The Light In You—Mercury Rev’s 10th full-length and first in seven years—picks up where 2008’s Snowflake Midnight left off, with stalwart founders Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper drawing inspiration from nature and the Rubik’s Cube of love in equal measure. There is a strong autumnal vibe about the affair—a modern Days Of Future Passed, complete with sweeping orchestral touches and wistful remembrances by the fistful. When the band’s “psychedelic rock and blue-eyed soul” finds its groove, it’s still a breathless wonder to behold. Mercury Rev will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read out MAGNET Classics feature on the band’s Yerself Is Steam.
Grasshopper: Doomsdays is a sharp-witted film that was shot on location in the Catskills, with broad beautiful long shots of the area’s majesty of nature and architectural wonders. The film is a “pre-apocalyptic comedy” that mainly follows the story of vagabonds Dirty Fred (Justin Rice) and Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick). They are a couple of squatters who break into unoccupied vacation homes in the Catskill Mountains. They justify their activities by concluding that these acts will become run-of-the-mill after the world hits “peak-oil” and only the elite have access to fossil fuels.
On their travels, they meet teenage Jaidon (Brian Charles Johnson—hail Buffalo!) who joins the merry pranksters in their hedonism. But all goes awry when the group meets Reyna (Laura Campbell), who is all too game to join the crew. A complex sexual friction pops up between Dirty Fred, Reyna and Bruho, which derails the misfits way of life as they begin to get a bit sloppy in their endeavors.
Writer/Director Eddie Mullins’ hilarious comedic situations are refreshingly spare. The script, paired with great performances by the actors, and Cal Robertson’s wide-open cinematography, recalls some of the early work of Jim Jarmusch and Robby Muller (Down By Law, for example), but Mullins, with his intellect infused with Southern home-spun comedic sense, makes this a different and very special film, and especially great for being his first full-length feature.
In full disclousure, I’ve become friends with Mullins (as well as Rice), and we have been know to load up on Wild Turkey, head into open fields and shoot pellet guns at Rolling Rock beer cans filled with lighter fluid placed gingerly on rocks above burning candles … Pop! Explosion of fire!
Doomsdays is currently available on Time Warner cable, iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon, Google Play and will be on Netfix very soon!
Video after the jump.
