Embracing the Melodrama #52: The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (dir by Asia Argento)

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on a controversial collection of short stories by JT LeRoy (which was a pen name used by the writer Laura Albert), The Heart is Deceitful About All Things covers three years in the life of Jeremiah and his dug addict mother Sarah. Over the course of the film, Jeremiah is played by thee different actors — Jimmy Bennett at age 7 and, at age 10, Cole and Dylan Sprouse. Sarah is fearlessly played by the film’s director, Asia Argento.

Partially in response to her extremely religious upbringing, Sarah spends most of her time drinking, smoking meth, and moving from man to man, the majority of whom treat both her and her son badly. It looks like things are going to get better when Sarah marries the seemingly stable Emerson (Jeremy Renner) but, when Sarah suddenly abandons both her husband and her son so that she can go to Atlantic City, Emerson rapes Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is sent to live with his grandfather (Peter Fonda) and grandmother (Ornella Muti) who, it turns out, are members of an ultra-religious cult. Thought Jeremiah initially manages to bond with his cousin Buddy (Michael Pitt), life in the cult proves to be no safer than life with his mother. After three years with the cult, Jeremiah is standing on a street corner and yelling that everyone is going to go to Hell unless they repent when he is suddenly approached by Sarah. Sarah grabs him and carries him over to a nearby truck that is being driven by her current boyfriend.

Sarah now supports herself as a dancer and as a prostitute. When she realizes that the presence of her son is making men reluctant to pay for her, Sarah grows out Jeremiah’s hair and starts to dress him in her old clothes so that she can pass him off as being her younger sister.

Eventually, Sarah and Jeremiah find themselves living with amiable but slow-witted meth addict Jackson (Marilyn Manson) and that’s when things really start to head down hill…

In some ways, The Heart Is Deceitful About All Things is a difficult film to recommend because it is so extremely dark and depressing. Much as in her debut film, Scarlet Diva, Asia Argento refuses to compromise on the bleakness of her vision. She set out to make a realistic portrait of what it’s like to live on the fringes of American society and that’s exactly what she did. If the end result is depressing…well, the fringes aren’t exactly a happy place. In the end, you’re actually happy that the film is full of familiar actors like Argento, Michael Pitt, Peter Fonda, and Winona Ryder because you need that reminder that, ultimately, you’re watching a movie and that everyone was able to go home after they finished filming.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things may not be easy to enjoy but it is a film that, as a result of its uncompromising vision, ultimately wins your respect.

AMV of the Day: Sexy

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Arleigh

The latest AMV of the Day is one I was recommended to by YouTube itself when I was checking my emails. It was a winning video at AKROSS Con 2010 by amv creator opiumVIDOK. The video is titled “Sexy”.

All I can say why I accepted this recommendation and used it as the latest “AMV of the Day” is how it perfectly exemplifies the reasons why some people love watching anime: Guns, Sex and Violence. Sometimes one or two in the same anime while at other times all three appear at the same time. It’s only reasonable that the creator of the video chose to use Marilyn Manson’s “mOBSCENE” track to score the video. If there was ever a criticism detractors of anime have it’s always that too much anime are obscene to the point of being pornographic.

I don’t know if I agree with that. I mean just watching “Sexy” it looks to be just 3-minutes of good, wholesome, animated fun.

Anime: Black Lagoon, NANA, K-On!, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, To Love-Ru (TV), Hatsukoi Limited, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Song: “mOBSCENE” by Marilyn Manson

Creator: opiumVIDOK

AMV of the Day: The Beautiful People of Black Lagoon

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Arleigh

Finding very good to high quality AMVs (anime music videos) have become easier to do on YouTube as I get myself more immersed in the amv scene. While I don’t ever see myself creating one even on a dare I do appreciate the work which goes into creating the very good ones. The latest “AMV of the Day” choice is definitely one of the very good ones and, if not, for the non-HD quality of it (though it still looks very good in its SD format), would probably be one of the best out there that I’ve seen.

“The Beautiful People of Black Lagoon” dares to combine scenes from the anime which makes up the latter part of that title with the Marilyn Manson song which begins the amv title. This AMV was able to capture the chaos and mayhem of Horie Rei’s Black Lagoon and also highlight the fact that this series does have a large amount of beautiful people in it from Revy to Gretel and, of course, Roberta. It really gives credence to the lyrics in Manson’s song and the industrial rock sound of the song goes well with the violence that’s so inherent in Black Lagoon.

I could easily show this to people who have never heard of the anime Black Lagoon and I can guarantee that more than half would be intrigued to see the series after this watching this AMV. It is still a marvel that this AMV was made almost four years ago and still can hold it’s own on the more recent ones. Shame there’s no HD version of this AMV. If it looks this good on SD I think it would look great on HD.

Anime: Black Lagoon

Song: “The Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson

Creator: Jasta85

Song of the Day: Sweet Dream (Are Made of These) (by. Emily Browning)

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Arleigh

After having just seen Zack Snyder’s latest visual extravaganza with Sucker Punch my next pick for “song of the day” comes courtesy of that film’s eclectic soundtrack. The one song which stood out the most and set the tone of the film for me has to be the one which starts the film: “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)” covered by the film’s lead, Emily Browning.

“Sweet Dreams” was an instant classic when Eurthymics first unleashed it upon the music world and it continues to do so even after countless bands and artists covering the song. One cover which seems to get the most press has been Marilyn Manson’s version which helped propel the shock rocker into prominence (and helped launch an uncounted number of “goths” to the world). In Sucker Punch the song once again gets covered but this time by Emily Browning. This English actress’ haunting and ethereal rendition of the song with a symphonic rock tempo and melody to match her voice has made this cover of the song my favorite.

This cover opens up the film and almost gives the opening scene a silent film quality as the song plays over a dialogue-free sequence. It also gives the whole proceeding a dream-like quality that helped set the tone of the film. The song pretty much said that what one was about to see may or may not be real. The rest of the film’s soundtrack just got better as the film went forward, but it was the strong beginning with this song that turned a very good soundtrack into a great one.