For HILOBROW, I wrote an appreciation of “A Clockwork Orange.”
An excerpt:
“In 2020, writing an appreciation of A Clockwork Orange seems like a near transgressive act. Despite its moralistic underpinnings, the 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick is a visual celebration of the worst that humanity can conjure.”
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Great piece by Betty Márquez Rosales for The New York Times, featuring “the Interrupters” in Stockton, where “Covid-19 and the issue of police brutality have intertwined with the existing problems of gun violence and unemployment to create fresh ways of ensnaring young Black and Latino men.”
An excerpt:
“Stockton sits in the vast agricultural flatlands of central California, about 80 miles east of San Francisco. It is a working-class community that fell into steep decline after the Great Recession. A universal basic income project, investments in its downtown, and the election of its youngest and first Black mayor have generated optimism in the city. But violence remains a challenge. A 2018 F.B.I. report found that Stockton’s violent crime rate was the highest of 70 California cities with more than 100,000 residents. ‘A lot of folks in our community were in a crisis before the coronavirus crisis,’ Michael Tubbs, Stockton’s mayor, said.”
Read it here.
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The new Netflix documentary about Aaron Hernandez, “Killer Inside,” is 100% gripping and fascinating. I’m not really sure why this limited series is so compelling, since it’s not the most artful series ever created, but it doesn’t shy away from allowing the story to be complex, layered, and unspool over time. Watch it.
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I wrote an appreciation of Charles Forsman’s Slasher for the Seriocomic series on HILOBROW. I highly recommend the Slasher series. It’s wild and outrageous and like no other comic I’ve ever read.
“Narratively, bad things happen, oftentimes at Christine’s hand: people die, people are brutalized, people are terribly lonely. But for Christine, murder is self-affirming. ‘I’ve never felt so relaxed,’ Christine texts Joshua after a fresh kill. ‘Like I’ve been holding my piss for 25 years. I know who I am now.’”
Read the rest here.
Buy a copy of my latest digital story: “The Tumor” —“a masterpiece of short fiction.”
3 Likes, 0 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "🎥 #larsvontrier #thehousethatjackbuilt"
I mean, is anybody a fan of Lars von Trier, really? I happen to be intrigued by him, because if you can say one thing about him is that he’s never boring. Or, at least, even when he’s boring, it’s because he’s doing something outrageous to death. Speaking of outrageous and death, LVT has a new flick out, and you don’t have to walk out of a theater at Cannes to see it. “The House That Jack Built” is available for streaming on Amazon. Convenient! Nothing like home delivered endless slaughter of women and others in scenarios in which the victim fairly makes the killer kill, I always say. The movie’s best kill, if you will, is the first one, when Matt Dillon, aka Jack, kills Uma Thurman, who plays a really annoying woman. Because this is LVT, you’re not sure if you’re supposed to laugh hysterically, feel grim, or just hold on for the duration of the ride. But, boy, can Uma take a jack to the head. In any case, you can look at the movie as a series of vignettes in which Jack murders people, or you can look at it as a meditative study on the creative process as told through the persona of someone who happens to use murder as his tool d’art. Frankly, the mutterings of Jack to a Virgil stand-in are the most interesting parts of the movie, particularly when Jack waxes philosophical about how matter dictates its form in art. Don’t search #thehousethatjackbuilt on Instagram, like I did, if you don’t want to have the penultimate shocker spoiled for you. It’s crude, but this is LVT, isn’t it? I won’t mention the part with the windshield wiper; I mean, that’s just ugly (or is it?). We have come to expect this sort of thing from the enfant terrible of Dogme 95. What I could never quite resolve with Jack is if LVT is trolling masculinity or wallowing in it. Toxic masculinity is a fair thing in which to flail. To attempt to redux The Inferno, the place to which the film devolves, is a mistake. Stay in your am-I-a-misogynist-or-not lane, LVT! Alighieri you ain’t.
Buy "The Tumor" — my short story that’s been called "a masterpiece of short fiction."
Happy gang anniversary! | Photo credit: Cali Cake Dealers
These days, it's hard to find content that hasn't been covered everywhere else already. Sometimes when I'm looking for stories, I search random hashtags on Instagram. For some reason, Instagram is a place where you can still find curious things that haven't yet been seen, which is what everyone wants at the end of the day. In any case, I started out searching #crips, that took me to a #cripcake, and eventually I found gold in #gangcake. This is my latest profile on my Forbes blog, and it's about a woman who's running her own business, out of her garage -- like someone else -- and she isn't afraid to make the kind of "illicit" cakes that other more timid bakers won't.
"'I grew up with people who have always been in the trap life, who have always been associated with gangs, or what not,' she says. 'I'm not afraid of that type of lifestyle.' So far, she says, she hasn't turned down a cake."
