Hello, Tumblr. I went to the dark place and made a youtube video.

If you ever saw my “Do You Realize!?” David the Gnome video, consider this a sequel.

I am feeling awful about myself and my life situation thanks to writing over 30 pages worth of SEO in the last five days, but Jess is taking me on a surprise date this weekend so my horrible feelings will likely be erased.

Jess will likely never read this because she hates typing URLs that aren’t “pinterest”, but I wanted to state that I’m really lucky I know and live with her and she makes my existence infinitely better.

Robert Crumblr

Wow, Tumblr. It’s been a while.

Until now, I hadn’t posted anything in 2012. Lucky for you, reader.

Let’s see if I can bang out a high quality post. Just drool over the content that’s about to be shoved down your throat

Dr. Who

Homestuck

Social Justice

Drones

Jill Stein

Richard Rorty

Ben Stein

Foucault

Zizek

Caitlin Moran

Ableism

Fallibilism

Feminism

SEO

Boo Richard Dawkins

Kendrick Lamar

“Weird” Twitter

Neopragmatism

Atheism Ugh

Headmate

Head lice

Privilege Check

Sanity Check

Benedict Cumberbatch

Autism

Self Diagnosis

Jason Lee’s Head Photoshopped on Various Things

I have been growing dumber each day since the age of 17.

To remedy this, I think I am going to put myself through some kind of actor boot camp to prepare myself for going back to graduate school. Of course I cannot apply to anything until next winter.

Usually, when I get a burst of motivation like this, I usually go through this pattern of thoughts:

READ *EVERY* PLAY

BUY SOME BOOKS ON ACTING TECHNIQUES YOU AMATEUR

RELEARN CONCEPTS YOU’VE PROBABLY FORGOTTEN BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN INABILITY TO APPLY ANYTHING YOU’VE LEARNED FROM COLLEGE INTO REAL LIFE SCENARIOS THUS NEARLY NEGATING THE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS YOUR PARENTS INVESTED IN YOU

CONTINUE TO AVOID DOING THE OFFICE WORK YOU’RE PAID TO DO, FOCUS HERE

START DOING MORE CRUNCHES, YOU’RE NOT SEXY

GET BETTER GLASSES, NOBODY APPRECIATES TRANSITION LENSES THIS ISN’T 1995 AND ALAN THICKE ISN’T THE KING ANY LONGER

GET A DOCTOR IN THE TOWN YOU LIVE IN, YOU’RE A MESS

LOOK UP ZYOGTE ON GOOGLE - USE IT IN MORE SETENCES

RELEARN HIGH SCHOOL VOCABULARY SO YOU’RE NOT TOTALLY HUMILIATED WHEN YOU TAKE THE GRE

LEARN TO SING

FUCK IT, DON’T

STOP PLAYING VIDEO GAMES

STOP BEING ON THE INTERNET

JUST READ A BOOK OR TWO, TRY FOR ONCE

OR DON’T

Any advice to help me use my brain for good is welcomed.

Haha

Four months later I never did an update and I think most of the movies are scattered along the floor of my tiny bedroom. Boo hoo boo.

IN AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

I INFORM YOU THAT LATELY I’VE BEEN MAJOR BUSY

BY BUSY I MEAN WORKING A JOB I DON’T ENJOY

AND THEN NOT WRITING OR WATCHING MOVIES IN MY FREE TIME

WELL I AM *WATCHING* MOVIES.

HOWEVER, WHILE NOT SOBER SO I CAN’T REVIEW THEM. DAUGHTER OF FRANKENSTEIN WAS A WONDERFUL MESS THOUGH. FROM WHAT I REMEMBER.

THIS HAS BEEN THE CAPSLOCK TUMBLR UPDATE. PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY TO YOUR LOCAL DEITY AND STAY TUNED

Coming Soon: I Bury the Living Review

The Driller Killer (1979)

The Driller Killer, 1979, 96 Minutes

I decided that The Driller Killer would be my second film, largely because the film’s director and star (Abel Ferrara) did a decent movie in the 90’s called Bad Lieutenant, so I figured, hey, this couldn’t suck too bad.

