widamaker1
The Pornographers:
Film and it's Infinite Qualities.
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American Fiction: “If they want stereotypes, I’lll give them one.”
Slight spoilers for AMERICAN FICTION.
I left my screening of AMERICAN FICTION thinking that I had watched a decent film. The perfect “3-star” movie. I recall thinking “as someone not keen on satire, this one hit the nail just fine.”
The movie poked at its subject of black narratives and ownership. The manner in which minorities claim their lives and the white people that facilitate them. Unlike…
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I've started a tiktok!
So this is where things are going, aye?
I vividly recall those heady, early years of my life between 2007-2014. Sites like LIVEJOURNAL, BLOGGER, and OPEN DIARY seized the day. They were the venerable Mount Rushmore of open communication. A sacred, standing stone spearheaded by TUMBLR, which itself was THE premiere blogging service.
What did these sites provide? An alternative to building a website from scratch. Time was, you had to understand what the word “broadband” meant. You had to have a light, but essential understanding of website maintenance. A running knowledge-pool of SEO’s and marketing applicators.
A blogger from 2003 was essentially a door-to-door salesman for the “series of tubes” generation. A well-organized handler of newsletters, the serious blogger was an individual committed to their due diligence, interacting with their meager, but active reader list, all the while dolling out what now would be referred to as “content.” The thing meant to satiate one’s audience…until the next thing came around.
I was neither organized, nor committed as a 19-year-old to execute on that lifestyle. I played video games, dabbled in pot, played neighborhood soccer (I was lousy, but so were the other kids) and all-and-all adhered to the placid, un-threatening, go-with-the-flow mantra of a teenage nobody.
That’s not to say I was without opinion. I would watch movies, read books, listen to new music and form opinions on what it is, exactly, that moved me about that particular text. Hell, I though my opinions were rather mature for my age.
But alas, I lacked the rigor to share anything about myself, even though I was surrounded by high school friends who were deep into livejournal, and tumblr. They waxed poetic about the minutia that interested them: Rare posters collected, arts & craft, muscle cars. They indulged in the personal, and in turn their candor was met with love and support. From strangers, no less!
In hindsight, this was a special time. Things were oh so simple. A major train had left the station, and me with it, watching it slowly sink into the horizon. Those audiences simply don’t exist in those mediums in the way that I would prefer in 2024.
When things change it’s important to keep up with your audience. I’ve long been opposed to starting a Tiktok because it was never the way I preferred to share my thoughts, nothing against the service. This is merely a choice of medium, But I want to explore the bitesized video format. Stretch my legs in that arena.
I’ve started a channel which I plan to support. I have a video up on the history of STOP MAKING SENSE, Jonathan Demme’s concert film masterpiece with Talking Heads at its center. There will be more to come, but I will still be writing long form entries on my blog. This is all just too much fun.
But you know what!?!? Things feel new. Audiences, abundant. It reminds me of those early days of blogging. Everyone felt seen. The engagement is surreal. Perhaps the goal now is to get my head out of my ass and commit to the new form. A new train stands idle for all to board.
Thank you, and make sure to follow me on Tiktok! Gondomedia.
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EILEEN: Film Adaptation 101
My main takeaway from EILEEN, the film was similar to my takeaway of Ottessa Moshfegh’s original novel of the same name: New England winters are a bitch.
In the book, an old woman who goes by “Lena” recollects a memory from decades past. A frantic episode, marked by obsession and danger. A former phase of one’s life. An unfamiliar young woman. Her name was Eileen Dunlop.
Cut back to the…
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Sleeper Hits: Massacre At Central High (1976)
MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH’s opening three seconds might be the best of all time: A body exploding in a wild fireball. Who’s body is it? Hard to say, it happens so fast. Don’t worry, we’ll know soon enough. What follows is a shot of a young man, in moderate strut, jogging past the serene mountain views of southern California. This is David, a student at Central High. A school brimming with teenage…
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Talking Heads Live Again!
