Thursday, December 30, 2010

Hannah and Her Sisters

I didn't really care too much for the main plot of this movie. Who is Hannah anyway? Well, it's Mia Farrow, isn't it? But I mean, really, she doesn't seem to be much of a titular character. But she's got these sisters, see, and a husband and an ex-husband and they seem to be of much more interest than Hannah.

What is interesting is that Woody plays Mia's ex. I figure that in real life they were still together at this point. But even Michael Cane who plays Mia's current husband is adultrous after four years of marriage. Four years, incidentally, is how long Woody and Mia have been making movies (euphemistically?) together.*

Mia's husband has an affair with her sister. Another sister is struggling to make it on her own. These all sound like recycled plot devices. And they are.

But what I did find compelling about this movie was the secondary plot, which also is a recycling of old material. It centers on Woody's character called "the hypochondriac" who, after a series of false alarms, thinks he finally actually has a brain tumor. To come to terms with his imminent death, he joins a series of religions unsuccesfully. Finally he decides to kill himself. Guess what? He doesn't. But what he does do is go and see a Marx Brothers movie and makes this statement:

"I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get and just enjoy it while it lasts."

A classic Woody Allen-ism. But what it has to do with the rest of the movie, I don't know.

I give it maybe just shy of three stars.

*Some other facts of possible interest are that Mia Farrow did have twins with her first husband, and the adopted children in the movie are played by her actual adopted children. So, it makes you wonder, when Hannah gets upset over her sister lifting aspects of her private life for a play, if some of that isn't how Mia actually feels re: Woody.

Purple Rose of Cairo

It's the Depression and Mia Farrow is having a bad time of it. Her husband is lousy to her, she's no good at her job and the only solace she finds is at the movie theater.

It is there that she goes to lose herself. But one of the characters of the film is so drawn to her that he leaves the screen and enters the real world.

She wants to leave behind her real problems and he wants to leave his fake world. They meet somewhere in the middle.

But then the movie can't go on and the actor who played him gets involved and tricks Mia into falling in love with him.

She has to make a decision: stay in the perfect world of the movies with a fictional character or take a chance on a real person. She chooses the real.

The movie character goes back into the film and is destroyed and the actor leaves Mia.

She is left alone and her husband tells her: "It ain't the movies. It's real life."

And so what does she do? She goes to the movie theater.



This was the first movie I associated with Woody Allen before I knew who he was. And for a while (right up until I watched it just now), I thought it was boring.

But I think it's a really great homage, not just to movies, but to the act of watching movies.

I think this film goes a little further into Woody's idea about the nature of film being a place to right the wrongs of life. Because it offers the flip side of that coin. That no matter how perfectly you might fix things in a movie, you can't live there.

But it is always there as a consolation.

I think I might give it four stars.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Broadway Danny Rose

I've been remiss in my reviewing duties by not mentioning Mia Farrow.

Her character in this movie is probably my favorite of her roles, mostly because she plays against type.

At some point, I might like to do a comparison of Diane Keaton vs. Mia Farrow. But not now.

Broadway Danny Rose feels like a subtly different kind of movie for Woody Allen. It has the same humor and the same aesthetics, the same themes. But something about it feels different.

Danny Rose is a personal manager, not to the stars but to acts such as a one-armed juggler, a balloon folder, a bad ventriloquist, and a has-been crooner.

It is with the latter that this movie concerns itself. Danny Rose does everything for his clients. His faith in them is off the charts and he would do anything to further their careers. So when the crooner asks that the woman he is having an affair with be brought to an important gig, Rose agrees to be his "beard."

Hijinks ensue.

Danny Rose gives Mia his philosophy, but I think it is also Woody's to us. "We all want what we can't have," he says, which is definitely a theme of most of his movies. But why do we do that? He has a theory on that too. "It's important to have some laughs, no question about it. But you got to suffer a little bit too, because otherwise you miss the whole point of life."

The final scene is similar to the final scene in Manhattan: he's literally chasing after the girl. But unlike in Manhattan, he gets the girl in the end. It's one of the few happy endings in Woody Allen's career.

