The fire anniversary, of course. Sorority sisters, unaware she’s eavesdropping, mock her blemished skin, her crooked teeth, her corduroys. An obvious bleeding sunset. Slasher films ought to be set in the afternoon, on Sundays, when the fear of living is heavy on us. The sisters, in their bouffants, in their heels and spangles, their sanitary jewelry, depart in two limousines. None return.
Outside, I had to throw up.
Candy snails, crabs, and sea urchins swam out of my mouth with a tide of cola and bile.
He said, Better out than in.
He said, Lots of nights I’ve had to stick my finger down my throat. Pull the trigger, get on with your life.
For weeks, when I closed my eyes, I saw the Hairdresser coming through our neighborhood, coming for me—past the overfilled dumpsters, the scummy kiddie pools, the rusted cars up on blocks which were illegal to drive even if converted—trowel in her burned fist.
This sequel, lacking the original cast, composer, and director, can’t compare. The new Hairdresser has straight white teeth, enunciates quips, picks up litter. Why isn’t she fat? Her arrival in the leafy native neighborhood isn’t an infiltration but a homecoming and a coronation.
28.
BUSINESS AND BLOOD
DIR. TONY SPRENGER
86 MINUTES
In Altarpiece, Bellono, Beatrice, Gelder, Duke Giovanni, Enrico, and Duchess Andrea will be played by myself. Bellono’s face will be seen but no others. Since the fact that I am playing the remaining roles will not be made obvious, this is a legitimate choice and not a gimmick to get the attention of gawkers and tastemakers. The film will not benefit from a sulking hunk or a strapping rake. I’ve loosened a couple molars for authenticity. I am not yet but will be sallow and bony. Exercise disagrees with me. Only the promise of mischief has endeared me to possible partners with abysses of sympathy for the ill behaved.
As I explained over Jonson’s protests, I have knowledge of the characters that cannot be transmitted to a venial clique of actors.
There is precedent. Business and Blood concerns a real estate developer who believes his twin brothers are imitating him at gentlemen’s clubs. See it at the Runaway Seven tonight, tomorrow, or never. Sprenger, the director, plays the triplets. The three-way fight at the end is an exemplary piece of physical comedy. The lo mein flying. The bees. A programmer might pair our films, with Weide’s Doubles, and Saul Trillado’s Mirror Mirror, for a slow month of Tuesdays.
29.
DUST
DIR. ROMEO CHIMBAROZO
93 MINUTES
Jonson said, So then I said, Yeah, I know him well. We’re making a film together. Funny how we ran into each other at Chez Prateek. I never see anyone there. It’s like my spot. I was eating my paneer aligot at the bar and he comes up. Millings says, Hey, thanks for that party. I’ll have you over soon. I say, No problem. He says, How you been? and we get to talking. I say, I’m looking to expand into the arts. He says, How so? I say, I’m making a film. He gets excited. He says, That’s great, tell me about it. I have twenty minutes before I have to go to this thing next door. I say, I’ll work on my pitch with you. So I run it down. When he hears your name, he perks up. He says, I didn’t know he was a filmmaker. I thought he ran films down.
Jonson said, But in a laid-back way, he was laughing.
Jonson said, Millings says, Noah Body came by the other day to say he was sorry, but I was out of the office. I appreciated it, though, that he thought of me. I asked him over to hash it out. I said, That’s not like him. He said, You never know someone, do you?
Jonson said, I brought it back to our film. I told him it’s your passion project and I’ve never seen you so invested or excited. And you know what? He seemed genuinely happy for you. That Millings is a nice guy, I recommended he check out Dust, you know how he likes those hammy, faux-intellectual action movies, the law of the gun as the laws of man. I’m glad you went over there. If you keep networking at this rate, soon you’ll have a whole social circle.
Jonson said, But he had to run after that, and my lunch had gone cold.
30.
US, UNDERGROUND
DIR. PIERRE LACHENAY
103 MINUTES
Osvald’s possession of my body, light and unobtrusive at first, hardens.
