PINNLAND EMPIRE: 2025

Saturday, March 1, 2025

HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS

I was put on to this film at a very peculiar time. After a recent podcast appearance I found myself rethinking & second-guessing how I feel about intentional movie references & homages. I know I just said this in my previous post on Nickel Boys but in 2024 alone we got so many films that relied heavily on visual callbacks. Between new releases like The Substance (click here & here to see all the key homages), Cuckoo (The Brood), In A Violent Nature (click here & here to see all the homages I compiled), Longlegs (Silence Of The Lambs), Rebel Ridge (First Blood & Billy Jack), Nosferatu (beside it being a second remake, Eggers references Possession) and more – filmmakers seem to be focused more on pulling from the past or shouting out their cinematic heroes and less invested in trying something new & innovative. I’m starting to wonder if new releases were nothing more than mixtapes/compilations?

I say all this to say that while Hundreds Of Beavers is interesting, it’s also very much an homage-style movie. But I liked it! A lot! In fact – this movie is an homage of other homages. Hundreds Of Beavers is from the school of Guy Maddin who is a very reference-heavy director himself. He may not pay homage to more recognizable sources in the way Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez does, but Maddin’s films are almost always layered with tons of references & callbacks to folks like Bunuel, Murnau, Fritz Lang, Dreyer & David Lynch. This means that by proximity, Hundreds of Beavers is also inspired by those older filmmakers. I think that’s part of the reason why I like this movie so much. Had this film referenced anyone else I would have probably written it off but Guy Maddin is one of my favorite filmmakers and I kind of appreciate that we’ve come to a point where he’s a reference point. It’s about time he get shown the type of respect I think he’d appreciate (I would hope a reference-heavy filmmaker like Guy Maddin would appreciate being referenced himself by a younger filmmaker). Underrated, misunderstood & unsung are often overused to described artists but in the case of Guy Maddin I think these descriptors are fair. The art scene Maddin that came up in is rooted in references. He came to prominence alongside fellow reference-heavy filmmaker John Paizs (click here & here to read more about my love for Paizs).

I just felt like I was good friends with Luis Buñuel just because I watched his movies so often – Guy Maddin, thefilmstage

Un Chien Andalou / / Tales From The Gimli Hospital

As strange as Eraserhead is, it is a very honest portrait of personal...[pauses] When I saw that movie I didn’t need to know that David Lynch had been through an unplanned pregnancy and that he had stuck around long enough to see the baby through its infancy and … it was pretty exciting to me to see someone pull off a real tug-of-war but not just a two way tug-of-war, but one in so many different directions you couldn’t even count them. And that to me is pretty inspiring. So, I’ve always used Eraserhead and the Buñuel movies not as atmospheric role-models, I like the atmospheres in them, but I just like what they pull off psychologically with what is really broad strokes and really big gestures. It gets really baroque, gross at times, but still achieves moods and flavours of moods in your soul – unease, pleasure, excitement – that seems to be running very quickly through the inventory of all the things you feel in the course of a year, but you can get them in one 90 minute experience. That is really exciting to me, that art can do that. Lynch has fine tuned it over the years so that things are more sophisticated so that now you are really wondering where these feelings are coming from and stuff like that. The strokes aren’t as broad, but the… I don’t know why I keep talking about Lynch, but he is kind of doing what painting has been doing for years, and I’m not saying that his images are painterly, but that he is doing with narrative what painting does – Guy Maddin, Screenanarchy.com

Eraserhead / Tales From The Gimli Hospital

I just thought if I had that Guy Maddin style – that grainy 16mm look – mixed with my brand of humor, it would make for a unique movie. Because usually it’s one or the other. Comedies, especially nowadays, they’re not very sophisticated. It’s two guys standing in a room. Single shot. Single shot. Single shot. Let’s improvise – Mike Cheslik, onmilwaukee.com

My Winnipeg / Hundreds Of Beavers

We like Guy Maddin and Guy Maddin seems to like us! Definite influence. Mike Cheslik has seen all of his films – Kurt Ravenwood, reddit

The Heart Of The World / Hundreds Of Beavers

The Saddest Music In The World / Hundreds Of Beavers

Careful / Hundreds Of Beavers

Cowards Bend The Knee / Hundreds Of Beavers

Careful / Hundreds Of Beavers

Tales From The Gimli Hospital / Hundreds Of Beavers

This isn’t the first time that Mike Cheslik pulled from the cinema of Guy Maddin…

