Friday, February 03, 2017

The Acidemic Table of Contents


The way things are going, man, who knows... so I wanted to present the entirety of links and posts thus far in a handy page rather than just the usual link sidebar (many of which disappeared in the great blogger.com code break of 2016). So Behold, a decade + plus of 'sporadically brilliant babble.' (Please Note - this is currently incomplete, workin' on it, as the sane goes. so check back!)
For contributors to the Acidemic site, go to acidemic.com, and/or check a future, separate index, as otherwise it's all too much. It's all too much anyway.

Note: This is all my own work; I'm also assembling a separate contents for the acidemic.com site, which publishes work from curated array of other authors, though a new issue hasn't come out in awhile, it's still ahead of its time. Or behind, and what's the difference? Gehst du here. 

Und fur die Horror and Sci-Fi Indexe, gehen sie hier.

INDEX "NORMATIVE" COMMENCE:
    
(Note - Best-ofs stopped during COVID and the loss of theaters. Not sure there'll ever resume. What's new vs. what's old has almost ceased to mean anything, but there's more than enough below to keep you concerned for the past(


LISTS for STREAM:
NOTE: availability of titles come in and go, I've included the dates these were compiled- some are all may not be available depending on the date you access, and your location)

YOUTUBE CHANNEL


TUBI
10/21 - My TUBI Cue (Deadly Women Edition): 10 Weird Vintage Gems for the High and Inside
10/17 - Spooky Behaviors - 15 Cool/Weird Horror/Sci-fi Films
3/17  - 12 Weird/Cool Italian Films
12/16: I never said it wasn't terrible: 10 Sci-Fi Curiosities
10/16: 13 Best or Weirdest Occult/Witch movies
10/16: Taste the Blood of Dracula's Prime: 12 Psychotronic Vampire Films

NETFLIX
8/15 Summer of My Netflix Streaming III: Deadpan Comic Horror International
8/14 Summer of Streaming II: Post-Giallo Nightmare Logic ala Netflix
6/15 Summer of My Netflix Streaming I: A Psychedelic Odyssey
10/14: 24 Hours of Curated Netflix Horror: 16 Weird and Spooky Numbers
5/16: 5 Psychotronic Gems on Netflix: Badass Babes for a Bernie Nation

HULU+
04/16: Prepare for the Coming of the Hillary Matriarchy with these 5 Films on Hulu Plus

THE MASTERS
PSYCHO-Poetics: HITCHCOCK
Gravitational Distortion in 70mm: Hitchcock and Kubrick on Blu-ray
Hearts of Darkness, Lights of Madness: HERZOG the Collection (Blu-ray set review - BL 11/14)
Notes from the Class and Alcoholic Struggle of a THIN MAN Marathon (1/1/16)
Blocked by the Belle: BELLE DU JOUR
The Balloon that is Welles: MR. ARKADIN and his Versions.
Darker than Blood: GANJA AND HESS (1973)
LSD GODFATHER 2: Don Fanucci in the Vestibule
From Russia with Hell: COME AND SEE (Bright Lights)
Waiting for Ketelbach with Dorloeac- CUL-DE-SAC (1968)
EYES WIDE SHUT: The Blind Leading the Sighted (11/12/07)
Shrooms for Remembrance: Mel Gibson's HAMLET in a Psychedelic Context
Iguanas and Mustangs: THE MISFITS
Excuse me Miss, Haven't we Died Somewhere Before? VERTIGO
Plunge! MABUSE, DER SPIELER vs. Ameritrade
Sex is a Decapitated Hen: BLUEBEARD and the Eroticism of Catherine Breillat


THE ANTONIONI FACTOR
-------
LUSTY MEN and COCKFIGHTER
Stillness in Motion: CALIFORNIA SPLIT, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
My Long Day's Journey in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964)
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1958)
The Tell-Tale Dissolve: BABY DOLL and the Collapse of "Decency"
Sunday Spiritus Cinemacticus: Fessing up to THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE
Tennessee Williams at the Mill of Rubes: THE FUGITIVE KIND
PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT (1962)
Mendacity A-Go-Go: Liz vs. the Little Monsters (CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF)

HOWARD HAWKS 
'n Friends
Early Hawks: THE CRIMINAL CODE, TIGER SHARK, CEILING ZERO, 
BARBARY COAST, ROAD TO GLORY
CROWD ROARS, THE (1932)
I Unravel and Explain the Entire Twisted Solution to Both BIG SLEEPs
Repetition Convulsions (w/ TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT)
Momentum Mori: TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934)
"We seem to go way back" - BRINGING UP BABY, LADY EVE, BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE
Erich's All-Time Favorite 25 Films (half are Hawks)
John Monk Saunders' Flying Death Drive: DAWN PATROL (1931), LAST FLIGHT, ACE OF ACES, EAGLE AND THE HAWK
International Hawksblocker: RED LINE 7000, HATARI! (1962)
Monsters Crash the Pajama Party: DARK KNIGHT RISES, TARGETS, HIS GIRL FRIDAY,  (8/6/12)
The Cold Blue Lysergic Evening: THE DAWN PATROL (1938)
Death Driving Ms. Henstridge:  GHOSTS OF MARS, SPECIES and RIO BRAVO (c. 03)
Plissken on Parade: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) comes to Blu-ray (BL, 4/15)
A Clockwork Darkness: Hawks, Subjectivity, HALLOWEEN (1978)
I got a home in that 'Raq (3/7/10)
Cinema of Castration: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS
Hughes in 4 Hues: THE AVIATOR, THE CARPETBAGGERS, CAUGHT, ICE STATION ZEBRA



THE WALLS IN THE HANDS ARE TALKING TO ME. 
le rayon bleu Deneuve: REPULSION
Gimme Cockaine: MELANCHOLIA (2011)
Easter Acid Cinema Special: MOTHER! (2017)
GIRLS (1968), CHE (2008 and other Threats (BL 5/08)
Moments of eXtreme METHOD
Odin's Last Stand: Nicholas Ray's WE CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN 
The War Against Normal: A STRAW DOGS remake and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
The Art of the Snivel: On Richard Widmark in ROAD HOUSE (1948)
Hell's Angels vs. the Flower Child Dead: GIMME SHELTER
Wes Anderson vs. the Trust Fund Marxists  + 10 Classic Film Recommendations for fans of THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
A Tale of Three Anti-Capitalist Musicals: HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM, MARAT/SADE, BRIGADOON
Hey BETTY BLUE, Come Blow Your Mind (+ INSIDE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY)
Ms. Icarus Risen: THE BLACK SWAN (2010)






(as always bold signifies a current personal favorite)
Psychedelic Canon:
=========== = = = = ======
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933)
ALTERED STATES (1980)
AMER (2009)
ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO (1969)
ANTICHRIST (2009)
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
BAD LIEUTENANT 2: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009)
BARBARELLA (1968)
BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (2010)
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)
BIG CUBE, THE (1969)
BLACK SWAN, THE (2009)
BLOW-UP (1966)
BLUEBERRY (see: Renegade)
BLUE SUNSHINE (1978)
BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON (1972)
CALIGULA (1979)
CANDY (1968)
CUL-DE-SAC (1966)
CHRISTMAS CAROL, A
CIAO! MANHATTAN (1972)
CLIMAX (2019)
CULT OF THE DAMNED (1969)
DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993)
DAWN PATROL (1938)
DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE (2012)
DOCTOR FAUSTUS (1967)
DUNWICH HORROR (1970)
ENTER THE VOID (2009)
EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)
EYES WIDE SHUT (1999)
FANTASIA (1940)
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998)
FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION: JAILHOUSE 41 (1972)
FIELD IN ENGLAND (2012)
FLATLINERS (1990)
FOUNTAIN, THE (2006)
GIMME SHELTER (1970)
GLASTONBURY FAYRE (1972)
GO ASK ALICE (1973)
GODFATHER 2 (1974)
GOOD TIME (2017)
GREAT ZIEGELD, THE (1936)
GREEN PASTURES, THE (1938)
HAMLET (1990)
HEAD (1968)
INCEPTION (2010)
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE (1933)
JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977)
JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012)
L'AMOR BRAQUE (1985)
LIMITLESS (2011)
LOVE WITCH, THE (2016)
MAGIC TRIP (2011)
MANDY (2018)
MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)
MATANGO ("Attack of the Mushroom People"- 1963)
MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (2010)
MIDSOMMAR (2019)
MOBY DICK (1956)
MONTEREY POP (1968)
MOTHER! (2017)
MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970)
MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? (2010)
NAKED LUNCH (1991)
NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994)
NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941)
NIGHT FLIGHT (1933)
NIGHT OF THE IGUANA (1964)
OREGONIAN, THE (2011)
OVER THE EDGE (1979)
PEOPLE NEXT DOOR, THE (1970)
PERFORMANCE (1968)
POSSESSION (1981)
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)
PSYCH-OUT (1968)
QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY (1968)
RENEGADE (See: Blueberry)
REVOLUTION (1968)
RIOT ON THE SUNSET STRIP (1967)
ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979)
SANDPIPER, THE (1965)
SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT, THE (1965)
SATURN 3 (1980)
SCORE (1974)
SHINING, THE (1980)
SKIDOO (1968)
SHOOTING, THE (1966)
SONG REMAINS THE SAME, THE (1976)
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1958)
SWIMMER, THE (1968)
TRACK 29 (1988)
TREE OF LIFE (2011)
TRIP, THE (1967)
TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934)
TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971)
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
UNDER THE VOLCANO (1980)
WALL, THE (1982)
WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT (1965)
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1964)
WILD IN THE STREETS (1968)
WONDERWALL (1968)
WOODSTOCK (1970)
X- THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963)
YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968)
ZARDOZ (1973)


