I'm Going to Take That Hope, and Shove It Up Your Ass

Hustler White - dir. Bruce LaBruce, Rick Castro - 1996 - Canada/Germany

Man, the gays sure didn't like this one. But are you really surprised? When I say the "gays," I mean a less artless, less intellectual sect of homosexuals that can usually be found dancing shirtless to remixes of Cher's "Believe." And when I say gays, I also refer to the humorless, anal (pun pun pun) GLAAD, who are too busy yelling at critics about Brokeback Mountain and calling American Idol homophobic. Yawn. Bruce LaBruce is not one of these "gays." Instead, he's a rather insightful, if a tad fetishistic, and undeniably intellectually entertaining director.

Huslter White centers around two characters, one a hustler named Monti Ward (played by one of Madonna's former lovers, Tony Ward), the other, played by LaBruce, an obnoxiously snotty and gay German "researcher" Jürgen Anger (with certainly no relation to Kenneth, as he rudely responds). Jürgen is visiting LA for purely "antropological reasons," driving up and down the hustler strip of Sunset Boulevard (the film actually makes rather ridiculous homage to the film of the same name by opening with a monologue by Monti over his face-down dead body in a jacuzzi). Monti is trying to make a living to support himself and his infant son. Little attention is payed to his status as a father, aside from a scene with Monti and his kid in a bathtub. However, the scene exists as more than simply another reason to get Tony Ward's clothes off, and adds a level of humanity to an otherwise outrageous film. When dealing with the absurd, a level of humanity isn't necessary; in fact, I think at times it seems false or cheap. For an example of that, look at any of the popular, "goof-ball" comedies of the past few years (The Wedding Crashers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Old School, et al) and notice how the zany antics are interrupted by an even cruder "humanity," as one of the wacky characters falls in love. This however is not how LaBruce works (my apologies go to the co-director Rick Castro, who I have not and probably will not mention again in this critique).

LaBruce instead operates with a healthy symbiosis of criticism and admiration, absurd and poignant. There aren't many humanistic moments in The Raspberry Reich, LaBruce's masterpiece of leftist terrorism and (you guessed it) porn. But he reaches a perfect balance in his exposure of the characters' ridiculousness and an appreciation of their idealism. In Hustler White, after the shock wears off (though I'm sure you won't forget the amputee fuck scene), there's a level of sadness, disillusionment, and agony... dealing with the quintessential elements of New Queer Cinema. I've made this argument for Gregg Araki as well. His over-the-top antics are beautifully matched with extreme lonliness and despair. One of the whores in Hustler White laments throughout the film over a crush on a man who won't kiss him. Once Jürgen's cold hauteur wears off, we can see his true feelings for Monti. And it just fits in comparison to Araki that Monti's character "dies" right as Jürgen was about to turn that "ho into a housewife." To dismiss Araki or LaBruce as provocateurs would be gravely wrong.

A Baby Named Junebug

Junebug - dir. Phil Morrison - 2005 - USA

Furthering on my previous post about Amy Adams and Psycho Beach Party, I actually got around to watching Junebug shortly after posting. Though I'm going to try it myself, I think Joshua Tanzer's opening comments in his review on offoffoff.com truly sum up the joy of Junebug. While I certainly don't get paid for doing so, I do tend to watch a lot of films. And though I've probably passed up the handful of Meg Ryan and/or Vin Diesel flicks he's paid to write about, I've seen enough of the same tripe to know appreciate when someone does it well. So what is it that we look for when we constantly surround ourselves with cinema? For me, I'm looking for an unquestionable masterpiece (Fanny & Alexander) or a truly shameless howler (Showgirls). And, yes, unfortunately, most films fall somewhere in between... and it sure is a vast terrain. Junebug dances on top of very familiar territory (a city man and his new, hauty wife return to his humble hometown), but like Thumbsucker (another of the notable and sure-to-be-forgotten "indies" of 2005), it does so much well within its own familiarity that it's rather hard not to admire.


