Posts by Randy Ray

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…

…a desperate search, in a utopia that contained its own contradiction, product of a wish that at once went beyond art and found itself returned to it: “When freedom is practiced in a closed circle, it fades into a dream, becomes a mere representation of itself.”

As one travels through time and space, the layers of the hidden onion peel back, and one remembers the secret within. One takes on the skin of the chameleon like so many times before, and sheds everything old. There it is—the nut of it all. The pursuit of enlightenment yields ultra long periods of prologue and epilogue in one’s life, and the middle, the spine, the meat of the story of one’s life can often feel almost trapped in time and space, isolated from the history, the back story of the life led which resonates, and then drifts away, LOST, replaced by another…everything new is just a random portrait nearby. And on the passage of a few through a rather brief moment in time, it is up to you to find that hidden gem, that lost chord, that chameleon searching for a new language…

We close our Season 4 with a glance at an overlooked classic little film from the early 1980s and our final look at what we leave behind and what we take with us when we move far away from the shoreline of our dreams, look at ourselves in the mirror, a brief moment of reality check, and move forward with our free will intact as we look at the mockumentary with a sarcastic and stinging bite, Woody Allen’s Zelig.

First, let’s discuss reaching number 60 with Hidden Flick. Of course, some of these editions had multiple films being dissected and pondered over, so the total is probably closer to 75, but even 60 is mind boggling. I felt I’d cover 20 obscure films, and be done with it. There was zero planning, no idea whatsoever other than discussing the love of weird cinematic curios, and certainly not any philosophical intent whatsoever. Quite frankly, I began this little journey with two desires: I enjoy films and wanted to talk about them in a tight but loose fashion, and I wanted to write about films that were a little off the proverbial commercial beaten path. Hence, hidden flicks. Would I be entertaining? Uh…doubtful. I think my spin is all about “hey, WOW—I never thought about that,” and the pursuit of the Great Unknown. For better or worse, I jam, therefore I am.

READ ON for more of the Season 4 finale…

The Unheard Music, a song, as we set the trash on fire and watch outside the door, men come up the pavement under the marquee—there’s laughing inside; we’re locked outside the public eye…

We float along, often from one misfortune to the next, but, somehow, one envisions a time when our space will be tranquil and free. Until then, the road appears endless—vague things rise and fall on a mysterious path. Venturing forth, one ponders the hidden meaning of it all, and watches from afar, neither touching the earth, or tasting the sky.

And yet…there is something quite compelling about the search for something else, something greater than oneself, something hidden and mysterious, strange and surreal. In our sights, in this week’s edition of Hidden Flick, we explore the clash between man and nature, profane and sacred, chaos and calm, in The Wind Will Carry Us.

The film was written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami, and features the lush and glorious mountain terrain of a Kurdish village, which is visited by a Tehran film crew intent in documenting the unique burial ceremony of a dying 100-year old woman. The metropolitan needs of the city dwellers hit the patient life of the small community, and the two opposing forces (Western Corruption meets Eastern Spirituality?) slowly find a place in the middle to meet. Or so one is led to ponder with an ethereal sense of hope—can modern man truly understand the poetic so-called banalities of the simple life? Does one reach the point of no return in that unexpected quest to return from whence we came? READ ON for more on this week’s flick…

Wanda, proper noun, a “moment of independence” which implies a formidable time; sometimes refers to a reserved area of mystery.

One never knows what makes up the Rosebud moments of someone’s life. Even relatives may never enter the interiors of one’s onionesque inner mind, the window to the soul, in pursuit of the true moment which encapsulates everything into one tidy and neat little package. One cannot really define what it is that makes up someone’s life, but a film can often get pretty damned close, and that is the hidden truth in our continuing search for the pearl of wisdom here on our modest little quest to find something cinematically worthy.

A memory of where and when and how forever circling overhead, looping through time while gazing out upon eternity, out upon a distinct link between what space appears to be, and what it really is—a mysterious riddle consumed by the enormous weight of it all. And so we gaze beyond Time and Space as we take a look at this edition of Hidden Flick, Carlos Sorin’s La Ventana, or, in English, The Window, and it IS the window, the view out there, one is forever focused upon, in this film to seek, to find, to see the soul within.

After many flights of weirdness within the realm of numerous Kingdoms—audio, visual, and otherwise—it is time to feast one’s eyes and ears upon a subtle and deceptively simple little film. Indeed, at 77 minutes, The Window is one of Hidden Flick’s shortest entries in this four-season arc, thus far. But the rich gem helmed by an Argentine, starring a famous Uruguayan author, and filmed in the exquisitely beautiful Patagonian countryside, has one quickly wrapped up in its warm alchemical spell. Magic? Perhaps. But one is more apt to call this film a humble study of a man’s hidden thought-dreams.

