Liquid Sky

[phelv]

perhaps im not well in the head, i dont know!!!
this is my fav movie ever,as it stands today im 40,first saw it at the age of 20.if you like surrealism,this is for you. i can recite it word for word.would love to start a fan club of people who also love this movie,but no one else has even heard of it!
i can relate to margaret.the whole "you can beat me if i do it wrong baby" line came in very handy once!long story! if perchance you love this movie as i do and wanna starta fan club you could contact me  phelvcat@paradise.net.nz.this movie is one of  kind..would love to talk to the people who made it too if their reading this!!

[MourningReign]

I love this movie! Sure it's low budget, thin on plot, with barely tolerable acting and not a single character you can really like. Strangely, that may be what makes it so likable.
Even though you are up close and personable with every character you still wish you weren't. It's similar to early John Waters films only the humor is completely different. This is a dryer humor, but it's definitely a comedy film.

[Parkdale]

I saw this film about 8 years ago, and just watched it again last night. There was a lot more structure to it than I remember. The first time I was kind of in disbelieve that something so bizarre would have ended up on my television. In the most recent viewing however, it really started to make a lot more sense. The acting was still hokey, but I certainly have more respect for the art direction and general themes than I did before.

The early part of the film jumps from scene to scene, and I think it could easily have a revised edit with a modernized soundtrack. There's nothing that could be done to help that 'Me and My Rhythmbox' song.

[Rebecca]

Okay, to start out... I've never saw this movie until just a while ago tonight... The start was rather long and after a while kind of got annoying. The transitions were rather bad also. But as the movie went on, I found there actually was some what of a plot...

I do love the some of the music and the "Me and My Rythum Box" I thought it was pretty creative and sweet... Also, I liked the part were she had the glow in the dark make-up on. It added a nice touch to what she was saying.  

I guess, over all... It was okay, something I'd watch maybe once in a while and then put it back on the shelf for a long time...

[crockagator919]

I finally aquired Liquid Sky on DVD. I watched it once and forgot I still have it! Reading these reviews makes me want to dig it out and watch it again. Like I said in my post a few years back - there's just something about this movie......

[wespennest]

I've given this movie three times to impress me.

-I started getting bored roughly halfway through. I thought it was amusing that a bunch of samples that Industrial bands use (you're nothing you're nobody you're nothing you're nothing, et cetera) were from this movie, but overall I found the "acting" to be stiff and emotionless. I have an affinity for crazy, non-linear and otherwise "odd" plots-- but Liquid Sky doesn't really have much of a plot to stick to in the first place. It's as if it was trying to be a cinematic version of Burroughs' Naked Lunch, but utterly fails. Self-indulgent, emotionless and badly acted. Maybe this is a metaphor for the 80s?

-I had explained my gripes with this film to a friend of mine who absolutely adores it. She assured me that it would be "better" when high, so I took her up on the offer. Two bowls of Jack Herer later, I was in the middle of this psychedelic, melting film that-- while looking very nice-- was a MAJOR BUMMER. Major turnoffs: Margaret's rape scene; I couldn't decide whether she was insulting whats-his-name to make him lose his erection or insulting him to turn him on. Adrian's singing. Margaret's "you're nothing" line. Pretty much every scene with Margaret. For whatever reason, the scenes with the German researcher were transcendentally hilarious and glorious to behold, but that may have been a combination of the weed and the relative awfulness of the rest of the film. I don't remember much else after that (I was taking notes and I think I started drawing near the end). We put on Heavy Metal afterward and had our minds thoroughly BLOWN.

-I figured I'd give Liquid Sky another chance without mind-altering substances, so I watched it again last night. Nothing much in my assessments has changed, except that I'm more-or-less convinced that this is little more than a group of New Wave friends who wanted to make a movie about themselves snorting tons of heroin and cocaine while wearing cutting edge fashion. In that regard, Liquid Sky can be considered a fantastic film that documents the state of the early 80's New Wave scene, but it's no more a science fiction film than Buckaroo Banzai is a serious documentary about brain surgery.

[MikeAlike]

The film itself is odd, which was also what the new wave movement was like. What nobody has touched on as I see this, is the film was a pre-Aides movie. The porn acting and surreal context made the movie entertaining. I wondered if the director was losing his  drug addicted friends and tried explaining the phenomenom by equating it with space aliens opposed to a virus, that in 1982, nobody knew existed. Transgender people and bisexual or gay people were rarely protrayed in film at that time, so its safe to assume getting a budget was likely difficult. Its one of my favorite cult pictures just for the melodrama and mildly sadistic approach to sex, in a juvenile manner. And when watching "Liquid Sky" one can imagine what heroin addicts would act like if on smack....it wouldnt be "pretty" which is why I enjoy the fashionable intent of the movie.  Nobody has really pinpointed its timelyness or import but actually this film is historical and unassuming.
(MikeAlike-independent recording artist)

[Derrik]

Has it been 30 years already? I saw LS when it first came out and I'll never forget what a disturbing experience it was for me. The technical aspects of the movie were disappointing even back then; the cheap UFO/aliens FX, the supposedly avant-garde use of the Fairlight synthesizer (I've been a synth geek since the early 70s), the grating slow pace of the first half of the movie before the aliens actually do anything (what little THAT is), the outdated punk look that had been out of fashion years before, etc.

What made it disturbing to me was that, though I knew a number of people who were into the subculture and heavy drug abuse, I was still embarrassingly naive in my early 20s, and the cold, cruel indifference towards one another as depicted by the characters in the movie was somewhat of a shock. I found it hard to believe that in that modern day and age (HA!) some people were so shallow and self absorbed that they would do anything to anyone just to satisfy their twisted little needs. Then 2 weeks after I'd seen the movie it's weird reality hit home when I discovered that the 2 girls I'd been "dating" (though not at the same time, unfortunately) were 2 lesbian lovers who had broken up and had decided to use me to get back at one another. That was quite a wake up call.

So yeah, the movie is far from being great, even in a so-bad-it's-good sense. Still, I'd recommend watching it, especially if you're a bad movie masochist. For me, it's just a "trip" down memory lane.

[Knightsaber1]

Could someone here please reassure me that Professor Owen was not Kurt Vonnegut? I'm trying to write an entry for the "So It Goes" literary magazine and I need that image out of my head ASAP. Thanks.