Sorry to have left you, the loyal FOW Nation, in the lurch for the last couple of weeks. It’s not that your Uncle Grambo doesn’t care for you or, worse yet, that I fell out of love with The Blogosphere™. Quite the opposite, in fact — it’s just that the last two weeks of inactivity here on whatevs (dot org) are the direct result of my new project at Video Hits One taking flight. While I can’t go into too many details at this point (other than the fact that we’ve been writing our new site for the last two weeks), the good news is this: we should be launching one of our hyper-programmed verticals sometime before month’s end. When that time comes, you’ll be the first to know it. Not only will you be able to read your Uncle Grambo rant all day, every day, I’ll also be popping by here at a schedule still-to-be-determined (likely 3-5x per week). So yeah, um, I guess I got that going for me.

So yeah, I’m sure by now you’ve all seen Spidey 3 (aiight), Pirates 3 (durst!) and Knocked Up (pretty tigs). But unless you’re crazed magills like moi, you’ve almost certainly NOT seen Bug. Which is a shame, really, because I haven’t seen anything this crazed since the last time I saw El Topo. In the grand tradition of darkly depressing druggie movies like Permanent Midnight and Requiem For A Dream, Bug revolves around characters who have already been dealt a bad hand by life, characters that the audience immediately recognizes are teetering on the precipice between maintaining status quo or sliding sharply into deep, deep trouble (Bart Simpson steez). Not only should leads Ashley Judd (playing WAY against character as a washed-out, part-time lesbian cokehead) and Michael Shannon (pictured above) get some SERIOUS consideration when the 2008 Awards Season rolls around (not kidding), director Billy Friedkin makes like its the 1970s all over again by turning in his first bravura film since The Exorcist. Really. Not only does he work in more close-ups than you’ve seen since manning the microscope in earth science class, he manages to fill every square inch of the dingy motel room that Judd and Shannon hole themselves up in with a tension not really felt on the big screen since Linklater shot Tape. And if you’ve seen Tape, you know that’s really saying something.

If you’re anything like your Uncle Grambo and you’ve been jonesing all year for something original, something vibrant, something BEST from the movies, this is the film that you’re looking for. Swear to Jer.

Share This