[Originally Published: August 9, 2011]

Taking into account everything known about our planet, one would be hard-pressed to really sit down and try to explain it all, let alone understand what it has been through, and where it is going. Suffice to say, humans may not be a part of that Great Master Plan, after all, but one is optimistically hoping that there has been a purpose, a reason, a goal in mind. Otherwise, why get up in the morning? Why do anything at all? Why evolve?

Indeed. As we head into our descent towards the end of Season 5, we ponder a film that has been recently released about just those very concepts—flight, progress, abandonment. All hope is not gone, but the better phrase (or question, in this case) may be: is the idea of “hope” something created by humans to take flight through the bleakness of existence?

And I write all of that not out of any sense of pending doom—hey, like an automobile, once off the lot, the depreciation really starts to kick in—but out of a sense that what is happening around the planet Earth is NOT a part of some master plan. Instead, it is the Great Inevitable, as one will see in this week’s Hidden Flick, Vanishing of the Bees.

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[Originally Published: February 8, 2011]

We’re honored to have Randy Ray back to kick off the fifth season of Hidden Flick – a column which examines films you might not be familiar with, but certainly need to see.

Many too many have stood where I stand; many more will stand here, too…

Mirrors, like children, don’t lie. Well…that isn’t exactly true, is it? Those filthy little unwashed bastards can yak a yarn from here until doom’s gloom, but yet, you’ll never get them to admit it. Ahhh…but, we’ve driven far afield (or is it flown?), haven’t we? And that is the point, innit? We swoop down amongst the natives, concealing our celluloid chestnuts, and ponder. Oh, to ponder, perchance to dream of another life, brother.

And so we meet again. You dastardly mirror. Look away, will ya. It isn’t nice to stare. Then again…we gawk inside its depth to see not one, not two, but infinite possibilities of who we are, where we are, and, yes, what we are capable of doing in this timeline, or any other for that matter, in the opening of Season Five—gasp, indeed, number 61 in total—as we head into another twisted observation, another Hidden Flick, Los Cronocrímenes.

This 2007 science fiction gem featured numerous points of view, but all were coming from the same central character. Alas, the unfortunate chap leaps down a rabbit hole from whence all strange things come, and shoots into a surreal series of circumstantial events that he has either caused or been impacted by in a weird game of am I the victim or the crime?—inside out, backwards and forwards, and he maneuvers to and fro through time, there and back again, paralleling some sort of alternate temporal universe that neither appears to begin, nor end, but always hobs on its head in a round middle of circular events until he returns home, again, with tragic wisdom and blood on his hands.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

The water encapsulates so much of all that is life and all that dominates our planet and all that swallows up our existence and makes it pure and deep and real that one can easily forget that the sea is a very lonely place for a reason. Being at the top can have its misgivings as only those who have occupied its desolate throne can attest.

And the water runs through all, encapsulates everything that we are, and hope to be, runs around in circles, bends upwards, twists downwards, explores ‘neath the shallow waves until it stops somewhere for a brief moment before daylight, sunlight, washed-out light beckons from upwards (or is it down?), and life races forth, to replace the bends in the darkness, cradling one’s amnesiac head, searching for the limbs of some weird aura thief. Honey spills from the tree, onto a racing body of water, and it disappears like all life.

Up above on the surface, one dwells in the sense of self-importance, inner ambition, outer rage, in betwixt some sort of answer hiding in many questions. Meanwhile, in the deep blue sea, nothing seems to matter quite like that—as the universe expands outwards, inevitably to disappear, or, quite contrarily, to contract back into the Big Crunch, seeking nothing, pulling all that it once was into a singular focal point—OK Computer wedded with In Rainbows washes ashore to herald a twin-side masterpiece as time marches on—life serves no purpose whatsoever other than to see what can endure…and what cannot.

In Luchino Visconti’s La Terra Trema, a fisherman and his family, are washed ashore by reality, and within its 165 minutes of melancholic sorrow and remorse is the dawning specter of doom. But one would be hard-pressed to see the film as JUST that. And, considering that we are about to hit the end of a season in which every little hidden piece of the human soul has been dissected and tossed out like some giant whale carcass, one can see the light in the darkness, the glimmer of faith in something; indeed, some hope.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – La Terra Trema…

Crossing back into time, one feels an almost drifting sense of purpose; fleeting, at best, but often wandering outwards, amidst some other surreal force; constantly, persistently pulling and pushing one onto a destiny which is always in reach, but seems so far away.

