Plato Shrimp » Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

crumbsroom · 1/19/2023 8:55 pm

Rampop II wrote:
crumbsroom wrote:
I will eventually get back to this thread. I just wanted to step away from feeling any obligations towards anything for awhile, and with my 'name' attached to this, I felt like I have to tend to this like a lawn at times. And I'm a terrible mower. Sometimes I don't even want to look out the window.
I hope I didn't jack your thread, Crumbs. I get carried away sometimes.

No no no. I don't care what people do in my thread. I have zero interest in it remaining some pure stupid thing. I prefer it be filled with tangents and asides and non sequitors. I hate things being tidy (except for my house, messy houses are bad)

I just don't feel like coming to my thread. I have nomadic impulses which from time to time make me want to have nothing to do with anything that is associated with me. In university I almost never went to my dorm residence and spent most nights sleeping on couches and in hallways and in basements and in the living rooms of nuns. I reject the idea of home, even though I will also go through stretches where I'll never leave my house if I can avoid it. Basically, my brain is a nightmare.

But it also probably has something to do with shirking responsibility I'm sure. I just don't want to be on the hook for responding to anything in particular, and i feel that responsibility more when it's my thread. I bail pretty fast out of things when I feel any outside pressure to exist, whether real or imagined.

Basically, I'm rebooting, and hopefully the pains of being a real boy will be less pronounced in the future

Last edited by crumbsroom (1/19/2023 9:05 pm)

Rock · 1/20/2023 12:19 am

I know what you mean. I gave myself projects in the past to write longer reviews about certain genres/movements/directors/etc, but I do find I start backing away once it starts to feel like homework. Usually taking it easy for a brief period recharges my batteries and makes writing about those things fun again.

Rampop II · 1/20/2023 3:39 am

Me, three!

Our imaginations are just too fast for this world. Reality can't accommodate. I have a backlog of creative ideas like the end of Raiders, and lest that sea of neglected crates become oppressive I have to remind myself that it's actually a good thing, no matter how painful it is to accept that even some of my favorite children likely won't make it to the delivery room. Not only does that backlog mean I have plenty of surplus to draw from, it also means my mind is bearing fruit in such abundance that it's giving me more than I can ever use. I think this is the far more important thing. I want to keep my mind's garden fruitful by giving it what it needs to thrive so that it can continue to produce fresh ideas.

I think pulling away periodically is crucial, or at least it certainly is in my own creative process. When I made music I learned that I needed to go dormant every once in a while, sometimes for months. I would reach a point where my playing became uninspired, like I was just going through the motions, with a dulled sense of why I was even doing it. It was distressing the first couple of times because it felt like something important was leaving me, either my interest, or more frighteningly, my "talent." But I eventually discovered that after a period of leaving it alone for a while, I would pick my instrument up and be elated to discover that it was new and exciting and euphoric all over again. Even though I was playing the same notes I had previously become bored with, I was feeling them again, was able to play them with expression, and was convinced my playing had never been better. Whether that last part was true or not, only my bedroom wallpaper could say, but who gives a fuck about that. The euphoria was back, the talent hadn't gone anywhere, and new ideas were flowing again.

I'm convinced that we have to step away from our instruments, our easels, cameras and quills, and take in some of the world around us if we're to have anything worthwhile to say/play/paint/write/etc., as vital as silently inhaling fresh air in order to speak. Gotta feed the beast so it has something to digest and spit back out with its own personal bite marks. I bristle at the common caricature of writer's block, looking like Billy Crystal in Throw Momma, staring at a blank page in frustration, like that's where inspiration is supposed to come from, and not the entire world that exists around that piece of paper. I think that's a huge part of what that movie is saying, too.

A nightmare for a brain, eh? I have one of those. Naturally I can't ever know your personal nightmare; I don't mean that as a contest, invalidation or platitude, only as an expression of solidarity. The shit's hard, I can attest to that much. I always want to tell people who act jealous of whatever material advantage they perceive in me that if they want to trade places they have to take it all, body and brains included, and bet bottom dollar they'd be screaming for a refund within ten minutes, begging on both knees to polish my cock with their snot and tears. I guess they'd be polishing their own cock in that case, though technically it would be mine until I let 'em have it back.

