Mark's Movies

It's been wild. It's been nuts. It's been crazy. It's been insane. Mark is guesting on Play Comics (playcomics.com) TODAY the 28 of April 2019. Timecop. Jean Claude Van Damme. The Muscles from Brussels. Check it out.

It hasn't been awful, though, but this episode originally was. I cut about 75% of it down to what you'll hear here but this is ultimately just a setup for Chinatown. Definitely watch Chinatown if you haven't already. Any discussion is a spoiler.

As always you can tweet @coolmarkd

Rip and tear with the Doom-inspired remake of the Doom-inspiring original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That stuff about Doom? I made it up. Seems legit, though, right? There's definitely some corrections and things I want to make so I'll make there here. Also, some weird stuff going on so there may be a couple of sound issues. Not sure what that's about just yet but I'll be working those out as I go.

1. Something good The feeling of absolute isolation and a fucked up backwater ass Texas town does work. That type of thing scares the shit out of me. I went to Alaska and that was singularly one of the most remote locations I've ever been to and driving out to see a glacier was terrifying. It was like this movie in some ways but with the addition of the terrain actively being antagonistic and posted signs warning of such antagonism.
2. The editor on the movie was Glen Scantlebury. He was the editor on Dracula ('92), Con Air (this movie makes me laugh every time it's mentioned), and Transformers among other things. Think about that. I didn't even find his name and I was like "this is some Transformers-ass shit". He's done a bunch of other stuff, too.
3. The screenwriter was Scott Kosar. I just couldn't come up with his name. This was his first movie iirc and I'm not trying to shit-talk him I just didn't love the majority of the screenplay and can imagine that there was a lot of "influence" from a certain someone. He was a writer on The Haunting of Hill House which I really liked and really lives in the "horror" space having written on Bates Motel and The Machinist and Amityville Horror ('05) among others.
4. There are some gnarly practical effects in this movie and I would have loved to have seen some special features on them but I have the Blockbuster rental-version of the movie so it's just the movie disc--no special features at all.
5. I'm sure there's something else I forgot to talk about.

As always, @coolmarkd on Twitter. Mard20 on Letterboxd.

Quick update on Season 5 which is.... a year overdue.

Sometimes you're looking for the heat but you get the breaking ball. This was one of those times. Marnie was not what I expected and this episode travels down some roads that may be upsetting to some people. Sometimes The Greats aren't all that great. Sometimes they just don't show up. It can be attributed to a variety of things, both personal and/or professional. Creative or practical. You name it. We can never truly know the people we look up to. New microphone, who dis? I don't think I'll keep using it long term but I'm also still in the feeling it out phase.

The difference between suspecting and knowing is... wide. It's a gulf. I'm not going to lie--I'm still mulling over what I'd learned for this one. So the first impulse might be "yeah there's all these people coming out with stories now" but, to put that into perspective, many of those instances happened years ago and, furthermore, it has been happening for years longer than that. It's not a "right now" or "trend" thing--that is just the public become aware of it at scale. But it has happened. In isolation. Or not in isolation but under the shroud of a "powerful director" who could and would (and did) ruin a career if denied or crossed. It's happened for years. To all types of people. So many people knew and many probably weren't quiet about it but nothing was done. At most the people talking about it were threatened into silence. Maybe that's how you get "open secrets".

It's really telling that there are people who are distinctly not like this. There's a wide gamut as to how people are treated and it's explored in this really great video by Maggie Mae Fish (who is super great you should watch her stuff). But that's always been one thing that I did think to be true for some time--that art and genius is suffering and causes suffering. I don't know that this specific situation is that more than it's the inverse--a man trying to live out his dreams through movies while also trying to live out his dreams with the cast of said movies--but it deserves to be examined.

@coolmarkd on Twitter MarkD20 on Letterboxd

And what the fuck is a "sex mystery" anyway? The fuck outta here with that shit.

It's not a description, it's the title of Mel Brook's 1976 film which is, more or less, a silent movie. Perhaps is was a case of creative stagnation. Or perhaps it was a case of creative excellence manifested in will imposing it's untamed and dark desires upon a major motion picture production. Stay a while and listen. Not forever, though. This one is short.

@coolmarkd on twitter. @markd20 on letterboxd.