can't and won't do). Osan, his wife, on the other hand has to honor her husband, and even though she's angry and sad and wrecked by his infidelities, she still fights to save his life, and then when Kahura's life is threatened, fights to save hers. It's almost as if the double suicide of the title is Masahiro Shinoda's final thought on the "honor system" of the era, and that final thought would be: fuck it, when we're tied this tight, it always ends poorly.

Final Thoughts: I thought this film was going to be a one way ticket to Sleepytown, but after settling in with it and a glass of wine, I found myself amazed at the complexity of character and their interactions. It's a beautifully written, and filmed, piece of cinema and the deaths at the end, even though telegraphed from moment one, seem so absolutely earned when they finally occur. Not one for a party, but certainly a lovely film to chew on.

What's Next on The Criterion Quest: Spartacus (105)

Wednesday: Cat Dancers

Still no DOUBLE SUICIDE (104) and I've got a camera.

First off, another prolonged apology about my inability to finish Double Suicide (104), 'tis a beast of a film and I'm hard-up to find a moment to dig through it. But, in the immortal words of Kriss Kross on their second and final album, "tonight's the night baby." Tomorrow, let their be Double Suicide (104).

On the other hand I just picked up a digital single lens reflex and have been itching to post a few of the images I've been capturing on this here blog. Hopefully the photos I'm taking will become more and a more a part of this Criterion Quest as it's something I'm loving considerably, and you know I love sharing things I love. Like sickness, lovely delightful sickness.

So, for today, not even a hint of movies, just a quick couple of photos.

Hope you enjoy:

Alex Healy, broken-ribbed and silver-dressed on her 27th birthday.

My house makes people teleport.

Girl and dead baby shark.

Not exactly where we thought we were going.

Tuesday: By hook or by crook, Double Suicide (104)

An enormous photo of Skywalker Ranch.

It's Friday, meaning that I'm posting late and that I have little energy. I was attempting to slog through the ending of Double Suicide (103) last night, but Alex and I instead attempted to watch a documentary from the 1960s entitled, The Exiles. I don't know what documentaries were like in the 1960s, but this seemed like a poorly staged sitcom that sort of exploited the plight of Native Americans trying to move off the reservations. I slept through nearly the entire thing.

What I did do of worth yesterday was get the chance to geek out about Skywalker Ranch one of those hallowed places in all geeks mind. For those of you who didn't spend their childhood singing the Star Wars' theme to their hairdressers, Skywalker Ranch is the technical facility of George Lucas' LucasArts. One of Alex's many, many bosses is a sound-engineer there and was all too willing to give me the heads up on what exactly was going on there.

A few gleaned items:

- Turns out Skywalker Ranch is just a big sound facility. For a while they had a group of accountants and other "non-creatives" horsing around over there, but Lucas (he of the beard and flannel) thought that all those math-oriented brains were cluttering up the creatives. So he moved them to their own compound right down the road, where they could discuss macroeconomics and not dilute the brains of those trying to make, sigh, art. Lucas, you creative fascist you.

- There are no giant hedge structures of Yoda on the property. My source on the inside told me that the only prop he's ever really seen there is Luke's original lightsaber (awesome), but that he thought most of the other props from the film were "stored in some warehouse." I would like to find that warehouse.

- Where in the past I believed Skywalker Ranch to be a magical place where gods of science-fiction pieced together masterworks, instead I find that it's just a sound facility. And not just for LucasArts, but for whomever wants to rent it out. The fantastical land where I believed you'd be greeted by phaser-toting storm troopers is just an overblown recording studio. I cried a bit.

- Things at Skywalker Ranch: live cattle, an inn, an organic farm, a fire station (with two fire trucks), a reservoir, the aforementioned lightsaber, and a main house where George Lucas himself once lived. This isn't a sound studio it's a goddamn vacation home.

- It's strange to learn that a place of magic in your mind is really just a place where people work. A place were people work that I'd still give an arm and a leg to visit.

