Cult Movies & Crushes

As ever, I’m a bad, slack blogger... However, I thought I’d write about movies, and not the ones that are always easy to find, but the ones that are cult and compulsive viewing.

Dredged from the depths of my mega trivia laden mind, here is a tasty trio: Siesta, Revolver and Performance.

Siesta, 1987. This one features Spain & Gabriel Byrne, who is, to say the least, smoking hot in this film and plays a Spanish trapeze instructor. Yes, you did read that right. The film has an absolutely incredible cast: Ellen Barkin as a badass stuntwoman who draws no lines, Byrne, Julian Sands, Isabella Rossellini, Martin Sheen, Grace Jones and Jodie Foster. It's backed by one of the best, most evocative soundtracks conceivable, by Miles Davis.

What is this movie about? Umm. Let’s just say it opens with Ellen Barkin waking, lying in a field in a bloodstained red dress, convinced she has committed a murder but sidelined by rolling amnesia. Julian Sands may be a dilettante photographer … or her guardian angel. And all she wants, and may have had, is one last good time with her ex, Augustine, AKA Byrne. Wouldn’t we all? But then again, maybe the blood on her dress is his … or his wife’s.

She’s hoping it’s Mrs Augustine’s.

Hot, surreal, dreamlike, all of those good words. This is one arty film worth finding, even if simply for the soundtrack and the atmosphere.

Trailer for Siesta:




Revolver, 2005. Directed by Guy Ritchie, written by the brilliant Luc Besson & Ritchie. Starring Jason Statham and Ray Liotta, amongst others. This is one cool, complex, tricky movie with a great premise and no, Statham isn’t his usual total-action self. He’s actually pretty damned good. There’s chess in it, on a board and as strategy, a gambler who gets panic attacks, and it is way better and more intriguing than the panning it got would indicate. I quote Statham’s character, Jake, from the film: ‘One thing I've learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there's always an opponent, and there's always a victim. The trick is to know when you're the latter, so you can become the former.’ Watch and work it out, my lovelies.

Trailer for Revolver:




Performance, 1970. Mick Jagger, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg. An East London gangster, Chas/Fox is on the run and crash lands in the ramshackle (this was 1970) Notting Hill home of reclusive faded rock star Turner (Jagger) and his girlfriend Pherber (Pallenberg). This is one wild, trippy film that makes you wish you could time travel back to the last days of swinging London. Naturally, Jagger and Pallenberg perform a major mindfuck on the hapless fugitive, dismantling him piece by piece. Worth viewing if only to see Jagger sing ‘Memo From Turner’ surrounded by naked (genuine?) gangsters.

Performance’s very vintage trailer…




Give at least one of these films a try, you won't regret it,

xoxo

J

Horror Cheesy, Classic & Decadent & Debauched

Listening to one of the best movie soundtracks ever … Queen Of The Damned, made me think about my first movie love, horror :)

Queen Of The Damned is, natch, the movie adaptation of the Anne Rice novel. It got one hell of a bad rap when it came out and was filmed, lord love us all, in Melbourne. Exotic? Ha! I do like Stuart Townsend in it as Lestat and even though he’s not a Lestat I or anyone else could EVER have imagined, whatever he’s doing is working, it has Aaliyah in it and Vincent Perez and … hell, it’s just cheesy fun.

Cheesy fun is also a good pretty description of the old English Hammer horror vampire flicks, usually set in Regency Wherever.

If you want to try one, see if you can catch The Vampire Lovers. It’s an adaptation of an old Sheridan le Fanu story Carmilla and is a gas. A sexy lesbian vampire works her way through the local population of virginal young ladies. Naturally, she has to be staked at the very end.

Talk about Freudian.

And to more serious horror flicks … mmm, Dario Argento for the ick factor has to win. Suspiria, anyone? You cannot say you love horror movies if you haven’t caught at least one Argento flick.

More classically, Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, Halloween. I’ll even throw in John Carpenter’s The Thing.

The last horror movie that really truly stayed with me was the vampire film Let The Right One In, a Swedish film of an amazing book by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It’s like no other horror movie I can think of. Nothing pretty, nothing beautiful, it’s ugly, dingy and has a fresh quiet horror of its own variety in the ending. There is a great American adaptation of it, but truly, stick with the original one.

