NP-Nicholas Winding Refn

[David Morris]

Did you watch the whole thing?  Does it grow on you?

On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 9:44 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> amazon prime
>
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 10:33 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Where can this be found?
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 9:11 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Refn has a new series (or a 13 hour movie if you like) called Too Old to
>>> Die Young. Ostensibly a simple tale of a bent LA Sheriff and a up and
>>> coming Mexican cartel boss it has wide and seemingly encyclopedic
>>> references and influences: breaking bad, twin peaks, no country for old
>>> men
>>> (I think Refn could direct a version of Blood Meridian--more on that
>>> later), Kill Bill/Reservoir Dogs, James Ellroy, Taxi Driver, Kubrick
>>> (many
>>> scenes are shot Barry Lyndon style--one in a Mexican whorehouse resembled
>>> scary paintings of Franz Von Stuck or Otto Dix). There are probably many
>>> others.It's Weimar on the Best Coast, the end of the world, with
>>> something
>>> coming in the night i.e. fascism
>>> The acting is stiff, with many long pauses. this is not a show for
>>> dialogue
>>> but of impressions, individual scenes are given their full time to flower
>>> (Refn and those he chooses to work with are masters of color, music, and
>>> sound from insects at night, to rippling waters, to the scrape of an axe
>>> on
>>> concrete. the long pauses accentuate the violence and I'll warn all that
>>> this is one of the most nihilistic shows out there--rape, incest, folks
>>> burned and buried alive, mass murder, torture. one character surmises the
>>> rise of eroticized violence. there's plenty
>>> I mentioned Blood Meridian--there is a character called the High
>>> Priestess
>>> of Death, born out of the desert, who becomes an integral part in the
>>> rise
>>> of the young cartel boss. She is the Judge-like character, the seed of
>>> destruction and the central pivot. everything revolves around her. she is
>>> frankly terrifying, even to those she's in with. Women sing narcocorrido
>>> type praises to her as a defender of women. It's hard to take your eyes
>>> off
>>> her.
>>> There are many wtf moments in this show--the denouement of a pair of New
>>> Mexican pornographer brothers, in particular. Barry Manilow plays a part.
>>> Some of these scenes with these guys are hard to watch, but there's many
>>> of
>>> them I'm afraid.
>>> Not many in this show is even vaguely sympathetic or honorable:The LA
>>> Sheriff's office are fascist keystone cops, fathers lust after daughters,
>>> brutal mothers cocktease sons, women are brutalized, men take advantage
>>> of
>>> the weak or other men, women entice men to commit murder justified or
>>> not,
>>> men's lives are forfeit for a few thousand dollars.
>>> In a nutshell, it all leads to the belief that only through catastrophic
>>> violence will innocence be born. and while one cringes from much of what
>>> is
>>> depicted over these 13 hours, the slow pace, the dismal circumstances,
>>> the
>>> at times half-assed buffoonery, flippancy of style and wealth, I do have
>>> to
>>> admit it makes its points well. Let's hope it isn't our future
>>>
>>> rich
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>