Ra-di-a-tion

Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it’s bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year! They oughta have ’em, too.
J. Frank Parnell

Repo Man is a 1984 American science fiction, comedy, crime fiction film written and directed by Alex Cox. The plot concerns a young punk rock enthusiast (Estevez) in Los Angeles who finds himself partnered with a jaded agent (Stanton) and is caught up in the pursuit for a mysterious car that might be connected to aliens. Otto (Estevez) loses his job as a stock boy in a supermarket in Los Angeles and spends his evenings in the punk underground before encountering Bud (Stanton) who brings him into the life of professional car repossessing. Meanwhile, a nuclear physicist (Fox Harris) has stolen something dangerous and glowing which he stashes into the trunk of his 1964 Chevy Malibu. The soundtrack is noted to embody the early-’80s Los Angeles punk scene of the time.

Repo Man has the kind of cultural critique that hit almost every area of 80’s American life. However, it had gotten to the point that it became a bit too much. Thankfully, Repo Man’s unpredictable plot, frenzied pace, and delightfully wacky characters, make it a film that is very difficult to resist. The film can sum up 1980s cinema with its goofy effects, rebellious young adults, innovative and creative ideas, and an anti-consumerist message throughout the entire film.

In a comedic sense, Repo Man demonstrates the immaturity of these characters through their interactions with one another. The characters were fully realized but still mysterious and incomprehensible. This made them feel like genuine people and not just characters off a script.

Contrary to expectations, it is very interesting how little Repo Man focuses on science fiction. Aside from a few science fiction interactions and mentions of aliens, most of the film focuses on Otto, Bud, and Lite picking up cars. As a result, Cox uses their interactions to criticize the consumerist culture in the 80’s America.

Although Repo Man did not have the largest movie budget, it did not disappoint. The film was a strange mix made in its time and for its time. However, it surprisingly works despite its rigor. It has something that many films lack, a good and entertaining plot in which Emilio Estevez delivers a powerful role as Otto. It was an original film with an edge of black humor and punk sensibility.

What is Reality?

” Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery and fraud, about lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. No, this is a promise. During the next hour, everything you’ll hear from us is really true and based on solid facts.
Orson Welles

F for Fake is a 1973 docudrama film that focuses on Elmyr de Hory’s accounts of his career as a professional art forger. His story serves as the backdrop for a fast-paced investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art.

The film opens with Welles performing magic tricks for some children while Kodar watches nearby. Welles quotes Robert-Houdin and says that a magician is just an actor. Welles promises that for the next hour everything in the film will be based on solid fact. Welles then continues to narrate different stories throughout the entire film. In the end, Welles confesses that he had promised everything in the “next hour” was true, and that hour had already passed. He admits that the stories that he narrated after that hour were all lies. He apologizes, quotes Picasso’s statement that art is a lie that makes us see the truth, and bids the audience farewell.

The film was incomprehensible, yet quite profound. It’s a multilayered film with numerous stories all happening at once. It was executed in the form of vignette or montage. All the different narratives are interlocked and combined together to create a sort of platform about counterfeit art, forging, and the question of what art really is, and whether it can have any value at all if it can be reproduced. For all its quirks aside, it’s a richly personal work. The film is breathlessly frenzied montage of differing sources that create the overall film.

Overall, F For Fake is a very interesting film that teaches its viewers about counterfeit art, and fakes and forgeries throughout the ages, and how these are related to the experience of creating and interacting with art. The film Explores the issue of fakes through a number of different characters. There were some key innovative scenes that stand out from the rest. F For Fakeis a very unique viewing experience, Orson Welles consistently ropes in the audience and makes them feel like they are part of the documentary.

