October Challenge: Hostel.

Of all the ways mainstream critics have attempted to demote and denigrate horror films, none has been more successful than the creation of the term 'torture porn.' It's an ugly phrase,  but one that is being used with alarming frequency. According to critics like David Edelstein - the term's creator - 'torture porn' movies like Hostel and its imitators not only  promote sexualised violence, but they actively encourage feelings of vicarious pleasure in its audiences.

In essence: not only are the filmmakers sick, but so are we, the audience, for watching their films.

The term isn't just an insulting and dismissive one, it also indicates just how little mainstream critics understand horror. Hostel is a satire, and an alarmingly effective one at that. It's one of the few American movies brave enough to gaze deep into the machinations of capitalism, globalisation, and the darkness behind our desires, and in that way, it should have been applauded as one of the finest horror films of recent memory.

Instead, it was made to seem like little more than a glorified snuff movie by American critics, and its audience were trivialised. Anyone who liked the film was characterised as a stupid gore fiend, and in that way, the film and its supporters were immediately cast out onto the fringe.

In all seriousness: perhaps Hostel was too subtle for its critics. For all of the movie's confrontational violence and shock, there is an understated nature to the way it develops its themes and characters.

The main element of Hostel that most critics seem to misunderstand is the film's depiction of sex and nudity.  Although they realised that Roth was presenting us with images of nudity and abandon for titillations sake they misunderstood the deeper message.

Roth does encourage us to enjoy to bask in the images of nudity in the film's opening, acting as though he were supporting the hedonistic world view of his characters. But he exaggerates our male-centric, sex obsessed culture to the point where it becomes a parody of itself. In the world of Hostel, beautiful women appear to be charmed by men who draw faces on their asses. Roth presents us with a fantasy pushed to unbelievable limits, not only to visualize and satirise our desires for hedonistic pleasure, but also to set us up for a dark fall.

We are meant to be suckered in by all that flesh so that by the film's midpoint, Roth can neatly turn around and bite us firmly in our sharpie covered butts. He wants us to accept, consciously or otherwise, the ramifications of our desires.

In essence, he wants us the audience to be seduced, and then he wants to hurt us.

A prostitute, and by extension Roth, encouraging the audience into the world of Hostel's seamy imagery.

Studying the sexual aggression of Paxton, one of the film's 'heroes' is a perfect way of seeing how Roth does this. Paxton is a dominator, but by the movie's turning point, he has become dominated. He has an unstated belief that sleeping with women makes them his conquests, an attitude that gets flipped on his head when he is abducted. "You bitch!" He screams at the woman who led him to the 'exhibition' where he will be tortured. "I get a lot of money from you," she replies. "And that make you my bitch."

The central premise of the film's horror - that there are rich men out there willing to pay to torture others - is a neat extension of capitalist thought. When "Edward Saladfingers", informs the boys that with the right money 'you can do anything', our protagonists assume he is referring to sexualised acts. They are comfortable with the idea that money can buy pleasure; they do not realise, as Roth does, that the natural progression of that idea is towards the concept that money can buy pain, too.

The benefit of capitalism is meant to be a kind of democracy - anything can be bought, which means, in theory that anything can be achieved. But Roth sees the insidious suggestion behind all this as well. The torture scenes that define the film's last half are neat mirror images of the scenes of sex that characterised its beginning. By drawing connections between the two, Roth asks where a world that allows bodies to be bought for sex is heading. If human beings are products to be traded and sold, then the lines between damaging your own property and damaging another living thing are disturbingly vague.

In Hostel, the act of inflicting torture is an industry. It has its employees - the women at the hostel, and their drivers - who treat the line of work as though it were no different from any other. There is a great, brief shot of the man who takes Paxton the 'exhibition', joining his co-workers as they stand around their cars and talk. For them, there's no drama to the occupation. It's just a nine to five, rather than a matter of life or death.

