My friend Kyle was just featured in this month’s Linebreaker Zine update.  Linebreaker is an online zine that “examines the writers that shape punk and hardcore, and gives them a voice to explain the meanings behind the lyrics we sing along to.”

Click on his nipple to view the article.

+ Ruiner’s final Show videos

Ruiner, Defeater, Make Do and Mend, Strike Anywhere, Cload/Dagger & Pianos Become the Teeth videos are now up on Hate5six.com

Ruiner takes the cake for most stage dives during one set.  Their finale show was incredible.  A woman takes her shirt off about 1:30 into their set & a bunch of dudes stage dive in a blue mesh soccer jersey for some reason.

This is a continuation of Kris’ “favorite movies of 2009″ list.  Part 1 can be found HERE.  Part 2 can be found HERE.

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CASH BACK

I randomly found this movie searching through the Netflix database and ended up really enjoying it. An art student, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) is plagued with insomnia after a break-up and decides to devote is extra time towards working the late shift at a supermarket. He some how finds a way to be inspired in an otherwise uninspiring job by pretending he has the ability to freeze time whenever he wants and use the frozen people around him for his own benefit. Almost always he targets young women and uses them as subjects in his drawings. I guess the creep factor comes in with the fact that he undresses the helpless women in order to draw them and study the human form.

Despite this, the film treats the nudity of the female subjects delicately and uses it much as an artist would in a painting or drawing. Nudity is not used to be gratuitous or gain the film popularity, but in order to give an inside into the mind of an artist obsessed with portraying reality in his work. Fortunately, this film was produced in Europe where censorship laws are a lot more lenient than here in the United States.

The setting of a supermarket is really interesting when thinking of the themes of art, the human form and the female nude presented in the movie. The blinding white florescent lights used in supermarkets cast overtop the models giving the artist a complete, almost pure view originally meant for the rows upon rows of product. The women almost themselves become products and the female form is almost obviously a desire of Ben and many male artists throughout the history of art. Interestingly enough he never freezes a male subject for his drawings.

I’m not exactly sure how they shot the scenes where the actors were frozen but I’m guessing that it took a lot of takes and holding of breaths.

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DO THE RIGHT THING

Spike Lee has always been a director that I’ve looked up to. He was probably one of the first notable black directors in Hollywood and definitely a huge role model to a lot of the kids who grew up in the neighborhoods that he presented in his earlier films. I didn’t grow up in such a neighborhood, but always went up to New Jersey to visit with my mom’s family and where she grew up in the inner city. I am a straight up suburban kid, but those mandatory family visits definitely gave me an in on city life.

Lee does films his own way and uses his experiences to portray the stories of inner city life that wasn’t being shown in the 80’s. His use of little known and first time actors in his films gave them an edge that is impossible to produce with any well trained cast. In addition, most of his younger cast went on to become big name stars: Martin Lawrence, John Turturro, Rosie Perez to name a few.

Do the Right Thing is simply a day in the life of  Mookie (played by Lee) a pizza delivery boy in Brooklyn along with a variety of other characters in his neighborhood. The film touches on a lot of issues found present in cities to this day, most namely racial tensions. Even though the people in the neighbor eat at the shop Mookie works at (which is owned and operated by an Italian-American and his sons), they still see themselves separate from them and vice versa.

The lessons that can be learned from this still are still pertaining to present day, definitely a must see for anyone living in an urban community.

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FOOD INC.

Anyone who eats food needs to watch this film.  We put so many things in our body each day without really wondering where it came from or the process that it went through in order to become what we are eating. There are so many things that are kept from us about the things that we are eating and how it effects the way that we function daily. Just now are we starting to chip away at the huge problem of child obesity which runs rabid throughout our society.

The film centers around the farming industry and though it does feature some Peta-esque footage of deformed animals, it really isn’t pro-vegetarian. What I thought was great was the emphasis on an all natural/organic farmer who processes meat and treats his animals ethically and to the best of his abilities.

I think you have to take most documentaries which are on any subject lightly and with a grain of salt. Obviously the people who are documenting whatever you are watching are trying to open you up to the subject and hopefully change your mind. The best thing to do (in my opinion) is to watch it with an open mind, digest all of the facts, and then use the information that you learned as a stepping stone towards more education on the subject. DON’T STOP WITH ONE FILM. On film is unable to give you all the information, stories, and opinions on a topic that have ever been said, published, or thought. Do your own investigation, talk to the people around you and then form your conclusions.

