Vampire's Kiss

USA | 1989 | Directed by Robert Bierman

Logline: A Manhattanite publishing executive is visited and bitten by an apparent vampire, a woman he previously slept with, and he starts to exhibit erratic and obnoxious behavior.

One typical night while Peter Loew (Nicolas Cage) is having drinks with colleagues he meets sexy Rachel (Jennifer Beals). He invites her back to his place (bad idea, but he’s none the wiser) and they neck furiously. To be precise, it’s Rachel who necks Peter. The next morning Peter brings her coffee, but Rachel isn’t there. Has Peter imagined her?

Vampire’s Kiss is a weird little movie and brilliant. The screenplay is by Joseph Minion, who also penned another blackly comic, sly tale of urban paranoia: Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Any comedy that deals with schizophrenia, sexual assault, and murder, is most definitely of a darker hue, and right up my twisted little alley! It also features one of the most mannered performances in Nicolas Cage’s career (the fake pretentious accent alone is eccentric comedy gold!), and yes, that's saying a lot.

Bierman caresses the Big Apple affectionately, even obsessively; the opening establishing montage slyly focuses on the city’s spired skyscrapers; the Empire, the Chrysler, and other inverted architectural “fangs”. There is a sub-text at play about the stresses of modern city life, which the vampire’s curse uses this to great metaphorical effect. Rachel’s vamp is very much the classic femme fatale, and New York City is renowned for encouraging any kind of outlandish public behaviour, or at the very least it is ignored by the locals; so Lowe’s slide into madness is water off his therapist, Dr. Glazer (Elizabeth Ashley)'s back.

It is Loew’s targeting of work colleague Alva (Maria Conchita Alonzo) – “Am I getting tha-roo to you Alva!” – that laces the tale with genuine discomfort, and Loew’s fantasy world colliding with reality that provides the movie with much of its inspired satire. Along with the corporate realm, the classic vampirism elements are mercilessly teased and manipulated; the bat in Loew’s apartment, the sun hurting his eyes, his ruthless arrogance at work, and his desire to act subversively at night whilst dressed in a suit and tie (his undead strut through a packed nightclub dancefloor is yet another example of the movie's marvelous off-kilter humour).

The copper-tinged sensibilities of this corrupt bloodsucker are an acquired taste, but like most movies that feature on this page, it gets better with each viewing. There is much to relish, especially some of the eccentric asides; the mime artists outside Loew’s brownstone, the elderly woman cussing in the office bathrooms, Loew using his upturned sofa as a “coffin”, Loew pulling faces as he runs amok with plastic fangs, and of course, Cage’s haircut and his method acting (infamously he plucks and actually chows down on a real cockroach!)

Not only is Vampire’s Kiss one of my favourite vampire movies, but I firmly stake that it is also one of Cage's finest performances, and the most bitingly-funny comedies of the 80s, up there with the very best of those that have a cumulative effect.

Surviving Desire

USA | 1991 | Directed by Hal Hartley

Logline: A college professor falls for one of his students but becomes a confused emotional wreck when she decides to end the short term relationship not long after they’ve become lovers.

I was a fan of indie darling Hal Hartley’s early movies, and still am, especially his first feature The Unbelievable Truth. But it is this featurette - only 60 minutes in length - that is my favourite. It also happens to be one of my favourite comedies and favourite love stories, albeit a comic-tragedy wallowing in literary mire (I’m loathe to call it a rom-com).

Martin Donovan is brilliant as Jude, the uninspired English professor who is spouting Russian literature at film’s opening; “I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself.” Mary Ward is excellent in the role of Sophie the object of Jude’s lust. Flirtation turns to infatuation, and inevitably he must come crashing down from the lofty heights of such a heady elusive romance. There is a divide of years between them, but they’re brought together over their love of words and ideas, and the sexual chemistry is fueled by their respective adulation of each other.

Of course Sophie is swept away by Jude’s command of language, and she allows herself to be wooed, as she quietly seduces. Jude is entranced by her pixie good looks, sly knowing glances and arts smarts. Their charisma and coyness become entwined, divine, divine, but there will be tears before bed time. She is so young, full of curiosity and contradiction, he is blind to the heartache on the horizon.

It’s a poignant movie and the edge of seriousness is given a dynamic and refreshing twist with Hartley’s delightfully wry observations on the fragility of charm and the pulse of passionate abandon. The movie was produced for American Playhouse, a cable television show, which is why it’s shot in 1.33:1 ratio. Hartley also made two short movies at the same time of similarly playful philosophical ilk: Ambition and Theory of Achievement (and are included on the DVD).

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There is a beautifully understated quality to Surviving Desire. It looks and feels self-conscious, yet it floats with such delicacy, the nuances of Donovan’s and Ward’s performances are deliberate and theatrical, but still command a cinematic je ne sais quoi. The dialogue crackles and caresses with stunning insight and droll humour. These are the little ironies of love’s cruel game. There is no such thing as romance and adventure, only trouble and desire. Jude rises with hubris, but falls with humility.

The movie’s highlight comes in the form of a dance routine, which expertly parodies movies like Singin’ in the Rain, but skillfully indulges them. Jude is drunk in love with Sophie and as the guitar chords echo away Jude’s desire manifests itself as a dance without accompanying music. It finishes with Jude’s arms outstretched like those of the Saviour. It’s a golden moment, and I remember first watching the movie at a film festival and the audience cheered this scene.

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The support cast is all wonderful, but especially notable is Matt Malloy as Jude’s theologian friend Henry and Rebecca Nelson as Katie the lost soul street monger whom Henry becomes involved with. They share a hilarious rapport. The rock-folk music credited to The Great Outdoors and Ned Rifle (Hartley under a pseudonym) fits the movie like hand in glove; loose, and jangly, lilting, but uplifting, it’s the perfect foil for the beautiful battlefield that is surviving desire. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may …”

Johnny Suede

USA | 1991 | Directed by Tom DiCillo

Logline: A naïve and immature young man with aspirations of being a country-rock star receives a few lessons in life and love while strutting around in his newly acquired blue suede shoes.

“John had just about everything: the look, the hair, the clothes … everything, except one thing … shoes. And this made him feel incomplete. As if he lacked one final crucial thing. Like a car without wheels, like a rocket without fuel … Like a man without shoes. Everyone else seemed to have it, everyone else seemed complete, everyone except him. So he kept looking for this one thing, night after night, wandering, searching … This is the story of what happened when he found it.”

“You Freak Storm, huh?”

“That’s right. I’ve seen you before. What’s your name?”

“Johnny. Johnny Suede …”

“Nice shoes you have there, Johnny.”

“Thanks. I like your boots. Where did you get them?”

“I found them when I was living in Wyoming.”

“What were you doing in Wyoming?”

“I’ve been all over, man.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah? I was born in a goddamned motel room.”

“Really? Your dad was a traveling salesman?”

“Daddy? I don’t know too much about my daddy, man, except he was shot minutes after I was born.”