Of course they wouldn't want to trade that part back, after receiving such a glorious upgrade, yuk yuk.

Anywayz, we know one thing that so many of our creative heroes have in common: for all their great accomplishments we came to love, upon their passing, countless more unfinished ideas littered the workshops, notebooks, cassettes, and cave walls they left behind. To our greedier selves, it feels tragic, but it also proves they stayed vital to the last.

[orchestra swells]

crumbsroom · 1/22/2023 2:38 pm

Rampop II wrote:
...Let me elaborate on that last story, if the humor isn't already apparent. Dark humor. No pun intended. Dark humor on many levels. Also no pun intended.

I don't know if anyone here lives with, or knows someone with, any of the various forms of dwarfism. In many ways it's of course no laughing matter, as it not only guarantees a life of stigma and limited opportunity, but some kinds of dwarfism are fatal. What little we know about Bryant Crenshaw's life, and his death, is enough to know the man did not have it easy.

So I'll just have to pray that the man who agreed to appear as "Midget" in Gummo can approve of what I'm writing from beyond the grave. I mean him approving from beyond the grave, not me writing from beyond the grave. If I'm dead, I'm still catching on. (for choice writings from beyond the grave, check out Love, Crumbsroom)

But getting back to the story at hand...

Try to imagine turning around, looking down (assuming you're over four feet tall), and seeing this dude:

...and he's displaying a gesture and facial expression that says “everybody stay calm.”

Then he utters those words. "I'm not gonna rob you or nothin," in an intonation like Eddie Murphy's "I just want some chips" moment in The Golden Child.

Call me insensitive, but in that instant I had to do a fast and hard valsalva maneuver to suppress the explosions of laughter suddenly kicking mercilessly at my insides like so many fighting fetuses. I can only assume JJ was similarly choking down guffaws of his own. The thought had never entered our minds that the man before us might be any kind of threat. Crenshaw had, knowingly or unknowingly, delivered a first–class punchline, and it was putting water in both our basements.

Sure, there are ways a 4–foot man could harm a couple 5 foot–something dudes, if he really intended to do so. I mean no insult to the man by laughing or almost laughing at the thought of anybody being intimidated by him. Humor isn't always rational, as we know, nor is it always diplomatic. It strikes without warning and the reaction is involuntary. Raw hilarity can hit the nervous system and stimulate a response long before it reaches the brain (I have nothing to support that claim), so by the time it rides the elevator and reaches the desk of executive function, the news may have long been leaked.

I did hold it in, but the part of my 5'11" self, the part that fails to be instantly afraid of a four–foot man with 14-inch arms, was convulsing internally. Again, I'm sure Crenshaw could’ve at least laid a hurtin' on somebody if he needed to, win or lose. Never underestimate an underdog. But Crenshaw was familiar to us anyway, being a regular part of the scene, so to speak, and we had no reason to fear him. So we just politely went through the standard sequence, "spare change," "sorry, no," "OK, God bless," etc. Later on we laughed our guts out.

Another level to this story is the world of speculation it opens up: Had people really reacted to Crenshaw that way in the past? To the point that he needed to calm them? What does that scene look like? Who are these people? How does that scenario play out?

"Please, Mister Afro–Gremlin, don't turn us to stone! We're sorryyyy!"

Maybe he said “I’m not gonna rob you” on the premise that his Blackness could supersede his smallness in making him more intimidating. So then I have to laugh again at the image of some startled racist, terrified into such a panicked state that Crenshaw might actually appear distortedly huge to them. I imagine seeing him through their eyes, a picture in which the world recedes into shadow behind him as he emerges fully into view, whereupon he begins to steadily increase in size, especially his head, inflating like a shiny brown balloon, those eyes looking straight at them as it grows absurdly huge, like some Terry Gilliam clip art, until his face floods their entire field of vision, gorgonizing them with fright. They shrink and cower before the dreadful visage, their vocal cords too paralyzed to scream, hands fumbling spastically for valuables through piss–soaked pockets, helplessly ensnared, in a grip of deadly fear.

