Entertainment
Neil Breen's New Sci-Fi Thriller Delivers A Message Too Powerful For Film
By Robert Scucci
| Updated
In every single one of his movies, Neil Breen portrays a tragic hero with godlike powers who takes it upon himself to save the world from itself through mystical, inexplicable abilities that more often than not make no sense. 2016’s Pass Thru clings to this formula and makes for an entertaining watch for fans of outsider filmmaking.
While most Breeniacs like myself would point to 2005’s Double Down and 2012’s Fateful Findings as his finest works, Pass Thru is not without its charm. But be warned, because it’s also one of Breen’s most disjointed pieces in his entire filmography, and that’s saying a lot.
“The message is simply too powerful to be captured on film.”
Here, we have an ominous floating red dot that serves no real purpose, a tiger that occasionally shows up in the Nevada desert for reasons never explained, and cans of beans littering the landscape. Corrupt insurance, bank, and media “presidents” openly lay out their plans to be corrupt and immoral, but Neil Breen’s Thgil (light spelled backwards), an extraterrestrial AI lifeform sent to Earth to make it a better place, is here to save the day.
It’s No Double Down, But We’ll Take It
Like most Breen joints, Pass Thru is rife with sprawling desert shots, ramshackle sound design, and preachy monologues about the state of the world, and how Neil Breen, wearing his finest Canadian tuxedo, is the only being in existence who can usher in a new age of enlightenment. Self-satisfaction aside, we get a mess of a story that begins with a group of nameless immigrants packed into the back of a truck and carted off to an undisclosed location by enforcers who are supposed to round them up and send them back to the countries they escaped from.
Through Breen’s narrations, we learn that he’s an AI lifeform from a far-off galaxy sent to Earth specifically to eliminate 300 million “bad people” through a great cleansing. The problem is that in his human form, he becomes a heroin addict who sleeps in garbage when he’s not eating canned food in his trailer home. He befriends Amanda (Kathy Corpus) and her niece, Kim (Chaize Macklin), who are reluctant to stay with him in his trailer even though he claims to be “the future,” after thoroughly rounding up his garbage to make his home more welcoming.
Meanwhile, a boy astronomer (Abraham Rodriguez), two girl astronomers (Taylor Sydney and Taylor Johnson), and their wheelchair-bound professor (James D. Smith) head out to the desert in search of a glowing red dot that looks like a broken pixel on your screen, but appears with purpose despite that purpose never being properly spelled out.
Somehow, all of these separate storylines converge when Thgil takes over a news broadcast to let the entire human race know how primitive they are, and again when he shows up at a mansion to tell various government officials and industry presidents that they’re corrupt. Shortly thereafter, CGI explosions burn in the background as Neil Breen walks away from the wreckage without ever looking back.
Not One Of The Classics, But A Departure Point
While Pass Thru is distinctly a Neil Breen film, it pales in comparison to its predecessor, Fateful Findings. That film is rooted in corporate espionage, government secrets, and dozens of laptops getting destroyed as our hero vows to expose the corruption running rampant in this world.
All the same trappings of self-importance and disgust with the modern world are still there, but Pass Thru fails to stick the landing because there are simply too many moving parts. For a film that people like me actively seek out because it’s so laughably terrible in every conceivable way, there’s a distinct lack of charm here, and I can’t quite put my finger on what’s missing.
If Neil Breen were a musician, Pass Thru would be his departure album. He’s been to the desert and to far-off galaxies by bending space and time as we know it on multiple occasions. This is the last film he shoots primarily on location before becoming a master of the green screen with films like Twisted Pair and Cade: The Tortured Crossing, so what we’re seeing here feels like an artificially intelligent being struggling to reach his final form through conventional means. The message is simply too powerful to be captured on film. At least that’s the narrative I’m going with.
If you’re a fan of Neil Breen’s work, Pass Thru is essential viewing. Just know that it’s not his finest hour. To witness what Breen calls a “visionary, revolutionary film which pushes the human species to the limits of controversial, thought-provoking actions,” you can learn more about it on his website.
Entertainment
How A U.S. President Killed One Of The Best TV Doctors
By TeeJay Small
| Published
Every now and again I sit down with a few friends and revisit my all-time favorite medical drama, House. If you haven’t seen the show, you’ve definitely heard of it from memes, internet references, or Family Guy cutaway gags. The show is as chaotic and off-the-wall as it gets, highlighting a different medical mystery each week as the titular Dr. House dishes out his trademark blend of wit, wisdom, and medical malpractice. Though the show is infinitely watchable for its narrative and character work, there’s one episode that can only be understood through the lens of behind-the-scenes events.
The episode in question is season five’s “Simple Explanation.” In this episode, the character Dr. Lawrence Kutner, played by Kal Penn, is found dead in his apartment of an apparent suicide. House and his staff at the hospital’s diagnostics department are perplexed by this, since Kutner never showed any signs of depression or suicidal ideation before. The gang then investigates Kutner’s apartment, leaving them with very few answers.