The film also attacks the attitudes of Americans when it comes to the rest of the world. The arrogance of the boys comes from their feeling of being privileged citizens of the west - they are Americans, and as a result, they seem to believe that they can laugh at the citizens of poorer countries. They view the world as a zoo which is designed for them alone. When Paxton sees a film playing on a television in the hostel of the movie's title, he barks: "how are we meant to understand this movie without subtitles? Gay." The world, he believes, should be designed for the English speakers.

It is the sick joke that defines the film then, that their arrogance is revealed to be little more than ignorance. They treat the gap toothed pedestrians like harmless kooks. They have grown up and lived their lives in a sheltered world of travel guides and commercials; they believe the world outside America is absurd, but ultimately harmless, and by its conclusion Hostel has punished them for these views in the most deliberately vile ways imaginable. The joke of the film is on them.

It would be wrong of me to imply that Hostel is a purely intellectual film - it's not, and it doesn't mean to be. All this subtext is present, but the movie is also a powerful experience if only viewed on face value. Roth has a masterful control of cinematic violence - he knows exactly how much gore to show, but he never overstates his hand. Indeed, one of the film's most disturbing scenes is entirely bloodless, as a prospective torturer, played by the incredible Rick Hoffman, considers the opportunities for inflicting pain that lie before him.

In short, Hostel, is not only a film deserving of analysis and discussion, it is also impeccably composed.  That is why 'torture porn' is such a useless term. If you're going to simplify such a complex and dark take on American consumerism, why not do the same for all movies? Why not call 12 Years a Slave 'history porn?' Why isn't Schindler's List 'tragedy porn?' Where to draw the line? After all, Casablanca's just 'romance porn': the term 'porn' is only being used to describe filmmakers presenting us with images that invoke a certain feeling or thought. Isn't that the point of all cinema?

In any case, if you're going to reduce and ignore films just because they fit a genre you do not like, then you destroy your own credibility in one single blow.

I suppose I shouldn't be bitter about it. While critics continue to bandy around useless, degrading terms, the rest of us are relishing a film of power, thought and satire. We win.

Under the Skin: Frequently Asked Questions.

 

Q: What the fuck did I just watch?

A: Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, a.k.a. the loosest adaptation of a novel since someone slipped Charlie Kaufman a copy of The Orchid Thief.

Q: About that...Does this movie follow the plot of the book at all?

A: The movie and the book share the same DNA - they're both about a female alien driving around Scotland, picking up men - but their 'point' is very different. Faber's novel takes a fairly campy sci-fi premise and uses it to explore the ramifications of globalisation. Glazer's film takes the same premise and uses it as an exploration of humanity itself.

Q: Wait, what?

A: Under The Skin is a film about what it means to be human. It uses an outsider as its central focus in order to view the human race from a different point of view, in the process attempting to shed new light on who we are as a species.

Q: You realise how up your own arse you sound, right?

A: Yup. I guess I should stress what I always try to stress when I write these things: this film either works for you or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, don't let anybody tell you you're stupid or don't get it or that you should go back to watching Jack and Jill. Movies are totally subjective: love em or hate em, that's your right.

Q: Why was the movie so coy about all that extra-terrestrial stuff then? I mean, the movie doesn't even make it that clear that she is an alien...

A: That's one of the most obvious ways the film and the book differ. Faber spends quite some time in the book revealing the back story of our alien protagonist, Isserley, and goes into detail about her species and their home planet. That's because the novel is interested in big business and the ramifications of farming organic material - the aliens are the novel's stand ins for global corporations.

Glazer doesn't share the same concerns, however. He's not as interested in the practicalities of alien life form - he's interested in human beings. That's why he spends barely any time exploring what the aliens are actually up to.

