#he full on caught me playing on severin and he was like “what happened to your other one?!”

[thehightiefling]

Good night my sweet poster child of rebellion <3

my sweet little witchy goth tsundere tiefling

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #oc tav: severin #also not me getting called out by my paramour #he full on caught me playing on severin and he was like “what happened to your other one?!” #i can play manon and severin at the same time #like i did fedre and ariadne okie #like at this point i am on the spectrum babes let me live i'm too old to mask

[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

Venus in Furs (1969) (no, not that one)

One of the biggest issues that seems to recur in films dealing with sexual kinks is filmmakers not understanding (or failing to express) the value and significance of trust, empathy, and, dare I say it, creating a safe space for exploration (I’m looking at you Fifty Shades). Not just for the characters in the movie, but for the audience too. They also seem to often suffer from a severe shortage of chemistry between the leads (hello again Fifty Shades). This was all made very apparent to me when I watched Venus in Furs last night, a film that could have been so much better...

Trigger warning: discusses sexual violence and rape in film.   

So last night saw me continue my ongoing trawl through the archive of ‘60s and ‘70s Italian pulp movies with the 1969 Venus in Furs. In 1969 there were actually two adaptations of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s famous (infamous?) 1870 novel, and I think I watched the worse of the two. This wasn’t Jesus Franco’s loose take on the novel, it was Massimo Dallamano’s version, also known as Devil in the Flesh. Banned on release, multiple times, it wasn’t actually released in Italy until 1975.   

I haven’t read Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s story and went into the film with only the vague notion that it was a formative text for sado-masichism but, unlike Sade’s grotesquely violent texts, approached it more from the side of the masochist and focussed on their pleasure. The film seemed to take that approach too, centering on a male writer, Severin, who meets and falls for an unrealistically promiscuous woman at a hotel (unrealistic in the sense that she doesn’t seem particularly bothered who she sleeps with and also she literally appears to pick up guys by walking up to them and wordlessly grabbing their hand to lead them back to her room).

Severin’s room, for some reason, has peepholes into hers and the film starts with him watching her with other men (it’s later revealed she was aware he was watching and that heightened her own pleasure). 

They very quickly get together and then, before you’ve caught your breath, they marry and the rest of the film takes place on their honeymoon. 

The film starts out with some promisingly stylised shots, creating a dream-like impressionistic sort of feel with saturated shots full of turned-up colour and carefully framed silhoettes...

Once on their honeymoon, Severin begs Wanda to treat him “cruely” and she enjoyes flogging him and then they role play him as her chauffer and he encourages her to pick up other men so he can watch them having sex “and suffer”.

Before I talk about all that’s wrong with this film, let me try and describe it in a way more sympathic to what it tries to do...

There was a lot of literary-sounding pseudo-intellectual voice-over work giving Severin’s point of view. Sometimes this is tedious and jarring but I liked that they wanted to try and portray his psychology and inner experience, especially given that we mostly just saw him watching things happen. More of this (with some better writing) would have been great. 

I really liked where the director was going with those shots giffed above. In fact, Dallamano was the cinematographer for the Clint Eastwood epic For a Few Dollars More (1965) so he clearly knows what he’s doing with a camera. The problem is, most of the film was really prosaic and quite boring in how it was shot. 

The plot is very light in this film and I think mostly a vehicle to get to the sex scenes which is a shame because a) plot and character development could have made the sex far sexier, and b) the sex scenes were very samey and made it look about as much fun as a root canal. Seriously, there was one point where I wondered if the actor involved had ever kissed a woman before in his life. 

So, things which went wrong in this film...

To start with a lot of it is very dated. Far too many bad moustaches, and the soundtrack has its moments but is mostly a very irritating musak variant of porn jazz. There’s also a random and graphic horse-sex scene where they all stand around watching two horses do the business. 

Secondly, there is so little chemistry between any of the actors that you actually feel sorry for them having to go through the motions. I suspect they weren’t paid nearly enough. It doesn’t help that Wanda’s character isn’t particularly into the kink at the start either so we’re supposed to see her go from a reluctant doing-it-to-please-him attitude to becoming enraptured by it but of course, we don’t see that because the actress looks bored most of the time, and unhappy the rest. 

But by far the biggest issue, and the thing that makes this film virtually unwatchable (and I don’t say that lightly!), is that it fails utterly to offer any meaningful consideration of communication, empathy, and trust. i.e. the foundations of any relationship and especially any relationship that engages in kinky role play. It’s impressive they fail to consider these things because the whole plot hinges on Wanda pushing the kink further than Severin can handle causing their relationship to almost fall apart. And the very nature of his kink is psychological and emotional - more to do with pretending to be her servant and watching her with other men, than physical bdsm whips and chains type stuff. So, y’know, you’d think some of those tedious voice overs might have had something interesting to say about trust and communication. 

Even that I could live with, but then they randomly (seriously, it comes from nowhere) include a scene towards the end where Wanda’s lover - a cartoonish “alpha male” type - violently rapes a maid in the hotel. I’ve sat through some very graphic rape scenes in movies but and I’ve sat through films where it’s seemed to come from nowhere. Isabella Eklöf’s film about a young woman on holiday with her violent gangster boyfriend,The Holiday (2018), springs to mind and has probably the most graphic and least pleasant scene I’ve ever watched. But whereas Eklöf’s film has something to say about it, and wants its viewers to think deeply about what they’ve seen, there was just no merit of any kind for the rape in Venis in Furs. 

In The Holiday, as well, Eklöf creates an atmosphere and an environment where violence is always a possibility, even in its most tender moments. In that sense, though the rape is shocking and feels like it comes from nowhere, it does not run counter to the mood and context of the film. In Venus in Furs, however, it feels like an abrupt and unexpected tonal shift. In effect, as a viewer I thought I was in a space where fantasy was being played out, where there was violence, yes, but it was fantasy violence. Where things had gone wrong thus far, it had been a question of degrees - she hit him too hard or not enough. This was something else, something happening between background characters that was unasked for, unprompted, and without forshadow or afterthought. I almost wonder if it was supposed to be a dream or something, so little did it impact anything outside of that one scene.

I would advise most people actively avoid this film. At its best it’s boring, and at its worst it’s deeply unpleasant. I’m not even entirely sure why I’m blogging about it except I guess I wanted to get my thoughts in order.

Still, I find myself wishing for a better, more thoughtful adaptation of Venus in Furs. I know Roman Polanski (boo) did one a few years ago based on a stage adaptation so maybe I’ll check that out. 

Basically, what I want, I think, is a film which explores male masochism/ female dominance with the emotional intelligence that Secretary employed for the other way around. I started watching this feeling really intrigued by its exploration of a psychological s-m dynamic via her exhibitionism and his voyeurism, but alas that was never really pursued by the film makers. Instead they aimed for titilating sex scenes and managed to miss even that low mark spectacularly. Honestly, if sex had really looked like this in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I don’t think a lot of us would have been born.

#venus in furs #massimo dallamano #films to avoid #film review

[pettyelves]

a man opens a door

three’s a crowd I TW: Sexual themes

A man opens a door.  He is seeking. He is confident.  He is curious.

Shadows consumed the room, bodies-- even the dead ones swallowed up. It was a force of nature, meant to knock the attacker out of not just her mind, but Zelphryin's. The caveat being the transportation. If they were actually moving through space and time, it was unclear-- but to be certain, the Infinite felt real.