PSYCHEDELIC SHORTS:
BLACK and TAN FANTASY (Duke Ellington - 1929)
SNOW WHITE (1933 - Betty Boop short)
SOFT SELF-PORTRAIT OF SALVADOR DALI (1970)
SUNSHINE MAKERS, THE (1935)
WAIKIKI WABBIT (Bugs Bunny -1943)


12 NIGHTS OF ED WOOD



PSYCHEDELIC SPECIALS:

Broken Mirror in the High of the Beholder: CLIMAX (2019)
Idiot wind of the locusts: SOYLENT GREEN (1973)
Acid and Giallo: Drive-In Dream Logic III, Italian-style
Acid Cinema Special Edition: The VIETNAM Experience
Bad Acid's Greatest vol. 2: The Savagery Switchpoint
Laureate of the Laid: Terry Southern + CANDY (1968)
Easter Acid Cinema Special: MOTHER! (2017)
Why don't we just Go Ask Alice? 
Alice 2.2 - The Looking Glass Dolls
The Ancient She-Shaman and her Shrooming Exhumer: SZAMANKA 
A Star-Spangled Salute to America's most Acidemic-Cinematic Women (7/4/10)
Ich liebe dich so, Anita Pallenberg
The Primal Sceneseters: TWIN PEAKS
The Little Mescalito that Couldn't: MAGIC MAGIC, CRYSTAL FAIRY AND THE MAGICAL CACTUS
She was Some Kind of Mushroom: GO ASK ALICE (1973)
Language! Drinks! Cakes! Oppression! INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Butterfly Moanin' (DUKE OF BURGUNDY and Faerie Bower Cinema)
Don't let a few bad apples stop you from accessing the ungodly power of trans-dimensional entities - THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970)
A Stoner shall Rise: SHROOMS, THE LOVED ONE, CABIN IN THE WOODS
Are you Lonesome, Automaton?
The Tick Tock Initiation: PHANTASM
Condoms are for Quitters: XANADU (1980) and the Death of the Naked Rock Musical
It is the Waving of her Heavenly Hair! Britt Marling's ANOTHER EARTH

The Mystical Dissociation of Lucio: AENIGMA (1987)


LATE NIGHT PARANOIA 
Bad Acid's Greatest: 70s Paranoid Feminism Edition
Age of Asherah: ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)
Make up your mind control: 33.3 Ways of Reading EYES WIDE SHUT
Daze of our Lies (Or "As the Reichstag Burns") SECRET HONOR, HITLER (1962), UFO HUNTERS, Lord Lhus
Burnt Persona Jessica: SWEET SWEET LONELY GIRL (2017)
Amnesiac Cinema: HEADLESS WOMAN (2008), SUCCUBUS (1968)
Are you Serious? The Terror of Ambiguity
Make up your mind control: 33.3 Ways of Reading EYES WIDE SHUT
Hallowed be thy Shakes: The DTs, and Paranoia in 3 Film MACBETHS
Hey BETTY BLUE, Come Blow Your Mind (+ INSIDE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY)

BABY, YR SO META

What's your Edition Number? Replicanting Final Cuts of BLADE RUNNER (BL - 08)
Not with a Wimp but a Banger: KICK-ASS 2, HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING 
FIRE, ENDER'S GAME
The Slashological Strata of Fate: HALLOWEEN to THE TERMINATOR (1978-1984)
They Shoot Horsemen: THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)
Monsters Crash the Pajama Party: DARK KNIGHT RISES, TARGETS (8/6/12)
Mecha-Medusa and the Otherless Child: THE RING
The Cassandra Signal: SCREAM, HALLOWEEN, TERMINATOR: SALVATION
Apocalypse-Dependent: SOUTHLAND TALES (2009)
SOUTH PARK, Terrorism and the Nicole Kidman Experience
Sexy Terrorists are Go! CARLOS (2010) and Post-Cinematic Airline After-Affect
Yea, I was walk through the Uncanny Valley (11/09)
The Rosebud Principle: SOCIAL NETWORK, CITIZEN KANE
Death to Realism! EXISTENZ = Oculus Rift vs. Marcel Duchamp 
+ The Al Texas Jazeera Chainsaw Massacre 
How am I not Myself: INVASION/S OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
Just Whoa! Stories: Guy Maddin, Canadian Amnesiac: THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 
Silence of the Uploaded Monekey: TRANSCENDENCE, AVENGERS: AGE OF 
ULTRON, TERMINATOR: GENYSIS
American Grievers Part 1: INCEPTION
Pictures taking Pictures: MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and the Misandric Hollywoodophile
Tales from the Benway Pharmacy: BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, THE MACHINE
Tales from the Retro-Futurist Pharmacy: SPACE STATION 76, PHASE IV, Boards of Canada
Taming the Tittering Tourists: 50 SHADES OF GREY, 9 1/2 WEEKS, SECRETARY, SHE-DEMONS, Bunuel, Robbe-Grillet et Von Sternberg
What is it about this sign that disturbs you, Marnie? (Red, Rosenbaum and Tarantno - BL 8/09)
Suspended Imagination: WAXWORK, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4
The Screen Eats the Soul: Draining Satan’s Image
Dec. 18th, 2014: The Jong who Stole X-mas: The RING around the ROSEWATER
DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978): Twilight of the Betamax
Dubious Comforts: PET SEMETARY, SUVRIVAL OF THE DEAD, and the RNC
The Evolver Virus: PROMETHEUS, THE DEAD FILES

SPOOKIN' THE CENSORS:
Exit Visas from Paradise: CASABLANCA (1948)
"Anything Goes" in JEOPARDY (1948)
Barbara Stanwyck in TEN CENTS A DANCE (1931)
Nearer my Templar to Thee: WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, BECKETT, THE BLIND DEAD
Cinq à sept vs. the Censors: LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, CHLOE, LOLITA, BABY DOLL, ON THE TOWN, RED DESERT

NEW YORK CITY TOURIST BOARD:
The Di Blasio Grime Revival: MS. 45 (1981), LITTLE NICKY (2001) (BL 11/13)
Blades in the Apple: LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, The Village People, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and WINDOWS (When the Rainbow is Enuff) - 6/10
Dawn of the Dinkins: BLANK CITY (2010), RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (2013)
Manhattan Sinking Like a Rock (6/11)
Drug of Choice: 4:44 - LAST DAY ON EARTH (2012- Abel Ferrara)

MID-LIFE CRISIS COLLECTION

Best of the Beards: Kris Kristofferson
Now bleed for Me: THE WRESTLER (2008)
An American Rohmer: Clint Eastwood's BREEZY (1973)
Men who Are Frozen: FOREVER YOUNG, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Beards of Bleak: THE ROAD, WINTER'S BONE
The Foxy, the Dead, and the Foxier: DEATH-PROOF (BL 1/08)
Fantasy Phallus Fallacy: SATURN 3 (1980)
Quixote Ugly: THE SWIMMER (1968)
The Pantheon of Macho Fey
The Flower People Screaming: DOCTOR FAUSTUS (1967)
You rolled, you really rolled: ROLLERBALL and a 70s Bloodsport Overview
Where's the Love, Man? THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980)
Paters Horribilis: Hookers, Harvey, and a Man called Pollack: EYES WIDE SHUT
Totaled Recall: THE HANGOVER, WHO IS HARRY NILSSON? 
The Narcissistic Male Gaze: It's not you it's Me because I am You
Great Old Drunk Writers and their Big Black Death (12/07)
Charge of the White Elephant: POLLOCK (2010)
Bride of Bogartstein: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)
LAST TANGO IN PARIS: Brando, Butter, Stockholm Syndrome and the Hot Ass of Death (12/07)
Mendacity A-Go-Go: Liz vs. the Little Monsters (CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF)
All Hail the New Flesh Keychain: ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (2013)
Fantasy Phallus Fallacy: SATURN 3 (1980)
The Well-Tempered Poitier: Thanksgiving with AMERICAN GANGSTER (11/23/07)
Born to be Childless (WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?)
"You have my word as inveterate cheat" - WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?
The Sorrows of Softcore are the Joys of Art: L'IMPORTANTE C'EST D'AMIER
Mid-Life Crisis Superstar: Humbert, LOLITA and the Bait/Switch Cycle
Butler of Orbs: THE MASTER, THE (2012)
The Well-Tempered Poitier: Thanksgiving with AMERICAN GANGSTER (11/23/07)
Born to be Childless (WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?)
Chop Wood, Carry Sponsors - The MAD MEN - Finale
Touched by a Locust: EXORCIST II, MANHATTAN BABY
A Great Hook: ROLLING THUNDER (1977 - Blu-ray review - BL 7/7/13)
Out HUD (New Years 2008)
Sullivan's Jet Travels: Rich Kid Cinema
Forgotten Men with Steam
All Tomorrow's Playground Narratives: Kubrick's LOLITA (BL)
In the Oui, Paul Hours: SOME CAME RUNNING, CONTEMPT
Procedurama!: PUBLIC ENEMIES (BL)
Reflections in a Golden Nyah; THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
I Aims to Scan your Big Bald Head: HITMAN and the New Male Chastity (07)
CinemArchetype 25: The Fisher King
Thrower of Tantrums: LA BELLE NOISEUSE; THE ROCKER
Terms of Endangerment: NIGHT AND DAY, HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE


THE INCREDIBLE DISSOLVING FATHER:
All Hail the New Flesh Keychain: ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (2013)
The Last American Ruffalo: Lisa Cholodenko’s Lesbian “Homespun” Family Values (BL 1/11)Hope vs. the Scandanivian Svengalis: THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE, I'LL TAKE SWEDEN
Mendacity A-Go-Go: Liz vs. the Little Monsters (CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF)
The Incredible Melting Marlon: REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE
Dads of Great Adventure: A Guide to Cinema's Post-Apocalyptic Hyper-Parent (BL - 1/31/11) 
In Hysterics: LIAR LIAR Vs. A DANGEROUS METHOD
Shyamalan’s a Ding-Dong: AFTER EARTH (Will Smith is a great dad, please) - BL 7/13
KNOWING: Who are Parents? Parents are the ones who are ALWAYS / There. (1/29/1)
"I WANT ANSWERS!!  From CLOSE ENCOUNTERS to WAR OF THE WORLDS, A Legacy of Child-like Wonderment... and Inherited Immaturity (05).
Service Equals Citzenship! (Kid Rock - American Warrior Army Recruitment Ad)
Lolita Nation: TEETH, HARD CANDY (9/06)
Leo, oh, Leo (11/08)
Orphans of Jesseland: ADVENTURELAND, ZOMBIELAND
Coal und der Switches Symplex: JINGLE ALL THE WAY
Secrets of 2012: The Day of a Million Relapses
LSD GODFATHER 2: Don Fanucci in the Vestibule
Smoking in the rain outside the House of Demme: RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (BL11/08)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, Summer's Isle THE WICKER MAN (2006)
Dubious Comforts: PET SEMETARY, SUVRIVAL OF THE DEAD, and the RNC

 GREAT 70s DADS


JAMES BOND, COLLECTED


COOLEST COUPLES:
TWILIGHTs Cinematic Ancestors
------
 KALI DURGA
The Fireworks and the Crummily Cautious (thoughts on Angelina Jolie)
Lashes by Cover Girl... and Centurions: THE TOURIST, MASQUERADE, 7TH SIGN 
She even Breaks: Edie Sedgwick in CIAO! MANHATTAN (1972)
Blank like a Panther: CAT PEOPLE (1982) Blu-ray review (BL 1/27/14)
OBVIOUS CHILD, GINGER SNAPS and Your Reproductive Lunar Cycle
They Done Her Wrong: THE LADY IN RED (1979)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, Summer's Isle: THE WICKER MAN (2006)
Radium Girls Vs. the 1%: Eva Green in DARK SHADOWS, NOTHING SACRED
Antichrist in Translation: UNDER THE SKIN, HABIT
Vampire Lesbians of 76-67
Sprays of Heaven: IN THE DUST OF THE STARS
Inescapably Her Iron Age Druid Bog Mummy Alcoholic Self: THE ETERNAL (1998)
BabaDOOK: Jennifer Kent's Psychotropic Fairy Tale
Claire Forlani Drinks Dewars; Carrie Matheson, SZAMANKA and Angela Chase (11/04/12)
Jessica Chastain, Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia (1/3/17)
Desperation and Divinity: Help us, Mae (a plea to the Ghost of Mae West)
Half-Hour Honey (HONEY WEST) - BL 9/3/08
From Russia with Adamantium Cheekbones: SALT 
Die Vikaren (THE SUBSTITUTE)
Hail to thee, California Mountain Snake!
Virgin Queens and Smart Blondes: Shoshana Dreyfus, Torchy Blaine, Elizabeth I
An Unsawed Woman: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003 remake- BL)
Columbine Queen: PJ Soles in ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL
Sever Me Member! THE CREEPING FLESH, EX-MACHINA
Let the Darioni Nuovo Entrain your Dissonance: AMER (2009)
A Jet-Lagged Hayride with Dracula: LOST IN TRANSLATION, THIS GUN FOR HIRE
Naomi Watts: Cinema’s Post-Modern Mother of Mirrors
ACIDEMIC Film Journal #1: Drunk Feminism Issue (1/03)
Miss Chthonic Temple: SUSPIRIA (2018), THE DARK ADVENTURES OF SABRINA
Isles of Löwensohn: THE WILD BOYS, LET THE CORPSES TAN

Unbreak the Wind: YOU AND THE NIGHT (2013)


ANGELS OF DEATH, the Series
ANGELS OF DEATH - I
ANGELS OF DEATH - II: Great Women of Horror
ANGELD OF DEATH III: Badass Brunette Edition
ANGELS OF DEATH IV: Lynn Lowry Special Edition 
ANGELS OF DEATH V: Magic Slut Split/Subject Maenad Edition

NORDIC BLONDE MOTHERS
Cinema's Naughtiest Germans
------
Jane
"A thousand dollar bill I was supposed to be bribed with" (or 'only real behind curtains') - John Huston and Bree Daniels, Gamblers: KLUTE, THE MALTESE FALCON.
Jane Fonda does Tennessee Williams; PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT (1962)
Post-Sexual Jane: THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1968)
--
LIZ TAYLOR COLLECTION
Cooler Sister Effect: GIANT (1956)
Great Acid Cinema #14: SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1958)
Mendacity A-Go-Go: Liz vs. The Little Monsters: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)
America of Ghosts: Why Lana del Rey is the New Val Lewton
"Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground (McSweeny's 10/6/05)
Great American Novel: A Lou Reed Discobiography (Slant -11/10/13)
Pigpen, Brian Jones, Syd Barrett: Ode to 3 Fallen Space Cowboys
Chrissie Hynde vs. Dracula (12/31/07)
Open letter to the Piano Man (3/13)
The best jazz trio you'll never see: Gene Evans, Scott LeFaro, Paul Motian
Cocorosie: Uncaged Tigresses (2007)
Bardo Pond: Synaptical Misfires at Louise Point
Great Rock Moments #1: Joe Cocker at Woodstock
Lost Art of Japanese Loungecore: Harumi Hosano
Pinned at the Party Pit: Praise for the Hold Steady
Return of X: KMD
New Age Music Round-up 2012
DISCOGRAPHIES:
(orig. published in Amp Camp, c. 2000)
X: See how the War
Oh those drunken Replacements
Fiona Apple: Legacy of Hot Messiness
Liz Phair: Sinner, Siren, Sell-out
Lou Reed (see first three issues of Art Decades)

BOOK REVIEWS 
(via Bright Lights)
TV
CHARLIE'S ANGELS
PARANORMAL CAUGHT ON CAMERA + the Collective Unconscious
GHOST ADVENTURES, etc.









