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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

5/19/2015

68 Comments

 

1.48
D+

    • I need a full movie, not just some cool looking scenes with a bit of social justice - Shane
    • What Amirpour deserves credit for her is the successful mixture of Western culture in a story based in Iran - Drew
    • Just poke the egg with your fork already! - Jon
    Original post by: Shane

    We talk about Tarantino quite a bit around here. Deservedly so, the man is excellent at what he does. One thing in particular that strikes me about Tarantino is that he’s such an incredible nerd, but he’s able to create some of the coolest characters on the screen. (I always assume Tarantino is exactly like his character in From Dusk til Dawn, more on that movie shortly.) Tarantino has an ability to reach across genres and ages and give us some really cool worlds to hang out in. 

    I couldn’t help but think of Tarantino when I started to watch Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. I’ve never seen an Iranian movie before let alone a Vampire Western New Wave Iranian movie. With her slick camera work shot wonderfully in black and white, Amirpour gives us what Tarantino gives us: Cool looking characters with interesting enough personalities and an air of mystery and tension. But what Amirpour fails to give us is a second half of a movie, ultimately falling short of Tarantino and much more like Rodriguez. 

    I’m tempted to compare it to From Dusk til Dawn, which disappointed me wildly as a kid when it turned into a campy vampire movie. But I’ve rewatched that movie willingly a dozen times and have come to appreciate it for what it is: Not a mix of two genres, but two genres butting heads. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night does a better job at mixing genre than From Dusk til Dawn, bit it just doesn’t give us something interesting. 

    I want to talk about the best aspect of the movie: How it looked. I hate black and white as a gimmick, but here it works as more than that. Arash Marandi just looks like he belongs on the big screen in the 50’s and 60’s and the way he is shot in black and white sells that noir feeling to me. I thought many of the camera angles and framing added to what would be otherwise blander scenes. I, of course, have to bring up Frances Ha because it’s over-rated and it needs to be brought down. Frances Ha just filmed in black and white and I never felt like its characters belonged in that world because they’re a bunch of immature hipsters, though of course hipsters would film in black and white. Here, the car and some costume choices made it make sense.

    Be fore I get to the negatives, I just want to note that Sheila Vand was absolutely fantastic as The Girl. She did most of her acting with her eyes and I thought she did an amazing job of keeping your attention. I wanted to know more about that character.

    But of course, we just don’t get to know much. The second half of this movie just flies by and hits plot points simply to move the thing along. The relationship between Arash and The Girl just doesn’t make sense. There was so little development there. They took two really interesting characters and just gave them a boring ending that depended on The Girl randomly coming across Arash’s dad and judging him. Reminds me of a few GoT plot decisions this season that are way too convenient. The Girl starts as an independent woman marching to her own drum to someone who just falls for a good-looking loner guy because he’s lonely and nice. 

    I would still put this movie at a B- at this point, but they went and did some things artistically and failed miserably. There are a few scenes that are absolute wastes. 

    What the fuck was the dancing scene? It probably has meaning, but I’m not sure how it fits into the plot. I could overlook it, but we needed that time for plot development. 

    I liked the oil derrick scenes combined with the bodies, but there they went to that well too many times. I get it: bodies pile up, but oil is produced so no one cares. No need to say it so many times. 

    I don’t get the bathtub scene. Maybe it was a feminist statement of fuck you, this is a naked woman, deal with it, but they lose any feminist credence when they have The Girl fall in love with Arash and leave everything for him. 

    I’m not shocked this scores so well on Rotten Tomatoes. This is right up the artsy folks alley because it’s proving points, maaaaan. It’s Iranian. I’m really into Iranian cinema. 

    Sorry, I need a full movie, not just some cool looking scenes with a bit of social justice. 

    C  (which is a negative grade in my book)




    68 Comments
    Sean
    5/19/2015 07:26:48 am

    Does anyone know how to spell 107 minutes of fart noises? That's what I want my review to be.

