Akira: Critical Nuclear Head Meltdown
You are the monster. You are the god. You are the destroyer, the creator, the ripping skein of life torn free and thrashing wild. You are the wind that cleanses and burns and you are only a boy.
Category Archives: I Like to Watch
On Koyaanisqatsi, Beauty, And Ambiguity
Images from Godfrey Reggio’s 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi are etched into my brain. Nighttime cityscapes at high speed, their streets like veins carrying electrons. Rivers of fog roiling over mountains. A […]
Full Metal Jacket: Death, Duality, and Donuts
I adore Full Metal Jacket even though it is, clearly, a difficult film to keep company with. The film is not Stanley Kubrick’s most cohesive effort or his most accessible. It is, […]
The Best of Netflix Streaming: Bottle Rocket
It seems this is the week to pick up old habits. That’s not a euphemism for cruising for elderly nuns—it means we’re revisiting long-languishing features here at Stand By For Mind Control. […]
Upstream Color Will Crawl Inside You And Take Over Your Brain
It’s been a long time, too long, since my brain has been as weirdly and intensely affected by a new movie as it was last night at a screening of […]
Donnie Darko Unexplained
There exists no better medium for approximating dreams than film. Dreams and movies work in images to tell a story or impart a feeling or remind your brain of something […]
John Dies at the End and That’s Just the Beginning
Right now there is a completely avoidable tragedy afflicting untold millions of Americans. They do not have the chance to see Don Coscarelli’s John Dies at the End in a proper […]
Animal House: The Good, The Bad, and the Otter
Do you know who is really funny? John Landis, that’s who. I was lucky enough to watch Animal House—Landis’ first studio film—last night with the man himself in attendance. (Thank […]
Noir City Festival At The Castro
Do you live in the Bay Area? You are luckier than you know. For this weekend marks the beginning of the 11th annual Noir City film festival at the Castro […]
I Like to Watch Lovers Year-Round!
It has come to our attention through creatively spelled comments that some of you consider us ‘haters.’ To this we respond, pish posh. We’d been looking for a reason to […]
Malkovich Malkovich
When I first saw Being John Malkovich in ’99, I felt as though my brain had been violated in the same way Malkovich’s was in the movie. It was as […]
In Which The Last Picture Show Reminds Me Why I Love Movies
Wind blows dust and leaves through a small Texas town. Everything is fading, everything is dying. Cracked, dirty windows obscure the view. The pool hall is empty, its screen door […]
Echoes Of 2001
Hey kids, it’s time to melt your brains a wee bit with this marvelous visual/audio mash-up of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” from their album Meddle. […]
Scorsese’s Mean Streets
After film school, Martin Scorsese spent four years making his first feature, Who’s That Knocking At My Door? (’67), starring the then unknown Harvey Keitel. It didn’t make a splash. […]