Loren Cass Is A Steaming Pile

Have you seen the movie Loren Cass? Well you don’t have to because I did. Why did I do such a thing? I had heard from my various sources that this was something of a “punk” movie; I was hoping of something of a modern Suburbia. Unfortunately what I got was a meandering, vague, unfocused turd of a film.

From what I was able to gather, this movie is about three “disenfranchised” 20-something Floridians who drift about, fuck and drink at people’s houses and all the other normal shit that we all do. But wait! It’s set against the back drop of racial disharmony! Well, at least I think that’s what’s going on. I really couldn’t tell you too much of what’s happening in this movie because the entire thing is so disjointed that it’s really something of endurance challenge to get through it

You have the skinhead guy, and he’s always walking around all angry. Then you have some other kid who meets this chick because her car breaks down and something and they start fucking. Then the director decides to cut to a TV screen with cops standing around and black people rioting, or maybe a blank screen for 30 seconds while you hear a voice ranting about something that doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Then they’ll cut to some house party or something and everyone looks pissed off or emotionally damaged or some other such shit. Occasionally while this entire mess is going in front of you’re eyes you’ll hear a narrator start to say a bunch of vague shit about “isolation” or “desperation” or some other really deep thing that this movie is trying to say.

And who’s doing this narration you might ask? None other than Keith Morris of Circle Jerks fame and Blag Dhalia of the Dwarves! Leftover Crack’s in the movie too! Punk rock!

Let’s talk about Leftover Crack’s role in the movie for a moment: At some point someone in the movie (I have no idea if it was the skinhead guy or the other guy) goes to see Leftover Crack. The entire sequence looks like someone smuggled a video camera into the show and bootlegged it to impress their other 9th grade friends. Half the shots are of the floor. The director cuts in and out of different songs without any real reason, making it some kind of awful audio collage of parts of different songs. The entire sequence is absolutely awful.

Yet somehow this awful, steaming pile has gotten a bunch of praise. Check out what the New York Times had to say:

“Overtly, ingeniously experimental in form, Loren Cass cuts among these three and an assortment of local wasted youth in an elliptical, intuitive manner, alternating listless scenes of opaque introspection and booze-fueled bumming around with sharp bursts of violence. The movie is a tour de force of mood and milieu, marshaling a hundred vivid details of landscape: parking lots, packing crates, shopping carts, peeling wallpaper, broken bottles, cheap salads, over-lighted diners, oily garages.”

What the fuck?! Did the director suck the dude at the Times dick or something? This movie is an entirely masturbatory mess that was made by some shitty no-talent who thinks he’s some kind of visionary “artist.” “… a tour de force of mood and milieu”? Really? What mood exactly? Utter and complete boredom? That’s the only mood I was in when I watched it! I thought this movie was going to end about ten separate times before it actually did. There is absolutely nothing to care about in this movie — not a single character, event or even moment makes this movie at all enjoyable. If I were to sum it up in one sentence it would have to be this: Loren Cass is the worst goddamn movie I’ve ever seen.

-JON J

I'm Terrorfied!!! Or The Great American Facepalm

There's been a lot of recent criticism of the way that Obama has handled the Antiterrorism initiative since taking office last year. The right wing balked at the (as yet still pending) closing of Guantanamo Bay, the ending of interrogations by the CIA (now to be done by a new group led by the FBI) and the plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, in a civilian court, granting him full protection under the Constitution (Egads!). The left has criticized the troop surge, and his extension of the Patriot Act. Oh yeah! And the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open! So know some want a return to the old school two-fisted Cheney school of Antiterrorism; namely shoot 'em all and let (white man's) God sort 'em out.


Well, now that we have all that lovely background out of the way, let's move onto what's really important; WHAT I THINK!


I was 15 years old when 9/11 happened. I'm 24 now. Basically what that means is that there's hasn't been a time in my adolescence or young adult life when my country wasn't at war in the middle east. If I want to stretch further back I can remember watching the events of Desert Storm unfold on TV when I was but a wee little turd. So what I'm saying is that I've seen a lot of brown people get blown up on TV. A lot. Now, I understand that so far my exposure has largely been second hand; you know from newspapers, TV news, films, books and the stories from other kids my age who have had a tour, or several, of Iraq or Afghanistan. I'm not some big important politician who REALLY understands how the world works, so I understand that my solutions may be, oh shall we say, a bit naive (And by naive I mean no one really gets rich of it). But what the hell? I'll give it a shot.


As anyone who has devoted any real thought to the subject knows you can't fight terrorism. The British tried to do it and they got America.


Here's the real deal right here: we need to GET THE FUCK OUT of the Middle East as a whole. You can't fight these people. It's simply not possible; how do you win? They have an endless supply off soldier who are willing to sacrifice themselves and become martyrs for their cause. And really that's the key; the people doing this aren't career soldiers, they're fanatics. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, and frankly America won't except the kind of casualties that a victory would require.


Here's something I don't think that a lot of people realize either; by staying in Afghanistan we're actually playing directly into Osama bin Laden's hands. No one can control Afghanistan, that's why it's been basically controlled by warlords throughout it's entire history. But that doesn't mean that bin Laden can't get the U.S. completely bogged down there, spending trillions of dollars, taking thousands of lives and cripple our economy. I mean he did the EXACT GODDAMN THING BEFORE TO RUSSIA! Come on! Are we really this fucking shortsighted? Yeah, I guess so.


For anyone who thinks that we need to have a hand in the Middle East I have only this to ask you; Why? For their oil? Well how about we try focusing on creating a green energy industry in this country so we can move past fossil fuels already? Shit, that might even create a few jobs and get this country back on the right track.


Fuck, it's not like anyone ever listens to me anyway. I don't even know why I try.


-Jon J