I can hardly say I've grown a taste for the usual Sundance fare, but it doesn't hold me back from admiring a film like Junebug. In my Thumbsucker review, I commented about the horrors of American independent cinema, as new directors find their own deity with a recognizable signature and revamp.. and revamp.. and revamp his or her style well after rigor mortis. Junebug stands as another nice example of a stepping away from the Wes Anderson impersonations that so dominated the film festival/arthouse circuit in the past years. Junebug is earnest.. and it's fucking sweet. But what works best in the film is that the director never puts himself or his protagonist Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a primmed, cultured, worldly woman, above its subjects. In the end, we're upset to find that Junebug is, in fact, a "message movie," a particular style of filmmaking (er, storytelling) Michelangelo Antonioni bashes in one of the essays of the Criterion disc for L'Eclisse and one I especially abhor. While there's a message to be discerned, there isn't a character or group of people who are in fact "had." Never is Junebug a film about a cultured woman's disgust over a group of lesser educated Southern folk, nor is it a film where the cultured woman learns that her intellectual ways prohibit her from true human contact. Instead, Junebug is a film about quiet discovery instead of rash patronization. Two particular elements stand out, among others. In one scene, Madeleine's devilishly handsome husband George (Alessandro Nivola) gets in front of a congregation to sing a religious hymn. Instead of an awkward fuck-up on George's part or a religion-is-the-seed-of-all-evil message, it exists as a moment of discovery for Madeleine about George. Director Morrison uses a subtle prop, a body pillow, to visually express an underlying feeling of lonliness in the charcter of Ashley (wonderfully played by Amy Adams, who's truly the standout in a uniformly nice cast).

If Adams wins the Academy Award, Junebug will join the ranks of quickly forgotten films like Iris, Girl, Interrupted, Pollock, or Affliction whose only claim to fame is a supporting actor Oscar. Junebug is better than the films above, but it will stay in my memory as one of those exceptions to rule that all American "indies" blow.

Who You Gotta Fuck to Get a Hotdog Around Here?

Rant of the Day: Psycho Beach Party - dir. Robert Lee King - 2000 - USA

No one knew who Amy Adams (above, center) was when she got an Oscar nomination for Junebug. Well, no one except for fans of the beach movie/slasher flick, Psycho Beach Party (okay, that's probably not true, but that's how I remembered her). Self-conscious camp rarely works, especially when it's a pretty direct parody. The Scream films didn't work, because their self-awareness elevated them above their subject matter so much that it felt more clumsy than ironic when the films followed the same fate as those they put themselves so above. Psycho Beach Party, instead, is rather a joyous homage to teens-in-peril drive-in flicks and Frankie and Annette beach romps. Its tongue-in-cheek-ness pushes to the point of choking, but it isn't without its pleasures: the opening credits, the terrible blue-screen surf sequences, Adams' bitchy Marvel Ann's dance-off at the luau, and an hilarious performance from Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose as Florence "Chicklet" Forrest with a split personality disorder that turns her from dorky teenybopper to seductive dominatrix Ann Bowman (no relation).

Won't You Charleston With Ken Russell?

Rant of the Day: The Boyfriend - dir. Ken Russell - 1971 - UK/USA

As a huge Russell fan, I firmly believe The Boyfriend to be one of his most underappreciated (just ask B. who blasted it in his rundown of Russell flicks). It'd be one thing if Russell decided to adapt Sandy Wilson's ridiculous play The Boyfriend into a glorious Hollywood musical -- but that wouldn't be him. It'd also be another thing if he chose to cast supermodel, anti-fur activist Twiggy in her first film role as a gorgeous stage diva -- but that wouldn't be him either. Instead he's crafted a film about some rundown British theatre putting on -- for what seems to have been the hundreth time -- the play, with Twiggy as the coy assistant stage manager who, after the play's STAR Glenda Jackson is injured, also becomes the lead actress in the play. This would normally be the set-up for a conquering-the-odds, "my turn to shine" revelation for the Twiggy character, but it's not. The play is awful, and Twiggy is endlessly mediocre. And Russell, in full Russell mode, glorifies the play's wretchedness with costly fantasy musical numbers and magnifies Twiggy's mediocrity to a level of beautiful campiness. Sure, The Boyfriend is no Women in Love or The Devils, but it's totally one of Russell's tastiest of his lesser films. Watch this alongside Salome's Last Dance and have a wonderful B-grade Russell fest.

