All the Blessed Films that Kid ▲ Watched in 2013

This film... oh, I give up.




That is all.

Gee, a tv movie about The Monkees phenomenon!


The real deal: Dolenz, Tork, Nesmith and Jones


the actors: Stanchev, Lohr, Geddis and Fisher

- Aaron Lohr was surprisingly hot as Micky Dolenz, who was portrayed as the joker of the group

- Peter Tork is my main Monkee crush but L.B. Fisher made him seem like a halfwit stoner

- G. Stanchev was terrible as Davy Jones, I mean that accent... even I could do a better imitation. Davy's character was posh, serious, uptight and gloomy for the most part and the dancing was atrocious

- Jeff Geddis was alright as Mike Nesmith, but the character was very watered down

I guess the writers didn't quite know what to focus on. It would have been so cool if they'd focused on the Laurel Canyon music scene too. At least they were allowed to use the original songs.

So I declined a rendezvous with a drug lord so that I can stay at home and let my brain rot while watching "When Billy Met Meg...". Goddamn my life sucks right now and watching this movie certainly didn't help things.

ps. this is not a review

Possibly the strangest documentary that I've seen so far. The director has a melt down near the end.

Picture yourself stumbling in a high end neighborhood at sunset, in a labyrinth of embassies and historical buildings. Find the right alley, it leads you to a door, a corridor and finally another door, which is ajar, they've been expecting you. This basement dwelling belongs to a friend of a friend. You sit down on a mattress and watch white lines disappearing up some anonymous nostrils while the whole room bathes in an eerie light. A mixture of a brothel and the control room of a submarine. Music echoes around, speakers are hidden about all over the place, even inside a chair. Endless rows of mint condition vinyls line up the walls, every damn album you ever liked, they're all there, along with familiar beat up pocket books + rock n roll literature.

Stipe summed my feelings up with these lyrics:
I'm holding my hands together
I'm holding my feet together
I'm holding myself together
In this near wild heaven
Not near enough
Near wild heaven
Near wild heaven

After a couple of hours of partying like it's 1969, the other people left and then it was just me and the host, who looked like a combination of these two


He took me to a nearby poolhall, where I received a tutorial on the basics of the game. We stood out in a bad way, him in his Nik Turner/Layne Staley kind of way and me in my secret agent/magician's garb. Older daddies dropped by every now and then, swooping closer and closer to me, until one actually came up and asked me to play with him. I was scared shitless and said I wasn't any good, but he thought I was lying and got kind of creepy, so we left and headed back to the flat.

I was led over to the mattress, got handed a faded blanket and then Staley-Turner asked if I'd like to watch a film with him. He'd bought a bunch of obscure dvd's, The Cat o' Nine Tails was one of them. After having adjusted the pillows all nicely, we got down to watching. I fell in love with the camera work, had to praise it out loud.

Staley was feeling worse for wear so he resorted to lying beside me in a fetal position with his eyes closed, while I sat there with my eyes nailed to the screen, my imagination feeding on all those horror + suspense cliches. Paranoia crept up on me, I began wondering wether the front door was locked or not, cos I kept hearing weird sounds from the hallway.



I just about had a stroke during the end credits : there was a knock on the window from the outside. A hand signaled for me to come and open the front door. Staley was fast asleep and I was still creeped out by the film, but decided to trust that the guy outside was no killer. I let the dude in, he got high and switched on all the brightest lights, which woke Staley up. It was time for this Kid to head home.

I had a good time and will from now on forever associate Argento with the weirdness and radness of that evening.

May 3

Rowland S. Howard is my favorite guitar player of all time. His untimely death in December 2009 is an event that I still haven't recovered from. It frustrates and saddens me to think that there will never be more music from him.

This documentary was a bit cheesy (about 25%), but all the grand archival footage makes up for some of the corny bits. There's also a lot of interviews in this; his bandmates (Nick Cave etc.), collaborators (Henry Rollins) and a fantastic array of former lovers.

I had to hit pause every now and then just to look at the screen, the way Rowland was. Lords, he was out of this world and so damn cool. I miss him.

April 16

A fruit vendor opens up a crate that is supposed to contain oranges, but tucked inside he finds a bizarre little creature, Cheburashka. The city zoo refuses to house the animal, so he gets a job and sets up a dwelling inside a phone booth.
Meanwhile a lonesome crocodile, Gena, scribbles up notes and spreads them around the town - announcing he needs a friend.
Soon the outcasts join their forces.