WOODS (The Accidental Brecht)
See also: The 12 Nights of Ed Wood (above)
SUSANA (1951) (Bright Lights)
MOTHER OF TEARS (Bright Lights)

10 REASONS
DIRTBAG CAVALCADE:
Don't let a few bad apples stop you from accessing the ungodly power of trans-dimensional entities - THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970)
Tony Curtis makes the Manitou; Shire a Prophecy

Testimonials:

Celebrating 40 years of Anne Heche (5/09)
"I'm not afraid to die" - Tony Scott + Dangerous Women (8/12)
"This Sweet Cesspool" - PSYCHOMANIA and George Sanders' Suicide Note 
The Downey Spirals (12-30-09)
Happy Birthday Warren William! (12/2/09)
Happy Belated Birthday, Jessica Biel (3/4/09)
Remembering Lou Reed (10/27/13_: a Spotify Mix + GET CRAZY
Dino Di Laurentiis: Warrior, Poet, Profit (11/12/10)
Long Live Liz (3/23/11)
In Illuminated Memory of Richard Matheson (BL 7/13)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman b. 1967-d. Today (2/14)
A double dysfunctional Mickey (Rourke) Xmas (BL -12/08)
Great American Novel: A Lou Reed Discobiography (Slant -11/10/13)
Happiness is the Birthday of Dean Stockwell - 3/5/08
Happy Birthday, Naomi Watts, Cinema's Mother of Mirrors (BL 9/27/15)
A Gay Parade goes down Scarlet Street: Remembering Richard Valley 1949-2007
A Tale of Three Pauls: Coincidence, Confusion, and Sex (5/09 - BL)
Hail, California Mountain Snake!
Happy birthday, Cheryl Ladd! (7/12/12)
Happy Birthday to Sandahl Bergman! (11/14/08)
Happy Birthday, Linda Fiorentino (3/9/09)
American Cinema Anniversary: PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

AWARD SHOWS:
Let England Take: Natalie Portman vs. the KING'S SPEECH (2/11)
MTV Awards 2010: You'll Believe a Big Fat BLEEEEEEP can fly (Whoop Whoop!) - BL
Subtextual Oscar Highlights (2/09)
A Sorry READER: Following the Oscarbait Rules (Rauber-Zautung) -2/09

X-MAS NOTES: ANNUAL KUERSTEN FAMILY VIEWING DIARIES
Holiday Viewing Diary (12/11)
Kuersten Family X-Mas Viewing Diary (12/28/08)
Poppies Won't Ever Blow Away: Viewing Notes from within a Windy O'Hare Sheraton (12/31/ 07)

PRE-CODE CAPSULES

FAVORITES:


CLASSICS
Bellamy, the Deflowerer: THE WEDDING NIGHT (1935)
Skeeved by an Asian: THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, SHANGHAI EXPRESS, etc.
Troopers of the World, There is one bug you cannot beat (STARSHIP TROOPERS)...
Leporello sells Spotto (or "the Sailor's Farewell"): ROAD TO SINGAPORE 
Great Performances, Dubious Haircuts
God Bless the Orgiast / who's brought his Own: THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932)
Getting to Own You: RUGGLES OF RED GAP, CLOUD ATLAS
A Val Lewton-style Nancy David Regan, MD: SHADOW ON THE WALL (1950)
CABIN IN THE SKY: Ethel Waters, Co-Dependency, and the Lord
William Powell's Retrograde Psychedelic Amnesia: I LOVE YOU AGAIN, CROSSROADS
Medusae of Asia vs. Old Testament Houston: SHANGHAI GESTURE (1941)
White Women Waterloo: JAMAICA INN, WEST OF SHANGHAI, SKYSCAPER SOULS 
Unironic Ventriloquist Radio: YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN (1938)
“What It Takes to Make a Softie” – Breaking Noir Tradition in THE LEOPARD MAN (BL 05)
Thanks / for the Lucky Strikes (Big Broadcast of 1938)
IDIOT'S DELIGHT (1933)
Cuspidor of Greatness: DIPLOMANIACS (1933)
The Blackened Face of the Glory-bound Golem: WONDER BAR (1934)
Flo - The Great and Powerful, and the Ludovico Flu: THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)
13 WOMEN + Peg Entwistle, the Ghost under the Hollywood Sign
The Return of the Emotional Terrorist: Monroe Owsley
Dizzy from the Altitude, Happy to Plummet: Pre-Code Cinema and the Post-Code-Shock Syndrome
If I were a TCM Guest Programmer (Long Unseen Gems not on DVD): FREUD COBRA WOMAN, DISHONORED, CEILING ZERO (1/3/12)



OLD DARK HOUSES

WHITE COCKATOO, THE (1935)



ERICH'S GALACTIC ALIGNMENT / AWAKENING EUPHORIA (pre-2012 Apocalypse)
I had been doing deep meditation after work every day with a light-sound machine triggered to an Amazon shaman chant, which concurrent with my meds, seemed to electrify my kundalini starting in early November (around the elections), when a voice told me that if I was ready to let go of all judgment, to 'recuse myself from the bench,' all would be revealed, my sins would be lifted, and I could sneak into paradise offered by the galactic alignment of 2012. I went for it, and for around the next 6-7 weeks lived a sainted life. I present my film-based writing from this period in chronological order, for what its worth. I had a freelance gig writing 3-5 New Age music reviews a week for The Daily OM, which kept me in practice (no by-line)

 Through a Dark Symbol (11/03/12 - DP)
Claire Forlani Drinks Dewars; Carrie Matheson, Andrzej Zulawski's SZAMANKA (1996) and Angela Chase (11/04/12)
A TREE FALLS IN BROOKLYN + Bright Lights + Swar of the Saints 
CinemArchetype 19: The Holy Madman (11/10/2012)
+ SIMON OF THE DESERT (11/20/12)
A Hole in Me Pocket: Beatles, EST, YELLOW SUBMARINE (11/13/2012)
The I Ching answers questions about THE MASTER (11/27/2012)
Don't Eat my Pineal Gland! (Divinorum Psychonauticus 11/30/12)
The Psychedelic Scrooge Satori (Dec. 12, 2012)
Drug of Choice: 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH (12/17/12)
Yes, Virginia, the World DID End Yesterday (Dec. 22, 2012)
Jessica Chastain, Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia (1/3/17)
Flo - The Great and Powerful, and the Ludovico Flu: THE GREAT ZIEGFELD -2/16/13
SUPPLEMENT
SWAR OF THE SAINTS
Beginning around mid-November this whole elaborate fusion of (semi-fake) cult and guerilla theater sprang fully formed to my brain, beamed down if you will, replete with elaborate costumes and staging all of which I had access to via working at Pratt Institute. However, plans were scrapped when, beginning around mid-Feb 2013, I had a massive fever - which kept me crazy and bedridden for over a week. When my fever finally broke, the whole plan, the impetus, the will, the drive, to continue with this project was gone, along with my illumination and everything else. Was it celestial Archons 'harvesting' the energy garnered by my cosmic aligned awakening or just a case of weakened immune system due to trying to live totally vegan after a lifetime of meat eating here in a giant Nordic Viking body? Why can't it be both, and more? Either way, I give you the complete rise and fall of this illuminated state, from the first breakthroughs to the first few posts after my massive fever, to a final essay for the Weeklings. I'll be honest, some of it I can't even bring myself to read or see (such as the videos - which I've never watched since the day I made them). I do like the Quetzlcoatl Sutra, though.

 Guidebook: Stage of Envelopment (11/28/12)
This means SWAR: Preliminary Guideline and Council to the Elderless (11/21/12)
Tarot of Swar of the Saints (11/13/12)
Welcome to the First Best-Dressed Feeling of Your Life (11/13/12)

 Official Cult Literature (poetry and psalms)
Secrets of Quantum Immortality (12/2/12)
The Tao of Tailbiting (11/27/12)
The Long Dark Knight of the Soul (11/18/12)
The Quetzcoatl Sutra (11/14/12)

 Video: (11/25/12)
Shortcuts to Enlightenment - Ep. 2 "Vacuum"
Shortcuts to Enlightenment - Ep. 1 "Aumm"

 POST-APOCALYPSE
2012 is a Memory: No Apocalypse, No Aloha (1/4/12)
Bust through your Program! Archons, Laura Eisenhower and the Blood Fountain Antennae (2/8/12)


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Friday, January 27, 2017

Post-American Pride: DEATH RACE 2050 (Roger Corman Lives!)


Brought Gulliver-low through Lilliputian micro-managerial fascism on the one side and kamikaze cabinet-casting by a rabid right on the other, America--by which I mean me, the ghost of Woody Guthrie, and maybe you--are in serious trouble, maybe. To the left I say don't take it out on me if I seem too slack for your snooty food co-op; to the right I say at least do dystopia right, as in public executions, and televised death games for condemned prisoners, and cross-country road rage races with points awarded for pedestrians killed. Roger Corman can help you with that. And DEATH RACE 2050 is here - on Netflix, and perfect for an angry beer-and-rage-soaked wochenende. 

I confess, reader, I been blocked. I been brought low by horrific panic in all my usual sources of solace (even Facebook) I couldn't read another step, either from work or the news, couldn't handle even a droplet from the terrifying cascade of perceived injustice. Then, the scariest thing of all is my my own aging face in the black mirror. Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, like the Weenie King says. It's all too awful. There's no respite for this alcoholic still stuck and sniffling in and out of these rooms. Relapse for Dollar$ then, with moderation as impossible a dream as a javelin landing on the head of a pin.

But then DEATH RACE 2050 came and saved me, Woody Guthrie, and maybe you.  Not only does it satirize the Idiocracy of the Post-Trump America so trenchantly it feels pulled from tomorrow's headlines, it does so without making me get so angry I start to tremble and shake, blood pressure spiking like I just funneled a carload of salted meat. In 2050's overall blackly comic post-meta deadpan tone lurks a whole box of coping mechanisms as yet unopened. I came to it in despair, and within its brief runnig time found fuel for a catharsis, and lo, I was reborn in the bloody joy that's always there at the core of our fucked-up nation.

