Starf*cker

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Hey look, it's me and Kevin Smith! I betcha didn't know we were best buds like that, didja? Oh yeah we go way back. I was actually the original Jay to his Silent Bob until that bitch Ben Affleck came along and ruined everything!

Or you know, whatever. This was just outside one of the new theaters at the Film Society of Lincoln Center this weekend after his presentation of Valley Girl, which I did not attend. I attended the next screening in the same theater, which was a super secret surprise screening which the only thing they told us beforehand was that the film had some buzz at Sundance. Naturally, I immediately convinced myself the film they were showing was Miranda July's The Future and got very excited. Then I saw that Kevin Smith was doing this Valley Girl screening right before my screening and convinced myself he was sticking around to show Red State, which also had some "buzz" at Sundance this year.

Unfortunately I was wrong on both counts and got stuck watching Another Earth, which I completely missed the supposed buzz on from Sundance, but if it did have some buzz it didn't deserve it. It's got a nugget of a sort-of interesting sci-fi-slash-spiritual concept at its heart... that it never feels afraid to beat you over the head with its most obvious interpretations explicitly every chance it can create for itself. What would you do if you were confronted with... yourself? DUN DUN DUN. Apparently you'd stare at motes of dust for an hour and a half. There's a character that pours bleach in his eyes and ears in this movie, and... well, it's just making it too easy, ya know?

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