The human pursuit for land and resources has reached an almost epic battle point, prefacing some sort of almighty negative spin which has neither a mysterious conclusion, nor seems inevitable. Let’s face it, in a conflict of species versus planet, well…species would lose, wouldn’t it? Is the earth a species? Are we? Or, are we some sort of hodge podge, some mixture of the tease, some amalgamation, a wolfman’s brother, forged by the mind, the third eye of some unseen extraterrestrial force? Is this land we inhabit real?

In Carroll Ballard’s modest 1983 masterpiece, Never Cry Wolf, one feels an almost intangible pull towards the truth on a journey of modern man versus ancient beast. Scripted by Curtis Hanson, Sam Hamm, Richard Kletter and Ralph Furmaniak, and based upon the autobiography by conservationist Farley Mowat, the power of the film rests in the formidable work of actor Charles Martin Smith. Smith has the unlucky task of making his performance blend with the natural skills of his non-human thespians, the wolves, caribou and critters, effortlessly telling their parallel tale along with the straight narrative. Smith also redefines what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. His epiphany, through his acting—spoken word, quiet gesture and dawning wisdom—of what humans have become, is sobering to the core in this edition of Hidden Flick. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Rain Delay: The current Hidden Flick edition was delayed two weeks due to an onslaught of rain: A ladder leading from a garden to a spring, we sit on a branch and ask questions to a pool of water: “In the whirlpool of darkness, can you see the light? Do you ever get thirsty? Do you love the fish? How old are you? Do you get younger each time it rains? Does the rain come from you, or back to you? Do you ever feel old? Are you fond of algae? Do you prefer fishermen or sailors? Are you open? Are you friends with the forest? Are you enemies of the night? Do you prefer bright or harsh? Do you write and sing? Can you hear music? Visions of Johanna? Do you play instruments that dance on the forest floor so the animals will be entertained? What came first—land, air, or sea? Are you an island onto yourself? Can you see me? Can you be like me? Can you go away when you dream, or are you always self-aware?”

We salvage an answer or three, and wander onwards, climbing further, always climbing, down dark, treacherous paths, sifting through false clues, rummaging through the dreams of yesterday, swimming in the daunting mists of the abyss; lost, we wander downwards, ever onwards, wandering spirits as we gaze below, down into the valleys of the soul.

Sifting through the wreckage, we ponder a thousand barefoot children, bereft of disease, but waiting for opportunities that never come. Privilege is not always a given in this life, and when one seeks to understand why some children persevere and conquer life’s challenges, while others fail, and fall from grace, never to rise again, one must comprehend the simple truth that, whereas the rain does come down, shooting water bullets in torrential sheets of violence, it isn’t necessarily always such a bad thing.

In Cary Joji Fukunaga’s seminal 2009 film Sin Nombre, or Nameless, as the title is translated in English, the young step away from the machine, and create their own society based on a strict allegiance to brotherhood, a code of honor and an unbreakable bond. Alas, even a close-knit group of like-minded individuals cannot save all the children from the paths that either define or deflect the growth of their individual characters.

READ ON for more about Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre…

In the end, it is not our minds that fail us, but our hearts.

Indeed. The resolve to hold onto one’s convictions can be a very tricky thing. Once faced with death, one is apt to just give up, and run towards safety. After all, isn’t life itself preferable to certain dissolution? But what if one has had a vision? Ahh…tricky, yes. This little Flick ditty is dedicated to those who must do something, never expecting to get paid, or rewarded in any way, but doing it because they have to, they must, they need to fulfill some sort of higher purpose—indeed, the resolve to hold onto one’s convictions.

In Carl Theodor Dreyer, the cinema gained not only an original visual eye, but one gained a sometimes rather surreal look at what drove motivations, what kept focus, what swelled the heart of the beast within. Floating away, skin is temporary, but the soul shows the true power, does it not? Or, is that an illusion, too? Idea to material mist to oblivion?

Dreyer’s greatest treat for the mind’s eye may have been Vampyr with its otherworldly imagery and performances, but nothing can quite compare to his tour de force, which is rightfully heralded as one of the outstanding works of the silent film era. Released in 1928, it was almost lost to the hourglass of the modern age, but has avoided complete obscurity. The film also contains the hidden secret for all truth-seeking thespians—an ethereal and beautiful performance comes from within; specifically, the eyes.

