“I GUESS WE GET MARRIED NOW…”*: Someday when you have a huge supply of liquor and a strong desire to understand the USA, try watching, in order, “Heathers,” “The Ice Storm,” and “Grosse Pointe Blank.” As I understand it, the first movie is simply bubblegum Gnostic (“Life sucks! Let’s blow up the school!” Oh for crying out loud, who cares? We all thought high school would kill us… if we didn’t kill it first. My favorite line from HS: “Homophobia is so gay!”). “The Ice Storm” is a negative movie (like Nirvana’s “Nevermind”), in which all the characters realize that the world they’re trapped in is wrong, but they have no alternative. In “Grosse Pointe Blank,” the characters do actually identify a positive alternative–hello, having babies and not killing anybody. Tough talk for post-Roe America. The point here is that… [liquorous rant about abortion and the meaning of life removed for your convenience].

*This line is actually from “River’s Edge,” which was mentioned in this post but got axed. Oh well. A confusing side note for a confused post… Still, “The Ice Storm” is a great movie–City Paper‘s capsule review slammed it for being “reactionary,” which of course it is. When you recognize that your society is slurring into nihilism, yet you don’t believe in any alternative vision of the world, reactionary is all you can be.