My rooms are icy and dry, but I prefer tropical warmth. Mornings, when I once allowed myself boundless optimism, have become impossible to negotiate. No amount of coffee will hoist my eyelids. I bark at children before noon.
Pencils sharpened and organized by length. A growing collection of watches I do not wear. A hematite paperweight. Diagrams accumulate for an instrument to measure shadows.
I have infected him. Is he acting like me? Has he flung off Isabel’s sheets ready to chew on the day? Can he recite the passions of the executed French kings? Is he able to focus his tenderness on an ugly schnauzer or dumb infant like he’s torturing ants with a magnifying glass? Has he begun to intuit a consciousness enveloping his own? Can he feel my eye?
Franca, of Us, Underground, becomes dependent on her neighbor, Nicole, after her husband is taken away by the police for supplying information to the rebel forces in yonder mountains. That Nicole denounced him does not deter Franca. One must take what is offered.
Osvald’s big words are in me. I never spoke like this before. Osvald’s defection injured my language. It healed wrong, it limps.
Certain events I can’t imagine: what magazines he reads, if he fucks the mirage of women half known while he services Isabel. If he is satisfied with his choice. If he ogles an undulate field of wheat before concluding it might be a good place, when the morning arrives, to spray his brain. To imagine more would be indulgent.
31.
PHYSICIAN, HURT THYSELF
DIR. LUKE IATROS
181 MINUTES
Leaving Dr. Lisa’s bed, by a sagging bookshelf with horticultural and medical texts, biographies of dead generals, comics. On her nightstand, no less than six glasses of water. She must get fined.
She said, Where are you going?
I said, I have to go to Hub Hall and get permits for Altarpiece.
She said, You already know where you’re going to be filming?
I said, One can get an “at large” permit, provided one is not obstructing the common flow of goods, services, or people. Since the only kinds of shots I require from the Hub are of moving water, leaves, the sky, and so on, I won’t have to close a street or film in a public building. I do not think such a permit is necessary, but Jonson insisted. I think following rules excites him, sexually.
She said, Don’t be foul.
I said, He also gets a tax break if we follow the rules.
She said, It’s on the Lime, eight stops from the transfer.
Hub Hall, in a tower built for a newspaper. I had seen many films set in the Zone before it was established. The main difference was in the films there was a plurality of people, but in the business section of the Zone, there was only one type. There were few people on the streets. Had I not known better, I would have thought there was an epidemic of affluence spreading through the Hub. The excessive personal space was unnerving.
Permits Authority, twelfth floor. Two clerks and I.
The first clerk said, Sir, there seems to be a problem with your forms.
I said, I thought they were already approved from the device application, and I had to show identification.
The second clerk said, Sir, if you will have a seat, I will get my boss. She will assist you. I don’t have authority in this matter.
I sat two hours. Nobody came. One of the advantages of the Zone was supposed to be that the bureaucracy within was efficient because applicants had been thoroughly vetted. Accustomed to the overcrowded and inept Authority Offices outside the Zone, I had packed a grass bar and a magazine.
Another hour. The clerks hung a sign say
ing they were on lunch. I was reminded of Physician, Hurt Thyself. See it at Rogers Theater. Cross the street for a sandwich at Torta Muy Gordo. I like the #7, hold the kelp bacon.
Anyway, the film’s titular physician, Dr. Lin, has a fear of puns. When her colleague, Dr. Fesser, remarked that Napoleon kept his armies up his sleevies, Lin had to be kept at the hospital overnight for observation. It was a good premise, but I’d had my #7 before the film, so I fell asleep in the first act.
In the doorway of the Permits Authority stood Millings. He sat across from me, legs agape, like it was his living room.
Millings said, Offices are the same everywhere. They could have got you out of here in five minutes, but you’re waiting all day. Why do you suppose that is? An arbitrary exercise of power? A humbling of a man they thought arrogant?
I said, I don’t have anything going on today. I’m rather enjoying this.
