our good friend and mistress of found footage, denise kaufman asked requested reviews of miranda july’s you and me and everyone we know and caveh zahedi’s i am a sex addict. rrr would like to point out that ms. kaufamn could write the reviews herself and post them somewhere, perhaps even here.
further, rrr would like to express it’s lack of interest in those movies as texts. in fact, the only film that rrr has blogged so far that we have had any textual interest in has been the player (altman, 1992.)
what interests us are social relations and while we are just as capable of deconstructing the difference between textuality and social relations, we would only like to note for the moment that the player is a movie about the social relations involved in hollywood filmmaking and that at least attempts a certain cinematic self-consciousness.
while cz has made some work of interest to us, i am a sex addict sounds as if it merely extends his usual and sometimes amusing trick of inappropriate self-revelation in any case, we haven’t seen it and would rather go for a run than go out of our way for it. it has the serious flaw of being an ifc project. perhaps we will be more interested in his forthcoming remake of the black dahlia featuring a bondage model in a major part.
unfortunately, rrr did wait through you and me and everyone we know, praying to a god who doesn’t exist that it would end soon. fortunately, we watched it at home on computer, so we could openly kiss for diversion from the movies flat camera work, poor acting, hipster cliche writing, bad costumes, and, somewhat surprisingly given july’s history, uninteresting sound.
what rrr loves to hate are the relations imposed on us by the social formation, or what in happier days we might have called “the class,” of movie makers who live a life of obscene privilege and goody bags by virtue of having made the world open wide and cramming unimaginative, foul ideology into screens in every territory ‘round the globe. we love to hate those who have been raping our eyes and ears for our entire lives and that includes the bollywood and hk industries.
you and me and everyone we know was made for a small budget, though rrr has yet to find even an approximation of its cost. in its limited first run release, it made just under $4 million. while the film seems to be of a different economic order than the films we love to hate, it is clearly a steppingstone on the way to making truly detestable work, as is betrayed by july’s choice of distributor, ifc.
one can see the direction that its makers want to head in the male lead, john hawkes, who plays sol star, the “jew” merchant, on hbo’s deadwood, appeared on the practice and 24, was in the perfect storm and will even have a small role in miami vice. in short, hawkes is a low level industry player who does artistic projects to ease his conscience and to keep working. the producer gina kwan has made a name for herself shoveling “indie” shit like chuck and buck and the good girl (a film that clearly shows that poor folks are unhappy because their love lives aren’t right.) much of the cast and crew consists of hacks trying to sell their lack of creativity as artistry.
of course miranda wants to sell herself to us as an outsider untalented artist. the character she plays in me and you and everyone we know works for a car service that specializes in transporting the elderly and she feels has to hand deliver bring her videotape to a museum in order to get the curator to look at it. in real life, july ahs claimed rick moody as a family friend in interviews (nyt 6/19/05). by definition if one claims rick moody as a family friend, one is an insider in the world of contemporary aesthetes. the same hypocrisy can be felt in july use of the kill rock stars record label to get her career started and then becoming one. clearly her highest value is her own fame.
me and you and everyone we know was the first film shown at the new ifc theater in new york city, a facility operated by non-union projectionists. during the opening, the theater was picketed by the
nyc union . strike-breaking is the film’s truth, along with that of ifc. as picketers said to a certain mr. weinstein "ifc hates workers. harvey." july hates workers too.
