Art.beyond.Art – AlldayNight

(Weapons) Gladys was so fantastically captivating - at least as good if not better than Hannibal/Hopkins - she was kinda wasted in a not very interesting movie. Talk of a prequel, but please don't waste her talents on another weak script. Go Aunty Glad.

Eraserhead (1977)
Midsommar (2019)
Kill List (2011)
Tony (2009)
Beau is Afraid (2023)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Kiss Me, Deadly (1955)
Performance (1970)
Vertigo (1958)
Fish Tank (2009)

The Pale Horse (2020)
ZeroZeroZero (2020)
Sharp Objects (2018)
The Leftovers (2014)
Station Eleven (2021)
Chloe (2022)
Red Riding Trilogy (2009)
Hinterland (2013)
Twin Peaks 3 (2017)
Maid (2021)

10 magnificent TV miniseries; Sopranos has been left out as it is in an indisputable class of its own; Maid is so brutal one can only watch it once; the rest will repay repeat viewings for the rest of one's life. These multi-episode stories are effectively long-form movies.

Criterion closet? Maybe. 10 very best deranged contemporary artworks but they will not help you to get me because – like everyone else – I am a mystery to myself. Huh? Yes; you never know how you’re going to respond until it’s too late. These movies prove it.

The Golden Glove (2019)
Irreversible (2002)
Audition (1999)
Orphan (2009)
Dracula’s Angel (2014)
Snowtown (2011)
The Vanishing (1988)
Titane (2021)
Dagon (2001)

9 movies to get to know Sadako; English versions of all of them available; view them at your peril; why? because you'll be in total congruence with Sadako's mind.

Perhaps the greatest novel so far about the total dissolution through technology of our familiar view of ourselves & how we might hack normal life; reality as the unreal. Reads like a hallucinatory thriller; unfilmable? Don't try. Amazing achievement. Philip K Dick: Ubik (1969).

Fleur Jaeggy: Proleterka (2001) My idea of fiction: short, sharp, to the point. Whilst also being unsettling, unusual, perplexing. Why spew 850pp when 100pp will be just as good & keep it tight? Only pity is the English edition doesn't have a cover like this one:

Eddington: Sheriff Joe’s otherworldly ruination Certainty is eternally uncertain

Ari Aster's 'Eddington' (2025) what on earth was it all about? Critical review, free to read (Great movie, btw.)
jakobzaaiman.substack.com/p/eddington-...

Popular accounts praising classical architecture & sneering at the modern; this is simplistic; many older buildings look like torture chambers inhabited by vampires & zombies; surprising no one sees this; modern buildings can be bright & inviting & positive; very bizarre this love of old horror.

(Alien Earth paradox) In 2120 no one has seen any of the Alien movies & will make the same mistakes as the crew of Nostromo in 2122, failing to isolate ‘lethal unknowns’. Ok. So the future will be ‘uninformedly’ prequelled, & still no sign of AI. Figger any of this if you can.

Contemporary art: if you want to understand & enjoy it you need to know that it's not about fine crafting (ie conventional beauty) but is instead about inviting you into strange & interesting worlds which may prove to be very hard to fathom. Forget beauty; try weird narrative.

Yay!

Pinter 'Homecoming' (HD cut) My 1st Pinter (aged 18) & life never the same. Magnificent; only 1 quibble, no swearing (In 1978 I had 6 months in a halfway house in Streatham - criminals, lunatics, trannies, wrestlers, rent boys - & every 2nd word was fukkin.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lz...

Q: What would ASI created Art look like?
A: Exactly like the garbage we already see; art is more complex than people imagine; prompting AI to create endless 'spooky' nursery fantasy scenes (eg Deviantart) is vapid; good art needs to take us somewhere special - unsettling - not nowhere.

YouTube video by Stuart Tacey Black Sabbath-Into The Void Live London Astoria 1999

Ozzy & Black Sabbath are immortals, but not all their recorded output is A+ grade; this is the best Sabbath track I've come across so far; London Astoria 1999; 'Into the Void' - magnificent:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8UP...

Wish it were true, but I'll take that as a win! Thanks.

A myriad of weird water & underwater scenes in the great & strange Undine (2020) dir Christian Petzold; (Germans have a problem with phone calls from the dead; cf The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) another beauty.) btw Undine is not really a romance; it's more sci-fi gone normal.

Titane (2021) real/unreal & disturbing; Agathe Rousselle as maximally fascinating murderous wanton; hard not to love her despite that; compelling & unusual & unpredictable storyline; sci-fi as dark normality & our wake-up call? Life as violence; Julia Ducournau’s best by far.

Yes to that!

(image:Jordan Wolfson: Colored sculpture)

All comers (amateurs & critics) find contemporary art bewildering, preferring to apply vague 'ideas of fine crafting' before moving swiftly on; b/c the narratives behind contemporary art are harder to parse than avant-garde movies; it's not the storyboard or props, it's the realm. We have to think.

Yay!

Not yet understood that the best of contemporary art (Warhol Koons G&G Marina) is NARRATIVE not fine crafting, so current slick AI spewings are completely empty. New techniques are always good but if you don’t have an interesting realm to invite us into, you have nothing.

I wish!!

Regarding The Accountant 2 & Jon Bernthal who stole the show in the last minutes; herding cats is not impossible, just difficult. Looking forward to 3 but we must have Anna (+ Jon) back.

You're right, it is!

Accountant2: good fun with strong drink/spliff; not good as 1 no Anna? Why!? Get Anna back! Anyway; essence: you can kill as many bad guys (& collateral) as you want as long as you love a cat: my thinking exactly! I have 4; would love as many dogs but cats look after one another when I’m busy.

‘No real artist would want to practise a normative art ... the best art is strange.’ R.B.Kitaj
Thanks Ron - couldn't agree more; to which end I've written a book explaining how & why (free to download):

jakobzaaiman.substack.com/p/understand...

Compare & contrast; Russ Meyer sexploitations: great to look at but tedious plots & dialogue, vs no budget horror dump ‘Criminally Insane’ (Crazy Fat Ethel) well acted, grim & fascinating: how come? All Nick Millard's other movies are worse than RM's. Going to chop the lot Ethel? Looks like it.