A Sick Movie, Made by Sick People, For Sick People

Rant of the Day: Bad Timing - dir. Nicolas Roeg -1980 - UK

The title of this post refers to what the studio, Rank, had to say about Nicolas Roeg's long-forgotten Bad Timing (also known as Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession), which has only recently (since it's gorgeous Criterion release) received the attention it deserves. Probably Roeg's last great film, Bad Timing investigates the apparent suicide attempt of a young girl (Theresa Russell) through the memories of her older lover (or is it stalker?), Art Garfunkel (I'll try to forgive Roeg for showing me more than I ever wanted to see of Art). Bear witness to some of the most marvelous editing techniques you may ever see (well, aside from Roeg's previous films). He intended to make a film about how a man cannot intellectualize himself out of love and/or obsession, but also acutely tackles ideas of truth, reality, and fatal attraction. While I don't think it's nearly as glorious as Walkabout, Don't Look Now, or Performance -- it haunted me for days.

Oh, the Coming-of-Age Subgenre

Thumbsucker - dir. Mike Mills - 2005 - USA

Big surprise, I watched Thumbsucker. Bigger surprise, I included a photo of Tilda Swinton in this review (pictured above with director Mills and costar Pucci... I chose not to include a photo of the director with Miranda July for obvious reasons). But probably the biggest surprise comes from the fact that the film really isn't nearly as bad as it might have been. Now, I haven't read the book, nor do I really plan to. As I told a friend of mine the other day, the book belongs in a sort of subgenre of books, which include Prozac Nation and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, all of which appeal to a certain just-into-college mentality that I do not hold. Not that either of the books listed above are bad per se; they work for what they mean to work for, and there's something to be said for that. Thumbsucker, as a film, works differently though. It's a part of the American independent film onslaught that we get, ripped from Sundance every year. I guess it's a good thing the whole Tarantino phenomenon has blown over, but, never fail, the world of young, hip American filmmakers has chosen another god in Wes Anderson.

My feelings on Wes Anderson are not simple. I think Rushmore is rather brilliant, though it appears as if Anderson, only on his fourth film, has already started making parodies of his own work. Thumbsucker interrupts the narrative flow with pastel pink backgrounds of its hero Justin (Lou Taylor Pucci, the cut up hitchhiker in the Fairuza Balk segment of Personal Velocity) sucking his thumb and opening magical boxes. The soundtrack is shamelessly hip, featuring The Polyphonic Spree and Elliott Smith covering Cat Stevens. Smith crooning to Stevens' "Trouble" may call to mind Harold & Maude and our lead character may remind us a bit of Bud Cort, but really the similarities go no further. (Probably because Tilda's the only one in the cast who can command the screen as well as Ruth Gordon did.) All the uber-hipness aside, Thumbsucker actually succeeds for several other, important reasons.

Let's just get my Tilda drooling over with first. Though she emerges as the best thing in a number of the films she's in (Young Adam, Constantine), she happens to be oddly complacent in this film to its fullest effect. It's as if she spotted something in Thumbsucker that she didn't in the other films, and decided to let the film go as it pleases, instead of taking control of the ship. And she does subtlty well! Her Audrey actually feels of this earth, grounded and (believe it or not) boring. All of this may sound like criticisms, but as you know, I hold Tilda in the highest regard... and she does what she's supposed to... well. Vince Vaughn (another shocker) doesn't ham it up as you might expect, and Keanu Reeves' bad acting feels perfectly suited to his ridiculous orthodontist, the only character in the film that feels farcical. And while Tilda is enough for me to like a film, Thumbsucker works because, despite its elements of unabashed hipness, of its earnestness. Usually this is poison in my book, but when you're used to filmmakers who've turned irony some sort of sub-art form, sincerity can emerge as a breath of fresh air. It should be said as well that the film wouldn't have worked without Lou Taylor Pucci's central performance. He works within the spectrum of this film as well as Jason Schwartzman does in the irony and sadness of Rushmore. Without his sincerity, Thumbsucker would have gotten sucked into the "indie flick" abyss... and though it probably won't be remembered in a few years, Thumbsucker shows us (or maybe just me) that earnestness doesn't have to be the arsenic your wife slips in your coffee.