Images bombarded him. Chaotic shadowy visions that jittered in whatever manner of vision he was seeing it all with. A massive puzzle box balanced impossibly on a corner, constructed steel colored metal. It rotated endlessly. The vision jumped, as though they were moving inside of it. No clear door, or passage inside. From a dark abyssal floor, rose constructs-- an entire city of pillar, obelisks, platforms. High up, to down below. Nothing made perfect sense. Objects seemed to come out of the sky, or black pit below at random. Buildings wove like mazes on into eternity.  Wherever they were, the influence had lifted from his mind and they stood on an open platform, over looking the life's work of the the Shol'Shar bloodline.

"Why do I get the feeling that we are not in my apartment anymore."

His wonder was to be expected. The construction permeated with raw shadowy energy and was a display of power which any man, particularly one like Zelphryin would be drawn to. While he looked, Mirin took the time to compose herself fully.

"We are inside of the Infinite," she stated, as though that explained it. "And as much as I enjoy being conjoined with you physically, it would behoove us both to locate the host and cast it into the Axis. I encourage you to stick closely to me, lest you be lost inside."

She had never seen him so enthralled by anything. Unlike the stare he gave any woman. Greedy eyes that stared around at everything they could. He wanted to learn this place--he wanted to own it. 

Mirin knew he did not know what it meant to own this place.

"I suppose this is the part where I promise to make it up to you on the later." He said as he came to stand near to her once again. "Will certainly do better at vetting my next communal, no clothes, soiree." He took 

She waited patiently for him. It was likely that the threat was not immediate. Not here. But when he joined her, she twisted her hand  and metal particles constructed a bridge before them. Not only did she seem to own the space, but she had full control of it.

"Oh yes, there is plenty of time to discuss you making this all up to me. My preference is naked, and directly following  some manner of provocation." Though it seemed they were inside of her mind, one distinct thing of note was there was no place where her thoughts echoed loud enough for him to hear. Whispers, faint as though they were held elsewhere in the puzzle box. She moved, her split-pupil eyes scanning above and below for signs of their attacker.

"Well that seems a bit unfair, placing the entire blame on me. Stormwind has a number of cart peddlers, how exactly was I to know she was somehow involved in all the slug fest." He neither really seemed to be helping. Perhaps the longer it took to find their assaulter, the longer he would have to mentally map this; the grand center piece being that of the steel and churning puzzle box like a piece of clockwork. "Had you taken my original offer for the Cock and Candle we certainly would not be in this situation." His lips drew tight as he leaned down over her shoulder. "Now who is to blame?"

Zelphryin was a master of manipulating each and every situation to suit him. There was no winning against him-- yet there wasn’t any losing either. Mirin decided, in for a penny-- in for a whole pound. 

"This was inevitable." She said, stopping on the bridge to push her hands outward. From the bridge, extended more bridges. Each with a doorway to nowhere at the end of it. Now she resumed walking by it. Each door they passed, seemed to glimpse into another reality, another option, another timeline? She explained as they passed them, her arm hooked in the crook of his. 

" If I had not come tonight, she would have found you alone. Inside of the Cock and Candle, distracted by your cock buried in your chosen whore. Your night, ended-- with a Warden's blade in your back. Standing trial for the brutal murder of all the women you had brought to your bed." The options went on. "Had you stayed at home, you most certainly would have fucked a corpse. And in the middle of it, been invaded with naught but me to wonder where you were the next day." And on. "Had we gone together, sharing chocolates with the lovely women we planned to enjoy. Carnage. As an army of puppetted whores turned on each other, on patrons, on me, on you. The would call a massacre the next morning, you and I--captured or dead." They moved on along the bridge and if he thought to look behind him, the way they came looked completely different. It was always moving. "Blame, is irrelevant. I.. am more interested in purpose. Why you. Why tonight." And why had she known about Mirin's father.

At An’Diel Manor, Eilithe had provoked Kurel with a single press of the bare knee to his rough knuckles. He’d sat in his chair with a drink gripped loosely in his hand-- covered gaze our over his kingdom harbor. 

His hand moved flat to palm against the skin of her thigh, up and under the silk of her gown. She stared down at him, and he-- without eyes, back up at her. A smirk formed on either’s face and the night was slated to be spent tangled in their sheets. 

For nearly a month, Eilithe had gone to the city very little-- sent her Whispers, or Mirin to do her dirty work. Instead, she had been doing this. Enjoying Kurel and the little blip of peace that came when things were good. 

Hours later, she was laying half a-top him, nearly put to sleep by the sound of his slow-beating heart. She did not hear the seal-- and so whatever came to Kurel’s ear must have been through a communicator she did not possess.

“What’s wrong?” She asked when he sat up and started to get his things.  "Zelphryin."  Kurel spoke his name with a growling snarl, throwing aside the bedsheets as he moved swiftly out of bed. His next words heard across the seal-- publicly to everyone who was privy to the link. "I nee' available Wardens to the Starse' Reach district stat. Zelphryin's apar'men'. Blow the fuckin' buildin' up if you have to to ge' inside. Issue a new bounty. Dead or Alive. Sin'dorei. Male. Former Gambi' crew member Severin."

"You cannot lie to the Infinite, Zelphryin."

By now there were more doors than there were obelisks and structures. It was loud, whispers from each scenario. "It knows your preferences," It learns them. "It knows the probabilities." She turned, as though she would leave him to keep opening doors. "The power is in the control of it." The power was in the ability to push one outcome over another.

He pressed, like a toddler. For each new option he presented, a new path, a new door presented itself.

A man opens a door.

"In another scenario, I do not leave you at the bath house." He turned his head to the presentation of a new door. "I give you what you want. I have my own fun." He grinned. "My shirt and jacket are not left for you to take with you. The following day, the exchange at the fortune teller never happens. I skip my meeting with Mavas Hawke, rescheduling for later. During the time frame where I would have encountered the cart woman is when I am in Duskwatch. Our paths still converge in the courtyard of Stormwind. Only I had just arrived. If the cart woman is present, she does not interest me. Because I have seen you, before you have seen me.”

He is seeking.

"She tries to get my attention, but she can not. I am too preoccupied undressing you in my memory and constructing my first five reactions and responses to you, while you are preoccupied with spying the evenings entertainment as you had put it.”

"You have no plans to make an appearance at my apartment and I have made arrangements ahead of time at the Cock and Candle, Room 5.”

He is confident.

"Now the cart woman could attempt to still infiltrate the harbor, but at a greater risk with less information. Making it, in this scenario, not worth the reward.”

"In this scenario. We would never be here, either."

 He is curious.

The game he was playing excited her. Not only physically, but in a way she would have struggled to describe. Her teeth seldom showed when she smiled, or in this case, when she grinned. But for him-- in the expanding Infinite, they did. The construct shifted now, bridges bending up and over them like archways that turned.

Somewhere in this maze of mindmap, there was a fraction of an intruder. But it was far out of Mirin's thoughts by now. Caught up in the Droste effect that was slowly forming. The Infinite did not seem to be outsmarted easily, if at all.

She answered him. "You are distracted. By my hand slipped in your pocket, working your cock in the slowest of manners-- to which you protest. I tell you, absently, as I work-- that I felt someone watching me at the Faire. You make no reply, so as not to seem too interested. You in fact, aren't interested. We slip away, she follows but cannot rightly attack effectively." 