    Artsy-fartsy

    Boring movie, good job with the sped up shots when Arash dad was jonesin for some more smack reminded me of Requiem for a Dream but that was about the only positive in the movie I recall. The gangster had a NES zapper gun for crying out loud.

    D-

    Reply
    Shane
    5/19/2015 07:31:07 am

    "Does anyone know how to spell 107 minutes of fart noises? That's what I want my review to be.

    Artsy-fartsy"

    Review of the year.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/19/2015 08:05:06 am

    I'll just post my notes. Sums up my feelings well.

    James Dean
    Rock candy coffee
    Punching walls is dumb
    Where did duck hunt gun go?
    What does it say about a movie when its savior is a vampire
    Again w the drugs
    Where is everyone else?
    This movie is slow and boring
    Poor kid had his skateboard stolen
    This scene w her in the mirror and the music playing is so long. Is there supposed to be suspense?
    Scariest part - ear piercing. I bet that hurts .
    If I moved this slowly, Chelsea would think I'm having a stroke.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/19/2015 08:15:21 am

    Forgot my grade...

    Still not the worst we've seen. D

    Reply
    Shane
    5/19/2015 02:43:32 pm

    Thoughts on using rock candy to sweeten your coffee?

    I think it's worth a shot.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/19/2015 02:59:50 pm

    Yeah, I've never seen that done. Iced Coffee maybe, I drink my morning coffee black.

    Bryan
    5/19/2015 08:06:45 am

    In reply to Shane. This is about as much assuming as I'll ever do in a movie. I think vampire-girl could see what the cat saw. That's how she knew about James Dean's dad.

    Reply
    Shane
    5/19/2015 02:42:35 pm

    I thought about the cat as well, but that would make this movie even worse. Why would that even make sense?

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/19/2015 03:00:50 pm

    What part of vampirism makes sense? The cat's eyes seemed important. That's enough sense for me.

    Sean
    5/19/2015 03:19:37 pm

    I don't think she saw what the cat saw but that she could look within people to determine if they were good or bad

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 04:59:44 am

    She could see within people, yes. But how did she find out about Dean's father?

    Shane
    5/20/2015 05:11:42 am

    I don't think she could tell if people were good or bad just by looking. She had to interact with them. Less intuitive than Carolla, imo

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 08:27:19 am

    James Dean stole those earrings and she didn't kill him. I still think she could just tell.

    Drew
    5/20/2015 07:48:45 am

    A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was rather enjoyable. The story was not great but I liked the way the actors played it. After the first scene with the stray cat, I was sold.

    The Girl was such an interesting character and Vand was fantastic playing this role. She really hit the creepiness to the core and was able to sell who she liked and did not. I found it hilarious when she would just appear and then follow someone. That awkward humor worked for me.

    My favorite scene was when The Girl took Arash back to her apartment and nothing happened except listening to music. I expected her to kill him out of defense but they listened to the post punk band White Lies' song "Death." I loved that scene because of its suspense and not to mention put that song on my Spotify playlist. Great scene and good song.

    What Amirpour deserves credit for her is the successful mixture of Western culture in a story based in Iran. In The Girl's apartment, viewers see posters of Madonna and the BeeGees, along with a 1970s era disco ball and a record player.

    Furthermore, what is genius is the name of the fake Iranian city where the story is set. Bad City. That is interesting because the city can take place no where yet everywhere. This also reflects a conversation between The Girl and Arash where they confide their "bad past" to each other, not to mention the heroine junkie, drug dealer, cheater, and prostitute. It is a fitting name.

    The Girl is a semi superhero. She attacked the ones that needed to be attacked. Notice how she left the street urchin boy alone and lectured him about being a good boy and did not kill him. She easily could have but did not. The Girl could have killed Atti and Arash but did not. She attacked when necessary and men who deserved it.

    The black and white aspect was fantastic. Had that been done in color, I am unsure it would have the same effect. The black and white bettered the suspense and the story. Amirpour's taste was spot on.

    While this was a good film, I did not like the ending. It did not hurt the feminist message because she left for love because that is something all vampires desire. What bothered me was how the ending transpired. In his car? Not a fan.

