"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Todd Solondz’

Storytelling

Friday, January 25th, 2002

I don’t know what you’ve heard about this one, but I keep hearing that it’s a pile of shit. That Todd Solondz has gone from a visionary manipulator of our deepest taboos and human flaws, to some kind of shock value asshole just trying to get a rise out of people. That this is just a big fuck you to the audience with no sense of humanity and etc. etc.

Well none of that is true. I’m not gonna say this is a perfect movie. It feels a little short (apparently they cut out one of three stories, and that seems like it mighta been a mistake). But if it weren’t for all the shit I heard from contrarians waiting to pounce on their former hero, I would say that anybody who liked HAPPINESS would like this one too. Because it’s the same kind of feel – a deep probing of the things that make individuals the most uncomfortable. It’s not as sad as HAPPINESS but it has that same feeling that it is daring you to laugh. Come on motherfucker. Laugh at this. I fucking dare you. Remember, you’re in public here. Do you have the balls to let everyone else in this room know that you think that’s funny?

Do you? (read the rest of this shit…)

Fear, Anxiety & Depression

Tuesday, January 1st, 2002

Remember that motherfucker that made Happiness? His name is Todd Solondz and you might think he’s some hipster that came out of nowhere with 1996’s Welcome to the Dollhouse and then hit it big when he was Outlaw enough to refuse to cut Happiness, brought it to a different distributor who would release it unrated or whatever. Well, that’s what I thought but then I found out about this, his first picture from 1989, one year after the release of Die Hard.

And I gotta be honest this movie is a piece of shit. It is only worth watching as a curiosity for fans of the other two Solondz works. What is weird is it has all his themes of loneliness, hopelessness etc. except in the context of a more goofy mainstream comedy. Solondz is actually the star of the picture playing a struggling playwriter named Ira. And this Solondz, I mean to be frankly honest, this guy is what they call a nerd. I mean seriously. He’s a skinny, scraggly haired, overbited weirdo with gigantic glasses, a squeaky, whiny voice and weird affectations. He would be right at home in one of his other movies. But here he is cast as a Woody Allen type stuttering neurotic Writer character. And he is in a functional lifestyle with successful friends, he even goes on dates and gets laid. (read the rest of this shit…)

Happiness

Monday, January 1st, 2001

This is kind of a misleading title because really it is about ugly drooling guys sitting around in their underwear getting drunk and wishing they could have violent sex with neighbors that won’t even talk to them and that kind of business. Which, in my opinion, is not all that happy. You know how Hollywood usually pretties everybody up? Like even the criminal element in motion pictures, most of the time they are a LOT better looking than anybody I ever worked with. And the same goes for stories, if it’s a true story chances are they’re gonna streamline it, water it down a little, gussy it up a little, make it look nice “for dramatic purposes.” But the truth is there are a lot of ugly motherfuckers in this world, and they do a lot of ugly things, like some of them call up women in the phone book and jack off while they talk about “I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’re gonna come out your ears” and what not, and coincidentally that is exactly what this picture is about, Happiness. (read the rest of this shit…)