Oh, HELL NO. The Oscar nominations came out this morning, and guess what, fucking Crash was nominated not only for Best Original Screenplay, but best-fucking-picture. Best-fucking-picture!!! I wish the Razzies weren't so painfully obvious, or they might have done the honors of having Crash as the first film to be nominated for both best and worst film in the same year. Paul Haggis must have paid off or fucked the right people in Hollywood, because this is just ludicrous (no fucking pun intended). Ludicrous isn't even the right word for it -- there isn't one. And who chose William Hurt to get the supporting actor nomination instead of Ed Harris in A History of Violence? And while Crash's nominations may be the biggest sham of the Academy this year, their exclusion of Grizzly Man in this year's best documentary category is unforgivable. Read this. Hey, maybe if Crash wins some shit, I can actually do something other than roll my eyes at Nicole Kidman this year.

In Your Stores 31 jan 06

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Grrrls on Film

Rant of the Day: Foxfire - dir. Annette Haywood-Carter - 1996 - USA

A friend of mine told me that posting nudity would probably get more people to read my blog. So I seeked out a nice topless photo of Angelina Jolie for my rant of the day, Foxfire. While you may roll your eyes at her now, there was a point where Angelina held a captivating ferocity onscreen, a sexuality uncommon for your average leading-lady (though Foxfire was her first starring role). And while all of that appeal may be gone now, you can't ignore that her early persona was the only thing worth watching in this, Hackers, or Gia. Since you know what has become of Ms Jolie, now you can look at Foxfire for the burning bag of shit it truly is. Based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates (I can't get a visual of her sitting down and actually watching this), a gang of high school girls gather together to form some sort of sect after fucking with their perv science teacher. The group's lead by Legs (Jolie), a mysterious drifter who's ludicrously mistaken for a boy (no one would mistake Angelina Jolie for a boy). Her role is rather similar to Terence Stamp's in Pasolini's Teorema; her mysterious facade serves as the catalyst for the actions of the girls around her. When we find out her true origins, not only does the film lose any intellectual curiosity about her character but also allows for her to prove that her strong feminism is just that of a sociopath. I guess we were always right: girls can only stand up for themselves if they're crazy.

If you really care, the cast also includes Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis, Jolie's ex-girlfriend Jenny Shimzu, Twin Peaks' Richard Beymer, and Kathleen Turner's doppelganger, Cathy Moriarity.

Filmmakers Are Your Friends

The Virgin Spring [ Jungfrukällan ] - dir. Ingmar Bergman - 1960 - Sweden

With the amount of time I dedicate to locking myself in my room drowned in cinema, it’s only natural that I have found personal bonds with filmmakers, none of which I’ve ever met in the flesh. These bonds I form with filmmakers I can simply equate with the relationships normal people develop with each other. I know Wong Kar-wai like you know a close friend. We’ve been friends for a while… probably six or seven years, and I’ve gotten to know him quite well. We’ve shared some wonderful, beautiful time together (Days of Being Wild), and I’ve been there for the not-so-good times too (Fallen Angels). I think we get along so well because we understand one another. Wong never insults me, and even when I may have gotten a little to used to his antics, I’ve stuck it out with him. That’s what friends are for, no? He’s not my only friend, of course. What? Do you think I’m a loser or something? I’ve got some other really close friends too. They go by the names of Federico, Catherine, Akira, Woody, Michelangelo, David, Ken, Werner, Pedro, Roman, Alfred, and, yes, I even have a friend named Ingmar.