READ ON for more about this week’s Hidden Flick…

We enter, yet again, the Hidden Theatre to see a special edition of Hidden Flick: Intermission – Parts IV and V. Once in a while, one must sit back in a mysterious locale, and gaze upon some celluloid that has sunk into the sands of time, and yet, it lingers…

Well…time for more popcorn, Red Vines, Raisinets and a refill of that 97-ounce soda. We take a break from our regular look at obscure films with another edition of Intermission, which means another look at a cinematic chestnut that may have been lauded or groundbreaking in the past, but has since been forgotten in history’s hourglass.

Part IV – The Hit Man

It was an old amphitheatre that was going to be torn down and replaced with gawdknowswhat—the owner just couldn’t say. “I had a few offers to do something with the place, but I couldn’t part with her. She’s special,” said…well, the owner just prefers to remain anonymous, almost like the Stranger, aka the Cowboy Narrator, played by Sam Elliott, in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski. “Sarsaparilla for all my friends,” as Elliott channels Barfly’s Mickey Rourke in another cinematic dimension.

Sidney Pollack’s 1975 thriller Three Days of the Condor featured a man who reads lots of books, magazines, newspapers, anything written on any surface anywhere at any time. Like everything written—past or present and yet to come. Within the pages, he researches possibilities, yes, the very possibilities that some one, some entity, some secret organization can use against another group, another nation, another person secluded out of view, but somehow important to the inner working of something.

READ ON for more of this week’s Hidden Flick…

Always by your side, your hand in mine; stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you; make the most of all you still have coming to you; the tree is full of leaves and life now and an absolutely gorgeous green. There is a spotlight on it, shining up from the ground, highlighting its perfection even at night. “Hope you are still swimming,” whispers the tree, and the clock spins once again…another life…another life, brother.

So…what have we got here, thus far? Mirrors and magical trees and circumstantial events and an alternate temporal universe and tragic wisdom and foggy paths during a long cruise, and, always, ALWAYS, that clever and bizarre sense of an amazing tale of a woman’s survival instincts…

Ahhh…but we get ahead of ourselves, don’t we? There must be some misunderstanding, there must be some mistake…I went to the places…I rang your house…jumped in my car…I went round there…still don’t believe it…she was just leaving…there must be some misunderstanding…

Mirrors, like children, don’t lie. Well…that isn’t exactly true, is it? Those filthy little unwashed bastards can yak a yarn from here until doom’s gloom, but yet, you’ll never get them to admit it. Ahhh…but, we’ve driven far afield (or is it swam?), haven’t we? And that is the point, innit? We swoop down amongst the fishy natives, concealing our celluloid charms, and ponder. Oh, to ponder, perchance to dream of another life, brother.

Many too many have swam where I swam; many more will swim here, too…

Pretty much anything is possible here, and that is eerie as the Lost Hypnotist, with perfect Oceanic manner, casually suggests, “Just imagine something pleasant.” And so he does—the universe inside and out…where some arrive, falling from a great post-progressive height, or is it Arriving Somewhere…yes, indeed, this week’s hidden Hidden Flick.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Love is a hell of a drug. It can also be a trap. Mix a little time into the potion and one can start longing for something that cannot be duplicated. Yes, time is an ocean, and if one swims around long enough, one can find the same wave to ride, or dwell within depending upon the dreams of those searching for something lost but soon to be found.

Pondering a return from whence love originated is also a dead-end loop that circles back upon oneself, encircling the soul like an invisible blanket of reliability that never seems to fit just right, always relinquishing its hold on the fantastical elements of what could be, and replacing them with the way things really are. And that central notion of love as a moment in space bereft of repeat visits, and time as an ocean of indifference to the dreams of man are at the heart of this edition of Hidden Flick, Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046.

The 2004 film, which took four years to produce for various apocalyptic reasons, is the third in a series spanning nearly twenty-five years in the Hong Kong filmmaker’s career after 1991’s Days of Being Wild and 2000’s In the Mood for Love. 2046 requires no information from either of the two films as it can be regarded as a stand alone experience. Well, at least it did to me, but I am not always looking for all the linear, plot-driven strands; I am looking for something different, something offbeat, something mysterious and hidden beneath the surface of what is known, speculated upon, and perceived to be. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Deception is a tricky thing. Then again, to be deceptively simple also requires some sort of weird ethereal sleight of hand that is neither here, nor there. Ahhh…we find ourselves awash in a deluge of ersatz clichés, and that is never our intent, is it?