That's also why he films what happens to the humans after they've been abducted - one of the central plot points in the book - in such a surreal way. He takes the idea of aliens abducting humans for food and transforms it into trippy scenes of naked men climbing into pools of black water. Like so:

 

Like I said, Glazer is interested in humanity, but not the artsy-fartsy interpretation of what it means to be alive. He's interested in the human form - our flesh and our blood. The film is preoccupied with bodies, obsessed with understanding them the way our alien protagonist is too.

Glazer, like Isserly, is determined to decode the intricacies of being a human being, but, like Isserly, he takes the point of view that we are first and foremost animals, creatures of flesh and blood.

Q: Is that why there's not much talking in this movie?

A: Exactly. What we say is treated as being largely unimportant when compared to what we do. The dialogue in the film is deliberately trivial for that reason. It's why 'Isserly' repeats the same banal phrases - "where are you going? Where are you from?"

That's also why there are all of those shots of 'Isserly' examining people on the street. The figures she's watching aren't talking - they're just engaged in the physical activity most of us undergo every day. The fact that we look and move the way we do is fascinating to an alien point of view.

You know that stoner who sits there staring at their hands, going "duuuude, fingers are so fucking weird."? Well that's 'Isserly' in the movie. And to be honest fingers are kind of weird, if you think about it, which is exactly what this movie wants you to do.

The central arc of the film is the transformation of 'Isserly' from an impartial observer to a creature who is genuinely interested, and perhaps indeed even in awe of, humanity. This transformation is not prompted by poetry, or long discussions of the meaning of love and life, but by the things people do. One of the moments that affects her most is when she trips on the street, and is helped up by people around her. Picking up someone when they fall is almost a reflexively human action - it's not something we'd even really consider unusual, in the circumstances. But it is through quiet, almost subconscious gestures like these that we reveal our true nature as a species.

That also explains the inclusion of one of my favourite moments of the film. It's just after Isserly falls. There's a little montage of people going about their business; standing in line at the ATM; waiting to cross a road; going about their lives. And then there's this shot, right before we cut to a close up of Isserly's eye, of this woman sitting on a bench with her legs out, smoking a cigarette. She notices somebody's approaching and her leg is in the way, so she moves it, just an inch.

It's great because it's the kind of thing that we do all the time. It's so small and inconsequential that a lot of movies wouldn't even bother including it.  It's just a person acknowledging the bodies around them - but, as odd as it might sound, seeing it in a film makes me  pleased to be a human being on this lump of rock. I mean, sure, we wage wars, and we fuck each other over on a global scale, but on a personal level we have this innate courtesy and care for each other that translates itself into...Well, not being a dickhead and getting out of the way.

Q: So, this is a film about how good we are as a species?

A: Not entirely. After all, the Logger at the film's conclusion isn't a good person. But he's not a bad person either. He's just a human being - flawed, frail, mortal and impulsive. The film doesn't celebrate us, it captures us as we are: trapped, and yet oddly redeemed by the constraints of our lustful bodies.

Q: Fuck me, that might be the most pretentious sentence you've ever written on this site.

A: Y'know, I think you're right. But, while I'm at it, I might as well keep going: the film reminds me of that line in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when Earth and the human race are summed up in the words mostly harmless. We're insignificant, we're small, we're ape descendants, but we're kinda sorta sometimes alright, in our own way.

Q: I heard that a lot of this movie was shot 'documentary style', with hidden cameras, and non-actors. Why did they do that?

A: Well the film kind of is a documentary - a documentary about human beings. As soon as you get an actor in front of the camera and instruct them to 'act', no matter how good they are, they lose some of their naturalism. They are actively trying to recreate what it's like to be alive, instead of actually, you know, being alive.

Q: How come Scarlett Johansson's in this movie? It doesn't seem like her kind of thing.

A: No, it doesn't, which is why it was such an interesting choice for her to make. You can see why Glazer cast her though. Johansson's such a beautiful human being in such a 'classic' way, she kinda does look like an alien as she walks down an ordinary Scottish street. We treat celebrities as a different kind of human being - it's why we're always so amazed to find out that they do things like eat McDonald's and...dance. So, having a celebrity playing an alien isn't too much of a stretch.

