3,373 words
David Lynch’s first movie Eraserhead (1977) combines surrealism, low-budget horror, and black comedy. It rapidly became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and provided endless fodder for coffee-house intellectuals and academic film theorists.
Eraserhead is quite simply a gnostic anti-sex film. The film is premised on a gnostic dualism, which holds that the material world—including sex and childbearing—is fundamentally evil, (more…)
1,001 words
Jodorowsky’s Dune, Frank Pavich’s 2013 documentary, tells the story of the “greatest movie never made,” (more…)
1,723 words
David Lynch’s Dune (1984) is a flawed masterpiece. When I first saw it, I was deeply disappointed. Frank Herbert’s original novel made a powerful impression on me. I could see Herbert’s world, and Lynch’s vision was not my vision. But when my initial impression faded and I returned to Lynch’s film with an open mind, I found it immensely imaginative and compelling. Even the score by Toto managed to grow on me. (more…)
3,623 words
Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here; Part 2 here)
Jay Dyer
Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film
Walterville, Or.: Trine Day, 2016 (more…)
85:24 / 64 words
Part 2 of 2
To listen in a player, click here.
To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
To subscribe to our podcasts, click here for iTunes and here for RSS.
Greg Johnson and John Morgan conclude their discussion of the films of David Lynch. (more…)
1,768 words
There is little satisfying critical literature on the Coen brothers’ 1991 film Barton Fink. Most viewers are inclined to think that this is because the film is a pretentious, meaningless piece of crap. And Barton Fink is surely the most widely detested film by the Coens. The fact that it swept the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d’Or, Best Director, and Best Actor (John Turturro) can simply be chalked up to French perversity and anti-Americanism. These people think Jerry Lewis is a genius, after all. (more…)
1,520 words
Author’s Note:
The following text is a scrap rescued from obscurity and buffed up a bit. In 2002, a reader of VNN suggested that the site’s movie reviewers post their “Ten Best” lists. I found it impossible to settle on just ten best films. So I decided to produce a “Favorites” list instead. I came up with more than thirty movies. These are films I like to re-watch and show to my friends. I think the list includes some of the best films ever made, (more…)
1,064 words
Nebraska is a low-budget, black and white movie starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte (Saturday Night Live), as well as Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad). Nebraska was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where Dern won the Best Actor award. Since then, Nebraska has been nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Alexander Payne), Best Actor (Dern), Best Supporting Actress (June Squibb, who plays Dern’s wife), and Best Original Screenplay (Bob Nelson). (more…)
1,631 words
Martin Aston
Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD
London: The Friday Project, 2013
Towards the end of Martin Aston’s monumental history of the 4AD record label he claims that one of the label’s later signings was “guilty of lacking transcendence” (p. 550). (more…)
5,020 words
The conclusion of my interview with Chip Smith of Nine-Banded Books deals with anti-natalism, cosmic pessimism, H. P. Lovecraft, Hollister Kopp’s Gun Fag Manifesto, and other future 9BB publications.
Anti-natalism is the theme of two of your titles: Jim Crawford’s Confessions of an Antinatalist
5,888 words
Podcast here
Welcome to Counter Currents Radio. I’m your host Greg Johnson. With us today is Jonathan Bowden. First of all, I need to ask you is it “Boden” or Bowden?
JB: Depends where you are in England basically, if you are in the North of England you say “Boden,” but if you are from the South of England, and I’m from the South of England, you say Bowden. (more…)