    Despite the odd ending, the film was great.

    Grade: A-

    Reply
    Sean
    5/20/2015 09:27:05 am

    i thought "bad city" was dumb

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/20/2015 09:32:32 am

    +1. It was right up there with West Texas, I never know if they're talking geographically or about a specific place.

    Shane
    5/20/2015 09:54:41 am

    I think it was homage to sin city.i'm going to grandson translation issues.

    Drew
    5/20/2015 11:03:38 am

    Bryan, it is both a region and a city. As a resident of West Texas, I am not a resident of West, Texas. I am not, however, a Texan. That is a mindset and culture of something I may never understand.

    Drew
    5/20/2015 07:59:24 am

    Shane: "I don’t get the bathtub scene. Maybe it was a feminist statement of fuck you, this is a naked woman, deal with it, but they lose any feminist credence when they have The Girl fall in love with Arash and leave everything for him."

    I disagree. Not all feminists want to live alone with their hairy armpits and legs in an apartment for which they must scrap and save to make rent. Just because she left it all for him does not mean Amirpour lost her feminist card.

    To me that statement means feminists cannot love and if they make the choice for love as opposed to maintaining their old life, women are no longer feminists. The whole aspect of feminism is being on par to men. If a man left the job he loved for a woman whom he loved more, some of us would call that dumb while others would suggest it is romantic. When The Girl left it all for Arash, a conscientious choice she made, feminism left the film? I wholeheartedly disagree.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/20/2015 08:21:20 am

    The first scene where he stole the cat sold you?

    Reply
    Drew
    5/20/2015 09:08:35 am

    He stole something? That's a stray cat.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 09:32:52 am

    Proof?

    Drew
    5/20/2015 11:05:36 am

    The opening scene.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 02:02:22 pm

    How do you know it's stray? One of the only lines I remember is something along the lines of, "Whose cat is that?"

    Drew
    5/20/2015 02:11:31 pm

    Where did he find it? It was in some abandoned building. What kind of an owned cat resides in an abandon building?

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 02:16:37 pm

    Abandoned building yes. Cats that live outside can roam wherever they please. It was awfully fat to be owned. We don't know if it lived in that building.

    Drew
    5/20/2015 02:44:01 pm

    So if the cat lived in the building, that must mean no one owned it; ergo, a stray.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 03:11:46 pm

    How do you follow up, "We don't know if it lived in that building." with "So if the cat lived in the building, that must mean no one owned it; ergo, a stray." ?

    Drew
    5/20/2015 03:41:25 pm

    That is the only way I could respond to the idea of a cat living in a building, if it did or did not.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 04:17:50 pm

    We don't know the cat lived in the building. He was just there at that particular time.

    New nominee for Mediocrity Best Supporting Character - the stolen/stray cat.

    Cat
    5/21/2015 03:55:34 am

    meow

    Shane
    5/20/2015 08:35:53 am

    I would never assume to box feminists in a corner. My issue is demanding that women can't love, it's that this is a pretty common thing in a movie: A woman is stuck where she is and it takes a man to help her move on. That's how I interpreted it. I assume you didn't see it this way?

    And your statement to make me pause because I think I'm applying American standards on here when I shouldn't be. I believe that the bathtub scene is probably much more bold in what is a fairly conservative culture (from what I understand). You've officially talked me up to a C+.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/20/2015 09:35:05 am

    " A woman is stuck where she is and it takes a man to help her move on. That's how I interpreted it. I assume you didn't see it this way?"

    This seems like a leap I could never make in movie without more obvious connections. Maybe she's just going to go vampire in Inferior City, Iran. Maybe she vampires him 4/5 of the way through the trip because she's hungry or wants to drive.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 09:35:48 am

    I don't think any of us knows enough about Iranian culture to know what's normal. Sure it's a religiously conservative place, but so is Georgia and a lot of liberal things go on in Georgia.