Q: Anything more to say?

A: Not really. Here, have a shot of some guy's bum to balance out all the waffle in this review.

Q: Um...Cheers?

A: You're welcome. Always.

Gimme Something Good, Or, What Ryan Adams Means To Me.

For all of my childhood and most of my adolescence, music was a non-entity. My mum owned a Cliff Richard And the Shadows cassette she would play irregularly, and we had a Hits of Christmas Album that would be unpacked with decorations for the tree come December. But for all intents and purposes, my home was one without music. On long car trips, we listened to audio books my parents snagged at the local W. H. Smith's, and the radio only came on for episodes of The Archers.

Not that I minded. I had books instead. I had no knowledge of music, but also no interest: I knew who people like Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan were, but I couldn't name any of their songs.

I vividly remember the time when the ipod was just starting to make waves. One of the advertisements boasted the device's ability to "hold over a 1,000" songs. I used to quietly wonder at the idea that there could actually be that much music in the world.

Then, during one of my high school's compulsory music lessons the skinny figure of our teacher told us we were going to have to bring in a CD of our own choosing, play the class a song, and talk about it. I balked at the idea. I'd never owned a single album.

Desperate, I visited the school's library, and picked up the first album I came across. The CD was titled Gold, and the name of the artist was Ryan Adams. I studied the front cover on the way home, bewildered by the upside down flag and the spiky haircut of the figure who I could only assume was Adams himself.

I borrowed my mum's dusty CD player to listen to the thing, and I clearly remember sitting it down on my desk like it was a piece of foreign machinery. I loaded up the disc, hit play, and sat back, genuinely not knowing what to expect.

As cool as it would be to write something like, "and in that moment my life changed," I can't, because it didn't. I had no yardstick by which to measure what I was hearing; no musical ear to speak of. I listened to the album from beginning to end, and although it was far from an unpleasant experience, it was a beffudling one.

But I was a painfully conscientious student at that age, desperate to please my teachers. So, as soon as Gold was done, I hit play and listened to it all over again. I needed to know what it was about, what the point of it all was. After all, I had a presentation to give; a teacher to impress.

Although I remember "Answering Bell" was the song I chose to play the class, I have no idea what I said about it.

I started to listen to the album on a daily basis - at first, still driven by the idea that it was a code to unlock, but soon, because I actually wanted to. I thought it was impressive the way the album slowed down for breathing room, like on the song "SYLVIA PLATH", and the more I listened, the more I began to appreciate that there was a human being behind all this noise, crafting it the way my favourite authors crafted their novels. I became interested in the man called Ryan Adams. I thought it was sweet, the way he wanted a woman to take him to France. I began to wonder what other things he thought about, and what else he had to say.

To that end, I wandered for the first time into a music store. I might have taken a plane trip to a different country. I had no idea where to start. I was too shy to ask for directions, so I moped around the place for almost an hour before I found the section marked "Alternative", and the little space left for Ryan Adams in that. A little while later, I walked out of the store with Rock N Roll in a plastic bag and a lighter wallet.

Listening to the album gave me my first ever "hairbrush in the mirror" moment. As soon as the song "Luminol" began to play, I began to dance an ungainly jig. My sister walked in to the room, watched me for a second, and then quietly shut the door, embarrassed for the both of us.

But "Rock N' Roll" was the song on the album that really opened things up for me. It seemed crazy that this guy who had been strumming his guitar with frenetic abandon only a song before would suddenly sing about how uncool he felt. I remember looking at the album cover, and wondering how a man who I was increasingly feeling such respect and awe for could feel so sad.

From that point on, music became a consuming obsession. I listened to everything else Adams had to offer, and then started branching beyond him - first to Morrissey, who I heard him arguing about on the first track of Heartbreaker. From Morrissey came The Smiths, from The Smiths came Pulp, and then the road became increasingly jagged - soon I was listening to Bob Dylan, P. J. Harvey, and everything in between.

