Beyond the Black Review

Beyond the Black Rainbow ~ Review ~

Magnolia Pictures's sub-branch Magnet Releasing is known for picking out unique, bizarre, & sometimes risky films for their catalogue. This film is the most bizarre…no not the most bizarre film in the Magnet catalogue although that is true I think the most bizarre film I've actually sat through without cringing. 

 . . . . The movie started at 7:30 . . . . 

At the beginning of my evening I'd just got off work, went to McDonalds, grabbed a quick burger, hit up my apartment, got a shower, threw on my clothes, and headed toward the 'Silent Movie Theatre' here in Los Angeles for the screening. I dumbly forgot to check the Hollywood Bowl schedule and went up Cahuenga through to Highland Avenue. An absolute nightmare of slow moving traffic which eventually cleared after about 15mins. Then I reached the theatre and the lot for the theatre next to it was full…so I decided to street park with about 11 minutes until the film started. 

I parked and double checked my car, it was slightly crooked, but I thought I'd buy a ticket then run back to adjust it. "SOLD OUT!!!" (And with the final chance to see the director speak in front of the film, why not, some buzz had been building over this picture after all) There was a man scalping tickets, but I didn't have any cash, and there was a stand-bye waiting list, which I waited on.

And now the amazing part. I got in for free! A man had put two tickets on hold one for him and his friend who didn't show up . . . so he kindly offered me a ticket. God I do love this town sometimes. 

I missed the director speaking, I had to pee, and didn't want to miss the movie see. 

I sat in the back of the theatre in a fold-out chair, crowded & awkward, smelling like stale, stale, stale, popcorn, and the room slightly warmer because of the crowd with a cool breeze shooting behind me from the theatre door. 

I'm not going to attempt to describe the plot. Just watch the trailer…it's basically like that. A series of bizarre vignettes with a loose plot about a drugged up young girl trying to escape and being studied attached. 

In this theatre I felt like I truly was in a movie experience like being in the historic Elgin theatre in NY the first time they played Eraserhead. Would drugs enhance this movie experience? I have no idea. Werner Herzog said that we are truly starving for new images after seeing this film I think I'm sated for a while. It's truly like nothing I've ever seen in look, design, sound, editing, performance, and execution. It would be like if Cronenberg directed Altered States with a slower pace than expected and not as good as you would expect, yet still satisfying somehow. It's a film so slowly paced and bizarre that the little moments of realism or extremely over the top scenes stick out like gems amid the rest of the film. 

 This film feels like it was made in 1983 with the spirt of the 1970's experimental filmmaking. It's both a blessing and a curse for this one. 

On the thought provoking 'What the fuck was that' mulling in my brain ride home I decided that I liked it. 

And as weird as this film was in a crowded theatre I think only 4 people left in the middle of the film and once the credits rolled so did a loud and brilliant applause. 

This film is not for the normal crowd but the crowd thirsting for something not just different but so different it seems unrecognizable next to any other film. I could classify this as a CULT film, a MIDNIGHT MOVIE, or a SCI FI throwback film…but the only genre it belongs in is truly "Beyond the Black Rainbow" a genre of one. 

Although I can't think of a soul even my friends who like so called 'out there' films that I'd recommend it to without severe hesitation.  

I couldn't begin to describe this film if I had the world's most detailed thesaurus inked with blotter acid.

It made my list Top 21 WTF Films List ! ! ! 

Movies I'm looking forward to this year.

 'Prometheus' was a pretty big let down . . . though it was gorgeous and I thought worth my while at a cheap theatre for the visuals and some other moments I liked. If it was being compared to 'Alien' it would never live up to the expectations. Very few films are ever that good. It was filled with major plot holes and continuity problems. It was obvious the last half of the movie was being directed by a committee and not a vision...it wasn't a good film the painful effect happens when you drive home and you go 'hey wait a minute, what the f*ck was that all about'? But I thought the visuals and the first hour kept me entertained and intrigued. 

But here's my list of CAN'T F*CKING WAIT TIL THEY'RE RELEASED FILMS OF 2012 - I'm making this list because I assume it'll be slightly different than other people's lists. 