Monday: Double Suicide (103)

WHAT'S IN STORE #8

Wow, it's been a while since I've written up a preview for what's next and I think there's actually a few good reasons for it. First, I'm just glad I'm not forcing my Criterion Quest anymore. I'm just letting it flow as it might, and I feel as if my filmic diet is much more balanced because of it. Second, I like this blog being about film in general, not just the Criterion Collection. As much as I adore that bastion of all things film geek, there's a wide world of amazing cinema out there and I want this blog to explore it all.

Thus, as happy as I am to have finally started mounting my way to the tip top of single digits, I'm happy as to what this blog has become.

That said, lets see what's in store.


#104. Double Suicide dir. Masahiro Shinoda

To be honest, I've already dug pretty deep in to this film and holy fuck-wit if I'm not confused as to what I'm watching. It's near experimental mish-mash that falls on to a tiny island somewhere between a Greek tragedy, a samurai love story, and a 1960s art-film. Oh yeah the entire film centers around a, ahem, double suicide. Not exactly the cheeriest of films, nor the most entertaining. But we'll get to that another time.

#105. Spartacus dir. Stanley Kubrick

C'mon, you know what this is. Kirk Douglas, he of the shadow casting chin and painfully botoxed son? Stanley Kubrick, he of the soul-blistering filmography and penchant for naked Tom Cruise? All smooshed together in to a film about a gladiator trying to survive. I've seen this film many many years ago and couldn't be more excited for a new taste.

#106. Coup de Torchon dir. Bertrand Tavernier

A French noir! Based on the steamy noir-work of beloved, and boozy author Jim Thompson! Starring the scaldingly attractive Isabelle Hupert! My palms are sweaty just thinking about it. Am I ever this excited about my top five? Am I ever this excited about anything?

#107 Mona Lisa dir. Neil Jordan

Please, somebody hold me, as I'm getting a bit faint. Neil Jordan's (he of The Crying Game, he of Interview With A Vampire) early, ahem, NOIR about a small town loser, played by the brilliant beast that is Bob Hoskins, on a "dangerous quest through the sordid underbelly of London." I love sordid things! I need to change my shirt, this much sweat is gross.

#108 The Rock dir. Michael Bay

Oh I know how much each and all of you are surprised by The Rock (104) appearing in The Criterion Collection. "But what about Die Hard? Or perhaps a Walter Hill film? Why this, this morbid bloated Nic Cage vehicle? What's next Con Air?" And I say hush. I feel as if every once in awhile The Criterion Collection just wants to make some dollars and force feed their customers some excessively trashy action. I mean they'll claim that Michael Bay invented modern action, but I think they just need a break from dramatic, breathy French films sometimes too. We all do. So zip it haters, zip it good.

Wow, I'm ready for this batch. Let me slumber through the end of Double Suicide (103) and then we get to me cinematically creaming myself for the next few weeks.

Friday: Double Suicide (103)

Strange facts and QUICK NOTES: 500 DAYS OF SUMMER

I can't come up with any sort of coherent thought pattern to formulate in to a blog, so I thought I would just pull the old shotgun trigger and spray your faces with some idea buckshot.

Here we go:

1. Being sick sucks. Oh I know, you all know that. "Boo hoo, Noah's sick. All he does is complain and shirk his blog." But seriously, it does, and what sucks even more is being sick ... with a mustache. Take all of that sickness that you hate: the snot, the hack, the low energy and add a mustache and you have a hellish experience. Why you might ask? Why does a hair caterpillar perched atop your upper lip up the miserable qualities of sickness? Nose blowing. Your average upper lip, bereft of hair, is pretty safe in a nose-blowing situation. That ooey goodness clogged within your nostrils doesn't have a foothold and just slides away in to a hankie. Add a mustache though and you have a veritable forest for that slimy goodness to hide within. All of sudden your not just blowing your nose once, you're taking another five or ten minutes to wipe the gooey goods from your face. A customer walks in to a coffee shop and where you might have once been able to just toss the napkin and move on, now you awkwardly stand there wiping the tubules of snot from your face. And don't get me started on coughing and sneezing, 'cause that always brings up something and its bound to get tangled in some of the brown straw sprouting from my face. C'mon Sickness Lord, just let me get better.