But Adams still held a special place in my heart. His album 29 became the soundtrack to the summer of my 18th year. I was feeling increasingly out of place in school. I lost a lot of friends, mostly through my own sullenness and silence. I used to take my Walkman to school, wander out into the park nearby at lunchtime, and sit on a bench and listen to "Elizabeth, You Were Born to Play That Part."

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was beginning to exhibit the symptoms of bipolar disorder, something that would not be diagnosed for some time. All I knew was that I wasn't interested in the things I used to be interested in. I was tired, listless. I started to have terrible nose bleeds, and I was sleeping only an hour or two a night.

But amidst it all, 29 and Adams were there. That album was a place of safety, and security. As much as I was changing, it didn't. It stayed motionless - an island of quiet amidst all the noise. On the weekends, I would take my bike and ride in circles around the neighbourhood, uncomfortable in the heat, "Strawberry Wine" lazily making its way to my ears through my headphones.

In my search to find likeminded people, I became deeper entrenched in Sydney's alternative music scene. By the time I had graduated from high school, my friends were all smokers; Sonic Youth fans; writers and musicians living on their parents' money.

I soon discovered it was pretty uncool to talk about Ryan Adams with my new indie mates. As the Goo posters started crawling up my walls, I found that my new music nerd friends were astonishingly critical of records like Gold and Easy Tiger.

 I still have a notebook I kept at that age. One of the pages boasts the list, "My Favourite Albums Ever." The number one spot belongs to Goo, but I can still see where I wrote 29 and then feverishly scribbled it out. I was ashamed that such a sincere and 'mainstream' album would be my favourite.

And so, I drifted away from Ryan Adams. His face, which had long adorned a poster on my wall, was replaced by the scowling mug of Nick Cave. I stopped listening to the albums he put out, and I became the most insufferable kind of  alternative music nut - the kind of listener who is deeply afraid of anything that might be deemed commercial. My ethos at the time was, "the more obscure, the better."

I don't mean to criticise Sonic Youth, or the other noise rock bands I became obsessed with at the time. I still love those guys, and the records they made. I more mean to criticise the person I became as I listened to them. I hunted down obscure French novels that make me cringe now, and wrote poetry so dense and pretentious I can barely read a line of it today.

Music, like literature and film, became a cage. It made me feel better than those around me. It made me aloof, removed. Rather than providing me with an outlet to the real world, it cut the real world off. I took the element of music which is meant to make you love the life you live, and used it as a way to lock myself away from people.

Somewhere around this time, the floor fell out on my life. I suffered a breakdown - I had taken to alcohol with a beginner's abandon, and spent a lot of time drunk. I was dividing my time neatly between Sydney and Melbourne, where I read at a few underground poetry nights. I grew a scraggly, ugly beard, and took long walks by the sea, staring at the long falls under the cliffs. Shortly afterwards, I made two separate attempts on my life. My parents took me to my local doctor, who immediately sent me to a psychiatric ward, were I was kept under observation for a week.

My mum brought me supplies while I was locked away in the hospital - tim tams, instant coffee, and my ipod. The days were very long there, and the nights longer. There was nothing to do but smoke and stare at the battered concrete walls. I tried to read, but didn't have the patience. So I did the only thing that seemed effortless - I listened to music.

Sonic Youth seemed too harsh, and brought back too many bad memories of friends that weren't friends, and nights that held no sleep. I put the ipod on shuffle. The first song that played was "Oh My Sweet Carolina". I was too sad to cry, so I just listened, and when the song was done, I started it from the beginning, and listened to it all over again.

I heard Adams sing the lines, "So I went on to Cleveland/and I ended up insane", but they weren't the words that resonated with me. It was the chorus that moved me. "Oh my sweet disposition," I listened to Adams quietly sing, "may you one day come carry me home."

