Five movies that blew my mind and touched all my painful soft spots, and six that are equally great but just a little bit more fun.
This is part 3/3 of my four-months-at-a-time experiment. On the 31st, I'll be putting out a year-end Top Ten, complete with a tier list of all 200+ titles I happened to watch for the first time this year. Some of what's here will be written about again there, but for most this is the only crack I'm taking at expressing why they moved me.
Six Fun Ones
Chan is Missing (1981)
Smart, funny, ultra-low-budget indie neonoir about a Chinese-American cab driver investigating the disappearance of his friend and small-time business partner. As he learns more about Chan, he finds how little anybody knows about anyone. Grounded in early-80s Chinatown, San Francisco, with complex characters who have much to say about politics big and small. I'm glad I watched this after seeing the documentary Hollywood Chinese, because that was my introduction to the character Charlie Chan, a fictional detective often played by white men in yellowface, whose spectre haunts Chan is Missing.
Vampire's Kiss (1988)
This movie is a meme, and deservedly so, but honestly? It's really good. On the same shit as American Psycho, captivating for many of the same reasons, but with Nic Cage in the role of the narcissistic yuppie who can get away with anything. But while American Psycho is biting satire, Vampire's Kiss brings its critique to life through deep compassion for the victims, especially Alva, whom Cage's character terrorizes at work. And I actually think this movie's treatment of psychosis is a little truer to life, a little less slick and more interesting. Although I figure there are still critiques to be made...
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
A slasher where the victims and survivors are realistic, intelligent, reasonable human beings, but that doesn't always save them. What does? Teamwork and unhesitating self-defense, which are both associated expertly with women's sports. The kind of movie that a regular slasher fan would enjoy without question, but which gets slyly closer to a feminist critique of the sexual politics that saturate the genre-- and our lives. It has been called satire, but I think that could be misleading. This is not a parody of slasher films. It is using the slasher in earnest, to frighten and excite, it just also has a deft hand for characterization and the thoughtful development of its themes. Written by Rita Mae Brown, the author most famous for Rubyfruit Jungle.
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
The joy of watching Willem Dafoe play Jesus. I loved it. I have critiques of the ending; the fake-out was long enough to make you wonder if it was going to be real, but not real enough to make its emotional content resonate, so that section got to be a bit of a slog on a first viewing. But all in all, I thought it was a spiritually resonant telling of a story I enjoy, Dafoe is incredible as always, and it has some really funny moments. (Here, watch Dafoe talk circles to avoid a bible quote so famous even I know it, and shoutout to the queen shouting "Judith!").
Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980)
Besides being a film about great music, this is about leadership. It raises a lot of questions, and I really want to know what other people make of it. In some of the other jazz documentaries I've been watching, musicians have referred to the Arkestra as a cult. This movie doesn't give me any more clarity on the matter. However, Sun Ra's leadership, unorthodox spirituality, strict discipline, and life-defining devotion to the music are all apparent, and palpably seductive. If everything is in fact as it appears, I can completely understand why a talented musician would've wanted to be a part of the Arkestra. And I can understand why many are turned-off at the idea of living together, with a ban on sex and drugs, and an imperative to drop everything when rehearsal is called, compelled to match Sun Ra's own stamina.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
Speaking of a ban on sex and drugs, and an organizational structure which demands every bit of your energy... This is my new favourite kung fu movie, and it doesn't have close competition. Our hero, San Te, participates in a rebellion against the Manchu government, which is brutally suppressed. His friend is killed, and he himself is grievously injured. In order to regroup and prepare for a more effective rebellion, San Te turns to the Shaolin Temple and begs them to teach him kung fu, so that he can bring it to the people. The set pieces that follow are spectacular, and the fight choreography through the finale pays off every promise made in training. Immensely satisfying movie.
Five Favourites
The Wolfpack (2015)
I haven't found a way to talk about this movie. It made me feel humanized. A documentary about a family in the early stages of a process I know well. The brothers we meet are funny, charismatic, and familiar. If Close-Up (and the follow-up doc I loved so much, Long Shot) follows the tragic relationship between a lone movie lover and cinema, The Wolfpack shines a light on the power of collective engagement with film, the creative potential to transform your lives togther for the better and recover from overwhelming circumstances. But it's not saccharine and inspirational-- it's understated, grounded, human.
Relaxer (2018)
A man is dared by his abusive older brother to sit on the couch and not move until he has beaten level 256 of Pac Man. He faces this impossible task with grim determination, as the world falls apart and his body rots beneath him.
I watched this after three other films by Potrykus-- Ape, Buzzard, and The Alchemist Cookbook. Each have their own charms, and all are imbued wth Potrykus' own artistic obsessions of pitiful male social outcasts who harbour magical thinking re: violence and one's capacity for suffering, watching actors eat/drink stunt quantities, awkward adolescent bullying between grown men. Ape and Buzzard have a bit more class-conscious edge, and The Alchemist Cookbook takes the magical thinking furthest, but Relaxer is the easiest to recommend, most cinematic, condensed and amplified.
Bontoc Eulogy (1995)
This film tells a fictionalized narrative about true events in the history of American imperial domination of the Philippines, centering on the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and its infamous displays of human beings. Writer-director Marlon Fuentes plays the narrator, a filmmaker presenting research he's done on the lives of his grandparents, one of whom was put on display in the Philippine reservation at the fair. Real research, including shocking archival footage, is blended with a condensed and narrativized character study of this fictional grandfather. Fuentes gets deep into the subjectivity of the people who were coerced into these kinds of events, and it's amazing just how much feels eerily familiar amidst the horror.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
A nightmare. Coiled sharp wire and rusty jagged scrap metal and industrial noise music and the most aggressive editing imaginable. A metal fetishist gets himself in a car wreck in a fit of passion, and his peculiar technological zombie plague begins to spread. At first, the madness is unsettling, aggravating, pulls you out of your skin. Eventually, once your bones have all fallen out, it's incredibly funny. It's got a lot in common with JJBA.
The movie looks like it was hell to work on, with the effects genuinely terrifing and dangerous-looking. From what I read on wikipedia, there was a lot of turnover with the crew, so my suspicions might be correct, athough I'm not finding any detail as to why people left. In any case, the picture itself is amazing, unlike anything else I've seen. I hope no one was hurt, because I do love the results.
Society (1989)
Pitched to me in rumours of its insane body-horror content, I didn't know to expect the brilliant strangeness of its story, structure and tone. A hunky teenage boy doesn't fit in with his Beverley Hills ass family for reasons unknown, and is already in the midst of a mental break due to traumas and suspicions he can only process ironically. None of the actors are recognizable, and the whole thing looks like a typical 80s high school americana feature, which gives it a delirious dreamlike quality well before we get to the parts that are truly nightmarish. Similar political space as They Live, but with a metaphor that doesn't fall apart so easily, and great thoughts about what it might mean to make a "contribution to society".