"Take her, not me! You'll be fine, honey, they love white women!" [shove] "Fetch, boy!" [fading tekku-tekku sound of cowardly soles beating asphalt in earnest retreat]

[later] "He was HUGE, officer! I think he abducted her to the top of the AT&T building; send planes!"

It wasn't until JJ and I were back in the car and on the road that we were able to release. One of us said something and we both exploded, like a couple of popped balloons.

Bryant Crenshaw, 1972–2015. Rest in peace, thanks for the laughs… and thank you for showing mercy on us all.

I always though he committed suicide. Maybe that was just an assumption since it seems to be the fate of a lot of dwarf performers. Yes, undoubtedly a hard life. My brother is technically married to one (I thought he was speaking in metaphor about his lousy life when he suddenly moaned to me one day that 'not even a dwarf will date me', when I should have realized my brother never speaks with any kind of metaphorical distance). After meeting her, and debating with her over whether I should call her a midget or a dwarf (she used to be quite liberal with racial epithets, so I was okay playing dumb on what the proper terminology for her was) , you quickly notice how much people stare. It's overwhelming. I actually don't know how they can function. The entire world has been designed to make everything inaccessible to them. The entire world gawks. They walk so slow.

I've spoken to JJ numerous time in the past about my distaste for a particular keytar playing manager I once had (how wonderful to finally be able to put that in the passed tense), and there was many reasons to loathe him and be embarassed by him, but the moment that sealed the deal is when my family suddenly showed up unexpectedly at a book show we were doing, and the look of disdain he had towards this clown car of hillbillies and dwarfs that came in through the door made me want to smash him in the mouth. He of course had no idea this was my family, and the second look of horror that came to his face when he realized it made me want to imaginary hit him again.

So yeah, it's a rough life. But I would also never underestimate the density of those bodies, nor their low center of gravity. Or all that anger. I bet they could wrestle a weakling like me to the ground pretty well if they had any notion of how to fight. And once they've got you down on the floor, you best pray for little person forgiveness. They're feisty when they're drunk. And you keep calling them a midget.

Last edited by crumbsroom (1/22/2023 2:47 pm)

Rampop II · 1/22/2023 3:20 pm

crumbsroom wrote:
I always though he committed suicide. Maybe that was just an assumption since it seems to be the fate of a lot of dwarf performers.

It may very well have been a suicide. He walked into traffic. One car swerved to avoid hitting him but the car behind that one, presumably unable to see Crenshaw until the first car swerved, was unable to stop in time.

crumbsroom · 1/25/2023 12:10 am

I just stared directly into Klaus Kinski's asshole.

Jinnistan · 1/25/2023 12:18 am

Rock · 1/25/2023 12:22 am

Fruit of Passion?

crumbsroom · 1/25/2023 12:27 am

Rock wrote:
Fruit of Passion?

Yes.

How does someone rate such a tremendously off putting butthole out of five?

Maybe I should ask Gideon.

Rock · 1/25/2023 12:35 am

I haven't seen the movie yet, btw.

I'm just aware that Kinski's butthole is shown onscreen.

crumbsroom · 1/25/2023 12:39 am

Rock wrote:
I haven't seen the movie yet, btw.

I'm just aware that Kinski's butthole is shown onscreen.

Your knowledge of on screen buttholes is quite impressive, sansei.

crumbsroom · 1/25/2023 12:40 am

Rock · 1/25/2023 12:44 am

crumbsroom wrote:
Rock wrote:
I haven't seen the movie yet, btw.

I'm just aware that Kinski's butthole is shown onscreen.
Your knowledge of on screen buttholes is quite impressive, sansei.