I’ve Discovered a Goldmine

“What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.” –Mandy Slade

Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 British-American musical drama film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. It is set in Britain during the rock days of the early 1970s; it tells the story of a fictional pop star, Brian Slade. The film stars Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard, Micko Westmoreland, and Alastair Cumming among other actors. It’s the story of the life, death and resurrection of a glam-rock idol named Brian Slade, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Set in 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart is writing an article about the withdrawal from public life of 1970s glam rock star Brian Slade and is interviewing those who had a part in the entertainer’s career. As each person recalls their thoughts, it becomes the introduction of the vignette for that segment in Slade’s personal and professional life. Part of the story involves Stuart’s family’s reaction to his sexuality, and how the gay and bisexual glam rock stars and music scene gave him the strength to come out. Rock shows, fashion, and rock journalism all play a role in showing the youth culture of 1970s Britain, as well as the gay culture of the time.

Todd Haynes’ recount of the glam era is visually rich but a tad too dramatically fragmented. The style is devilishly flamboyant and gleefully indulgent. Todd Haynes’s distinct style of showy costumes and sexuality is on full display in this film. The musical numbers integrate beautifully in the film. The film seemed like a narrative of a sexually free bygone era. It can be said that Velvet Goldmine is also about the emotions and desires attached to the changing times. Haynes’ portrayal of glam rock was as an art form that allowed means of expression for a band of outsiders.

The film can be interpreted as inspired by the life and biography of David Bowie. It is also similar to the way that Citizen Kane narrates a fictional biography.

Just Some Wankers

The movie is based on a popular novel by Irvine Welsh. The movie was directed by Danny Bolye, starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, and Robert Carlyle. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their journey through life. It’s about characters who are tossing away their lives for the sheer reckless hell of it. Broke, unemployed, beyond hope or even apathy, they fill the void any way they can.

The movie conveyed a very raw and genuine portrayal of drug addiction in Edinburgh. Well worth viewing as a realistic and entertaining reminder of the horrors of substance abuse. However, the film does not preach; it allows the audience to wallow in the pain and daringly, in the pleasure of the character’s substance abuse. It is a film that dares to challenge the audience. Trainspotting is not a noble story or even a cautionary story. It is a painfully real and genuine story. It perfectly captured the way drug addiction gave structure and direction to purposeless lives and invokes a breathtaking fix.

Mark Renton’s circle of friends don’t form typical characters that normally elicit sympathy from the audience. Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is a psychotic who finds purpose in violence, while Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) peddles drugs, and Spud (Ewan Bremner) is just unfortunately a loser. However, it’s hard not be fascinated by this assorted collection of colorful character, especially with a cast that burn on the screen, courtesy of an amazing and captivating script.

Music and visuals played an important role in the skillful execution of the film. The combination of visuals and music with the setting of the Edinburgh crime scene can be compared to popular 90s indie cinema films such as Pulp Fiction. Similar to Scorsese and Tarantino, Boyle uses pop songs as rhapsodic mood enhancers, though his own hypnotic style.

The title of the film comes from a scene in the book where the main character, Mark Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, meets an old drunk man in an inactive train station, who turns out to be his friend’s estranged father. The old man asks Renton and Begbie, who happened to be the man’s son, if they were “trainspotting”.

“Straight away he clocked us for what we were. Small-time wasters with an accidental big deal.” –Mark Renton

Kimi no Na wa. (Makoto Shinkai, 2016)