Now I can relax, because I know the truth: no matter if it's the uptight self-righteous co-op crowd or the NASCAR beer-necks running up the sails, our great American craft of madness will find some fertile breeze to blow it.

After all, when the world drowns in its own tears, we'd be fools not to jump into the ocean after it, like a consolatory Ahab with a Harpoon (Ale) in hand. No worries if we too vanish below the roiled surf. We'll Rise Again within the Hour! 'hic'!

In case you don't know, the original DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) was a huge hit for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. It boasted a terrific 'it's what everyone's thinking but no one has the guts to say' hook right up there with ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK's: a national cross-country race where you earn points by running over pedestrians, a mix of NASCAR and the Roman coliseum. The cast of star drivers included a young Sylvester Stallone as Joe Peturbo, David Carradine as Frankenstein, Mary Woronov as a cowgirl bull rider, and Roberta Collins as the Nazi-ed up Matilda the Hun. How could it fail? Directed by Paul Bartel from a Charles B. Griffith script, it's a gem that's held up over the years remarkably well. Not only was I inspired to re-watch my Blu-ray of it it immediately after 2050, but I even unearthed my unopened copy of its "sequel" DEATHSPORT, the Shout DVD of which includes--I learned-- a great Allan Arkush commentary track.

None of these have much in common with the Jason Statham remake and its sequels, on which Corman had no part, and which I tried to watch but are too dark, literally and figuratively. (In the words of Tony Camonte's secretary, I like a show with jokes and it ain't got no jokes). Either way, the Bartel 1975 version is so good it shouldn't be sullied with comparison to anything except... maybe we're finally ready... this official 2050-set sequel.

Produced by Roger and Julie Corman and directed by G.J. Echternkamp, DEATH RACE 2050 brings in Oculus Rift-stlyle headset and projection technology to the TV-viewers at home and a grim and very plausible future in which 95% of the population are unemployed but don't care because their headset goggle things make their surroundings BLACK MIRROR bright (an artificiality that perfectly fits the film's copious use of green screen) Everyone lives in a state of besotted numbness, seeing their ugly elderly roommates as gorgeous models, waking up only to clamor for blood at the big race. Malcolm McDowell is the fey president, a cross between Donald Trump (hair jokes), and a straight Elton John (he's dressed all super-glam but sits at his office flanked by broads feeding him grapes ala Malcolm's two biggest hits: CALIGULA and CLOCKWORK ORANGE ).

He's the big name star here, of course, but his performance is kind of broad and too similar to past crazy monomaniacal dictators he's played (and, brother, he's played his share). Not that he's bad, at all. He's Malcolm. But the rest of the cast, holy shit! They're in all the way, all ten nails dug deep for the long haul.


Acidemic Top Honors in the great over-acting school of classic drive-in fare first must go to foam-at-the-mouth Burt Grinstead--channeling the spirit of Dick Rude in REPO MAN--as a closeted 'perfect male.' Anessa Ramsey is second as a tidal wave of fundamentalist Christian mania, named Tammy ("All hail Saint Elvis Presley!"); a true force of crazy nature, shed be right at home in FASTER PUSSSYCAT, KILL KILL. Next car over is Folake Olowofoyeku as an African American woman driver who pedals her vaporwave single (Drive! Drive! Kill! Kill!") while racing across redneck stretches of this post-Trump wasteland of a nation by day, and by night, quietly confessing her dad is a black history chair at Columbia. Shhhh. Another car is driven by an AI computer (who promptly has an identity crisis) with the navigator a Ballard-CRASH style auto-erotic hedonist (Shanna Olsen); there's also sweet Marci Miller as Frankenstein's right hand woman (and requisite rebel assassin); and an all-in Yancy Butler as the leader of "the Resistance." Frankenstein himself is played by New Zealand Male Manu Bennett. Shizz yeah, as April Wolfe points out "Roger Corman's 'Death Race 2050' is the only movie that matters in 2017" - Gurls is always right.

Termite details matter: zoom in to read words on upper jaw

Here's a movie that doesn't just man up, it mans off: Marci Miller just whips out  the aboveand puts it in after the projection of rebel leader Yancy Butler berates her in the shower for not killing Frankenstein yet "as a symbol" (and Miller answers in shower-song-speak so Frankenstein in the next room doesn't hear her conversation - genius). Will it joing the cop-outs of Hard Candy and Teeth, or man-up and man-off like Spit on the Last Grave from the Left? For once it almost doesn't matter, it just fits like a reverse glove in a layered free-for-all of metatextual green screen savagery so rife with piled-up details it never needs to explain its few confusing glitches.

Evoking great Corman slap-dash jobs of the past, like his underrated CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, and GAS-S-S-ss, DEATH RACE 2050 deserves a spot in the pantheon of genius low-budget green-screen hipster sci-fi genre pastiches ala JOHN DIES AT THE END, BOUNTY KILLER, and IRON SKY. Don't even try to question why this kind of crunch car smash surreal green screen zip feels more real than most of Hollywood's gritty dramas. That's just 'the future' talking and you're already in it. I bet even now there's a difference between how you see yourself in your mind's eye (and the mirror with good lighting), and how deranged you look in a selfie. Don't listen to that selfie, son or daughter! Know that you look like everyone else in the rooms of your nearest beginner AA group, not some spectacular bleary-eyed butterfly. Just floor it on through the illusions, jump that uncanny valley, and fear no hard landing future, left or right of the dial. Even if the next crunch you hear is your own hard candy cracking, thou wert only ever pixels.

Not even their heads shall be right-sized 

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Friday, December 30, 2016

Best of 2016


A dirty super dude/mutant lying back in a speeding garbage truck: is there a more apt image for 2016? Only one: Harley Quinn, a sexy blonde with rocket popsicle-colored hair, a bat slung over her shoulder (the bat has replaced the bow for woman's weapon of choice). Gone gonzo loco at the hands of the Joker, she--like Deadpool--demonstrates a fathomless tolerance for madness, pain, frustration, and garbage,  the requirements for anyone hoping to survive 2017. One must either join it, slam that whiskey shot and grab a blackjack and dive into the melee, or just stand on the sidelines in aghast horror, your threats of moving to Canada or Europe as empty as they were 12 years ago. Maybe instead you should think about moving to Germany, being an expatriate artist and letting the circle be complete. I know that's what I'm thinking about. But I've been thinking about it for 120 years.


Madness. Considering all the other BLACK MIRROR stuff going on, America shouldn't be too surprised it's having a "Waldo Moment." In fact, we should have seen it coming. The surer we are about something, the more likely it is to surprise us and be something else. For example, the one movie I was sure I'd love, THE NEON DEMON, well, I did not. The one Marvel comic villain I was sure I'd dislike, Oscar Isaac in X-MEN APOCALYPSE, turned out to be the best part of that woeful step backwards for Bryan 'just another Ratner" Singer.

Nothing makes sense. We need to go back over the facts and see where we veered from them. We drove around that signpost up ahead / through the looking glass / above the clouds, beyond the rain, and we can either hang around the munchkins like a bad penny or throw apples at flying monkeys like a local and trust we'll find our way back when our back is good and ready cuz we never lost it to begin the beguine with. Hell, even the Satanists are worried for humanity now, as fake news fuels "won't someone think of the children?!" hysteria to levels not seen in this country since the red scare of 1954, or Salem 1693.

Whatever. This is a place for wolves now. Very. drunk. wolves


It's still 2016 as I write this, a year where little moments made the big horrible picture more easily avoidable and just as it did in the early 80s when my generation was STRANGER THINGS age, comic books stepped in like a whole new kind of truth, far more urgent and vivid than anything as ridden with petty agendas as the actual 'true' news. Money doesn't fill the seats and stuff so carefully calibrated for class and awards import makes not a bit of sense or weight either. I can imagine JACKIE being sooo great, but who really cares, unless it's to perhaps make the point that our martyring of JFK and horror over Trump the next are really just two reflections of the same eddy in the same empty icon swamp. Coming back from the holidays with our red-blue state divides drawn along the dinner centerpiece, things should be coming very clear.... we're not fooling anyone by thinking we're above the shit line. We're all crazy Americans looking for an image to follow around like a red flag waving an empty bull.