As the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that Kutner really did choose to end his own life, proving that there are some mysteries that cannot be solved, even by the world’s greatest detectives. While House and the others eventually move on from the mystery, the real-life truth is a bit more complicated. In fact, some could even say that Lawrence Kutner was murdered by none other than President Barack Obama.
How Barack Obama Killed Lawrence Kutner
Let’s rewind just a little bit. Barack Obama took office as the 44th president back in January of 2009, and quickly began staffing his administration with a variety of hip, young faces. As part of a larger push to appeal to Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, Obama created the role of Associate Director of Public Engagement. His team then reached out to several prominent Asian-American citizens, including screen actor Kal Penn.
Penn took the role at the White House, and subsequently had to be written out of House with more haste than the average departure. He officially joined the staff in April of 2009, right around the same time that “Simple Explanation” aired. While in office, Penn served as a mouthpiece for Asian-American communities and helped perform outreach for the administration’s Affordable Care Act. He is also said to have assisted with the DREAM Act, as well as the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Fans Have Not Forgiven
Kutner was a fan-favorite character in House, and a frequent source of optimism in a sea of sardonic, nihilistic characters. As you can imagine, some fans took his loss pretty hard. To this day, there are running gags online that Obama killed Kutner, prompting a plethora of sarcastic “Thanks, Obama” replies in the comments section. Kal Penn continued his acting career in bit parts while working at the White House, and even returned to the show via flashbacks and hallucinations for the series finale. Ironically, he even portrayed a White House staffer on the series Designated Survivor in 2016, as Obama’s tenure was coming to a close.
So, if you’re ever watching House with your grandchildren in the year 2077, long after the memory of this behind-the-scenes factoid has faded from public memory, you can be sure to let them in on this bizarre turn of events. As it turns out, Kutner didn’t show suicidal tendencies because he was never depressed. He was just a young, happy doctor, killed in the prime of his life, so that an actor could serve his country in a more hands-on capacity than getting high and going to White Castle.
Entertainment
Jake Gyllenhaal's R-Rated Netflix Thriller Is A Dangerous Display Of Rage Beyond The Grave
By Robert Scucci
| Published
As a lifelong musician, there’s a certain kind of peer that I absolutely despise: the self-important artist. You know the type, the people who walk around like their farts don’t smell because they think they’re God’s gift to mankind. Once the work day is done, they pour their heart and soul into their creations, and those creations become the essence of their being. And in their minds, that essence is the most important thing in the world.
While I’m probably being cynical when I say it’s all just performative posturing, I spent enough of my formative years around this type of person to understand exactly where 2019’s Velvet Buzzsaw is coming from.
In this movie, the most stuck-up, clout-chasing, back-handed, stab-you-in-the-back-if-they-can-get-the-upper-hand types get their comeuppance when they start dealing with the work of a newly deceased, completely unknown artist. He leaves behind a treasure trove of mixed-media masterpieces that were never meant to be seen. In fact, he explicitly instructed that his art be destroyed. Instead, it goes up for sale, and everybody who comes into contact with it dies a gruesome death.
Now, I’m not one to incite or encourage violence, but since we’re dealing with a supernatural thriller packed with some of the most unlikeable, pretentious, insufferable gasbags known to man, it’s beyond satisfying to watch them violate this dead man’s wishes and get what’s coming to them.
“All Art Is Dangerous”
Velvet Buzzsaw takes place in a Miami-based art gallery where a bunch of cosmo-drinking artists and critics gather just to hear themselves talk. Among them is Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal), a critic known for his scathing reviews and melodramatic flair, who’s having second thoughts about his relationship with his boyfriend Ed (Sedale Threatt Jr.). He starts developing feelings for Josephina (Zawe Ashton), who works for ruthless gallery owner Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo), who unironically says things like “all art is dangerous” and verbally abuses anyone who crosses her path.
Rhodora moves units with eight-figure price tags, so her ego makes sense in context, but you can tell right away she’s a rough hang.
When Josephina returns home to LA, she finds her upstairs neighbor, Vetril Dease (Alan Mandell), dead outside his apartment, with no signs of foul play. His apartment is filled floor to ceiling with morbid artwork that immediately entrances anyone who sees it. Constantly on the receiving end of Rhodora’s criticism, Josephina collects the pieces so Morf and Rhodora can appraise them and possibly put them on the market, giving her clout in an industry that’s ready to chew her up and spit her out.
They quickly realize Dease isn’t a known artist. The work is authentic and original, but there’s no frame of reference for anything he created.
It doesn’t take long for art patrons to start foaming at the mouth over these pieces, including curator Gretchen (Toni Collette), washed-up artist Piers (John Malkovich), and rising star Damrish (Daveed Diggs). The most enthralled is Bryson (Billy Magnussen), the gallery’s installer, who’s bitter that nobody values his artistic input despite his talent, since his job is literally hanging other people’s work instead of showcasing his own.
While transporting some of Dease’s pieces, Bryson gets attacked and killed by the paintings. He’s lit on fire and then pulled into a painting depicting rabid monkeys at an abandoned gas station that flickers to life just for him right as he passes by. Shortly after, people start dropping like flies. The only connection, though nobody realizes it at first, is Dease.