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15 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "That porn star @therealdelladane ⚡️"
Not long ago, I went to a strip club in the San Fernando Valley where porn stars and strippers were engaged in cage fighting. I expected it to be something like the WWE, but in reality it was a bit more like the UFC. I spoke to several of the fighters -- all women -- and it occurred to me that maybe fighting wasn't so different from stripping or performing in the adult business. It's about pushing yourself to extremes, taking your body to its limits, and enjoying the spectacle.
Buy a copy of my digital short story "The Tumor"! It's been called "a masterpiece."
"American Made" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't a great movie either. It's solid. It's like some slices of ham, a large spoonful of mashed potatoes, and some green peas. It does the job, but, I mean, are you going to rave about it? Probably not. There's Tom Cruise. Shining, well-haired, strapping. In this role, he's a grinning, adventure-seeking, drug and guns running American cowboy who makes a shit ton of money by simultaneously hustling the American government and South American drug lords. There are some fun flying sequences, and a good time is had by all -- at least for a while. Eventually, things go south, and then things aren't so funny anymore. It's based on a true story, but if you compare the two, there's not much truth to this movie. And, as was the case with "Atomic Blonde," you get a lot of action, but you don't get a lot of insight. What makes this guy tick? What are we to make of a man who made his American dream by being a hustler? These questions remain unanswered. The standout performance of the movie is by Caleb Landry Jones, who plays the main character's dumb hick brother-in-law and shines as an entertaining idiot. Otherwise, I'd say it's a soft pass.
War Machine was convicted today in the trial of his assault of Christy Mack.
Maybe you're old enough to remember the "Twinkie defense"?
This guy offered up the "Raging Bull" defense:
"The defense attorney characterized Koppenhaver as a 'raging bull' with brain injuries from his fighting career and emotions inflamed by the use of steroids and non-prescription stimulant and antidepressant drugs that combined could have caused mood swings and violence that Leiderman termed 'roid rage.'"
Image via MAHQ
1. My upper body strength is hell.
2. I do better when I try and kick the boxing head gear off the top of the stand than when I'm trying to kick the air.
3. Those walking lunges are tiring.
4. I have about 25 minutes of go before I think: Oh, no.
5. I really, really like it, mostly because it's physically and mentally challenging.
6. My hips are tight.
7. Most of the other people at the gym are men. But not all of them.
8. If I go to ladies kickboxing class on Thursday night, I will get better faster.
9. Boxing is fun!
10. Working up a good sweat is a good thing.
This sneak peek at the new upcoming graphic novel from Dan Clowes, Patience, makes it a must-read in my book.
Spoiler alert:
But then, the man comes home and finds the woman dead on the floor of their house. He's suspected of murder, acquitted, and sets out to find the killer himself. He meets a guy who has a time machine, and he uses the device to try to change the course of events that led to his girlfriend's death. He goes back to her teenage years, where he learns more about her and comes to terms with her sexual and emotional past—things he had not wanted to know about before her death. It's a time-traveling love story by a beautiful, twisted genius. We hope you like it.
[Vice]
Image via Rolling Stone
The New Yorker has a semi-intriguing profile of Mexican actress Kate del Castillo's involvement in the whole Sean Penn-Rolling Stone-El Chapo saga. Now that Mr. Chapo is back in the pokey, del Castillo claims to be bizarrely unaware that Penn was doing a profile on him, despite her personal involvement in their meeting.
The piece includes some love-ish texts that The Chapo sent del Castillo.
"Amiga, if you'll bring the wine, I'll also drink yours. . . . I'm not a drinker, but your presence will be a lovely thing and I very much want to get to know you and become very good friends. You are the best in this world. . . . I will take care of you more than I do my own eyes."
Definitely take the time to read "The Cop," Jake Halpern's profile of Darren Wilson in the New Yorker. Halpern does a fine job of walking the tightrope between objectivity and wanting to tell a story. There's a braid of stories here, really: Wilson's, Michael Brown's, Ferguson's. In the piece, Wilson doesn't come across the most introspective guy or as the sharpest tool in the shed. Clearly, TV is his medium. In the end, one is left with no greater clarity about what happened other than two large men met and something disastrous ensued.
"Sunday loungewear. #guns #ammo #firearms #Sundays #fashion #shirts #selfies #money #currency #millennium #2A #righttobarearms"
via Kottke
The New York Times Magazine goes long on porn: "My Dad, the Pornographer."
Image via ePub Bud
"My father often told me that if not for pornography, he’d have become a serial killer. On two occasions he described the same story: One night in college he resolved to kill a woman, any woman. He carried a butcher knife beneath his coat and stalked the campus, seeking a target. It rained all night, and the only person walking around was him. He went home, soaked, miserable and alone, regretting the action. He began drawing a comic about stalking a woman."