Of course not. So when one thinks of a basic Japanese horror film premise, circa 1977, featuring some fairly groovy music, one expects some dated piece of shit, no? Well, not exactly. And certainly not in the case of the little house of oddness we have come to investigate in this edition of Hidden Flick, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu.

It is important to know a few essential things about Obayashi. One, he came from an experimental film and television advertising background, meaning he was used to capturing surreal imagery in a brief moment in time, regardless of its linear clarity. Who the fuck cares about a story when you can shock someone’s psyche instead. There was the avant-garde, and then there was Obayashi. Two, he knew how to use film to make a film, which could also be a comment on the nature of Japanese ghost stories in general, the horror genre, the beckoning blockbuster mentality in the wake of the ultra-popular Jaws, and that if you went completely over-the-top with special effects done in a clever and cheap way, one may be able to get away with it if presented with style and chutzpah.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

[Originally Published: September 28, 2010]

The Wind Will Carry Us, a poem, a moment and after that—nothing.
Behind this window the night is trembling, and the earth stands still in its course, vague things lie behind this window, you and I, uneasy…

And it is the window, the view out there, one is forever focused upon—this space we seek, to see the soul within in a moment of independence, a moment of pure clarity, which in any life is but a fleeting glimpse of eternity before, again, one drifts inwards, into that reserved area of mystery we all occupy at one point. Indeed, the wind beckons.

We ponder the Great Unknown. Only, sometimes, as the saying goes, it ponders us, too. We ruminate over a true landmark in independent cinema marking its 40th anniversary in 2010 with a remastered-print screening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art on October 27. And thus, we celebrate Barbara Loden’s searing vision of the iconoclastic soul on a road trip through a season in hell in this edition of Hidden Flick, Wanda.

The late Loden was married to famed and controversial director Elia Kazan. She was an actress in a few traditional Hollywood productions before writing, directing, and starring as the title character in the 1970 film about a woman who gives up her children to her husband after a rather abrupt and quick divorce. With only the clothes on her body, a purse and a few dollars, Wanda takes to the open highway, and never quite looks back. Wanda is always moving forward. But, in many respects, despite her bold departure from her family, Wanda still clings to the ideal of the man who can make it all happen for her. To her slow realization, she learns that men are just as fucked up as women. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

[Originally Published: 10/26/2010]

Zelig, chameleon, “I’m 12 years old. I run into a Synagogue. I ask the Rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life. But, he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don’t understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me six hundred dollars for Hebrew lessons.”

Rich sounds of some subterranean nature, specifically the voice, guitars and drums as it flows in the design, a sublime addition to a fine piece of cinema, an engaging slice which subtly celebrates the hidden truths of daily sounds, shadowing an almost silent unheard music captured by the Masqued Wind and carried off to another breathtaking locale.

And within the Unheard Music, the silent sounds of the daily ritual that you and I share, we toil amongst ourselves, neither forgetting or acknowledging each other’s existence, until we are free…a moment and then nothing, glass shatters beyond this window and the earth winds to a halt. Beyond this window something unknown is watching you and me. There’s laughing inside, but we’re locked outside the public eye. X marked the spot.

We venture forth and move backwards through time and space. Most people are unaware that on the initial release of London Calling, The Clash’s landmark double album, their hit single, arguably the most commercial piece of old school ear candy the band would ever record, wasn’t even listed on the sleeve. Train in Vain appeared as a hidden track, the last song on side four, kicking in after Revolution Rock, and solidified the legendary status of the album and the band. The gesture also spoke volumes about the post-punk quartet’s confidence that a) they could record a cool, timeless track, and b) they didn’t need to shove the product down the consumer’s throat by highlighting its appearance.

This punk mentality definitely found a home on the West Coast of America, as well. Many punk bands flourished in their own artistic way in the 1970s and 80s, but arguably no other Los Angeles punk rockers had the enduring longevity as X. Indeed, 30 years on, they celebrate their anniversary with a holiday run beginning in December. Before each show, the band will screen a film, this week’s Hidden Flick, X: The Unheard Music.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

[Originally Published: May 11, 2010]

“I might choose not to risk my life for an uncertain cause. I might think that freedom won by death is not worth having. In fact…”

Yeah. I know. If you think I’m forgetting about writing about Heath Ledger, who stars in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as a truly fucked-up passenger on board the Quadruple-Faced Traveling Circus, you just need to tune in to the next edition of Hidden Flick, which will cross the line between the living and the dead—focusing on his final surreal role on the large cinema screen. An extraordinarily gifted actor gone too soon…lost to the sands of time…faraday…far, far away.