“Wow, you’re kiddin?”

“No, I am not fucking kidding. Even tried to write a song about it, once, but I just didn’t finish it. It goes like this … I was born in a motel room/When my daddy lost his job/Just after one/He pulled a gun/And blew his brains out/They call me mamma/They call me mamma/The call me mamma’s boy, but I don’t care/I’ll be a mamma, I’ll be a mamma’s boy/Since daddy got the electric chair!”

Such is the style of sardonic sense of humour found in this unique and memorable exercise in drifting oneiric style. Tom DiCillo had previously been a cinematographer on Jim Jarmusch’s first two features (Permanent Vacation and Stranger than Paradise) before adopting Jim’s sense of deadpan visual comedy and applying his own narrative sensibilities. With Johnny Suede there’s more than just a nod toward another great American stylist of sardonic humour floating in a dream nightmare; Mr. David Lynch.

Brad Pitt is Johnny Suede and the movie was released the same year as Thelma and Louise which made Pitt a household name. Curiously the two characters are of a similar ilk; they’re not the sharpest blades in the drawer, a coupla southerners lookin’ for a break. As the eponymous guitar-crooner with his immense pompadour and retro threads Pitt is curiously endearing. Apparently DiCillo’s producer wanted Timothy Hutton, but DiCillo insisted on Pitt, but later regretted Pitt’s interpretation, so much so that in his brilliant satire Living in Oblivion DiCillo based the arrogant, cocksure actor (played by James Le Gros) on Pitt himself.

The movie as a whole is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a mood piece with great cinematic textures and a delicately delirious atmosphere. The music – especially the main theme – composed by Jim Farmer is deeply evocative and resonates long after the final image of Johnny Suede’s shoe perched on the roof of the car, as it drives off down the street into the sunrise. But it’s not just the music and Brad Pitt and Tom DiCillo’s colourful palette and deliberately staged location shooting, it’s the key support cast that shines just as bright; Catherine Keener as Yvonne is darn wonderful, Alison Moir as oddball Darlette, a sandwich or two short of a picnic, is a rare gem, and Nick Cave is hilarious as Freak Storm, the cowboy in white … is he a genuine angel or a demon in disguise? And just what is it with that weirdo in the tux (Richard Boes) who keeps turning up with Darlette?

Yes, Johnny Seude is very much like a strange dream. Some of it works a treat, other bits leave you somewhat baffled, but like all good strange dreams, there’s just enough of the sexycrazycool stuff to make you wanna have that dream again. And again.

Under The Skin

UK | 2013 | Directed by Jonathan Grazer

Logline: An alien on earth in human form seduces various men before she becomes curious about the human condition and all its foibles.

It’s taken Jonathan Glazer, who made the excellent Sexy Beast (2000), ten years to make an adaptation from Dutch novelist Michel Faber. The screenplay, co-written with Walter Campbell, is loosely inspired by elements of Faber’s story; an extraterrestrial siren (Scarlett Johansson) has visited earth and taken human form and spends her time going from one sexual encounter to the next, whilst another of her kind runs around after her cleaning up. The alien is frequently distracted by the contrasting beauty and desolation of the landscape and its inhabitants. It begins to overwhelm her.

Infused with the kind of ponderous melancholy, the spare, cold imagery, and the existential wilderness of Andrei Tarvosky, Stanley Kubrick, and Nicolas Roeg combined, Glazer’s deliberately artful take on fractured desire, entrenched loneliness, and gradual empathy is the year’s most affecting movie. There is a cumulative emotional effect happening that reaches a startling and strangely satisfying denouement.

Under the Skin is precisely that. It’s a play on words; the obvious reason being the alien in disguise, but the deeper meaning is what follows a crucial, and for parents rather harrowing, scene set on a rugged beach. Later the alien protagonist (none of the movie’s characters are given names) finds herself waiting in traffic, a baby’s cry reverberating in her mind, and subsequently she abandons her vehicle, immerses herself in a tranquil white mist, and becomes lost, a quiet drifting desperation gnawing away inside her, as she grapples with the human impulse.

Glazer peppers his languid, meandering narrative with some stunning imagery (his background has been directing music clips and commercials), the most extraordinary being a sequence depicting one of the alien’s conquests nightmarish experience deep within a carnal void. Another burnt onto my retina is the POV of a motorcyclist hurtling along a narrow country road at night. Under the Skin is as much a study of the Scotland highland landscape as it is of Scarlett Johansson’s visage, and body, and it fixes itself firmly into the best of her career.

There are many questions raised and never explained, but as David Lynch once inferred, we don’t understand everything we see in life, so why should we understand everything we see in cinema? It’s apparent David Lynch is another tone, mood, and visual influence on Under the Skin. There is frustration, especially during the movie’s first half, as slow-burn repetition threatens to tear the movie’s conceptual fabric, but as I suspected, this is a movie that lingers significantly, long after the snow has fallen.

Very much an acquired taste, just like much of the perplexing and provocative science-fiction cinema of the 70s ............ There is nihilistic darkness at the edge of the lush dream that hovers, entrances, and threatens to engulf.

Under the Skin screens as part of 17th Revelation - Perth International Film Festival, Opening Night, Thur 3rd July, 7pm, Luna Cinema, Sun 6th, 6:15pm, SX Cinema, and Wed 9th, 6:30pm, Paradiso Cinema

Repo Man

USA | 1984 | Directed by Alex Cox

Logline: An indignant teenage punk-rocker is recruited by a car repossession agent and becomes embroiled in the chaotic pursuit for a car containing deadly cosmic material.

Made on the smell of an oily rag and sporting some of the cheesiest special effects this side of Edge City Repo Man still manages to rise above its limitations and resonates like the growling weather-beaten Chevy Malibu that is the key non-speaking character of the movie. Of course, the movie actually belongs to the lost streets of Los Angeles, but is snatched in the last moments by something from beyond terra firma.

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Emilio Estevez plays new wave punker Otto with a careless charisma, almost indifferent to the events that surround him and steer him toward his lofty destiny alongside mechanic Miller (Tracey Walter), who knows oh so much more than his nut-and-bolt-short-of-a-full-engine looks suggest. Harry Dean Stanton is perfect as the cigarette-chewing, speed-snorting repo man whom takes young turk Otto under his reeky wing.

Repo Man enjoyed the drive-in midnight circuit in America, but become the revolutionary anti-hero after years of being manhandled in VCR machines. There’s something about it that lingers, like the stain of grease. It’s overtly stylised and there’s plenty of dodgy acting from the supporting players, some of which works in a wacky kind of way; like Olivia Borash as ingénue Leila. In fact, so stylised is the movie that the characters eat and drink from cans labeled simply “Food” and “Beer”.