He said, After all, you’re getting a shooting permit, not trying to knock down a stadium or get a nanosurgery license.
I said, The small talk, the promise, the threat. Don’t you have any other templates to boot up?
He said, I heard you paid a visit to my offices.
I said, I visited your wife’s offices, yes. It wasn’t a secret visit. I came to see you.
He said, Isn’t she wonderful?
I said, Superlative, certainly. You are a fortunate man.
He said, Altarpiece. Sounds spectacular. You’re doing a period film. Why don’t you give me a piece of it, say, twenty percent? Thirty. Plus you’ll get a finder’s fee, for bringing me on, of five percent of the thirty. That’s personal money, for you. You could move into a good neighborhood. Extra liquidity goes a long way when starting a venture. I’ll send my people around Jonson’s way, we’ll start a production company. I want to invest in your talent.
I said, We’re funded. We have a production company, the Flowery Years. How about you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone?
He said, At the end of the day, they will tell you to come back tomorrow right when the office opens. At the end of tomorrow, they’ll tell you come back the next day right when the office opens. On the end of the third day, you’ll get your permit. I’m a booster of the arts. I want your film to be made. But I also want us squared up. I don’t like debts. The balance sheet is getting muddled. It isn’t tit-for-tat anymore. Making you sit here three days isn’t fair compensation for fucking with my marriage, is it?
I said, Fucking with your marriage is fair compensation for assaulting me in the street.
He said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know there’s a crime problem outside the Zone. Over a dozen people have been attacked in the last year. Two were even killed.
Our exchange was getting heated. The film was what mattered. The vanities of our conversation were of no importance other than to mark time.
I said, Millings, I’m sorry. Please accept my apologies. I think we got off on the wrong foot. You did not deserve such a reaction. I think you are a good man, a great man. A man of many qualities. Although I regret I can’t offer you a funding opportunity at this time, Jonson tends to meddle, so when I need financing for my next film, I will be sure to ask you first. We could have a great friendship, if we could understand one another. You have to understand me. I came from squalor and I resent the wealthy. Class anger has clouded my ability to see each person as they are. You were born to this and I was born to that. It wasn’t your fault who your parents were. In fact, I saw that you’ve given a lot of money to good causes and a lot of your time. It is my own resentment which diminishes me, and I hope you can forgive me for that.
Millings said, It touches me to hear such a heartfelt apology. We make good opponents, but I think we can make great friends. My father tried to turn an enemy to a friend. He said to me once that if I had an enemy, it was my fault for not trying hard enough. My father had many friends, most of whom became mine, and I tried to continue his legacy of friendship. So, please, take my hand.
I did.
He said, I really do want to finance a film. Kiosks are so boring. My wife makes the money and I spread it around.
If a few lies helped ease the production of Altarpiece, then I would tell a few lies. After all, it wasn’t my money I was spending. Humiliation can be borne for a while. Only a while, though. When the film was made, then I would settle with Millings.
Millings said, Three days. Look me up soon.
My permits were approved after two more days of sitting in the room with the clerks.
32.
MONOGAMOUS ANIMALS
DIR. LAWRENCE HOLLINGBERRY
11 MINUTES
Prairie voles. Swans, vultures. Gibbons. Angelfish. Wolves. Albatrosses, turtledoves, beavers, skinks. Barn owls, bald eagles, golden eagles, condors, cranes. Ospreys, red-tailed hawks, anglerfish, sandhill cranes, pigeons, prions, film critics. Cockroaches. Penguins. Red-backed salamanders. Seahorses, titi monkeys. Pygmy marmosets. Jackals. Convict cichlids. Malagasy black rats. Malagasy giant rats. California mice. Kirk’s dik-dik. Geese, coyotes. Parrots.
33.
FUR BURGLARS
DIR. HOLLY AND JENNY LINDEN
81 MINUTES
Greatness in the Linden sisters’ oeuvre is contained in overgrown lines, scenes, and shots, like kudzu trapped in a pot in the middle of a tennis court. It heightens the surrounding desolation. Their magnanimity in allowing mistakes, like the continuity slips and flubbed dialogue, overcompensates for a coherent vision of existence, that which we expect from a notable filmmaker.