And if you can find it, Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom TV series. It is just so damned weird and wonderful. It also stars the hospital from hell!

Okay, last but not least, in no particular order, Alien (sci-fi horror), Chronos (Mexican vampire horror), Constantine… not really horror but I loved it.

I’ve left out so many fabulous films, so bad they’re good and some just plain fabulous, but there you go. My short list of recs. Watch at your peril.

And so, right now … a vampire movie I really, really want to see that’s been out since earlier this year, Only Lovers Left Alive, directed by Jim Jarmusch with Tom Hiddleston (Loki!) and the excellent Tilda Swinton (who was the BEST androgynous angel in Constantine). Peak at the trailer, oh, and um… Is that a blood popsicle she's clutching? Carmilla didn't have the only phallic reference in this post:

Looks fabulous, here’s hoping it is,

Ciao my lovelies,

J

Oh, and the track list from Queen Of The Damned:

1. "Not Meant for Me" Wayne Static of Static-X
2. "Forsaken" David Draiman of Disturbed
3. "System" Chester Bennington of Linkin Park
4. "Change (In the House of Flies)" Deftones
5. "Redeemer" Marilyn Manson
6. "Dead Cell" Papa Roach
7. "Penetrate" Godhead
8. "Slept So Long" Jay Gordon of Orgy
9. "Down with the Sickness" Disturbed
10. "Cold" Static-X
11. "Headstrong" Earshot
12. "Body Crumbles" Dry Cell
13. "Excess" Tricky
14. "Before I'm Dead" Kidneythieves

Movie Comfort Food … & Which Would U Be? Buffy Or Drusilla?

We’ve all got our own personal comfort food. Mashed potato, mac and cheese, whatever.

Comfort reads, too. Books you go to because you love them, and you know that once you sink into that world, you may find new things but there is a wonderful familiarity there as well.

Comfort TV shows? Well, we had a Buffy marathon here over the weekend. And then of course, there is Angel, which, gotta confess, I like even more. Although for power couples nothing betters Spike and Drusilla, the Sid and Nancy of the vamp world. I’d like to think in one of those ‘which character are you?’ quizzes I’d come out as Buffy. Something tells me I’m a little more Drusilla! The traces of Goth still linger...

But comfort movies ... well, right now, I’m writing and there is a classic Sam Peckinpah/Steve McQueen movie playing, The Getaway. I love tough guy movies, action flicks, Vin Diesel (although that could be The Voice) and Jason Statham is a riot in the Transporter movies through to Revolver, a Guy Ritchie number that is one addictive, truly underrated mindf*ck.

But the subject WAS comfort movies ... which leads me to two sixties classics and Audrey Hepburn. And these ARE chick flicks, I happily admit :) The first would be Charade, a great movie she made with Cary Grant. The second would be How To Steal A Million, co-starring Peter O’Toole.

The sixties seemed to burst at the seams with caper movies (as these two could be classed, I guess). I don’t know why, maybe it was a spillover from all the James Bond flicks hitting the screens. But those two movies, I promise, are guaranteed to make you feel that in some corner of the world (namely Paris, where they are both set), it is possible that once upon a time everyone was beautiful, chic, witty and wonderful.

And while you watch one of those films, that’s exactly the world you’ll be living in.

Delicious. For an hour and a half, two hours, feet up on the couch and chilling with your friends or honey after one tough bastard of a day or week, what more could you want?

Enjoy,

Xoxo

J

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc

Best Noir & The Whole Wide World

Hey all,

Insta-post. Prompted by my checking out the excellent Goodreads Best Noir link.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1387.Best_Noir

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

Because thinking about Noir/Pulp made me think about one of my favourite damned films ever, The Whole Wide World, I thought I'd give it a quick mention. (I admit, I am into hyperbole!) You may be able to YouTube TWW World for a taster. It's about the pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard (Conan The Barbarian) and is one of those amazing films that for some reason, never really seem to have gained the attention they should have. It's circa 1996, stars Vincent D'Onofrio (instant total bonus) and I think was the first starring role for Renee Zellweger.

Hugely recommended. It is a truly brilliant film. Yeah, I'm a film geek (hangs head in shame :-)

Ciao

Jae