I learned early that I’d never be the king of anything.
I can for damn sure live with that the short time
I have left. Nobody needs to tell me what I am, and
I don’t have the time of day for a notion so foolish
as who. Leave that horseshit to the pansies.
I know only that I was born a small man and never had
much of an appetite, but I got by, even if I didn’t do
diddly with what I had and never amounted to a hill of beans.
I guess you could say my old man was something of a
prophet on that count. All the same, I have no
use for a preacher trying to make something tidy of
my time in this disgraceful place. I got no use for
monkey business, period. But since you asked what I need,
I’ll tell you: Give me five minutes of peace and quiet
and remember whatever the hell you want. And when time
washes its hands of me just let anybody who might be curious
know that I’m gone. Tell them that long ago I came to the
crossroads and chose the wrong damn fork. Happens all
the time. Tell them I never wanted much except to sleep
when I was tired. And tell them I was a goddamn liar.
Tell them I was the hungriest man who ever lived.
On a dark and stormy night, after getting a flat tire, the innocent Brad and Janet are forced to take refuge in an old castle. What they find inside is perhaps in keeping with the expected mad-scientist scenario, but there’s a definite twist. Sure, you have your man-made creature. You have your loss of innocence. And you even have a touch of cannibalism. But you also have some seriously sexy goth all the way through: men in corsettes, sexual confusion, and a clear indication of a decadent morality. “Touch-a touch-a touch-a touch me. I wanna be dirty,” sings Janet during her sexual awakening. If you grew up doing the “Time Warp” in movie theater aisles after midnight, you’ll perhaps appreciate a live production of the now classic (and cult) movie. But beware, this is probably not something to which you want to take your children.
“Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours / Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus.” When 
is a Shakespearian tragedy based on the life of legendary Roman leader 
Oak Street Cinema’s Bergman Tribute comes to a close this week, with one of his most visually seductive works, Cries and Whispers — “an eerie, intense, lurid, death-obsessed dream play á la Strindberg, with a large dollop of Chekhov.” Bergman’s masterpiece depicts the emotional and physical pain of the woman’s world. The film, set in an elegant turn-of-the-century manor house, revolves around four women, a young virginal woman who is dying of womb cancer (Bergman was never known for his subtle metaphors), two unhappily married sisters — one of which is suicidal and actually self-mutilates her sexual organ — and a maternal-type servant who loses her children. This is not a pretty world, my friends — and men might take offense at their utterly useless depiction; but the acting is impeccable and the camera work is spectacular. Bergman uses his lens to highlight the pain of each woman, to show the physical and emotional fragmentation. And he does so brilliantly. His color palette — another metaphorical representation of the pain and suffering — and his use of silence, seem to transcend the narrative and take on a life of their own.
Often time, as I put together the Secrets of the Day, I really have to do my research, dig for details, and settle on the best way to convey what an event is all about. But every now and then, my frustration comes at having to find an alternate way to present a perfectly accurate description. Not today. 
They’ve been around for two and a half decades. They’ve sold over four million records. They created the music for 
When Americans get killed in a bombing incident on a U.S base in a foreign country — first of all, we call it terrorism. Then, we send in the covert operators to “get to the bottom of it,” or whatever else mission they concoct. We flex our muscles. And we make a movie about it. That pretty much sums it up. And this pretty much sums up director Peter Berg’s new film, 