If you’re like us, you awoke this morning to a world of white, icy, marrow-freezing cold, and the gnawing suspicion that help, while it may be on the way, was going to be a long time coming …
… And then you pulled the duvet off your head, cranked up the thermostat (what idiot turned it off to begin with?!), and prayed for snow outside your window. Damn! No such luck. Still, it’s pretty dang chilly out there. Time for some more cabin fever DVDs.
We spoke to the Alamo’s Lars Nilsen last time. Today we’re talking to a legendary Austin scenester, musician, cartoonist, and I Luv Video Airport’s resident punk rock movie guru. Ladies and gentlemen and those without cocoa, we give you the frosty musings of Ben Snakepit …
1.) Fargo ” … is a Coen Brothers classic. The scene where William H. Macy is up on the parking deck and he’s scraping the ice off of his car and is just losing his shit and freaking out just, for me, sums up the whole idea of cabin fever, winter, and unrelenting cold.”
2.) To Build a Fire ” … by the director Luca Armenia is crazy awesome. It’s super-simple, an hour long, and just one dude and his wolf-dog trying to build a fire and survive out in the wilderness. It’s a really compelling story [adapted from Jack London] and it’s narrated by Orson Welles.”
3.) Iceman ” … is cool. The scenes where the scientist [Timothy Hutton] is trying to figure out what the Iceman [John Lone] is trying to say and they both go to the Inuit village – that scene in particular has always stuck with me. It’s a picture of a part of the world that you don’t really get to see very often…and which is vanishing even now.”
4.) Runaway Train ” … is great. I mean, it’s an action movie on a runaway train in the ice. What’s not to love?”
5.) John Carpenter’s The Thing ” … is a classic. I really love the scene at the beginning where the helicopter is chasing after the dog and there’s those shots where the only thing around is ice and more ice as a far as the eye can see. Carpenter really drives home how isolated and alone those characters are.”
This article appears in January 8 • 2010.