* indicates that the film is also available to rent, buy, or stream on various platforms. Please note that streaming versions may differ from these home video presentations.
“Junk Head” * (2021, Synergetic Distribution) In a dystopian future, humanity has achieved immortality but still faces extinction thanks to a virus and species-wide sterility. When a solution is found among the labor class that toils underground to provide energy for the topside civilization, a scientist is dispatched, but instead finds himself subjected to strange experiments and pursued by nightmarish creatures. Epic-scaled and wildly imaginative science fiction, rendered entirely in painstaking stop-motion by one-man production entity Takahide Hori, who worked on various iterations of the film for nearly a decade. The technical and production aspects of “Junk Head” are often astonishing, and approach the baroque biomechanical worlds of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and H.R. Giger (minus the fetishization), which helps to hold interest when the narrative becomes too dense to follow. Synergetic’s Blu-ray features English subtitles and a lengthy making-of featurette which details Hori’s painstaking work in various formats (stop-motion, digital, motion capture).
It’s not often that you get a press release that so completely connects your main interests – wealth disparities and crafts – but I’ll be damned if that didn’t happen. Her name is Linda Sibio, her work is “Economics of Suffering: Part IV” and the place is the Craft Contemporary Museum on Wilshire. I don’t get up and going for almost anything on Sunday. Too many Sunday mornings wasted in service to the main systems of oppression: Region and Capitalism. But to see Linda Sibio speak, I was ready to hear her preach.
I stumbled into the exhibit a bit late, even if I did find perfect parking for my sweet Royal Enfield. I tried to just blend in, something that rarely lasts long.
Linda Sibio explores the psychological toll of rampant capitalism and diminishing resources on those most vulnerable – the mentally disabled, the elderly, people living in poverty, and other disenfranchised populations suffering from homelessness, hunger, racism, and violence. Totally my jam!
“santa here w/them four portable toilets we had on our list? damn it, cut the dawdling – he’s fuckin WAY late!”
photo by mike watt
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mike watt’s hoot page
* indicates that this title is also available to stream, rent, or purchase on various platforms. Please note that streaming presentations may differ from these home video releases.
“The Warriors” * (1979, Arrow Video) Thrilling, audacious, and frequently bizarre action-thriller from director Walter Hill (“Streets of Fire”), who takes a relatively simple premise – a street gang must flee New York City, with hordes of rival gangs in pursuit – and bends it into a quasi-Western that, at various times, apes classical Greek drama, overheated juvenile delinquent pictures, elements of “Hair,” and the most overripe Marvel Comics titles. It shouldn’t work, but “The Warriors” is delivered with a straight face and considerable technical bravado, which overcomes its occasional dips into weird fantasy; Arrow Video’s Limited Edition Blu-ray is the Compleat Warriors, bundling crisp 4K UHD presentations of the theatrical cut and much-deliberated Director’s Cut (which drives home the comic book influences, often to distraction) and adding commentary by critic Walter Chaw (on the theatrical cuts) and interviews with Hill, co-writer David Shaber, editor Billy Weber and (best of all) costume designer Bobbie Mannix, whose production sketches are also included. A roundtable discussions brings together several fillmmakers, including Lexi Alexander (“Green Street”) and Josh Olson (“A History of Violence”), to pay homage to the film, while archival featurettes detail the very difficult production history. Liner notes include another interview with Hill and a very insightful essay by my friend, critic and historian Dennis Cozzalio.
here’s my self-portrait the day after turning sixtysix! can’t believe I’ve made it this far and… I get to play in my pedro town w/bof joe baiza and chris corsano TONIGHT! crimony.
photo by mike watt
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mike watt’s hoot page
Tonight, Sunday, December 17, 2023 the annual C&C Holiday Pageant presented by Crissy Guerrero and Claudia Dolph will take place at The Lyric Theater on Hyperion. Performers include the surreal and enchanting Carnal Circus, the Roswell Sisters with Jenio from Candypants and the Wondermints, and El Vez, whose band includes Pat and Lety from the Schizophenics as well as your hostess Crissy Guererro.
* indicates that the film is also available to rent, purchase, or view on various streaming platforms. Please note that streaming versions may differ from these home video presentations.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s“* (2023, Universal Home Entertainment) Down-on-his-luck security guard Josh Hutcherson is tasked with watching over Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, a long-shuttered Chuck E. Cheese-style eatery cursed with a history of child murders and a quintet of still-lively and homicidal animatronic mascots. Long-gestating feature film adaptation of the popular horror themed game had the unenviable task of fleshing out its rudimentary storyline (player tries to avoid being killed) and delivers a patchwork of plot threads and motivations cribbed from other horror films, including “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Sinister,” and other, mostly better films (“Five Nights” devotees may also take issue with the script’s revisions of accepted game canon). The cast gamely goes through the motions, though Matthew Lillard and Mary Stuart Masterson appear to enjoy their turns as cartoonishly malevolent adults, but what’s missing is the game’s steady flow of slow-boiling tension and explosivee shocks, which come too infrequently to make an impression; still, director/co-writer Emma Tammi does manage to insert some impressively creepy production design and visuals, especially in the ruined restaurant, and a surprising amount of gore for a kid-oriented, PG-13 feature. Universal’s Night Shift Edition bundles Blu-ray, DVD, and digital presentations with several short making-of featurettes.