"There is no attack that night, no-- but the choices you made. To leave me. There. In the bathhouse. Tonight. To walk me backward to your bed. To undress me slow and indulge in me. There is no other outcome." Her voice was but an echo by then.

The longer they remained. The more questions he asked. The closer their minds became. "And what of your choices, Miss Mirin? What outcomes would they have changed?"

The archway bent locked into place, like they were not a part of the construct. She stood before him, and decided if she would answer or not.

One door opened. "I never come to your apartment, we never rut in your shower, nor meet in the bathhouse. You greet me, incorrectly and are forced in my company for many years to come. You never end here. You never get a taste of power that brushes what your father found, nor have the thought to push even deeper than he went."

"A more concise inquiry." He looked to a door. "What if you never came to Dead Sun at all."

A door dropped squarely in front of him, opening up and obscuring her view beyond it. "It is the Third War. I ignore the Infinite's warning for the first time in my life. I never meet Eilithe Duskbringer, I never return to the Eastern Kingdoms."

If he looked to long, the door was oh so inviting. Visions of warm sands, crystal clear.

"I wander the sands, in search of something that I never find."

Her an echo against his ear, she was moving away from him. Outside, their bodies were slumped in darkness. The corpse, being sucked up into blackness. As though she were falling into the floor, while the other two slept through it all. Severin was in a panic. 

@kurel-andiel​, kurel and zel, @bellwetherspromise​ @deadsunharbor​ 

#Witness the Infinite #alt has her own blog now

[doomedandstoned]

Doomed & Stoned Turns Five!

Coinciding with Doomed & Stoned's fifth anniversary, Todd Severin of The Ripple Effect talks to Editor in Chief Billy Goate about this bitchin' lil blog, from its inauspicious beginning in the summer of 2013 as a simple social media platform to bring together lovers of the doom-stoner sound to dabbling in its own music festival, a massive compilation series, podcasting, and of course album reviews and interviews. Touching on both the joys and challenges of coordinating a multinational team of contributors, Billy discusses battles with burnout, the excitement of new discoveries, and the struggle to stay on top of an exponentially mushrooming music scene.

Photo by Chris Schanz

Let's start with the obvious: why Doomed & Stoned?

The name Doomed & Stoned isn't really meant to be edgy, though it does have a nice ring to it. It came to me as a simple way to sum up the heavy vibe that is the heart and soul of our writing: doom metal and stoner rock. I consider those to be the enduring styles of true metal and classic rock 'n' roll, best encapsulated by the music of Black Sabbath. Sabbath played music that was famously downtuned, slow, plodding, and somber, documented so incredibly by those first four albums. Then they had their up-tempo swings that tapped into the feel-good era of the 1970s, "Hole In The Sky" and "The Wizard" comes immediately to mind, as does "Sabbra Cadabra" and a number of songs on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) -- such a forward-looking album. Black Sabbath is the quintessential doomed and stoned band and it has been, broadly speaking, the stylistic portfolio of music we've decided to hone in on for this venture.

Photos by Alyssa Herrman

As soon as I was turned on to the doom-stoner vibe, I began to notice things happening into my own backyard of Portland, Oregon. At the time, Oregon’s proudest exports were bands like Witch Mountain, Yob, Lord Dying, Danava, and a handful of others that were being signed left and right to labels like Relapse and Profound Lore. Well, I just started documenting everything, because I felt there was something really special happening here, much as there'd been a magical vibe about our sister city Seattle in the '90s when my family had moved up here from East Texas.

It all began with me showing up randomly at shows and shooting live footage, I believe the first was the Portland Metal Winter Olympics in 2014, then Hoverfest. Initially, no one knew who the hell this guy was showing up with his camera, but gradually I became more accepted by the community, which opened up opportunities for doing interviews, album reviews, and a big 75-band compilation of the Portland scene, which kicked off this massive series of scene comps that many know Doomed & Stoned best for.

Yob at Hoverfest (Film by Billy Goate)

What gave you this crazy idea of promoting the scenes to the rest of the world?

Doomed & Stoned originated out of a frustration I had in sharing discoveries like Windhand, Saint Vitus, Sleep, and Goatsnake with my metal friends. Many wouldn’t give these bands a chance or listened for half-a-minute and gave up. Surely, I thought to myself, there must be others out there who were just as in love with the doom-stoner genre as I am. It wasn’t long until I met Melissa Marie in a metal forum. I told her what I was planning, she was down, and together we burrowed in the heavy underground and discovered a whole community there welcoming us. Melissa was my first contributor and along the way, we made acquaintances with aspiring writers and photographers who really caught the vision and volunteered to document their own scenes. She's since become my executive editor and the organizer of our flagship festival in Indianapolis.

Suzi Uzi and Melissa Marie at Doomed & Stoned Fest

Just like that, the Doomed & Stoned team was born. Roman Tamayo joined the team shortly afterwards, now the Editor of Doomed & Stoned Latinoamérica and I started meeting people from all over who wanted to contribute an album review here, a bit of concert footage there. It all happened very naturally and organically, fueled by simple passion, a mutual love of fuzzy, downtuned riffs, and a desire to document the energy and excitement of what we were all witnessing -- Demon Lung in Las Vegas, Orchid in San Francisco, Pale Divine in Pennsylvania, Pilgrim in Rhode Island. It didn't take us long to discover was going on in the rest of the world and it blew our ever-lovin' minds.

With the explosion in blogging and desktop publishing, we gradually discovered there was a loose network of folks covering the doom-stoner scene all over the world, too. Most of them have been very friendly and we’ve even had the opportunity to collaborate with folks like The Sludgelord, Outlaws of the Sun, The Ripple Effect, Invisible Oranges, Revolver, Blabbermouth, and so many more. There are others that wouldn’t acknowledge our existence -- still won't to this day -- I’m guessing because we were viewed as unwelcome competition in an already small market with a tight circle of friendships. The thing is, we never really wanted to compete with anyone; we just wanted an outlet to share our love of music. It’s hard not to be competitive sometimes, of course. Competition can be positive in that it inspires you to push yourself, try new things, and grow.

Stephanie Cantu, Frank Heredia, and Elizabeth Gore at Psycho Las Vegas

That said, since none of the 20+ contributors to Doomed & Stoned are doing this full-time, we want ultimately just want to have fun and you can’t enjoy the ride if you’re constantly trying to outdo this site or that. We found our niche in digging into local scenes and telling the stories of the bands who may very well be the next Sleep or Windhand a decade or two into the future.

We're now in the fifth year of our existence and I feel we’re becoming known as people willing to give bands and their local scenes the kind of in-depth coverage they deserve. That speaks to our motto: “Bringing you the music and the stories of the heavy underground, with an emphasis on the Sabbath Sound and local scene coverage -- by the underground, for the underground.”

Disenchanter at Doomed & Stoned Winter Showcase (Film by Billy Goate)

How has the scene grown and changed in the intervening years?

Well, since those bright-eyed early days, the doom-stoner scene has absolutely exploded. We were lucky enough to time our entry, purely by happenstance, to ride that wave just as it was nearing its crest. Right now, the scene is at least twice as big as it was five years ago and it’s becoming practically impossible to listen to all the new albums coming out, even if we limit the consideration to just doom metal, or even a subgenre of doom like blackened doom or death doom. It becomes a matter of practicality to prioritize those albums that are brought to your attention by PR firms and record labels, but I always remember that some of our greatest discoveries have been unsigned bands.

