Top Ten Films: 1997

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  1. The Sweet Hereafter
  2. Boogie Nights
  3. Happy Together
  4. Jackie Brown
  5. Grosse Pointe Blank
  6. Taste of Cherry
  7. L.A. Confidential
  8. Fireworks
  9. Henry Fool
  10. The River

Honorable Mentions: The Hanging Garden, The Ice Storm, Nowhere, Princess Mononoke, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion

For My Watchlist: The Butcher Boy, Gattaca, The Life of Jesus, Public Housing, Xiao Wu

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During this great transitional year (got my BA from Marquette, moved across the country to attend grad school at Boston University), The Sweet Hereafter was a revelation. Already drawn in by all of its glowing reviews, I saw at the Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee when home for Christmas break with a friend whose motivation to watch it with me was solely due to its enigmatic poster. As eye-opening as anything I’d seen in my first semester of studying film, I watched all of Atom Egoyan’s previous six features within the next six months. Briefly a candidate for 24 Frames (I ended up writing a little about it in my essay on star Sarah Polley’s own film Stories We Tell), it still stands (along with 1994’s Exotica) as Egoyan’s peak, the place where all of his obsessions coalesced into one of the best book-to-film adaptations of all time.

Paul Thomas Anderson went on to direct at least five features I’d rank above his second one, Boogie Nights, but what a breakthrough, the real fulfillment of auteur-driven studio pictures that Pulp Fiction promised a few years earlier. To express the visceral charge of being in love with cinema and also being able to back that up with the level of your craft is still a rare accomplishment; perhaps due to its length, I don’t revisit it as often as I should (speaking of Tarantino, Jackie Brown, in my mind his last great film until Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, also applies here.)

While making my way through the Wong Kar-wai box set a few years ago, Happy Together, which I hadn’t seen since its original release was the nicest surprise, intriguingly looking forward to his masterpiece In The Mood For Love; Henry Fool, rewatched in late 2023 when nearly all of Hal Hartley’s work was streaming on the Criterion Channel is by far the best of that trilogy (and maybe his last great work?) Grosse Pointe Blank and Romy and Michele remain solid comfort-food watches (I suspect L.A. Confidential would as well); I should also revisit Taste of Cherry since I now understand its cryptic ending (on first watch, my reaction was, “Wait, what did I miss? It just… ends, like that?”) As for Tsai Ming-liang’s long-unavailable The River, at this writing it’s streaming (with commercials!) on something called Plex which may be my best option to see it again (not holding out for hope for a public screening on 35mm anytime soon.)

Somehow, I never got around to The Butcher Boy or Public Housing despite having numerous opportunities to do so (I might’ve taped the latter, one of Frederick Wiseman’s marathon-length documentaries off of PBS at one point.) Hoping to see Xiao Wu soon in kicking off a chronological watch of Jia Zhangke’s back catalog inspired by his latest, Caught By The Tides.

La Plaza

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In my last photo essay, I alluded to the unexpected passageways one tends to find in Palm Springs.

While not fully “hidden”, this courtyard in La Plaza is the kind of place one is more likely to stumble upon than actively seek out (or at least this was the case for me.)

Built in 1936, La Plaza was one of the earliest outdoor shopping centers although it doesn’t really resemble what we think of when hearing that term today.

While some of La Plaza is street-facing (particularly the titular block linking Palm Canyon and Indian Canyon Drives), I was more fascinated by the interior section of its southern half.

Along this corridor sits both commercial businesses and residences housed in white stucco buildings flanked by cascading pink flowers.

No chains at La Plaza; only homespun establishments.

Perhaps its most distinctive architectural features are these pine green, cut-out palm shutters.

Walking through here is like traveling back in time to a set from a classic Hollywood film or at least Ann Miller’s art-deco apartment complex in Mulholland Drive.

The L-shaped corridor as seen from its entrance opposite from the one in this essay’s first photo.

