Q. Is this a university website?

No, but's it's on webspace that was provided to me by Utah State University for a web design class. This here is my midterm project. Most are using it to help them get a job, but I find that sort of depressing. I'd rather have dreams then goals, and I suppose that still makes me a kid. But, I dunno. That other option just makes me depressed.

Q. What is your major?

Broadcast Journalism. It used to be Social Work, but I was denied admission into the advance placement due to my acceptance essay. I didn't have much previous experience in social work, and I couldn't wrap my head around the ethics of helping others for the sake of society. I wanted to be a social worker because it looked like interesting work and I felt that I was emotionally detatched enough to do it. But no, they decided that I probably wouldn't make a good social worker. I was, of course, very upset for a while but I have faith that they're right.

Man, journalists are stupid though. Science is above any criticism. Social Studies are somewhere in the middle. The Humanities, in which journalism is located, can't be criticized enough. Journalists have a code of ethics where they say that "journalists should examine their cultural values and avoid imposing them on others". The very concept of a code of ethics sure sounds like a cultural value and thus we're thrown into a loop of circular reasoning. (You get this in social work too I guess, but it seemed to me that they thought it through a lot more). The code of ethics is basically saying that journalists are unable to put the news into any sort of context. I mean how would you without responding to some set of cultural values. (No matter how collective). I like broadcast journalism okay, though. They haven't been quite as intellectualized as the print journalists; and for the most part it's good old fashioned grunt work.

Q. Why do you have this website?

Because I'm actually hoping to get established as a web-based critic, and I hope to get recognized on the level of The Flick Filosopher and Film Freak Central. And I hope to even get into the Online Film Critics Society. And I want to do it completely on my own terms. Nuts huh? Egotistical, huh? Well, we all have to start somewhere.

Q. Where does your title come from?

You should know this already. If you came here because you're in my class, I told you during our in-class presentations. Pay attention! Let it simply be said that it's based on a quote from a movie. I don't know why I chose the whole eye motif. It has a gleefully bold pretentiousness to it; treating filmgoing as trascendently painful. But I'm probably/hopefully talking down to all of you again.

Q. Will you ever move your site?

Definitely, but I have no idea how, when, or where. It's going to be a while.

Q. What are your favorite movies? Give us your top ten!

Hmm.

That'll probably change with the weather. Also love Raging Bull, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Platoon, Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction, Gremlins, Cries and Whispers, Se7en, Triumph of the Will, The Wizard of Oz. In just like recent years, the new Solaris, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Bowling For Columbine, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Punchdrunk Love. Bully was great also. Blair Witch Project, Bringing Out the Dead, Magnolia. Thin Red Line, still I think.

Q. Who are your favorite directors?

Stanley Kubrick is the greatest of them all, hands down. I've seen everything that he's done from The Killing onwards, and every last one is a masterpiece. So far, P.T. Anderson has an even better track record. When I saw Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punchdrunk Love in their respective years I was convinced that each was one of the thirty best films ever made. I've cooled down a bit, but they are still incredible films. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan and rewatch the extras in my DVDs of his films compulsively. I've seen more of Steven Spielberg's films then anybody else's and they are usually very good. I thought Catch Me If You Can was brilliant, and I still support Schindler's List on the level of great cinema as opposed to history lesson. I thought Jurrasic Park was wonderful. Martin Scorsese has roughly the same track record. His Casino was great if you are a Scorsese fan, and Bringing out the Dead is really one of the best films of the 90s. I used to love Harmony Korine and was really obsessed with him, but he hasn't done anything lately. It's even more so with Terrence Malick. I'm even reluctant to admit that The Thin Red Line is souring a little with me. Michael Moore has given me some of the most powerful experiences that I can remember regardless of politics. Bowling for Columbine is probably next on my list of DVDs that I must aquire. Any filmmaker who doesn't want to make movies like Leni Reifenstahl's doesn't belong in the business. I'm not talking about Nazi propoganda, I'm talking about shooting and editing film and scoring it to sound independent of any storytelling. Her films are sometimes exhausting to watch, but that is pure cinema, it's pure masturbation. See, I love Leni Reifenstahl and Michael Moore. I like the propagandists; they often make the most interesting films.

