Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Threat (2006; d. Matt Pizzolo, s. Carlos Puga, Keith Middleton, Katie Nisa). In The Moviegoer, Lurch-favorite Walker Percy drops in the Kierkegaardian principle of 'rotation' to highlight the protagonist's alienation (how's THAT for a pretentious opening!). Binx, the moviegoer in question, finds that when he sees familiar places on film, it somehow reinvigorates those places, and makes them feel more real to him. Similarly, he talks about seeing celebrities on the street and again, their fictional personages appearing in real life enlivening his experience of the world.


It is deceptive to call Threat a 2006 film, since good friends Matt, Katie, and Anna (as well as the rest of their warrior cast and crew have been working on it for years). Listing it by release date somehow completely fails to capture the extent of their labors. Although that's true of every film, as I well know from good friend Frank, and his yeoman labors on his own major label opuses.

However, seeing the likes of Keanu Reeves and Christian Bale punk bitches is half a world away from watching the likes of Katie Nisa get punked by a bitch, and respond by beating said bitch to death with one of those hooks they use to lower security gates over bodegafronts in the LES. It's a visceral kick to see a woman who you mainly process as a puckish, happy, and energetic soul bleeding and making someone else bleed. I can only wonder what Matt felt when he was directing the damn thing.

(n.b., above observations may or may not count for friends and family of Christian Bale and Keanu Reeves.)

I note this because for the rest of the night, I couldn't get into any conversation with Katie without saying, "You killed a man. With your trident." I couldn't make eye contact. The experience of Threat had literally changed my experience of her.

I literally felt overwhelmed by Katie for the entire night. Even though I knew it was all shadows and light, the sight of her killing someone completely overrode my ability to see her that night. That's good booking...it's more than a philosophical idea or a metaphor in a great book, or the vestigal remnant of our infant experience of filmmaking where we have to be reminded that it's all playacting and pretend, or even that first historical exposure to movies when people go running out or wondering where the people on the screen are hidden. It's the crossover point between the filmmaker's secret fantasy that you'll change somebody's life and the filmgoer's secret wish that the film will change his or her life. Even if it's just for a moment.


So brava kids. And Katie, I'll try to make better eye contact next time I see you.

Next Time: Burn Hollywood Burn! An Alan Smithee Film