Over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to discover bands like Disenchanter, Holy Grove, Troll, Year of the Cobra, Toke, and dozens of others that have since risen to international prominence. Just to know you were there the moment their demo showed up on Bandcamp. You were among the first to listen to their self-produced CD on the commute to work. You were there to witness them opening for a touring headliner. You wrote their first review. You made that social media post that sparked a fire of interest. You recommended them to one of your overseas blogger pals. All of that is tremendously gratifying to be a part of.

Toke at Doomed & Stoned Festival I (photo by Johnny Hubbard)

We're all the product of our musical past. What's your musical history? First album you ever bought? First musical epiphany moment? First album that terrified the hell out of you?

I was raised by parents who came of age in the ‘50s and ‘60s, so I was exposed initially to a lot of late-‘60s rock, big band jazz, and later the ‘70s radio pop. Mom was fond of playing three classical music albums with a mix of music by Mozart, Beethoven, and Rossini, and that left a very powerful impression on me early on. She also was fond of Olivia Newton John, so I have “Jolene” permanently etched on my psyche and every so often vainly attempt singing it in the shower.

My first vinyl was the Ghostbusters soundtrack, which dad bought for me, and it unleashed a curiosity for the popular music of the ‘80s. Like a lot of my friends at school, I was nuts about Michael Jackson and I remember asking dad if I could have one of those swank red jackets that he wore so famously in “Thriller” (I was denied, though I did get quite good at grade school moonwalking). I distinctly remember the day my family got cable TV for the first time and with it MTV, which brought the music of Metallica, Boy George, Madonna, Aerosmith, and Run-DMC into our conservative Texas household.

It didn’t last long, because somewhere in the mid-‘80s, my family got caught up in the whole “Satanic Panic” movement. They started monitoring my listening habits vigilantly. One day, for instance, my mom was horrified to find her ten-year-old boy singing along to “Nobody’s Fool” by Cinderella during Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 show. From that point on, both rock and metal were banned from the house and my radio was confiscated. It was too late, though, because I was hooked – particularly by metal. Something about it has always moved me in a way that only classical music has matched. My first metal album, which I purchased in secret, was ‘Appetite for Destruction’ by Guns ‘n’ Roses – which at the time represented the pinnacle of late ‘80s heavy metal. People need to understand how revolutionary it was to hear something that “hard” on mainstream radio and MTV. I listened to it and ‘Lies’ incessantly on my Walkman and continued listening clandestinely to FM hard rock and heavy metal.

Since I couldn’t listen to it openly, I started developing an interest in the darker side of classical music, the moodier pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, and Scriabin, and took up playing the piano around 13. My family was supportive of that talent and I would spend hours and hours a day for years playing the piano in solitude. That was my first introduction, in kernel form, to “doom” – especially late Beethoven, when he started growing deaf and began expressing his frustration and despair more poignantly through dark tones. Franz Liszt, later in life, experienced so much tragedy that he begin to write very bleak, obscure music and was one of the first to experiment with atonality.

It wouldn’t be until my college days that I’d come face-to-face with doom at a Saint Vitus show in Portland. From that moment forward, I knew I’d discovered my soul food. Doom metal made an immediate connection, as it addressed the fucked up nature of life and society in a way that felt authentic to me. It wasn’t just anger. It was dark, slow despair and even a blithe kind of acceptance to it all. It was refreshing to have those feelings mapped out in song like that. That triggered a wave of discovery that led to Usnea, Cough, Pilgrim, Demon Lung, Serpentine Path, Undersmile, and others that are now staples of my musical diet.

Drumhead from Doomed & Stoned Festival II

What do you see happening in the music scene today, good and bad?

More people are digging to the doom-stoner sound and the scene is growing exponentially. The internet has democratized music in a way that has made it easier than ever for bands to form, record, and share their music. It’s also made it much, much harder for a band to get discovered. We’re simply oversaturated by it all. We’re reaching peak information and many listeners have just stopped exploring altogether. I think there was a study done some years back that said by the late-20’s/early-30’s the average metal listener typically hardens in their musical tastes. I don’t know how true that is still, but I know that I’ve been increasingly suffering from listening fatigue. 2014 was the last year I felt on top of it all. 2015 was explosive and every year since has found me woefully behind in my listening. I’m still digging through the rubble and discovering incredible records that I share now and then in a series of short reviews I call, “Doomed Discoveries.”

Among the trends I’ve seen in our scene in particular is the increase in female-fronted bands (which we tried to document in our compilation, The Enchanter’s Ball) along with more experimentation with genre blending. It’s becoming harder to find bands who traffic in traditional doom, but that’s fine because I think we all needed more diversity in our playlist to keep us from becoming jaded. For a while, it seemed every other band was “witch” this and “black” that. I’m the last person to judge a band by its name, but it was leading to a ton of criticism from fans -- to the point I’d have a hard time getting doom-stoner listeners to take a chance with a newer band that had the word “wizard” in their name. One thing that seems to be a theme of the doom-stoner scene is a continual drive for excellence and evolution. On the negative side, we tend to expect more of our heroes, as a result -- which is why bands like The Sword and Electric Wizard have been criticized for producing music that would have otherwise excited us if they were a brand new band.

Holy Grove at Hoverfest (Film by Billy Goate)

What's been your all-time greatest "find"? That band you "discovered" before anyone else and started the word spreading?

It’s hard to pinpoint one band, but I’ve been instrumental in boosting the music of Holy Grove, Disenchanter, Troll, and Year of the Cobra -- all bands from out of the Pacific Northwest. Initially they were promoted through Doomed & Stoned and then found their way to small-to-medium sized record labels and festivals. Over half of the bands that played the Vinyl Stage at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in the inaugural year of Psycho Las Vegas were my direct recommendations. Though I was less involved in the following year, Psycho Las Vegas booked most of the bands that appeared at Doomed & Stoned Festival, such as Merlin, Toke, and Youngblood Supercult. It was a huge confidence booster in Doomed & Stoned’s ability to be a “taste tester.” This is not to say our taste in bands has always been picked up by festivals or record labels. The scene is getting bigger and out of necessity bands have to diversify their reach through a multiplicity of media outlets, because you never know who will read that one feature at the right time and dig your sound. Besides, there’s too much music in the doom-stoner subgenre for any one site to cover right now, so there are plenty of great recommendations coming from a number of amazing blogs and webzines.

What's the last album to grab you by the throat and insist you listen?

Definitely ‘Celestial Cemetery’ (2017) by Purple Hill Witch. I was only a nominal fan of their first album, but their second one was quite convincing, emotionally. There’s an underlying sadness to the record that appeals to me as a person who has long battled depression.

Celestial Cemetery by Purple Hill Witch

What's the hardest thing you encounter in promoting shows?

Convincing people that live music is worth leaving the comfort of our homes to experience, to say nothing of many benefits that come from connecting others in the underground music community. These days, we tend to value how conveniently something can be delivered to us. Audio books have replaced the need to sit and read (and collect printed media), our homes have become veritable theaters so no need to go out for movies anymore, and streaming high-definition music makes us feel like we’re in some sense getting the real deal.