Walking along the street-facing section of La Plaza itself one can’t help but notice this giant rooster parked near L’Atelier Café.

Near the northern half of La Plaza sits The Plaza Theatre, which is currently closed for renovations.

A partial birds-eye view of La Plaza from the top of an adjacent parking garage–those shutters are a dead giveaway.

Top Ten Films: 1975

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Dog Day Afternoon

Time for a new occasional feature! Enhanced by the increase in movie watching at home I’ve undergone in the past five years, I’ll pick a year from the last century (not in chronological order), list my ten favorite films, a few honorable mentions and five titles I haven’t seen but want to watch. Kicking this off by turning back the clock to my birth year—1975’s often seen as a nadir of pop culture, but as a possible refutation, look at this list:

  1. Monty Python and The Holy Grail
  2. Dog Day Afternoon
  3. Nashville
  4. Grey Gardens
  5. Night Moves
  6. The Passenger
  7. Picnic At Hanging Rock
  8. Fox and His Friends
  9. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
  10. Smile

Honorable Mentions: Jaws, Jeanne Dielman, Mirror, Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

For My Watchlist: The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, At Long Last Love, A Boy and His Dog, Cooley High, The Story of Adele H.

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Of course Monty Python and The Holy Grail would always end up my number one given the impact it had on my film vocabulary but Dog Day Afternoon is a close second. I revisited it about two years ago and noted that anyone looking to make a heist picture or a character study should retain all of it for future reference. Al Pacino should have also won the Oscar that year (Jack Nicholson, winner for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest arguably gave a worthier performance in The Passenger, possibly my favorite Antonioni after Red Desert) and the film’s handling of his character’s fluid sexuality is decades ahead of its time.

Nashville could’ve also been a serious contender for #2 but unlike Dog Day Afternoon, I haven’t seen it in nearly two decades. I could also stand to revisit Grey Gardens although I’m staunch (S-T-A-U-N-C-H!) in the feeling that I could remember it by heart. Night Moves, a more recent first-time watch was nearly Royal Tenenbaum, PI and I hope it’s becoming more widely seen given Gene Hackman’s recent passing. May Michael Ritchie’s perceptive beauty pageant satire Smile achieve the same status once Bruce Dern inevitably kicks the bucket.

Some may scoff at Rocky Horror’s inclusion but I’ve come to appreciate it as a genuinely good film with great music and iconic performances whose only sin is that it can’t sustain such more-ness all the way through to its somewhat ridiculous final act. It’s certainly classier than the two go-for-broke stinkers Ken Russell (whose other work from this period will likely make some of my top tens!) released this year: the overrated kitsch-fest Tommy and the justly obscure Lisztomania.

Someday I’ll give Sight and Sound grande dame Jeanne Dielman another viewing; I’ve recognized its worth but have also struggled with its endurance-test construction;  I’ll likely check out Francois Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H. first or even Gene Wilder’s directorial debut which I have measured expectations for despite his singularity as a performer.

Downtown Palm Springs

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Last month, I took my first ever trip to Palm Springs, California; it was also my first visit to the state in over 20 years.

The city lives up to its name, although I wasn’t entirely expecting the mountain range right up against its Western border.

I was delighted to see bright pink bougainvillea of the type I’ve only previously encountered in Caribbean locales such as Turks and Caicos.

The city’s downtown has two main streets running parallel; this one is Palm Canyon Drive where a majority of the shops and restaurants are.

The central part of Palm Canyon Drive is dotted with giant, skirted palms.

I was happy to see the city’s support for our Northern neighbors.

The main drag features plenty of mid-century modern architecture along with just as many pricey chain boutiques.

It also has its share of public art; I did not get a picture of the Sonny Bono statue (the city’s mayor from 1988 to 1992) but I did snap one of this pride-themed tribute to former resident Lucille Ball (there’s also a statue of her and at least it’s not an abomination like the one that used to be in her hometown.)