    Shane
    5/20/2015 01:46:16 pm

    Iran is a theocracy. Their current government does not have a good reputation with women's rights at all.

    http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/iran?page=2

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 01:54:57 pm

    In don't think government type and typical women's rights for the Middle East tell us anything about what college educated men and women watch or do in their free time.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 03:59:17 pm

    Shane, a C+? So this is RT fresh for you? Feeling avant-garde?

    Shane
    5/20/2015 07:11:18 pm

    A C+ is perfectly average for me. Neither a positive or a negative.

    Bryan
    5/21/2015 03:07:45 am

    Much like your Facebook persona, RT makes you take a stance.

    Shane
    5/22/2015 05:00:08 am

    listening to RTs editor, sometimes they have to decide for themselves whether or not the review is fresh or rotten. This would be one of those times for them.

    Bryan
    5/20/2015 08:25:57 am

    The female lead didn't drive, does that mean this is actually a masculine movie?

    Reply
    Shane
    5/20/2015 01:47:13 pm

    No.

    Reply
    Jon
    5/20/2015 08:18:00 pm

    I'm often one to find connections in films and look deeply into details. Maybe the Babadook cockroaches, famously able to survive nuclear war, are symbolic of the constancy of grief, or maybe the near-certainty that they're fake to everyone but Amelia makes them real to her, symbolizing how unknowable her grief is to everyone else. Maybe I'm overthinking it, and it's as meaningless as the director had a ladybug-guy all ready to go, but he had a prior engagement, and she had to call a cockroach-guy instead. I like doing this kind of thing, as it adds another layer to movies. This might sound like a wide-up into the symbolism of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, but it's the opposite. I'm sure this movie had all kinds of subtext, but either that part of my brain wasn't functioning while I was watching, or this movie's just too slow and artsy even for me.

    I just could not connect with Ana Lily Amirpour's film. (BTW, she was born in England and raised in California. We're referring to her as an Iranian director and wondering how this film fits into Iranian culture. I didn't glean anything from that aspect beyond the head scarves and the sneaky hoarding of Western cultural materials. Basically, she's seen Syriana before. For an Iranian film, I strongly recommend Asghar Farhadi's A Seperation, which has 100% less vampires and 100% more recognizable behavior. Sidebar over.) This very much reminded me of the painfully-slow movement in Only God Forgives. Just poke the egg with your fork already! Amirpour's inspiration might be spaghetti westerns, but Good, Bad, and Ugly's three hour runtime was filled with things happening, not failed attempts to generate tension by slowing everything down.

    I also want to establish that I hate lens flare. I don't think it's come up thus far in our discussions, but I think it's to directing what Auto-Tune is to music. The user thinks it's adding cool points, while the viewer/listener remains unimpressed. JJ Abrams is the most famous practitioner of this crutch, and Amirpour is channeling him, with lens flare repeatedly swallowing the frame. Just stop it.

    In what could be another over-artsy choice, I actually liked the black-and-white, but then, I also loved it in Frances Ha, which is under-rated and needs to be propped up. It adds a spareness to the world that accentuates how isolated Bad City (ugh) is. I don't need many movies to be in black-and-white, but every so often, it's an effective way to make a film stand out.

    I may have missed some key motivations, as I was barely connected to this film, but several things seemed very tacked on to me. There's just an open-air ditch filled with bodies? Is that ever commented on or is it something everyone takes for granted? The Girl is some kind of avenging angel? She knows the guy she runs off with is dealing drugs, right? The morality seems very conservative, too. The junkie dad is treated as weak instead of sick, a stance that seems rare in an era of rehab and recovery. Can't pin this on Iranian culture either, because Amirpour may as well be American. I bet she thinks poor people are poor because they're lazy, too. Racist. Lastly, Amirpour is clearly angling to direct the next Batman movie. She's got the swooping down with a black cape down pat. Just attach Batman's cape to his head, and she won't have to change a thing.