[NYT]
"Lucy." Starring ScarJo. Written/directed by Luc Besson. It's no "Under the Skin," but it'll do. Lucy is an accidental drug mule in Taiwan. She ends up getting hyper-dosed with blue crystals that make you smarter than Bradley Cooper in "Limitless." Now, she's, like, superhuman, a superhero, some kind of superwoman. She gets chased my Asian mobsters, flirts with a French cop, and kills people because, why not? For some reason, the smarter she gets, the more she acts like a robot (???). Her boobs never change. Just her IQ. Best line: "I'm colonizing my own brain." YOU GO, GIRL. It's all very feminist, but in a way that doesn't make you want to vomit. Sadly, it lacks "The Fifth Element"'s happy happy joy joy. This is more grim. More French. More remorse. The special effects are questionable. The ending is absurd. Still, there are those ... lips.
SHOT Show 2014, Las Vegas, NV / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
If you haven't read "Why We're So Mad at de Blasio," by Steve Osborne, a retired New York City police officer, you should. It served as a much-needed respite from the near non-stop anti-police tweets that have peppered my Twitter feed for the last several months.
More often than not, those tweets have spewed forth from the mouths of the various liberal journalists I follow. Seemingly completely lacking in self-awareness and without the vaguest qualification, they lynch police officers with unrelenting vigor and venom. Cops, they spout, are bad. Cops, they announce, are evil. Cops, they declare, are the real bad guys here.
Sometimes, as another tirade trickles down my feed, I wonder if any of these mostly male, mostly white liberal journalists know any police officers. It seems they don't. For them, it appears, police officers are some foreign invading army that has come to town and must be pilloried. The way they talk about police officers, you get the sense they believe all police officers are inhuman, or subhuman, or not human at all.
That's why Osborne's piece is so poignant: because he dares to do what seemingly no one else is doing, which is to paint a portrait of the real lives of police officers. "I sometimes regret having dragged her into the life with me," Osborne laments of his wife, who must bear the shared stress of his dangerous job. He shows us the human side of the badge.
Between here and there, I dated a few police officers. I was never a cop's wife, and I was no badge bunny, but I got a slice of what it's like to be involved with someone whose day job involves the reality that they might leave for work and get killed on any given day. The police officers I dated were the types of guys who ran towards fires, ventured into buildings from which gunfire had emanated, understood they might die doing a job that, at the end of the day, didn't even pay all that well.
I guess the liberal journalists I follow don't know those police officers. They have an idea of what all police officers are like, and that stereotype is what they tweet about daily. They do so while hiding behind their glowing screens, tucked in their offices, doing jobs in which they almost never risk their anything for anybody on any day.
Of course, eventually, something bad will happen to some of these liberal journalists. Their car will get broken into, and they'll call the police. They'll get mugged, and they'll call the police. They'll get into a car accident, and they'll call the police. Or maybe something worse will happen to them or to someone they love, and they'll call the police.
The officers will show up to do their jobs, and those same liberal journalists who screeched their anti-police rhetoric online will thank the officers very much for doing their jobs, and then those liberal journalists will go back to doing whatever it is they do for a living in their safe little lives.
American Girl in Italy / Photo credit: Ruth Orkin
Surely, the girl in the catcall video is getting harassed, but what they don't tell you is that when it is happening, you will develop a certain kind of relationship to it in your head, conflicted but a marriage of sorts, nevertheless, and through the years, as your ass drops, and your boobs sag, and your face cracks, you will find that it is harder and harder to maintain that relationship, good or bad, and the catcalls will come less, over the days, and the months, and the years, and some days, you will find, you will give up on them altogether, and some days, you will discover, you will work harder to get them so you can remember what it was like to be told, hey, baby, and, damn, you fine, and, girl, you got an ass on you, don't you, and you will not tell anyone, because they will tell you this is wrong, but you will miss it, you will pine for it, you will long for it, what is gone, and the only thing that greets you when you walk down the street is blank stares and silence.
Last weekend, I watched "The Act of Killing," which is pretty much one of the most astounding movies you will ever see. Usually, in a movie built on surprise or fear or astonishment, it's a roller coaster ride of emotion: sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down. I was gobsmacked from beginning to end. My jaw was unhinged. My eyes were round. Is this really happening? Did he just say that? Is this real? Yes, it is. In short, the film follows a group of executioners as they revisit the crimes of their past, but they do so in a world that glorifies their murderous histories. In a way, it reminded me of being on a porn set where something considered very "not normal" by society is considered very "normal" in this otherworld. In the case of porn, people are having sex for money while someone films it. This is all very of course. This is all very no big deal. You see the same throughout "The Act of Killing," when a man dances where he has killed people with wires around their necks, and a neighbor talks about finding his dead father under a barrel, and a man recounts raping teenage girls. It is very easy to think of them as Other. But are they? In America, killers are heroes.