Downtown has its own walk of fame; one that reserves a space for this beloved character actor best known for work in 1940s Preston Sturges comedies (and also for playing “Uncle Charley” on My Three Sons) is my kind of walk of fame.

The other main thoroughfare running parallel to Palm Canyon Drive through the city is Indian Canyon Drive.

It’s less flashy than Palm Canyon Drive, consisting of scattered businesses and hotels but still offering expansive mountain views to the West.

We stayed at a hotel near Downtown off of Indian Canyon Drive and even had great views to the East from there.

Downtown after dark is often as gorgeous as it is by day. Built in 1941, the Welwood Murray Memorial Library is currently a research library for the Palm Springs Historical Society and I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate building physically.

One evening, we walked through this public corridor behind Palm Canyon Drive and stumbled across some more striking public art.

One can stroll down Palm Canyon Drive itself and spot the most unexpected passageways between buildings.

Palm Springs at twilight. Stay tuned for more photos focusing on architecture and other hidden delights around the city.

IFFBoston 2025: Part Two

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DEAF PRESIDENT NOW!

I knew nothing about Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college in Washington DC for the deaf and hard of hearing; nor was I familiar with the 1988 eight-day, student-led protest against the appointment of a non-deaf president instead of two other deaf candidates. Going in cold to a story like this is obviously the most effective way to experience it but the retelling of this incident is so well-crafted that it has that rare potential to enlighten possibly even those who lived it first-hand.

Co-directed by model/activist Nyle DiMarco, who is deaf and David Guggenheim (WAITING FOR SUPERMAN), who is not, DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! similarly feels like a bridge made to represent the deaf community and educate everyone else. While the filmmakers are privy to and make good use of an excess of archival footage of the protest (which occurred at a time when camcorders made such widespread documentation possible), it’s the modern-day interviews with the four student protest leaders that add context and resonance. Some may question the addition of voiceovers accompanying the subjects’ signing to the camera when subtitles are also present for a non-signing audience but as a concession to making a more accessible film for that very audience, it’s not a distraction; neither is the elaborate put-a-hearing-person-in-a-deaf-person’s-ears sound design. More important is how the film details this community coming together, especially viewed at an age this removed from an era in which said community was viewed much differently and often detrimentally from the outside.

This is the rare feel-good documentary that’s genuinely inspiring without coming off as cloying while also being informative and entertaining. I don’t often give films 5/5 but by successfully achieving what it wants to do and also through sheer goodwill, this one earns it.

SORRY, BABY

Movies about trauma are tricky to pull off for obvious reasons: how does one express such discomfort, anger, sadness and fear to an audience without alienating them or coming off as a weight that’s too much to bear? Eva Victor, a 30-year-old actress best known for the TV series BILLIONS takes on this challenge not only as a writer/director in her feature debut but also as its star. She plays Agnes, a college professor in a small Maine town (but mostly filmed near Ipswich, Mass.) recovering from a traumatic event whose details are only gradually disclosed. To make such a scenario digestible, Victor infuses the film with a near-caustic humor, dividing in into sections with whimsical titles, gently satirizing such events as an HR meeting with deadpan punchlines and overall gifting Agnes with a persona that leans towards the comedic self-deprecation of a humorist writer like Sloane Crosley or Jessi Klein.

As an actor-turned-filmmaker, Victor is not a revelatory talent such as Greta Gerwig or even the Jesse Eisenberg of A REAL PAIN. Her use of humor doesn’t shy away from the pain Agnes experiences but the muted tone with which she often approaches it doesn’t fully register at times. SORRY, BABY works best when she has a simpatico screen partner to play off of, particularly Naomi Ackie who as best friend Lydie brings warmth but also energy whenever she’s onscreen or the great character actor John Carroll Lynch whose one sequence in the film leaves such an impact one can sense the potential of an entire ancillary feature about his character. The missing-in-action-as-of-late Lucas Hedges also has a small role seemingly crafted to display his natural charm as Agnes’ neighbor. As for Victor, this is a good first effort that mostly works but maybe doesn’t fully live up to the buzz it has received so far. 3.5/5

PEACOCK

Matthias (handsome beanpole Albrecht Schuch) has a most unusual job “renting” himself out to temporarily be whomever one needs him to: whether a friend, son, father or dinner-date companion, he’s a willing blank slate, a cipher who can fulfill any need or role. A great idea in theory but one that has serious complications for his personal life as he can’t stop being whomever anyone wants him to be even when he’s not being asked to perform.

