Too Many Movies: Let's Dispense With The Dates For Now

This week, Matthew Brady took himself a gulp of the Antichrist while Joe McCulloch dallied in the fields of Electra Glide In Blue all so that Tucker could sit and spit with Werner Herzog down in sunny Port of Call - New Orleans.

Antichrist
Lars Von Trier is a weirdo, 2009
Matthew J. Brady

SPOILERS!

Lars Von Trier hates women, or so goes the popular refrain. That's debatable, but he certainly has a knack for putting them through some awful shit in his movies, whether they do it to themselves or have it inflicted on them. So what to make of this bizarre film, an apparent attempt at pre-made controversy full of over-mysterious, pseudo-mystical, semi-psychological smoke-up-the-ass blowing, graphic sex, bodily mutilation, and actually pretty incredible imagery? The more one ponders it, the more it seems that he's just stringing together some shocking scenes with a bare-bones plot that leaves enough unexplained to seem deep, but there's really no there there. Still: there's some amazing visuals, starting from an opening scene shot entirely in super-slow motion of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg fucking while their toddler gets out of bed, wanders to an open window, and falls to his death. It's enrapturing and horrifyingly beautiful, enough to make the viewer sit through the rest of the nonsense. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to go but down from there, as Dafoe, a psychologist, starts treating his wife's depression, determining that she's afraid of something and eventually embarking on a therapeutic retreat to a remote wilderness cabin where he puts her through meditation exercises and she initiates lots and lots of frantic sex. It's all pretty explicit, with penetration shots and everything, but it's not sexy in the slightest, mostly because Gainsbourg's bony ass makes it seem like Dafoe is fucking a refugee from Auschwitz. And then there's the reveal that she's batshit nuts, penning some sort of thesis/manifesto that determines that various crimes against women throughout history were all merited and was torturing their son and let him die on purpose. So when her husband finds out, she does the natural thing and knocks him out during sex, masturbates him until he ejaculates blood, drills a hole through his leg, weights him down with a grindstone, and cuts off her clitoris with a pair of rust scissors. What? Yes. That all actually happens, and it's not like it's possible to blink and miss it. So, yeah, Dafoe kills her, and the movie ends. Von Trier!

This is all pretty much bullshit, maybe Von Trier's way of saying, "You think I hate women? Well check this shit out, fuckers!" There's some unexplained mystical nonsense involving constellations, magical animals, ghosts, and who knows what else, but it's all a bunch of feces-flavored fluff piled on top of that clitoris scene, which was certainly the whole point of the movie. Still, there's some gorgeous cinematography here, the forest full of lush greens, shots of twisted branches that look like they could be scrawled slashes of ink on paper, acorns that resemble blue marbles for some reason raining down from the roof of the cabin, and a bit involving a deer with a miscarried fawn dangling from its hindquarters. Is it worth sitting through Von Trier vomiting up weird, stupid shit in order to piss people off? In a word? No. But I say watch it anyway, so you can brag at parties and be shunned by polite society. Victory all around!

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
His Soul's Still Dancing, 2009
Tucker Stone

Originally appearing in what had to be the greatest film trailer of all time, whose arrival had been prepared by the greatest remark about one's predecessor of all time (that being when Herzog admitted he had no idea who Abel Ferrera was, nor seen any of the man's films), The Bad Lieutenant--don't forget about that all-important "The" in its title--is neither sequel nor remake, although one won't miss the multiple points where this film bumps into the Harvey Keitel original. In place of religion, we have humor and lizards, and in place of Keitel's hideous, bodily fluid covered performance, we have Cage, and you can be forgiven for the hot flashes of memory that course through the veins throughout. This is the Cage of old--think Raising Arizona in energy--combined with the Cage of Face/Off, which remains the high water mark in terms of sheer bizarro Cage-ian weirdness, the indisputable rejoinder to that hammy shit he does in Leaving Las Vegas. Whatever it is that convinced the man to ignore any attempt towards subtlety, bottle it and sell it, because this is the sort of onscreen performing that everybody should be doing.

On the page, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (try to figure out the pauses) is a boring bad cop film interspersed with some out-and-out brilliant moments of weird dialog and black humor. In the hands of Herzog, who uses a Tarantino/PTA style follow shot for no good reason beyond obsessing over a few pictures in a busted up tenement house, jiggling the camera as if a plane is landing in the living room, the film is undoubtedly stranger and more compelling, sure. But it's Cage and the Herzog regulars (Brad Dourif & Michael Shannon) who make the film work, all of them performing as if they've crossed-over from another universe, one where human beings use talking only after wild-eyed staring and physical gestures have failed them. Fairuza Balk seems to get the picture that escapes Xzibit and Val Kilmer--this isn't about real people, it's about guts and alien emotion, and no amount of flirtatious dialog will get her point across as well as throwing her foot up on the bumper of Cage's car, pumping her crotch at him, mistaking his hunger for crack as lust, all while a live alligator stares at the body of (we assume) his dead mate's leg, flapping in the wind. One romance ended, another begins, even though Cage never gets it up when the time comes. Imaginary iguanas, lucky crack pipes, breakdancing ghosts, and filthy, filthy sex: pistol grip pumped, on my lap at all times.

Electra Glide in Blue
Directed by your eldest uncle, 1972
Joe McCulloch

This one gets better on multiple viewings, until all it takes is those opening images of leather & steel fading into dead sepia and American myth to bring right snap to mind your favorite cane-waving coal belt purple Democrat, nursing a blunt and reminiscing about cops pulling you over just to point out a dead headlight or dumping a drunken kid off at the front door ‘cause they don’t want to deal with him. “They still do that sometimes,” it’s said, eyes directed toward Robert Blake as the summary of believing in wise police authority, of knowing there’s hard, solid rules, good & bad, rightful distinctions on wheels with virile guns, yet somehow... Cowboy Individual, because, paradoxically, they believe in true legislated order. Most of the cops in this movie are full of shit, which is appropriate; the heaviest law and order types in my life have always been the first to caution me that there’s some real fucking thugs out there with badges. That, friends, is the picture here, the shits in power prompting the opposition to seal their break forever, and oh woe, oh yes, we’re born to kill now. That’s where the America sung about over the closing credits was cut down the middle, goes this parable, and there goes the righteous sitting in the road, receding into idealization. Some people call this a counterculture movie. Fuck that - it’s the final episode of Dragnet. Just keep that in mind and you’ve got all you need, right up though That Ending, which can easily seem awesome or ridiculous on literally any given viewing, though we all know it’s both.

-Matthew J. Brady, Joe McCulloch, Tucker Stone, 2010

Comments

[Tim O'Neil]

Good call on Antichrist. It gets even stupider when you realize that the amorphous non-plot is probably supposed to be some sort of take on the Omen / Rosemary's Baby, where the kid was the son of the Devil (cloven feet didn't fit right in shoes!) and his death was actually good. Or something. And then the witches' coven kills Defoe in the last scene. It hurts.

However, I did see a fun T-shirt recently - a pic of the talking fox from the film with the "Darkness reigns" legend underneath, which says that the film is already reaching some degree of hipster cachet based on its mystifying, impenetrable awfulness.

[Mario M.]

The "Oh yeah" guy was fucking amazing.

[Matthew J. Brady]

I believe it was "chaos reigns", but yeah, I wouldn't mind that shirt, just because nobody I ever met would have any idea what it means.

[NoahB]

That's a great review Matthew. I have never seen that movie, and now probably never will, but the review brightened my day.

[Nathan]

Good reviews.

also damn how did I miss that Bad Lt. trailer?