{"id":298,"date":"2008-03-08T08:24:39","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T22:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/new-pop-skull\/"},"modified":"2008-03-08T08:29:49","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T22:29:49","slug":"new-pop-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/new-pop-skull\/","title":{"rendered":"New: Pop Skull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Pop Skull<\/strong> (US-2008; dir. Adam Wingard)<\/p>\n<p>This drug-metaphor ghost film, written and directed by Adam Wingard, has apparently been doing the festival circuits, but hasn&#8217;t been picked up for distribution yet. Early reviews are very positive, and, frankly, I&#8217;m dying to see it.<\/p>\n<p>As I frequently argue, many of the greatest ghost films (and fiction) take a decidedly ambiguous attitude to their ghosts, never making it entirely clear whether or not the ghosts are objectively real and to what extent they may be projections of the characters&#8217; tenuous grasp on reality or projections of their deepest fears and insecurities. Witness Shirley Jackson&#8217;s novel <em>The Haunting of Hill House<\/em> and Robert Wise&#8217;s film of it, <em>The Haunting<\/em> (1963); Henry James&#8217; great novella <em>The Turn of the Screw<\/em> and at least some of the film versions of it, especially  Jack Clayton&#8217;s <em>The Innocents<\/em> (1961); and many others, including a favourite of mine, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.roberthood.net\/reviews\/randomstuff5.html#sorum\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sorum<\/em><\/a>                            [aka Goosebumps] (South Korea-2001, dir. Jong-Chan Yun).<\/p>\n<p>Offhand I don&#8217;t recall a film that uses ghosts as a metaphor for the results of drug dependence &#8212; but something like Polanski&#8217;s <em>Repulsion<\/em> certainly illustrates how it might be done.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pop Skull<\/em> seems as though it might be an arthouse\/horror cross that does just this. Hopefully we&#8217;ll be able to see it soon and find out. Either way, it looks like a classy piece of work.<\/p>\n<p><center><object height=\"355\" width=\"425\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/uYYOsU5W6XQ&amp;rel=1&amp;border=0\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/uYYOsU5W6XQ&amp;rel=1&amp;border=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" height=\"355\" width=\"425\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The official website is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popskullthemovie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pop Skull (US-2008; dir. Adam Wingard) This drug-metaphor ghost film, written and directed by Adam Wingard, has apparently been doing the festival circuits, but hasn&#8217;t been picked up for distribution yet. Early reviews are very positive, and, frankly, I&#8217;m dying &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/new-pop-skull\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,20,3,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}