Dr. Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) is an LA psychiatrist spiraling into apathy; in the light of his wife’s suicide, he’s realized his newly published book, Stop Being Sad, was less in the name of self-help and more in the name of self-esteem; namely, his own. Of course, if he weren’t so bogged down in his own depression, he’d realize his advice isn’t half bad, even if it does have that icky doctor’s waiting room ring to it. His coping mechanism manifests in frequent visits to his drug dealer, Jesus, and a joint in his hand any time he’s not seeing a patient.

Then we meet Jemma, quietly fierce high school student who immediately pulls a fire alarm to avoid a test she didn’t study for, to sneak out of school for a routine matinee (this time, it’s The Graduate). When she goes home she tapes the ticket stub to her ceiling alongside a trash bag’s worth from previous movies.

A few other characters we meet as patients of Dr. Carter. Kate is an actress who seeks couples counseling for her and her self-involved husband, a musician who enjoys his duty to “rock cocks.” Patrick is a germaphobic, paranoid agent, whose only client we meet is a drug-addled actor named Shamus. We’re also introduced to Jeremy, who is a screenplay writer having some trouble coming up with story, and Dr. Carter’s “godbrother.”

There are many things Shrink arouses for discussion. It’s a beneath-the-surface movie about subject matter usually reserved for shows about “the biz” of Hollywood. We are shown the intimate wires of networking; almost every character shares screen time, from being intimately involved as lovers or friends or just passing each other. Every instance is logical, never forced.

The meta-humor is strong in this film. Robin Williams cameos as an alcoholic, undersexed actor, also a patient of Dr. Carter’s. His path crosses with Jemma and she tells him he needs to make better movies.

This movie makes a few arguments concerning writing, specifically screenplays, and how “the biz” can be utter bullshit if you’re a writer with bad timing. Jeremy must have thought showing up in person to Patrick’s office showed initiative, and his own seriousness about his work, but Patrick’s assistant Daisy tries not to laugh at him. “This isn’t how it’s done?” Jeremy says, embarrassed. Then Daisy reads Jeremy’s script; she tells him it’s good, but that a similar, shittier script had already been made into a movie and was being released the next year. She tells him to start something else. Before this we saw Jeremy struggling to get his script on the page, and now he’s told that regardless of its quality, the fact that it’s already been done completely nullifies his effort. Talk about suffering for your art. But, it’s possible that Jeremy could have done his research a little better before setting out with his life’s work. If he wanted to sell his scripts, he should probably make sure they haven’t already been made into movies.

Desperate for a new story, however, Jeremy steals Jemma’s patient file from Dr. Carter’s office. He more or less stalks her when she sees another movie and goes to a video store, where he approaches her. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he reads classified information, he turns it into a script, which he gives to Daisy for Patrick to read (she more or less shoves it in his face, too). But, keeping in tune with the movie’s ever crossing paths, Jemma finds the script on the sidewalk after passing Patrick on her way out of Dr. Carter’s office. She confronts Jeremy, then shows Dr. Carter, who finds Jeremy mowing lawns to chew him out. “How fucking dare you?” Dr. Carter yells. “But did you read it?” Jeremy asks, before Dr. Carter throws a punch at his jaw.

A great argument for the sake of how writers use information: when does the “sake of art” overlap into “invasion of privacy”? By the end, of course, Jemma comes around, because we assume her desire to make movies must means she understands Jeremy’s artistic vision. Of course, it’s her choice, since it’s presumably her story he stole, and since we trust her sense of movies is top notch, we believe her when she says, “It’s good.” So while this situation worked out for the better, it’s possible this sort of thing occurs all the time. Consider this for the next nonfiction piece you may tackle: will it be easier to ask permission when you never get the chance to ask forgiveness?

First, a quick movie review.  If you can handle a bit of profanity and some mild drug use, Shrink is an excellent film.  For one reason or another, especially in religious circles, we pretend that a normal life carries the rough resemblance of the guts of a clock.  Each piece is designed and installed with less than a hair’s width tolerance and each piece must and often does look and work exactly as it should; a well oiled machine.  People, just so you know, that’s not how life is.  Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it’s awesome and most of the time, at least for me, I’m just trying to keep my head above water for some reason I’m not really sure of.  Thus, Shrink was a very honest and refreshing portrayal of the realities of life.  We don’t have all the answers and never will.  It’s okay for us to find ourselves in the midst of the struggle.  It’s also ok for us to feel a bit uncomfortable when people are continually trying to fix us.

