zaxblog

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Patrick Church

Artist and designer based in New York. A modern Keith Haring? Photographed by Eddie Lee for Hypebeast in 2019. 

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Dr Sleep, Mike Flanagan (2020)

Fantastic and a real feat to complement both Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King’s genius film/novel in a sympathetic, engaging and genuinely entertaining way.

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Creep, Patrick Kack-Brice (2014)

A simple, and brilliant film. The villain is spectacular. I really liked how he transitioned from normal person, to frustrating oddball, to terrifying maniac and the viewer witnesses this so genuinely from Aaron’s perspective. 

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Cloverfield, Matt Reeves (2008)

This film was excellent. The length of the establishing party scene borders on dull but builds the suspense very well and the disintegration into full blown panic was exhilarating. This made the monster’s attack genuinely frightening and amplified the sensation of the film. Unfortunately the reviews for subsequent films suggest they do not match up to the brilliance of the first.

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The Comfort of Strangers, Paul Schrader (1991)

This was a very disappointing film. The acting was superb, as was the score, and sublime shots of Venice. The build up of suspense was masterful, however the whole thing was let down abruptly in the final few scenes. The audience is taken from a slow-burning, tense thriller to an underwhelming and pointless unravelling at the end. I wish it could be redone, with the last quarter of the film replaced with something worthy of the preceding three quarters.

(I have so much to update this blog with. I thought I had been locked out for the past 10 or so months!)

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Oscar Perry

More to say

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Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

This film knocked me over, and I actually cried at the end. Smashed my expectations... more to say later.

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Orlando (1993)

There are a lot of amazing films I’ve see in the last 9 or so months since posting. One I had rewatched out of affection was Orlando. Luke Edward Hall featured one of the Jimmy Somerville songs featured in this arthouse classic in his recent ‘Greco Disco’ playlist and it reminded me that I just had to rewatch this and show it to Josh. It’s beautifully shot. Tilda Swinton was born to play this role, the narrative is ahead of its time (and to think Virginia Woolf wrote this prescient insight into gender in 1928!), the scenery (shot at Hampton Court Palace and other exotic locations) is stunning and the score is danceworthy. One of my all time favourites and belongs in my canon of films.

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Posting now, will comment later.

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[as below] There is a need, I think, in Sydney to have a simple oral history film, very short (less than 10 minutes) just for people to listen to the stories of people from older generations about what life was like. Then, I think there is also a need for a longer documentary, or docu-series chronicling (Australia’s?) history through the perspective of gay or LGBTI stories.

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[Sydney LGBTI oral history to come]

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Linn de Quebrada - I have found my Brazilian, queer Die Antwoord and she is excellent!

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Love, Simon (2018) directed by Greg Berlanti.

On the face of it this is a cheesy American high-school teen comedy, but it is actually so much more. This film actually conjures the same fear, excitement, relief, and all the thrills and extreme anguish that goes along with being a completely normal, middle-class closeted guy. There are two scenes that are so powerful they could have been picked out of my own life: the scene with Simun and Martin in the library, where Simun’s cover slips for the first time and his whole world is held in Martin’s hands - I have never seen that terror portrayed on film - and the reaction of Abi to Simun when he comes out in the car. The relief conveyed in that scene is all consuming. Greg Berlanti, as a gay man, has clearly experienced these feelings before, as would so many of his production team and that's probably what enabled him to direct such a great film. Love, Simon deserves to be in the pantheon of gay films and no one should be deceived by its saccharine, big Hollywood aesthetic. It accurately portrays very powerful emotions that torment young gay men. My only fear is that as time goes on these emotions will be less comprehensible to younger audiences - but, this is probably a result of greater acceptance and empowerment of gay people in society and that, of course, is a great thing. 

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Summer is coming, and this video has always summed up this excitement. 

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Barry Jenkins, the director of highly critically acclaimed Moonlight was influenced by Giovanni’s Room (apparently). Personally, I found the film a little slow, but thought that it was beautifully shot and had an excellent score. Some scenes were powerful but the whole arc didn’t hang together well IMO. 

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Just finished this excellent book, a portrayal of the dishonestly and anguish of love in 1950s Paris. I would love to turn this in to a film, and the cover of this 1990 edition is precisely the aesthetic I would go for.

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I would have watched this video 1000 times, secretly, before I came out.