The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “Vampire’s Kiss (1988)”

 

Awww man, sometimes on a Sunday you just feel absolutely drained after a long weekend of party and swapping spit with the lower rungs of society. Sometimes all you want to do is shield yourself from direct sunlight, as you hiss at the sight of fresh fruit. Essentially you have become a weekend hungover vampire, although in this case you can only subsist on diet coke instead of blood.

So with that in mind, for this week’s edition of The Sunday Cult Film Corner we have a psychological black comedy that contains one of the most bizarre scene chewing acting displays ever put to celluloid.as a quintessential ’80s yuppie spectacularly falls apart. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you VAMPIRE’S KISS.

The film stars Nicolas Cage as Peter Loew, an aggressive New York literary agent and total sleazeball. Despite a seemingly good life on the surface his life is an empty procession of barhopping and one night stands, which cause him to start fraying at the edges. He is abusive to his secretary Alva, tormenting her to find a lost contract that allows him to browbeat and treat her like dirt. He starts seeing a therapist to deal with his issues.

One night at a club, he meets Rachel (Jennifer Beals). Taking her back to his flat, she reveals herself to be a vampire who bites him and draws blood from his neck. As she bites him again and again, he comes under the impression that he too is turning into a vampire. His mind and life begin to spiral out of control as he starts wearing sunglasses, hides from sunlight and crosses, and believes his reflection is disappearing. Even when his “fangs” don’t appear, he buys a fake pair to complete his transformation. As he and the film approach breaking point, he embarks on a murderous spree, as he find himself unable to tell reality from fantasy.

OK, let’s get the negatives out of the way, Vampire’s Kiss suffers from a painfully slow beginning, and some lacklustre cinematography. It feels and looks more like an elongated episode of ‘The Outer Limits.’ Which is a shame as VAMPIRE’S KISS, is not about vampires, but instead is an interesting takedown of the male ego. The character of Loew swings from strutting overconfidence, to pathetic bitterness as he is unable to connect with the women in his empty life, which are a vampire, his therapist and his put upon secretary.

But to be honest, the poor pacing of VAMPIRE’S KISS is more than made up for the true grand guignol style excess contained in the acting of Nicolas Cage. Oh maaaaaan. With some films you have good acting. Then there’s bad acting. Then there’s NICOLAS CAGE ACTING!! He just goes into supersonic lunacy on this one. Any kind of subtlety is thrown out of the window as nothing is off-limits. His character is a thoroughly unpleasant misogynist, yet he is completely mesmerizing as he screams, moans, and eyeballs his own shadow. In fact, if you look at YouTube and type in the phrase “Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit,” a lot of the material comes from VAMPIRE’S KISS.

Some people have criticised the film and the acting as confusing, especially the end section were the film splits into imagined reality and grotty reality. But if you actually watch it closely, then there are moments when it’s actually very satirical in the style of other big city films such as ‘American Psycho,’ the way it shows that city and the people within as sucked out, shallow husks.

So get your shades on and watch a films that is completely over the top in the best possible way…

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “Angst (1983)”

So it’s the day after the night before. All over Iceland, everyone is waking up to a new dawn, a dawn where everything looks the same but the reality has altered irrevocably. Yes yesterday was election day and in a pique of nostalgia and sheer pigheadedness, enough Icelanders voted in the same clowns who right royally fucked Iceland over a few years back. Oh man, we’re going to have some very interesting years head of us!

So it’s perhaps understandable if everyone got a little hammered last night in order to take away the pain. But even so, things are going to be a little gloomy. and to help with that gloominess, this week’s edition of the Sunday Cult Film Corner, is a deeply disturbing and unpleasant film about a man’s decent into murderous insanity. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ANGST!

Directed in 1983 by Gerald Kargl, Angst opens with a man being released from prison after serving 4 years for killing an elderly woman. But very quickly he feels the urge to hurt and kill people, almost immediately attempting to kill a female taxi driver. However he is unsuccessful and he flees the scene. He then comes across a secluded home where a family live alone. He then take out his murderous obsessions on all of them, while his inner monologue tell of his abusive childhood. And that’s it.

