Random Rumination

Looking at Art From The Outsider's POV

     I watched an interesting documentary the other day called The Outsider (available on Netflix Instant watch). Driven by my curiosity to understand everything there is to know about making movies, I started watching it expecting to be educated on a couple of things, a proposition increasingly difficult to satisfy as the more inscrutable, utilitarian aspects of filmmaking can only be learned through the practice of actually making movies. But knowledge is power and I'm not averse to expanding my intellectual capital in the event that I do enter the discipline full-throttle. The downside is a hellacious misuse of my free time, but the upside is incalculable in ways that keep my capacity to dream big alive.

Movie Review: Swingers

Show Me The You're So Money, Baby

      Imagine the year is 1996. Los Del Rio's Macarena and Blackstreet's No Diggity are dominating the music charts. The Spice Girls are infuriating every teenage boy who is just beginning to experiment with the opposite sex. Independence Day annihilates the Summer Box Office and convinces me that being dropped off six hours before it screens is an ingenious way to spend six hours. Everyone is "being showed the money!" in inappropriate outbursts to flex their obnoxious Jerry Maguire muscle. The Summer Olympics are being held in Atlanta. Ebay has just launched. Sadly, Ask Jeeves follows suit. No one knows who the hell Justin Bieber is.

Movie Review: Rust and Bone

Bone Hugs-N-Disharmony

      RUST [rust] v. 

      1. To deteriorate or degenerate through inactivity or neglect. 

      2. To impair or spoil, as by misuse or inactivity. 

The Free Dictionary: By Farlex

      Jacques Audiard dangerously conforms to a sociological latticework that breeds dysfunction and chaos. He is not interested in exploring the complications of life through rose-colored glasses. Materialistic goons spawned from the next incarnation of The Queen of Versailles are not his concern. Disharmony is his unifying force. People who operate desperately on the fringes of society are his focus.

Blogfest: Top Ten Favorite Movies of All-Time

It's Not The Final Countdown

      Formulating a list that by its very proclamation boasts of "My Ten Favorite Films" requires a mindset I've never been truly ready to embrace. To exclude so many films that I love is to commit an almost homicidal act upon works that to me are endowed with such everlasting appeal, my affinity for them incontrovertible. What follows, therefore, is merely an attempt. 

Movie Review: The Trial

Sentenced to Write

Editor's Note: Realizing that this is a site dedicated to film and is meant to foster discussion therein, I shamefully admit that I have been derelict in my aficionado duties. Which is the business of reviewing films. So, starting now, I will be fulfilling my ardent obligation and writing a review. I hope this will be a reemergence back into regular blogging and reviewing, and that I will not fall victim to malaise. FilmMattic reviews shall persist in perpetuity as far as I'm concerned...

 
      Perhaps the hypnotic gestures of fate energized my inner-critic because here I reflect on a movie spawned from the prodigious creative might of Orson Welles. That movie is The Trial. And as I reflect and yield to the calm solace of introspection, I am alarmed to discover that I have not written a satisfactory review in an eternity and a day. This blog has not, as its inception dictates, appropriately performed its primary function. Reviewing films is the fuel of FilmMattic and somehow, through sheer happenstance I suppose, I've been lead astray from that purpose. In this period of infrequent content and in this internal trial of conscience, I am compelled to impose a sentence. The regularity of my film blogging has been disgustingly insubstantial. This is a crime that cannot be condoned. I'm thinking that in my judiciary capacity 1-2 posts (or reviews) per week is a manageable goal (or in keeping with this asinine legal theme, punishment). Now shall we discuss an actual trial? Well, the veracity of even that statement is dubious, so let's just get to my review of The Trial. 

Oscars 2013: Live Blogging the Show!

The Oscar Guy 

      The best film has to offer us is mere moments away. I should rephrase that as the best film has to offer its members. Awards shows bestow neither social nor artistic benefits. They do not make me feel more culturally enlightened. Viewing them does not constitute a deduction on my tax burden. The luster of the show is simply an acknowledgement of hierarchy. The opportunity for us non-entertaining folk, at least those of us not recognized for being entertaining, to be immersed in the expensive pageantry of stars celebrating other stars. Ultimately  the Oscars are more a promotional tool than some kind of finite declaration of enduring appeal. 
      To maintain this spirit of affectation, I have decided to live blog the event. The splendid witticisms of Melissa Bradley of Melissa's Imaginarium have been enlisted. Providing exciting commentary is her expertise. 

      Without further ado, a continuous onslaught of Oscars' shenanigans await. Feel free to join the party and break a few things! 

My 100 Favorite Directors - UPDATED!

White Men Can't Jump, But Women Can Make Movies

      Tangential thoughts should never be the subject of a blogpost's title, garnering a spotlight that for such cognitive foibles is unbecoming. How dare they project their dubious presence in a textual world greater than that supplied by 12 font, max. But inspiration strikes us in abnormal ways. Our minds tend to process that abnormality through some sort of systematic deconstruction. What materializes is an idea, an insight, some measure of understanding that our discordant and chaotic synapses illuminate. Yes. I realize the caption, which I suspect has fueled your impetus to continue reading, suggests a relationship between two extreme phenomena; phenomena that is purely meant to be jarring because of its bizarre juxtaposition. But hyperbole is a valuable tool of provocation. Strange observations trigger strange curiosities, and, according to the logic immortalized in Tarantino's Django Unchained, if your curiosity is piqued, your attention will surely follow.