It wasn't just the feeling behind the line that sparked something inside me. It was the clarity of the sentiment. It was the fact that there was someone out there who had taken the pain, and passion of his life, and translated it simply into music. It was the fact that someone had managed to take someone bad, and make something of it. It was Ryan Adams, and his open, authentic beauty.

I listened to that song many times. I emerged from the hospital soon after. I wasn't fixed, but things were better. Two years later, I was correctly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I found a job that gave me immense pleasure, and through that work I met a young boy who changed my life. He had autism, and through the unashamed love he had for those around him, I found a certain peace. He taught me more than anyone I had ever met, and the most important lesson he gave me I still follow to this day - that the importance of life is love, and friendship: nothing more, nothing less. We still work together.

Music was, and still is an important part of my life, but through the work with my young friend, I came to realise it wasn't everything. For too long, my love for music had been obsessive, insular. Working with my autistic friend taught me that there was life outside of my bedroom; my cd player; the walls of records I had surrounded myself with.

So what Ryan Adams meant to me changed again. I still listened to his music, but not in the quiet of my bedroom, in solitude. I listened to his albums on the bus, on my way to work; to parties. I began to talk to people again. I made friends.

After all, the real talent Adams possesses is singing about human beings.

The new Ryan Adams album has found me now a very different person than I was when Gold first played on my dusty cd player. I have meaning; I have good friends; I have love; I have a life.

Ryan Adams, the self-titled album, contains everything I have ever loved about the man. There is real love to it; the love of music itself, and the love of the people listening to it. It is a generous album. It is a man giving himself with no filter, thankful in his way. And listening to it, I once again feel that strange joy I felt way back when in the psychiatric hospital - I feel the joy of hearing a musician accurately and beautifully taking an emotion and pinning it to a moment. 

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting outside in the sunshine. "Gimme Something Good" is playing. It's a killer song. But, I don't really want to write anything about it. When it's over, I think I'm going to go for a walk. There's a world out there, after all.

An Open Letter To Bono, Written After the Free Release Of "Songs of Innocence"

Dear B-Man,

I know a lot of people have said some pretty mean things about you over the years, myself included. I mean, there was that time I equated listening to your album The Joshua Tree to the experience of having a red and white shell-less mollusc's penis slowly inserted into my ear (as you are an expert on absolutely everything ever, I'm sure you know that red and white shell-less molluscs have barbed reproductive organs, meaning said experience would be not only unusual, but cruel too.)

All that said, there is one thing I have never accused you of being, and that is inauthentic. You passionately believe that the things you say and the records you make are important. This is obviously why you just gave the world an album for free. In your universe, handing out a record without asking for us to shell out our hard earned dollars makes you Moses delivering the Ten Commandments. After all, Moses was kind enough not to demand a cover charge, and he never sold a single t-shirt with his face emblazoned on it.

In short, in your mind, you are blessing the world with U2, and all we mere mortals have to do is sit back and listen.

I know you think you're being generous by not making us pay for Songs of Innocence, but there's something problematic with your attitude.

You see B-Man, giving away something for free is only generous if it is something people actually want. After all, I once knew an interesting chap who, one drunken evening, shat in his ex-girlfriend's mailbox. She did not have to pay for the faecal matter he deposited directly into her home, but the experience being free did not in any way prompt her to feel touched or thankful, particularly as she spent a solid hour of the next morning bleaching her diarrhoea soaked carpet.

I must say, finding your album Songs of Innocence in my house as I awoke made me feel a little violated. It was a little like the old 'mollusc penis in the ear' scenario all over again, although last time I knowingly inserted the penis into my ear. This time, the mollusc is pretty much a rapist, and I must ask him and you to remove your barbed members from my person.

It's not like I could just not listen to your album, either. Upon finding it in my library, I felt like Brad Pitt at the end of Se7en, desperate to know what was in the box. Although every part of me screamed against the idea of playing a single song, I had to know how insipid and uninspired your music could be.

