Gummo

[deaner33]

Finally got around to watching this. As a lover of exploitation movies & anything bizarre I was all over this one. Now for anyone who hasn't seen this, the "plot" of this essentially plotless movie is that a Tornado destroyed this town in Ohio & only a few people stayed behind. Essentially the director found every freak he could find & put them in the movie. It basically looks like a home movie (intentionally) by the guy that wrote Kids. Worth watching once if you like bizarre movies.

[Netspionage]

I would have to agree with the Original Poster on this one, though I'd like to add the following.

First, I like (and even have a copy of) "Gummo". Upon careful viewing, it does, admittedly, provoke the desire to slip into a warm bath & open some veins, as watching the Failures Of Humanity (to steal a phrase from SA) on-screen, all the while knowing that you, at least biologically speaking, are in the same Genus as those perpetrating the actions you're watching -- and therefore virtually genetically identical -- does tend to drive people into self-immolation, or even psychotherapy.

Second, DO NOT assume you're going to watch it just once...Be prepared (provided you survived the initial viewing w/o reflexively trying to chew through your own wrists) to watch it MORE THAN ONCE, as -- after you've damaged your own brain thusly, the temptation to MAKE OTHERS WATCH IT can, at times, be difficult to resist.

------------------

Seriously, though -- all joking aside -- it really is not the most horrific/bizarre/soul-destroyingly banal movie I've ever seen...Not by a stretch, sad to say...Although just remembering the scene with the kid wearing the fireman hat & boots while whipping the ___ in the tree is enough to bring back warm, Gummo memories (...), and in fact, that particular scene alone would make for a good vidcap-turned-desktop-wallpaper, IMNSHO. Utterly fantastic. Just fantastic.

Hobbes would probably have given up writing Leviathan (or at least revised his already somewhat dim views on the nature of man to more accurately reflect the much darker view shown in that particular flick) had that movie been available in his lifetime. Curse the luck.


~JMB

[drknstrmyknight]

Gummo - aka Milton Marx - the fourth Marx brother, and I'd rather watch him.

[deaner33]

Yeah, I'd watch it again. It's infinitely more interesting than most of the crap that Hollywood puts out. Just a warning to anyone that hasn't seen it - it's designed to offend you & make you uncomfortable.

[2DualsNotEnough]

Im going to add to the warnings on watching this film.This film shows several scenes of mistreatment and torture of cats.I dont care how "brilliant" or "subversive" this film,or Amores Perros,where terrible things happen to dogs,I wont ever submit myself to that again.If you love animals,you may have trouble with Gummo.
Jimmy

[Sandy G]

I thought they were talkin' about Groucho's brother, too.. Silly me !

[thedelihaus]

If you enjoy Gummo, check out Julian Donkey Boy. Harmony Korine also wrote and directed this one.

It features a star acting role by German director Werner Herzog.



Note to animal fans- Harmony Korine worked closely with the humane society on this film and stayed within strict guidelines they had in regards to animal care and such. Any animal depicted as being abused were not physically harmed- some agreement with either deceased animals sold typically to science and school labs for dissection or artificially created cats were used. I imagine a significant donation was made to the Humane society as well.

Still it is a disturbing couple of scenes.


Korine is a loose subscriber to the Dogme 95 film style.

[deaner33]

Deli, I was waiting for you to respond to this thread - have you seen Ken Park? Not sure if Harmony was involved or if it was just Larry Clark. My favorite of their movies (and I'm lumping them in together) was Bully, which I thought was very well done.

[thedelihaus]

Bully was primarily Clarke, but Ken Park was written (screenplay) by Harmony Korine but no further collaboration.

His latest is Mister Lonely, about a Michael Jackson impersonator in Paris, who meets up with a commune of impersonators of famous dead hollywood celebrities...


I have Clarke's Wassup Rockers here on DVD but only saw a short part of it before the DVD player went wonky.


By the way- Clarke is a photographer (and of some controversial material at times), you probably know, but did you know his dad and mom were somewhat famous baby photographers?

[winters860]

Just to clarify:

Gummo was filmed down in Tennessee. Harmony Korine had never even been to Xenia, Ohio when he filmed it.

It's not really like that here.





Okay, it's sort of like that here.

[deaner33]

Clark does like the teenagers a little bit...

I'll have to check out his & Harmony's more recent output.

[Carmine02]

Thanks for sharing this info.