Having smudged their prints on the detective story, western, antiwestern, caper flick, dark comedy, musical, buddy cop picture, spy film, monster movie, and bromance, the Lindens have made a children’s movie. Bills must be paid. For all their integrity, the Lindens won’t leave the Western Hub for the affordable rents of their native Des Moines.
Fur Burglars is not for adults. There are no grown-up jokes whooshing over tousled heads. The Lindens do without parody, satire, knowing references to brands. There is no resolution, which is its own satisfaction.
Atrocious parental behavior blackened the showing. In a kids’ movie, adults snap pictures, paint nails, crack cans, yell into Pingers, and thump their kid for displaying enthusiasm. Blathering about the profundity of children’s entertainment, how age-appropriate films are a construct, is the product of an infantilized generation and their apologist critics. Children’s movies are marketing events. It is irresponsible to bring your children to see Banjo the Clown Dog or Crocodile Orthodontists II, unless it is part of your parenting strategy. Viz., if you try to raise an idiot, then maybe your child will rebel against idiocy.
Fur Burglars. Three nondescript and unexcitable women kidnap the pets of the wealthy to ransom. Each kidnapping is rendered with the greatest of care to maximize its entertainment value. We are not told if the women are in need of money, if they’re class warriors, or if they like the kicks that crime affords. These thieves of puggles and Russian Blues have no past, future, or agenda we can determine. The Lindens make few concessions to narrative. This film, by omission, shows how the word why obstructs our cinema, tangles it in strands of causality, removes it from its proper sphere of mysticism. Before the film, they stole pets. After the film, they will continue stealing pets.
Showings of Devin Duckling’s Dire Disaster or Honky Seals pay the bills at the Conspicuous, so I tolerate the Saturday hordes of greedy kids who pillage the snack counter, make unpleasant high-pitched noises, cluster outside the bathrooms complaining of imminent bladder rupture, unable to perceive the restrooms are out of order. I watch the kids in the lobby, trying to determine who will have an exciting life, if there is a secret, a gene, an attitude, if there is anything but money, a high tolerance for pain, birth within an arbitrary and invisible boundary.
Isabel and I agreed on the Lindens. At attention, Pingers forgotten
. Our shared filmography. A Short Hello, female private eye kills society son: soon after our meeting, groping on the couch, stoned on hormones. Cerillos by Saturday, railroad town wrangles bandits into repressive private militia: the night her mom had too much cabernet and began to sob on her lawn. Richmond!, a musical about the ruinous hurricane: after the abortion. The Things, sensitive monster is pursued by murderous humans: after her sister was caught bullying a girl on Pinger so badly that the girl refused to leave her house. Jean-Luc and Raoul, best friends become estranged over the loan of a pencil: her aunt’s cancer. In Rabat, a spy causes a war through great ineptitude, then manipulates events at home to cover her tracks: when I discovered she’d taken a credit chip in my name and maxed it out. Double feature with Milagro, hospital tearjerker about an elderly man who decides not to kill himself after realizing the worth of his life, who we learn in the final shot is a generalissimo subjecting his people to brutality and suppression: my retaliation.
34.
THE TATTOOED FUGITIVE
DIR. RICHARD FOGER
90 MINUTES
Paint-by-numbers Nano Belt noir. Playing in repertory through next Sunday, at the Hub Cinema Archive.
We left after the heiress disappeared. The detective’s charisma wasn’t sufficient to hold us in our seats. Into the arboretum, where people flaunted that they had the resources to maintain two or three large dogs. Never mind the paucity of quality health care outside the Zone, the impossibility of a relatively unbiased education for many of our guests, the enormous costs of carbon reabsorption. A permit for one animal is thousands of dollars. No wonder this society was almost eradicated.
A Short Film About Disappointment Page 10