August 31st – September 7th
The Toxic Avenger – After meeting Lloyd Kaufman at dCFF, watching Poultrygeist, and falling in love with both, I finally got around to seeing this Troma classic. Like with Poultrygeist, I was frankly surprised how entertaining it was. It’s a cheaply made horror movie with lots of over-the-top elements, but it still manages to be a lot of genuine fun. It is certainly more accessible than some of the other movies I’ve seen recently. I am somewhat disappointed that I apparently missed Marisa Tomei’s very brief appearance as Locker Room Girl.
Otto; Or, Up with Dead People – My first foray into the cinematic stylings of gay porn star and director Bruce LaBruce. Yes, it did take me by surprise somewhat. I wasn’t quite prepared for all of the graphic gay zombie sex. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable. In part, it played as a hilarious spoof of pretentious art films. But ultimately its a smart, well-crafted movie that hits upon issues in the gay lifestyle. The spectre of AIDS, isolation, otherness, hate crimes, and gay recruitment, among others, are all touched upon through the conventions of the zombie genre without seeming at all didactic. And on top of that, the soundtrack was surprisingly wonderful in its queer quirkiness.
Ichi the Killer – From beginning to end, this brutal Takashi Miike directed film is a test of endurance. That it’s also about 30 minutes too long only makes the viewer complicit in the masochism. Its terribly brutal. There is brutal rape, epic sorts of dismemberment, and a puddle of semen (apparently “donated” by Tetsuo director Shinya Tsukamoto, who also plays the role of Jijii in Ichi). But it is, as they say, just a movie. Much (but certainly not all) of the violence is stylized and nearly comical. The rape scenes are certainly horrifying. While we can chuckle at some stylized blood spray or a body being split comically in half (or the image of a Japanese man quite literally “losing face”), we would think it truly despicable if scenes of rape were played for laughs. That Miike knows at least some boundaries is to his credit.
I don’t know enough about Miike’s body of work or of Japanese culture (including manga) to really be able to address what themes are working amongst this brutal violence. Although it may be simplistic, I don’t think you can address the ultra-violent Japanese cinema without bringing up Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That some of the dialogue in the movie is spoken in English seems to suggest that it is partly a message to Americans. As Americans (and I’m certainly guilty), we have delighted in cinematic images of nuclear attacks. Perhaps Ichi, and other violent Japanese cinema, is somehow addressing this paradox.
Also of note is the apparent similarities between the blonde Kakihara and Heath Ledger’s Joker. There are the obvious physical similarities. Both characters sport a Glasgow smile and flamboyant clothing. But there is also a certain bravado in Kakihara that seems mined by Ledger in his Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight. There are also some other broader similarities in the stories of the two films that could be drawn.
Who Gets to Call It Art? – While I tend to prefer old and European when it comes to art, I’m coming around to modern art by American artists. This documentary about the curator Henry Geldzahler was a nice introduction to this modern American art. Now, frankly, I want to dive into the works of de Kooning, Johns, Stella, and Warhol (to name just a few). The most revelatory part of this documentary was a brief discussion between Geldzahler and Warhol where Bob Dylan is mentioned. Once I realized that Warhol’s art (take the Campbell’s soup cans as an example) is more akin to (I’m thinking early) Dylan’s art than the European masters, it sort of finally made sense to me. Where Dylan’s brilliance extended beyond his music into his persona and overall aura, Warhol’s brilliance isn’t about the soup cans (the art per se) but also about something much bigger. They are both of their own brilliant inventions.