I liked Godard, Herzog, Wenders, Truffaut, Tarkovsky and Bergman when I saw them in high school; but I haven't gone back to see any more of their stuff. I don't even own a Herzog or Wenders film. The only Godard film I own is Breathless, the only Truffaut film I own is The 400 Blows, and the only Tarkovsky I own is Andrei Rublev. I own two from Bergman: Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a Marriage. Both are good, but I don't know why I don't see Cries and Whispers more then I should. I fell out of love with Fritz Lang when I saw The Big Heat, I used to be obsessed with M and Metropolis, but I'm thinking I should probably give him another chance. Been looking at a little more of Bunuel and my review of The Phantom of Liberty (sometimes I think I call it The Phantom of the Liberty; which is a bad translation of the French) can be found on this site.

Q. What sort of critics do you admire?

You can find several very decent web-based critics in my section Other Cool Places, and so if you can find them on the web I'll talk about them in that section. You'll notice that you won't find the work of James Berardinelli. The man puts me to sleep. For that matter, I don't much care for Richard Roeper or, of course, Michael Medved. I tend to really dislike newspaper critics. Most paper critics have are journalists and what does a journalist know about anything? Much less movies?

I like a lot of Pauline Kael's stuff; in fact, I think that I actually prefer her collection "Movie Love" to any of her other collections. She makes being a movie critic look like damn hard work. Her movie guide "5001 nights at the Movies" is good toilet reading although I'm usually don't end up watching most of the movies that she reviews. Danny Peary may be an all-time favorite, his "Cult Movies" series is out of print, but is great reading. He's an avid proponent of the Warhol/Morissey films; and an avid detractor of Russ Meyer. He has some sort of taste in other words. And he includes Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Wizard of Oz as "Cult movies" and well they are cult movies. Peary doesn't write reviews as much as essays, and I like the idea of the critic as an essayist. Yeah, I really like him.

Q. Which country makes the best films?

I saw this question on a message board once, and it's good elitist fun. Know however, that I mainly watch American films, and so my interpretations are not at all based on good quantifiable evidence. But eh, I think Germany makes the best films. Lang, Riefenstahl, Herzog, Wenders. I love the 1979 film "The Tin Drum" and you can you believe that a film about a dwarf that can cut glass with his voice, is ultra-mainstream Oscar bait? I like their indulgent depressing youth films also. I saw the 1981 junk epic "Christiane F." pretty recently. It was dubbed in English and was a huge hit in Europe. Here it's forgotten. Great film. Exploitive, depressing, and overlong but fantastic. Also saw a German picture not to long ago called "L'Argent, L'Amour, L'Argent". It hasn't been distributed in the United States, maybe because it's pretty awful, but there is something about it that just rubs me the right way.

Second would be Russia. I've liked a lot of the Russian films that I've seen. As for the rest of Western Europe; France makes lots of interesting films and a lot of garbage; it's an only slightly different from the United States. The United States is probably better actually, we blow stuff up in even our bad movies. Italy on the other hand makes art and garbage that's very different from anybody else's. I haven't seen a film from Great Britain that best illustrates what it's like over there. Everybody looks so damned repressed, like they'd love to smash your head open but they just have too good of manners. I watched some of the Conservative Party Conference or some sort on C-Span and it was absolutely bizarre. Most British movies only get the repression part in, they don't get anything underneath the repression. Mike Leigh's films are depressing alright, but they don't have any anger to them. I need to see those British crime films like "Get Carter", they might get what I'm after. I loved the 1998 film "Elizabeth", that got part of the experience right.