I like this movie. I think it's one of Allen's overlooked films, but I'm not sure why. I give it 3 3/4 stars.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Zelig

Leonard Zelig is a man who can apparently change his physical appearance and mannerisms to mimic those around him. He is known as the chameleon who wants so badly to be liked and to assimilate that he transforms himself over and over. And then there is a backlash against him but he proves himself.

It isn't a stretch of the imagination to see this movie as a metaphor for Allen's career. He mimics great directors in order to become one. After all, in Zelig, Allen has literally inserted himself in pre-existing stock footage. He continually reinvents himself on the screen and uses the template of those who have gone before him. He is celebrated and criticized, but as Saul Bellow says in his interview, "It is his disorder that saves him."

I think Zelig is an interesting idea but not a very good movie. It gets a little boring even running at 80 minutes. It probably would have been better as a short.
 
I give it three stars.

Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy

This is Shakespeare by way of Woody Allen. I've never read the play, so I don't know how far afield Woody goes, but it seems to be fairly well appropriated. It feels like a Woody Allen movie.

A trio of couples are spending the weekend at a house in the pastoral countryside. One of the couples is married, another is about to get married and the third aren't even considering it. Hijinks ensue. This is probably one of my least favorite movies from the 80's of Woody's.

So, in lieu of delving into what all maybe delvable in this film, I give you this nifty chart:

Stardust Memories

It's the 1980's and Diane Keaton has been dropped like a hot potato that has been held for six years.

Stardust Memories is filmed in the style of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 and Allen uses the form as a mirror. In the movie, Allen plays a director going to a screening of his earlier, funnier works. There are a lot of sound bytes that could easily have been lobbed at Allen himself. They are either self-criticism or the recycling of media critics. He is pretentious, he is narcissistic, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's a genius. And then also the romantic aspect where his character is caught in a revolving door of women.

"Should I change my movie? Should I change my life?" Woody asks toward the middle of the film. And it does seem, more than almost any other director, that Woody Allen lives his life through his films. He can't seem to escape the fact that he keeps repeating -- that art is the chance to control what you can't control in life.

I don't know how much the failed relationship in the movie reflects his failed relationship with Diane Keaton, but it is clear that Woody has no intentions of letting failure keep him from moving on.

In Manhattan, Mariel Hemingway gives Woody a harmonica, and in this movie, Charlotte Rampling gives him a flute. I wonder if this is supposed to be symbolic. But I have to be careful with reading into things too much lest I become like the snobs analyzing his films in the movie:
"What do you think the significance of the Rolls Royce was?"
"I think it symbolized his car."

Sometimes you just have to appreciate something for what it is, without trying to dig around in its psyche for hidden meanings.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Manhattan

Manhattan, the last of Woody Allen's movies to be made in the seventies, is probably my favorite. It is a gorgeous film to watch. I've probably seen that movie more often than any of his others. But when I watch it, some things bother me about the plot.

The first line of the movie is given by Allen's friend, Yale: "I think the essence of art is to produce a kind of working through-situation so that you can get in touch with feelings you didn't know you had."

What feelings does Woody Allen have? Is there any new ground being covered here?

The plot is basically that Woody Allen is dating a 17 year old girl for reasons unknown. He continually discourages her, which makes you wonder why he started seeing her in the first place. And then his friend introduces him to his mistress played by Diane Keaton. At first she seems to be annoying, snobbish and opinionated. Which makes her a perfect mate for Allen. They start seeing each other. And then things fall apart.

Allen breaks up with the seventeen year old but then Diane Keaton and Yale get back together and Allen regrets having left the seventeen year old and goes after her. I mean, it is really easy to write this off as neuroses. Allen has problems. He likes younger women. We'll see it over and over in the future, not only in his films but real life.

There is this wonderful scene towards the end where he is giving a list of all of the things that make life worth living. And this time around, when I watched it, I picked up on the opening phrase that got him talking about that stuff. He's recording himself, taking notes for a short story idea. And he says that it is about how people invent neuroses to keep themselves from facing life's larger problems. And maybe that is what Woody is doing. But if that is what he is doing, you'd think he'd be cured by now.

Another big scene of the movie takes place a little earlier where he confronts Yale. Yale is accusing Allen of being too perfect, like a saint. But Allen is saying that all he wants is to be thought well of. Which I don't get from him at all. I don't buy that he is a generally moral person and I don't beleive that he does either. He is a hedonist. He thinks with his body and whatever works, to borrow from a later film, he will do to give himself pleasure.

