Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 11/01/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, November 1, 2024

Nowhere (Gregg Araki, 1997)

James Duval in Nowhere

Cast: James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton, Chiara Mastroianni, Debi Mazar, Kathleen Robertson, Joshua Gibran Mayweather, Jordan Ladd, Christina Applegate, Sarah Lassez, Guillermo Diaz, Jeremy Jordan, Alan Boyce, Jaason Simmons, Ryan Philippe, Heather Graham, Scott Caan, Thyme Lewis, Mena Suvari, Beverly D'Angelo, Charlotte Rae, Denise Richards, Teresa Hill, Kevin Light, Traci Lords, Shannen Doherty, Rose McGowan, John Ritter, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Lauren Tewes, David Leisure. Screenplay: Gregg Araki. Cinematography: Arturo Smith. Production design: Patti Podesta. Film editing: Gregg Araki.

I have taken the liberty of listing more cast members than usual just because Nowhere is a crowded movie, a throng of newcomers, future stars, familiar faces, and a few one-shots. It's a mess, but an intentional one, the chaotic culminating film of Gregg Araki's Teenage Apocalypse trilogy that began with Totally F***ed Up in 1993 and continued with The Doom Generation in 1995. Araki called it "Beverly Hills 90210 on acid," and that serves as well as anything to describe this freewheeling farrago of sex and drugs, as Araki puts a lot of Gen Xers and Millennials through hell. It's eye-bombing and ear-assaulting, and it contains a rape scene as well as a murder committed with a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup. In short, don't watch it unprepared.