Wrote a couple words about Talking Heads. One of my favorite bands.
In the mid-seventies, a three-person band that went by the name, “Talking Heads” emerged out of the bowels of NYC. They were young, spry. They were informed by the polyglot, underground music scene of Manhattan.
Post-punk was in, as was New Wave. The shepherds of this new fertile new moment—Pati Smith, New York Dolls, The Ramones—gave way to their immediate understudies. Bands like Television,…
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Theater Camp : The kids are alright.
There is no rhyme or reason to the things that excite us in adolescence. Certainly not for the young girls that find solace watching their fathers handle a carburetor. And definitely not for the boys who gather inspiration from their sister’s dance recitals. Are these individuals wired differently? Are they signs of deficiency?
Or, as this writer believes, can we just accept that these…
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"Talk To Me" has lots to say about Zoomers
Director: Danny & Michael Philippou
Starring: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Zoe Terakes, Joe Bird
Oh, the Zoomer. The age group that proceeds the millennial. A group that doesn’t know a world prior to the internet; in truth, a world that wasn’t readily available for live streaming.
In a culture that incentivizes the insanity of the moment, is it any wonder that our social media streams…
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Some Thoughts On The Writer's Strike
As of writing, Hollywood has been brought to a standstill. Both the Writer’s and Actor’s guilds have marshaled their collective forces to combat the impending threat of artificial intelligence.
The studios have signaled their enthusiasm over its mechanical benefits——the means in which AI will cast aside the creatives in power to further service the bottom line.
Writing about MXC: MOST EXTREME…
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OF SINKERS, FLOATERS, AND WALL BANGERS
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Past Lives (2023) "Isn't it pretty to think so?”
Director: Celine Song
Staring: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
So ends Ernest Hemingway’s monumental first novel, “The Sun Also Rises.” A story of sporadic love, found and lost. Of kindred souls who were meant to be, but ultimately couldn’t be.
But where the…
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The Blackening (2023): We Can't All Die, Can We?
Director: Tim Story
Starring: Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg
In a post GET OUT world, THE BLACKENING feels like an easy enough sell. It’s a horror comedy with an all black cast. Far from being a coincidence, this black cast will be thrown into the woods to endure a terrifying killer on the prowl. A demented being who stalks the woods in search for the blackest victims. Thus, a…
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REALITY, and Leak That Changed America
Director: Tina Satter
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis
The real story of Reality Winner is one crystallized in amber; the casualty of a bizarro time American political history.
Can you recall the meltdown surrounding Russian interference in a certain election circa 2016-2017? What about the wide breathe of reactionary content birthed in the wake of investigation? If…
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Last Dance Serves Up a Different Kind of Magic
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Channing Tatum, Selma Hayek
The Rundown:
Mike, now a wash-out bartender, accepts a lucrative offer he can’t refuse—the opportunity to reinvent a stuffy, english stage play into one that caters to the female gaze. Who better for the job than Magic Mike.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a strange beast. As the third entry of an established franchise, you’d think…
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I Watched GET OUT in a Movie Theater and had a Religious Experience.
FADE IN – MEMORY FROM CHILDHOOD – MORNING
The year is 1998. My brother and I are sitting in the back of a ’92 Toyota Sienna, amusing ourselves silly by reenacting the funniest bits from the morning’s episode of THE THREE STOOGES. Our father sits idle in the driver’s seat, watching the good folk file into morning service at St. Martha, donning their Sunday best. This was around eight in the…
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The Sensual Thrills of "Bones and All"
Minor spoilers for the first 20 minutes of the film.
There’s a bit of Rapunzel in the opening scenes of BONES AND ALL. We open on a mobile home in the outskirts of a nameless Virginia town. The place is inhabited by an adult man and a young girl—father and daughter, perhaps. The girl appears rather meek, with a small frame and a low, pouting face that hints at some childlike inquisitiveness.…
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