Ultracore is mushy to the core

Well, we gave it our best.

Doors opened at 2pm at Astorian House of Herzog. I watched Naked Lunch. I started watching Naked Lunch around 3pm. Guests started arriving around 6pm; we watched Buster Keaton: Our Hospitality. Sherlock Jr. They were both quite good. More guests arrived. Tony was kind enough to bring a projector. We watched Space is the Place, blown up big on the wall. We had a Looney Tunes break around Midnight and then the make or breaker La Dolce Vita. Midway through most everyone except Su, Er, and Seaslug left. We pushed on. We had omelets made by Er. After that we watched Take the Money and Run. And then A Better Tomorrow. It gets blurry from beyond here. I think Su and 'Ro left because they couldn't afford to throw all of their weekend away in the name of cinema. We still had the projector. Seaslug and myself watched Svankmejer shorts and then started Mishima. It was around 10 in the morning around this time. We were into it but because of circumstances beyond his control Seaslug had to go home. I gave Seaslug a citation for depth of reverance and that was it. I couldn't watch movies by myself. I did a little cleaning and then I passed out in my room. I got up around noon when Tony stopped by to pick up his projector. And Dave stopped by, but I couldn't stay up. Jason stopped by later, he had wanted to watch Killing of A Chinese Bookie but they left me sleeping. I got up around 8pm this evening. I got some Chinese-Mexican food and watched The God of Gamblers. My ballroom dancing roommate and his partner/girlfriend were very excited because they won a college-level ballroom dancing competition in Boston even though they aren't in college. Though they were in Boston. They're not in Boston right now. As of now. Also, as of now, I'm writing on my blog now.

It was a pretty intense experience. It sort of messes with your mind. For me, La Dolce Vita was the perfect midnight movie. It definitely wasn't everyone's cup of tea. But tea wasn't the point of the Ultracore. I became tired after it and I just wanted to please everybody. So I put on movies that I thought would keep people there. That was a mistake (I was going against my instincts; I was losing what I thought what was my "self." In that way the experience was interesting. But the influence of the disposable entertainment on our brains was more taxing--I believe--in the long run. La Dolce Vita gave me strength because I think it is--however flawed--a monumental work of art--as opposed to A Better Tomorrow and Take the Money and Run. The latter two felt like propaganda or something.) I should have put on early Kurosawa instead of early Woody Allen. If I do it again we will watch all very serious movies except for the Looney Tunes and Buster Keaton. And maybe some Charlie Chaplin. But Buster Keaton really kicks the ass out of ol' Chaplin. BK pretty much kicks the ass out of everything else.

I feel altered. Totally drained.

I could probably start a cult this way. I would have to power nap between the movies so that my strength would outlast everyone else. Then I'd have people read scripts and roleplay in their total sleep-deprived states. Among the ones that would last would be the strong ones. Among the strong ones I'd sort those would remain subservient to me; and I'd eliminate those that always been potentially dangerous to my purposes. The Ultracore would loosen all the harbored resentments and I sieve out my true enemies amongst my true friends. Slowly I'd create a network of servants, sworn by blood to protect me. The core of my revolution.

The only problem is that I have lost my faith in the idea of a violent overthrow of the power elite.

It is strange because the movies started blurring all together. The rules of one movie seemed to bleed into the rules of the other. After watching all sorts of weapons pulled out by Looney Tunes characters and blasting each other in faces and such I expected similar situations to arise in La Dolce Vita. And then of course, weapons started ablazing in A Better Tomorrow. We all noted certain themes, some of them disturbing, such as the level of domestic and criminal violence commited against stereotypically "helpless" women. It got to be quite unsettling. But it was illuminative of how desensitives we are, and also how often the abuse the portrayal of abuse against women in used in a variety of situations in film in a way to illustrate a variety of points. Sometimes incisive, sometimes exploitative; a little of both in other cases.

The God of Gamblers has some nice balance to the issue of violence, though not necessarily with regard to violence against women. But it does seem to try to make a point that violence is not necessarily the best conflict resolution tool in every case. But then there are extended scenes of senseless gun violence that kind of detract from this line of argument that they develope.