Napkin

I use the Napkin to cover my virginity.

Mom always says to put a napkin on my lap

And so I do

Aunt Bell never uses a napkin

She lives dangerously

Then I look down

I see white purity running over me

I feel safe

It’s quilted

I run my finger tips over its texture

My eyes close

But all I see is that clever napkin

That protective layer

My sister doesn’t use a napkin

She’s loose

Just like Aunt Bell she lives on the edge

She presses the wine to her lips

No fear of spills

No fear of droplets

My father, king of the castle, stares her down

Ashamed she’s chosen wine

My napkin saves her and I both

When father sees my napkin he’s elated

Purity has nothing on wine

this beautiful woman is moving away soon. i miss her already.

Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising visit?

Clockwork Orange(1971), unarguably one of cinemas greatest works, does not go without critique. This, being on of my favorite films, is something in constantly grappling with. I know it is good, but i understand/recognize why it is bad, or rather troubling.

From the moment we (audience) enter on the scene we are bombarded with rape imagry. However, this film is not carelss. It knows what it’s doing. This imagry, while disturbing to some, is the fear of many and the reality of most(women).

To be continued…

me & my molasses

No Claire, it's the monk's monastry choir's annual obscene phone call.

When i first saw the film ‘Black Christmas’ (1974) i knew it would be one of my favorite films of all time. It has remained one of my favorites to this day.

The film surrounds a sorority house being terrorized by an anonymous killer. This killer is frivolously knocking off the sorority sisters one by one, but that is not the only plot in the story. Simultaneously Olivia Hussey’s character, Jess, is dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and weighing her decisions much to her boyfriends discontent. I do not think this is the first film to use the camera as the ‘killer’ , only letting you see through the killers gaze and their face, but it is certainly the most effective use of this tecnique i have seen. The brilliance of this tecnique is that it proclaims that you, audience member, are the killer. Instead of locking into an instant alliance with the young & beautiful final girl of the film the audience member is identifying with the villian and heroine at the same time. You, as an audience memeber, are realizing the film through the eyes of the killer, and camera, making any connection with morality near impossible.

The film is laced with gortequley beautiful match on action shots. For example the shot of claire in the attic with plasitic wrap over her face turns into a shot of the frosty glass on the front door. Another wonderful aspect of this film is director Bob Clark’s understanding of angles. Whether its Barb getting stabbed in her bed or Claire being suffocated by the plastic wrap, the angles choosen for film create a most realistic and terrifying image for the viewer. The use of the phone is most likely not the first, but very well done. Scream (1996) borrowed alot from this film in terms of Clark’s use of the phone as an intorduction to the killer. The girls initially sense “danger” when they keep getting obscene phone calls that sound like choir of people action out a scene. The voice(s) on the other end are saying some of the most disgusting, threatening, frightening words and while some of the girls (Barb) give him a piece of their minds, the other girls (Claire, Jess) are very aggitated and concerned. The phone becomes a character, the girls interact with it, and it is a huge focal point of the first 20 minutes of the film.

The tag line of the film is “If this film doesnt make your skin crawl, its on too tight.” Brilliant. The movie is visually jarring and disrupting, but simultaneously gorgeous in its composure.

Grá mo chroí. Tá tú go h-álainn

long live gialli, kids

If there is a home base of the Italian giallo, then Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964) is surely it. Giallo is is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. Giallo, means ‘yellow’ in Italian, the origin of the genre is a series of cheap paperback novels with trademark yellow covers. With his predatory camera and unflinching view Bava arguably gave birth to a new slasher genre that would pave the way for many future auteurs. (Argento, Carpenter, De Palma etc.)

Like most of Bava’s Films, Blood and Black lace, has little care for plot or character, or even a logical progression of ideas. The plot is simple. A faceless (and i mean faceless as in this character goes through the film with what resembles cheese cloth wraped around his entire head) killer dressed in a black trench coat and sporting a fedora that was later to become the staple of a famous cinema character- Fred Kruger. The faceless aspect would later be adopted by John Carpenter, accident or not, to create the horror that surrounds Michael Myers in Halloween. The brilliance of the monster sporting a blank face is that the audience can project anything they want onto it. Horror film, unlike other cinema, presents a form of catharsis that is often misunderstood. The curiosity about mortality, death, fantasy, and violence can all be felt during the viewing of a horror film. More importantly, aggressions and anger/fantasy can be openly experienced in the darkness of the movie theater because the audience can even project their own face onto that blank mask —genius. The killer stalks and murders all these glamorous models in order to retrieve a diary that could be incriminating. From beginning to end this film is alive, brandishing bright colors, invasive camera angles, and infectious enthusiasm for the macabre.

The most amazing part of this film, however, is Bava’s commitment to his own mis-en-scene. Although made up of vivid colors, visual and narrative red herrings, it ultimately leads no where. The visualization however, still remains stunning. The script was written to treat the elaborate deaths, not the plot, which is, in my opinion, a genius characteristic of Giallo films. Directors such as Argento, Carpenter, De palma, Craven, and even Hitchcock understood that the plot is subsequent, the murders serve the plot and not the other way around.

Even though Psycho and Peeping tom (1960, 1962) were released before ‘Blood and Black Lace’ the ferociousness of Bava’s death scenes and his refusal to shelter American viewers ushered in a new wave of cinematic violence, especially against women and womens bodies. Hitchcock played with viewers, Powell exposed viewers to everything but kept a safe distance, but Bava unflinchingly revealed everything. Camera as weapon; the killer as cipher upon whom the audience is invited to project their darkest animosities.

what’d you think? See the film, you might see what im talking about. Long live Gialli films :)