Nowadays, Anime is slowly making its way up the billboard charts. Kimi no Na wa, which translates to Your Name, is a heartwarming Japanese animated romantic fantasy drama film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, produced by Comix Wave Films. The film goes about the story of a typical young highschool girl living in the outskirts of Japan and a boy who ends up swapping bodies with her. The film effectively uses this technique of body swapping to fully unveil the deepest depths of the hearts and minds of both characters, making it such a heart gripping film to watch. Kimi no Na wa is one of the most long-awaited movies of its time, being advertised everywhere in Japan from billboards to convenience stores and retail shops. Part of the confusion people have with Kimi No Nawa is it’s structure. Because Mitsuha exists three years behind Taki, and because the movie randomly jumps between those time periods, the story doesn’t flow in chronological order. Many times it can feel like Kimi No Nawa is purposely leaving out information to trip you up. But all the information you need to understand is actually there. The animation style of the film is very well done, with its incredible attention to detail making it extremely realistic. The theme of Modernization vs. Tradition emphasizes the beauty in details. We are able to see a stark contrast between the lives of the two protagonists in the film. Another beautiful thing about this film is are the traditions and cultures depicted on the screen. There were Shinto traditions such as, serving the Shinto shrine as a maiden or connection between the world and their celestial beings. The way they brought the two characters and worlds through the red string was magnificent. In the Legend of the Red string it is said that those “who are destined to be together are connected from birth by a red thread tied on each of their little fingers.” Which leads to how one can argue that the film’s defining feature is its charming character development. As the two bodies swap in their dreams, one gets to see how they slowly start to develop feelings for each other without even realizing it themselves. This swap opens the characters up to the audience which allows them to fully peer into the minds of the characters. Kimi no Na wa is indeed a masterpiece that may be quite difficult to recreate, because it just manages to find a way to not be cliche and predictable. The bond that the characters share with each other is one that would truly resonate with anyone who watches the film, whether Japanese or not.

Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

In a world where white supremacy has been put into great scrutiny and question, and where literally everyone around the world is fighting for equality, films like Sorry to Bother You become very relevant. An American science-fiction dark comedy that blends conventional comedy with political satire, Sorry to Bother you is about a struggling black man named Cash and how he has to conform to the standards of a white society — to the point where he is forced to use a “white voice” in order to excel in his job. The film is delivered in a light, hysterical, and comical manner, and can be argued to be one of the funniest movies of the year. The goal of the movie is to entertain, but deep within this intention is the satirize the ridiculousness of white supremacy in today’s society. Behind the laughter that the film gives to its audience is the horrific truth of how corporate slavery is advertised as something good for everyone, and that it is important to conform to white standards in order to somehow blend in and make a living. It highlights the issue of inequality among races, and the manner in which this trope is portrayed in the film is quite accurate to how things are in real life for many people. However, if you want to sit down and just have a good laugh at this ridiculousness, then you can go right ahead and enjoy this movie, too, without having to carry the burden of heavy political and sociocultural issues.

My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)

Movies about life hustlers are always interesting, especially with the dynamic of two guy best friends. With them journeying through life together and figuring out their relationship and identities, it makes me think of them as the ‘growing up’ urban versions of Jack and Ennis from Brokeback Mountain. I guess we could view this film as part of a new wave of gay cinema, opening the genre to more character vulnerability and harrowing stories to tell. My Own Private Idaho is considered a significant milestone in the Queer Film movement, and has grown immense popularity especially among queer audiences. The film can be commended for tackling such a taboo (back then) subject in normalizing it in today’s society. While the central protagonists in the movie are prostitutes, the movie surprisingly is not just about sex. What Mike and Scott, movie protagonists, truly want is to be loved and accepted. These characters were scarred and damaged as children to the fact that being queer was not acceptable. However, the film does a tremendous job in introducing the queer genre into modern Hollywood films. The movie itself is invigorating written with such insight which audiences will surely enjoy. The true victory of this film, however is that it is capable of evoking a certain response from audiences and forces people to go beyond their comfort zone by embracing the taboo.

Futureless Things (Kim Kyung-Mook, 2014)

Honestly. So. Lost.