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

window, n., a “window of opportunity” implies a favorable time; sometimes refers to a reserved area of memory.

Restart Riget. Roll camera. Take #2.

Wicked insanity…wandering, always wandering down the halls through the hidden catacombs of these theatres of the mind, trailing off from Belgium, and back to Denmark, and back into the rooms from whence we came, looking out into the universe, inside and out, beyond the Window, la Ventana of the soul, beyond Time and Space, as we slide into a concluding glance at the final four hours of a two-part Danish television series.

One is forced to think about man’s place in the universe and why, incredibly, one truly needs to forget all of the philosophical adventures and “What does it all mean?” ignorant posturing, and just get on with Life…even if there are ghosts in your hospital. Enlightenment and Immortality aren’t goals; they are merely signposts on the path towards the Kingdom. We have come so far on this strange film expedition, but also appear as humble psychic urchins on a little celluloid adventure. To view the universe inside out? To see the Kingdom through the eyes of a child? Ahh…but, we are talking about a truly fucked-up place in this week’s Hidden Flick, Riget II.

Trapped in Space–Part II~>

~ – fully-segmented; teases of past and future excerpts dropped into the present edition, a Hidden Flick mashup circling overhead, while wandering in place, and gazing upon a request, a sign written in Greek, translated into English, outside the Theatre window:

“DIGRESSATORY DELAY LOOP JAM”

Created by Lars von Trier, and co-directed by the controversial filmmaker and Morten Arnfred, the eight-part Danish television series from 1994 (Part I) and 1997 (Part II), ventured into the realm of ghosts, noodle illness, terminal diseases, the mentally challenged as sage storytellers, and a fixation on demented weirdness for its own sake. You know—your usual banquet of essential ingredients for a Flick in Season 4 of our little romp through the international cinematic wormhole of movie madness. Oh, and, as mentioned, the gloves are off—sometimes, these editions will feature work that is covered on the small screen, albeit on a very wide canvas such as this eight-hour beast.

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

I walked through the doorway, and was hit by the sound of a Porcupine Tree song:

All my designs, simplified

And all of my plans, compromised

Further down the hallway of the grand interior of what looked like the brain-damaged home of the owner of the Hidden Theatre, I spotted the instructions to a game that never seemed to exist:

The door opens at the Rhombus, and Colonel Forbin, an aging military man, his best years fading away into the past, sees a chance in the magical land of Gamehendge for a complete state of renewal. He can also save Gamehendge, the land of the enslaved Lizards, from Wilson, the evil King of Prussia, defeat its enemies, and get a girl by solving puzzles through acts of mental and physical discovery, finding the Key to It All, and taking part in a series of epic battles.

Further along, I walked into what looked like a refurbished hospital room. Simplified, I appeared to be in some lost kingdom, a lost continent, with hidden and lost secrets, which only games, wedded to music, could explain. Alas, there were no games, no music, just a film flickering on the wall of this room. Further down, further along, I sat down to gaze at its cryptic images amidst a counterpoint of harmonies, heavy and soft, tight but loose. Ahh…sweet strands with a clenched fist that always seems to play as if its palm is open, allowing melodies and ideas to drift away from the original point, the original note, and the Zeppelin flies onwards in this week’s Hidden Flick, Werckmeister Harmonies.

Co-directed by Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky, and written by László Krasznahorkai, the 2000 film was made in Hungary, and details a small town in that Central European country. János Valuska, played with quiet simplicity and engaging pathos by Lars Rudolph, wanders a town seared by the presence of a bizarre and evil traveling circus that has served to undermine the convictions of its citizens, while derailing the curiously innocent view of the universe held by Valuska, a man intent in finding the sane in an insane universe. Trickster God? Not sure. But this film espouses a powerful theory about one as embodied by the mysterious Prince, who entrances and horrifies the townsfolk. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

“Hen til al hvem vil ikke lytte , al er lydløs.” – To all whom will not listen, all is silent.

Restart Game. Roll camera. Take #51.

One is forced to think about man’s place in the universe and why, incredibly, one truly needs to forget all of the philosophical adventures and “What does it all mean?” ignorant posturing, and just get on with Life…even if there are ghosts in your hospital. Enlightenment and Immortality aren’t goals; they are merely signposts on the path towards the Kingdom. We have come so far on this strange film expedition, but also appear as humble psychic urchins on a little celluloid adventure. To view the universe inside out? To see the Kingdom through the eyes of a child? Ahh…but, we are talking about a truly fucked-up place in this week’s Hidden Flick, Part I of Riget.