So, having said all of this, why do I like this movie? Or, to take the focus off myself, what is the redeeming quality? I don't know. It's more than just a beautiful film with a great soundtrack. It has something to do with the ending, probably. He's just realized he's ruined a perfectly good relationship and runs (literally) after Mariel Hemingway and when he sees her in the doorway, "She's Not For Me" by Gershwin starts playing. And it is so sad because Allen has started this pattern in his movies where he does not get the girl.

But, he's looking almost straight at the camera when Mariel gives the last line of the movie: "You have to have a little faith in people."

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Interiors

After Annie Hall, Woody Allen delved even further into the dramatic by getting rid of all humor whatsoever. To achieve this, he's even taken himself out of the picture and painted an internal, drab world of a single family.

The first two and a half minutes are silent, punctuated by the father's words: "I had dropped out of law school when I met Eve [his wife]." And thereafter, changes would be marked by a break of the film's rules. The first external shot occurs after the mother attempts suicide. The first person to wear any kind of color (and it's a bright red) is the father's new lover. And the first sound of music to be heard is after the father remarries. At the end of the movie, after the mother walks into the ocean, the film returns to the beginning. It is silent for almost five minutes, the scenes are indoors and everyone (even the father's new wife) is wearing black.

Woody Allen seems to be at a crossroads. He wants to change and challenge himself. You sense that he is speaking through his characters when they say things like, "These feelings of futility in relation to my work, I mean, just what am I striving to create anyway? To what end? For what purpose? What goal? " and, "I feel a real need to express something, but I don't know what it is I want to express. Or how to express it."

Unfortunately, I don't think this film is the answer. It tries too hard. It is over the top. Everyone is expressing exactly what they are thinking and feeling. Maybe it was cathartic for Allen to make the movie, but it was depressing to watch.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall is the quintessential Woody Allen movie. One might argue that it is the first Woody Allen movie. Here, I'll argue it.

When I say it is the first Woody Allen movie, it is like saying a story by Kafka is Kafkaesque. It goes beyond the mere fact that it was made by the person and instead indicates that it has all the inherent aspects of everything we have come to know about them and their worldview. Annie Hall is the archetype from which the rest of Woody Allen's career will flow. It has the sucessful urban intellectual, the failed romance with a younger female, the male confidant. For the first time he is taking himself, his material and filmmaking seriously. Of course, his previous movies were good. But they felt like jokes. Even Love and Death, which was really well-made, at times felt more like a vehicle for laughs. Annie Hall is a funny movie. I think it's usually found in the comedy section. But I think of it more as a drama. Because the jokes are services to the plot and not the other way around. I think the people at the Academy Awards must have known these things even then, because Annie Hall is Woody Allen's only Oscar best picture win.

Despite all of the above, I don't like it as much as everyone else seems to. I felt it lost steam about the time Paul Simon comes on the screen and never regains it.

At the end of the movie, Alvie Singer (Woody Allen's character) has just lost what was probably his one true love. He writes an autobiographical play about it and at the end of the play the two main characters make up and stay together. "You're always trying to get things to come out perfectly in art, because it's real difficult in life," Allen says. Which is strange because Annie Hall is Woody Allen's art form but he doesn't make it end up with the traditionally perfect ending of boy gets girl.

I think that ideally, Annie Hall is a really good movie, maybe a perfect movie. I just prefer watching some of his other ones.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Love and Death

Boris is in love with his cousin when France declares war on Russia. It gives Woody Allen and Diane Keaton an opportunity to wax philosophically about God, morality, and wheat.

In case you didn't know, Woody Allen loves Ingmar Bergman. There are at least two allusions to Bergman films in Love and Death. It makes sense as the great Swede also plummed the depths of religious quanderies such as God's silence.

But L&D is also an immaculate period piece. Sure, it's peppered with jokes. But, like Allen said in Sleeper, it's a defence mechanism. Who can look death in the face without a joke or two?

I give this movie somewhere between four and four and a half stars.