Loosely based on an actual crime case-in 1980 Werner Kniesek from Salzburg horrendously murdered three people, and little known, even in Germany, ANGST is a deeply disturbing and nihilistic film that’s tough going for you to watch at times. Sparse and  minimal in its narrative, there is hardly any dialogue spoken by the actors with most of the lines coming in the form of the killers inner thoughts. The film also lays everything out in the open, with no attempts to explain or sympathise the killer’s actions or intentions (It’s likely that the killer is unsure himself). It all just unfolds before your eyes as something bad that just happens with no underlying rationale. There’s no clean-cut ruthlessness or high-end gilding the lily imagery going on here. Everything is portrayed in ultra-realistic bleakness that shows the messy reality that comes from killing people, The murder scenes are extremely unpleasant, drawn out and violent, with a visceralness that would make you think of the murder scenes from Dario Argento. But whereas those scenes were highly sexualized and fetishsized, in ANGST, they are, ugly nasty little affairs that aren’t remotely cool or sexy.

But despite the high levels of violence, ANGST is a very well made film, with an astonishingly high level of skill in the cinematography. Standout scenes include the long opening take as the killer is released from prison which mixes fast moving, irregular camera angles, and the scene in the cafe where the camera focuses close up on the killer’s face as he starts to bug out from the thought that people are watching him. The power in this scene is also down to the acting of Erwin Leder as the killers. Despite uttering almost no dialogue, he gives a very physical, very real performance of a man who is exlpoding in 10 different directions at once that completely goes against the grain of you average cinema serial killer. Whereas those characters are portrayed as hyper intelligent, charming evil geniuses who can quote Shakespeare, Leder’s character can barely keep it together in normal society and comes across like a stunted freak.He cannot control his compulsions and comes across more like a wild animal instead of a sadistic mastermind.

The film has strong parallels with other psycho thrillers such as “Seul Contre Tous,” (Director Gasper Noe cites ANGST as a major influence) and “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.” But if anything this film is even darker, more unflinching and nihilistic that those, and probably shares its darkness more closely with another German horror film “Schramm,” directed by L’enfant terrible film maker Jörg Buttgereit.

ANGST is a film that will make you a little queasy, but as a documentation of the true natures of madness and violence, it certainly doesn’t come harder and nastier than this. Best get that whisky on the go.

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner; “O Lucky Man! (1973)”

 

Ahh – the day of rest and instead I’m writing a whole load of stuff to satisfy the whims and urges of the expectant readership of the local paper, as well as trying to sort out all sorts of wheeling and dealings. PLus – Babies! Yup I spent today also at the latest addition to the AMFJ cult, little Esja Mae Fulton Aðalsteinnsdóttir. She looks cute, but also pink and wrinkly, like all lovely newborns. I expect her be a full on black metal Valkyrie by the time she’s 8 years old.

So now that I have finally found some time to rest and eat burgers, it’s time to reminisce of the event of the week, namely that the Ice Queen of the free market Margaret Thatcher has popped her clogs. Good riddance I say. And the event since her passing has only helped to reinforce the notion that while there may be a lot of thins that are fucked up in Iceland, my homeland seems to be slowly slipping into an ugly mire of greed and nastiness.

I was hoping to find a couple of films with regard to the impacts of Thatcherism, such as “How To Get Ahead In Advertising,” or Ken Loach’s “Riff Raff.” But instead I’M going towards a film made in the 1970s and charts the state of a man journey through a corrupt and Byzantine UK society. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you O LUCKY MAN!

Directed in 1973 by Lindsey Anderson, it star Malcolm McDowell as Michael, a young sale trainee for a coffee company. Ambitious and with a grasping desire to get to the top of the career ladder, he accepts the chance to sell coffee in the North East. While on his travels, the film unravels into a sprawling odyssey of the varied strata of the British political class system and the inherent corruption within. On his way he encounters a gentlemen’s sex club, is a victim of torture by British military intelligence, submits to bizarre medical tests at a private clinic, encounters a travelling rock band and their alluring groupie (played by Helen Mirren), works for her corrupt industrialist father, and ends up in jail after being framed for selling weapons to African dictators. All the while the films shift to the film’s “House Band,” (Led by the Animals, Alan Price) who, acting almost like a Greek chorus, play songs warning Michael that he must abandon his idealism if he is to succeed in this world.