Since everyone is only looking out for themselves in this cutthroat industry, communication isn’t exactly their strong suit. But Morf, after digging into Dease’s past, uncovers enough disturbing information to confirm what’s happening. His art, once released into the world, is cursed.
The Downside To Graverobbing That Nobody Really Talks About
Every character in Velvet Buzzsaw wants to be great, so much so that they have zero issue robbing a dead man of his work, distributing it everywhere, realizing people are dying because of it, and still focusing on whether they can keep moving units.
When Morf tells Rhodora he plans to expose everything, she immediately starts blowing up phones, trying to sell off the pieces before the story breaks. Josephina, who kicked off the entire chain reaction, only cares about how Dease’s work benefits her. His body was probably still warm when she started making calls.
Most importantly, these tryhards are doing everything they can to maintain the mystique and value of Dease’s work, without caring about the fallout. Aside from Morf, who’s still annoying but at least somewhat likable, every character in Velvet Buzzsaw is completely irredeemable. The fun comes from watching them slowly realize they’ve curated something they can’t control. Something that’s coming for them.
When art becomes a commodity and the highest bidders are morally bankrupt, it’s only a matter of time before their behavior catches up with them. In Velvet Buzzsaw, that moment comes when they decide to rob an elderly man of his life’s work without even attempting to contact anyone who might be connected to him. It never even crosses their minds, but Dease gets the last laugh as everyone tied to his creations is taken out in increasingly brutal fashion.
Velvet Buzzsaw, streaming exclusively on Netflix, is billed as a satirical supernatural horror comedy, and it earns that description. Most of the appeal comes from its dry, morbid sense of humor. The best way to watch this movie is after spending time in an art gallery and overhearing the kinds of conversations people have. Once you’ve had your fill of pretentiousness and white wine spritzers, watching it all burn to the ground is half the fun.
Entertainment
The Best Show You Haven't Seen Is Twin Peaks With Rappers And Invisible Cars
By TeeJay Small
| Published
If you consider yourself a television fan, you owe it to yourself to watch Atlanta. The series, which premiered back in 2016, was created by legendary actor, comedian, singer, songwriter, and Yoshi voiceover artist Donald Glover. To date, it serves as Glover’s most foundational work, allowing him an outlet to tell innovative short stories, meditate on his upbringing, and deliver on some of his most outlandish ideas. The show is a modern masterpiece, and the only real downside is that it’s only 41 episodes long.
In case you’re not aware of Donald Glover’s catalog, he might be the hardest-working man in Hollywood. The Atlanta native got his start writing for 30 Rock back in 2006, before becoming a household name as an actor on Community. After seemingly mastering the craft of writing and performing comedy, Glover left Community to pursue a rap career under the name Childish Gambino. His music later evolved from rap into a Stevie Wonder-esque cacophony of retro-futurist jazz funk fusion, culminating in such viral hits as “Redbone” and “This Is America.”
Donald Glover’s Atlanta
After establishing that he can sing, dance, act, write, and perform all at the same time, Glover developed Atlanta. He also stars as the perpetually down-on-his-luck Earn Marks in the show. Earn spends the first season couch-surfing with his parents, his ex-girlfriend, and his cousin Alfred, who is a rising neighborhood rapper under the name Paper Boi.
While trying to make enough money to get his own place and provide for his infant daughter, Earn takes on a job as Alfred’s manager. Along the way, he encounters a series of colorful characters, including Al’s best friend Darius, portrayed by the incredible LaKeith Stanfield.
Darius may not be the main character of Atlanta, but he has become the fan-favorite thanks to his pure hallucinogenic aura. He seems to exist in a fringe space between reality and the dreamlike world of the show, giving fans some early insight into the kinds of over-the-top hijinks they can expect from later seasons. In Atlanta, you’re likely to encounter crowds of strangers wearing cow suits, Scooby Doo-style hidden hallways, and influencers driving invisible cars just the same as rapper drama and the occasional armed robbery.
Hiro Murai’s Surreal Vision
The show achieves this dream-like state by tapping auteur director Hiro Murai. Murai’s vision, in accordance with Donald Glover, creates a distinct visual look and overall vibe that simply cannot be matched. There’s a reason why Glover originally pitched the show as “Twin Peaks with rappers” back when it premiered. The third season, which was shot in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially carries this ethereal energy. In season three, the main narrative is interrupted by a series of disconnected short stories that feel like backdoor pilots for other topsy-turvy horror shows.
Binge-watching Atlanta will surely give you whiplash, as the show bounces seamlessly between laugh-out-loud comedy, terrifying psychological horror, and a deep, almost academic reading of generational trauma. According to a write-up in NME, Glover teased the last two seasons of Atlanta as “some of the best television ever made,” before adding “Sopranos only ones who can touch us.” I couldn’t agree more. Personally, I’d place Atlanta on the Mount Rushmore of TV shows, next to The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Severance.
If you’re interested in checking out Atlanta for yourself, be sure to stream all four seasons on Hulu.
How A U.S. President Killed One Of The Best TV Doctors
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