Of course, those of us who go out to shows know there’s just no substitute for the excitement, energy, and sound of a well-produced live show, especially in a small venue. This is to say nothing of the community that comes with it. My best friendships in the scene have come about because I chose to breach my comfort zone and venture out to a show, sometimes merely on a whim. With that said, I admit I struggle with convincing myself to go out. It’s the introvert in me, I suppose. However, I have a saying that I try to live by: “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Witch Mountain -- first tour with Kayla Dixon (Film by Billy Goate)

If you could write a 1,000 word essay on one song, which one would it be, and why? What makes that song so important?

Funny, I actually did write a 1,000+ word essay on Cough’s “Possession” -- the only song I’ve been moved to write an entire piece about so far. I think it’s because it spoke to me during a time in my life where I was feeling such raw, charged emotion and witnessing a personal transformation from being a happy-go-lucky, easy-going dude, to someone emptied of hope and weighted down by a very nihilistic outlook and pessimistic thinking. This was, in turn, keeping me more closed off from other people, because my trust level was at an all-time low.

I’ve always valued music for its ability to commiserate with me in my circumstances. During Basic Training it was Superunknown and Down on the Upside by Soundgarden. In my college days, it was Alice in Chain’s last album just prior to the death of Layne Staley, which fans nicknamed Tripod. In 2016, Cough returned after a long absence, released Still They Pray, and headlined the first ever Doomed & Stoned Festival in Indianapolis. It was a year of transition for me with a lot of upheaval in my personal life and “Possession” seemed to capture my inner storm perfectly, which inspired me to write a few words about it.

Give us three bands that we need to keep our eyes out for.

White Wail: The grooviest psychedelics this side of Berlin are nested right here in Yob country, my hometown of Eugene, Oregon. White Wail is best described as part-Graveyard, part-Radio Moscow, with a special kind of DIY electricity that has made them hands down one of the most entertaining live acts in the region. Their upcoming second album is going to put them on the map for many people, I predict.

I by White Wail

Reptile Master: Norwegian doom-sludge clan with two guitars, two basses, a drum, and one unhinged vocalist. You’ll find none fiercer. “The Sorcerer’s Weed” (opening number off their first LP, In The Light of a Sinking Sun) is positively frightening. I can feel its seething rage filling up my chest cavity like pneumonia every time I listen to it. I believe they’re expecting a new album out in the first quarter of 2019, if not sooner, and I can't wait!

Chrome Ghost: The ultimate contrast of light and dark come to us from a relatively unknown band in Roseville, California. The secret sauce here involves incredible vocal harmonies pitted against massive, crunchy riffs, something that’s done very effectively in their recent EPs, ‘The Mirror’ (2018) and ‘Reflection Pool’ (2017). Now, they just need to take this show on the road so the world can get better acquainted with them.

Shallows by chrome ghost

Tell us about your personal music collection. Vinyl? CD? What's your prized possession?

People think I have a huge vinyl collection, but mine is quite modest, really. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a bigger collection and show it off, but unfortunately, I haven’t a lot of money to put into it, really. My most prized records come from bands I’ve supported from their earliest stages, like Holy Grove, Menin, Soom, or Vokonis. CDs have come to dominate my collection, not so much by choice, but quite a few promos are sent to me that way. Mostly, I have a vast digital collection that takes up almost six terabytes of data. Since I’m doing a lot of podcasting, this allows me the easiest point of access to put together my mixes for The Doomed & Stoned Show.

BelzebonG at Psycho Las Vegas (Film by Billy Goate)

What is it about this particular type of heavy music that makes it mean so much to you?

To me, doom metal and stoner rock has incredible staying power. It’s something I can listen to over and over again without growing weary of it. Add to that the fact bands in this genre take so much care in crafting their live sound and you can go to any doom-stoner show knowing you’re going to have an incredible time, perhaps even walk away with a better experience than the record gave you. I was constantly disappointed by the concert experiences I had while immersed in mainstream metal. It just never sounded as good as the records did. With doom-stoner music, my experience has largely been that a band's show can, and often does, transcend their studio recordings. It’s just the ethic of our scene; we're fanatical about sound.

With BelzebonG

What makes it all worthwhile for you?

That's a really good question. My philosophy is that as long as we’re all still having fun, it’s worth it to keep doing Doomed & Stoned. With that said, it can be very demanding and stressful, especially as we’re increasingly turned to by bands, labels, and PR firms to host track and album premieres. The gratification of a piece well done -- whether by me or by one of my team members -- is ultimately what keeps me going day-to-day. I find a lot of joy in developing talent and even helping writers and photographers hone their craft, gain greater name recognition, and develop the confidence to even branch out on their own as freelancers. Several have gotten gigs with larger outlets like Noisey due to their work here and that just blows my mind.

When Melissa first started, she wasn’t confident at all that she could do an interview. Next thing you know, she’s interviewing Wino, negotiating contracts with promoters, booking venues, and organizing a music festival with international acts. I’ve very proud of the team and everyone who has been a part of it, if only for a season. I'd add to that my relationships with growing record labels and ambitious promoters, who I've been able work with to get bands like Tombstones, BelzebonG, Spelljammer, Vokonis, Cardinals Folly over here to play for the first time in the United States.

With Disenchanter

How would your life be different if you weren't spreading the word about music?

I suppose I’d be spending more time playing the piano, something I’ve neglected more than I’d like to admit since starting Doomed & Stoned. There are some gnarly pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, Scriabin, Godowsky, and Prokofiev that I've half-chewed, just waiting for me pick them back up again. Either way, I don’t think I can stay passively involved in music. I have to be playing it or writing about it, preferably both.

Usnea play 'Random Cosmic Violence' (Film by Billy Goate)

Ever been threatened by a band or a ravenous fan?

No, but I’ve been doggedly pursued on Facebook by overly enthusiastic bands trying to get me to review their albums. What they don’t realize is that I’ve got a very heavy editing backlog -- it takes at least 2 hours and more commonly 4, 6 or even 8 hours –- to prep a feature length piece for publication. To review a record, I need even more time to let it soak in. I have to find something in it that connects with me on an emotional or at least an intellectual level or I can’t write about it. Because of that, I don’t write very many reviews a years. Maybe a half-dozen traditional, track-by-track reviews, though I do try to write at least one short review a week on our Facebook page.

Part of the blessing and the curse of doing this as a hobby, as opposed to full-time, is I don’t have a lot of opportunity to hear gossip, get into interpersonal dramas, know who's not speaking to whom -- that kind of thing. With that said, I really wish I could spend more time responding to every message I receive and developing deeper level friendships. Perhaps in time I will. My work schedule is so packed right now that it’s very hard for me to tear away and just relax and get to know people. On the positive side, it does save me from a lot of inter-scene conflict and allows me to be more of a neutral party when issues arise between bands, venues, promoters, forums, or fans.

Saint Vitus Live in Portland (Film by Billy Goate)

In the end, what would you like to have accomplished, or be remembered for?

I’m hoping we can be remembers for documenting this special era in heavy music history. I want to get better at showcasing the bands in their scenes and telling their stories, just like the writers and photographers of the Seattle grunge era were able to capture the imagination of the world with the Nirvana-Soundgarden-AIC-Pearl Jam vibe of that scene in the early-to-mid ‘90s -- what the 1996 documentary Hype! captured so well. I also hope I’ll be remembered for writing interesting, engaging, and relatable music reviews that aren’t pretentious crap. That’s still a work in progress!

Bell Witch at Doomed & Stoned Fest (Film by Billy Goate)

Many people may not realize the hours you devote to what you do for little or no pay. Is there a day job? If so, how do you find the balance?

