cinephile blogger

Salvador Dali was a very talented Spanish surrealist artist. Just because one’s good at one branch of art like painting like, for example, doesn’t mean that person should go into the film directing business. This eccentric Spaniard directed a 1929 film, “An Andalusian Dog” which is a 21 minutes short film described as including “the most searing and memorable images ever filmed”. This is another branch of Dali’s talents, another part of his talents I can recall myself learning about Dali in 8th-grade art class as his painting of the “Persistence of Memory” as well as him walking his anteater, in the streets of new york to him in his famous series of images “Dali Atomicus”.

The movie is about what is referred to as a love triangle. A man is seen riding his bike down a section to only fall off and a woman witness this to fall in love, a certain intrigue about this man that just fell over on his bicycle, take him into her room. It is important to note as well, the director of this picture, Dali, had an intense fear of all things bugs. So in his works, as a way of therapy, he often captured bugs in his works as a way of outward express to his seeming dislike for such creatures. Ants are the bugs shown in this short film, coming out of the hand of the man fallen off his bicycle. It is revealed that this man is married. Given his hand to marriage quite literally as there is an actually severed hand shown with another woman walking it around like it was a show dog.

After the reveal that the man is married, he begins to advance towards her. She obviously knows that this man is married and that kills his wife. The thought of him cheating on her, kills her by a car running her over after the fact. The man touches her inappropriately and eventually gets crazed enough to start dragging two of the following. Men, pianos, boards, and what I can assume are dead camels or dead moose, I can’t really tell. But the point is he is willing to carry a lot of weight and really try and advance on this woman who brought him up to her apartment after we learned he was married. This is another representation of him working extremely hard to please this new woman but to no avail, she keeps continuing to refuse.

The man gets punished by another man that is a way of saying himself but with two people to express through the medium better. He throws several of his belongings out the window and forces him to do the same but just winds up in the corner. The scene ends with him shooting himself, or one man shooting another man. Let me point out this is crazy complicated and if your still sticking with this short film, chances Dali and his buddies just had some crazy dreams and decided to make a movie one day. That is totally an option as well. Now after the man kills himself? After the man shoots the the other man? The woman obviously is haunted by the man who was putting advances on hers death, and she is overcomed with guilt. She eventually gets over it with the help of a new man with the ending being on a beach covered in the objects previously thrown out the window as well as a recurring box that keeps appearing broken on the sandy, rocky beach of timbuktu. Crazy time as a motion picture. 

I am in the middle of the disney channel original, High School Musical. I give this movie 2 out of 4 stars. It’s fun in its own, tbh it’s just not my thing, I don’t like musicals in general but this movie works in it’s own as a disney channel gem. My opionion on this movie is the same as when I viewed Teen beach movie. Campy fun for tweens hitting puberty.

Originally, “High School Musical” was going to be the topic of this paper. Alas, another short film has been discovered and needs to be discussed in more important than the Disney channel. What is the first thing you think of when you hear, cannibal? Hannibal Lector possibly, Jeffrey Dahmer? In the ‘80s a filmmaker had other plans for this type of crime. A film can represent anything and that’s why film criticism is so important, I recommend the reader stop reading this right now, and watch the short film “Possibly in Michigan”. Watching any random genre of a movie can change anyone’s mood. “Encino Man” is gonna get a different reaction than “Silence of the Lambs”. “Possibly in Michigan” on the other hand- It’s a free horror/musical short film made by a fantastic director of Cecilia Condit. What are the limitations of imagination? Examining good movies are reflections of what is society and how we operate as a species. Pauly Shore is not that mirror we need, we should not celebrate a film shooting low and hitting that mark, unlike this short horror, I think is riveting, you feel almost tougher after making your way through something like “Possibly in Michigan”.

(After watching the film) Calm down, change your pants or breathe in a paper bag, it’s a bit much to process so let’s break it down scene by scene. “Possibly in Michigan” opens in a mall. The musical part of the film instantly takes effect as we hear the lyrics of “I bite at the hand that feeds me, I slap at the face that eats me, some kind of animal cannibal, animal cannibal? These lyrics not only establish the next 11 minutes and 45 seconds of your life but let us know what type of experience you will be having emotionally. Of course, the cannibal portion returns grimly, as Sharon goes down an escalator we start learning what kinds of men she attracts. “Sharon attracted violent men”. Sharon joins her friend Janice and begins to talk about perfume, being cut from the same mold, they both attract violent men, thinking the violence was their idea, (the man’s).

Arthur, the pre-disposed cannibal of the picture has been following them, having in common with Janice and Sharon, violence and perfume. I guess cannibalism requires at least a little violence. After hearing the first second of dialogue you can almost feel your heart begin to quiver, the ladies talking about perfume how female T1000’s talk to each other, it reminds me if A.I.s became android mall-goers pretending to be human. The topic of conversation? Perfume and poodles. Her aunt reminded her of the perfume she was buying. This aunt put her pet poodle in the microwave to dry it off. Yeah, this definitely is a messed-up musical. 

Janice and Sharon depart from the mall via a quick cutscene dancing with more masked men. A montage of driving, a jumping poodle, a woman removing a gun from a dresser drawer, and still with the lyrics of “I bite at the hand that feeds me, I slap at the face that eats me, some kind of animal cannibal, animal cannibal”. It should be important to mention the origin of the title. “Possibly in Michigan”, was titled after the girls trying to figure out where they would have seen Arthur in the past. Where did I see him? Possibly in Michigan. Sharon drops off Janice as Arthur, “longs for that sexual scent that smelled like home”. Arthur rings the doorbell of Janice’s house cutting in between frog masks, donkey masks, and eventually settles on a man in a tuxedo, when Janice sees the cannibal at the door she empties a revolver in an attempt to defend herself. 

`May I remind the reader that the whole story is a musical, Janice is being attacked and is still singing while calling Sharon on the phone as Arther confronts Janice. Arthur gives Janice two choices, eat her, or turn her quadriplegic, when asked why he responded, ‘For love’. But love shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg Janice replies, enjoys the smell of her, revealing that Janice is the 7th victim Arthur had come into contact with. Sharon catches up with Janice and the director describes it the best herself. “A musical horror story about two young women who are stalked through a shopping mall by a cannibal named Arthur. He follows them home, and here the victims become the aggressors. It is a story of friendship, courage, frailty, and fears that will not go away.”

The end of the film occurs when yes, Sharon and Janice eat Arthur, wrap his bones in newspaper printings and leave him on the curb to be taken by the garbage truck man, to pick up and never be seen again. If you were to ask me how I’d rate this short film, I’d argue three out of four stars. This movie on no basis is similar to my other favorite movie, The Goonies, but it has a quality of creepiness but still good cinematic craftsmanship to be admired to even this day.