directed and co-written by Scott Teems, and it is called The Quarry. It’s one of those movies. I see the listing and think: Michael Shannon, film noir, 2020 wow, maybe? Could this possibly be a good movie? And then I see it. And it is very good. And then I go to rotten tomatoes and see the rating of 41% and the critics are saying things like: “the danger that David will be exposed doesn’t build suspenseful as much as it ebbs like a weak tide,” "as for the screen play, it to often feels like a collection of contrivances” and, finally -- “nothing much is really taking place." Uh-huh. Okay. So this film is completely absorbing and quite brilliant. And you can say well that’s just my opinion. Well it is, but why do I care? Because I have gotten reviews like this for my own plays that I know are good, reviews that first of all use hackneyed old Hollywood film school lingo (suspense, contrivance etc) to describe experimental work, and ignore what is there. But it’s not about me, honestly it’s not. It’s about literacy or lack of it; doesn’t anyone care that we won’t have any good films or plays anymore because we have no more literate critics to watch them (who are these bozos on Rotten Tomatoes)? Or is the lack of attention this film has gotten due just to fear of controversy? Because this film is controversial. Anyway this is a sparse, poetic, violent, dark drama about a killer who takes on the identity of a minister and starts preaching to a devoted congregation. There’s a huge subplot — it really morphs into the main plot — primarily concerned with racism — but it’s really the story of a man who gets away with murder, something which has been filmed many times by other great filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen (don't say it, if you'll never watch his films again it's your f-in loss). I must say I am guilty all the time -- terribly so, always have been, always will be (I wrote a novel called Guilty -- Coupable in France, buy it), so I love any movie about people who have done bad things and feel guilty (by the way have you seen Very Bad Things? -- it’s practically my favourite flic of all time about four guys who go on a vacation in Las Vegas and kill a hooker by mistake and then spend the whole movie trying to cover it up. It’s a masterpiece, and stars Jeremy Piven -- my idea of butch, beefy, hairy-chested heaven). It strikes me that the reason The Quarry is getting such bad reviews might be, well, many things -- a general lack of literacy, or because we fear any movie that is actually honest about racism, or because the film is amoral. I don’t know which of my little conspiracy theories to choose here. So eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a…okay here goes. Let’s start with racism, the movie is very much about how a Latinx man will never find justice in America; the beautiful Bobby Soto is heartbreakingly angry about the sheer hopelessness of what it’s like to be a Latinx person at a time when Trump is telling everyone that some of 'them' are 'not good people.’ But, problem, this film actually contains racist sentiments, that is, Michael Shannon plays a racist who says racist things (duh!) so I guess some dumb people won’t like the movie. But tell me, how do you portray racism without well…portraying it? As to the lack of literacy -- well I mean this movie is getting bad reviews because basically all the reviewers have been lobotomized by Disney and Marvel. To complain that this movie is too minimalist, or the plot isn't 'suspenseful' enough is being uninformed and uneducated and unaesthetic -- missing entirely the poetry of the piece. Besides it is very suspenseful and actually funny -- if you have half a brain in your head. Finally we come to the amoral part. Well what can I say, The Quarry ain’t no Hallmark Greetng Card of a movie. It has no sweet redeeming message. Which reminds me of what I’m writing about right now (sorry to bore you) but it’s the poet Ovid (no, not COVID, dummy Ovid) sorry to say -- and the notion that Shakespeare invented the amoral play. Before Shakespeare, plays were pretty moral (except I guess for Greek tragedy, and we’re talking western drama here -- I apologise for my ignorance about eastern drama; I have feeling tho, from my limited knowledge of NO Theatre, that what they were doing there was more interesting and perhaps way ahead of Shakespeare). Anyway, the point is Shakespeare discovered Ovid and dared to paganize Christian England, unapologetically. For both Shakespeare and Ovid it’s all about sex and death and change. Shall I say it again? Life is sex and death and change, and there is nothing else. And you can’t moralise about it, you just have to live with it. And you may end up a tree, or a branch, or a deer, but that’s okay, that’s the way it goes (some of my best friends are dears). A friend of mine just died of brain cancer, and he is now, I hope a tree or a branch, or a deer -- or perhaps a purple flower -- which is what Adonis became. I remember a gay friend of mine who is also now dead (I’m getting to that age, sorry) who once looked at a row of pansies in his garden on a summer day and said ‘Aren’t they pretty, they remind me of all my friends” and now I realize I could very well have said "Byron -- " (it was Byron Anagolu, God bless his very gay haute-cusuiney soul) "Indeed those are all your gay friends, in the garden, and they seem to be enjoying the sun!"