O LUCKY MAN! is not your conventional satire. Inspired by Voltarie’s novel “Candide,” the erratic plot is far from linear and will often take left turns or move into dead ends before a new twist arrives to keep you on your toes. Many of the scenes have a slightly episodic nature that are often separated by fade to blacks, or musical interludes from the house band. Such a narrative gives the film a decidedly surreal air to the proceedings and often invites multiple viewing which reveals different aspects of the film. While watching this film, it actually struck me that in any ways it’s actually a Grant Morrison comic transferred to film. The idea of exposing the brutality and violence imposed by the state on the people is often explored by Morrison. Meanwhile scenes such as the torture session interrupted by the tea lady can be seen in THE INVISIBLES, and the very meta ending of the film and the breaking of the fourth wall of storytelling has been explored in Morrison run of ANIMAL MAN.

Despite the bawdy nature of the film, the comedy and the messages contained in the film are very black and biting, showing through allegory the rather ugly face of life in Britain and the corrupting nature of capitalism. Many of the characters in the film act out of their own selfish self interest, from police officers threatening to frame people for crimes they knew the didn’t commit, to governments keeping its interest abroad by dealing with 3rd world dictators.

At the heart of the film is the attack on the idealism of the main character Michael. It´s best to see O LUCKY MAN! as the middle section of a trilogy of films from Anderson that started with “If….,” and ending with “Britannia Hospital.” While “If…” showed the McDowell character as full of carefree abandon and idealism that was apparent in the ’60, O LUCKY MAN see the same person now a bit older, still clinging to the ideals, but thinking more and smiling less. His innocence is gradually eroded as the film progresses as he realises that he may not actually be in control of his own destiny. By the time you reach “Britannia Hospital,” the idealism has been replaced by a toxic cynicism which was all to prevalent in the ’80s.

O LUCKY MAN! is the type of intriguing, inventive film that doesn’t really get made these days. It’s messages and ideas are densely layered and interconnected and requires you to think, it´s cult appeal apparent form the fact that you get something new out of it every time you watch it. So get your coffee on the go and watch this viciously surreal flight of fancy. (The entire playlist is HERE)

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “Bob Roberts (1992)”

Ahh, Easter – a wonderful time in Iceland. Mostly because it allows to have a 5 day weekend and overdose on slightly icky milky chocolate. But it’s also a time to sit back and relax for a few days. At the behest of Mrs  Sex Farm,, we have decamped to our in-laws in the country, where there is no banging warehouse action for 100Km in any direction. But there are mountains. And sheep. and wind.

Now one of the things that has been discussed within the UK critical circles is the following question “Is Pop Too Posh?” Essentially are we seeing a decrease in the social mobility of our cultural world, where people from poorer backgrounds have a harder time to make it in the arts compared to people from more comfortable social strata?

One of the most compelling example is that of faux folk band Mumford And Sons. In particular the appropriation of sounds that have been the preserve of the working class for many a year, into something that is watered down, anodyne, even conservative. It was also the way the appropriate imagery and fashion from a bygone age – waistcoats and collarless shirts for example –  to give the impression that they are stout yeomen of the land (To be fair – they are not the only ones that do this). I remember having a discussion with a friend who was really into that old folk punk thing. He said that he liked their beery sound and wondered if it really mattered where they came from. I said in terms of the discussion regarding the wearing of working class “Authenticity” as a robe to hide your obvious privilege was almost as bad as the shitty music they made. I have him some videos from The Men They Couldn’t Hang instead. 

It’s this idea of twisting the idea of the music of “the people” for more nefarious means that leads to this week’s episode of THE SUNDAY CULT FILM CORNER. A political satire that sees a canny operator pull the wool over everyone’s eyes with his hoedown charm and populist posturing. Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you  BOB ROBERTS.

Directed in 1992 by Tim Robbins (His directorial debut), it also stars him as the title character of the film, a conservative folk singer turned politician who is followed by a documentary crew as he fights an election campaign for Senate against the democratic candidate (Played by Gore Vidal). The film shows Roberts as a charming, charismatic “Man Of the People,”  who uses country music , sleek presentation, and populist language to run rings around his opponent who, despite being intelligent and with strong policies, comes across as elitist and out of touch. But as the film progresses, we see the dirty tricks laid out bare,  as the mask starts to slip a little and we see glimpses of the true nastiness hiding under Robert’s smiling veneer. Add to the mix an obsessive journalist determined to expose the truth behind Roberts, and you have a pretty explosive mix that ends in tragedy.