Right before I had the idea for "Lake Michigan Monster," I watched "Brand Upon the Brain" from Guy Maddin. And that was a big inspiration because obviously that’s in the same kind of visual style, but also because it took place on an island with a lighthouse and there were scenes on a lake – Mike Cheslik, onmilwaukee.com

Brand Upon The Brain / Lake Michigan Monster

The story & themes also owe a lot to Maddin. Putting aside the old timey silent film aesthetic, Hundreds of Beavers plays out like a Guy Maddin film. The story, which puts a major emphasis on the continent of North America in the dead of winter, deals with a fur trapper battling the elements and other subconscious sexual perversions during the 19th century. Those of you that are familiar with Maddin’s work can't deny that on paper this could easily be one of his own films (to be clear – Maddin did not invent the derivate style that he’s known for. He might be one of the best to do it but he doesn’t own it). Another non-visual Maddin-ism that looms over Hundreds Of Beavers is the budget. Mike Cheslik utilizes his imagination to make the best of his small budget in the same way Maddin has for almost 40 years.

The emphasis on the mascot suits, the appreciation for silent comedy gags and making the story seem big on such a small budget is all success in my book. I guess my only criticism/question is; will Mike Cheslik continue to associate himself with Guy Maddin or will he try to eventually shake the comparison?

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

NICKEL BOYS

I was kind of forced to have a relationship with this movie long before I saw it. Without even asking if I’ve actually seen Nickel Boys, a lot of folks assumed that I not only saw it but loved it. For the last few months this was one of those movies where people that kind of sort of get my taste would say stuff like "Marcus this looks like one of your movies that you would like!" I guess because the movie has an “artsy” aesthetic and has Black people in that I, the “artsy” movie-loving Black guy, would automatically like it. To some degree I get it. Based off of the trailer and out of context clips, this movie definitely lies somewhere between post-Thin Red Line Terrance Malick and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight (two things I am fond of).

Nickel Boys director Ramell Ross has a relationship with the films of Malick…

l noticed the power of this sort of like roving and mounting poetry in Tree of Life, probably my all-time favorite film - Ramell Ross, metrograph.com

Tree Of Life / Nickel Boys

And Barry Jenkins developed a deep relationship with the film…

Nickel Boys. 1,000 per cent. Point blank, period. I watched it twice in like three days. Love, love, loved that movie. RaMell Ross, he is a true visionary and a true artist. That film is extraordinary - Barry Jenkins, MyTalk1071.com

Moonlight / Nickel Boys

Normally, I can’t stand when adults are intentionally evasive just because. That’s toddler behavior. But in the case of Nickel Boys, I intentionally avoided it for a long time because of all the expectations put on me to like it.

This is one of those very specific things that Black film fans have to deal with sometimes. The assumption that you automatically like something prestigious strictly because it stars or is made by a Black person. Then there’s the added awkwardness when you don’t meet the expectations put on you and have the audacity to have criticisms of said prestigious Black films instead of mindless praise. You become the guy that doesn’t like anything and are labeled a killjoy even though you have a 15+ year old blog praising hundreds of movies over the years...

I think Queen & Slim is one of the worst movies ever made. It exploited Black pain, made Black men look either dumb and/or devious, and just had too many non-practical moments for something that tried to be practical. I couldn’t stand Nia Dacosta’s Candyman remake. It was made for pretentious people that are chronically online that get their opinions on race from folks like Jemele Hill or Tariq Nasheed. If Sorry White People never existed my life would not be impacted in any way. Like Queen & Slim and the Candyman remake, Sorry White People was also made for pretentious Black folks and White liberals that are chronically online. I enjoy Get Out very much but can’t stand the dialogue and think-pieces around it. It should have been allowed to stay the silly dark comedy that it was meant to be but folks started taking it super serious and turned it in to something it wasn’t meant to be. I thought Sterling K Brown was excellent in Waves but the movie itself played in to awful stereotypes about young Black men. I enjoyed Non-fiction overall but aspects of that movie really felt like it was trying too hard for white acceptance. Notice how within the first 15-20 minutes of that movie all the Black characters go out of their way to announce their very important professions in a way that felt like they were essentially telling the audience: “hey - Black people can be doctors, professors and lawyers!” I understand there will always be a sector of non-Black people that will always have low expectations of us. A movie isn’t going to change that so why even bother trying to prove something to people that already have their minds made up about us?