And, insipid and uninspired it is. I have the sneaking suspicion that at some point during your career, you were traded in for a Bono-Bot; a robot fuelled by its own sense of self-parody, belching out lifeless anthems about the most clichéd subjects imaginable amongst clouds of exhaust and acrid smoke.

In future, B-Man, would you mind keeping your music to yourself? If you would allow me to use another genital based analogy (keeping in mind that there's a reason I don't get paid to write this stuff) your music should be like your penis. It's nice to show it to the people who like you, but when you start rubbing it in our faces, well then, you're no better than a rapist mollusc, are you?

Yours sincerely,
The Underlook.

American Movie: Where are They Now?

American Movie, a documentary that charts independent writer/director Mark Borchardt's attempts to film an ambitious drama titled Northwestern, may be turning fifteen this year, but old age is having no ill effects on the movie's cult status. People continue to be drawn to this relentlessly enjoyable, oddly uplifting film, and it's not hard to see why. After all, Borchardt and his best bud Chris Schank are two of the most loveably determined goofs in American documentary film history, and the movie observes their struggles and desires with a fond eye.

The trailer for American Movie.

But, a decade and a half on, whatever did happen to the American Movie's rag tag group of film enthusiasts? Armed with little more than Google and far too much time, I've spent the last few weeks trying to answer that very question. Here's a little info on the folks I could track down:

Joan Petrie.

 

 

In addition to her work as associate producer on Coven, the short film that Mark directs in an attempt to raise the necessary money for Northwestern, Joan Petrie was later the wardrobe assistant on the film The Smokers, and appears briefly in the barely released Lady in the Box.

Robert Richard Jorge.

 

 

An actor in Coven, Robert Richard Jorge has also provided the voice of the Porn Fairy (yes, the Porn Fairy) in the video game Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. Check out his fine work here:

Jorge is also set to play Claudius in the upcoming movie Hamlet ADD, sharing screen time with his old buds Borchardt and Schank. Here's a bizarrely compelling promo for the film:

 Alongside his acting work, Jorge also works as a Journalist at Shepherd Express, where he largely reviews local theatre and cinema.  You can find his work here: http://expressmilwaukee.com.html

 

Cliff Borchardt.

 

 

Clifford G. Borchardt, Mark's father, passed away on April 4, 2012 at the tender age of 90.

 

Ken Keen.

 

 

According to his imdb page, Ken Keee had a role as an extra in the Michael Mann helmed Public Enemies, though I personally couldn't spot him. He's much more visible in the documentary American Surfrider, where he acts as one of the film's interviewers, grilling some of the figures in Wisconsin's colourful surf scene. By all accounts, he's still close to his buddy Mark - he's playing the role of John in Borchardt's upcoming movie Scare Me.

 

Oh, and for those of you intrigued to know what Keen looks like these days, in the process of my research, I also discovered this odd clip of the man himself chewing the fact with Borchardt's brother Chris. Enjoy:

 

 

 



Tom Schimmels

 

 

 

Tom Schimmels, one of Coven's stars, continues to find work as an actor in independent and web based projects. Here he is in a strange little youtube short:

 

 

 

 Mike Schank and Mark Borchardt.

 

Schank and his buddy Borchardt have enjoyed a fair bit of success as a result of American Movie. They've basically managed to make a living playing versions of themselves, whether it be in the Todd Solondz film Storytelling, or in animated form in an episode of Family Guy.

 

 

Outside of his work with Borchardt, Schank continues to play classical guitar - here he is with a ten minute jam:

 

 

If you enjoyed that, you can also download the music he played on American Movie's soundtrack here: http://www.americanmovie.com/music.html. Oh, and while you're at it, check out the man at the Amoeba record store, nabbing a few choice picks:

 

 

Perhaps most compellingly, Schank also appeared in an Italian television commercial. Sadly, the commercial can't be found on youtube, so you'll just close your eyes and imagine how awesome it must have been.