How far I was from the truth. This was Ferrara’s first attempt at a full length film and even for a grindhouse movie, this took some endurance to watch.

After quitting 20-30 minutes into the movie two times in a row, I enlisted the aid of my good pal Sarge, whose Tumblr (Smoke Weed Every Day) is a strongly suggested read, to make sure I would finish this film and review it.

We learn about ten seconds in that shit is seriously about to get very real:

Well fuck me, better call Vin Diesel, because we’re about to Tokyo drift through this bitch!

Our first sequence features Our Main Character, Reno, entering a church and walking next to a bearded Santa-like figure:

After the old man grabs Reno’s hand, Reno decides to bail and take his boring girlfriend, Carol, back to a cab.

Carol asks Reno what the hell that was all about. Reno, being the Canadian Tuxedo-clad artist that he is, shrugs it off and makes out with his girl. Carol points out the old man had Reno’s name/address and requested to see him, but Reno doesn’t sound like he gives a shit. Neither does the director apparently, because we never see the old man again and this plot point isn’t directly addressed in the rest of the movie.

Uh, yeah, so Carol goes to a club to pick up Pamela, a girl who lives with the two (and can best be described as Lady Gaga with Downs Syndrome), and the three fall asleep. Right.

Next day, Pamela asks Reno to drill a hole in a door and keeps changing the spot she wants him to drill. The joke gets old before it starts. We then learn that Reno is a professional painter and is trying to work on his masterpiece. He takes pause to look at the phone bill. After some complaining to Carol and Pamela, he sends a message about how he feels about these ladies calling Los Angeles constantly:

Cut to a montage of homeless guys hanging out. By the way, this film is just chalk full of random cuts to scenes that convince me that Ferrara hired a nine year old with ADD to be his editor.

Anyway, there are some pleasing shots of the homeless doing stuff like this:

Cut to Dalton, a gay art gallery owner who is hitting on his boy toy on the phone. Reno enters and asks Dalton for $500 for rent expenses, so he can finish his masterpieces. Dalton refuses, pointing out that he has paid to cover Reno’s ass in his past (including paying for Carol’s abortion, classy). He does agree that if Reno can finish his painting in a week and it is good, he’ll give him whatever money is needed.

Meanwhile a punk band called The Roosters has moved into the floor below Reno. Even though this is 1979, these guys wouldn’t be out of place at your local hipster bar:

Not enough ironic facial hair for my taste. The next ten minutes are the culmination of several scenes - the Roosters jam out poorly with a pair of girls doing a bad job of providing background vocals, Reno slowing losing his mind upstairs and getting out of the house to avoid the music, and a random shower scene between Carol and Pamela (I guess to drive home the point that they’re lesbian lovers).

Reno decides to go yell at a homeless guy (but not attack him or anything due to a random running pack of hooligans that fly by) and bitch at the landlord that the band is Too Loud For New York. The landlord tells Reno they don’t bother him and then decides to give Reno the gift of a skinned rabbit and asks for rent money soon.

I couldn’t get this rabbit around my head. Who keeps a skinned rabbit in a closet? Why did this landlord HAVE A SKINNED RABBIT IN THE FIRST PLACE? Shouldn’t it be refrigerated? Why is Reno taking this gift and not being insulted? Why am I still writing hypothetical questions?

Maybe I’m jealous I don’t have a landlord that offers me skinned animals as gift of good will.

Right, so, Reno prepares the rabbit for dinner, but stabs it over and over in a fit of rage. The band stops, but Reno starts to hear voices, so he takes his portable power drill to the streets and decides it’s time to drill a hobo to death.

I would post more screen caps of the drilling action, but frankly, the cinematography is an abomination 95% of this movie was filmed at night and the lighting is nearly non-existent. Add in the 50 Movie Pack’s must-less-than-fucking-stellar film quality and you have a lot of confusing power drill murder sequences that cannot be fully explained.

The next evening, Reno and his two ladies get tickets to see The Roosters at some nightclub. Again, we get a mix of random scenes, including Pamela telling Reno to have sex with Dalton so he’ll get paid more often, The Roosters playing very poorly, Reno getting grumpy and leaving while Carol and Pamela make out and pay little attention.

