(re: icon, not broke in a laughy way)

I think watching Red State* and Melancholia** as a double bill was probably a worse idea than that time in high school when we watched Requiem for a Dream followed by Lilo & Stitch.

*From the director of Dogma: What Kevin Smith actually thinks about jump-cuts, religion and gun control.
**From the director of The Idiots and Antichrist: another group of depressing, unsettling people from Lars von Trier.

In the last week I've also seen Last Year in Marienbad (arty unsettling film set in a European chateau) and Wings of Desire (arty slow film set in 80s Berlin with bonus stock footage of WW2, hooray) so taking those two with Melancholia (arty slow unsettling film set in a European chateau during the apocalypse), Red State (snappy, tense, shot-on-video, callous/brutal, had a few jokes, set in the US) was a refreshing change.

I like Kevin Smith when he's angry and has a severely limited budget. He gets good actors to do good work. There's also Stuff to say about his use of jump cuts: creating a fractured world where no one - especially not the audience - exists in an unbroken linear continuity, etc. (also! David Marciano has a cameo!)

I don't know why I keep watching films by Lars von Trier. Well, that's a lie. He's good at making films that stick, unforgettable. But was it worth being masterfully depressed for two hours and haunted for hours after? As yet uncertain.

Recommendations for things not depressing heartily welcomed.