Created by Lars von Trier, and co-directed by the controversial filmmaker and Morten Arnfred, the eight-part Danish television series from 1994 (Part I) and 1997 (Part II), ventured into the realm of ghosts, noodle illness, terminal diseases, the mentally challenged as sage storytellers, and a fixation on demented weirdness for its own sake. You know—your usual banquet of essential ingredients for a Flick in Season 4 of our little romp through the international cinematic wormhole of movie madness. Oh, and, as mentioned, the gloves are off—sometimes, these editions will feature work that is covered on the small screen, albeit on a very wide canvas such as this eight-hour beast.

If you’ve been with us this far, you know I don’t summarize, define, illuminate, or underline the plot or storyline of a particular featured film. Instead, in glorious metaphysical critspeak, I see how the film relates to our modern times, and how the hidden truths of the written word, or sublime subtitle, or astute actor, or determined and focused director (“hey, you screwed up the alliteration”…yes, yes I did), and how that work speaks to the multiple concepts of good and evil, and time and (wait for it) space.

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

Roll camera…

Screen Test: 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 4, 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 with even a slight mention on the sleeve.

Opening Credit…(cue Albany’s Seven Below>Ghost)

To my talented, tireless, and terrific friend and editor Scott Bernstein who graciously agreed to an idea, which was merely an unknown area that sounded vaguely interesting. Luckily, Scotty’s faith created a mission to dig underneath the pile to find some pearls.

Of course, it didn’t always work. But, hell, don’t blame Scotty. He only asked one thing. And to his credit, he hasn’t brought it up since: “Turn in the work before it is due to run.” That proved difficult. Like some writers, especially a music writer (writing about music? Really? Music?), I wait for the moment of epiphany to arrive. But, Jesus wept, it seems to arrive at the last minute. Shit, man—I’ve had some “last minute moments” that were horrible. Try writing an important piece, stuck in a media trailer, while Kanye West is going on late, I mean LATE, playing like Zeppelin in Your Living Room LOUD, and you don’t have a single clue what you are writing about. That’s been my daily existence for the past several years. Yeah, but those lost moments pass; foolishly, one utters: onwards!

THAT idea…and the eccentric columns that followed, searching, always searching for buried gems made me realize that I was often writing about films that people may have already seen if they were a) cool, b) strange, c) led rock star hours, d) had really shite taste, or e) all of the above, but I thought there may be some hidden truth that needed to be pondered on the edge of its celluloid existence. You know…so it can give us a wee bit of wisdom, or make a mark on our collective questioning existentialist group soul as all of that somehow paved the way to keep moving forward with this thing because we don’t know fuck all where we are going, do we? Yeah, we do this time as the Royal We knock on the door of the 50th edition, and enter within its long and dark chambers, awaiting the good word on what we have found in our search for lost cinematic treasures in our special anniversary of Hidden Flick. Suffice to say, it required patience through quite a bit of improvising before one got to that sweet spot. And for that, I dedicate this to Scotty.

Let it roll…

Flash 1: What do Jerry Garcia, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Luis Bunuel and Neil Gaiman have in common? Well, they all in some way are connected with a film made by a Polish director set in the Spanish Inquisition about the surreal adventures of a soldier who has found an ancient manuscript during the Napoleonic Wars. Oh, and the film was based upon a novel written in Spanish by a legendary Polish writer and adventurer, Count Jan Potocki at the turn of the 19th century—crazed mystics help to narrate the sweet wreckage drenched in ghost stories, bent royalty, and seductively demonic women. The film by Wojciech Has is The Saragossa Manuscript and it is a wild jaunt through incredible scenes of such mind-blowing cleverness that one is drawn deeper down the rabbit hole into a rich maze of tales within a tale within an overall twisted myth.

READ ON for more greatest hits from the first 49 columns…

“Ingen mer Mr. Trevlig Stöttan!”

The best comment I ever heard about improvisation actually came from Phish keyboardist Page McConnell when he very simply stated that if the band had not been venturing out into the Great Unknown for 15 minutes, they would not have reached that point where everyone was in sync, a new form of music was being created on the spot and the entire audience was part of that process. There are numerous examples from a 20-plus year career where Phish did, indeed, find this passage of space after the 10- or 12- or McConnell-branded 15-minute demarcation mark. Suffice to say, it required the band and fan to be patient through quite a bit of improvising before one got to that sweet spot.

