Gummo - 1997 - Dir. Korine

I am puzzled by Harmony Korine. And I'm sure he doesn't mind that. I'm not really sure where I get tripped up. Somewhere between his attitude of a project to the final product... I get confused. You see, he seems pretty great. I REALLY JUST CAN'T TELL! I can't always tell if I think his sort of surreal trashy shocking aesthetic is really something I get behind. I think I do. He seems a little pretentious. But I dunno, I've grown tired of disliking someone because they're pretentious. And I don't even know if he is. Generally, when he talks about his movies, I'm kinda like: "Hey, guy. That's a pretty reasonable thing to say and I just might think I agree with ya, ya know?" But wait, I haven't really said a thing about Gummo. Although, indirectly, I really have. But Gummo is basically a series of vignettes of a town still reeling from the effects of an F-5 Tornado (THE FINGER OF GOD!!!). The film is basically everything it wants to be, I imagine. I enjoyed watching it. I'm not going to act like I didn't. I thought it was a delightful. That's right, that's the word I'm going to use. It runs around, showing us the crazy things it's doing. It looks good. It sounds good. It's edited good. It's even under 90 minutes long. I have no complaints about the movie until I start thinking of how I fear that Korine is a huge asshole. I realize he doesn't have real intents in much of what he does. A lot of it is in the persuit of an image which is SO FUCKING COOL. But then I get all Old School on the thing and I feel a little torn. He's like John Waters but... I dunno, artsy. That's not exactly true. He doesn't work with camp really as much. I suppose I like him. I don't feel like my shame of pretension is really grounds to badmouth the film. He really does manage to create some gripping images. I'm sort of ashamed that I even bothered to mention the pretension thing here. But hell, what can ya do? Make out with two sorta weird looking/attractive girls in a pool while wearing bunny ears, I guess. Oh yeah, and the music was awesome.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THERE IS BACON TAPED TO THE WALL!