Here is an example of how watching a movie is different from remembering it. Because I think watching Love and Death is perhaps a better experience than Sleeper. Although, when I reflect on both, I like Sleeper better. Sleeper's high points are higher than Love and Death's, whereas Love and Death is more consistently fine.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Sleeper

The opening sequence is beginning to look more like Allen's signature with jazz and stark white credits on a black screen.

Miles Monroe, a health food store owner and clarinetist, is cryogenically frozen after complications getting an ulcer removed and is awoken 200 years later.

This is one of my favorite Woody Allen movies of this era, complete with robots, flying packs, orgasmatrons and the debut of Diane Keaton.

Sleeper is sort of similar to Bananas in that the hero travels far (in this case, through time) and winds up working on the behalf of underground rebels to overthrow a government.

I wonder what exactly Allen had in mind. Because at the end of the movie Diane Keaton says something like "You don't believe in science or political systems. You don't believe in God. What do you believe in?"

To which Allen replies, "Sex and death." Which is the perfect segue into his next movie.

Everything You Wanted to Kow about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Sort of maybe based loosely on the book of the same name, Woody illustrates the answers to common sex questions with vignettes. Questions include: do aphrodisiacs work, what happens during erection and what is sodomy?

Occasionally humorous, this movie does more to solidify Woody's obsession with sex as nature's ameliorator. Probably the only thing this movie is known for is him dressed as a sperm.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Some Movies I liked from 2005-2009

Not too long ago, a friend of mine was asking for movie recommendations because she hadn't watched anything in the last five years being busy with raising her family. So I wrote this for her.

2005

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Sort of a comedy film noir with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. People like to trace RDJ’s comeback to Iron Man, but it was this movie that first got me to reconsider him.

Murderball
Documentary about paraplegics who play a version of rugby.

Paradise Now
Two Palestinians are chosen to be suicide bombers. I didn’t think I was going to like this movie because I'm not very politically interested in the issues at hand. However I was won over by the daily details of the human story.

Man Push Cart
A heartrending story of a guy who owns one of those hot dog type places just trying to make good in difficult circumstances.

The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Very similar to The Story of the Weeping Camel by the same director. A quotidian look at Mongolian life with the barest pretenses of a plot.

Tiger and the Snow
I love Roberto Benigni. I’m not just saying that for no reason. He directed and acted in this movie. It is an homage to the power of love and poetry and Tom Waits in a cruel and war-torn world.


2006

Little Miss Sunshine
I think I loved this movie because it stars such a panoply of failures. “Divorce? Bankrupt? Suicide? You’re fucking losers!” as Paul Dano’s character succinctly puts it. And despite that, it is funny and charming and a total sleeper hit.

The Fall
I think Dayna Papaleo [movie critic] described this movie as being a cross between Wizard of Oz and The Princess Bride. She probably said other things about it but the basic idea of storytelling and mythical surrealities are what drive this movie.

Volver
This is pretty much the only Pedro Almodovar movie I can stand. And I’m not even sure why. Penelope Cruz was excellent.

Paprika
If you’re not on drugs when watching this movie, you won’t need to be. A cornucopia of color and surrealism meant to tap into the subconscious language of dreams. Don't worry about plot. Just sit back and let your mind bake.

The Bridge
Documentary footage of people actually committing suicide off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. At first blush it sounds unethical. And probably at twenty-fifth blush it still seems like a bad idea to make and release such a movie. And yet here I am recommending it.


2007

No Country for Old Men
I wasn’t going to see this movie but a friend of mine, David Langley, called me a bad name and told me to just do it. Ok, David, you were right.

Blades of Glory
After watching NCforOM, you may need to lighten up a bit and why not go for a Napoleon Dynamite (whatever his real name is) and Will Ferrell tag team comedy about a male-on-male figure-skating duo?

Eagle vs. Shark
Speaking of Napoleon Dynamite, here’s another movie along the same lines. Starring Flight of the Conchord’s Jemaine Clement, this dead-pan comedy is definitely quirky.

Darjeeling Limited
Underappreciated Wes Anderson flick. I saw it nine times in the theater. Maybe that’s what’s required to start picking up on how cool it is, but I don't think so.

Lars and the Real Girl
Mislabeled as a comedy, on paper it sounds funny. Shy guy orders sex doll and passes it off as a real woman. But this isn’t a funny movie. It is good though.