As strange as it may sound, there’s a certain warmth about Ingmar Bergman’s icy worldview. Maybe it’s that delusion of heat that comes from the extreme cold. But maybe it’s just that I know my Swedish friend so well that being around him gets me all cozy inside. The Virgin Spring is by no means a warm and cuddly little film, unless rape, murder and questioning the existence of God sounds like a lazy Sunday afternoon for you. And if it does, you too might understand my sentiments toward the film. Though relatively early in his career, The Virgin Spring is probably the last of Bergman’s “greats” for me to see. I’m too technologically advanced to even conceive of owning a VCR, so I had to wait for Criterion’s release of the disc to give it a look. It was not only worth the wait, but thanks to my long acquaintanceship with Bergman, I got to enjoy it as a person might enjoy hearing a familiar tale from a close friend. Since, you know, I’m not a loser, I’ve had parallel experiences recently with other friends. While watching Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger a few months ago for the first time, I erupted in vicious laughter as the quintessential Antonioni “leave ‘em hangin’”/"ohhhhh, existentialism!" conclusion unfolded. Though just as striking an ending as anything he’s done, it’s as if I were hearing Antonioni tell the same joke again, just with a new exposition. I also rolled my eyes lovingly while watching Last Days when Gus Van Sant insisted on including a completely unnecessary gay sex scene in the middle of the film. “Go right ahead, Gus, and get that little boy from Witness to make out with another guy.” Gus, Michelangelo, Ingmar, and I are good friends, so we can joke with one another like that.

The Virgin Spring opens beautifully. As it’s one of the early Bergman’s, his theatre background presents itself immediately. He brings us to a shadowy barn, where Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom), a woman equally as sexy as she is frightening, stars a fire and opens the roof, quite literally lighting the scene. She calls upon her god Odin, begging for “today to be the day.” We don’t really know what she’s praying for -- but by the looks of things, it’s not something good. If you believe the Internet Movie Database, Wes Craven’s dismal exploitation flick Last House on the Left is apparently a remake of this film. Now, you know it’s not something good. Yet, as grim as The Virgin Spring may be, it’s rather thoughtful and aesthetically gorgeous (something Last House on the Left is not). Not that you or I would expect any less from Ingmar.

My kinship with cinema and its masters does not always prove as serene as it does with Ingmar and me. Maybe someday, I’ll tell the story of how that wretched cunt Amélie clouded my nihilism and filled me with a destructive sense of idealism and romance. But, that’s for another day.

The Heart Isn't the Only Thing Deceitful

Since I've gotten some messages about The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things from my list of DVDs of the week, I thought I might post some more information about the whole hoax.

Check this article

I can't figure out if Palm was waiting for all the shit to hit the fan to release Asia Argento's adaptation, or whether this just happens to be oddly-timed. Will it help the film? Perhaps it might draw people to see it. But perhaps it also might make a mockery of the subject-matter itself. While I was never particularly fond of the book, the subject of child molestation never makes for a good time. Though maybe a film about the hoax itself is on its way. After all, "JT" did fool a lot of people -- including Dennis Cooper -- but the article never mentions Ms. Argento, whom I have a shameless obsession with, so maybe she's in on the whole sham.

Black Me Out

Rant of the Day: The Blackout - dir. Abel Ferrara - 1997 - USA/France

Yuck. I really hate it when I find myself liking a film as shamelessly awful as The Blackout. Yeah, it's true, I am a sucker for eccentricities of Dennis Hopper and Béatrice Dalle. And I do think Ferrara's The Addiction is kind of wonderful. But, The Blackout sucks. And... I like it. Matthew Modine plays a cod actor, purposefully unlikable -- and he's got a secret; he just doesn't know what it is. We, the audience, figure it out long before he does. There's a real seediness about the whole production: Dalle was arrested for cocaine charges while filming, which later resulted in the French government denying her a visa for a role in The Sixth Sense; Hopper looks just as fucked up as he did in Apocalypse Now. It leads you to wonder if there might be some authenticity to the characters' obsession with coke. All of this translates well on the screen; after all, this is an Abel Ferrara movie. I really wish I could properly defend my liking of this trash, and since I can't (and since just about everyone I know who's seen it, hates it), I can't really suggest this outside the Dalle, Hopper, or Ferrara fanatics (of which, I'm sure, there are few).