2. In a hilarious turn of events I spent almost an hour and a half last night wearing only a pair of light blue boxer briefs and tweed Toms, in the space behind my refrigerator, cleaning up rotting food and stepping on cockroaches. Big, fat, nasty cockroaches, that squooshed on to my shoes and never seemed to die. I've never really lived in a real city before (Seattle lovers I apologize) and seemingly real cities involve cockroaches, and after we'd realized that these buggers were taking over the kitchen, inch by inch, we take militant action and thus I ended up, bleach spray and cockroach killers wielded in each hand, near-naked battling their spiny forces. I gagged, several times.

The Film: 500 Days of Summer
The Director: Marc Webb

What Is It?: The uber-hyped romantic comedy by hotshot new director Marc Webb. You could fit the term "disappointing" in their, but I won't say where.

The Experience: Alex and I watched this film on the plane back from New York and I must say that without the pressurized air and confinement of the tubular cabin holding me down, I would've made it through perhaps five minutes of this film.

Something Interestin': Wow, I couldn't imagine there was anything terribly interesting to be found in the shadowy halls of this film, and I was right. The best I could find? That Zooey Deschanel's is named after the titular character in J.D. Salinger's Franny & Zooey. How, yawn, trite.

Quick Notes:

1. It's a sub-par romantic comedy wrapped in a trendy package.

That note seems to explain itself. This movie starts off with a bang, a collection of quirky visuals that make you think, "Ooooh, this film is going to be quirky and exciting." For five minutes you think that, five glorious moments. And then, splat, down it falls, and all of sudden you're watching each and every shitty rom-com of the last forty years, just tied up with the bow of visual chicanery. Director Marc Webb was and is a music video director and his emphasis on style over substance makes this quite evident. You tricked me once Webb, it won't happen again.

2. My crush on Zooey Deschanel gone.

A huge fault in this movie is telling everyone how amazing Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is, but never showing why. Every terribly written man-child in this film gets a stiff-one for Summer, but never once does Webb or Deschanel make it clear why. Sure, she's a looker (though her hair takes on a sort of helmet-like quality that was off-putting to Alex and I both) but her personality is such dead-weight that it makes Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character seem like more of a love-lorn chump than need be. I also worry that Deschanel's inability to play anything but this sort of always-stoned hot lady bodes exceptionally terribly for her ability to do anything but get type-cast.

3. This movie was really well hyped, but why?

I'm so confused about this film's response. Everyone was just crawling all over each other to say how much they loved this film and how visionary Marc Webb was in terms of his visual usage and blah blah blah. Then you watch the film and you realize that the film barely crawls its way past the mediocre mark and all of sudden it's confusion and shame while you're trying to figure out what the world of critique is coming to.

4. I hate shallow music allusions.

This film is full of trite, shallow allusions to the amazing music the two main characters love, and that's it. They just love this music and instead of it having any sort of theme-related importance or even an important part in their relationship, it's just a bunch of sonic crap thrown in to the film to help make them seem cooler. I don't want my "cool" friends to just talk about how good music is, I want it to mean something to them. And in this, a real shit-savvy piece of junk if you ask me, none of these people care at all.

Final Thoughts: Terrible. I hate each and all who helped trick me in to watching this. Alexandra Healy, I'll speak for you, hate's you as well.

Thursday: Good Hair

1 year, 8 months, and QUICK NOTES: THE CRUISE.

The first of the month always brings about some fairly, perhaps relatively, substantial dates. And yes, I understand, the acknowledgment of anniversaries, be them year or month, is considered faux pas in the "cool set", but that's okay. I'm a big sappy ball of snotty goo seventy-five percent of my life anyway, so turning it up a notch a few times a year just comes with the territory. I'll try to keep it to a dull roar though.

Some events of great import that rear their heads upon the first of each month:

1. It's the anniversary of my move to SF. Exactly eight months ago my brother and I, a jumbly ball of anxiety crammed in to a 1996 Honda Civic, cruised across the Golden Gate Bridge en route to our new homes and our new lives. These past 8 months have been challenging and at times rough, but also the happiest of my life. Each day presents something new and wonderful and I find this strange amalgam of a city to be as inspirational as any I've ever set foot in. I've had two jobs in this city (one in a hellish tourist void, the other a tiny hole of community and industry), four different roommates, one Civil War (thanks to two of those roommates), one therapist (a first for me), an unlimited supply of ideas, an unlimited supply of unfinished projects, a small handful of people that I've come to love and appreciate, less than 5 purchased books (I have a problem, this is a big deal), I've loved and lost one goldenrod single-speed bicycle, and that's the just the tip of the iceberg. But most importantly ...