    I don't know why this film just didn't do anything for me. I can see that Drew connected with it and I think it's one of his better reviews. Maybe I'm still coming down from Fury Road and can't tolerate the pace of this movie. Maybe I'm agitated from work. Maybe I'm pissed off at Persians for taking my favorite lesbian bar and filling it with carpets and gold curtain rods. I'm not proud of this review. Out of respect for Drew's review, and because I admired some of the choices, and because I don't think I gave this movie a fair chance, I'm going to give it a C-, or a gentleman's bad grade. The movie that is probably deserves higher, but the movie I experienced could go lower. Though if Amirpour's Batman movie is stuffed with lens flare, I'm losing my generosity and we're dropping a letter grade.

    Reply
    Shane
    5/20/2015 08:40:06 pm

    Good call on noting that Armipoir is American. The Iranian setting and culture displayed is what makes it Iranian I think. And also the pressers.

    Reply
    Bryan
    5/21/2015 03:07:14 am

    Wait, part of your grade is based on respect of another reviewer's review?

    Reply
    Jon
    5/21/2015 06:18:35 am

    I can see that there was a good movie in here somewhere, based on Drew's, and Shane's, review, but I could not get into it. It had the anger-making quality necessary to make it a D-level movie, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

    Sean
    5/21/2015 03:55:03 am

    Could you tell us more about your favorite lesbian bar???


    There's an old guy I used to play indoor soccer with, he either retired from indoor or we stopped telling him we signed the team up because he hasn't been around in a while, anyway he fled Iran around the time Argo was happening and whenever you ask where he is from he refuses to say Iran he just says Persia. He's a cool dude, name is Mort and he repairs tvs and other appliances.

    Reply
    Drew
    5/21/2015 05:44:17 am

    I think he's talking about the Irish Lion in Bloomington. Jon, correct me if I am wrong about that.

    Jon
    5/21/2015 06:12:35 am

    I was making a South Park joke.

    The Irish Lion's a lesbian bar? Don't tell the Irish.

    Shane
    5/22/2015 05:03:09 am

    Our friend Amir who went to UE would do the same thing. He actually just would tell people he was Jewish because "over here people like Jews at least."

    We had to break it to him that he was going to school in the south and what that meant for his Jewish plan.

    Drew
    5/22/2015 06:05:13 am

    When did Indiana become the South?!

    Shane
    5/22/2015 03:16:51 pm

    Southern Indiana is definitely the South.

    Drew
    5/22/2015 03:19:04 pm

    That statement is filled with region smugness.

    Shane
    5/23/2015 01:34:38 pm

    "Region should be capitalized," he said smuggily.

    Sean
    5/23/2015 02:32:52 pm

    Southern Indiana is the south. And region should never be capitalized

    Drew
    5/23/2015 02:51:33 pm

    You two are insane on that "south" idea. Totally agree with Sean on the latter notion, though.

    Drew
    5/21/2015 10:53:32 am

    Jon, you mentioned how Amirpour was born in England and lives in California. That is true and needed to be mentioned, but what also is true and begs mentioning is she was born to Persian parents.

    Why is that important? She has a key insight to Persian culture and wanted to make a statement about it. Just because she did not live in Iran does not eliminate her ability to speak about the issues concerning feminism there or in its region.

    Reply
    Jon
    5/21/2015 11:18:34 am

    I did not gain any insight into Iranian culture, at all. From the interview linked below, she does not claim to know anything special about Iran from her heritage. I think it's reasonable to surmise from her being born in England in 1980, that her parents fled Iran after the 1979 coup. What we think of as Iranian culture i.e. theocratic and repressive, would not have kicked in until after the ayatollahs take over. So even though she has Iranian parents, the Iran they would convey to her probably doesn't exist in the open anymore.

    http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2015/0520/702587-qa-with-director-screenwriter-ana-lily-amirpour/

    I think this Bad City could be anywhere. I think the only signifier of location is the head scarves. It's in no way immersive. I think it was set in Iran partly because it needed a hook. Artsy vampire movie in a tiny, dying California town is less eye-catching amongst critics (which are this movie's main audience) than artsy vampire movie in a tiny, dying Iranian town. The latter's never been done before, and as far as I'm concerned, still hasn't been.