One of the things about BOB ROBERTS that intrigues me is how incredibly prescient it is when compared to the politics of today. Twenty years ago, this film had an air of truth but seemed slightly outlandish. But look at the politics of the US (And to a lesser extent, the UK & Iceland), with its overload of ogreish, aggressively anti-intellectual, and rabble rousing pond-life such as Santorum, Bachmann, Palin and Gingrich, and BOB ROBERTS seems more like a Nostradamus-style warning for the future. Empty posturing to the baying tea party masses, preying on their own fears and prejudices for maximum political effect, no matter what the cost to the general public.  All sharks teeth and dead eyes. The scenes with the documentary crew interviewing the grass-roots fans of Roberts could so easily have been taken from a YouTube video form a Tea Party Rally of a CPAC conference. It also lays barbs into the “Good” guys such as crusading journalist John Raplin (Played by Giancarlo Esposito) who is portrayed as obsessive, twitchy and a little paranoid. Even if he is shown to be right in many ways, he comes across as someone who is almost unbalanced in his search for the truth about Roberts, and whose claim could easily be dismissed as insane rantings..

But at it’s heart BOB ROBERTS is a satire. The films suffered a bit commercially and critically on it’s initial release when people tried to pin the message of the film again Robbin’s own political leanings (He is an avowed progressive and democrat), but it’s not really about  left Vs right as such. It’s a much more universal message about the dangers of democracy being usurped by people with wield the tools of populist power for their own nefarious ends. As well as politicians, Robbins also takes a swing at society and the general public. How we seem to be drawn to snake oil salesmen who comes across as strong leaders with all the right words to make us feel better about ourselves. People who can manipulate mass media to their advantage. Tony Blair was a class example of this – utterly charming and poised, but in reality who can really claim what he STOOD for. Indeed he was actually scary when he occasionally lost his cool and the real Blair came to the fore.

And this goes for Robbins as well in the role of Roberts. He is brilliant in this film as he exudes charm and the air of a someone who  can get you doing what he wants, even if you don’t realise it. He’s also helped by the fact that he also wrote the script as well, which is fast paced, intelligent, sharp and completely nails the language of the politics ans mass media. Props should also go to Gore Vidal as the slightly crumpled and aloof Democratic candidate.

What also interesting to note is that the songs, written by Robbins and his brother David, are also rather witty and nails the aspirations of country music to be all about “authenticity” but being just as empty as any other pop song. You see similar biting songwriting with Trey Parker and Matt stone on “Team America” with their pisstake on the gaudy stars and stripes rinsed nationalist country sound. Hey all y’alls!

So if you want to be entertained, yet slightly disturbed by the state of modern politics and the meedya, then get your Jon Stewart hat on and watch this with cold dread…

 

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)”

Man today has been booooring! Lots of looking at boring figures and stats for something that i have to put together this week. Oh, and there’s that endless stream of transcribing interviews and  lots of other flotsam. Oh indeed a glamorous life it is for us all.

It’s at times like these that you need, in the words of the infamous Alex from A Clockwork Orange, a bit of the old Ultraviolence. 

And if it´s Ultraviolence we need then there’s only one film that can satisfy our urges to kill and win. And that is the subject of the latest instalment of THE SUNDAY CULT FILM CORNER. And…. ooh boy… this one is a doozy! Ladies and gentlement i give to you, ‘RIKI-OH:THE STORY OF RICKY’

The story of Ricky is rather simple in the year 2001, all prison have been privatised. Ricky Ho (Fan Siu-wong), is sent to prison for 10 years after killing a local crime lord responsible for the death of his girlfriend. While in prisons he is confronted by the violence and brutality that is the reality of the system now in place. Vowing to clean up the system he must confront and defeat the vicious gang of four and increasing nasty and outlandish gang leaders, as well as the evil Assistant Warden, who becomes hell-bent on killing Ricky. It leads to a massive showdown between the two men.

Now there are Kung Movies. then there are violent kung fu movies. then there is RIKI-OH!!! People don’t just get punched  - they get massive holes punched in their guts, head explode, guts get torn and used as weapons (?). The violence here is not just brutal, it’s so over the top that it end up being really hilarious, as people have mentioned, it’s in the realm of the early Peter Jackson movies ‘Braindead’ and ‘Bad Taste.’

