EL SEGUNDO HERALD October 3, 2019 Page 11
Entertainment
Check It Out
Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk
By Roz Templin, Library Assistant,
El Segundo Public Library
Getting a jump on Halloween, let’s
look into a new horror tale about a deadly
book. Of course I would be interested in
a book that seems to draw people into
a cursed existence. One of those books
Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk
might be waiting patiently for an innocent
patron to pick it up from the stacks.
I’ll need to know how to defend against
such a thing.
Will Haunt You mixes the paranormal
with rock music, so I really couldn’t resist.
Jesse Wheeler used to be part of a heavy
metal group called The Rising Dead and
he is asked to be part of a one-nightonly
reunion in a bar. He has a great time
performing again, visions of “Back Together
Again” tours dancing in his mind. But in
reality, there were a handful of diehard
fans and a smattering of applause after the
final song.
Jesse is now married and has a handicapped
son. Instead of rock and roll, he
writes commercial jingles. This little gettogether
of his friends makes him stop and
think: What is his life now? Answering to
his “ball & chain” wife and helping to care
for a child that will never really grow up
normally… Maybe he should, but no! He
leaves the bar and most of his inebriated
bandmates and heads for his old Camry in
the parking lot. With his former front man
Caspian nodding off in the passenger seat,
Jesse pulls onto the highway while “The
Midnight Hour” radio show informs him
that his friend Kevin is in the studio with
the DJ and speaking directly to him through
the car radio.
A long night of weirdness ensues, with
the old “car engine dying” beginning, leading
to running through dark tunnels and
fetid water, being threatened and beaten by
goons, kidnapping … until he wakes up in a
hospital. That’s when a hallucinatory experience
takes over and Jesse isn’t sure what’s
real and an extreme hoax. He only knows
it’s connected to a book his friend Solomon
gave him to read.
And there’s the author’s conceit. By picking
up this book, reading it, you the public are
now complicit -- “…you have volunteered
to participate in the author’s deadly game
…” Author Brian Kirk was nominated for
a Bram Stoker Award for his debut novel
We Are Monsters. I won’t tell you whether
or not we’ve been acquainted since reading
the book. I mean, I am writing this review.
I must be okay…
The library staff invites you to visit the
library and enjoy our books, films, music
and programming. If you don’t see what
you’re looking for, please ask. •
Roz Templin
Film Review
A Director Reflects on His Prolific
Past in Pain and Glory
By Jane Greenstein for Cinemacy.com
Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, opening
this Friday, is a lovely rumination on
life, death, love and, of course, pain and
glory (although the latter hard-won and not
cherished). It would be easy to consume
this film as an autobiography. This, after
all, is a tale of a middle-aged film director
experiencing a creative block brought on by
both physical and seemingly spiritual pain
after decades of prolific filmmaking. It’s
made by the 70-year-old Almodóvar whose
long and winding career has produced its
share of masterpieces including Women on
the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Oscar
winners All About My Mother and Talk to
Her, along with other films that never caught
fire with the public.
While there’s plenty in Pain and Glory
that’s self-referential (including the use of
the director’s flat, wardrobe and furniture)
there’s also ample evidence that this is, as
one character calls it, “autofiction.” Only at
the end is the line between reality and fantasy
drawn, but by then you’ll have gone on such
a fantastic ride that it will hardly matter.
Antonio Banderas, Almodóvar’s frequent
alter ego, has never been better. This time,
he plays Salvador Mallo, a director sidelined
by crippling pain that he is pacifying with
a recently acquired heroin habit. Though
not to worry—this tale isn’t told through a
drug-infused haze, but rather with a crystal
clear and deeply colorful lens.
The first third of the film’s action begins
around Salvador’s decision on whether and
with whom to attend a tribute screening
of his classic ‘80s film, Sabor. But this is
merely a device to set off a string of events
that lead the director to look back when he
can’t propel himself forward. “Without filmmaking,
my life is meaningless,” he says, yet
it’s unclear what will motivate him to regain
his creative footing.
The film skips through three periods of
Salvador’s life: His childhood in the ‘60s,
when he and his impoverished parents lived
in caves in Valencia, Spain and he fell for a
neighborhood laborer; his adulthood in ‘80s
Madrid when his great, though tragic love
affair occurred; and the present, where we
see him become increasingly isolated and
crippled psychologically as much as his
body is physically impeded. Through these
reflections, we learn about how his identity
was formed, how he acquired his love for
cinema, and his deep and stinging passions
and losses.
Pain and Glory, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
The other guiding force of Pain and
Glory, as is always the case with Almodóvar,
is his palette of vibrant colors that bring
magic to this film. The reds, greens, blues
and bright patterns are alive in every
scene, whether it be the operating room, an
abandoned train station, the Valencia cave
where the young Salvador and his family
reside, or the dresses and scarves that
his mother (played in her younger days
by another Almodóvar regular, Penelope
Cruz) wears.
If Pain and Glory proves to be Almodóvar’s
swan song, he’s going out in a blaze of
glory. This is as profound, moving and
deeply engaging as a film you’re likely to
see this year. It stands as another masterpiece
from this Spanish auteur who is never afraid
to examine his own foibles and frailties with
a vision that few of his filmmaking disciples
can come close to attaining. •
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