This Korean drama will have you saying (pardon my french). WTF, at just about every scene. It was another eclectic film that does have a deeper meaning (which I get into more later). Other than the weird butt poo happening, I enjoyed the move because of how korean drama films are known to grip and captivate the hearts of their viewers around the world. And Futureless Thing does not drift away from this stereotype at all. This film tackles the current state of modern urban living in South Korea as it is set almost entirely in a convenience store and zooming in on the shifts the workers cover each day. Convenience stores are such a staple in South Korea which makes it even more relatable to the audience. The film does a great job in balancing between the typical art house flick and a relaxing comical movie whose sole goal is to entertain. The humor in this movie is one of its highlights, as it shows the idiosyncrasies in Korean culture. What makes this comedy just something out of this world, though, isn’t just the many different characters and the different situations each of them get into through how they interact with one another, but most of all the scathin socio-criticism that lies beneath the surface. This makes it so that for one to truly understand the depth of the humor, they would have to be familiar with Korean society in order to get all the references. The movie also utilizes the use of music very well, which allows viewers to be fully immersed in the movie. Overall, Futureless things is more than just a comedy with outstanding humor, but the drama and the problems in Korean society depicted by the film make it a highly impressive move that will stick with any viewer for a very long time.

Shin Godzilla (Hideaki Anno, 2016)

Not to spoil, but this may be the oddest Godzilla movie I have encountered. Let’s start off with Godzilla’s final evolution stage/form. His(?) ability to reproduce asexually, and its giving “birth” through its tail to many small humanoid monsters, with long limbs and dorsal spikes. I mean.. what?

We all know of the gigantic, overpowered and domineering tyrant that goes by the name Godzilla. That name has been around for decades and has risen questions like “what if there is a creature hiding deep with in the ocean, waiting to be awakened?” Say no more, this film will take viewers so close to making this question a reality as Shin Godzilla, the 31st installment in the Godzilla franchise, reimagines Godzilla’s origins deep within modern Japan. Shin Godzilla is an idiosyncratic rendition of the ancient monster and can be interpreted as the ‘New Godzilla’, the ‘True Godzilla’, or the ‘God of Godzillas’. In this film, it is the Japanese military’s first time to encounter such a humongous creature like Godzilla. At this point, Godzilla is so unequivocally powerful and inevitable that the only goal of the movie is damage control. However, though the movie seems to be all about a giant monster constantly evolving and destroying whatever is in sight, there is more to this film than meets the eye. Deep within the roaring reptile is a symbol of divine retribution and the sheer consequences that whatever new crises we, as a human race, will craft ourselves. After the Japan Earthquake in 2011 triggered different nuclear reactors, and after the Japanese government’s subpar response to social crises, one can only expect pissed-off Godzilla to show up anytime soon, ready to wreak havoc and humanity pay for their stupidity. Shin Godzilla delivers all these tropes successfully while cleverly hiding it all at the same time, making it one of those movies that require great attention to detail in order to fully appreciate.

Schizopolis (Steven Soderbergh, 1996)

“In the event that you find certain sequences or ideas confusing, please bear in mind that this is your fault, not ours. You will need to see the picture again and again until you understand everything.” This immediately peaked my interest and made me “tune in” per say. The plot, such as it is, is extremely difficult to summarize but any attempt to do so should give the reader some idea of just what they’re up against, a warning they really should be issued with before sitting down to watch this film.

Schizopolis is one of those eclectic, one of a kind narratives that one would not expect out of a typical movie. Though initially confusing to the average viewer due to its non-linear manner in laying out the movie, its redeeming factor is the fact that it is unique and unparalleled in and of itself. The film tackles the issue of a lack of genuine communication that can be seen in societies consumed by advanced technology. Though the issue at hand is one that is cliche, the film takes this cliche and strips it down to its core, emphasizing its importance and relevance in today’s society. While some movies like horror and thriller films are not for the weak of heart, Schizopolis is not for the weak of mind. One can argue that its truest form can only be appreciated by the sharpest of minds, and that not even the most experienced of cinephiles may be able to appreciate the depth of this film. This film pushes viewers to analyze the different facets and dimensions of the satire, which makes it so that is designed only for those who are open minded. This is a kind of film that would be quite difficult to recreate, just how a meticulous piece of artwork would be hard to recreate. However, once one is able to finally grasp the different ideas, themes, and tropes of this film, this seemingly unappealing movie will be waiting to surprise those who are willing to stick through it all.

#Schizopolis #162210