This City of Angels is bordering on post-apocalyptic, and is awash with apathy and contempt; one minute Otto is lying with his girlfriend Debbi (Jennifer Balgobin) on a bed, the next minute he returns with a beer and she’s making out with opportunist punk Duke (Dick Rude). In a more explicit deleted alternate take Otto returns and punk Archie (Miguel Sandoval) has his head between her thighs. Later sexy Debbi shaves her head into a Mohawk (channeling Annabella Lwin via Grace Jones) to join Duke and Archie in an armed robbery spree.

Alex Cox is making sly, subversive statements about consumerism and cosmic consciousness, but really the movie is a more a satirical slap in the face for complacent idealists. If you smoke too much pot you’ll end up glued to the idiot box gathering cobwebs, if you don’t seize the moment you’re liable to end up seized by conspiracy. Watch out for secret agent shenanigans! Watch out for Dioretix - they’ll change your life! Methinks Cox supped quite a bit of Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid back in the day.

The soundtrack is littered with legendary American punk rock bands whose noisy discords fill the movie’s atmosphere, including The Plugz (who provide all the incidental music as well), The Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Fear, Suicidal Tendencies, and, most notably, Burning Sensations’ cover of Pablo Picasso - “… was never called an asshole!” - whilst proto punk rocker Iggy Pop provides the movie’s theme song.

Cox wrote a sequel, Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday, in the early 90s, but it was never made, eventually he couldn’t help himself and delivered Repo Chick (2009), shot entirely on a green-screen stage, and apparently pretty damn awful. So grab yourself a “Beer”, a slice of “Pizza”, hell blaze a “Reefer” - just so you can really feel the danger - and indulge in some of the more zany moments of 80s indie cinema.

Ex Drummer

Belgium | 2007 | Directed by Koen Mortier

Logline: A manipulative and cynical writer joins a desperate punk band under the pretence he is as handicapped as the other three, when the reality is he simply wants to shake up his complacent existence and disturb theirs.

You want to upset your cinematic sensibilities, then leave it to the wayward Europeans to throw a spanner in the works, and they’ll twist the tool for all its worth, prizing the cogs apart with malicious and sordid glee, yet maintain a compelling edge of pure cinema so you can’t tear your eyes from the screen.

For his feature debut Koen Mortier tackles the angry, belligerent, contentious novel by Herman Brusselmans and fuses his own misanthropic perspective to the narrative delivering a furious portrait of dysfunctional machismo and sociopathic chaos. It’s also a movie that frequently swerves from the sincerely grotesque to the unexpectedly provocative, and on rare occasion lingers on an image of isolated beauty such as a hazy sunrise.

Ex Drummer is a movie of fractured emotions and jagged rhythms, surging backwards as it does at film’s start, and careening forward in slow motion as it does at film’s end. It’s a difficult movie to find empathy within as none of the leads characters are likeable; they’re unhinged, misogynist, or violent; all of them obnoxious or reprehensible in some way. Even Dries (Dries Van Hagen), the chain-smoking writer pontificating philosophically, seduced by the anarchic possibilities within the punk rock scene, is a volatile and unpleasant man. He’s an opportunist, and he milks the moment, then spits in its face.

When he’s in his squalid apartment lead singer and guitarist Koen can only exist upside down, walking and sleeping on the ceiling. It’s very strange and surreal. Rhythm guitarist Ivan lives with a junkie wife and their toddler in just as squalid conditions. Ivan is at the end of his tether. Bassist Jan has a bung arm, grapples with homosexuality, and lives with his insane pa and butch ma. Dries languishes in a stylish high rise apartment with his bisexual girlfriend Lio (Dolores Bouckaert) and muses about the late King of Belgium.

With Dries on board as drummer (although he’s never been one) The Feminists enter a battle of the bands competing against rival rockers Henry Mulisch who have Big Dick (Jan Hammencker) as front man, a ferocious toad with a cock as long and thick as a baby’s forearm clutching a peach (in the movie’s most disturbing – but morbidly funny – scene Big Dick sodomizes a male groupie in the bar toilets). Another band competing are called Six Million Jews. The humour is as vulgar and crass as it is darkly hilarious.

Dries is the evil god descending into the village to cause upheaval amidst the struggling peasants. His intelligent analysis rivals their pathetic knee-jerk reactions just as their insolence threatens his complicity. The stew brews to boiling point and explodes in a violent frenzy. Koen Mortier wants to shock with moments of graphic sex and violence, yet a dark fascination seethes under the surface. This is a brutal study of the grim determination of those that lay in the gutter and stare up at the stars.

Sweat seeps, saliva dribbles, tears run, blood flows. Ex Drummer barks loud, bites savagely, wags its tail furiously. Rock and fucking roll. Enter at your own risk. Leave your inhibitions and sensibilities at the back door.

The Tin Drum

Die Blechtrommel | West Germany/France/Poland/Yugoslavia | 1979 | Directed by Volker Schlöndorff

Logline: In Danzig, Germany, as WWII begins, a three year old boy with extraordinary intellect and a distorted morality decides to stop growing in defiance against the absurdity and contradiction of the adult world he sees around him.

Based on the 1959 best-selling novel by Günter Grass Die Blechtrommel is a saga of morality, deception and resignation. It is a tale that resonates with dark poignancy, reverberates with an element of the perverse, and echoes with touches of surrealism. It’s a film of disquieting brilliance that won the Palm d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Central to the film’s conceit is the extraordinary performance of young David Bennent who was 12-years-old, but plays troubled Oskar from an infant through to almost 21. His odd features, like that of an old man trapped in a child’s body, captures perfectly the sense of curiosity and exasperation that is Oskar. He is both inquisitive, yet defiant in his perspective of the world.

Adults are creatures of lies and betrayal, and foolish folly gives way to ignorance and tragedy. As Oskar realises the followers of Hitler and the Nazi party have mistaken him for Santa Claus, but really he was the Gas Man. World War II becomes both a literal and figurative metaphor for the lust and corruption that permeates Oskar’s world. His family is torn apart, as his German father Alfred (Mario Adorf) is seduced by the Fuhrer and his Polish uncle Jan (Daniel Olbrychski) is ostracized. His mother Agnes (Angela Winkler) is sleeping with them both, and Oskar finds himself inexorably instrumental to their plight.

Right from the dreamlike opening scene where Oskar narrates how his grandmother met his grandfather and conceived his mother in a potato field, the tone and style of the film is set; Fellini-esque, yet with strong Eastern-European flavours. The rustic, striking cinematography enhances the vivid visual narrative, while Maurice Jarre’s distinct score adds an unusual sense of black humour to the drama.

The film constantly contrasts images of beauty and sensuality against the grotesque and disgusting; a decomposing horse’s head is pulled ashore with eels snaking in and out of its orifices, Oskar is forced to drink frog and urine soup. Oskar climbs to the top of a bell tower with his trusty tin drum, surveying the spectacular view, then hammering away and screeching his glass-shattering vocals. Oskar’s tin drum is omnipresent, and when it’s damaged, he gets a new one. Apart from his unusual voice, the tin drum speaks for him. It challenges everything he doesn’t like or understand.