Or not, its up to you. Either way this film will open you up to a few things you probably didn’t know about the food you eat every day.

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I LOVE YOU MAN

This was one of the only romantic comedies that I have watched and will say with pride that I enjoyed. Paul Rudd plays Peter, a guy who’s about to get married and realizes that he has no close guy friends because he’s always been the totally devoted boyfriend. In comes Sydney (Jason Segel) , dedicated batchelor for life and all around nut case, who comes into Peter’s life and reminds him how to be a dude and do dude things.

The best part of this movie had to be the commentary between Rudd, Segel, and director John Hamburg. Essentially they just make more jokes about each scene and give you more information about how many takes certain shots took to get because everyone was laughing or when natural laughs were caught on film and used in the final film. The best part has to be Segel’s constant apologies to the viewers that he hasn’t appeared in the film until it’s almost half over.

This movie had me laughing til I was in tears. You’ve probably already seen it but you probably didn’t listen to the commentary, so you should do that.

ANGEL- A

I had recognized the cover of this film from something my friend August had posted somewhere online and decided to check it out based on that simple recommendation. This film, based in France (and also in French), follows the seemly worthless life of Andre (Jamel Debbouzeis) as he is at his wit’s end and decides to end his pointless life. He is “saved” by a beautiful woman, Angela (Rie Rasmussenwho would normally have nothing to do with a loser like himself, but seems to have been dealt a worse hand then he. They meet as both are attempting suicide by jumping off a bridge and end up sticking together after Angela pledges her servitude to Andre after he saves her from drowning.

The story line is sort of an unconventional love story centered around values of self-worth and redemption. There is somewhat of a twist at the end of the film as Andre finds out more and more about Angela as the film unfolds. In the end, a man who at first appears worthless to himself and everyone around him rises above and beyond his capabilities.

THE BROWN BUNNY

I would consider this an “art film” and if you don’t have an open mind or an hour or two to set aside I wouldn’t bother with it. I found out about this film from some “most scandalous films” list or something like that. It is mostly known for a scene in the movie where Chole Sevigny performs fellatio on (at the time boyfriend) actor/director Vincent Gallo. The scene was apparently shot in a room with just the two of them by a camera Gallo set up himself. If you’re trying to watch the film to see this, I would just skip to the end if I were you or just look up a clip or videos of it online. The film is centered around motorcylist Bud Clay (played by Gallo) as he travels with his motorcyle in a van towards his next race. He interacts with only a few characters along the way, all of which are women and all of which he shares an incredibly intimate but short moment with. He is lamenting over a lost love and has “lost the ability to love” even when it is presented in front of him and both he and the woman he’s with are willing.

The story line and way that this film are shot really amazed me. It’s such a personal film and the audience begins to feel intrusive while watching Bud take this trip. Outside the hardcore porn style ending, the film’s conclusion is both powerful and telling of Bud’s journey and his current state of mind.

The film was shot in 16mm film and then enlarged to 35mm in order to give it a certain grain effect found in a lot of older films.Among the controversy of this film was a small battle between Gallo and reknown film critic Roger Ebert who said that the film was the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival where it was first shown. Other critics said that the film was too long and dragged on in certain scenes, particularly in the beginning of the movie with footage of a race track and another of Bud while he is driving.  Gallo ended up cutting around 25 min of footage in the final version of the film, which still has its moments of drag.

I didn’t really mind how much this film dragged because I thought that it related well to the storyline. A long roadtrip anywhere is very boring especially if you are driving alone. It’s an event usually characterized with exciting events and self-discovery but in reality there is a lot of downtime in between. That a long with the mental state of depression and lonliness of the main character made the long scenes of nothing in the movie acceptable.

Watch this movie with an open mind and you’ll be rewarded in the end.

Kris is most well known for being the singer of the Baltimore screamo band Age Sixteen but he’s also an excellent photographer and a writer (as well as being an awesome dude).

I decided to break his article into a series of posts because each film is written about extensively and I don’t want the homepage turning into a wall of text.  Thanks for contributing Kris!