And at the heart of it all is Riki-Oh. Now this is not a Bruce Lee type of Kung Fu fighter.  Oh he has skill and strength, but the amount of pain he endures to defeat his opponents borders on the truly masochistic. Not only does he  get the shit kicked out of him, he get spikes driven through his body, has massive stone slabs hurled at him and at one point managed to gain the movement in his arm by tying his tendons back together (I’m pretty sure that’s not a technique advocated by the General Medical Council)! the man is pretty much a walking punchbag where you end up going “Just how much fucking punishment can this guy take?”

In many ways all this ultraviolence is just as well as the low budget means that some of the effects are cheesy, bordering on the imbecilic. Rubber heads, bargain supermarket offal, that sort of thing. Technically the film is also a bit on the shabby side. The sets are shaky and the acting and dubbing is all pretty horrendous. Also there are a few moments that are ripped off from other films such as the skull punch x-ray moment from Sonny Cihba’s ‘The Street Fighter.’

But in terms of cheesy, over the top b-movie violence and action, this is hard to beat. So practice channelling your Chi and your 5 finger death punch and get watching some the most outlandish chop socky marital arts nonsense around!

 

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “Peeping Tom (1960)”

Well hello there!

Things have been really slow today, possibly due to the amount of alcohol imbibed at the annual end of year party by the company that Mrs Sex Farm works for. As well as having the delights of ’90s pop masters Sálin Hans Jóns Mins performing to the slightly drunken crowd, we also had the delights of the voice of conformity, JÓN JÓNSSON play his stuff as well. All the booze in the world couldn’t help me. Gave ti a good try though.

So tonight I’m a little fuzzy, which is the perfect state to watch and take in a superior piece of nasty psycho-sexual horror that ended up destroying the career of the man who made it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you PEEPING TOM.

Directed in 1960 by Michael Powell it tells the story of Mark, a lonely, sexually repressed man who works for a film crew and as a part-time soft core pornographer. Mark is obsessed with the idea of fear, and it manifest itself on the faces of those who are frightened  this obsession and how it affects people, this obsession stemming from being subjected to traumatic psychological experiments as a child by his father. As he obsessions grow, he starts to kill  women, recording the fear on their faces as he kills them.

At the time of making PEEPING TOM, Michael Powell was considered on of the best UK directors of his time, directing films such as ‘Black Narcissus,’ ‘A Matter of Life and Death,’ and ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.’ But when this film was released, it pretty much killed his career stone dead. the level of critical backlash was that strong. But since the film’s initial panning, PEEPING TOM has since undergone a major critical reappraisal.

It´s certainly a film that was years ahead of its time. While thriller with voyeuristic and psycho-sexual overtones are pretty much stand in today cinema, back in 1960, Powell was breaking new ground in filming the philosophy behind sexual violence and what drives people to act on their impulses. It certainly has a very intimate, almost seedy quality to it, like spying or coming across something that you really should not see. This feeling is accentuated by the lighting and cinematography that drips colour across the screen and provides and intriguing atmosphere of London at night, and threatening darkrooms.

Another reason PEEPING TOM works in its objectives is due to the performance of Carl Boehm as the creepy lead of the film, with his clean-cut, almost shiny exterior masking a whole bag of insecurities and neuroses. the horror in Boehm’s face as he is forced to speak to his neighbours and the women he photographs is painfully etched onto his face. With this and the abuse he suffers as a child, you actually start to feel a pang of sympathy for his plight. that is until he kills another prostitute. Apparently it was this humanising of the evil protagonist that was so shocking for the critics at the time. Boehm’s performance is complemented by that of Anna Massey as his downstairs neighbour who reaches out to Mark.

An interesting fact is that Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ came out at the same time, but received little of the backlash that Powell’s film received. And yet I feel that for the most part, PEEPING TOM has aged better than the celebrated shocked. It’s a highly intelligent film that still manages to retain its level of tension and fear. So you should turn off the lights and prepares to feel really uncomfortable…

 

 

The Sunday Cult Film corner: “Radio On (1979)”

So, So Lazy….

Even though yours truly was going to take it easy after SONAR pretty much cleaning me out of funds till pay day, I still somehow managed to get rather pissed last night thanks to friends who had come from the bleak southern countryside. It was fine meeting them, but man are Mrs Sex Farm and I feeling it today.

We should have tried to leave the house to go and watch the final instalment of Bíó Paradis’ of their extreme cinema season tonight, the rather estimable John Waters film, ‘Pink Flamingos,’ but instead i feel the pull of ennui and darkness come over us. So for this evening’s instalment of the SUNDAAAAAAY CUUUUULT FIIIIIILM CORNAH-AH-AH-AH, we have a expertly made period film of the crumbling façade of post war Britain in the late ´70s. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you RADIO ON.

