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Embroidered comfort, cat in the wheelchair, disappointed breaths and a camisole army crawl.

Fingerprints in the grease hole…

Tailored suits and trim mustaches, steel cars and customized heaters, dirty deals and clean ledgers, and the only time you dare discuss a future is when you think the woman is asleep in the back.

Thin stripes, red polka dots, purple tans.

"I have to make it clear, that not even for a moment, is there a doubt that it is not a technical, but a philosophical question. So that the tonal system in question, through research, has led us inevitably to a test of faith, in which we ask: On what do we base our belief that this harmony, the core of every masterpiece, referring to its own irrevocability, actually exists or not?"

Turns out strawberry and mint chocolate chip ice cream does taste great together.

Seven nails of sorrow
Metal, salt and piss
Fairy Tree with scissor fruit
Standing in the grass

You ever see a cat yawn, stretch, and then do the most unbelievable thing with ease?

Trust your instinct. Trust your heart. Trust your collaborators. Trust your art.

A collage of moments, the image each piece contains equivocal, but together, a portrait as detailed as one of a chameleon should be.

Hate fucking on the hardwood stairs, jealousy twisting Art into an Egon Schiele figure, riding in the truck bed with goats, as the beauty you can’t accept lays prone.

“Use good judgement.”

The blood bile flows up the face, a running blade of energetic editing and unfiltered frenzy, pulverizing the wall until it’s wet with cleverness.

Bill Fraker knew how to shoot a movie.

One day I hope to be as good at what i love doing as these guys are.

The firebreak between suffering and responsibility might protect the ego, but for how long?

You can only hover around the periphery for so long.

"Men of flesh hitch a ride shorts and tans and greasy thighs at night drive into slimy bars and piss it out on our front yards they're looking in our window now real child of hell nobody's seen him real child of hell nobody knows what shape she takes st paddy's day, old irish man shamrocks painted on his face mumbles warnings from ireland in the back I sense a fight and that old man has done his deed real child of hell nobody's seen him real child of hell nobody knows what shape he takes this stage I'm on gets repossesed by vigilantes acting bored the mindless fan wants my dress and I can't tell which one is worse and I can't see the cursing child real child of hell nobody's seen him real child of hell nobody knows what shape she takes."

An energetic barrage of images, sounds and facts that perfectly suits the chaos, creativity and crushing boot of the moment being depicted. Astounding.

And sadly a song that is still being played.

Two tough sonsabitches and i love them both.

It’s about cats so it’s perfect.

The most perfect  lipstick put on film.

It’s never enough.

Looking at the world to avoid looking within, an aimless arrogance that chills the people you meet like a scoop of ice cream in a steel coupe.

A scowl, a smile, the sunlight and a gifted banana slowly melting it away.

Dumb longing, like dust on the lip of a bottle. Fumbling around in the dark of an oil drum, waiting for the lid to be pried off and the light to catch us at our greasy worst.

More of an overview than an exploration, the pace and breadth actually works in its favor, as the dizzying juxtaposition of artworks and information puts you in a similar mindset as it’s subject matter.

A fine red mist
Tinting the lovers
Oh God….what’s that smell?
It’s the smell of blood.

“No. It’s poetry. Poetry’s never dangerous.”

A poisoned roll of LifeSavers.

“The artist's Olympian calm is vital to the creative act.

The artist shouldn’t be bustling about,
carrying on….
and externally demonstrating his or her concerns.

Because usually,
the stronger the artist’s temperament,
the less it’s expressed externally.”

Gagged by your monochromic itch, bound by your vomit ropes, slipping in the mud of your orgasm, waiting for the bang of your lucky kiwi.

The mad love child of George Miller and Shūji Terayama, bleached by their father’s desert, drunk with fear, each handcrafted detail a totem against the road runner sky.

The comfort of excellence, the articulation of desire, the space, speed and volume of luxury…like an X-ray of the world’s most regal anthill.

Oz Perkins’ THE MONKEY is like THE WONDER YEARS if every episode was written by a heartbroken Rube Goldberg shacked up in a motel on a 5 day tweak binge. A vicious, violent rumination on life’s joy and danger. 

Some of the best props in recent memory.

Small enough to feel cozy, competent enough to trust, the hotel exists as the movie does, elusive, strange and interim, each black maw hallway implying a significance the property can’t .

“And I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg.”

Impressed? I was astounded.

This small group of artists came together and built a world so lofty it would seem out of reach without the resources and experience of a much bigger production.

And yet from the opening shot, confidently allowing the audience to meet the lead character in her space, at her pace, without rushing it, without weighing her down with the burden of exposition, without reason other than “here she is” and ed by music big enough and bold enough to proudly say “now this is a movie…” I was hooked.

It’s not just that Elric has digested so much cinema he can speak it fluently — it’s that those meals seem to have permeated his DNA to the point where he can express it as a native speaker, a true filmmaker creating an atmosphere free of thin reference and greatest hits, and something that works on its own .

It’s a miracle when a first film has a heart, a brain and a good skeleton to hang on. It’s even more rare for it to have the smaller stuff, the nerves, the tendons and all the hairs in place. And yet THE DEAD THING transitions from scene to scene with the simple fuzzed out lights of Michael Mann’s LA at night, and moves the camera within key moments of scenes with the confidence of De Palma or simply lets the actors hold it down for a long static shot, their characters boxed in by the objects in their crammed little lives.

Lives that feel intemporal, lit by the screens of their devices, their food no more nourishing than the utensils they eat it with. Emotions in search of a body.

A rhizomatous perennial.

Seems like everybody is just trying their best.

Inarticulate arrogance. Cruel constrictions. Blue flames and forgiveness.

A constant search on the artist’s path.

Certainty sealed in wax, broken by doubt.

Three peanuts.

Look.

At me.

As I lie.

From the opening sequence through the final stinger, HEART EYES is one banger moment after another. Josh Ruben and his creative collaborators Kennedy, Landon, Murphy, Gilreath, Hendricks and Bachman have filled the screen with as much humor and horror as the running time will allow, and the end result is a studio horror movie that delivers. A deft tonal balancing act pulled off by a game cast and a sense of fun pushing every scene to satisfying and often unexpected conclusions. HEK ILY.

Such a treat. A charming, wheezing, delicate piece of grotesque theater, brought to life with a delightful physicality from the performers and a simplicity to the photography that allows each movement and moment the space to land. Bold in every choice it makes.

Like a dessert from another country — a strange blend of unexpected flavors with an undeniable sweetness due in no small part to the feeling of genuine affection (and kiss) between Rossellini and Lynch. 

A Playtime with Hillis screening.

Beautiful critters

Sound and music

dot punching

radical radial

Slippery in the best way.

• Inside
• To Live and Die in L.A.
• At Eternity's Gate