You may not agree with everything I just said but don’t you find those opinions at least interesting or potentially engaging? These kinds of thoughts and opinions are far better than just saying something is “powerful” or “moving”. That gets boring after a while.

I also tend to have a sometimes cynical reaction to Black pain and Black trauma on film (not in real life but on film). Part of that could be attributed to my northeast upbringing. Generally speaking, I find that post-Gen X Black people that grew up in the northeast region of America approach issues concerning race & racism on film much more cynically than Black folks from the south or the Midwest. But that’s a whole other conversation…

Black Trauma has just become a genre. I acknowledge my northeast cynicism towards race in modern film but at a certain point, I just get completely turned off when headlines and/or tweets about real Black pain are turned in to marketable entities.

With all that being said - I guess Nickel Boys was fine? It’s a tragic story about abuse, trauma racism and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I definitely think you all should watch it but maybe watch it while being conscious of everything I’m saying right now. I know I said a lot without saying much about the actual subject but I guess I don't have too much to say about the actual movie. There are certainly lots of isolated/out of context moments of Malick-esque beauty. But it definitely is part of a bigger problem that’s happening in film right now.

If you’re familiar with this blog or my Twitter presence then you know I appreciate a good homage or cinematic reference. But it’s starting to get a little out of hand. 30+ years ago we had three or four reference-heavy Pulp Fiction-like movies and now we get like 40 of them a year. In the last year we got The Substance, Cuckoo (a very loose rework of The Brood), In A Violent Nature, Longlegs (Silence Of The Lambs), Rebel Ridge (First Blood & Billy Jack), Nosferatu (beside it being another remake, Eggers references Possession).

A lot of filmmakers seem to be focused more on pulling from the past or shouting out their cinematic heroes and less invested in trying something new. I’m starting to wonder if new releases are nothing more than collages/ mixtapes.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

THE INHERITANCE

I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes feel intimidated to write about certain specific movies that I consider to be great. These occurrences are few and far between (as they should be), but sometimes a film is so good there’s almost nothing to say outside of recommending it to as many people as possible. You can only gush about a movie so much until it starts to sound cringey. In this current age of Letterboxd/film twitter movie comedians, it’s sometimes difficult to tell if someone genuinely loves a movie or if they’re just being hyperbolic to try and get laughs & attention. If a movie is truly great I don’t think there should be any memefication involved. Ephraim Asili’s The Inheritance is one of those movies. For the last 4-1/2 I’ve been singing it’s praises on podcasts and all forms of social media, but I haven’t put down any substantial words (this movie was at the top of my best of 2020 list a few years ago). The story of The Inheritance may sound like it was made for a very niche audience within a subgenre of people, but I honestly believe it can be “appreciated” by anyone. The basic story of a group of pan-Africanists in west Philadelphia that set out to make their own isolated collective/community away from the rest of the world sounds very niche and specific. But this movie tackles/touches on/circles around issues like white supremacy, separatism, gun ownership/gun control, the creation of art, activism, the deconstruction of traditional education, and more (a big part of this film’s identity is connected to the Move bombing that took place in Philadelphia four decades ago). Everyone from disingenuous Fox News-watching “conservatives” to pretentious surface-level twitter liberals that would call the police on the same Black folks they claim to care about can find something important to hold on to in The Inheritance (anyone notice how a lot of today’s so-called MAGA folks and certain sectors of modern-day pro Black folks have a lot more in common than they care to admit?)

Strangely enough, the one audience that might take issue with this movie is the growing cult of Foundational Black Americans that believe in delineation between Black Americans and Africans & Caribbean (I don’t want to get too much in to FBAs but if you’ve ever wanted to go down a very strange internet rabbit hole – look in to them). This movie is truly pan-Africanist and doesn’t promote delineation between Black people.

If you’re just a film enthusiast then you might appreciate all the homages and visual callbacks to folks Ousmane Sembene & Jean Luc Godard...

