Frezno's Criterion Challenge: January 2023 Trip Report

Welcome, friend! This space... well, this space is something special. If you've followed the growth and evolution of my internal landscape over the last year or two, you may have noticed a certain disillusionment with genre fiction over that time. I had certain frustrations which reached a boiling point and frothed out of me like a venomous poison, venting and ranting and spewing. The toxic exorcism had one point: Genre fiction, for me, had become less about reflecting the issues of the real world and more about referencing its own self. I attempted to get that shit out of my veins immediately, and placate myself with something different. Something real, but also something with a hint of genre fiction to wean myself away a bit after that excremental exorcism.

The result was A Quantum Microcosm, Adrift On The Sea Of History. I watched the show Quantum Leap, talked about its highs and lows, and fell in love with it for being raw and real in a way I was missing. That's where we are today in the good old internal landscape, as I write this on January the 9th of 2023. Let me tell you, in brief, about the journey a friend of mine took. My friend Joe had and has a similar disillusionment with genre fiction, and his flavor is of the superhero blockbuster variety. The MCU wore this man's patience down like an eroding sandstorm, and like me Joe wanted escape to something raw and real. Joe found it by becoming a classic movie buff, escaping the orbit of nerdy interest fiction and setting sail on a cosmic journey of new experiences that really did reflect the real world.

Why do I tell you this? Because Joe has seen and heard my similar frustrations, and for the holiday season of 2022 gifted me with a lifeline. Thanks to Joe, I now have a year's worth of access to the Criterion Channel, a streaming service repository of classic films, offbeat arthouse pictures, and lots of other strange and wonderful things. The keys to my own rocket to escape genre fiction are here, and I'm ready to blast off... but where do I begin? Helpfully, there's a guide of sorts to that. I present to you the Criterion Challenge, 2023 edition. Here we have 52 distinct categories and lists of eclectic diversity, and the viewer is encouraged to build their own year-long Criterion film marathon from them. 

I did just that, and I built my stepping stone path out into the mad wilds of Criterion, where I hope to broaden my media viewing horizons. It's a journey that I think I'd like to share with you, and so I'll attempt to write a little about each film I encounter. At the end of every month, I'll post my handful of capsule reviews, and at the end of the year we'll see what we have. This is a leisurely space for you to check into once a month, and maybe find some films and experiences outside of your wheelhouse. It's what I'm doing, and I invite you to come along for the ride. Being that I'm posting this at the end of January, if all goes well, you may have to speed through the first five or so films to get to the leisurely pace. It's okay, as long as you're having fun. Well, then. What did I watch in January? Let's start this madcap journey.

The Impossible Dream Of A Walking Fire (Twin Peaks: Part 2) [The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer]

"The girl who received this diary on her twelfth birthday has been dead for years, and I who took her place have done nothing but make a mockery of the dreams she once had."

Like the people of Twin Peaks reacting in shock and horror at her sudden and untimely death, I thought I knew Laura Palmer. What I knew was a half-remembered dream, an ethereal echo of happening upon a book long long ago and reading through it. A nightmare in prose form, a horror story of a girl descending into darkness and eventually being killed by it. Years later, I saw how the town she lived in reacted to that loss and the secrets which came to light about her. Then, at the halfway point of that show, we learned who killed her. The network practically strong armed the creators of the show to solve the mystery, and they did. What the show became after that is sort of a mess, and the fact that it both righted itself near the end is a small miracle. It even managed to full circle itself back to the story of Laura Palmer, in an esoteric way. Still, the need to answer the question, to reduce the feeling and emotion of the loss of Laura Palmer into something to be solved, revealed, put back onto the fucking shelf as a closed case... it hurt the show. I could summarize what the show decayed into, but I'll just point you to this Tumblr post.

The Impossible Dream Of A Walking Fire (Twin Peaks: Part 1) [Twin Peaks 1990]

This is not a place you were supposed to find yourself in. We have had many coffee shop dates, you and I, but you must understand that I am an introvert at heart and sometimes I enjoy my solitude. I fully intended to come here on my own, drinking my coffee and eating my slice of cherry pie in the blissful loneliness that is a comfort to me. I say this not to imply that you have intruded upon that solitude. Far from it. It is the warm and kind gesture of a mentor and friend, speaking honestly and truthfully, which made me decide to invite you to join me for this particular coffee date. They happened to pass by my table as I muttered to myself, not speaking to you but to my own sense of self. In these casual whispers and mumbles they heard a spark of poetic bliss, a spark which burned like a crackling fire quite unlike any before. That spark, that praise, made me realize that I simply must invite you here. It will be a coffee date unlike any you have had before, but it is one that we will navigate together here in this strange ethereal diner of my internal landscape. Don't be scared of the flame. Place your order, take my hand, and come with me. It will not be a long journey, but I hope that I can capture that blazing flame and turn it into song. 

Fire. Walk with me.