This is most certainly not a day job. I have a full time job that I work 40-50 hours a week and I do Doomed & Stoned in the evenings and weekends. Right now, I’m not doing very good with the balance, to be honest. I’m an unrepentant workaholic, if I’m being honest with myself. That said, every other weekend, my mind and body revolt and refuse to allow me to do anything except sleep or just lay around watching movies or doing normal things like, you know, mowing the lawn. If I could will it, I wouldn't sleep more than four hours a night, hit every show that comes to town, review every new release, put out a podcast every week, edit every article within a few days of it being submitted to me. In other words, I'd manage Doomed & Stoned as if it were a full-scale entertainment website. However, I have to remind myself that I started this to build community and to have fun, so it’s okay to operate on a different model.

Filming Elder at Dante's in Portland (Photo by Matt Amott)

What's next? Any new projects?

This year, we’re on a roll with our compilations, thanks to some wonderful organizers who are embedded in their local scenes and are good at rounding up tracks from all the participating bands. We’ve released Doomed & Stoned in Ireland, Doomed & Stoned in Philadelphia, and Doomed & Stoned in New Zealand, Doomed & Stoned in South Africa, Doomed & Stoned in Sweden, and we're coming up on Doomed & Stoned in Deutschland, and our fifth anniversary compilation, Doomed & Stoned in Portland III.

Other than that, we’re in the third year of our flagship festival, Doomed & Stoned Festival, which takes place on October 6th & 7th in Indianapolis. Over the summer, we’ve had two new festivals: Chicago Doomed & Stoned Festival and Ohio Doomed & Stoned Fest. We’ll likely be doing a festival in Portland later in the summer, too, perhaps doing an all-dayer in Eugene, too. These are very much passion projects and we're lucky to break even on them, but the joy of putting on a successful fest that brings together members of the community, that brings bands like Vokonis and Cardinals Folly to the United States for the first time, is totally worth it. This is history in the making. More than that, it's vital therapy for our people -- refueling our storehouses with the power of the Riff!

Finally, other than the music, what's your other burning passion?

I have cats that I love to death. I’m a fanatical collector of B-movies, from the ‘60s and ‘70s especially –- the more awful the movie is, production wise, the more I delight in it. Probably that has a lot to do with growing up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. When B-movies and cats collide with music, I’m in a very happy place (see the band Gurt!). Also an avid fan of vintage comic books -- many of the narratives of the pre-code 1950s comic books were taking chances that rival many of the shocking storylines of Marvel and DC today. Surprisingly, one of the themes that I see recurring between titles is DOOM! It's a delight every time I discover one of these stories. Art, film, and music have a very important, symbiotic relationship and I find it tremendously gratifying to play historian and trace the threads of the past into the present and watch how they continue to evolve into the future.

I've also got a gang of cats that keep me in line and like to be very involved with the production of Doomed & Stoned, so much so that I've had to make cat beds in front of my monitor and in the drawer of one of my desks for a pair of twins I adopted from the pound some years back. They absolutely are enthralled with that desk of mind, whether I'm editing an article or interviewing someone for a show! Best of all, they love them some doom. They sleep soundly every time I've got the likes of Sea Bastard or Serpentine Path rumbling my speakers. Wouldn't trade 'em for all the vinyl in the world.

Meet The Team

North America

Billy Goate (Editor in Chief -- Oregon), Melissa Marie (Executive Editor -- Indiana), Frank Heredia (California), Elizabeth Gore (California), Stephanie V. Cantu (Texas), Chris Schanz (Washington), Papa Paul (Pennsylvania), Zachary Painter (Texas), Alex Watt (Oregon), Alyssa Herrman (Oregon), Hugo Guzman (California), Lara Noel (Chicago), Suzi Uzi (Chicago), Jamie Yeats (Montana), Stephanie Savenkoff (Oregon), Corey Lewis (Oregon), Colton Dollar (California), Adam Mundwarf (Oregon), Dan Simone (Ohio), Shawn Gibson (North Carolina), Tom Hanno (New York), Eric The Red (Oregon), Justin Cory (Oregon), Jamie LaRose (Florida).

International

Roman Tamayo (Mexico), Sally Townsend (Australia), Calvin Lampert (Switzerland), Mari Knox (Italy), Svempa Alveving (Sweden), Juan Antonio (Spain), Angelique Le Marchand (UK), Jacob Mazlum (UK), Mel Lie (Germany), Silvi Pearl (Austria), Simon Howard (Australia), Matthew Donk (UK), Willem Verhappen (Netherlands).

Doomed & Stoned would also like to thank contributions from Ben Edwards, Brian Schmidt, Bucky Brown, Cherry Darling, Chris Latta, Curtis Parker, David Glass, David Knottnerus, Doomstress Alexis, Doug McHardlane, Drew Smith, Eleanna Safarika, Gonzalo Brunelli, Gustav Zombetero, Hannah Rachel Lowe, Jake Wallace, Joey Demartini, Johnny Hubbard, Jules Maher, Leanne Ridgeway, Marcel van der Haar, Mathew Jacques, Mona Miluski, Patrick Alex Thorfinn, Paul Bracamonte, Randy Beach, Sabine Stangenberg, Sandra Mez Russotto, Sandy Wright, Sarah Eriksson, Sean Schock, Stef Dimou, Steph LeSaux, Steve Howe, Thäedra Clare, Wendy Yashira, Ygor Silva, and so many others who have supported us directly or indirectly.

Mona Miluski from High Fighter sporting our basic black

Show your Doomed & Stoned pride! Get a t-shirt or sticker and become a patron of The Doomed & Stoned Show. You can also check out and share our free scene-by-scene compilation series. Donations help us to fund cool projects, such as new t-shirt designs, patches, etc. and helps with the much needed funds for web-hosting, data storage, and lots more besides. Most of all, we value your regular readership. Thanks so much for being a member of the Doomed & Stoned family!

#Doomed & Stoned #Doomed & Stoned Festival #Purple Hill Witch #Chrome Ghost #White Wail #Reptile Master #Yob #Disenchanter #Holy Grove #Witch Mountain #Saint Vitus #Bell Witch #BelzebonG #Doom #Metal #Doom Metal #Stoner Rock

[mrmichaelchadler]

The Best Performances of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival

You know how much you loved Elsie Fisher in “Eighth Grade,” Lakeith Stanfield in “Sorry to Bother You,” Toni Collette in “Hereditary,” and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie in “Leave No Trace”? All of those performances and even more great 2018 acting turns premiered at Sundance in January of 2018. So who gave the performances of Sundance 2019 that you’ll be talking about all year long? These are 12 you’ll want to keep on your cinematic radar.