2. I've spent exactly one year with the most special of ladies, the absolute love of my life, Alexandra Healy. One year ago, I staggered home from a grueling mid-shift and stumbled in to what would seem like a brief amazing, impossible, encounter with a girl who lived 816 miles away from me, an encounter that would blossom, through coincidence and a lot of texting, in to something absolutely beautiful. Everyone always tells you all the grim and gory details of living with the person you love, but they never tell you the most important thing: how fucking awesome it is. How you get to wake up each and every morning and right there next to you is the person you hold dearest in the world. How each night before you fade off to sleep you get to wrap an arm around their mid-section and talk about the day. How when you're sick they'll put you in crappy track pants and read you Amy Bender short stories. How you'll always have someone who'll hold your face against their chest when you're sad, and often times even when you're not. How you'll get to explore the person you were and are becoming. How you'll find someone else in this frequently bland world who wants to spend their Thanksgiving watching Cat Dancers and cooking cornish game hens. How hearing the door open will always snap your neck like a whip because it might be them coming home. How all of this can leave you nauseous, elated, ebullient, crackling with nerves, dry-mouthed, shit-faced, teary-eyed, breathless, tense, aroused, exhausted, and on and on. No one ever tells you that, but after spending a year (8 months of it in the same room) with the person I've come to love so exceptionally much, I feel as if I can tell you now. One year. Somebody, somewhere, pop a bottle of champagne.

The Movie: The Cruise
The Director: Bennett Miller (Capote)

What Is It?: A low budget documentary about Timothy "Speed" Levitch, a double-decker tour guide in New York. Basically an hour and half of some of the most intelligent ranting you've ever witnessed.

The Experience: Alex has been talking about this short, shaky little documentary for as long as I've been dating her and after a trip to the Rotten Apple, it became almost mandatory that we supplement our usually voracious documentary fix with this flighty bit of profile. We devoured it, unusually, in a single sitting.

Something Interestin': Director Bennett Miller followed up this film, seemingly shot on his Mom's Super-8 while drunk, with the Oscar-nominated Capote.

Something Else Interestin': Subject Timothy Levitch isn't just the subject of this film, he's also played Puggler the Punk Rock Juggler in something referred to as Xavier: Renegade Angel.

Quick Notes:

1. I suspect deeper issues.

Timothy "Speed" Levitch is assumedly as brilliant as you can get. You can see it in the frantic wave of his hands, the speed-talking, the sort of aloof wandering through the city he loves so dearly, the rattling off of facts as if they were known by any and all, and especially you can see it in the way he seems to have some sort of unending bag of ideas that he's able to reach in to at any point and pull free. It's incredible, but what's even more interesting is what seems to lurk underneath. The frantic charm of Levitch is offset by almost uncontrollable bursts of emotion (anger, sadness, frustration) throwing his usually eccentric and lovable tirades in to a more manic light. Who knows what lies beneath the skin of Levitch, but I'll say this, I knew a fella just like Speed Levitch, and he spent a night in the pokey because in a more manic state he broke in to the Federal Building downtown to try to stop an assassination plot against the President. Just saying.

2. Makes you feel like a filmmaker.

The fact that Bennett Miller, Oscar-nominated director, made this film on the streets of New York for less than it costs James Cameron to wipe his ass is inspiring. The fact that the film is basically a series of close-ups on Timothy Levitch shot on grainy black and white film in the always scenic streets of New York is inspiring. The fact that all it takes is a modicum of skill, an amazing subject, and a borrowed camera to make something of worth, hell, that's inspiring. This is the kind of film, bereft of special effects or computer graphics or even lighting, that slaps you around a little bit, gets your creative juices breaking down the dam of Hollywood that always seems so ominous.

Final Thoughts: A great little picture. I could watch five or six volumes of Levitch just shooting the shit. Maybe he should have a talk show ... or maybe not.

Tomorrow: 500 Days of Summer