As a zany comedy by design, PEACOCK works best whenever it’s funny; when it tries to aim for something deeper such as pathos, it’s a little wobbly, not fully pulling off the tonal shifts needed to add depth and nuance to Matthias’ plight. Happily, it just ramps up the absurdity in its final act, arriving in a place not far off from Ruben Ostlund’s THE SQUARE, only arguably more inspired (give this to Schuch, he totally commits to the bit.) This won the audience award for Best Narrative feature at IFFBoston this year, which I did not expect but can see why: for all it does to explore the consequences that come from being a likable cipher, the film’s likability (and humor) is perhaps its greatest asset.  3.5/5

HAPPYEND

A terrific sight gag and a newfangled high concept alone do not make for a wholly satisfying narrative from writer/director Neo Sora (RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: AN OPUS). Set in the near-future (though low budget enough that one may not discern this from sight alone), high school students are subject to a Big Brother-esque AI surveillance following a prank that happens to coincide with a series of minor earthquakes portending fears of an upcoming major one. The quieter, more casual moments between childhood best friends Yuta and Kuo suggest Sora has at least learned something from the films of Kore-eda, if not how to economically tell a story. Albeit an interesting mix of humanist drama and slightly absurdist satire, HAPPYEND is less notable for its accomplishments (the sight gag is pretty inspired, after all) and more for what it could have been. 3/5

IFFBoston 2025: Part One

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Another IFFBoston, another eight movies seen. My reviews of the first four.

CAUGHT BY THE TIDES

Jia Zhangke (MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART) will never run out of ways to explore rapid change in 21st Century China or roles for his muse Zhao Tao to excel in, thank god. His latest partially distinguishes itself from previous efforts by literally going back to them, incorporating scenes and outtakes from UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002) and STILL LIFE (2006) along with newly-shot footage to track how much China and, in particular, the Northern city of Datong has reconstructed itself between then and now in part due to the Three Gorges Dam project that the 2006 film centered on.

Using the same actors (Tao and Zhublin Li) and reediting the earlier footage (with help of some intertitles that refashion the earlier stories to relate to the current one), CAUGHT BY THE TIDES is stitched together in a way that often brings attention to its manipulation of time and space for those familiar with the earlier work, although those new to the director’s oeuvre may not even pick up on this. It’s an approach that risks confusion, but that actually might have been Zhangke’s intention. After all, time rarely travels in a straight line; the immersive, collage-like soundtrack which spans copious genres and traditions (East and West) amplifies this sense of impermanence and might be the director’s most ambitious and striking use of music to date. I now want to go back to revisit his strange, rich filmography to see how he arrived here and ponder where he might go next in detailing this world forever in flux. Rating: 4.5/5

PAVEMENTS

Where to begin with PAVEMENTS? Is it a vehicle meant to document the famed 1990s indie-rock quintet Pavement as they reunite and rehearse for a 2022 tour? A biopic of the band casting the likes of Joe Keery and Nat Wolff to play lead singer/songwriter Stephen “S.M.” Malkmus and guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, respectively? A behind-the-scenes account of the making of said biopic? A look at a stage musical about the group from its conception to its premiere? Footage of the opening of a halfway-reverent museum exhibit of copious artifacts/detritus related to the band?

Of course, the resultant ambitious collage is all of these things and many more. Supposedly, when director Alex Ross Perry (with his first feature since 2018’s HER SMELL) signed on to make a movie about the band, he was given carte blanche to do what he wanted and encouraged not to make anything resembling a traditional overview. He certainly understood the assignment as the final product is equal parts THIS IS SPINAL TAP and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, but that dual-comparison only scratches the surface of everything going on here.