Awkwafina in “The Farewell”

On the heels of her breakout role in “Crazy Rich Asians,” Awkwafina shows off a new dramatic side in Lulu Wang’s deeply personal movie, “The Farewell.” Here, she plays Billi, the Chinese-American granddaughter of a woman who’s been given a fatal diagnosis but whose doctors and relatives won’t tell her. As the most westernized member of this family, Awkwafina channels the complicated tensions between the two cultures, the immigrant fear of never being able to go home again and of what it means to love someone so much that you’ll go along with the charade of pretending they’re not dying. It’s an emotional yet restrained performance from a comedienne who broke out by playing the most outrageous character in a large ensemble cast. (MC)

Adam Driver in “The Report”

The role of Daniel Jones in Scott Z. Burns’ story of the torture report that revealed the lengths the U.S. government went to under the guise of stopping terrorism could have been a thankless, blank slate of a part. So much of “The Report” is about what Jones discovers that the man himself could have been lost in the paperwork he created. But Driver never lets this happen. He maintains a confident, believable character, never stealing focus from what really matters but also not getting lost in the storytelling. It’s the kind of un-flashy performance that won’t get the credit it deserves for anchoring an entire movie. In other words, it’s what Adam Driver is increasingly good at doing. (BT)

Kelvin Harrison Jr. in “Luce”

The players in Julius Onah’s stylish drama “Luce” are pitched amid various dualities and uncertainties. The title character is no exception—Luce is a star student, a model son to his adoptive parents and a source of inspiration to his community. Then again, he might also have disturbing leanings elsewhere. For anyone who’s seen Kelvin Harrison Jr. in the unnerving “It Comes at Night” (also a film on trust, strengthened by the perspective of the audience), his spot on performance here as a teenager that carries both guilt and innocence with equal persuasiveness won’t come as a surprise. It’s a performance that’s chilling and disarming all at once, while Harrison Jr. swiftly holds his ground against veterans like Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth and Naomi Watts with both nuance and meticulous delivery. (TL)

Zora Howard in “Premature”

In Rashaad Ernesto Green’s romantic drama, “Premature,” Zora Howard plays Ayanna, a teenager who’s coming-of-age and still trying to figure out things in her life. During the summer, she falls for a music producer, Isaiah (Joshua Boone), in a swoon-worthy, whirlwind romance — the kind you think about years after it ends. But few things survive long when you’re seventeen, and Howard smoothly works her way through Ayanna’s deeply felt emotions. From recreating that warm glow in her cheeks during the couple’s honeymoon period to the stiff body language in reaction to their splitting relationship, so much of Ayanna’s story comes from Howard’s expressions and body language. Howard’s sensitive performance feels reminiscent of Kerry Washington’s role in “Our Song” and the independent spirit of Ariyan A. Johnson’s character in “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” It’s not a showy performance, but one that sticks with you because of its subtlety and familiarity. (MC)

Noah Jupe in “Honey Boy”

Alma Har’el’s gutsy “Honey Boy” seems like a wall-to-wall therapy session: for its writer Shia LaBeouf (who tells his own condemned life story) and for anyone who’s been raised in the hands of abusive parents. In it, the young actor Noah Jupe—among this year’s sharpest breakthroughs of Sundance—gets caught in the crossfire of it all with a rare opportunity. Playing the young, somewhat fictionalized Shia, he picks up the phone in one scene (it’s mom on the other end) and relays his parents’ fuming words back to each other with startling anger, precision and defeat, just like a grown-up. In another scene, he steps back down to being a child, and begs his father to become a better parent. Jupe steals this movie, displaying range and virtuoso well beyond his young years. (TL)

Riley Keough in “The Lodge”

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s horror film was one of the most divisive flicks at this year’s Sundance, but even the film’s detractors agreed that Riley Keough does great work in it. It’s an incredibly difficult part in that Grace needs to remain something of a question mark. Not only is she the potentially evil stepmother that our two child protagonists don’t want in their lives, but she may be crazy too. Playing a character with a questionable grip on sanity is an invitation for most performers to chew the scenery but Keough grounds Grace in a way that makes her far more interesting and the final act of the film far more terrifying. It’s just another great turn from an actress who isn’t afraid to choose challenging, unpopular roles, and seems to impress more every time she does. (BT)

Kiki Layne in “Native Son”

The fascinating Ashton Sanders got a great deal of press for his leading turn in the opening night film, but the performance that lingers in my mind more is that of Kiki Layne, who announced her future-star status in “If Beale Street Could Talk” and really cements that here in just a few scenes. Bess could have easily become a two-dimensional archetype, the put-upon girlfriend who exists more as a sounding board for the leading man than a real person. But Layne imbues every choice she makes with realism, adding to the poignancy of the final act. Much as she did with her underrated work in “Beale,” she never makes the wrong choice here. I can’t wait to see what she does next. (BT)

Jonathan Majors in “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”

Joe Talbot’s “The Last Man in San Francisco” mixes symphonic filmmaking with the quiet dreams of its characters, especially for its two leads, Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) and Montgomery (Jonathan Majors). Majors fashions an impeccable earnestness out of a sidekick who could have been lost to quirkiness, and paints a vivid image of a man who clings to his red notebooks and especially the ideas inside, while monologuing to himself on a pier, as if figuring out what means most. Though Fails is the fulcrum of the story, it receives some of its most beautiful moments from Majors’ performance, like when he earnestly yells at a mirror while attempting to try on the aggressiveness of other black men—it’s a funny and tragic note on the story’s sensitive portrayal of black masculinity. Majors’ masterstroke, however, might be a performance sequence in the third act that contains all of the film’s themes, like Linus’ monologue in “A Charlie Brown Christmas Special,” while displaying all of his energy and charisma. Majors’ performance is acting as storytelling in the best ways, and one of many flourishes in Talbot’s unforgettable film. (NA)

Alia Shawkat in “Animals”

Shawkat’s brought many a playful character to the screens large and small, but few roles have allowed her to play such a classy raconteur as she does in Sophie Hyde’s “Animals” Like a poem-filled, sequence-wearing Withnail, Tyler (Shawkat) is the impish answer to Laura (Holliday Grainger), a flailing writer who’s the straight man I to this Withnail. The two best friends are comrades in drugs and parties, but just as they’re approaching their 30s and Laura begins dating a pianist, their close friendship suffers a rift. Although the movie follows Laura more closely, Tyler also experiences her own awakening, giving Shawkat room not just to play a wildcard character but also an emotionally vulnerable person who wants her close friend back in her apartment to share a drink. (MC)

Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer in “Give Me Liberty”

There are a lot of faces and voices that are crammed into “Give Me Liberty,” Kirll Mikhanovsky’s claustrophobic, heartwarming story about a group of people who are united on a van. But one of the most memorable performances belongs to Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer, who enters into the story as one of the clients that Chris Galust's medical transport van driver has to pick up. But she proves to be an excellent, scene-stealing straight-woman against the chaos of the other riders on the van (Vic’s Russian elders, it’s a long story). You get a full sense of her life before and after the times Vic pick her up, as it shows her charisma across expressions of comedy or drama. (NA)

Honor Swinton-Byrne in “The Souvenir”

With her soft, childlike facial features and expressive eyes, Honor Swinton-Byrne (Tilda’s daughter) embodies “The Souvenir’s” Julie—an ambitious film student about to lose her innocence in the hands of a toxic relationship—with a rare kind of exactness. Throughout, she moves with the grace and reluctance of someone acutely aware of both her misfortunes and privileges. As Julie falls deeper into the overwhelming rabbit hole of a young, life-defining love, Swinton-Byrne dials up her helplessness to heartbreaking effect, turning Julie into a real-life character you will both want to shake up and non-judgmentally protect. Having given perhaps the most mournful performance of Sundance, Swinton-Byrne is sure to walk in her mother’s shoes and put her unique stamp on every film she will be in. (Good news: a sequel for “The Souvenir” is already in pre-production.) (TL)

Geraldine Viswanathan in “Hala”