The characters are fabulous, especially the wicked old lady Shapoklyak, who vandalisez her surroundings and carries a huge rat/ferret-like creature around in a purse.



This delightful short film helped me escape my worries for a while. The animation is top quality, I know from personal experience just how challenging the stop motion technique can be.

watched on April 12

With all the material that the director/editor had in hand, I think he could have done something more profound. This is basically a deal of post war clips of women being abused for supposedly having had relationships with nazi soldiers.

A bullied and unpopular girl gets her revenge on her enemies.

Both me + one of my sisters have a bunch of guinea pigs living in our houses, which is why I decided to show her another Svankmajer short. This one has it all; creepy yet beautiful puppets, disturbing imagery, fitting music, a guinea pig and loads of grand stop motion animation. The story is simple, the production elaborate.

March 21

Sister D. called me up this morning and asked if I'd like to drop by for breakfast. Once over at her place my eyes were glued to her new edgy dress, which had strangely familiar imagery on it; kaleidoscopic collages of photos depicting the Sedlec Ossuary. She had no idea what the place is so I showed her this Svankmajer film, a surreal documentary about the chapel that has been decorated with thousands of human remains. It is MIND BLOWING. And available on YouTube. Go, go! Watch it.

March 21

A music documentary with loads of live performances and interviews thrown in. Gooood.

Mar 10

This documentary shows the worst case scenario that can happen if you grow up in a very religious household, abuse your frail mind with drugs like LSD and then receive a very hard blow to your head while working as a carny.
It's hard to pinpoint which of the above caused Daniel to go off the rails, perhaps a combination of them all. It's a real shame, because his eccentric behavior overshadows his creativity and certainly puts a strain on his close relationships. It's no fun watching a person have a melt down, which made me question the motives and integrity of some of the people he counted as friends and/or managers. It's plain to see the guy was not doing fine at all, yet they're making him play shows and hand him acid.
Daniel Johnston should be equally famous for his short films and drawings, not just his music. This film features precious snippets from his home movies. Well worth the watch!

Mar 7

March 2



Another one of the housemate's findings, a documentary about a legendary, dingy but charismatic little recoding studio and the music that was created there. Paul McCartney is an absolute hard core darling in this one, made me wanna get up and go kiss the screen whenever he showed up.
This film is the brainchild of Dave Grohl, that cat from Nirvana, Foo Fighters etc.

ps. apparently you can watch this for free on YouTube if you're living in the US

March 3


This is a fascinating documentary about young prostitutes in early 1980s Canada. The subjects are fantastic, they talk very openly about what led them into the profession - for some it was poverty, others come from broken homes or got raped at a young age.



The subjects are very varied, ranging from biological females and males to transvestites and transgender people. They sport far out fashions; the poodle perm, peroxide blondes, sequins, over the top make up. Most are missing a tooth or two - the results of the assaults that they have endured.


My favorite one is this cat called 'Michelle', one who talks like a bitchy queen and oozes charisma. I was a year old when this film was made, but if I had a time machine, I'd go find Michelle and worship her. She's a perfect blend of both sexes. We get to see her mother too, a very open minded lady.

I got so engrossed with all the people in this film that I wish there was a sequel to it, like a "where are they now" type of thing. This reminds me of Paris is Burning, and in a way these two films are like siblings. Both were made by female directors.

Feb 26



A young, married doctor goes on a fishing trip and returns home with a flirtatious, real mermaid.

The ending is one of my favorite things on earth.

Feb 26

Feb 17

Feb 16

Watching this made me want to move to Reykjavik.

Feb 14

Jan 27-28



The Legendary Housemate™ invited me over to his lair, handed me some 'herbal cigarettes', put this documentary on and then passed out. At first I misunderstood the whole thing, thinking it was a mockumentary, perhaps because of the editing and archival footage. Had to laugh at times, but then I began to concentrate on the artist.

It's strange that I've never heard of Miss Abramovic before - I am aware of her contemporaries Hannah Wilke, Gina Pane and Ana Mendieta. She has made a long journey from being an unloved child, to a shy and mousy performance artist and finally to her most recent incarnation, a surgically enhanced ageless femme fatale. Gosh, I mean... she looks younger than me, despite being twice my age.

