Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975)
Recently-engaged innocents Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) have car trouble on a dark n' stormy night and find themselves trapped at the castle of Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) and his crew of outer-space transvestites. Hilarity ensues.
This film version of Richard O' Brien's horror/comedy spoof stage musical went on to become the ultimate cult classic midnight movie that still plays every weekend somewhere in the world. Long may it's freak flag fly, and R.I.P. Mr. Curry.

[M.10rda]

to Tim Curry, cinema's best Joker. (Fun Fact: He actually started recording lines for "The Animated Series", then they replaced him mid-episode with Mark Hamill. I guess Tim Curry was too terrifying or too sexy for weekday afternoon syndication!)

I agree ZODIAC is a 5/5. I cannot explain exactly why the stone-cold docudrama approach works so well, but that film stressed me out even in many scenes where no one is being murdered. Fincher has an expert grasp on tension. Also why is the calendar wrong in Gyllenhaal's last scene???

[Rev. Powell]

MOVIES ARE DUMB: STAR ODYSSEY: A movie riffing project from Chris Gersback (producer and host of "The Mads Are Back") that is not quite amateur, but not as polished as the MST3K folks. The movie is an extremely goofy Italian STAR WARS ripoff about aliens enslaving earthlings with an insane array of mustaches that really would have been perfect for MST3K, but which they probably wouldn't pick today because of the poor-quality print. It might work as a standalone bad movie, though it might be just annoying as hell. The riffing is uneven but OK. I laughed several times, but it is more rapid-fire than usual (often covering up dialogue, making the movie even more confusing) and there are a lot more notable duds. It was nice enough to hear some new younger folks enter the game, but without knowing their underlying personalities (or even who was speaking most of the time), it loses something. Since they volunteered this as a freebie for backers of the latest MST3K Kickstarter, this is the offering they're proudest of. 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Curse" (1987)
A meteorite crashes on the property of a Tennessee farm family, unleashing an alien goo which seeps into the ground and contaminates the water supply. Soon the crops are rotting, the animals are turning vicious, and the family begins de-volving into disease-ridden psychos. Only the teenage son (Wil Wheaton, later of "Star Trek: TNG") remains unaffected as he tries to save his little sister from becoming one of "them."
This low budget Italo-American co-production was apparently based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. It takes a while for "The Curse" to get going, but the second half is loaded with gooey makeup effects and ultra violence, therefore I was entertained. Followed by at least three unrelated direct-to-video sequels.

[Dr. Whom]

Helter Skelter (2012)

Liliko is the supermodel of the day. However she owes her beauty to plastic surgery and questionable procedures. The side effects are starting to catch up with her.

This is presented as a horror/psycological thriller movie, while there actually is very little horror or even suspense. It is more an exploration how ambition to make it in the cut-throat beauty industry will destroy you. It is closer to The Neon Demon than to The Substance.
There are no likable characters in this movie. Liliko is an insufferable diva who freely abuses her privilege and her boss/svengali is an evil Anne Wintour.
Interestingly, it is almost all female. While The Substance explicitly targeted the male gaze, here the motivation is to be worshiped by the schoolgirls of Shibuya.

This movie doesn't add that much to the discussion that the beauty industry is toxic. It is, however, so stylish it hurts. We are talking about Tenth Victim/Modesty Blaise levels of stylishness. Every shot, every detail is carefully crafted for maximum glamour. Absolutely stunning.
Lilico is played by the preternaturally pretty Sawajiri Erika, who I was unfamiliar with. Turns out she was a model/actress and fired twice from her agency before making this movie: the first time for being a diva and after her comeback she got involved in a drugs scandal. No wonder the producers thought she'd be ideal for the role.

[M.10rda]

ENTR'ACTE (1924):
Dadaists were the punks of the post-WW1 era and their heyday was the 1920s. Like Lear, Johnny Rotten, or George Costanza, they promoted a philosophy that Nothing meant anything or that everything meant Nothing. Although their two self-appointed spokesmen were a couple of snotty yet initially sincere young hipsters named Andre Breton and Tristan Tzara, an art movement that denied the inherent meaning of art or life naturally attracted all manner of artists of all ages, including photographer Man Ray (who literally objectified the body of his mistress/model Alice Prin), 3D artist Marcel Duchamps (who sold and displayed "readymades", which were just urinals and other junk that he found and signed), filmmaker Rene Clair, poet Francis Picabia, composers Georges Auric and Erik Satie, and eventually painter Rene Magritte and legendary lunatics Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. They'd hold "salons" in French cafes and theaters - basically art shows with spoken word and music and theatre and films - all of it supposedly meaning Nothing. Of course, as Costanza eventually had to admit, Nothing is really Something! Thus the movement fractured and officially collapsed.

Anyway - ENTR'ACTE is one of the short films that Clair made for and premiered at a Dada salon. It's 22 minutes long and has no plot, but - it does have motifs, reoccurring characters, camera tricks, stunts, slapstick comedy, men in drag, frenetic editing like that in Marcel L'Herbier's L'INHUMAINE (or TETSUO THE IRON MAN), a first-person ride on a rollercoaster, and an ending that is quite similar to the end of Jodorowski's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, only silent. Basically it's a lot like a wordless episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and it's a lot more fun than UN CHIEN ANDALOU.

