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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Spun

D Terminator XXXIII

09:23 / 23.03.04

In the tradition of "I can't believe you guys haven't discussed this yet" - which seems to happen a lot of the time (I am still in the thankless process of how to incorporate Cold Mountain and Gothika to this forum, but fear that I might get beaten down, tied up and have something fervidly done to my collection of sacred candles stops me dead cold in the tracks...), as I see - let the few of us, I'd wager, who caught this movie discuss it. I believe it is now out on DVD everywhere.

Bundled up with other movies that produce a highly altered physical state - Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club and Heavenly Creatures come to mind, actually - this is an extremistic high that won't leave you readily after the absorption of it's effects have stopped. When I left the movie, my perception was, well, Spun, and the rapid MTV-style pace applied itself to my reality. Which was kind of cool.

Has a subject matter been depicted more faithfully? Instead of arousing the voyeuristic tendencies, that some movies can advocate, we are taken for an almost equal ride along with the cast, and the mastered, superb editing approach to many of Åkerlund's directed music videos is evidently the key here.

Even though it has been many months since I watched it, I have no firm conviction of what this movie is really about. For me, watching movies is pure sensation, and unless I am called upon to debate about the merits of the complexity of a movie, I always leave the sensation where it is: I remember much everything, I can recall how my reactions were to certain sequences and my memory bank has a hazy, idiosyncratic construction of the movie as I saw it, the few bits of trivia that movie mag's provide me with and the input/output with my friends.

Based on the sequence where the Cowboy assumes the identity of an all-American seducer in order to increase consumption, I could reasonably argue for the fact that the movie is a critique of the Americanization across the globe, which can be a strange place to be. I'd have to include that this sequence is what worked the least in the whole movie, in my opinion. But I'll wait, it could be I'm very alone in here...

*crawls down the hole*

D Terminator XXXIII

11:33 / 24.03.04

You know, perhaps a different approach might be better suited to a proposed longevity of this thread.

- Don't see this movie! It's depraved! It will cause unhealthy shitspats and breed communism! You have swear words! You have pictures of men sucking other people's cocks! You have cunts! You have cool, former band singers playing lesbians! You have involuntary sadism and male chauvinistic approaches, which breeds the notions that we should all tie our strippers up to a bed for days on end! You have decadent animation sequences, depicting cocks, cunts and how they can be used! You syringes stuck to characters' arms!

This movie is bad for you. Don't see it.

For all our sakes, man.

17:08 / 24.03.04

I have no firm conviction of what this movie is really about.

question:
Have you ever been (to use the vernacular) SPUN?

I caught it on DVD and was quite entertained. Yes this is the sort of film that tends to stay with you after viewing and can certain simulate a viceral effect.

You forgot to Mention the Great Deborah Harry.

John Leguizamo was great... actually much of the acting was very well done. The scary thing is that this film seems to be a somewhat accurate (subjective experience here) depection of life in the desert towns of the south west.

Not sure what you mean about:
the sequence where the Cowboy assumes the identity of an all-American seducer in order to increase consumption, I could reasonably argue for the fact that the movie is a critique of the Americanization across the globe, which can be a strange place to be.

The animation sequence was an interesting choice but worked pretty well in conveying the eroticly vacant lust frenzy.

The choice of bondage was strange for that charactor, though it worked in it's fucked-upness, it seemed only to offer a comentary on lossing one's decision making ability once one is spun.

The meeting of with the Ex was both comical and tragic.

I still wonder of the exploding LAB was an accident (the final comentary on the evils of cooking) or intentional (the Cowboy's boss cutting his losses so to speak). That vagueness seems to work in the film's favor.

23:19 / 24.03.04

i just still can't get over the fact that Ackerlund used to be the drummer of pre Black Metal band Bathory. that's the crossover of the century.

D Terminator XXXIII

12:30 / 25.03.04

Have you ever been (to use the vernacular) SPUN?

Actually no.

Dear old boy has a tendency to portray his personally experienced depravity; the "Smack my Bitch up" video was inspired by a large night out in Copenhagen.

The characters inhabit a very odd little world, all unto themselves, compared with - say - the people to be found inside the veterinarian. The spun characters are all fucked up, whereas the Cowboy has his cool in place - and by that, being the contrast to the sleeping cast, he voluntarily(?) blows himself up.

What kinda message is that?

02:54 / 26.03.04

yeah I thought that he did kill himself in the end cause not long before that he was going on that maybe his mom should've killed him when he was talking about her drowning the puppies.
I love this movie anyways, that one swat part where the cops bust spider mike with music and everything and then also when they busted frisbee and there was like that ourobouros effect cause the mom was watching it all on tv.