2012's already had some fantastically unexpected pictures come out. "The Hunger Games"  was a let down for me but I didn't hate it, I enjoyed it, I wanted more passion and more honesty in the film (because kids in shock do not behave like they are really playing cowboys and indians. It's a bit disingenuous) but had some great moments for me to want to revisit that film. "The Avengers" broke records and was (for comic fans) genuine popcorn flick gold. (Of course neither of these are transforming life changing pieces but few films are) 

"The Grey" & "Cabin in the Woods"  being the most notable films that surprised the hell out of me for how great they were and it'll take a lot of greatness to knock them off my Top 10 list for this coming year (which I hope they are that'll mean it's been a fantastic year)…last year was so weak I only made a Top 5 and regretted 1 I put on there that I wish I had a better film to replace it with. 

While "Avengers" was incredible fun. I already know it probably won't crack my Top 10 of this year unless some of these on my list are major let downs. But here are the films I'm either most curious about or most excited to see. 

Ted . . .  (Yeah I'm actually hopeful this one will be just a solid fun comedy) 

Beyond the Black Rainbow . . . 

Dredd . . . 

The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey . . .  100%

On the Road . . . 

The Dark Knight Rises . . . 

. . .

other films like



and

  looks like great fun but I'm not exactly salivating. 

(This looks good too) 
Maybe it'll suck and maybe it'll be great but we get another "Silent Hill" movie baby.

There are big ones coming out like Les Miserables and The Great Gatsby but those I'll wait to hear if my friends liked them before I would think of checking them out. They could just be big epic messes. 

Songs for a Road Trip

These aren't songs about the road like,  "Turn the Page", "Truckin", "Friend of the Devil" or even "On the Road Again" . . . . now some of these songs are in fact about the road but that's not my criteria. The main thought was songs that have a particular kind of catchy almost poppy or unique speed and pacing to them to make the trek seem smoother, like you're driving to the tunes, now the last song on this mix is a slow song about the road but if you listen to it you'll know why I put it up and I cheat the criteria with 1 other song as well. The idea is you listen to this one on a long road trip and you'll get to 'Long Way' just as the sun sets and there are few cars on the road and your passenger is asleep and you get lost in the monotony and start to remember the little moments of your trip beautifully.   

1. Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac 

2.  Dragon Force - Any song...it'll turn your road trip into a magical adventure through space and time, yeah

3. Out My Back Door - CCR 

4. Interzone - Joy Division 

5. I Wasn't Born To Follow - The Bryds 

6. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (Provided passengers sing it with you) 

7. Running Down a Dream - Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers 

8. 3/5 of a Mile in 10 seconds - Jefferson Airplane  (Surrealistic Pillow, probably my favorite album title ever) 

9. The Passenger - Iggy Pop and the Stooges 

10. Long Way - Antje Duvekot 

My favorite road trip film is 'Y Tu Mamma Tambien' (Yeah)  and am fixing to read "On the Road"    and am excited for the film based on it staring Sam Riley. Plus I love a good road trip and because of my job I drive a lot so I thought I'd do this mix. 

The Most Offensive thing I've ever written - or Daniel Krone's "The Real Meaning of Life"

WARNING THIS RANT IF WRITTEN CORRECTLY WILL OFFEND PEOPLE 

I'M NOT KIDDING . . . . 

= ^.^ =  < - - - Smiley kitten face

Fuck, cunt, muffins, weasel, old fish smell . . . . . okay so that non-sequator should clear this article from being read by anyone too squeamish. 

* All of my best friends are hippies, metal heads, beatniks, punks, and people on the fringes whose idea of a good weekend is getting loaded, seeing a show and possibly hooking up with a stranger.

I see nothing wrong with that. 

What is life if not to embrace the warm strange echos of irrationality that brood like legion in the back of your throat reminding you that years ago you were once an animal and not civilized. I dream of the day that every person on earth understands this…but I doubt such an orgasmic epiphany will come in any future generation I'll belong to. 

Super heros, social networks, books about sex - read by virgins, books about drugs - read by the sober, films about romance - made by people who've never dared to fall in love. Fuck this world; God, Gaia, the great turtle, the great elephant, the sun, the moon, the giant cosmic snake, Buddha, Jesus, and any other  deity that might offend anyone who uses such wordily teachings as a crutch to avoid true human experiences. 

Teenagers and about 10 years past are the greatest experiencers this world has ever seen. From 17 - 30 all you want to do is fuck, fight, fly, and dream . . . . and perhaps after that you settle down. 