 

Mark Borchardt's work without Schank has largely been as an actor - he was cast by Ti West, a die hard American Movie fan, in the film Cabin Fever 2. He continues to sport a goatee and long hair, although he is showing quite a lot of grey. Here he is in a little promo video, designed in part to encourage people to cast him in movies:

 

 

God bless the guy. Seriously. He deserves every good thing he's got coming to him.

 

10 Alternative Musicians Who Covered Pop Hits (And Nailed Them In the Process.)

10. Crispin Glover - These Boots Are Made For Walkin'.

Ever listened to Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin''" and thought, "man, I like this song, but I sure wish someone recorded a cover that made it sound creepy as hell"? Well then, you're in luck, because actor Crispin Glover blessed the world with his own unique version of the song on his 1989 album The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be. He sings the song like a man who keeps a gynaecologist's chair in the middle of his apartment, which should be no surprise to those of you out there who know that Crispin Glover does keep a gynaecologist's chair in his apartment.

9. Teenage Fanclub - Like a Virgin.

Like a lot of musicians of their era, Teenage Fanclub made a living from inserting pop hooks into scuzzy, guitar driven rock, so perhaps it's not surprising that their cover of Madonna's hit comes with feedback galore, and a driving drum beat.

8. Guided By Voices - Baba O'Reilly.

This wouldn't be a list on The Underlook without a reference to Guided By Voices, would it? As has been repeatedly confirmed I dedicate myself to the music of Robert Pollard and co. with the same passion that most people dedicate to their families and/or careers. But, how could you not like a band that tackles such a classic song with such relentless energy? Sure, they have trouble replicating the song's tricky opening, but from that point on they jump headlong into the track with their customary intensity and noise-rock genius. God bless 'em.

7. John McCauley - Dead Flowers.

John McCauley is the brains behind Deer Tick, a band who have produced five full lengths album of alt. country fuzz and scuzz brilliance. Here he takes on Dead Flowers, bringing a raw, throbbing edge to the Rolling Stones classic.

6. Philadelphia Grand Jury - 99 Problems.

Jay-Z never knew what hit him.

5. Vitamin String Quartet - Get Lucky.

If you're yet to discover Vitamin String Quartet and their beautiful instrumental arrangements of pop/rock/indie hits, then you're missing out. With what could only be described as genuine admiration, they take the songs you know and love and transform them into rich, layered classical anthems. Their cover of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is only the tip of the iceberg - every single record they've put out begs for a listen.

4. The Mountain Goats - The Sign.

Who knew that The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle was an Ace of Base fan? The only thing sweeter than this cover's wide eyed enthusiasm is the voice at the beginning of the track that gently utters: "I never get tired of this song." Amen.

3. Red Kross - Dancing Queen.

Red Kross' first gig was an opening slot for Black Flag - from such auspicious beginnings, it must have been hard for the band to decide where to go next. Thank God then that somewhere along the way they decided that covering ABBA was the next logical step.

2. Frank Black - Hang On To Your Ego.

Seeing as this is the man who cut increasingly large numbers of Kim Deal penned songs from each Pixies album to make room for his own efforts, the title of this Beach Boys track must have really spoken to Frank Black. That said, he nails this one, bringing an odd electro charm to his version.

1. Mark Kozelek - What's Next to the Moon?

Mark Kozelek doesn't just cover AC/DC on his tribute album, What's Next to the Moon - he transforms them. Stripping the songs to their bare bones, he reveals the surprisingly powerful lyric content of each Bon Scott penned anthem, creating music that twists and rattles like a cut snake. In fact, Kozelek's covers are so powerful that one music critic mistook "What's Next to the Moon" for a cover of a Leonard Cohen track, which might well be the only time Scott and Cohen have ever been confused.