I think that I may like Japanese films, but some of their anime pictures are badly overrated and I'm not a big fan of Kurosawa. I've stayed away from Chinese films which I've pegged for the most part as dead costume epics. Much of Asia has been very much unexplored by me filmwise. Again, I'm pretty ignorant about this sort of thing and can't make an entirely accurate accessment.

Q. What sort of music do you like?

The Cardigans, ABBA, Wendy Carlos, The Pixies, The Ramones, Johnny Cash. Probably Scarface, Cream, and David Bowie. Sometimes Blondie and the Cranberries. Tears for Fears. I'm not very familiar with music as I don't want to wade through a lot of garbage to find something worth listening to (it's a lot easier with movies) and I don't listen to CDs or music very often as I don't really know how to do it; but I know that I have pretty good taste. Music people would probably acknowledge that that isn't that awful of a list. No Christina, Garth, or Mariah. But their own lists would be considerably more refined, expansive, and obscure. But yeah, I'm not a big music person. I would love to hear from a music person who wants to yell at me for my choices. And I'd love to hear how they got to be a music person.

Q. You're an elitist!

Well, my response to this is two point. The first is in that I'm elitist in that I only see or appreciate small films. I think that I can say that I know more about movies, and have seen more movies, and have more refined tastes then most of the people that I've met. But speaking in more macrocosmic terms, I'm probably near the bottom of the rung as far as film fans go. I'm still very young, and I still take in a lot of modern mainstream movies. As to use the word elitist in terms of my writing, in that I go over the heads of people, well it's really hard to keep perspective with that. My writing can only read as dumb as I am, no more no less. I am squeezing these movies for as much sociological, philosophical and cultural meaning as I can. I'm not a talented enough writer to write for anybody else aside from myself. But this question that I've set up; it's wishful thinking and most likely a straw man. In a sense, I suppose that I'm covering my ass, but if you're here, I'm not sure that you would be making that sort of argument.

Q. You're so mainstream!

Q. You're so brilliant, will you marry me?

Sorry, I'm afraid that I'm spoken for. That's me on a New Jersey beach with my wife. We met while attending junior college, and when she transferred to Utah State I felt that I had no choice but to follow. We married in Reno, Nevada on August 14, 2002. Quite young, but it felt better to do it then not. I was thinking that it would actually be a good financial move and that married housing would be cheaper then shacking up off campus. It's not really. We ended up moving off campus anyway after one year; and so that's how it goes. Probably a bigger reason for getting married is so that I can introduce her to people as my wife. That feels really good. And it's expected that whenever I go somewhere, she'll follow. That feels good too.

Q. Why all the salty language?

Effect and sometimes for sound. I try not to be gratioutous, but seriously I don't have a good enough vocabulary to reproduce certain idea and feelings without resorting to it. Don't mean to offend.

Q. Why are your reviews so looooooong?

I only write these once a week and so they have to take on the form of an essay instead of a traditional review. That's just my style and that's the way that I prefer to do it. I hope that I'm not boring. I know people who say that I'm a failure as a critic because I don't discuss the cinematography or the acting; but I'm not sure that I should follow some sort of checklist for every film. I write in whatever direction the muse carries me! And I want to make sure that I am giving every film it's due and appropriate weight.

Q. Why don't your reviews have ratings?

Q. Do you have any other hobbies other then film going?

And yes, I'm always on the look out for the Panesian "nudie games", a holy grail amongst collectors. (One of those can actually net you hundreds of dollars). I kid my wife that if we ever find one at a garage sale for thirty dollars or less we're going to buy it. I don't think she's having it.

Q. Do you take submissions?

Nope, sorry, you'll have to get your own website.

Q. Do you take requests?

Absolutely! I'd love to take requests. The last request I had was for the anime film "Akira" but I never managed to track down a copy, and so no dice. I punch these out at a rate of one a week, and so it may take some time. But yeah, I encourage people to send requests for films to be reviewed. I'll try and meet them. You can, by the way, send your requests, complaints, or compliments to alexjack@cc.usu.edu.