Directed in 1979 by Chris Petit, it tells the rather sparse story of Robert B (David Beames), a London Radio DJ who learns that his brother has died in mysterious circumstances. At a crossroads in his personal and professional life, he decides to journey from London to Bristol to find out what happened. On the way he meets an assortment of assorted loners and misfits, including a squaddie on leave from northern Ireland, a wannabe rock star, and a German woman who is looking for her son. And um… that’s it really.

So granted, the plot is not that strong, and there is very little in the way of dialogue or narrative drive. But RADIO ON is definitely a film that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It´s been described as a “Post Punk” film in the way it depicts the utter bleakness of Britain in the late ’70s. Ugly brutalist tower blocks and soulless factories sitting atop a crumbling post war landscape, to the cold, grey and barren countryside. In the background you hear news reports blaring pieces about the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. As a picture that describes the feeling and atmosphere of a country at a particular time, then RADIO ON perfectly captures the sense of Ballardian ennui and dislocation that had near crippled the country at a time just before Margaret Thatcher entered the national consciousness. .

At the heart of it all, RADIO ON is a road movie. Britain doesn’t do road movies that well. America has its long desert highways and Europe has their gleaming Autobahns. But Britain often feels too small, too parochial to pull of a decent road move (The only other one I could think of was “Soft top, Hard Shoulder”). You could do the journey taken in the film in 4 hours. But RADIO ON does seem to provide a certain grace and smoothness to the travelling scenes. there’s a real understanding of the urban spaces of Britain that is very much like that of Goddard’s portrayal of the alien landscapes of modern Paris in ‘Alphaville.’

But throughout it all there’s a stark beauty to it. Petit is not so much interested in things such as plot, narrative and character development, rather than using the camera to linger on moments at empty spaces. Filmed in black and white, it’s in love with the darkness of the night. Many of the scenes contain the lights of the neon of the city of the cold shivering fog of the countryside. One of the best moments of the film is the opening shot as the camera slowly moves with a voyeuristic relish through the dimly lit flat of the dead brother, focusing on the minutiae contained within. Even the opening and closing credits with it’s harsh typesetting and teller machine movements, give a feeling of sparse simplicity. 

If you think that this film shares a similarity to the Neu Deutshe Welle of Wim Wender’s road movies, then you’d be right. the Teutonic hand of Wenders is all over this movie. As well as a being a co-producers and having a German as one of the main characters, you get a feeling that this is a near transplanting of a film from Berlin to the M4. You even have the credits in both English and German, as well as a small moment at the beginning where you come across a piece of graffiti saying ”FREE ASTRID PROLL,” referring to a member of the  German terrorist group the Baader-Meinhof Gang, who had been imprisoned at that time. 

Another Germanic aspect of the film (and a main reason why RADIO ON was called a post punk film), is the use of music to define the feel of the film. There is a heavy use of David Bowie’s Berlin-era music (Low, Heroes) as the soundtrack, along with Kraftwerk along with other artists such as Devo, Ian Dury, and Robert Fripp. But it’s also the way that the music is used. Much of the music you hear in the film is transmitted through car stereos, cafe jukeboxes, and radio transmissions, much like the aural flotsam that you encounters on that regular journey from Reykjavik to Akureyri.

When RADIO ON was initially released, its different look and style confused many people who couldn’t understand why the film was trying to say. Many critics hated it, and it quickly sank into obscurity, being largely unseen by the public until its recent reissue. Granted, it’s not a film that gives up its secrets all that easily . Many of the plots developments are merely inferred and you really need to watch closely to pick up the many images and symbolism that is littered throughout the movie.But as a snapshot of a country in the grip of an existential crisis, it’s rarely been bettered. So get that cold vodka on the go and start playing that PiL soundtrack as you watch this with the lights off.

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “La Haine (1995)”

Picture the scene at the Farm. After a nice dinner of herb crusted rack of lamb, with roasted vegetables, we’re sitting down watching Top Gear on TV, when I broach the subject on whether Mrs Sex farm would like to go to the cinema tonight.

Me: So, would you like to see a film tonight?

Mrs Sex Farm: Dunno, what’s on?