Control
Further plunging down the depressive hole is this not exactly bio-pic of Joy Division. Not only is it interesting for “factual” info regarding a cool band, but it’s a decent movie film-wise.

King of Kong
Ok, let’s have a little levity again. This documentary follows players of that classic arcade game, King Kong, trying to establish a new record high score. It is both pathetic and fascinating.


2008
The Dark Knight
To all those fools who said that Heath Ledger only got an Oscar because he died, I pose the following question: where was Bernie Mac’s Oscar for Soul Men? There are some things about Dark Knight that make it less than perfect but Heath’s performance more than makes up for them.

Let the Right One in
Going up directly against Twilight, this vampire movie has (at least) one thing Twilight doesn’t: it’s Swedish!

Sunshine Cleaning
I really liked this movie but I can't quite specify what I liked about it. It had a sort of Little Miss Sunshine feeling (same producer, same Alan Arkin) but different.

Synecdoche NY
Phillip Seymour Hoffman had a nice little run and this movie may have killed it. This was Charlie Kauffman's (writer of Being John Malkovitch, Adaptation) directorial debut and you can tell he really wanted to make a splash without diverging from his typical themes of existentialism and navel-gazing.

Religulous
I've never found Bill Maher to be funny. More annoying. However in this documentary, I think he’s really trying to reign it in just a tad (not always successfully). He takes a look at the big three religions (Xianity, Jewdiocity and Muslimism). It’s both insightful and funny.

Baghead
Here’ an underrated movie that slipped under the radar. Filmed in low-budget Blair Witch style, this meta movie documents the filming of a low-budget Blair Witch style horror movie. There’s a lot of sitting around and talking but it also has a pretty cool denouement.


2009


The Informant
I read one review calling this movie a fat Bourne Identity. Be that as it may, Matt Damon has some really great lines in this corporate espionage (maybe a bit misleading) I-wouldn’t-call-it-a-thriller.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson breaks the mold by not only making an adaptation (of a Roald Dahl book) but also by using stop animation instead of live actors. Despite these breaks from tradition, Anderson manages to completely own this movie. It is simultaneously nothing like and exactly the same as everything else he has made.

Paper Heart
Quirky faux documentary about an awkward girl searching for love in all the wrong places (not really). I heart Michael Cera.

District 9
Sort of a surprise for me because I was expecting a Hollywood effect-a-thon (which it was), but it also managed to be The-Office-like funny. And on top of that there was a kind of post-colonial social commentary.

Star Trek
Somehow managed to both heavily reference the original Star Trek oeuvre without clinging to its coattails. I have to admit, I had long, nerdy talks abut the ramifications of its plot points.

Moon
What better person to round out this year’s deluge of awesome science fiction than the Star Man David Bowie’s son? This debut has conscious nods to such classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris. But, once again, paying tribute without being completely unoriginal.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Bananas

Fielding Melish falls for a female activist and in order to win her love goes over to San Marcos where he gets involved with the revolution going on there.

If this sounds like a turn to the serious for Allen, just know that the movie starts out with Howard Cosell giving a play-by-play narration of the assassination of a South American dictator.

Like in Take the Money and Run, Allen pits the serious against the funny. Unfortunately, I feel that the serious aspects are overshadowing. They don't work as harmoniously with the jokes as his first movie. Most of the funniest scenes have nothing to do with the plot. Like his dream of being carried on a crucifix by monks who get into a skirmish with similarly crucifix-carrying monks trying to parallel park.

There are a few little homages to various other movies like Modern Times and The Battleship Potemkin. But otherwise, not an entirely intersting movie. I might give it three stars.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Take the Money and Run

The first movie I watched was Take the Money and Run. I chose not to watch What's Up Tiger Lily? because, although it was Allen's directorial debut, it is not a traditional film. He is not in it. He bought the rights to another movie and overdubbed it with his own script. It is really funny though and I would recommend it. The real reason I didn't watch it was because it wasn't at the library and every time I went to the rental store it was checked out already.

Take the Money and Run is Woody Allen's first real movie. It brings into contrast the hard-boiled crime drama like Dragnet and Allen's portrayal of bumbling ineptitude. This probably isn't the first instance of such a pairing, and it definitely isn't the last.