Auric, Duchamps, Ray, and Satie all appear, and it's incredible for any student of Dada or surrealism to see all these guys clowning around onscreen. Picabia also appears, memorably, and co-wrote ENTR'ACTE w/ Clair. Breton and Tzara are notably absent. They allegedly found "older" artists like Auric and Satie and Picabia (who was maybe in his 40s) to be incredibly uncool. Nevertheless Picabia looks like James Murphy or 80s Peter Gabriel in ENTR'ACTE and one Letterboxd reviewer calls him "punk as f**k", so Take That, hipsters.

Clair made the pretty awesome silent sci-fi adventure THE CRAZY RAY a couple years after this. Then he went to Hollywood and made mainstream studio films for 35 years. I'm sure some of his Dada cronies thought he was a huge cop-out, but it's hard to believe in Nothing! Nevertheless, ENTR'ACTE is an amazing one-of-a-kind document of an era.    5/5    And a (cannon) blast!

[Rev. Powell]

ENTR'ACTE (1924):
Dadaists were the punks of the post-WW1 era and their heyday was the 1920s. Like Lear, Johnny Rotten, or George Costanza, they promoted a philosophy that Nothing meant anything or that everything meant Nothing. Although their two self-appointed spokesmen were a couple of snotty yet initially sincere young hipsters named Andre Breton and Tristan Tzara, an art movement that denied the inherent meaning of art or life naturally attracted all manner of artists of all ages, including photographer Man Ray (who literally objectified the body of his mistress/model Alice Prin), 3D artist Marcel Duchamps (who sold and displayed "readymades", which were just urinals and other junk that he found and signed), filmmaker Rene Clair, poet Francis Picabia, composers Georges Auric and Erik Satie, and eventually painter Rene Magritte and legendary lunatics Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. They'd hold "salons" in French cafes and theaters - basically art shows with spoken word and music and theatre and films - all of it supposedly meaning Nothing. Of course, as Costanza eventually had to admit, Nothing is really Something! Thus the movement fractured and officially collapsed.

Anyway - ENTR'ACTE is one of the short films that Clair made for and premiered at a Dada salon. It's 22 minutes long and has no plot, but - it does have motifs, reoccurring characters, camera tricks, stunts, slapstick comedy, men in drag, frenetic editing like that in Marcel L'Herbier's L'INHUMAINE (or TETSUO THE IRON MAN), a first-person ride on a rollercoaster, and an ending that is quite similar to the end of Jodorowski's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, only silent. Basically it's a lot like a wordless episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and it's a lot more fun than UN CHIEN ANDALOU.

Auric, Duchamps, Ray, and Satie all appear, and it's incredible for any student of Dada or surrealism to see all these guys clowning around onscreen. Picabia also appears, memorably, and co-wrote ENTR'ACTE w/ Clair. Breton and Tzara are notably absent. They allegedly found "older" artists like Auric and Satie and Picabia (who was maybe in his 40s) to be incredibly uncool. Nevertheless Picabia looks like James Murphy or 80s Peter Gabriel in ENTR'ACTE and one Letterboxd reviewers calls him "punk as f**k", so Take That, hipsters.

Clair made the pretty awesome silent sci-fi adventure THE CRAZY RAY a couple years after this. Then he went to Hollywood and made mainstream studio films for 35 years. I'm sure some of his Dada cronies thought he was a huge cop-out, but it's hard to believe in Nothing! Nevertheless, ENTR'ACTE is an amazing one-of-a-kind document of an era.    5/5    And a (cannon) blast!

Pedantry: you're conflating the Dadaists (1916-1924, anti-art art) and the Surrealists (1924-1966+, art informed by the subconscious). There are several artists, like Duchamp and Man Ray, who belong to both movements. That said, to my shame, I haven't seen ENTR'ACTE, which is Dada made at the time Surrealism was just rising and starting to overtake it.

[M.10rda]

That's a fair criticism. I absolutely consider Surrealism to be V2.0 of Dada, in spite of the philosophical distinction that you cite. Among other things I'd argue, I would argue that Dadaism imploded because its practitioners and critics eventually had to accept that the possibility of art devoid of any meaning is non-existent, and that any art must inescapably bear implicit (or sub-conscious) meaning from its creator or at least inferred (or sub-conscious) meaning from its consumer. Hence Surrealism abandoned the pretense that art meant nothing and just stopped fretting about a clear consensus meaning. But, you're right, I was oversimplifying.

On this matter, I've seen original Duchamp ready-mades in at least two major museums in my life. They are still considered valuable and significant, in spite of just being urinals with Duchamp's name on them.  Meaning is indefatigable!

[lester1/2jr]

The Appointment (1982) - Wow, this was definitely something else. Edward Woodward from The Wicker Man is a Dad with a rather odd 13 year old daughter who may or may not possess otherworldly powers. The first half is a fairly conventional drama, the second is a really out there "Is it a dream or is it real?" experience with the Dad driving on scary cliffside roads in England. The fact that I was nodding off while watching this at 4 am magnified the nightmare effect. I saw it on the ROKU channel which had a nice print. Very cool. watched in one night (or morning, rather)

4.75 /5