after we ride the fun slide, lets go see a movie

If you’ve seen the OWS protest signs that read I’LL BELIEVE THAT CORPORATIONS ARE INDIVIDUALS WHEN TEXAS EXECUTES ONE—and nodded approvingly—there’s an excellent chance that you’ll also love Werner Herzog’s bracing new documentary, Into the Abyss. 


 Herzog structures his true-crime story around jailhouse interviews with a killer named Michael Perry—who was executed just eight days after his last meeting with the director. But the film is also a portrait of a Texas town that’s so weird, in so many messed-up ways, that it might as well have come from one of Herzog’s whacked-out feature films (or, better yet, one of David Lynch’s). This time out, Herzog lets his subjects, and his camera, do most of the talking; as a result, Into the Abyss is one of his plainest-looking films. But it’s also full of ironies, revelations, jaw-dropping bits, and terribly sad moments—so many of them that, for once, Herzog’s ultra-impassioned narration doesn’t seem overwrought. Into the Abyss ends up being one of his best films, and one of the year’s best documentaries. via