He makes use of stock footage and interviews to build up the reality of the straight lines and then introduces zany takes off of them. There is this one scene that could be straight out of Cool Hand Luke with a chain gang that runs away. You see them being chased by bloodhounds and then in the next frame five out of six of the gang members are riding bicycles, with Woody running in between them holding his chains up.

If I were to attempt to isolate a theme or message, it might have something to do with religion and sex. But that might be with the foreknowledge of his later work. He does couple the idea of God and being beaten a few times. Also he has his first idyllic woman who will rescue him. Allen doesn't believe in spiritual salvation, only temporary physical salvation in the arms of a beautiful woman.

And, of course, this movie is the birth of his nebbish character. "Unable to fit in with any aspect of his environment," the narrator describes Allen's character, Virgil Starkwell. He is a victim much more than a criminal.

On the whole, I feel that this is one of Allen's forgotten films. Out of five stars, I give it three and a half.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Woody Allen Project

After watching Woody Allen's latest movie, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, I decided I wanted to watch all of the movies he directed in chronological order. There's like 46 of them and I've already seen them all. I'm hoping to sort of plot out his themes and style. I want to find out why I keep watching his movies despite the fact that they've been accused of being formulaic and repetitious. I also want to point out which ones I think are worth viewing and which ones can be skipped. Maybe there will be other lessons learned along the way.
For those of you watching at home, here is the list in reverse chronological order:

2011 Midnight in Paris
2010 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
2009 Whatever Works
2008 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2007 Cassandra's Dream
2006 Scoop
2005 Match Point
2004 Melinda and Melinda
2003 Anything Else
2002 Hollywood Ending
2001 The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
2000 Small Time Crooks
1999 Sweet and Lowdown
1998 Celebrity
1997 Deconstructing Harry
1996 Everyone Says I Love You
1995 Mighty Aphrodite
1994 Don't Drink the Water (TV movie)
1994 Bullets Over Broadway
1993 Manhattan Murder Mystery
1992 Husbands and Wives
1991 Shadows and Fog
1990 Alice
1989 Crimes and Misdemeanors
1989 New York Stories (segment "Oedipus Wrecks")
1988 Another Woman
1987 September
1987 Radio Days
1986 Hannah and Her Sisters
1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo
1984 Broadway Danny Rose
1983 Zelig
1982 A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
1980 Stardust Memories
1979 Manhattan
1978 Interiors
1977 Annie Hall
1975 Love and Death
1973 Sleeper
1972 Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask
1971 Bananas
1969 Take the Money and Run
1966 What's Up, Tiger Lily?

Friday, October 8, 2010

Dark Entrails

This weekend I was camping in a cabin in the Poconos. While I was there I found a book in one of the closets. It was an unsettling book called Dark Entrails. I think it might have been by D. F. Lewis, but I'm not sure.
It starts out on a rainy night with a girl giving birth in her basement. She is ten years old. The rain seeps through the walls and floods the basement, carrying the baby away. The baby is just a conglomeration of bones and skin. It is more of a flesh boat than a human.


There isn't so much of a plot as a series of snapshots like a jaded news reporter taking photographs in the wake of some hideous and inconceivable crime.

The girl crawls through a sewer pipe dragging her teddy bear that she talks to. The bear has a soul and a broken leg. Meanwhile, her parents ravage the girl's bedroom, tearing the wallpaper off the walls, pulling out drawers from her bureau, taking the clothes off of dolls. They put their hands inside of her shoes.

A car drives on the highway, slickened with rain. Medical operations are performed amateurishly in back alleys. Teeth are found where they have no right being. Darkness chafes, scraping off skin. Fires rage, the sky breaks, packs of dogs roam inside hotel buildings, a woman wakes up to find her arm replaced by chicken wire. On and on like drunk nightmares with the thread of the dead floating baby stitching rotten meat onto flayed skin.

It is horrible and beautiful. It is brutal. It is unreal and yet true.

The thing about it is, I don't know how it ends. I had every intention on taking the book with me when I hiked out on Sunday morning. But when I unloaded my pack at home, I discovered I had forgotten it. And now when I Google the title or D. F. Lewis, I can't seem to find it. It's one of those bizarre mysteries.