The film has courted controversy for its depiction of Oskar’s sexual awakening, in particular two scenes with his father’s young lover Maria (Katharina Thalbach): Oskar (aged 16, but still looking like he’s barely 10) buries his face in Maria’s naked crotch, and he shares her bed, licking sherbert from her navel, then mounting her. These are important moments, integral to the story, and are filmed tastefully, but the film was banned in the State of Oklahoma for many years, and was cut in the UK for breaching the law for the Protection of Children Act. The film has since been recognized for its artistic merits and the ban and the cuts have been waivered.

Die Blechtrommel is an utterly unique film, often startling, frequently amusing, strangely sensual, curiously affecting. It’s a beautiful and sad parable – and a savage satire – of prevailing innocence, corruption and inhumanity, hope and acceptance … and the simple chaste beauty of the potato.

Cheap Thrills

USA | 2013 | Directed by E. L. Katz

Logline: A mild-mannered man out on his luck reluctantly humours a reunion with an old buddy only to find himself embroiled in the lucrative game playing of a wealthy couple.

I missed this dark gem at last year’s Sydney Film Festival where it screened as part of the Freak Me Out section (and I wish I'd got to see it with a late night cinema crowd). Finally I get to see what all the fuss is about, and I can very happily agree that Cheap Thrills is as brilliant as I’d heard it was. A black eye comedy as perverse as it is entertaining, as clever as it is simplistic. It slaps your funny bone and kicks yer ass into the middle of next week. Boom! Whack! Tish!

E. L. Katz is good mates with Adam Wingard and Ti West, and the three directors share a similar penchant for inventive fiendishness. I’m not much of a fan of Wingard’s work, and although I loved West’s The House of the Devil, I was very disappointed by You’re Next. Katz, on the other hand, has raised the bar. Cheap Thrills is easily one of my favourite movies of the year, and up with Sightseers as the best black comedy/horror of the past ten years.

But it’s not just Katz dynamic direction, and the fantastic performances he gets from his cast of four leads; Pat Healy as hapless Craig, Ethan Embry as his dodgy old pal Vince, David Koechner as scheming Colin, (and who threatens to steal the entire movie), or Sara Paxton (who was great in West’s disappointing The Innkeepers) as Colin’s dark filly Violet. The screenplay to Cheap Thrills is a fucking corker. David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga (who penned the irritating, but compelling Deadgirl) have written an instant cult classic.

Craig’s having the day from hell; an eviction notice on his front door, then he’s let go from work. Whilst drowning his sorrows in a beer, plucking up courage to face his wife and toddler, he’s grappled by an old buddy from his more reckless days of youth gone by. Vince is an ex-con, but he seems to mean well. Hey, one more beer for the road … Enter Colin and Violet, the couple with a serious agenda for fun. Yup, there’ll be plenty of tears before bedtime. Tears of laughter, tears of pain.

Cheap thrills, indeed. Such a witty, bang-on title. This modestly-budgeted, well-paced morality tale has more stings than a fierce wasp, and the buzz is well-deserved. I can’t stop thinking about how fucking good this movie is. Sure, it’s far-fetched, but, and here’s where the script and direction jump in bed and roger hard, Katz and his small cast nail the dialogue and scenes with a furious bam! Thunk! Crack!

Vulgar and gruesome (oh yes, I winced, grimaced, and gagged), Cheap Thrills is the most reckless, hilarious, twisted night you’ve had in a long time. Leave your sensibilities at the door, grab a bottle of top-shelf tequila, prepare to be knocked to the floor.

 

Cheap Thrills is courtesy of Madman Entertainment, many thanks!

To Live And Die In L.A.

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USA | 1985 | Directed by William Friedkin

Logline: A Federal Secret Service Treasury agent becomes recklessly obsessed with bringing a dangerous counterfeiter to justice after the criminal has his older agent partner murdered.

This was the quintessential 80s cop thriller; fast-paced, action-packed, violent, and profane, but more importantly, unpredictable, uncompromising, and that Wang Chung soundtrack. William Friedkin was back on the streets delivering the other side of the coin to his seminal NYC cop thriller, The French Connection, and it’s vibrancy holds steadfast.

Director Michael Mann tried unsuccessfully to sue Friedkin for ripping off his Miami Vice concept, but apart from the torrid urgency and a throbbing synth soundtrack, Mann was clutching at straws. Sure, Miami Vice was slick and provocative, but it was television; it simply wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous or volatile as Friedkin’s adaptation of Gerald Petievich’s incendiary novel.

William S. Peterson’s performance as treasury agent Richard Chance is blistering. He’s a determined asshole, treats his informant girlfriend like shit, and throws tantrums whenever something doesn’t go his way. But somehow the audience cares for him, or at the very least we want him to succeed. Willem Dafoe as his nemesis, the cool, calculating, creepy Eric “Rick” Masters, is a deadly creature. Furiously talented, both as an artist and as a counterfeiter (the montage sequence of Masters making the fake paper is brilliantly authentic), Masters is also a hit with the ladies, and he treats them real nice.

Chance’s new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) is the nervous type, but he’s up for the mission, and it’s a crooked trail they’re on. As it turns out these boys are well above the law, and they’re up to their eyeballs in bureaucracy. It’s as if the City of Angels is treating them like Lucifer’s little helpers. Masters is always one step ahead, and they’re falling behind.

The fiery palette is courtesy of masterful cinematographer Robby Muller, and much of his location camerawork is astonishing. The extraordinary car chase scene that ends up with Chance driving down a motorway the wrong way has to be seen to be believed; Friedkin actually gives his own amazing car chase under the railway from The French Connection a run for its money! Meanwhile the sweat pours from the actors, and perspiration builds like a film over the audience.

But there is a curious subtext at work through the movie; a homoerotic element. In fact there are numerous gay/lesbian references not only in dialogue, but also imagery, not usually seen in such highbrow Hollywood fare. In many of Friedkin’s movies his characters display a misogynistic streak, yet conversely his movie Cruising was heavily criticised for his strange treatment of the New York underground gay scene, and yet Friedkin's earliest lauded movie is the gay stage adaptation The Boys in the Band.

Friedkin always casts his movies superbly. There’s great support from Dean Stockwell as a cigar-chomping lawyer who represents Masters, but also ends up giving advice to Vukovich when things start getting really sticky. Debra Feuer as Masters bisexual lover Bianca, Darlanne Fluegel as Chance’s ill-treated girlfriend, John Turturro as Carl Cody, another of Chance’s thorns, and Michael Greene as Chance’s doomed first partner Jimmy Hart who falls prey to Master’s henchmen, “Buddy, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

There is a fantastic, yet utterly shocking twist which occurs in the movie’s last quarter. The movie's denouement caused the producers to panic and they demanded Friedkin shoot an alternate ending. Friedkin complied, but threw it out before the picture was locked off; he was never going to accept such a cop-out.  Friedkin explained that the nature of the movie and the way the characters are behaving it was obvious the original ending was very likely to occur, and it is one of the many reasons why To Live and Die in L.A. resonates so potently. It takes no prisoners.