1. DEADPOOL
Dir. Tim Miller

If Terry Southern were writing superhero movies they would certainly reflect the cheeky youth of today's unique PC-hipster vulgarity instead of his own sex-obsessed, patriarchally presumptive, eternal anti-authoritarian (political) satire on male vanity--which seems archaic if allowed to linger too long (i.e. after the first brilliant half of CANDY). That shit wouldn't fly today, but the kind of humor in DEADPOOL on the other hand is so pop culture-obsessed, it will never date, anymore than TWENTIETH CENTURY has dated with all its CAMILLE and RAIN references. The frenzied control of GOODFELLAS runs headlong into a Marx Bros. under the knife saga that's one part Billy Eichner, one part Wolverine when he was still a badass (the first two X-MEN films), Robert Downey Jr. in IRON MAN if he was less of a tech geek playboy and more of a sarcastic mercenary who'd rather slow jam to Wham!, play skeeball, start fights at his merc watering hole and beat up stalkers--and all of the EXPENDABLES flame-circumcised down into a helium and mocha jave whippet. Reynolds whose voice indicates he's never smoked a cigarette or even been near an open flame is another of the great macho fey icons to come prancing down the pike, fearlessly flouting his mastery of all the pffft-sounds in the Ikea catalogue.

The right kind of deep voice is important to me (since both I and my father have one) but if a straight brother's gonna own his girliness I can totally get behind that. With Mr. Pool here, you can call him a girl and we wont be offended, but with that PC innateness comes an unwillingness to turn one's back on the merely puerile and with a confidence in this one franchise at least it's okay to shoot the villain point blank in the head after you have him at your mercy. Finally, and thank god.

For these myriad other reasons my artsier reader might bemoan this choice for #1, might think I'm slipping, a further slide that began back when I declared DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES superior to Lars von Trier's MELANCHOLIA, but this film is a great big messy obscene masterpiece of the sort that's so voraciously outside the box and fresh you can smell the dirt - the filthy dust that box has been buried in nigh under 540 years. See it as I did,  while waiting for CRT scan test results after being initially diagnosed with COPD, and barely able to breathe, wondering if your clock is now speeding up, death looming fast, and then suffering the horrible withdrawal from smoking that accompanies such fear like an electric amp, so stretches of being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and then subjected to a horrific airless vacuum tube torture chamber where you slowly suffocate but the machine keeps giving you just enough to keep you from passing out or falling asleep. I knew Mr. Pool understood, and that helped.

Also there was someone finally aggressive enough to slice off a bad guy's head then drop kick the head into another guy right behind camera, one of the coolest moves in fight history. As the girlfriend, Moreena Baccarin rocks so hard, bro. Impossibly hot yet hilarious, she seems born into this kind of rattatat tat Hawksian hipster wry humor; TJ Miller is terrific as the bartender buddy --way funnier than just that gross 'avocado had sex with another avocado' soundbyte they mark him in; Gina Carano is the henchmen! When the Brit bad guy has a girl doing his heavy duty ass kicking for him, well, we really are making social progress. There's even two X-Men, tying the franchise to be in with that one, though hilariously there are only two (insert meta comment), one the giant Russian Colossus (kind of weakly animated and voiced, but so what? it works); and Teenage Dynamo Rocket or something, a girl too young to get DP's oblique Sinead O'Connor references re: her short crop hair, and who's wide ungainly girl frame matches well the wider stance of this post-UFC Carano, and reminding too of how Rothrock was in the old days- which is to say, they look like genuine, real brawlers, not dancers or models. And even the soundtrack is refreshing in its emphasis on 70s-80s lite FM, from Wham! to "Just call me Angel of the Morning" - rather than endless beatz and traxx. In short, it's a whole new realm of masculine crying, and undying, with fey men and brawler babes. There's not even an issue with proposing to a prostitute strip club bartender (Peckinpah would be so pleased), or telling your cab driver to kill his romantic rival and dump the corpse on his girlfriend's porch. 

2. HELL OR HIGH WATER
Dir David McKenzie

When people really are from the place their characters are, they don't need to make the characters 'normal' in the way privileged clueless screenwriters cloud their dialogue in sanctification of the common man, like Barton Fink or Sullivan (the characters, not the films), or any of the Commie rats in the below Coen film. When lesser writers do these chamber piece red state bank robber brother-bonding odysseys they get hung up on big messy Oscar-bait drinking scenes. They write not for themselves but their didactic Sundance teacher from that old workshop they attended: what's 'real,' man vs. the hardship blah blah. Here it's the way the bank robbing pair of brothers--specially the older, wilder jailbird one (Ben Foster), constantly surprise us with their natural, easygoing back and forth. We also have the laconic, near-retired sheriff, his Navajo (but half-Mexican and devout Christian!) deputy, and all the lawyers and bank tellers and waitresses in between. They don't need those artificial 'weathered' facial cracks big budget films give people in the Heartland to give off the feeling of being where they are. Here the the flat endless horizon-line is a kind of TV, everyone trains their eyes on it and they stare at each other the same way, waiting for one or the other to make a move for their gun. The acting matches the writing, each so good the other gets better because of it. Chris Pine more than lives up to the promise he showed in the STAR TREKs -- moving so deep into character you'd swear he was found by a roaming casting director hitchhiking through Arlington. I had lines of his and his brothers' ringing in my head for weeks afterwards.

3. OTHER PEOPLE 
Dir. Chris Kelly

As any story by David Sidaris illustrates, if you want to see a complex, cool, badass hilarious woman, look to the mom of an brilliant, gay humorist. Here, fusing genuinely transgressive hilarity with emotional gut-punch cancer mortality-facing, it's SNL writer Kelly's autobiographical tale of the last days with his. The performances have a lightning-in-the-bottle immediacy where you don't just see and hear him and his family members, but hear how each others' voice and style have influenced one another during formative pasts and the pokey but relentless way those traits re-manifest during stressful reunion. Molly Shannon's performance especially is so jaw-droppingly immense and complex you need to re-think all the other death bed scenes you've cried over, and there's a break-out WTF turn with child actor JJ Totah as a preteen fashion designer who leaves any visible distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine, clear in the dust. This is wrenching emotional comedy for people who hate all that manipulative twelve-hanky sentimental self-righteous bourgeois intellectual Tennenbaum bullshit. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be talking about it. But I am, brother.


4. SICARIO
Dir Denis Villeneuve

Science says this movie came out last year - but it came to cable this year, and that's where the fuckin' world saw it. No one wanted to pay $15 to see yet another goddamned movie about border-crossing drug gangs and the gringo cops that lose their souls scratching the surface. But on cable, if it springs up on you halfway through while idly surfing, then right quick you realize it's way better than we thought. Instead of trying to shoehorn human interest in with the border cop's soccer-lovin' son they should have played up the eerie enigmatic near-Apocalypse of the Lambs artistry at work, the refreshingly ominous and abstract use of sound, the way Jóhann Jóhannsson's droning ominous synthesizer casts an intoxicating pall over the proceedings, as if the bottom is slowly dropping out in an endless elevator to Hell that opens out onto the sky at the same time

The plot's the old familiar girl idealist in a grim clear-eyed man's world. Fuckin' both del Toro and Josh Brolin are so tight, the drive-thru into Mexico with the armored trucks to pick up a local drug higher-up on the chain, deep into the heart of the cartel beast, so to speak--bodies hanging off the overpass -- is so chilling you expect (and almost get) the giddy weird 'you are there' vibe of, say, being 16 and going to Trenton for your first major drug deal. As the moral compass Emily Blunt whispers through the whole movie like a lover trying not to wake her kids. Brolin and del Toro have such chemistry they're reminiscent of Clu and Lee in the '64 KILLERS. The easy realism of the various military-CIA-Texas Ranger joint-op briefings recalls the best Hawks' men-in-group maturity, which is so rare it must be savored, like a last meal.

5. THE NICE GUYS
Written and directed by Shane Black 

(PS - 6/17): I've cheated by sneaking this one on here late as I finally saw it on HBO for the fourth time and that really is the charm. More and more I'm noticing that there's really no one in Hollywood, EXCEPT Shane Black, who knows how to write great buddy dialogue, the kind that's fast and flowing in the real way two cool guys talk to each other and play off each other's energies. He's got it so down so pat now that he can even conjure it up with kids. I generally hate kids in movies but Black's written us two of the coolest kid characters ever, the kid in Iron Man 3 and now the daughter Holly (Angouri Rice) of the insouciant detective and single dad played by Ryan Gosling. The comedic rhythms between her, Gosling, and Crowe are so deft and daffy with crackerjack gonzo precision one is actually tempted to run away from its brilliance--it's so foreign in our banal pre-packaged milieu,  it's strange. Truth be told, I held off on seeing NICE for awhile as the ads made me groan as to another of those diffusion-filtered 70s-set HD nostalgia trips that seem created solely as an excuse for wide polyester collars, sideburns and only occasional (seldom enough to be realistic) cigarettes, and of course a nonstop 70s rock soundtrack. I thought NICE GUYS was going to be one of those jukebox art-direction driven pieces of inert sub-Scorsese terse fluff, but I was dead wrong. It's not perfect --I could do without Holly's trying to reform Crowe from killing people, especially her attempts to deliver first-aid to the guy who mere seconds ago was actively trying to kill her -- it's like dude, the censors don't care about that kind of shit anymore, what's with the bad faith?--but hey, Black is so far ahead of all other action writer-directors, I'll forgive the occasional reverse trespass.