Stylistically, the film is deeply influenced by Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967). When I first got around to watching the film in grad school, I was floored - Ephraim Asili, Artforum

La Chinoise / The Inheritance

I first encountered Sembène in film school and was struck by his powerful critique of Senegalese society - Ephraim Asili, criterion

Black Girl /
The Inheritance

Asili also namedrops Dreyer & Bresson as sources of inspiration but those are more spiritual rather than visual…

One Big influence was Robert Bresson, who was influenced by the minimal set design of Carl Theodore Dreyer films. I would ask myself ‘what connotes a kitchen, or a living room' and leave the design there – Ephraim Asili, Bomb Magazine

Ordet /
Pickpocket /
The Inheritance

Ivan Dixon's The Spook Who Sat By The Door was another source on inspiration on Ephraim Asili (a Spook poster can be seen in the background of The Inheritance).

I’m using terms & phrases like “appreciate” or “find something to hold on to” rather than “enjoy” because I genuinely don’t think this was made to be “enjoyed” in the traditional sense. This isn’t a traditional movie. A big part of what makes The Inheritance so unique is that it’s almost uncategorizable. On one hand it’s very serious and sometimes traumatic. But other times the movie is incredibly lighthearted, sweet and funny. It also doesn’t really fit in to a specific category or genre. It’s a hybrid scripted narrative/documentary that plays with reality & fiction.

There’s a nice-sized audience of Black film enthusiasts that claim to want something “different” and/or “challenging” that isn’t some remix of Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Well – here it is (hopefully you'll see that this movie can also serve as a gateway to so many different lanes & avenues of cinephilia). The inheritance can be streamed on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Grasshopper films. It isn’t 1999. Folks can’t keep using the excuse that a movie didn’t come to their city or small town. Thanks to streaming (and even file/torrent sharing), independent/”art house” films are now easier than ever to see. Instead of complaining on twitter about how there are too many slave movies, you could do some very basic surface level exploration and find a world of Black cinema that might cater to your needs.

Monday, January 20, 2025

THE SCHOOL OF DAVID LYNCH: GUY MADDIN UPDATED

Eraserhead /
Keyhole

I knew David Lynch got me - Guy Maddin, gapersblock.com

Now that David Lynch has passed, his legacy and influence are being assessed and/or reassessed by everyone. There’s lots of lists, thinkpieces and threads on the idea of “Lynchian” and what movies fall under that category. Personally - I think it’s time to retire the Lynchian term (if you read my blog regularly then you know I’ve been pushing this for years). The term is almost always misused and it cheapens his legacy. Anything slightly “weird” gets called “Lynchian”. David Lynch never owned “weird”. He was a certainly a master and crafting weird and surreal scenes but he didn’t have a patent on weird or surreal. As a fan of Lynch’s movies beyond surface-level nonsense like “oh man his movies are so cRaZy”, the last thing I want is his work being used as an a reference point for stuff like Under The Silver Lake, Jacob’s Ladder & Memento. Those are not a representation of David Lynch. It’s like when a movie has a tense shot of a doorknob slowly turning and it gets called “hitchcockian”.

With that being said…I compiled a collection of side-by-sides between David Lynch and someone I consider to be one of the better examples of one of his unofficial students; Guy Maddin. Much better words will be said on David Lynch by someone with a better than I. I just thought it would be nice to share some comparisons between one of my personal favorite filmmakers that found influence from another one of my personal filmmakers.

When I discovered that Lynch's first major short film was the same length as THE DEAD FATHER and was about his grandmother it just really seemed like he'd felt the same need - Guy Maddin, Fandor

Eraserhead /
The Dead Father

Maddin is hardly a household name so it’s understandable that he’s almost never brought up in the Lynchian conversation (even when Isabella Rossellini is/was a regular actor in the films of both directors). But he’s far more legitimately influenced by Lynch than people like Christopher Nolan or Ari Aster.

And to be clear - Guy Maddin’s films are not Lynchian. Certain specific moments in certain specific movies of his have definitely been inspired by Lynch (as you’ll see below), but that doesn’t make Maddin’s films Lynchian (not to split hairs here but isolated moments within a full film that may or may have not pulled from Lynch doesn’t equate Lynchian).

Eraserhead / Archangel

When I first saw Lynch’s Eraserhead I realized in an instant that he made a movie about me - Guy Maddin, deadmediasociety.com

While most of these comparisons go back to Eraserhead, you’ll find a lot of interesting (sometimes) coincidental similarities between most of Lynch’s films (it should also be noted that some of these similarities, homages and reaches go beyond David Lynch to older filmmakers by people like Luis Bunuel & Fellini).