“I’ve always enjoyed the experience of watching films since I was a kid. My family had a pretty extensive VHS collection growing up so there was always something that I could find that I hadn’t seen yet or couldn’t appreciate before. After going through an art program and taking a handful of classes based on analyzing film, I’ve come to love it even more. There is definitely a difference between a “good” film and a “great” film. Most audiences can appreciate a good film but I think that there is a level of nerdom that comes with picking out great films. I hope to someday take more classes on the art of film, until then I settle with obsessively watching films and even going the extra mile of watching “the making of:” ’s, listening to commentary from directors and actors and doing research of the films on wikipedia and imdb.

A lot of really good films came out in 2009 as did a lot of bad. I actually didn’t end up seeing most of them due to how much I hate going to the movie theater nowadays. The combination of the ridiculous ticket prices and disrespectful people talking through the movie or constantly kicking my chair is a huge turn off for me. I feel like a 50 year old man asking the kids next door to stop throwing their ball across my yard and then hopping over to get it, thus crushing my prize winning summer squash, but I just rather not spend $10 on an overall unpleasant experience. Not to mention that there are few movies that I would even want to spend that much money on watching anyway.

Long story short, I’ve really come to enjoy Netflix especially after they finally added their “Watch Instantly” feature to Apple computers. There I have access to thousands of movies, some of which I’ve always have wanted to see, some which I should have seen but haven’t, some that I never would have watched in a movie theater, and others which I stumble upon randomly.

Since I haven’t seen a lot of the movies that came out in 2009 yet because they aren’t on DVD yet or I haven’t gotten them in the mail, I figured that I would go back in my Netflix history and suggest 10 movies that I saw in 2009 and think are worth the readers of this blog to take the time to view (out of my humble opinion) if you haven’t already. Each will have the link to it’s respective imdb page if you want to find out more about them.”

Top Ten Movies I saw in 2009 (in alphabetical order)

ALMOST FAMOUS

This was one of the many movies that I have wanted to see at one point, but just forgot about for whatever reason. A “coming of age” movie loosely based on the true life of director Cameron Crowe’s (Fast Times at Ridgemont High (book), Jerry McGuire, Vanilla Sky) experience as a writer for Rolling Stone. Crowe started writing for the magazine as a teenager as does the lead character William Miller (Patrick Fugit). The story portrays what you may think of a typical “rock n’ roll” lifestyle of touring bands in the 70’s and this introverted, naive teenager who becomes a part of it and experiences several life lessons in an otherwise atypical environment.

I think what I liked most about this movie was how much I could relate to the main characters and thinking about how insane it would be to both go on a nationwide tour and start to make it big as a musician(from the standpoint of the guys in the band) as well as hang out and experience the lifestyles of individuals who you hold to such a high, unrealistic regard. Having the director actually have lived the story that he was retelling really reflected in the acting, locations and believability of the movie. While watching it you don’t feel like this is something that could and would never happen in real life because of the relationships and interactions of the characters in the film. It all feels real and you start to relate to the characters – you want Stillwater to make it big as a band, you want William and Penny (Kate Hudson) to settle down together and for him and Russell (Billy Crudup) to stay close friends.

There is a lot of trivia and interesting facts about this film which you can read on imdb one of which is that the music budget was $3.5 million due to the over 50 different original songs used for the film. Supposedly most films have a budget of less than $1.5 million. You can also read the direct relationships of scenes in the movie to the actual experiences of Crowe.

AMERICAN BEAUTY

Such an amazing film with so many iconographic scenes: plastic bag floating in the wind, roses flowing out of the shirt of Mena Suvari, etc. After watching it, I felt a really weird and indescribable sadness for the characters and the reality that it was mimicking. I knew a lot of the memorable scenes already when I saw them, but in the context of the movie they mean so much more. The attention to detail in this film is ridiculous and I would definitely recommend reading the “trivia” about it on imdb. I love when movies leave you wanting more and with unanswered questions because that means that the director and actors did their jobs in making you believe in the world that they created and its story so much that you want more. Apparently the original script of the movie included more scenes which extended the story past the way it ends and also changes key decisions made by characters within the film.

The title of the film comes from a breed of rose actually called the American Beauty which is beautiful in appearance but tends to rot from underneath at the roots and branches of the plant. The flower, like the suburban life portrayed in the film, seems perfect from the outside but has hidden flaws which can not be seen at first glance.