 6. CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
Dir. Joe and Anthony Russo

Sure it's awful prescient in its tale of a ruthless Communist ripping America in half and setting the two sides at each other's throats, but CIVIL WAR has hit home in ways even closer than that (for me), Working in higher academia, I've had to watch, powerless, as it undergoes another of its groupthink overreach oversight micro-managing anal-retentive freak-outs (the last one being in the early 90s). Thank god I've got this Marvel entry to help me check myself from getting too far along in my righteous iconoclasm. Perhaps the first film ever--superhero or other--to really look at what's gained and lost when the submission of raw personal power to checks and balances/authority takes firm root. Now, more than ever, we may taste the bitter fruit of true democracy, but seeing the utter impossibility of complete lateral fairness and pulling the trigger anyway might be the most badass thing a badass can do. Either choice, we're miles away from the smarmy dialectic of authority as evil vs. a kind of saintly hot-rod confabulated conformist anticonformity. Both sides are right / both sides murder. I give up. Why can't they? What kind of superhero movie leaves even the audience divided, even the audience of one?

I'm firmly in the old iconoclast tradition--I hate being told I no longer have the ability to tell a hawk from a hacksaw because I didn't get a masters in Hacksaw-Hawk Differentiation--and yet I also respect the need others might have to try and hem me in, create some abiding set of rules and measurements to weed out the hacks who think they're hacksaw experts because they've got four different HAMLET adaptations on DVD (I only got three). When both sides are working with respect to the other's import, the trailblazer doing what he's told can't be or shouldn't because he feels it's right, and taking the shit from higher up but getting 'er done (giving his upperlings 'plausible deniability') and the organizer of a common consensus doing the yelling and number crunching but sometimes to the point of quagmire stalemate buck-passing loop-de-loops, we have a functioning democracy. The old gunfighters can be either like Jason Robards in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, or Merlin in EXCALIBUR, helping ensure the conditions by which their particular set of skills becomes obsolescent, as the Taoist way of things, or WILD BUNCH blaze of glory it out in cathartic bloodbath. Democracy is always in peril, we've never been more than a swing state away from HANDMAID'S TALE-dystopia, when we forget that, the Russian dictator-du-jour divides and conquers us as easy as the grieving Sokovia ops villain does here.


The brilliant casting includes William Hurt as the general, voted by the UN to helm 'the Sokovia Accords," and there's even, finally, a properly sarcastic and on-the-beam Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tom Holland --a Brit, naturally). Then there's the show-stopper fight at the airport--easily the funniest, best battle yet because really we root for both sides. There are no winners or victory dances this time, just declarations of fealty beyond borders or association. When the smoke clears, if it ever does, we'll be picking up our Deke Thornton and riding off into the laughing corner sunset of fuckit and Alvarado.

Special mention should be made at this juncture for DR. STRANGE, another solid Marvel hit,  but which I can't get too into; despite it being all up my alley (super-psychedelic), its arc is just too similar to 08's original IRON MAN, its look just too similar to the post-CROUCHING TIGER look of all HK and Mainland China movies, it's overwrought orchestral score uses a sitar way way too late in the game to count as psychedelic. But Rachel McAdams is still super gorgeous and can act the fuckall out of all the men who get bigger superpowers than her. There's enough wry wit and "the source code that shapes reality" hallucinogenics to give it an HM though.

7. HAIL, CEASAR!
by Joel and Ethan Coen

It might be the brothers' funniest, wryest most succinct thesis yet, triangulating some kind of common free zone between their pet themes (genre, geometry, water) through a bizarre chain of events wherein an up-and-coming cowboy actor manages to rescue a dunderheaded A-lister (George Clooney) from a cabal of Jewish communist kidnappers thanks to his unspoken fraternal rapport with studio head Josh Brolin who--in a rare moment of flummox--shares that he's toting around $150K in a suitcase for the ransom. The cast is of course perfect: Scarlett Johansen, rocking her Lawng Island accent, is an Esther Williams-meets-Jean Harlow bathing beauty; Channing Tatum is a Gene Kelly-cum-gay-commie-Nuryev, Ralph Fiennes is an abusive British director; and so forth. The comedic bits range from the shrill and misguided (Tilda Swinton's identical twin gossip hounds) to letter perfect sublime (Jonah Hill as the studio's dedicated legal example of 'personhood') and the studio seems remarkably underpopulated (no one walks around the studio except Brolin) but it's still zippy in its serious, controlled way.


Though the brothers seem ever sidetracked by their lavishly recreated musical numbers and the water symbolism (from the Scarlett water ballet to the gay sailor rhumba to the Russian submarine escape) doesn't add up to anything more than a wave lapping up against a discarded satchel of money, if you're a Godard fan who digs all the signifier-melting incongruities in PASSION or CONTEMPT, you will love seeing the silhouette of Josh Brolin's grey flannel suit against the Golgotha crucifixions when he prays on a midnight soundstage. Not all of it makes sense or holds together on close reflection (Brolin's character is way too overworked - he seems to be singlehandedly responsible for everything that goes on in this vast studio, from detective work to PR to money management to script doctoring), but it goes places we've not seen a Coen go since BARTON FINK and yet it spares us the Barton Fink feeling, and that in itself is worth a prayer, to the God of your choice.

8. SUICIDE SQUAD
Written and directed by David Ayer
David Ayer's Suicide Squad came out the same year Chimes at Midnight finally arrived on (Criterion) DVD / Blu-ray, and it's easy to mix them up. Falstaff's rousing his girth into conscription agent attire, letting the beasts out to fight bigger beasts as it were, using the debauched and breaking the phases, it all matches up. Today we hang in half-aware heir apparent fake laugh sanity, helping able souls hop onto the madness like a runaway trolley with no track and no floor and no wall. Jared Leto, as a Joker, silver teeth and lime rickey green and electric pink frame shudders as if the whole film is breathing lysergic insanity into his AirDancer-serpent-handler sway. Viola Davis in one of the great gender-bent (sort of) performances of the year; the ayahuasca anima in-the-subway strangeness of the Enchantress/June (Cara Delevigne) like the time-space shattering realization you've had wayyyy-y-y-y- too much and it's kicking in big-time; the sexy madness of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, her rocket-pop shimmering hallucination hair, the lighting beautifully capturing the gray shades in her clown make-up; her eyes wild and crazy, her chemistry with Leto's Joker is twisted and grand; Jai Courtney's Aussie accent in glorious disarray; a reptilian gangbanger; a flaming cholo; the Crazy 88s' surviving sword girl (a dud); Scott Eastwood, who believe it or not almost steals the movie with the cracked emotional tension in his low-ass voice; even Will Smith's inescapable 'good dad' daughter issues (my big fear going in) are well-handled.  Ayers did Training Day and Fury, or both, so rest assured this movie's way more macho in its even-gender-handedness than some pissing contest with Affleck's carb-faced Wayne like Superman vs. Batman. In fact the worst part of SG is Affleck's Batman who luckily only gets two or three scenes of bossy terseness. 

Ayers displays his ayahuasca savvy - shhh
Confession (shhhh): I will have a soft spot for this film all the rest of my life because I relapsed to it over Xmas (after 19 years sober!), as I just couldn't handle shit sober up in a tiny Arizona mountain cabin with my brother's loud drunk family --I'd spent 24 hours shivering with nausea and rage in a tiny room while they roared outside. Once I surrendered to the power of Absolut the madness hit me and I partied like the rest of them -as loud and as crazy --the beast loose and wild as if I'd merely said the word "Enchantress" and downed a magic vodka slug (I did do the latter). Six weeks later I was in the hospital from acute alcoholic withdrawal couple to bad reactions with my anti-depression meds. I don't exactly regret it, because I got Ativan in the hospital and that shit ROCKS! Back to Xmas, this movie fit my relapse so tight I knew it was predestined: Scott Eastwood with his hunched-over military brawler demeanor, smoker's voice (and pallor) and legitimately crazy eyes; the Brooklyn accent of Harley Quinn + the overall look of the other female baddie, 'the Enchantress' in her grungy form (above left)' are--fused together, my old friend from 'the rooms,' the gorgeously unhinged LA Ruocco (see her magically surface on a Coney Island beach in the climactic Jungian conversion of THE LACAN HOUR) coupled to salvia divinorum hallucinations and the best use yet of of day-glow neon colors, fighting within swirling smoke, crazy rain on clenched faces, and swirling magical waves of energy-matter beams. Since it's really about letting the imprisoned monsters out of their cages to fight a greater evil when there's no other recourse, how perfect (and I knew it the moment it started) that the first flush of vodka in 19 years hit me right as the film began with "There is a house in New Orleans" and Harley flipping her shit right out as the film seemed to bend and sway with her breathing.