The Thing

USA | 1982 | Directed by John Carpenter

Logline: A scientific research station in the Antarctic is infiltrated by a xenomorphic alien life-form that steadily consumes and imitates each member.

John Carpenter’s brilliant re-imagining of Howard Hawk’s The Thing from Another World (1951) is without a doubt one of the greatest modern horrors ever made. It is a masterpiece of escalating dread, atmospheric density, and a visceral intensity that is truly spectacular.

Although it performed poorly on its initial theatrical run it went on to garner an extraordinary cult following, and these days it is considered by many as a classic of its kind, especially in the science-fiction/horror camp, and, like another masterful example, Alien, little of it has dated. The uncompromising elements that made it difficult for audiences to deal with back in 1982 are now considered its strengths. It is with few peers, certainly in its practical effects, with Bill Lancaster’s terrific screenplay following the original source material much more closely than Hawks original B-movie (which is why, technically, it’s not a remake).

Based on the novella Who Goes There? by John Campbell, it’s a gripping and increasingly disturbing account of a highly intelligent alien life-form trapped in an inhospitable environment, attempting to ensure its own survival. As the movie’s tagline described, “Man is the warmest place to hide.” To the humans trying to deal with the incomprehensible the creature is seemingly a parasite, with astonishing capabilities. It absorbs its “prey” completely, then swiftly changes to mimic exactly the life-form it just consumed. When the movie opens the alien is mimicking a husky (unbeknownst to the audience), and has escaped from the ruins of a Norwegian research station with two surviving members in hot and desperate pursuit. The Americans rescue the dog with no idea of the horror they’ve brought into their fold.

Interestingly there are no female characters in the movie, there is no sexual tension, heterosexual or homosexual, there is none of the distractions that are often found in other horror movies. The closest thing to a female is the computer voice that is playing opposite MacReady - Kurt Russell in a career performance - at movie’s beginning. “Checkmate,” she tells him rather coolly. MacReady responds by pouring the remainder of his Scotch into her air vent causing her to short circuit. Ironically, it’s this aggressive, cold attitude that keeps MacReady alive in the latter stages of the movie. But only just.

The rest of the cast are all excellent, especially Donald Moffat as Garry and Wilford Brimley as Blair. Ennio Morricone composed an unusual, highly-evocative electronic score, providing further ominous edge to the atmosphere of distrust that permeates the ice station and its hapless team. But special attention goes to Rob Bottin (only 23-years-old at the time) who created the ingenious special effects make-up designs. These horrific, outlandish depictions of the alien in various states of being and change are arguably the best prosthetic and animatronic effects of the 80s (alongside Tom Savini’s work on Day of the Dead). Carpenter had the savvy to put a significant amount of the budget aside for the special effects. It may have alienated a large part of the movie’s unsuspecting audience at the time (apart from us horrorphiles who were squealing with delight in the cinema), but over the next decade Bottin’s work wasn’t just being singled out for being authentically repulsive, but for being genuinely astonishing.

The Thing is claustrophobic and nerve-wracking, a masterfully suspenseful study of paranoia, steeped in cosmic dread, and its ending is suitably - and bravely - saturated in dilemma and dark speculation. The alien was trying to escape, but has it? Will it? Has it infiltrated either of the two survivors? Both men are wary of each other, as they pass the bottle of whisky between their frozen fingers; “If we’ve got any surprises for each other, I don’t think either one of us is in much shape to do anything about it.”

The Addiction

USA | 1995 | Directed by Abel Ferrara

Logline: After a gifted philosophy student is accosted and bitten on the neck by a strange woman she struggles to understand the ethical complications of her affliction and an overwhelming bloodlust.

This is the vampire tale for the intellectually-anemic; soul food for the hungry undead. An existential study of vampirism juxtaposed against the social degradation and moral corruption of humanity. This is a primal headfuck; horror turned on its head to question just what it is that makes humans so evil … It seems we commit evil because we are evil.

Abel Ferrara has had a checkered career; for every great movie there have been miscarriages and interminable diatribes. The Addiction stands up with a clutch of intense and lingering studies of violence and corruption, both moral and physical; Ms .45 (aka Angel of Vengeance), King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, and The Funeral. These are Ferrara’s best works. The Addiction, however, is his most abstract and poetic, both in visual style and thematic weight.

Kathy Conklin (Lili Taylor, in a startling, frightening performance) is completing her doctorate at New York University. She has been attending lectures and viewing harrowing footage of atrocities in the Vietnam War and the Holocaust. She works diligently on her dissertation and discusses philosophy with her colleague Jean (Edie Falco). When glamourous Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) pulls her down under the sidewalk to give her a vampire’s kiss her whole world is turned upside-down and inside-out.

Kathy is both horrified and fascinated by what she’s become. She’s a vampire contradiction; no fangs, no transformation into a bat, no sleeping in a coffin, yet sunlight hurts her eyes, her strength is enhanced when she’s well-fed, and she can’t commit suicide.  She is forced to murder in order to drink the blood she craves. This of course challenges everything she has learned about humanity.

The Addiction is metaphor. We are essentially creatures of desire, capable of transgressing will and restraint and resorting to base acts of rape, murder and possession; we will continue to consume with greed and pillage without remorse regardless of what history has taught us. The screenplay by Nicolas St. John (Ferrara’s long-time collaborator) is a brilliant treatise; verbose, yet minimal, dense, yet spare. The movie is littered with anachronism and rhetoric, irony and reflection (although Kathy soon covers all her mirrors).

Ferrara has deliberately shot the movie in high contrast black and white to tone down the sensationalist aspect of vampirism: the blood, yet he heightens the xenophobic element, the racial undertones. Many of Ferrara’s movies deal specifically with religious and social constraint and inner, spiritual emancipation. Just like another hardened New Yorker, Martin Scorsese, Ferrara is compelled and tortured by his own Catholic guilt. It is this potent element which embraces Kathy and provides the narrative with its supernatural denouement.

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Christopher Walken plays Peina, whom Kathy tries unsuccessfully to lure for food. It turns out he is one in the same, although he’d beg to differ. He has been fasting for forty years - a vampire sage - ready to dispel any confusion Kathy is feeling, keen for her to suffer until she comprehends exactly what she is and what her addiction means. She tries to slit her wrist, and Peina simply informs her, “You can’t kill what’s already dead.” Walken is only on-screen for ten or so minutes, but he commands with such disquieting authority, it’s up with his very best performances.

The play of light and shadow on the streets and inside the architecture of New York is manipulated and used to both subtle and powerful effect; fantastic work from Ferrara’s often-used cinematographer Ken Kelsch. Also notable is Joe Delia’s brooding subterranean score, which contrasts with the moody hip-hop on the streets. This is the most ghastly and beautiful vampire movie since Murnau’s German Expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu, indeed a rare and handsome beast.

