Midnight Movies

Mickey Rourke in his prime.

In this world, creepiness and perversions aren't disorders, they're a presence below the surface of Anytown, U.S.A. Too much effort can be wasted in the attempt to interpret instead of just experiencing another world that is so strange and dream-like, it feels true.

A visual-sound experience rather than a narrative or story, a film that is more about conveying a very specific and powerful mood and atmosphere. A feeling that we are ultimately alone.

Coiled twine, slithering wire, rusty screws and nails, cracked doll faces, stringy hair, grimy nails, red meat, and haunting human actors are just a few elements in these "Howdy Doody Meets Kafka" short stories. Also included, is a tribute to Jan Svankmajer, who is a major, if not the most important, influence on the Quay twins from Pennsylvania. The Brothers Quay have influenced other filmmakers, as evident in a number of Tool videos.

These short stories have had an immediate effect on my dreams.

General Zod is a total bad ass

This film is an example of how liberal Japanese cinema was, and still is, compared to Hollywood. Far from being a "sexy" movie, but it is a a very sensual one.

Greed and manipulation are just a few ingredients in this very grim tale about the darker side of human nature. Set against the backdrop of war and poverty, Onibaba is more psychological than straight-forward horror.

Suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

A man named Samehada (Ichi The Killer's Tadanobu Asano), on the run from the Yakuza for stealing one hundred million yen joins up with a woman, Toshiko, on the run from her job at her perverted uncle's hotel. The uncle hires an elven hitman with a unibrow, Yamada, to kill Samehada and ensure Toshiko's safe return.

Even tho it seems the viewer is thrown into the fast-paced film with so many characters, they're all well developed and the film becomes very easy to follow.

Sure, the story of a yakuza being chased for stealing money from the gang isn't anything original, but this film has something others don't. Style.

Includes a favorite opening credits sequence.

The oldest existing (and possibly first) full-length animated film.

Based on stories from Arabian Nights, the whole of the film is performed by shadow puppets moved by means of stop motion animation and is tinted a number of different colors so that, at one point or another, it glows with blue, green, orange, or gold.

Figures were cut out of black cardboard with a pair of scissors, and joined movable parts with thread in order to animate them. Amazing, fantastic and highly recommended.

The film that introduced reggae to the U.S. in the early 70's. Soon after, Bob Marley entered the scene and the rest is history. Jimmy Cliff stars as Ivan, who tries to make a hit record and finds he has to sell the rights to have it played on the radio. Ivan finally finds fame after turning to a life of crime.

Very low-budget filmmaking often shows, but its' influence isn't questioned and is even referred to in The Clash song Guns Of Brixton. One of my favorite soundtracks.

Sometimes forgotten performance from De Niro. Some people have never even heard of this film.

Even if you don't know what it all means, even if it's ultimately puzzling and unexplainable, there is a feeling, an emotional response that persists. There is a strange logic to this film. A logic of death, of evolution, of birth. This is the strangest kind of logic that must be felt and seen, instead of pondered.

Action that will leave you dizzy, along with good production, are the main attraction to this mixed bag of zombies, martial-arts, guns, and gore.

The only thing that stops the rating from being higher is the attempt to cram a plot in where it doesn't belong. Although some might get tired of this attempt and switch off after 60 minutes, it's still a fun mix of horror, humor and good old teeth breaking carnage.

Well, of course you can't make a movie about the novel Naked Lunch, so Cronenberg didn't try. Instead, he takes events in Burroughs' life that led up to him writing it. Peter Weller plays Inspector Lee, who may or may not be a sleeping agent for an outfit who may or may not be Interzone, Inc.

The characters Hank and Martin are, obviously, supposed to be Kerouac and Ginsberg. Ian Holm as Frost, is loosely based on author Paul Bowles. Judy Davis is a pleasure to watch. Characters from Burroughs' novels including the infamous Dr. Benway, Kiki, Mugwumps, etc., pop up from time to time.

A combination of Burroughs subversive literature and Cronenberg's venereal imagination and great direction give us Naked Lunch, an analysis of what could happen in a hallucinatory drug use/abuse situation.

Exterminate All Rational Thought. Nothing Is True. Everything Is Permitted.