Arts & Culture
QUE | Support Experimental Cinema
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My experience may explain why experimental filmmakers have to work with low budget and under other sub-optimal conditions — you simply don’t get much support anywhere, financial or otherwise.
Arts & Culture
Recognizing “Epic” Mumblecore
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The 97-minute, 2016 film Free of Thought ends with John hunched over a sink in a dimly-lit kitchen. Through a doorframe, we see our protagonist doing the dishes and hear him whistling to himself: a quiet, unassuming moment almost all can relate to. What makes this particular, ostensibly-mundane scene so striking are the circumstances that led up to it. The film starts in Melbourne, Australia, where John is in a relationship with Mel. But by the film’s closing moments, John has become a habitual stoner, messily broke up with Mel and migrated to Montreal, Canada.
Arts & Culture
COLLINS | It’s Not the Void
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When the universe wants to tell you something, it will tell you a few times. I take the same attitude with phone calls. Unless you call a few times or leave a voicemail, I’m not calling back. Late last night, when I was falling asleep to an episode of S-Town, I realized that I’ve been learning the same lesson for about a year. I will graduate in almost exactly a month, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the lack of despair I feel about that fact.
Arts & Culture
TEST SPIN: Nick Cave — Skeleton Tree
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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, a “post-punk super group,” plays the kind of music that makes you want to be a roadie, a groupie, a super fan. They sound like an older, alternative Adele: refreshingly soulful. Skeleton Tree, their new album released on September 9, carries the weight of a universal conscience. Nick Cave patches together old lyrics in a new way that resonates in your ear drums, makes its way into your cerebrum and sends a cascade of interneurons down toward your heart. Skeleton Tree is irresistible from its first echoing electric chord.
absurdism
TEST SPIN: Xiu Xiu — Plays the Music of Twin Peaks
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To all the trendy kids out there who still appreciate the darker side of things — all the goths who brightened their wardrobes after high-school but could never quite part with the misanthropy or thick eyeliner — it’s here, the fetish object which perfectly encapsulates your particular blend of angst and hipness. Released April 16 as a record-store day exclusive Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks is a collector’s item for fans of Xiu Xiu, and fans of Twin Peaks, but most especially for that undoubtedly large intersection between the two sets. Adding, in my mind, to the album’s mystical quality is the fact that I can’t for the life of me track it down. My hunt started with a trip down to Angry Mom, which ended in disappointment when I learned that the album had sold out. After this, I assumed that I would simply end up listening to it through Spotify, as I would any other album these days, but as of yet, it is not available on Spotify, iTunes or any other digital outlet.
Arts & Culture
Get Lost: A Review of Naked Noise by an Art Virgin
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My boyfriend knew never to discuss with me the possibility that “noise” music could take any talent to create; he knew I’d say there was no kind of artistic value in a bunch of sounds that I could easily reproduce. He knew that I equated noise to contemporary art that consists of a blank canvas or an empty room or a single red dot painted with a shaky hand. And he knew very well that I was absolutely determined to stay ignorant. So I understood his shock when I notified him that I would be going to Ithaca Underground’s Naked Noise #7 on Saturday night. What changed my mind was basement duty.
Arts & Culture
Cinema of Transcendence: Knight of Cups
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“And in the luck of night, in secret places where no other spied, I went without my sight, without a light to guide, except the heart that lit me from inside.”
— St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
Cinema is a miracle. Franchises and multiplexes make us forget, but to watch cinema is to receive profound insight on the inner workings of life and to experience a meditation on the world from another’s point of view. Roger Ebert called the movies a machine for generating empathy. Ideally, you can feel your world growing when you watch a special movie.