This isn’t an approach one could use for every musical act but it is the exact right one for Pavement, who arguably never became household names because they were just too sardonic, too drenched in irony, too much willing to be a shambles rather than a dependable, accessible outfit (all of this in the long run benefiting them artistically if not commercially.) There’s footage of Malkmus referring to the band as “the slacker Rolling Stones of the ’90s” at that time, which ends up more apt a description than I could ever come up with. Appropriately, as a genre-bend, PAVEMENTS is a bit of a shambles and ideally for those-in-the-know. Still, there’s so much that’s inventive and exciting about it (especially in how it captures the band’s time and more importantly, how it shows their impact reverberating over time) that it at least gives off the impression it’s willing to reach for the unconverted in spite of itself. 4/5

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT

Documentaries where the subject is terminally ill are always a tough sell; the people behind this one, chiefly director Ryan White (ASK DR. RUTH) seemingly go out of their way to dispel this impression, highlighting the film’s humor in the face of impending tragedy. Of course, with a subject like poet/activist Andrea Gibson, it would be disingenuous to oversee or even ignore how funny they are in day-to-day life, an intriguing counterpart to archival footage of them intensely performing in poetry slams and one-person shows onstage. It’s not a disconnect but more of a revelation as to how our public and private personae inevitably contrast with and also complement each other.

Gibson’s ovarian cancer diagnosis in their late 40s provides the premise for White following them and their partner, Megan Falley, mostly in and around their cozy Colorado home. Laugh-out-loud conversations about such not-profound activities as fingering and obscure word choices (“octopoidal”?) are given the same weight as the spectre of death that can’t help but color everything; to do so with such intimacy and candidness endears Andrea and Megan to us considerably. Their portrait is one of life not as a series of big moments but as something given inspiration and meaning by all the random, casual ones that naturally occur in the act of simply living. While a little slick for my taste at times (particularly the score and some editing choices), I can’t deny how genuinely effective and moving this is as a whole. 4/5

THE KINGDOM

Opening with a scene so shocking and visceral that you’re best off not expecting the filmmakers to even try topping it (and they don’t), this story of a Corsican crime family set in 1995 is business-as-usual as these things go–lotsa scenes of attacks, retaliation and hiding out from both the enemy and the police. At the center is 15-year-old Lesia (Ghjuvanna Benedetti) who has mostly been shielded from the action until she’s reunited with her crime boss father, Pierre-Paul (Santucci). This relationship is the only interesting facet here and the film’s second half is better for devoting more focus to it (particularly in some tender, nuanced exchanges between Benedetti and Santucci.) Alas, the rest is mostly unmemorable, though I did note that when Benedetti cut and bleached her hair to disguise herself, she suddenly, uncannily resembled a young Aimee Mann (but without the braid.) 3/5

Mix: The Edge Of The World

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I won’t ever stop making annual playlists but going forward, I’m hoping to curate one of newish songs every three months or so (if I were more ambitious, perhaps this could end up a monthly thing.)

Looking at 2025 thus far, it’s not entirely coincidental that two of my most played new tracks have titles that contain the words giving this playlist its title: newcomer Brooke Combe’s sharp retro-soul and the latest from Destroyer which in the tradition of 2022’s ”June” smashes together a ridiculously catchy hook with near-stream of consciousness lyrics (“My life’s a giant lid closing on an eye”, okay, Dan.) Elsewhere, fellow weirdo Bartees Strange folds something approaching Yacht Rock into his ever-unclassifiable genre-blend, FKA Twigs agreeably harkens back to the moodier stuff off of Madonna’s Ray of Light and nearly 50-year-old postpunk collective Mekons is still kicking with the anthemic “Mudcrawlers” (whose quality bodes well for their forthcoming LP Horror.)