Then, we get a completely fucking pointless three minute scene of the Roosters hanging out backstage while the camera focuses on this asshole:

This scene adds absolutely nothing whatsoever to the movie. Punk band members acting like douchebags. Cool.

Anyway, the movie suddenly remembers there’s a plot and we see Reno going on a hobo murdering rampage. The power driller isn’t really a weapon that one can believe as being that deadly or effective, yet Reno seems to have no issues killing hobos in under five seconds. Thanks to the quality of the DVD, most of the sequences are poorly lit except for this (WARNING: GORY PICTURE OF GUY THAT WAS CLEARLY A FRIEND OF THE DIRECTOR AND GOT PAID $20 FOR BEING DRILLED IN THE HEAD):

After Reno allows these homeless guys to reach a powerful drillgasm, he comes back to the lead singer of the Roosters, who makes a request: he needs a portrait done ASAP. Reno convinces the guy who pony up $500 (the rent money), and paints the singer. In the meantime, some bum outside is mad due to the noise being made in the apartment, so Reno takes a break, drills the guy and goes back to work. That’s called multitasking, people.

Reno has also finished his masterpiece. It’s a giant buffalo and it sucks. Dalton swings by the apartment to bitch about the painting and leaves. Carol freaks out and decides to pack her bags and go back to her ex-husband. Reno chases her in one of the few day time scenes and displays his first bit of acting, screaming at Carol as she storms away:

“YOU FORGOT YOUR STUFF, BABY!” Remind me to yell that at the next girl who dumps me. Anyway, Reno has totally lost it at this point and calls Dalton, telling him he has something he needs to see. Dalton is convinced and says he’ll bring wine, in case you needed the subtext that Dalton wants to get his fuck on immediately.

For the viewer, Reno’s surprise is drilling a gay man to a door and then doing who-knows-what to Lady Gaga Pamela:

Bye Dalton, I’ll miss you. Pamela, I’m glad you’re dead.

Our films final scene has Reno running across town to murder Carol’s ex-husband, Stephen, while Carol showers. In an extremely creepy final sequence, Reno gets under the covers to pose as Stephen, and the two have a conversation while a red screen appears. Carol mutters, “come here…” and the movie goes to credits.

Yeah, so that’s it. What an awful mess. Allow me to list my biggest gripes here:

1. None of these characters are remotely interesting or likable

2. The pretentiousness of this movie nearly suffocated me

3. The plot manages to move at a snail’s pace despite being only 96 minutes

4. I could count the throwaway scenes on two hands

5. Horrible acting

6. The plot point in the beginning with the old guy at the church is completely ignored. I guess you’re supposed to assume the guy is Reno’s Dad, but who cares? I think Reno mutters at one point he won’t be a derelict like his father, and I guess that’s his motivation to drill all these homeless people, but that’s just me making a lot of guesses and assumptions.

I like movies that make you guess and think. Everybody does, right? But honestly, if anybody who reads this watches Driller Killer, I think you’ll agree Reno’s motivations to murder barely make sense. He’s a good artist, the band playing downstairs isn’t really that loud, it seems like his landlord is cool with him not paying rent, etc. Reno isn’t exactly pushed over the edge for any real reason. Even for a mindless grindhouse movie, sometimes I expect a little bit more.

I was stunned at the number of positive reviews on Netflix and IMDB, praising the film for its “raw quality”, but I guess to each his own.

The other notable bit of information about Driller Killer is that it was banned in the UK for its controversial poster, even though most people who wanted it banned never saw the movie. Aside from the one guy getting drilled in the head and the gay man attached to the door, the gore is very minimal. Anybody who wanted this movie censored was wasting their time.

It’s hard to believe Ferrara went on to direct better films, but to his credit, he’s improved. A lot. You can’t really say that for many directors, now can you?

This movie also happens to be in public domain. If you’re interested, download it here. The Internet Archive copy is a lot cleaner and of general higher quality than what I watched.

Oh Japan

Coming soon: Driller Killer Review!