Dig - and deep underneath, the film's really a dual love story, between the Joker and Harley; between the Dr. June Moon and wild-eyed Scott Eastwood's Special Ops guy Rick Flag (!) for romance -- and in the end, between members of the Squad, the way a shared traumatic experience + booze + confessions of bad guy issues bonds the outlaws, and through fearless courting of death, madness, and rainforest chanting. DC is still a long way off from reaching the stratospheric heights set by Marvel but this is the first time we've seen them actually move in a promisingly unique direction since Heath Ledger. There's even scenes like Viola Davis shooting her own staff: "they weren't cleared for any of this shit," and the weird things like the way all the Central American characters get goofy Aztec headdresses when they turn into fiery skeletons, and an editing format that sacrifices coherence not merely for thunder and lightning, but for letting moments actually land (PS - 3/8/13 - second viewing - now that I'm sober... again, or as we in AA call it, 'back in Arkham Asylum - less great; third viewing 4/19 - okay / Fourth Viewing - it IS still awesome!).

9. THE ARRIVAL
Dir Denis Villeneuve

Technically this is the Villeneuve film from 2016 though it seems older than SICARIO.  I know, I haven't shut up about my Amy Adams embargo all week, but how long, realistically, do you think that bargo can last? Bitch is in everything, yo. Even now Superman is on TV behind me and there she is. Appearing in just about every movie ever made this or any other year. Maybe there's a reason, beyond some shiksa-phobic Hollywood-royal blood line reptilian conspiracy, that ginger Adams is so ubiquitous (or Chastain in INTERSTELLAR and THE MARTIAN), but it's not in our control. ARRIVAL deals specifically with physically solid aliens whose sense of time is more elliptical than ours, and Amy's wizened gnome crow's feet, small clear white facial hairs and gnome-ish upturned nose all bespeak promise for the future, She's a thinker, an academic for whom adherence to some basic blueprint for eye-grabbing beauty hasn't even cracked her top ten list of things to do today. Cracking a complex alien code so that the movie can avoid being INDEPENDENCE DAY 3 and start being more like an INTERSTELLAR's TREE OF LIFE takes all precedence in her mind. No worries though, we're safe with hectapods instead of Sean Penn. The alien pair look like two giant hands soaking in Palmolive and so forth, to the point I wondered if the idea for these aliens came during one of those 'stoned hand discoveries' where, half-asleep after work or high for the first time in years, you suddenly notice the miracle / alien/ strangeness of your own hands? How alien they are --so attuned to our brain, so alive and unreal. Walruses watch our typing speeds with mounting envy.

As ever, a linguist shall be the first to take off her hazmat suit and trust in the aummm-moment. Military man Forrest Whittaker gets riled but realizes she's right. Meanwhile we learn why they used to keep aliens a secret as civilization descends into looting and arson and sabotage in the wake of these funky hectapods. Why wouldn't it? Why not? Because evolution, man. Read a book, dude. Humins Rule! Do we get a do-over? 

10. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM
Dir. Guy Maddin

If you're in a Guy Maddin movie, the emulsion Ektachrome rust has happened ahead of time, two or three feet ahead --just enough for your nightmare third-eye fevered brain to hallucinate patterns upon the bubbling shower curtain into which your silhouette dissolves and merges. It's all just enough to distract you so so the skeleton insurance defrauders can lull you into a gentle trance, and thus procure your squirming signature on a contract. Just sign and they'll stop pestering you. You can sleep or gyrate in skeleton girl orgy if you just sign. SIGN. Sign here, Initial there and sleep. As I count down from 10--and on into the ever chugging night--9, the track culls you like a ticking clock scrubbing blackness from the pink skin of the sky by force of habit. 8 -What else does the world turn for, if not lack of other options? 7 -Has anyone convinced it to stop twirling like a mad idiot around the sun, stopped winding it?

Ektachrome moments, 'orbiting' like a moth desperate to burn back up in the mother light of an empty projector, to drink from the sun like a lunar mammary fountain. 6- Reborn as an angel. Every moth who made it past that shade has never told us they regretted it. Five-- Even if they're swept up with the dropped popcorn at the end of the night, they had that one cinematic moment... and they're still here, now, older than Berryman. They're gone now, 4 --but there's always another show. Another  bath - 3  - Goddamn it. 2 --There's always another 1 -- dirty show.... (full)

Dir. David Eggers

Shrouded in portentous gloom and ominous droning electric cello, THE WITCH (2015) is the first great woodsy pre-Salem devil film in 300 years, a SHINING for the ANTICHRIST x BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW subdivision of the HAXAN community (with a dash of the recent HONEYMOON if you're keeping track). Set in 1630s New England on a small tract of cleared woods, surrounded by deep autumnally barren trees and strange sudden houses, it's a character piece that delves into the same dark soul patches that many witch and devil movies make feints at but then run away from, i.e. literal interpretations of authentic superstitions and folk tales (in which witches, devils and magic are real), and court records and history (in which time has made it seem like a mix of religious hysteria, misinterpreted schizophrenia, and fear of the unknown). First time-writer/director Robert Eggers has a unique flair for the milieu--everything feels authentic including the natural lighting (candles and fires) and thin grey streaks of dusk at early evening's onset, the way the gray ambiguity of neither day nor night gives every living creature an unearthly nightmare aura. He makes being straightforward with both the paranoia and the reality into a dark art, connecting Polanski and Kubrick with Ahab's lightning harpoon to forge an historical look at repressed female psychic energy under dogmatic patriarchy within the mould of validation of that patriarchy's overwrought fear of the dark. (cont)

11.b HIGH-RISE
Dir. Ben Wheatley
There's some thin seriously wrong with this film but hey, it's yet another future classic by the team behind FIELD IN ENGLAND and KILL-LIST, Ben Wheatley and producer/writer Amy Jump (his Debra Hill if you will), so even if it ain't perfect, it's far beyond its peers. I almost stopped watching when the main antagonist, a louche, abusive drunk TV star played by Luke Evans (DRACULA UNTOLD) drowns an innocent dog for no real reason other than its owner is a rich snob (one of the more needlessly disturbing moments of the cinematic year). Of course JG Ballard's style. He loves him a rough trade rentboy getting away with murder in a society too polite and jaded to dispatch him. The metaphor (classes in the high-rise separated by floors) is a little left over from SNOWPIERCER which starred Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in a beard, but hey, his Avengers enemy Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is a medical teacher not above convincing rich twits they have inoperable brain tumors just to watch 'em snuff it. Its flaws are many but its narrative incoherence succinctly conveys the author's viscous misanthropy and in the process makes Cronenberg's Ballard adaptation of a few decades ago, CRASH, seem naught but a fender-bender. That a massive skyscraping residential building might lose its elevator service and electrical power and then never get it back, that this even might lead to a reversion to savagery on the upper floors (since it take literally hours of stair climbing to get up and down from each floor) is hard to believe, unless of course you've ever dealt with out-of-order elevators in a skyscraper, had to club 20 flights just to get some groceries, you know the pain. The cumulative context places HIGH-RISE exactly between DREDD, SHIVERS, and ZARDOZ --tellingly, not one film on that list is American. Heil-Rise Britannia and her Commonwealth. We should know --we used to be part of it. But look at us now! We bopped our way past! 

13. KEANU
Dir. Peter Atencio
Key and Peele, man, WHAM!

TELEVISION
1. STRANGER THINGS
Dir. The Duffer Brothers

This a great moment near the end of this amazing mini-series, where four boys are excitedly recalling the events of the past eight episodes to a rescued friend whose smile is so heartrendingly open and thrilled and the kids so animated that it's hard not to well up in a kind of paternal glow far beyond the usual mawkish nostalgic treacle; as a kid who read Stephen King and played Dungeons and Dragons with lead figurines and lived in that murky weird world of preteen boys with big imaginations and artistic finesse (i.e. bad at sports), I can vouch that someone finally did it right- even if it is the porn sounding 'Duffer Brothers"

There's Winona Ryder--doing batshit very well as that rescued kid's driven-crazy mom--and even if things don't always resolve well or wherever it goes, the film / show/  miniseries / whatever - it still does the Stephen King miniseries better than any actual Stephen King miniseries. The big soaring climactic emotions are all earned and unlike other shows that seem to be just having shit happen to keep you watching--threads woven and then abandoned; more and more threads and nothing woven; sharks jumped and lectured--ST has a genuine catharsis. The hero doesn't always get the girl or the single dad and single mom get together to somehow form a family.... but between the ominous analog synths, retro early 80s mood and fonts, this is everything we ever wanted to rent for the weekend from the video store.... you know, before Blockbuster -- when the video store meant the stereo appliance store.

2. DIFFICULT PEOPLE (Hulu)
3. BLACK MIRROR (Netflix)
4. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK III (Netflix)
5. BILLY ON THE STREET (TruTV)
6. THE MAGICIANS (Syfy) 
SEE ALSO: 
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