    I spent a lot of words talking about feminism in Fury Road, so maybe I'm mentally exhausted from doing it again, but I did not pick up on anything more than the thinnest of feminist threads. The Girl attacks men who prey on woman. So it's a revenge fantasy against the patriarchy. Is that it? The nudity in the bath might've just been a stab at the normalcy of the Girl's life, or to convey vulnerability. It doesn't have to be about feminism just because a woman made it and it's about a lady vampire.

    Bobby
    5/23/2015 03:18:20 pm

    Haiku Review.

    I watched this movie
    with many bourbons and beers
    The fuck did I watch?

    D+, for Drunk+

    Reply
    Slow Clap Bot
    5/23/2015 03:54:17 pm

    clap

    Clap clap

    Clap clap clap

    Clap clap clap clap

    Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap

    Reply
    Thomas
    5/25/2015 02:29:25 pm

    This movie was confused from the very beginning. Iranian James Dean standing and smoking by a wall. Ok nice has a cool feel. Oh wait is he out there to walk his cat? hmmmm like most of this movie I hope this lost something in the translation. I can't help but feel like there were poignant or scathing references veiled as it were by the cultural divide. Things that may be shocking and taboo in the market this movie came from come off as adolescent and trite from where I sit. The story seemed very disconnected, stitched together with only tiny shreds of believablity to hold them together and move the story.

    D- What is groundbreaking for some may be praiseworthy but only amounts to time I will never get back.

    Reply
    Phil
    5/27/2015 02:36:33 am

    If I could sum up my feelings about A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, I immediately kept coming back to “I didn’t hate it.” Ringing endorsement, I know.

    This is going to be a short review since the majority of us have moved on, but a few thoughts. I have to agree with the majority that I know no more about Iran after this movie. This isn’t an Iranian movie; it’s a movie where people are speaking Arabic. I don’t think it’s a particularly feminist movie either, unless the definition of feminism involves just women dominating horrible men. I don’t think the movie is intellectually honest enough about the nature of men and women to take that sort of stance. It’s a love story with a dash of vigilantism.

    I peaked at the reviews beforehand, and through the first 45 minutes I thought you all were nuts. The Girl is a strong character and every scene involving her beyond the initial kill of the pimp was rife with tension. This was especially true with scenes involving Arash, a man who didn’t necessarily fit in the binary world of good vs bad presented to us here. If drug use were outside of The Girl’s moral code, she would not have helped Atti near the end. Since we’re never entirely clear on The Girl’s code, every interaction is unpredictable, and it added to my enjoyment.

    What didn’t help was that the movie was a caricature of the Sundance culture. Holy crap. Remember the South Park episode with the film festival, and the hit was the gay cowboys eating pudding in black-and-white? That ran through my head when Atti was dancing with the black balloon. Sure, it was an overt foreshadowing to the heroin that would be coming later, and dancing is a recurring theme throughout the film, probably to signify freedom, but that scene was just one of many that lingered. Numerous scenes lingered too long – I would be curious, then tense, then wildly bored. I must admit I dozed off a couple times, but that may have just been the long weekend.

    Overall, there’s some solid stuff here and I don’t regret watching this. However, there were so many self-serving artsy things going on that it felt almost like a joke. I can see why it played well to a captive audience I suppose, but that audience isn’t me.

    + Great performance & character in The Girl
    + Numerous tense scenes
    - Lots of lingering shots left me just bored
    - Too in love with itself and its artsy bullshit

    Grade: C-

    Reply
    Jon
    5/27/2015 06:53:06 am

    Iranian people speak Farsi, you racist.

    Reply
    Phil
    5/27/2015 07:30:31 am

    I'm not racist, I'm ignorant. Big difference.

    Jon
    5/27/2015 07:35:16 am

    And I'm not serious, I'm joking.

    Phil
    5/27/2015 07:38:35 am

    Regardless, I remain ignorant on nearly all things Iran.