The film challenges the viewer to analyze performance art as an artform. It can seem quite alien and pretentious at times, but if the right person does it, it can spark up a new way of thinking and seeing things.

A twist of fate saw me do my first public piece of performance art yesterday. A friend was closing an art gallery for the night and we had some music on, it echoed around in an eerie way. I posed like some asexual Venus de Milo, I merged with the dead flowers that had been left near the window display. I stood completely still and listened to the music, thought about a loss I experienced last year. From the corner of my eye I could see people walking by and then little by little, some stopped to look, to see if I was human. In a way I felt like a ghost. No one knew what I was doing or why, not even I. I connected with people that I'm never likely to see again. It was thrilling.

My own experience helped me appreciate Abramovic in a new way. Her art is extreme and it drives her on.

Jan 22



- A gallery of beauties; Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Til Schweiger, Mélanie Laurent and Samm Levine
- Seizure enducing-ly fast turns of events, super fine music (the Bowie bit!), great dialogue, good old/bad old ultraviolence and a whole lot more
- And fun! I laughed like a madman, even more than I did while watching the OTT stuff in Django

Jan 21



- Strangely enough I enjoyed this film a whole lot more than the memoir that it is based on
-John Hurt shot straight into my heart, he was magnificent as Quentin Crisp
- I could identify with the protagonist's alienation full on
- The costumes, make up, hair (henna, loads and loads of it!) and set design were perfect, like the whole thing was shot at my house

Jan 20



I watched this for two reasons:

1) Chappelle's in it
2) my housemate told me Jerry Garcia's in it

But oh... the jokes were like something from Disney channel, I didn't laugh even once. I don't really understand how this film ever got made. Or why. Yes Dave's charismatic but not enough to carry this thing through without falling apart.
Snoop Lion's cameo was good, but that's about it.

Oh, and Garcia most definitely isn't in this film cos he died in 1995. It was just some lousy impersonator. Boo hoo.

Jan 19



If this film was a blanket I'd carry it with me all the time and ask to be buried in it.

Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson - are all outstanding in their roles. The music gets you right from the start, it's fucking brilliant.

Jan 26

- rewatched with my best friend

Jan 19



Ewa... in a perfect world I would have a girlfriend who'd look like her and the two of us would never get out of bed.

Ringo Starr was utterly charming as a shy gardener, his biker sisters were so rad, so rad.

Brando's character looked like the sort of fellow that I wouldn't mind getting to know a bit better myself.

The interiors, especially the guru's mobile temple blew my mind and I wish I could live in it for the rest of my days.

This film has the most magnificent ending. Oh gosh.

EDIT:
It's been a day since I watched this film and I've been thinking about it still. On hindsight I find it disturbing how Candy was portrayed as a childlike girl, real kind and innocent and throughout the film all these old creeps kept fucking her, like, literally. They either talk her into it or just do it. Her character has no depth, but Aulin's face is like that of an angel. And she talks in a cooing child's voice. I guess there's no room for respect in a world of lust.

Jan 15



So this older guy invites me over and says he's real into film history and that he'd love to learn more about silent films so like a naive fool I go into his flat with a copy of Caligari and when I get there, dig, no chairs, just a mattress.
I put the film on and I'm really concentrating on the story and suddenly the guy starts laughing at the most inappropriate scenes and while I tried to ignore that, he was also slowly but surely getting closer and closer towards me until I was on the edge of the mattress.
It finally dawned upon me that he didn't give a damn about the film and was only after my little ass. He even went as far as to tell me just what he'd use my head for... I mean, just... damn. I wish I was a ghost.



I made a hasty exit, headed back home to my wild lair where I spent the rest of the evening painting my eyes so as to look like Cesare.

Jan 6



Wanted more, got it. Tom in a green beret, exuding testosterone while prancing about in the nude. No need for fantasies, just watch this.

Jan 6



So much violence and I wasn't even bothered about it cos it was all movie magic. And heck, that Hardy... how can one be so magnificent? He's a 100% ideal beauty + the first ballsy alpha male that I've ever found intriguing.

Jan 8
Rewatched with one of my sisters. She got the movie, dug it almost as much as I did.

Jan 19
Third time watching, this time with housemate.

Jan 1



Started watching this in November 2012 but finished now. Tedious. Jemima Kirke was the only good thing about it. She's a stone fox.

Feb 16