Geraldine Viswanathan is well on her way to being a star, and her lead role in Minhal Baig’s “Hala” should accelerate the process. Playing a Muslim teenager of first-generation immigrant parents in Chicago, this role is a marvelous display of how Viswanathan can present the process of contemplation, an excellent fit for a character who can internal as tries to navigate the world. She has a striking precision with emotion, offering a lot to be read between the lines in a way that registers as raw and compelling whether it’s in thinking about how she feels about her first major sexual encounter, or observing her parents’ marriage slowly start to fall apart. It lets the majority of “Hala” play out with more subtlety, honoring the quiet ways in which maturity finds and changes us. (NA)

from All Content http://bit.ly/2Sg8yqm

[mrmichaelchadler]

Sundance 2019: The Lodge, Memory – The Origins of Alien, Little Monsters

Horror is in a creatively robust periods with films like “Hereditary” and “Get Out” crossing the line that separates genre and “serious fare” (for those who make such distinctions). The Midnight section at Sundance has been a bit lackluster in recent years (with some striking exceptions like the aforementioned Ari Aster flick, “Mandy” and “The Babadook”) but 2019 came roaring back, illustrating the resurgence and depth of what this genre is providing nowadays. From a documentary to a mood piece to an action film, this was one of Sundance 2019’s strongest programs and one of the best Midnight sections I’ve ever seen at any festival. People were buzzing about titles and studios were snatching them up, realizing that horror is a critical and commercial leader right now.

The best of the midnights I’ve seen so far is “The Lodge,” from the directors of the unsettling “Goodnight Mommy,” Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. They’re working once again in that deeply uneasy register, and working once again with that fraught dynamic between children and parents—well, in this case, a potential stepparent. With elements of the snowed-in insanity of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” this atmospheric mindf**k was one of the most divisive movies of Sundance 2019, drawing raves and pans in equal measure. I’m a fan.

From the opening scenes, Franz and Fiala drench “The Lodge” in looming dread. They have the nerve to open with a series of Chekhov’s gun images, including a literal weapon on a table, only to reveal that they’re miniatures in a large doll house in the home of kids Aidan (Jaeden Lieberher) and Mia (Lia McHugh). Their parents Richard (Richard Armitrage) and Laura (Alicia Silverstone) are going through a divorce and Richard has taken up with Grace (Riley Keough), the only surviving member of a doomsday cult that recently committed mass suicide. While writing about the cult, Richard met Grace, and left Laura. The kids do not like Grace. In an effort to do something to bring the family together, Richard brings the quartet to a remote Northwest cabin for Christmas, but he has to go back to town for a few days. The kids will get closer to Grace. What could go wrong?

Shot on film by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis (a regular Yorgos Lanthimos collaborator on films like “The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”), “The Lodge” has an oppressive, striking visual style. Every element of the design team works together to create a nerve-rattling mood. You can feel the rush of cold coming through the window as snow buffets the house. There’s a sense of danger in every scene, and a danger created not narratively as much as it is through the film’s visual language and sound design. The film works on levels of discomfort – the one with a new stepparent, the one with an imposing storm outside, the one created by isolation, and, oh, the one from the only adult in the house going crazy.

A lot of “The Lodge” relies on what could be called “things real people don’t do,” but horror has a long history of exaggerating human behavior in mood pieces, which this most definitely is. Don’t come into it trying to break down the plot’s inconsistencies, just give yourself over to what it does to you with its foreboding imagery, and the unsettling performance from the great Riley Keough, who makes Grace a fascinatingly elusive character. Does Grace seem a bit odd because we’re seeing her through the children’s POV? Because of her dark background? Because of her anxiety over being a sudden mother? Although Keough is smart enough to not play her as a pure question mark, grounding her while also leaving enough open to make her fascinating.

“The Lodge” is a truly unsettling movie, the kind of horror film that rattles you on an almost subconscious level, making you more uncomfortable than going for cheap scares. Don’t ask questions or dissect the believability of the plot. Just check in.

The Midnights programs this year started on opening night with a unique choice – a film that isn’t scary in its own right but dives deep into the history and impact of one of the scariest films of all time, the masterpiece that is “Alien.” As he did recently for “Psycho” in the interesting “78/52,” Alexandre O. Philippe dissects Ridley Scott’s masterpiece in “Memory – The Origins of Alien,” focusing as heavily on the infamous chestburster scene as he did Hitchcock’s shower scene in his last documentary. Philippe’s film deftly details not only how and why that scene works narratively but breaks down the visual language of it too, allowing even fans of “Alien” to see its brilliance from every angle.

“Memory” also provides something I love in documentaries about classic films and that’s the sense that “Alien” was something of a perfect storm of talents coming to the same project at the same time. What if Dan O’Bannon hadn’t written the 29-page script for “Memory,” which would later be renamed “Alien” and retain nearly the identical same opening pages? What if Walter Hill had stayed on the project and not ceded way for Ridley Scott to take over? What if H.R. Giger was never involved? And Philippe not only makes clear how each of these gentlemen impacted the final product but how much “Alien” incorporates a long history before them, including comics that inspired O’Bannon, H.P. Lovecraft, The Furies, and even O’Bannon’s own Crohn’s Disease.

You probably know how that last element impacted “Alien,” and Philippe spends a great deal of time breaking down why the chestburster scene is so effective, even noting elements of its visual language that I had never caught (and I’ve seen it at least a dozen times over my life). It’s a movie made by someone who loves his subject matter but it’s also way more than mere fandom. It’s doesn’t just remind you that “Alien” is a masterpiece but details how it got that way and why it continues to haunt us.

No one will ever use the word masterpiece to describe Abe Forsythe’s “Little Monsters,” but the Midnight Premiere audience on Sunday night ate it up to the point that Neon ran out and bought it. I can see why. It’s the kind of bloody, raunchy, silly thing that slays with people willing to stay up until 2 in the morning to watch a zombie flick. In the light of day, it’s a little more flawed than I was hoping, but its leading lady keeps the project moving, and fans of movies that feature brain-eating lurchers should be entertained.

Given how much this horror-comedy was inspired by George A. Romero and Peter Jackson, one could call it “Field Trip of the Dead,” as the majority of the film takes place on a school trip to an amusement park that happens to be next to a military testing facility. Dave (Alexander England), a slacker who has just broken up with his girlfriend, accompanies his nephew Felix on the date after he catches a glimpse of his teacher, Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o), a gorgeous young lady who sings Taylor Swift on her ukulele and inspires her students. They’re all headed to play putt-putt and even catch a glimpse of a celebrity on the pre-school scene on his world tour, the aggressively grating Teddy McGiggle (Josh Gad). And then the experiments at the testing facility break out and start craving human flesh.

Nyong’o wonderfully captures the spirit of a woman who knows her job is not only to protect her students but to convince them that this is all a game. They conga line through the zombies – thank God these are the “slow ones” – and huddle in a gift shop, hatching an escape plan between singing songs with the kids. Nyong’o really can do absolutely anything, segueing seamlessly from comedy to drama to horror in her career. She’s charming here and anchors the movie. England is remarkably annoying at first – the movie takes too long to get to the gift shop – but his character has a redemption arc, and he ultimately grew on me. Gad is in full-blown Gad Mode, but the awfulness of his character is intentional this time. Ultimately, “Little Monsters” may not live up to the Romero/Jackson films that influenced it, but it’s a reasonably enjoyable zombie flick. Well, depending on the time of day you see it. 

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