The Tubs’ effortless jangle-pop and Perfume Genius’ venerable art-pop also make welcome returns, each previewing solid albums that may make my year-end top ten; so does Doves, who follow their 2020 reunion with an even better dive into psychedelic textures and sonics on Constellations For The Lonely, here represented by the expansive lead track “Renegade”. Empire of the Sun and Lindsey Buckingham make for natural compadres as much as Robert Forster and wife Karin Bäumler do on the uncommonly jaunty, Lovin’ Spoonful-esque “Strawberries”. 

I’m still tickled that even in this cynical age, a great novelty like Joshua Idehen’s cheeky, spoken-word “Mum Does The Washing” can still emerge from the seemingly endless interchangeable dross one has to wade through (algorithms be damned) in uncovering refreshing new music. It nearly lends credence to the relief that this playlist’s title contains the word “edge” and not “end”.

The Edge of the World:

  1. Japanese Breakfast, “Orlando In Love”
  2. Brooke Combe, “Dancing At The Edge of the World”
  3. Bartees Strange, “Sober”
  4. The Tubs, “Narcissist”
  5. FKA Twigs, “Girl Feels Good”
  6. Perfume Genius, “It’s A Mirror”
  7. Twin Shadow, “Good Times”
  8. Lucy Dacus, “Ankles”
  9. Morcheeba, “Call For Love”
  10. Doves, “Renegade”
  11. Sam Fender, “Arm’s Length”
  12. Empire Of The Sun & Lindsey Buckingham, “Somebody’s Son”
  13. Mekons, “Mudcrawlers”
  14. Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Pyramid Scheme”
  15. The Weather Station, “Mirror”
  16. Beirut, “Guericke’s Unicorn”
  17. Sharon Van Etten, “Trouble”
  18. Robert Forster, “Strawberries”
  19. Joshua Idehen, “Mum Does The Washing”
  20. Destroyer, “Hydroplaning Off The Edge Of The World”

MISERICORDIA

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Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) clearly belongs to an extended lineage of Alain Guiraudie protagonists: craggily handsome, somewhat sexually ambiguous, a laconic wanderer, an irritant to many who come into contact with him. However, unlike the others, he’s not as passive or seemingly befuddled—rather than letting everything happen to him, he takes a decisive action that carries real consequences for his surrounding community even if the person most deeply affected by it ends up being himself.

Returning from the city of Toulouse to an isolated forest village for the funeral of a baker he once worked with, Jérémie’s invited to stay on by the baker’s wife, Martine (Catherine Frot), much to the consternation of her married son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand) and something approaching indifference (but not entirely) from neighbor Walter (David Ayala). It takes time to figure out how everyone knows each other with only traces of what their past dynamics were. About a half-hour in, Jérémie takes that decisive action; from there, the film turns into essentially a dark comedy as he repeatedly makes up stories about what happened, only for other characters to do the same including an older priest (Jacques Develay) whose motives to protect Jérémie are, shall we say, less than pure. It all becomes a sort of “Looney Tunes RASHOMON”, to borrow a phrase from Errol Morris’ 2010 documentary TABLOID.

As usual with Guiraudie, the environment influences the tone (in this case, the autumnal hues of a forest that manages to seem both inviting and quietly menacing.) The film’s rhythms also develop organically with a heightened focus that looks like a course-corrective to the everything-and-kitchen-sink approach of his inferior last feature, NOBODY’S HERO (2022). While not as ingenuous as STAYING VERTICAL (2016), this is funny and surprising enough to render any claims of Hitchcockian influence irrelevant (if anything, it’s closest to an atypical film from that director like THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.) In the end, it’s less important whether Jérémie gets away with what he’s done and more how it shifts our perceptions of those around him. Also, look up the meaning of the film’s Latin title and ponder whether or not it’s meant to be ironic. Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Five Turkeys of 1980

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I could write an entire book about why 1980 stands out as a fascinatingly strange year for pop culture—below is something I first posted on Thanksgiving 2013, along with some 2025 footnotes.