Ahhh…but we’re here for a special purpose, aren’t we? This is season four where everything gets weird. Hidden underneath it all, the three-seasoned layers of cinematic strange bliss is that feeling that something else is going on here—that a pursuit of the next film to see, that one little thing that will be so very interesting to a handful of heady peeps, is somehow not the point. The Cosmic Trickster at Play? Not content to talk about just one obscure gem, we are introducing a new concept: the hidden actor in our game. This special edition of Hidden Flick will focus on the work of an actor who first began his career peaking on a 1992 Subaru commercial, segued into a promising career as a lesser actor in major and indie works, before going superfuckingnova as Daniel Faraday in television’s LOST. Yes, this week is all about our Hidden Actor, Jeremy Davies.

Hang on. The film reel is spun…just like punk, ‘cept it’s cinematic.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Actor, Jeremy Davies…

[Originally Published: August 17, 2010]

For Mr. Marshall, who, when he heard I was penning this column a couple of years back, suggested this rather cleverly-written film as a possible Hidden Flick. Well, Big T, here it is at long last. Better late than tomorrow, eh? As always, the wordsmith was right.

And so the Merry Prankster hands me some dessert, which I appreciate since I’ve been eating salty food, and taking drinks from a monstrous soda, and jaysusHcrist!! When did Phish start playing a 45-minute Light?! This is bad ass porno funk, just like ‘97. Kneeling nearby, resting, at peace, content with the flow of the planets, and oblivious to nothing, her deep gaze resting upon me, forcing its own mysterious link, is a shy woman reading Krasznahorkai’s The Melancholy of Resistance. She smiles, I smile, and as I walk out through the in door, a tall and amiable lyricist follows, matching me stride for stride. We head to my European car—ever onwards, of course—to a destination he has plotted, as we shoot out towards Belgium, in our next edition of Hidden Flick, In Bruges.

Although In Bruges did minor business in the States, it garnered numerous international awards, and better box office overseas. Nee bother, of course. Who cares? We, of course, at the Hidden Flick factory are more interested in the hidden truths buried ‘neath the surface of these little celluloid gems, and buried below this little ‘two hitmen hide out in Burges, Belgium caper’ surface is a dark truth about humanity. What if one chooses the path of the cold-blooded, gun-for-hire, mercenary in a bloodless society, and someone who isn’t on The List, the Unholy Writ which Determines who is Slain and who Isn’t, gets nailed, tagged in the head with a stray bullet, and dies. Well, what if that innocent bystander is a child, a young boy, a young wandering soul with all his life, hopes, ambitions, dreams, and world-yet-to-be-conquered-aspirations still ahead of him?

Indeed, therein lies the entire surface details about the film co-starring Colin Farrell as the hapless upstart Irish hitman who runs way fucking afoul in his first job, killing a priest and a young boy, and also co-starring Brendan Gleeson, his senior hitman, and one who quickly takes him away to Bruges, Belgium, due to the specific instructions of their evil boss, Ralph Fiennes. The script is taut, pristine, profane, politically incorrect, and joyfully hilarious in every way. It is also sad, profound, dead right in wrong ways, and oddly reminiscent of what makes humans so divine and soulless all at the same time.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick, In Bruges…

[Originally Published: July 20, 2010]

In a room like this? With you? No way.

Way.

Warning: this edition is hidden in a game that features hedged bets (or is it hendged?).

If you’ve been with this trip this far, you know I don’t summarize, define, illuminate or underline the plot of a particular featured film. Instead, in glorious metaphysical critspeak, I see how the hidden truths of the written word, or sublime sound of the work, speaks to the multiple concepts of good and evil, time and space, and audio and visual.

Pretty much anything is possible here, and that is eerie, too, as the hypnotist, with perfect bedside manner, casually suggests, “Just imagine something pleasant.” And so he does—the universe inside and out…where some arrive, falling from a great post-progressive height, or is it Arriving Somewhere…yes, indeed, this week’s hidden Hidden Flick.

But …we’ve hidden our Hidden Flick in a hidden and dark trail of hidden clues, phishing for clues (Trickster God Alert), with dastardly false clues like a forest, filled with trees:

The ethereal pages of the mythical tome contains symbolic passages on certain pages, when translated into the correct series of words and imagery, that produce infinite levels of interdimensional conquests, and ultimately lead one back through the door, the Rhomboid vortex, indeed, back HOME.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…