“In the end, we stand before the light and our true nature is revealed. Self-revelation is annihilation of self.”

Lost Highway

US | 1997 | Directed by David Lynch

Logline: A jealous musician seemingly murders his wife, the psychological consequences of which plague him so severely he suffers a psychogenic fugue.

 “Dick Laurent is dead.”

Whatever conclusion you arrive at, there’ll still be several pieces that don’t fit the puzzle, and that’s just how David Lynch and co-screenwriter Barry Gifford want it. This is the dark side of the road, the section of gravel between the hot asphalt and the ragged grass; this is the black magic hour. Fire walk with me and I’ll show you the way inside the Black Lodge.

Indeed, Lynch has confirmed that the world of Twin Peaks and the world of Lost Highway are one and the same. It is in this world of false beauty and genuine evil that Fred (Bill Pullman) and Pete (Balthazar Getty) and Renee and Alice (both Patricia Arquette) exist. It is also the same underworld where Mr. Eddy and Dick Laurent (both Robert Loggia) dwell. And the same limbo where the Mystery Man (Robert Blake) floats and asks the question, “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Lost Highway operates like a supernatural film noir dream. Of course, this can be said of most of David Lynch’s movies. He hates to explain them, instead offering vague, often cryptic, explanations, or more precisely clues. If Lynch hadn’t become a film director I’m sure he would have made a great illusionist. Of course he paints, and his ciné palette is one of the most alluring of contemporary American filmmakers.

David Lynch dislikes documenting events on video, preferring to remember the moment and recollecting in his own way, not necessarily the way it happened. This is the essence – or at least one of the essences, for Lost Highway has many off-ramps – of the movie. Identity becomes blurred just as memories implode. Circumstance becomes crucial, yet remains elusive.

Lynch described his movie Eraserhead as “A dream of dark and troubling things.” An apt description for For Lost Highway of which he simply calls “A psychogenic fugue”; which is a dissociative order where an individual forgets who they are and embarks on a new life. Their perception and elements of their consciousness are impaired and if they recover they almost never retain any memory of the fugue period.

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Lost Highway is packed full of loaded symbolism, metaphors, clues, narrative booby traps, and probably a couple of red herrings for good measure. The narrative relies almost exclusively on the mise-en-scene, and the plot plays second fiddle. There is definitely a prologue and an epilogue, and significantly the ending and the beginning aren’t necessarily the finish and the start. Lynch loves toying with time and space, and his most curious movies indulge in this without compromise: Eraserhead, Dune, Twin Peaks television series, Mulholland Drive, and more recently Inland Empire.

There is a jarring garish quality to Lost Highway, an aesthetic that I liken to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. They are very different films, but they command with a similar raw energy; very designed, very deliberate, creepy and grotesque, sensual and provocative. They both glide across the same strange carpet. But while they both court surrealism Lost HIghway beds down with the bizarre.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack Torrence visited the Black Lodge as well.

The soundtrack – music and sound – is always imperative in a David Lynch movie and joining Angelo Badalamenti’s dreamy score are moody songs from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, Lou Reed, and Marilyn Manson. The call girl dances with the Devil in the pale moonlight. Be careful what you desire … and whom you trust; some lies are improvised, others were born evil.

 “Dick Laurent is dead.”

Carry Me Back

New Zealand | 1982 | Directed by John Reid

Logline: An old farmer dies whilst on a visit to the city and his two sons decide to smuggle his body back to the property in order to claim their inheritance.

Overshadowed by the roaring success of Geoff Murphy’s anarchic road trip, Goodbye Pork Pie, John Reid’s gentler comedy of errors, released a year later, is almost a forgotten Kiwi gem. It’s an altogether more affectionate tale of camaraderie, mishaps, and the search for acceptance, and though it shares with Murphy’s movie a taste for the absurd, it’s less obvious, less rambunctious, a comedy that doesn’t try so hard.

It’s set in a time “Back in the days when blokes were blokes and sheilas were their mums.” And although the old bugger, T.K. (Derek Hardwick) and his sons, Arthur (Grant Tilly) and Jimmy (Kelly Johnson) appear to be floating in a 1950s Marlborough, South Island, farm homestead, its very much a late 70s/early 80s time period once the three men catch the Picton ferry to Wellington to attend the Ranfurly Shield rugby match.

Athough there are two key female characters, both of them wonderfully portrayed by Dorothy McKegg (Aunty Bird) and Joanne Mildenhall (girl – her name never given), Carry Me Back is more male-centric, and has a great time poking fun at blokey tradition and bravado. The script is based on a story by Graeme Cowley, the movie’s cinematography and producer, and the screenplay is by Reid, actor Keith Aberdein, and Derek Morton. It crackles along with some terrific dialogue, and, in the movie’s most unexpected scene provides Tilly with a moving monologue to his dead father seated beside him in the car as they make the home stretch to the farm.

The city of Wellington hadn’t been captured with such character and charm in a feature before (much of it doesn’t exist anymore!), and a who’s who of the then local stage and screen edge their way into the story; Frank Edwards, Michael Haigh, Brian Sergent, John Bach, Fiona Samuel, Peter Tait, Alex Trousdel, Ian Watkin, Katy Platt, Kate Harcourt, Tony Hiles, Marshall Napier, Joe Mustapha, and Bruno Lawrence as a motorway traffic cop. Director Reid makes a cameo as a country coffee trap, and Lee Tamahori was boom operator!

Carry Me Back is a classic old-style comedy, and as such the movie’s title carries a play on words. It’s a caper flick, quirky moments rear up, but the real charm is less intentional, as the movie is very much a date-stamp, and in many ways is more interesting, even fascinating, now than it was at the time of its release. The fact that so many reputable stage actors (several of them no longer with us) are in the cast is a rarity now as we living in an age where actors train specifically for screen.

I grew up with the movie’s poster gracing our dining room; the risqué image of the sexy topless stripper (Angelique Meyer)’s nipples covered by rugby boot studs an adolescent distraction. The scene where Arthur pulls her g-string off, only to be denied the flash of the merchandise as the lights go out, is one of the movie’s comedy highlights. Carry Me Back is just that, a cheeky, mischievous tease, but one that ultimately satisfies without trying too hard.

NB: In the last couple of years of my father’s life I tried unsuccessfully to get a DVD release to include an audio commentary from him (Tilly) and director John Reid reflecting back on the making with their usual entertaining repartee.

Bad Blood

New Zealand/UK | 1981 | Directed by Mike Newell

Logline: The true story of Stanley Graham, a poor farmer, who shot dead seven men during a WWII arms surrender, then hid in the surrounding bush land, whilst a manhunt was launched.

Despite the B-movie title this is a highly competent production with a compelling narrative and excellent acting. The movie is based on the book Manhunt – The Story of Stanley Graham by Howard Willis, and was written for the screen by Andrew Brown. Englishman Mike Newell was given the director’s chair, and is often the case when an outsider directs a movie in a country not of their own they pick up on local nuances, idiosyncrasies and foibles a local director might oversee.