1980 was a weird year for pop culture: it desperately tried leaving the 1970s behind though was still not entirely transformed into what we now recall as “Eighties”. It did produce as much great, timeless art as any year: Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, Airplane!, Nine To Five, this playlist, etc., Still, one generally senses a temporary lapse in good taste. If you disagree, well, take a look at the following five clips:

1. XANADU

I won’t argue that Xanadu is as “great” a film as, say, The Shining, but compared to the other stuff on this list, it’s fairly benign unless you HATE Olivia Newton-John and roller disco and ELO and Gene Kelly (and would you really want to spend time with someone who hates two or more of those things?) It’s rife with contradictions: a futuristic extravaganza somewhat beholden to ’70s aesthetics and a commercial flop that produced a hit soundtrack. I think what sinks it for some is that it takes itself just a little too seriously while still reveling in its own bad taste.*

2. THE JAZZ SINGER

This “very special happening” (quoted from another trailer I can no longer find) is the one thing on this list that I haven’t seen.** Apparently, film studios of that time were desperate to turn pop singers into movie stars, via Bette Midler in The Rose (if you need another example of a flop, there’s Paul Simon in One Trick Pony.) In theory, the gloriously hambone Neil Diamond should have made the transition as easily as Midler. Unfortunately, he chose what looks like a real stinker, a preposterous, anachronistic remake no one was asking for with a wooden female lead, gratuitous blackface (!) and a rube of a main character who doesn’t know what palm trees are. Oh well, as with Xanadu, at least the soundtrack was a hit.

3. PINK LADY AND JEFF

Long an easy punch line for the inquiry, “What’s the worst television show ever made?”, Pink Lady and Jeff*** has an egregiously bad premise: a variety show starring a female Japanese disco duo (each of whom speak precious little English) and an unctuous American comedian sidekick (who sadly talks too much.) Brought to you by those crazy czars of bad 70s TV, Sid and Marty Krofft, whose Brady Bunch Variety Hour from three years before is officially the Worst Variety Show of All Time. In comparison, this one was almost The Carol Burnett Show, but instead of an ear tug and “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together”, each episode ended with a hot tub party–this clip features a pre-senility Hugh Hefner; I’ve seen another with Larry Hagman and Teddy Pendergrass in the tub, whom with Jeff unintentionally resemble the “stars” of our next selection…

4. CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC

Grease producer Allan Carr’s^ “musical extravaganza that launched the ’80s” (Carr biography Party Animals  is a must-read, BTW) takes the rock-star-into-movie-star approach of The Jazz Singer and lets it run rampant like a bratty child on a sugar high (or an indulgent auteur with unlimited access to cocaine.) The Village People were obviously past their prime by 1980, and you can practically taste the flop sweat dripping off this trailer. The whole project’s  inexplicable, really–watch Steve Guttenberg as the band’s Svengali, a pre-Kardashian, pre-trans Caitlyn Jenner decked out in a teeny tiny t-shirt and daisy dukes and special guest stars Tammy Grimes, June Havoc and The Ritchie Family, all of it directed by Rosie the Bounty Paper Towel Lady. That Can’t Stop The Music got made when disco was already “dead” is a testament to Carr’s chutzpah. Still, it’s almost Cabaret compared to…

5. THE APPLE

The Apple defies any notion of good taste and all logic, for that matter. Like Brian De Palma’s infinitely superior Phantom of the Paradise, it’s a rock-and-roll take on the legend of Faust, only this one’s set in the oh-so-futuristic-dystopia of 1994 and contains more sparkly sequins than even the opening credits of Can’t Stop The Music can manage. There are few words for how awful and bizarre this film is. You won’t know whether to laugh, cringe or hurl stuff at the screen (like audiences supposedly did at a preview screening with copies of the soundtrack album) when viewing any of the musical numbers (thankfully, most of ’em are on YouTube.) Instead of the trailer, I’ve singled out perhaps the film’s most demented (and that’s saying a lot) sequence. “Speed” (or rather, “SPEEEEEEED!”) pushes 1980’s questionable aura to an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink extreme and comes off like an unholy combination of Billy Idol video directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Richard Simmons workout. It could be a lost musical number from another infamous motion picture of 1980, Cruising.^^ In the decades since my first viewing, nothing else I’ve seen has topped it in sheer WTF-ness.