Me: Well there’s this film called “Salo: 120 Days Of Sodom”

MSF: what’s it about?

M: Well… it’s this film about a group of wealthy local Italian fascists who kidnap a bunch of teens and subject them to a litany of physical and sexual depravity and torture. Then they kill them.

MSF: Hmm… I’ll think I’ll pass on that.

Sigh… so no artistic sexual depravity for me then. So instead i need some well proper urban drama and social hardness that’s WELL ‘ARD!!

And for tonight’s edition of the SUNDAY CULT FILM CORNER, we have a modern french classic that shows the seething fault lines that lie at the heart of modern French Society. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you LA HAINE (English: Hate).

Directed in 1995 by Mathieu Kassovitz, It stars Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, and Saïd Taghmaoui as 3 friends living in an impoverished housing project on the outskirts of Paris. Although the three are friends, they are very different personalities. Vinz (Cassel) is the most aggressive, while Hubert (Koundé) is the calmest and wisest, with Said (Taghmaoui) lying between the two in terms of temperament.

After a recent riot where a mutual friend is beaten by the police and lying in a coma, tensions are running high. Vinz finds a police firearm and swear that he will kill a policeman if their friend dies. the film then follows the trio over 17 hours as thy go through their routine while they run the gamut of the police and rival gangs.  But will Vinz follow through his obsession of killing the police who he hates so much?

La HAINE is a film that just brims with anger and rage from the off, with the opening credit that contains footage of the police preparing for war, rioting and protesting youths, paired with stark black and white footage, black stenciling for the opening credits, and a burning reggae soundtrack. And it carries it on from there. The people who live on the estate see the police and government entities as the oppressors, the enemy. Meanwhile, the police are depicted as brutal and racist thugs who views the youth of the estates as scum that need to be taught a lesson. but even thought this is a French film, the story it contains can be told in many developed countries all over the world.

The camerawork also helps to add a documentary style that adds to the oppressive nature and feel of the estate, emphasizing the use of dark heavy shadows and showing the grimness of the concrete jungle where even the tree are grey and depressed. What makes LA HAINE stand out is the quality of the acting, that helps to convey the different personalities on display with many of the scenes acted out were improvised between the actors. Cassel burns a vicious hoodlum intensity while  while Taghmaoui provides an easy going foil to the anger. But it’s  Koundé displaying a serene, introspective charm that centres the film and provides a sense that there may be some way out for these guys.

La Haine does not offer any real answers to the problems depicted, merely to display the realities of modern working class life in the cities. But man it’s certainly a powerful statement.

So get some beers and stash a few molotov cocktails under the coffee table, and watch this incendiary tales from the rough side of the tracks.

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: ‘Vibrations (1996)’

Vibrations!!

 

OK, this is going to be a quick post as starting tonight (In about 30 minutes), there is a REAL display of extreme cult cinema over at Bio Paradis as their Svartir Sunnudagur (Black Sunday) series of films. “In the Realm Of The Senses,” “120 Days Of Sodom,” “Cannibal Holocaust” and much more great fun entertainment for all the family! I want some of that action!

So tonight we’re going down a slightly different route. The great thing about cult films is that new one crop up all the time and often out of nowhere. And tonight’s edition of THE SUNDAY CULT FILM CORNER (ER-ER-ER-ER) is one that has become a recently cult favourite thanks to the recent internet viral success of its best scene. Ladies and gentlemen. I give you VIBRATIONS.

Now here’s the plot that is up on its IMDB page…

“Rising rock star, TJ Cray, gets the shot of a lifetime, an audition with a A&R man. On the way into the city, a carload of drunks smash into his car, severing his hands. He drops out of the business and becomes a homeless drunk. Cray wakes up to a pulsing beat in an abandoned warehouse, where a “rave” party is in full action. To his rescue comes Anamika, a computer artist, who takes him outside for fresh air. They become friends and eventually reinvent TJ’s career. With the help of friends, they replace his hands with prosthetics and design a metallic cyber looking suit. TJ quickly becomes an overnight sensation, known as Cyberstorm. The finale is a dramatic scenario where TJ has to make crucial decisions about his new life.”

Now as a plot, that is definitely one of the more mental ones! Many people will not know this film, but many people will likely have seen the video of its best/worst scene. I won’t post it (Pretty much because it’s one of the integral parts of the film), but you can see it here.