Newell’s career would go on to greater artistic heights and commercial success, most notably Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco, but he’d been directing British television and the odd feature since 1964. Bad Blood is a much under-rated study of small town prejudice and the thin ice of vengeful violence. Stanley Graham (Jack Thompson) was a ticking time bomb, whose wife Dorothy (Carol Burns) fanned the flame that lit the fuse.

The West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand is the setting; a prehistoric-looking landscape of harsh hinterland and a rugged mountain range known as the Southern Alps. The small farming community of Koiterangi, Kowhitirangi, was rocked to its core when Graham, an embittered man, and his paranoid wife, find the pressure of being ridiculed by the locals all too much. When an acquaintance of Graham’s, who happens to be part of the local constabulary, tried to enforce the surrender of Graham’s rifles, the farmer loses the plot.

Several police arrive at Graham’s cottage to seize his weapons and Graham opens fire killing three men. He panics and flees into the bush. Later he tries to get back into his house, but it’s been commandeered and subsequently he is badly wounded by gunfire. His wife and two kids are left to fend for themselves. Despite his savage reaction, there is a universal empathy with the cruelty set upon Graham and his family.

Jack Thompson delivers a powerhouse performance as Graham (which he acknowledges as one of his finest films). Also of very high calibre in the acting department is Martyn Sanderson as Les North, a farming colleague of Graham’s, and Carol Burns, as Graham’s hardened wife Dorothy. Mind you, almost the entire cast is a who’s who of the then top shelf Kiwi stage and screen actors; Michael Haigh, Donna Akersten, Marshall Napier, Ken Blackburn, John Bach, John Banas, Alan Jervis, Dulcie Smart, Miranda Harcourt, Dorothy McKegg, Bruce Allpress, David Copeland, Ian Watkin, Peter Vere-Jones, Desmond Kelly, and Kelly Johnson (who starred in the international Kiwi success Goodbye Pork Pie). Many of these actors are from my home town of Wellington, which makes me curious as to why my father, who’s acted with all these people, wasn’t cast.

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In 1990 a similar event occurred also in the South Island of New Zealand, in a small fishing community near Dunedin called Aramoana. A lone gunman – also unhinged, but much more so – went berserk and killed thirteen people before eventually being gunned down by the Special Tactics police marksmen (back then called The Anti-Terrorist Squad). The crime shocked the country, just as Graham’s murderous spree did back in 1941. A dramatisation of the Aramoana massacre called Out of the Blue is a well-made movie, but a more speculative perspective, whereas Bad Blood is ultimately a more honest portrayal of a similar crime that shook an otherwise quiet, peaceful country.

Smash Palace

New Zealand | 1981 | Directed by Roger Donaldson

Logline: A former Grand Prix driver and obsessive auto mechanic resorts to desperate measures in order to maintain custody of his young daughter after his wife walks out on him and takes his close friend as her lover.

Roger Donaldson would go on to direct the excellent Hollywood political thriller No Way Out, but his second movie is my favourite New Zealand feature. There’s a spare momentum that drives the narrative, and a deep sense of melancholy that permeates the characters. It also happens to be filmed in a region very close to my heart; near Mt. Ruapehu in the volcanic plateau of the North Island.

The "Smash Palace" of the title refers to a massive, sprawling auto cemetery (in reality the legendary Horopito Motors); a junkyard owned by Al Shaw (Bruno Lawrence) who lives there with his French wife Jacqui (Anna Jemison) and their 8-year-old daughter Georgie (Greer Robson). A mate Tiny (Desmond Kelly) helps out in the main garage, while local police officer Ray (Keith Aberdein) is Al’s drinking and snooker pal.

Jacqui, however, is not a happy woman. Al doesn’t pay her enough attention, too absorbed in his vehicular tinkering. He’s got an important upcoming race and he wants his beautiful machine in perfect condition. So Jacqui finds interest elsewhere; Ray, to be precise. Al takes things badly.

With a stunning score by then-popular Kiwi songstress Sharon O’Neill and beautiful cinematography from Greame Cowley - the opening scene is brilliant; (the gaffer, Stuart Dryburgh, would go on to become the best cinematographer New Zealand’s ever seen), Smash Palace captures a lingering sense of rural loneliness that becomes a subtle metaphor for the breakdown of Al and Jacqui’s marriage and the alienation that threatens Al’s sanity.

The screenplay, co-written between Donaldson, Peter Hansard and Bruno Lawrence is tight and effective balancing scenes of emotional fragility, lighthearted frivolity, and when the moment serves, intense drama. There’s also a surprisingly erotic sex scene, and in the movie's most disarming scene, an equally frank moment of full-frontal nudity from Lawrence (Bruno was never shy about getting his gear off for the sake of a good story).

Apart from the powerful thematic elements to the movie, it is the central performances of Jemison and Lawrence that give Smash Palace such resonance. There is chemistry between them, even if it’s already dissipating from movie’s start, and you genuinely feel Al’s frustration and rage, as well as Jacqui’s own frustration and anguish. Caught in the middle are Georgie and Ray. Not to forget young Margaret Umbers amusingly irritating, brief role as a hysterical pharmacy counter girl whom Al takes hostage.

A curious aside: In New Zealand there was a division; the police, and as a separate law enforcement body, the traffic cops. The fuzz were in blue and white cars and the “coffee traps” (as my father used to call them) were in black and white. Eventually they merged as one long arm of the law.


Wake In Fright

Australia/USA | 1971 | Directed by Ted Korcheff

Logline: An English Outback teacher on route to Sydney finds himself trapped and out of his depth in a small township, caught up in the local pastime of drinking, gambling, and aggressive hospitality.

Based on a blistering first novel by Kenneth Cook written in 1961, with an excellent screenplay from Evan Jones, and helmed by the man who would direct the under-rated Rambo movie First Blood, Wake In Fright is a descent into a Dante’s Inferno of temptation and ridicule; a Dionysian-tainted nightmare where a naïve, mild-mannered man is forced to learn a few hard truths about the darker side of his own psyche.

It’s a terrific-looking picture, with stunning cinematography from Brian West (the opening 360-degree pan is a knockout), superb location shooting in Broken Hill (for all the exterior scenes set in the fictional township of Bundanyabba), and expressionistic editing from Anthony Buckley. The casting and acting is all top-notch: Gary Bond as the hapless English teacher, Donald Pleasence as his nemesis, Jack Thompson (in his feature debut), and Aussie legend Chips Rafferty (in his last movie). There’s also memorable support from a myriad of other actors, including the hilarious monotone receptionist (Maggie Dence), the beer-guzzling hotel proprietor Charlie (John Meillon), and a brief exchange from Outback legend Jacko Jackson as a truck driver (“Ya mad, ya bastard!”)

