:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Saturday 12 July 2003 ::

"The film contains (as far as I can recall...) no scenes of penetration."

I would prefer David Stratton not to turn his mind or his pen to the topic of penetration, thankyou.

But since he has.....urggghh.....

This is his review of Ken Park which you can get online no problemo:

Social workers would recognise these characters and situations only too well, and in its unflinching depiction of the way these parents treat their children – either neglecting them, demeaning them or, in the most extreme cases, preying sexually on them – the film is unquestionably important and relevant.

..the concentration by Clark and Lachman on explicit sex is extremely confronting. Though the film contains (as far as I can recall from a screening last September at the Venice Film Festival) no scenes of penetration, there is certainly a fair amount of sexual activity. Clark and Lachman can certainly be accused of a lack of restraint.

A lot of sex. No penetration, but, that David can remember. (Jeez. None he can remember. You are a film reviewer, David. We kinda count on you to remember illegal shit like that. Urgh.)

Well, okay then.

And we should all get out in the street and protest to make sure the film's bunch of sex, including penetration too, maybe, if David's memory has failed him and us, is able to be seen, even though most people do not care whether it is or not, and the only people whining about the stomping jackboot of censorhip in not classifying the film as watchable, are people who mistake classification for stomping jackboot censorship.

And here is yesterday's review by Stratton of The Real Cancun. This, however, is, for some reason, not available online at the Aus site. Can't imagine why not - the other film that was reviewed does get a guernsey. Maybe I'm missing it. Whatever. I'll type, cos it is short, sharp and bitchy:

When it comes to sleaze, however, The Real Cancun takes first prize with no contest. This is reality TV transferred to the cinema - Big Brother on the big screen. The producers, who should hang their heads in shame, selected a bunch of attractive young people in their late teens and early 20's, and assembled them in a beachside resort hotel in Mexico for a vacation of mindless drinking and debauchery, all of it, naturally, filmed. They weren't actors, and there wasn't a script. This, heaven help us, is the Real Thing.

Okay.

The Real Cancun bad because it shows real things that go on in Cancun by consenting 21 year olds without art, artifice or pretension. Ken Park "unquestionably important and relevant" because it shows.....well, here is another review to put this whole idiocy in perspective:

The worst film I’ve seen since... Well, “Bully”.

I don’t know why I still bother to see Larry Clark’s sexploitation films when each one is more despicable than the previous. I’ll give him one thing, his work his memorable, but so would be the experience of having to watch him rape your children. “Ken Park”, which is co-directed by Ed Lachmen, follows three guys and a girl from Visalia, California, as they do nothing but skateboard, smoke dope and do each other, with the occasional bit of the old ultra-violence.

Shawn has a girlfriend, but he likes her mother better. Graphic sex ensues. Tate’s always yelling at his grandparents and his dog. The only person he tolerates is himself. Graphic sex ensues. Claude clashes with his drunken, abusive father. Graphic sex ensues (I wish I was kidding). Peaches’ dad is a gentler, religious man, but when he catches her being kinky with some guy from Bible Studies, he beats the snot out of both of them. Then out of nowhere, Shawn, Claude and Peaches (who we’ve never even seen together before) are having a threesome, shown in graphic detail, natch.

Why one would make such a film? I see two possibilities: 1) He’s only depicting a reality. If that’s the case, someone needs to tell him we got that teenagers were horny and amoral when he made “Kids” seven years ago, no need to keep shoving this down our collective throat. 2) Clark’s getting off on making films with the crassest characters and the most close-ups of penises possible. In any case, “Ken Park” is by far the worst film I’ve seen since... Well, “Bully”.

Now, how can this film possibly be better than The Real Cancun?

There is only one way.

The quality of the tits.

Moving on, but, the film idiot people like Stratton and Pomeranz and Marr and a bunch of bloggers are getting all upset about is shit. You wanna go to the barricades over this rubbish? Be my guest, idiots. But do try not to get all indignant about how art is at stake and Australia's freedom and stuff is at risk and blah blah blah. 'Cos it is not.

No one who thinks straight gives a stuff about this stuff. It has Pomeranz, Stratton and Marr as its champions.

Do I have to draw you a picture?

I mean, this lousy unimportant cinematic wankercise shit brings out the retard in arts folks, it really does. Try this review. Priceless self-obsession on the part of the reviewer, and a complete inability to notice when he is overreacting to cinema. Radio National, natch:

"Ken Park kills himself because his girlfriend is pregnant. He’s been trying to do the right thing, working to raise money for her. Two troubled kids sit on a park bench, and she tells him she doesn’t want an abortion.

'How would you feel,' she asks the stricken boy, 'if your parents had aborted you?' "

Odd that we ban a film which asks this question.

God, I have a pain behind my eye. This is a retarded question. I would not feel anything because I would have been aborted long before any feelings could develop, Einstein. Simple matter of arrested development...out of the womb.

Urggh.

Odd that a film reviewer, along with a bunch of folks, really, cannot see the pathetic nature of the whole Ken Park exercise.

:: WB 6:20 pm [link+] ::