It's my cross to bear.

crumbsroom · 1/28/2023 12:31 am

crumbsroom · 1/28/2023 11:52 am

Always disappointing to read a review by Ebert where he seems to completely miss the point of a film. His review of What Happened Was isn't one of those cover your eyes reviews (Ridgemont, Blue Velvet) but it is one where his main complaint is the entire point of the movie. Where is the chemistry between these two people, he wonders. They seem to constantly be talking past eachother. It seems the fact that the whole film is an examination of loneliness and is about two people who have forgotten how to connect with the rest of the world completely zipped over his head. And it's not like this point is subtle. If there is any criticism I can think of the film, it is at times a little too on the nose with these things.

I don't think Noonan ever directed anything ever again, and while he is no Savant like Charles Laughton, I think this movie should be put on the short list of legit great films by one time directors.

Getting me to squirm at and empathize with and see myself all at once in a film is no small accomplishment. And the fact that Noonan does most of this with the most basic of flourishes (with a few baroque exceptions scattered throughout) is a remarkable feat

crumbsroom · 1/28/2023 8:31 pm

Rip Tom Verlaine

The death is coming thick these days

crumbsroom · 1/31/2023 1:27 pm

There is always a bit of a child in the best kind of provocations. Or at least there should be. Whether purely exploitative, or tilting towards the surreal, it's all about the joy of putting a thumb in the eye of the squares. The people who want you to behave. Who only have answers and no questions. Just enough pressure applied to get them screaming from the room so you then can fall on the floor and roll around and laugh at them. The kind of thing they'd lock up an adult for doing.

It's sometimes petty, often unconstructive, on occasion cruel, but one can't overlook the beauty of returning to this childlike world of 'why's'. Back to a day when that could be asked back to any request for civility, cordiality, responsibility, normalcy. Why why why, until all the adults considered violence. A life where nothing should just be accepted without some amount of indignant confusion. Back when things should just be done for the fun of it. For the living in the moment of it. Then giving a good and quick look around to catch the expression on everyone's face. Delight, bemusement, confusion, horror. Who cares, as long as you've somehow broken through. You might not know anything at such a dumb age, but you know how to get attention. You won't be ignored.

In the case of Arrabal's "I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse", I think it frequently falls on the more juvenile side of these things. It's a movie that is angry at society and wants to make it pull its hair out. Much of its provocations can't even bother to go beyond the most surface of irritations. So much of what it seems to want to say is 'let's be ugly' and then when the world gasps for it to stop it gets to ask 'why why why why why why'.

Is this a fault in the movie? Unquestionably. As an example in surrealism it is the cheap and tawdry kind. It never establishes a reality to push against so just feels like so much fecal encrusted spaghetti thrown against a wall. And as an example of social criticism, I have no idea what that would be other than people suck so kick them in the nuts. And when they tell you to stop, you know what question you can yell back at them.

But, for all of its superficial crappiness, there is always a playfulness with its ugliness. Much like John Waters (but without the charms of his cast or dialogue or sets or general concepts) it's hard to be completely offended by the film. It's mostly just blindly exploring boundaries. Telling the world their fly is down and then poking them in the ear. There is always a smile behind the camera. Maybe a smile on an angry and perverted old man, but at least a smile. Offering candy. Then sticking it up your ass.

And, much like a lot of these kinds of films, one can be completely turned around by how it all concludes. And this one has a banger of a finish. That maybe means something. Or maybe is only yet one more thumb for one more eye. But as long as I'm sort of entertained, who really cares.

Last edited by crumbsroom (1/31/2023 1:53 pm)

crumbsroom · 1/31/2023 10:08 pm

It just occurred to me that Morgan Freeman is pretty much exclusively in movies I don't give a fuck about.

Jinnistan · 1/31/2023 11:11 pm

crumbsroom wrote:
It just occurred to me that Morgan Freeman is pretty much exclusively in movies I don't give a fuck about.

Street Smarts. mayn.

Jinnistan · 1/31/2023 11:14 pm

Also, it isn't a great film, but I like Under Suspicion just to watch Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman do their thing off of each other. I wish they had kept it to something like a one-room play, and cut all of the flashy editing and montages out of it.