Ahh…but we get ahead of ourselves, and so close to the 50th edition of our little south bound saurez. Like some homeless, eccentric genius with an inability to find a purpose, or a way to fit into modern society, after centuries of peddling his interests for the elites and unwashed masses in various timeframes and locales, she finds herself, the very face of her being, changed and altered for a modern audience. What if someone’s temporal core remained somewhat constant, but the scenery changed as the calendar pages flew from the wall like some mad cartoonish time travel of a different sort? An interesting question to ponder in this edition of Hidden Flick as we investigate the masks worn by someone who never appears to age, let alone lose the ability to adapt with the times in the wonderful stream-of-consciousness-enriched Orlando.

The film is based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of an individual who lives through centuries of experience—the first half of his life as a man, and the second half, a woman. And you thought you had problems figuring out the opposite sex. Imagine being both, AND being somewhat of a fucking immortal without the craving for blood like some regal vampire. Well, our tricky little beast turns 49 this edition, and the penchant for improvised conceptual continuity throughout season 4 of Hidden Flick kicks into high gear, as we now look at not only time and space, but the eternal battle of the sexes.

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

“Hen til al hvem vil ikke lytte , al er lydløs.”

Through the mirror. Surreal reel begins…just like magic, ‘cept it’s visual gymnastics.

The Joker dangles upside down, taunting and mocking the so-called hero in his final scene. In Heath Ledger’s next film (and his last), his entrance into the film portrays a near exit out of existence, as he dangles from a rope from a bridge; this time, feet down. Ledger finds a way, with the help of two talented filmmakers, to join an idea—indeed, his cinematic coda represents an almost in-through-the-out-door transcendence.

But, I symbolize.

After struggling with how to define Jeremy Davies, one looks at the film career of the late Heath Ledger, and sees that same dilemma. Are these actors pondering metaphysical questions, or are they just human beings looking for answers by playing a part to feel more normal? What the fuck is normal, anyway? What the fuck IS life, anyway? Did Ledger have an answer? Reach for the pearl too soon? Syd Barrett in disguise—a madman posing as a genius? Ahhh…that dirty old question…questioned and beaten up and tossed about in our next go-around as we gaze upon the latest masterpiece, a late-career, much-needed comeback by another curious soul and a true friend to the weird: Terry Gilliam, in this edition of Hidden Flick, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

“I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… [takes off his mask] stranger.”

…transformed into another image, and another drifting away, without beginning, or end, to always be, and not knowing what to do next, trapped in time, and fading into the mists of history, a glimpse of blissful eternity…

Ahhh…eternity, we’ve hit upon that word. Again. THAT word, buried below, like some lost remnant on an island where time has no meaning; and space, even less, just the two concepts engaged in immortal combat, as it were, with each other. Climb aboard as we venture out there into eternal bliss (or, is it madness?) in the first episode of the fourth season, and a nod back to the final episode of the third season, with a journey through the American version of a science fiction novel written by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris.

Transformed into another image, this film was produced by James “I’m King of the World” Cameron betwixt his minor Kate y Leo celluloid ride upon the waves of joyful rompery before remembering that they are, in fact, on the tragic Titanic (didn’t they see the movie? Didn’t they hear about the iceberg?), and a tiny 3-D science fiction docudrama called Avatar, starring an evil jarhead, the cool Latino chick from LOST, a miscast Ripley Weaver, and a bunch of little fairies and birds that are quite fascinating to watch when a) high, and b) catching the overwrought film on a towering 26-story screen.

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

Season Four of Hidden Flick – our look at underrated films from a variety of periods and genres – kicks off in just two short weeks. On April 27, Randy Ray will be back to fill you in the best movies you may not have heard of that would make wonderful additions to your NetFlix queue. Since Roger Waters just announced the dates for his tour in which he’ll be performing The Wall in its entirety, we bring you a Wall-themed Hidden Flick column from 2009…

[Originally Published: September 1, 2009]

This fall marks the 30th anniversary of The Wall, Pink Floyd’s landmark album of loss, depression, and, ultimately, total isolation from reality. The seminal work featured Roger Waters at his zenith as a conceptual artist and also, sadly and inevitably, brought an end to the band, lumbering on for just one more album, The Final Cut, with their leader.

Of course the Floyd continued on without Waters, but that is an old story for another time, and one that was rather appropriately amended by the Live 8 reunion in 2005 of the classic quartet one last time before Richard Wright’s passing on September 15, 2008.

Alas, this column is not completely about Waters, Gilmour, Mason, Wright, and Floyd, nor their fictional wall for that matter. This week’s Hidden Flick is really about a 2001 German film called Der Tunnel, and it is based on a true story about those that constructed a tunnel underneath the wall separating a divided Germany so citizens could escape from the Soviet regime governing the East. It is also about what it’s like to be an existentialist who hasn’t faced such horrors, and yet one still feels the deep pain within.

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