Moral of the story?  Just like I’ve written before, the journey really does matter.  Further, self discovery is probably the most concrete method of education.  And what I, and I’m sure many others, desire is to be loved for who we are, not what other people want us to be or think we should be.

Second, has anyone ever stopped and thought about the concept of antibiotics?  Translation in layman’s terms: anti-bacterial medicines.  Rumor is, there is actually good bacteria.  You know, that stuff that keeps us regular, eats some of the nasty stuff in our bodies, etc.  So, when we take an antibiotic we are essentially killing off all bacteria.  I’m not too keen on the idea since it’s likely the majority of those bacteria are good ones.  But shoot!  Let’s kill everything off…  I’m more for the natural approach.  I’m not sure if it works, but I haven’t taken any antibiotics or been poked with a flu “vaccine” in roughly 8 years and during that time, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I finally broke and took an over-the-counter neural inhibiter.  I feel much better filling my body with stuff that supposed to be there and my body naturally knows how to break down.

Third, I’m looking over the parable of the 10 virgins found in the new testament.  Most of us assume it was said by Jesus since it’s written in “red letters.”  Case in point.  We assume a lot of stuff about the bible.  So the question is, does the story of the 10 virgins lose its significance if Jesus wasn’t really the one who said it, rather it was a story engineered by a late first century author in response the fears of the community to which he was a pastor?

In my opinion, it implies a necessity to sever the notions of an eschatological (or apocalyptic) Jesus from the historical Jesus.  The historical figure of Jesus seems to have been much more interested in an alternative kind of wisdom than proclaiming “the end of the world is near.”  My assumption is that his statements similar to the kingdom is near, were not referring to impending disaster for heathens, rather a new kingdom, a way of existing that is and should be fully realized now.  And frankly, the 10 virgins doesn’t really have much to do with participating in a happening right now sort of kingdom.  And that’s outside of the fact that our english translation of that story off some interesting quandaries within itself.

Quickly, one of those being the very first sentence of the story.  The kingdom of heaven is like 10 virgins… Notice what is not said.  The people who want to enter the kingdom of heaven are like… or People in the kingdom of heaven can be compared to… It could be nothing of much significance, but the reference to the kingdom itself being compared to the 10 virgins seems to point to the notion that the kingdom is already happening and depending on how you choose to participate in that kingdom reflects the amount of life and celebration you will enjoy from inherently being apart of it.  That begs the question, what then do we think about all those arguments of “us and them,” you’re either “in or out” or comparisons between “truth and lies?”

Food for thought.  Random entry.  Random enough to coin my own word: Randomocity.  Of course, it’s likely someone has already penned it elsewhere making me at the very least, a second place finisher.  Oh well.  Life goes on.

Enjoy it!

By Kelly Vance – EastBayExpress.com

Park Chan-wook’s Thirst doesn’t disappoint.

Director Park Chan-wook, whose Oldboy set the international standard for stressful revenge theatrics back in 2003, is arguably the leading light of the decade-old K-horror/K-thriller invasion. Where such South Korean filmmakers as Bong Joon-ho and Ahn Byeong-ki contented themselves playing riffs on the well established monster/teenage ghost/ecological sci-fi motifs they inherited from the Japanese pacesetters of the 1990s, Park set out for new territory. His genre work combines disturbing psychological elements with Korea’s customary graphic-visual overkill. The most terrifying creatures in a Park Chan-wook film are the human beings.

With that in mind, when we discovered that Park’s latest project, Thirst (Korean title: Bakjwi), was a vampire story, we expected something extraordinary. And Thirst does not disappoint. It’s the best vampire film since Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In — kiddie shows like Twilight and Blood: The Last Vampire pale (you’ll excuse the expression) in comparison.

The story begins with an emotionally fragile Roman Catholic priest named Sang-hyun (played by frequent Park collaborator Song Kang-ho), who tirelessly comforts patients in a hospital and in his spare time sorts out his tangled inner life. Caregiver Sang-hyun’s devotion to humanity leads him to volunteer as a human guinea pig at a clinic in Africa, where researchers give him a blood transfusion infected with the Emmanuel virus, a puzzling disease that mostly strikes single males. Immediately Sang-hyun develops an ugly skin rot — shades of David Cronenberg — but he returns to Korea and continues to care for his flock. They soon dub him the “Bandaged Saint.”

