From the Sticks, Art and Back
A explanation of Matt's Stick Figure Death Theater

by Matt.

1) The Car
An exercise in overheated cinematic imagery; the car represents the 
speeding pace of events in our modern world. Its merciless rush seems to 
defeat meaning, and at the same time, hope. The modern tendency toward 
minimalism left me unmoved, however; I had to see this feature again to 
recall the barren landscape, the figure dying where Cary Grant in 'North 
by Northwest' prevails over a cropduster in a similar encounter. All in 
all, a good debut by the young director.

2) The Gun
A masterpiece of fatalism and despair. I am moved to recall Joyce's 'The 
Dead', or, better still, 'Thank You For Talking To Me Africa' by Sly and 
the Family Stone on the album 'There's A Riot Goin' On':

"Devil starts a grinnin', pointin' with his gun
Fingers start twitchin', I begin to start
fingers start shakin', I begin to run,
We begin to wrestle; I was on the top."

The Gun recall Sly's eye for detail, in the endlessly slow-motion drawing 
of the gun, the actually visible gliding of the bullet toward the 
motionless victim, who is waiting for--what? Fulfilment? Death? Godot? No 
answer comes but violence, blood, dismemberment and the great stillness. 
I bow my head in the presence of greatness--but no notice is taken. A 
just world would reward the author of this classic with some golden stick 
figure in a crass ceremony, but no. I spit on their ignorant shadows.

3) The Head
The inevitable failure, as the director's ambition leads him to 
overweening pretentiousness--to overreach the technical limitations of 
his medium. The head swells endlessly, but creates no suspense in the 
audience. It's just a big head, getting bigger. The artist makes himself 
into Francis Ford Coppola with 'Apocalypse Now', trying to portray the 
unseeable: ultimate Evil, or the Endlessly Swelling Head. The denouement, 
when it comes at last, is a relief to the longsuffering viewer in its 
amazing amateurism, as the screen goes red in an attempt to suggest the 
all-encompassing gore resulting from the exploding Head. But it does not 
convince us any more than we believe that Captain Kirk really disappears 
from the Transporter platform; they just stop the camera and he leaves, 
with a leavening of post production sparkle. The Head hasn't exploded; 
it's just run out of room. The blood is just a tautology, the tautology a 
pleonasm. Thus we are glad the embarrassment is over, glad to see this 
catastrophe resolve to a screen saying: The End.