    Sean
    5/29/2015 04:45:49 am

    Crazy fact, the word "farsi" does not appear on the Languages of Iran wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Iran

    But, the "farsi" wiki page redirects to Persian Language page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language

    Cooker
    6/8/2015 04:22:27 am

    So, a girl walks home alone at night … (drum solo). I have to start by asking, was anyone else reminded of that joke on Family Guy about multiple movie company logos and when the film actually begins? How many did this have? I’m like, start the freakin’ crap-fest already!
    I sum this movie up as a slow-paced “artistic” film. Another one that comes to mind is “Paranoid Park.” These films contain lengthy scenes of nothing. For example, this movie had sitting and listening to music multiple times. And a few times there was a shot of someone slowly walking down a tunnel and I wanted to start chanting “Rudy.”
    So we start off with a guy walking alone during the day, followed by a guy walking while carrying a cat during the day, and let’s not forget about a guy driving a car with a cat in the back seat during the day. I believe it was about 15 minute in that we see a girl walking alone at night.
    I disagree with Saeed’s statement that cats “are fun.” They’re irritating and leave hair everywhere. They definitely are not fun, I know because I have one. After a confrontation, Saeed leaves with Arash’s car because Hossein owes Saeed money. Lame. This results in Arash punching a wall. Wall 1, Arash 0. He even has a cast on it the rest of the movie. Dumbass.
    We follow Saeed who picks up a girl and takes her back to his place. He proceeds to do drugs, count money, lift weights and dance. Who does he think he is, Douchebag Rob Lowe? The girl turns out to be a vampire; the revealing of her fangs I will credit as one of the only cool things this movie had to offer. She killed D.B. Rob Lowe and steals his watch. She’s confronted by Arash outside by the building’s gate. Did he not get a good look of her at this moment because apparently he doesn’t tie this meeting in with anything else throughout the movie? She was leaving Saeed’s building before he went in and found him dead. Hmmm. Did she kill him? Nah! But I will take my car back and this briefcase full of money.
    We then get an artsy montage and a dull scene where Hossein and the vampire play the mirror game from across the street with one another. I was like, if they wave at each other, I’m done. They did, but I pressed on. The vampire proceeds to find this kid that asked Arash for money earlier and scares the crap out of him. She ends up on a skateboard, I’m guessing this belonged to the kid. It made me start to imagine a bad 90s kid comedy with vampires on skateboards. I don’t know.
    Arash takes drugs at a party and we see a guy walking alone at night. He’s mesmerized and stares at a streetlight, another artsy shot. Vampy shows up and you just wait for her to kill him, but nope. I learned at this point that they lived in a place called Bad City. Really? A group of people decisively named a location Bad City. This is followed by Vampy giving Arash a ride on the skateboard to her house where we see some artistic sitting and listening to music. Again, I am waiting for her to kill him. Nope.
    We then get an interpretive dance sequence with a balloon. More artsy nothing. By now I’m saying WTF? Next up, an angry whore keys a car. We see a girl walking alone at night, but not really because she’s being followed by another girl walking alone at night. The vampire meets up with Arash again to listen to music and watch him eat a hamburger. Again, more artsy nothing. He pierces her ears with a paperclip so she can wear these stolen earrings he gives her. Didn’t we learn from Full House that doing this is dangerous, or is it only dangerous when done by Kimmy Gibbler?
    Hossein, who if I remember correctly is Arash’s doped-up father, goes nutbar and flees the house with the cat. He does drugs with the angry whore and then gets killed by the vampire. Meh. Arash finds the body in the street and it isn’t until he finds the cat at the vampire’s house that he seems to get suspicious. But he still wants to leave Bad City with the vampire. And they do, but not before more sitting and listening to music in a car, or as I jotted in my notes, the movie ends with a girl, a guy and a cat driving away in a car.
    I definitely give best performance to Masuka the cat and did I see that Elijah Wood was an executive producer? What are you doing? Artsy boredom, Douchebag Rob Lowe, sitting and listening to music, punching walls, but a cool vampire fang reveal: D-

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