However, there’s another, unnoticed side effect of the virus: The priest has turned into a vampire. His selfless ministry to the poor and sick now competes with his carnal thirst for blood, and he begins making nocturnal visits to the hospital after sleeping all day in a battered wardrobe in place of the usual coffin. Drinking blood makes his boils temporarily disappear. Perhaps not coincidentally, unaccustomed sexual desire also arises in the virginal Sang-hyun — his remedy for that is to violently flog his penis.

Running alongside Sang-hyun’s agony is the pitiful plight of Tae-jun (exploitation star Kim Ok-bin), the Cinderella-like “stepdaughter” of Lady Ra (Kim Hae-sook), a mean, petty old hag who uses Tae-jun’s marriage to her cancerous, disabled son Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun) as an excuse to treat the young woman as a virtual slave in their household. Tae-jun’s tasks include feeding and bathing her invalid husband, occasionally masturbating him (they don’t have sex together), and, worst of all, enduring Lady Ra’s weekly mah-jongg games in the family’s tacky parlor with their hideous friends.

Sang-hyun happens to be a boyhood pal of the sickly Kang-woo, so he routinely socializes with the family. It doesn’t take the horny bloodsucking priest and the unhappy, resentful wife long to figure out they can help solve each other’s dilemmas. There’s a problem with their relationship, though — the priest cannot easily let go of his spiritual need to protect and serve other people, and Cinderella isn’t quite as docile as she first appears to be, under the thumb of the awful family.

Park, who wrote the screenplay with Chung Seo-kyung as a loose adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin (the lover was not, alas, a vampire priest in the original version), clearly enjoys juggling complicated motivations and the old ultraviolence with mind-boggling special effects, but these days anyone can make characters crawl down walls like spiders and do a bubble-and-squeak under the rays of the sun. Thirst’s true seductive power comes from the carefully constructed collision of two desperate people who have only their thirsts in common — his quite literally for the life-giving blood, hers for vengeance against the world.

Actors Song and Kim inhabit their roles by degrees, and their performances are the best argument yet that K-horror, at least in the hands of Park, possesses hidden dimensions of subtlety. As in Let the Right One In, the vamp saves someone from a bully, and the climactic reckoning underscores the essential inequality between the vampire and his beloved — victim and predator, servant and master. Park’s twelfth directorial effort is probably his most mature outing. It’s also one of the all-time grisliest entries in the genre, packed with shocks and depravity and thrillingly sensual sound engineering. You never heard such slurping.

While we’re on the subject of codependency, Jonas Pate’s not completely worthless drama Shrink reminds us of that notorious service station in Hollywood that used to advertise: “Free psychiatric visit with car wash.”

In fact, Shrink’s story of a depressed LA psychiatrist (Kevin Spacey) treating a typically crazy cast of Tinseltown misfit patients — most of them connected to the movie biz — also brings to mind Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself. In that intelligent, organic 2003 documentary, writer-director Andersen, a CalArts film professor, convincingly complains about movies using lazy clichés to explain his hometown: Everyone there takes pills, works in the entertainment industry, lives in a Richard Neutra house on a hilltop, is flamingly neurotic, is unable to sustain a normal relationship with anyone, constantly looks in the mirror, and so on.

Shrink hits every single one of those clichés in its who-cares critique of La-La Land witch doctor Henry Carter (Spacey, drawing a paycheck) and his nutty fellow Angelenos: a fear-ridden, bullying talent agent (Dallas Roberts); the agent’s down-trodden assistant (Pell James); a fading screen actress (Saffron Burrows); an alcoholic, oversexed, aging actor (Robin Williams); a misplaced pro-bono-case teenager from South Central (Keke Palmer); an action-movie phenom from Ireland (Jack Huston); a blond up-and-coming starlet who will fuck anybody (Laura Ramsey); and, of course, the shrink’s godson, a would-be screenwriter played by actor Mark Webber — a younger, cheaper version of Sam Rockwell.

Newcomer Thomas Moffett’s screenplay, adapted from a story by Henry Rearden, doesn’t miss a speed bump. The only character with potential, and that’s extremely limited, is the weed dealer (Jesse Plemons) with his supply of “Dutch Act,” “Toasty Brunch,” and “Christmas in Vietnam” — an escapee from a Judd Apatow flick. How did they talk Gore Vidal into his cameo as a talk show host?

After discarding all the hackneyed distractions, we’re left with the realization that without Kevin Spacey, Shrink would never have been made. In a way, the film is a referendum on the state of his career. We find him in a contemplative mood, mentally adding up all the snippy, verbally sharp characters he’s played since he burst into wide recognition in The Usual Suspects. His Henry Carter in Shrink is pretty much like all the rest. That’s disappointing.