FilmVomit

(seen on 5/5. was too disgusted to publish until now.)

I watch Gus Van Sant films entirely out of a desire to decipher their popularity. They do nothing for me, really, except confuse me and diminish my already dwindling faith in humanity. And this time was precisely the same as every other- it’s baffling and I am not sure what to say about it. The shots are framed in a largely meaningless and haphazard manner, the editing is poorly paced, the music is a fiasco.
Van Sant does not seem capable of directing actors who know what they are doing, so when he uses amateurs it is painful every time someone opens their mouth. Which is especially trying, as I know what can be accomplished with amateur actors. Two of my favorite directors made frequent or exclusive use of amateur actors.
My gut lurches in strange ways and I cannot seem to grasp what it is he is saying. If he is commenting on ‘youth’ he has failed because naught that he has said has not been said before. I do not know where he expects me to look, and what he expects me to see. Perhaps he expects me to see the vast nothing he presents me with, perhaps he is being a deconstructionist asshole.
Perhaps I should kick him in the teeth.
The frame is wasted on things that are impossibly unappealing in all ways, and the music ruins one of two decent scenes - I will always appreciate dispassionate teenage fucking.
I believe that Van Sant ought be sent back to film school and taught to use a camera again, so he stops wasting precious silver.
If Van Sant is going to make a commentary on filmmaking itself, then he ought to prove to me that he can make a film first. Godard, as much as I despise him, at least did the dirty work first. And thus I can appreciate his worth, while loathing his films. Van Sant can’t even manage to keep his corpses in the correct position. Someone ought to do him a favor and find him a script girl. And then maim him in such a way that he can never handle a camera again.

Paranoid Park