If it wasn't for pussy and pot there would be no art - an overstatement for sure. We would all see this world through the same perceptions fluctuating subtly but not as drastically as would be for social evolution to legitimately occur. Our fiction inspires our reality our reality inspires our fiction . . . the world is influenced by the musings of dreamers who dare to dream and we gleam gold from their cold grasp and then ostracize them for being different. 

I praise the weirdos; secretly we all do. But I'll publicly do it in this somewhat unusual rant on the "Meaning of Life" the thing is…there is no such thing as "The Meaning of Life" the closest thing I've found with that title is a mediocre semi-phoned-in Monty Python movie. The idea of the "Meaning of Life" is as important as the "Meaning" of a Jackson Pollack painting. What does it mean to you ? 

Great sex, great food, great company, great stories, a good nights sleep, a sense of purpose, hope that someone will remember you, hope that someone will love you. Then you'll die, some earlier, some later, but sure enough you will. 

And if you spend your nights worrying if you should have made decisions diff erently rather than just making different ones in the future than you've truly learned nothing fixating on something so little that leaves you 'grounded' is ignoring the fact that you could fly Further without a ground attached to your blistered fucking human hide.  

I do not do hard drugs, just a beer, maybe a red wine, or something stronger if I'm adventurous. 

Woman are possible the hardest drug I've ever indulged in. 

And it's so difficult to get the ones you want to work & when they hit you don't even feel the high til years after they're gone. 

Chemicals inside a small sack of neurons insulated in some fat cells, run a structure made of meat and some substance. And most of us live in fear. For what, the inevitable, the unexpected, nothing, God?  Fuck that shit, I'd rather get loaded and see a show than wonder if the show will be any good or if the load will be too big to carry?  

I'd rather spend forever in hell knowing that during my life I touched some amazing people and perhaps the edge of that unexpected void of happiness that's impossibly to explain to someone who wasn't even there, than spend a lifetime in heaven regretting not experiencing the earth and it's people as I truly was meant to. 

The blunt truth is some nuero-chemical bond happened possibly in a glance at a distance between my mother and my father many many moons ago, they fell in love (you know 'love' noradrenaline, dopamine, epinephrine, and various other potent cocktails) ((Okay so I'm probably not accurate on the brain chemistry)) and had some sex and viola I was born some time later (almost dead and really tiny, but born none the less) I spent my youth in Alabama, eating legitimate good seafood, spending time with my wonderful family, and learning about Jesus and how many Egyptians God murdered (yeah kind of a lot of mixed messages for a kid to take in) but alas I learned. Dancing is bad, vampires are evil, and many other messages that don't make much sense in retrospect. But I do remember the sermon on the mount where Jesus did speak rather specifically about the evils of 'the mashed potato' and 'the twist'. 

And then I woke up. I woke up in the form of a woman, blond hair, nice figure, scared shitless by life, scarred violently by it, her mind somewhere between beauty and terror…you know…a teenage girl. 2 1/2 years of very strange adventures and nights lost mostly in eyes and thought. Then a goodbye kiss, there is no god without love, and there is no love without me…I don't exist, who am I?, why would god do this too me, I thought I'd figured out the world…we'd get married, raise kids…never happened. I was promised the American dream, but I'd ignored the the Human dream. Well the fuck that experience. I'm going to get loaded and go to as many shows as possible…and so I moved to the land of loads & shows LAS VEGAS…nah just fucking with you Los Angeles. And began my adventures which led me to such irrational thinking as I have today. 

I realized how fun the adventure of chasing & catching things is. I realized that atmosphere is more important than possessions and a good memory is more important than trying to have other people remember me. And arbitrary life promises aren't worth the pain of breaking them. 

Holding onto grudges, fear of looking stupid, jealousy, it's all just bullshit man. ALL OF IT. Love, live, run, dream, fight, die . . . that's what life is. 

I'd rather tell a joke that bombed and forget about it, than wonder what people will think of me if I did and not tell it at all. 

"Laugh and the world laughs with you . . . weep and you weep alone."

"It's the place where you lose yourself and the place where you find yourself"    

  * (If you read the fullness of my blog you'll see that my mind jumps sporadically from subject to subject, much like nightcrawler's teleportation, and I've probably tackled this type of rant before.) *

Every young generation discovers the rebels of its past.