*****

*And yet, my personal rating of Xanadu rises just a bit on every rewatch—a time capsule for sure, but an intriguing one.

** Still haven’t!

***For more on Pink Lady, check out this Decoder Ring episode.

^ Also infamous for the 1989 Snow White/Rob Lowe Academy Awards fiasco, Carr’s delirious if dubious legacy is further preserved by the 2017 documentary The Fabulous Allan Carr.)

^^ I’ve since seen Cruising, and it is definitely worth seeing if only for Paul Sorvino asking Al Pacino if he’s ever been “porked”.

Mix: Mysteries

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Some mixes are tossed off in a week or two (or one particularly obsessive evening); others take much longer to finish. I started this one on a Greyhound bus bound for Manhattan in late April 2006 and completed it nearly six months later for a friend’s birthday. Since then, I’ve played it often, mostly on road trips and before bedtime.

I wanted to craft something that would be ideal for listening to after dark, preferably in the wee, deep hours of the night. I thought back to the 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM shift I worked as a residence hall desk receptionist in the summer of ’95; I also remembered when I used to drive all over Milwaukee at night just to listen to music in the car. My working title for this mix was “Subterranean”, which I thought aptly described the groove I was going for: moody, subdued, hypnotic, chill.

“Lullaby” is a suitably mystifying minute-long snippet from The Wicker Man soundtrack (the original, not the negligible Neil LaBute remake); here it’s a prelude, an opening theme song. “Dress Up In You” gently fades in from some seemingly secret, special place, and so it goes, its indie pop bleeding into The Zombies’ chamber psychedelia, Luscious Jackson’s stretched-out jam barely separate from Brian Eno’s momentous crawl, the quietly dramatic, a Capella finale of VU’s “Jesus” giving way to Stereolab’s blips and bleeps. While some mixes are aptly just that—a true blend, all over the map—here I aimed for something coherent, a simmering whole with more flow.

I was in no rush to finish it, knowing I had the time. I’m glad I let it gestate; otherwise, I never would’ve included the title song, which I owned but barely noticed until it appeared, quite strikingly, in the French film Russian Dolls; nor would I have ever heard the Space Needle song, which popped up at the last minute in an episode of Veronica Mars. The final track, “Spoon” also re-entered my consciousness via a movie soundtrack. It carries a little jolt that’s somewhat out-of-character for the mix, but I get excited every time it comes on—it’s a respite, a diversion, a space to suddenly awaken after nearly dozing off.

Mysteries (October 2006, CD-R):

  1. Magnet, “Lullaby”
  2. Belle and Sebastian, “Dress Up In You”
  3. The Zombies, “A Rose for Emily”
  4. Calexico, “Crumble”
  5. Sun Ra, “Space Loneliness”
  6. TV On The Radio, “A Method”
  7. Luscious Jackson, “Take a Ride”
  8. Brian Eno, “The Big Ship”
  9. Kings of Convenience, “Summer on the Westhill”
  10. Nancy Sinatra, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”
  11. The Velvet Underground, “Jesus (Closet Mix)”
  12. Stereolab, “Metronomic Underground”
  13. PJ Harvey, “The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth”
  14. Space Needle, “Never Lonely Alone”
  15. Laura Nyro, “Billy’s Blues”
  16. John and Beverly Martyn, “Auntie Aviator”
  17. Animal Collective, “Loch Raven”
  18. Beth Gibbons and Rustin’ Man, “Mysteries”
  19. CAN, “Spoon”