Herostratus

A failure of the venerable Mac is that it started hiccuping on my flash drive after one too many movie transfers. After the Mac OS just kept choking Windows formatted the thing in a jiffy. I blame the cataclysm that occurs when an eastbound train laden with good taste meets a westbound train carrying Herostratus.

Here's a nastier plot summary from the NY Times:

A disillusioned poet decides that he has had enough of life and begins to plan his suicide. Rather than go quietly, he decides to make a "statement" by making it a media event in this ponderous drama. He heads straight for a public relations company and tells them that he is famous and from a wealthy family. A little investigation reveals that he is not only poor, but also a lousy writer. Still, news is news and they agree to publicize his death. Unfortunately, on the appointed day, the poet finds someone waiting for him on the roof top. This person tries to convince the poet not to jump. A struggle ensues and the helpful fellow falls to his death. Later the poet runs wildly through the streets into the distance.

It's about that bad. I didn't catch that Max - the main character - was a poet until pretty far in, although it makes sense: he was an awful awful person, though being awful doesn't distinguish him from anyone else in the film except maybe that first hooker.

Along the way there are strippers intercut with the butchery of animals and some interesting footage of Allen Ginsberg doing a reading. Also a mysterious woman in leather also.

And here we have Dame Helen Mirren, respectable sexpot, straight from Herostratus:



It's an allegory of something or other that you will better recognize if you live in a society composed feral wildmen, rich bastards, and hookers and strippers. In short it's everything you could want in a student film but with terrific photography and pretty ambitious sound. Therefore I made it to the end.