Breakfast

Rant of the Day: Son de mar [ Sound of the Sea ] - dir. J.J. Bigas Luna - 2001 - Spain

I've retitled "pick of the day" to "rant of the day," because I think by the end of the summer I'll probably have run out of good films to talk about. Plus, isn't it more fun to talk about bad ones? With lovely, loning cinematography and a fancy soundtrack by Piano Magic, Son de mar nicely disguises the fact that it blows. Bigas Luna likes sex (Las Edades de Lulú [ The Ages of Lulu ], Jamón, jamón, La Teta y la luna [ The Tit and the Moon ]), and he films it well -- but no one's ever really mistaken him for a good director. Though stars Leonor Watling and Jordi Mollà compliment the images, Son de mar is better suited as dressing for your morning pancakes. Skip the melodrama, listen to the soundtrack.

In Your Stores 24 januray 2006

In case you're wondering... here's the notables of what'll be in your video store (or, more likely, on Netflix or Amazon) this Tuesday the 24th of January.


Address Unknown - dir. Kim Ki-duk - 2001 - South Korea - Tartan Video

Tartan's releasing one of the last of Ki-duk's films stateside. I haven't seen this one yet, but hopefully it falls along the lines of some of his better work -- The Isle, Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring, and 3-Iron.







The Aristocrats - dir. Paul Provenza, Penn Jillette - 2005 - USA - ThinkFilm

100 or so comics (only a few of them worth seeing) tell the same joke about a family of performers in their own filthy way. Some of the renditions are inspired: Sarah Silverman, Carrie Fisher, Andy Dick, the crowd from theonion.com. Others are not: Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Lewis, Carrot Top, Robin Williams. Hearing Bob Saget talk about people eating cum and shitting on one another proves to be not nearly as funny or as ironic as you may have hoped.


Can DVD - segments by Brian Eno, Hildegard Schmidt - 2003 - Germany/USA - Mute Corporation

Fans of the Krautrock pioneers can rejoice -- now they can buy the 2-disc DVD set, filled with live performances and a short film dedicated to the band by Brian Eno, for an affordable price. This re-release doesn't include the bonus CD, but runs a reasonable $23 instead of $45.





The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things - dir. Asia Argento - 2004 - USA/UK/France/Japan - Tartan Video

For those with the all region players, Tartan UK has released Asia Argento's adaptation of the JT LeRoy memoirs on DVD this week. With a strange cast that includes Argento herself, Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder, Marilyn Manson, Lydia Lunch, Ornella Muti, and Michael Pitt, those without a region-free player can wait until Palm releases it stateside in March.



Once and Future Queen - dir. Todd Verow - 2000 - USA - Vanguard Cinema

You may like Todd Verow's second part of his Trilogy of Addiction, which began with Little Shots of Happiness and ended with A Sudden Loss of Gravity. Or you may have remembered how awful his adaptation of Dennis Cooper's Frisk was and choose to avoid this altogether.




Repo Man (Collector's Edition) - dir. Alex Cox - 1984 - USA - Focus Features

Yeah, Emilio Estevez used to be cool. A friend of mine believes that any movie with Harry Dean Stanton can't be bad... and, for the most part, that's true, especially the case in Alex Cox's uber-punk rock sci-fi comedy.






Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Road to God Knows Where / Live at the Paradiso - dir. Uli M. Schüppel - Germany/UK - 1990/92 - Mute Corporation

For the Lydia Lunch fans, here's her second showing this week on DVD. For everyone else, this DVD contains a documentary about Nicky and the Bad Seeds' US tour in 1989 and a separate concert flick filmed in Amsterdam. Also features Anita Lane and Jim Thirwell.




Sin destino - dir. Leopoldo Laborde - 2002 - Mexico - TLA Releasing

TLA brings us an homage to Buñuel's Los Olvidados about a street hustler in contemporary Mexico.








Thumbsucker - dir. Mike Mills - 2005 - USA - Sony Pictures

Based on the novel by Walter Kirn, a teenage boy can't rid himself of his filthy thumbsuckin' habit. Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughn sound like a turn-off, but, as you may already know, I'll watch anything with Tilda Swinton.






The Virgin Spring [ Jungfrukällan ] - dir. Ingmar Bergman - 1960 - Sweden - Criterion

And... the DVD pick of the week: Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. Finally out on DVD via Criterion, Bergman's first Oscar winner deals with a provincial Swedish family whose virgin daughter has just been raped. Totally grim and unmistakedly Bergman.