Man this film is perfect cult film fodder. It’s so brilliantly awful in its direction, script, acting (When Christina Applegate is the best thing in the film, then you know the bar was not set that high) and most importantly, the MUSIC. Yes, even though it’s supposed to be a soppy love story, this is really a film about this new fangled rave “scene” and “techno” music. But of course the director or scriptwriter have obviously never heard a techno track or been to an actual rave in their lives. Less Aphex Twin and Jeff Mills, more Betty Boo and Jack Magnet. And the thing is that despite all the unintentional laughs, it takes itself so, so seriously!

It’s the little scenes that will have you choking on your eccies, such as the attack by the thugs (I mean WHY would they actually o that in the first place?), or the reunion between TJ and his cop had, of the scene with the English music manager (“what a bunch of WANKERS!”) and the truly wincing new-age inflected gobbledigook spouted by the “raveheads.” It’s like the Hacienda never happened.

But don’t take my word for it, watch for yourself. For best results wear a white boiler suit and smear your face with vicks vaporub. ‘Vibrations” is probably the best documentary on EDM I´ve seen in ages….

 

The Sunday Cult Film Corner: “New Jack City (1990)”

New Jack City

Today has been a day of impotent anger. It’s not really an emotion that common to Sunday lunchtime (Usually comfort laziness and tea drinking – if tea drinking were an actual emotion), but that was before my friend Ragnar posted a link this morning to a feature from the N+1 magazine titled Raise The Crime Rate.

It’s a powerful denouncement of the state of the US criminal Justice system and how racism, the war on drugs, privatisation, and shifting of the risk of crime and violence from the streets to the supermax jails has created a US prison system that is seething, all encompassing moral and ethical black hole, a gulag that if you get sucked in, you’ll pretty much never get out, so to speak. The article pretty much lays the blame at everyone’s door, from politicians across the ideological spectrum, to corporations, the middle class and even New York hipsters. Some of the things that it calls for to solve this are either radical (abolish the current prison system) to uncomfortable (Increasing the use of the death penalty for recidivist crimes, such as robbery and rape), but I really recommend that you read it.

Part of the article touches on the rise of crack use in America in the 1980s and the ensuing hysteria and moral panic that ensued. And reading that has given us the inspiration for this weeks instalment of the SUUUUNDAY CUUUUULT FILMMMMMMM CORNAH! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you NEW JACK CITY.

Directed in 1991 by Mario Van Peebles, it stars Wesley Snipes as Nino, a New York crime lord who rises to the top of the food chain, in the production and distribution of crack cocaine in the city, becoming so powerful that he and his gang take over an entire city block which they turn into a fortress. In order to take him down police officer Stone (played by Van Peebles) recruits two cops  Scotty Appleton (Ice-T) and  Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson) to take Nino down. the film becomes a battle of wills and guns between Nino, who becomes drunk on power, and the cops, who will stop at nearly nothing to take him down.

As a crime film, you can see today 20 years on how New Jack City sets its stall out from the very beginning about the evils of crack. And it ain’t subtle. the opening credits has Police sirens blaring, women screaming, and desolate inner city squalor, with radio news items telling of the robberies and murders due to an “Evil new drug called crack that is hitting the streets.” It’s just manages to keep on the right side of moralising about the realities of the drug trade in the ’80s, but only just with the criminals are larger than life, smooth taking and photogenic, while there are numerous montages about how crack is killing a generation of young people. But the film somehow manages to straddle between urban bleakness (“Dead Presidents”) and caricatures of the hood (Trespass).

In terms of the film itself, the plot owes a debt to classic Bogart/Cagney gangster films such as “Scarface,” with the story of the rise and eventual fall of a hungry, ambitious criminal who utilises the American dream of capitalism on the drugs trade. But it definitely feels of its time, chock full of ’80s pop culture tropes (Adidas street wear, Flavour Flav, boom boxes), along with a bumping soundtrack from the likes of 2-Live Crew, Ice-T, and new Jack Swing acts such as Colour Me Badd, and Johnny Gill

The main thing that stands out with the film is the acting of snipes as Nino, blending a mix of smooth charm with cut-throat ruthlessness, and Ice-T as the single minded cop on a crusade to bring down the Kingpin. Both show some rather powerful acting chops in what would be career defining roles for both of him.

So if you want a slice of the hard life from the ’80s, then get your pipes ready and blast some rocks to the new jack hustlers.