With his earnest intent on rendezvousing with his Bondi surfer girlfriend John Grant (Bond) is inadvertently thrust into the dark heart of the Aussie machismo machine affectionately called the ‘Yabba. It’s a crash-course odyssey in Two-Up and West End tinnies, a listless and toey woman, a stodgy ‘roo breakfast, broke as a bicycle seat, and surrounded by the ever present stinking hot, filthy, dust-laden long arm of Murphy’s Law.

The dialogue crackles with a ferocious authenticity, but it can now be appreciated as a fantastic date-stamp of a different era (6.30pm closing time for starters). Still, the key themes are timeless and universal, and the kangaroo hunt is just as confronting and shocking, despite the disclaimer at movie’s end stating emphatically that the kangaroo scenes were legitimately staged hunts by professional marksman.

Savage ‘roo hunt (and boxing) aside, Wake In Fright is a sensational dramatic-thriller and seethes with cult status, standing alongside Nic Roeg’s Walkabout and Peter Weir’s Picnic At Hanging Rock as Aussie desert gems. How the original negatives ended up in a Pittsburgh bin marked for destruction is crazy! Thankfully, after Anthony Buckley's discovery and lengthy negotiations with the American rights owners of the original film materials, they were shipped back to Australia to be held at the National Film and Sound Archive, which is where the 2009 digital restoration took place.

Wake In Fright was titled Outback in the States, with the only other difference being an early morning scene where Bond has his gruts on instead of being totally starkers. It's a bona fide Australian classic. Yes, technically a co-pro, but it's most definitely my favourite piece of Ocker cinema. 'Struth mate.

Burning Man

Australia | 2011 | Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky

Logline: A young father struggles to keep his job, his various relationships, and most importantly his sanity from falling apart as he deals with a personal crisis.

Grief can do terrible things to a person. It is also a powerful emotion capable of transcendent healing. Love can do wonderful things to a person. It is also a dangerous emotion capable of blurring one’s vision and causing irrational and reckless behaviour. Cinematic narrative is an extraordinary device, capable of transporting a viewer on a roller coaster ride of intense, exhilarating, and soul-wrenching feelings and emotions.

Tom (Matthew Goode) is an ex-pat English chef working in a successful Sydney restaurant near the beach, Sydney’s most famous beach in fact, Bondi. He is both driven and highly-strung. He has a young son, Oscar (Jack Henly), who he loves dearly. He also has several women in his world, some he likes, some he dislikes, some he loves, and some he just fucks. To say he’s a womaniser would be too easy a label. Let’s just say he’s complicated.

Tom has a beautiful wife Sarah (Bojana Novakovic), but there is trouble in paradise. Burning Man is Tom’s tale; a tale that wags like a dog, swishes like a cat, and is sometimes tucked between his legs. Tom is burning the candle at both ends and the wax is splashing on his skin. He is crying out. As the tagline says, “Don’t go so far out that you can’t find your way back.”

Jonathan Teplitzky also wrote the screenplay. This is his third feature and it’s easily his most accomplished work. It pulsates with a dramatic vitality and dynamic sense of narrative adventure. The key element is the non-linear narrative, this is what makes Tom’s story so compelling, so intriguing, and so satisfying to watch. Like a puzzle his joy and sadness pieces together slowly and surely. It’s a sad story, but it is punctuated with a genuine sense of humour.

Movies with such stylised presentation often come undone, or simply fall out of the starting blocks. Burning Man ignites with a ferocious energy and never lets up. Beautiful shot by Garry Phillips it depicts a Sydney not often seen, yet so familiar to those who live here. The performances are dynamite it’s hard to actually single any out; suffice to say that Matthew Goode being the fish far out of water (geographically, that is) triumphs. The cast includes Essie Davis, Rachel Griffiths, Anthony Hayes, Dan Wyllie, Kate Behan, Gia Carides, plus three Kiwis, Simone Kessell, Robyn Malcolm, and Kerry Fox. It’s a striking, talented bunch indeed.

Tom is trying to get himself together and with the help of his friends and the love of his son he might just make it back from the brink. Burning Man is one of the best Australian features of the past decade, blistered hands down, reminding us that it’s not just the story, it’s how you tell it.

Hail

2010 | Australia | Directed by Amiel Courtin-Wilson

Logline: A world-weary criminal is released from prison and reunites with the love of his life, but finds he cannot escape his inner demons, the trappings of crime, and the all-consuming spectre of tragedy.

Hail is the kind of movie that only comes along once in a dark blue moon; a tour-de-force of visual poetry, visceral emotion, and dizzying psychological intensity, yet is delivered in an intimate, but distinctly expressionist style. This is a movie of contradictions and abstraction, a raw and powerful indictment of unbridled love and rage, as out of control and indulgent as it is stripped back and honest. Hail rains down like a force of pure cinema, dramatic and uncompromising.

This is a docu-drama unlike anything you’ve seen before, certainly nothing like this has come out of Australia, and even more extraordinary is that it is the director’s first feature (having worked prior on documentaries and shorts). Basing the threads of his narrative on the stories and life experiences of lead actor Daniel P. Johns (who essentially plays himself) Amiel Courtin-Wilson (just thirty years young, but exuding the directorial maturity of someone much older and wiser) has constructed an awesome picture that deals openly and corrosively with the poison of love and hate, each organic imbibed in different doses.

Shooting on 16mm cinematographer Germain McMicking has achieved some truly astounding imagery especially in the movie’s second half when the mise-en-scene becomes entrenched in Daniel’s grief and wrath absorbing and reflecting as visual metaphor and symbolic motifs. The director favours the use of extreme close-up. One image in particular will haunt me for years to come, I’m sure; that of a dead horse plummeting to earth, the wind buffeting its neck and legs giving the illusion that the creature was still alive and writhing in abject terror.

The performances, that of 50-year-old Daniel P. Johns and his lover Leanne Letch (both of them born on the same day, month and year), are exceptional. Whilst Daniel has had acting experience with Plan B (a theatre group made up of ex-cons) Leanne had never acted before in her life. Their naturalism imbues the movie with an honesty that is profoundly affecting. The movie balances the grotesque with beautiful. Daniel and Leanne live on the fringes of society, and it is the sharp darkness that lurks close to those edges that frequently scratches, and can cut deep, sometimes to the bone.

The source music is inspired, but it is the spectacular sound design courtesy of Robert MacKenzie that pushes Hail into an audio experience league of its own. One doesn’t hear this kind of experimental assault on the senses very often, combined with Amiel Courtin-Wilson and Germain McMicking’s visuals, and the editing of Peter Sciberras, it is truly powerful, and resonates like a dream-soaked-nightmare.

One must surrender to Hail and allow Daniel’s journey of hope and promise that spirals into the darkness and violence of his despair and confusion to engulf and overwhelm you. There is reward; a genuine sense of inspiration from the uncompromised artistry of the director, his muse, and his collaborators. Hail takes no prisoners, let the elements be.