Films Tom Sent Me

Resigned as I am to the impossibility of recovery, and isolated as I am from human contact on this shrug of an island, quarantined even from the other inmates, it is with great pleasure and gratitude this week that I have finally received the boon of another care package most thoughtfully sent by the most considerate of friends.

One of the greatest influences upon my soul has been the education provided by the direction of that living eye, Tom Ronca. Under Tom's tutelage I have seen many things, things that hurt, horrified, or destroyed me; terrifying, reprehensible, awful things; ghastly, appalling, obscene things; but things, things that always, above all, we must not fail to acknowledge, that Tom wanted to show me.

Though I am deprived of his company and direct influence, Tom continues to grace me with his vision, much as the voices in the heads of Poe's protagonists provide certain and continual guidance.

Has this guidance been for the better, or for certain ill that has rendered me from any moral sense like glue is mealed out of horse, leaving only a puddle of putrescent dross with no fiber, value or shape, a soulless broken husk, exiled from all humanity, damned for all eternity like some unflushable ejecta that endlessly circles the endless white enameled arctic maelstrom like an excremental Pym?

Cast your eyes upon his gifts to me, dear reader and draw what conclusions you can. Tom's taste's are impeccable, save for their peccant essence of total damnation. They also, you may notice, reflect certain enthusiasms, certain questionable zeals that Tom has lately been obsessed with, a solecism that we had all hoped would die once this man-like thing had been sedulously staked in his grave, yet which, much to the horror and alarm of all non-deviants, seems to have found companions in his total campaign against Nature and Human Values.

The Room (2003)

I try and watch this from time to time. I honestly do. But every time I do, I end up stopping it, turning on the lights and taking a good long look at myself instead and thinking: I don’t deserve this, I don’t.

Bronson (2008)

On the other hand, I totally deserve this.

Pontypool (2009)

This is how the world ends: in a sound booth, full of Glenlivet with Slavoj Zizek and bad high school French, about to be stomped to death by an obsolete theory of language.

Everybody Poops, Dies (1982)

Wikipedia tells me this is The Big Sleep of caveman detective fiction, featuring more on screen club based deaths than any other feature film. When Gigantor and his raiding party massacre another more advanced tribe, they discover pictograms that depict time travel –or so it seems. What follows is a rather Lacanian account of the scene of language and the invention of writing. Features the immortal line: “It you Gronk, you.”

Mork –ein Pedo?

This documentary aims to prove the rather implausible thesis that the mission of Mork of Mork and Mindy was actually the rather unsavory directive to impregnate underage human females. Given the clearly specified age of the character of Mindy McConnell, the line of reasoning from the actual series seems unclear and is not at all made clearer by the filmmaker’s decision to express most of it in song.

Though the songs are sometimes catchy, the ideas presented are never quite intelligible or credible and the low-fi, single set-up camera, the degraded tape quality and the always hooded figure on the Casio keyboard by themselves make this one of the most disturbing videos I have ever seen.

Make Love to My Face Without Using Your Hands

Not sure what country is this from, but I hope I never go there.

Mindy is Naked and My Sister

What if Mork and Mindy were brother and sister? Wouldn’t this ruin the whole premise of the series? Apparently not for these Japanese fans of the M&M BDSM community. Also, apparently it’s okay if Mindy doesn’t keep her arms and legs, but does somehow become a stripper. A humiliating, upsetting film. I haven’t got past the appearance of “the Eggmen.”

The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)

I honestly puzzled over why Tom sent me this film for some time, until I found he had replaced one of the DVD audio tracks. At first, I thought Tom was groaning during certain scenes to make fun of the film. Once I realized what he was doing, I threw the DVD away and joined a Buddhist monastery. And now you know the rest of the story.

Play Mindy for Me (1982)

Of all the Mork and Mindy fan films this is easily the most well known and well produced. Indeed, its leads look disturbingly like Robin Williams and Pam Dawber, though the ludicrous amount of body hair and cocaine use depicted are clearly dispositive of an homage. The film is both lyrical and disturbing at times, most notably in the scene where a nude Mork forces Mindy at gunpoint to stare at a TV screen and describe what she thinks is happening on a scrambled Cinemax channel.

This film is notable in that it established most of the conventions for Orkan genitalia and discharge in the many, many films to come, films I would have never, ever heard of or voluntarily sought out or watched, if not for my friend, Tom Ronca.