Cult Movies

[limitdeditionlayla]

Welcome to the Cult Movie Club
(proprietors: Adam & Layla, est. 2005)

Anything & everything to do with cult films you can discuss here. What is a cult fim exactly? The best ones? The worst ones? etc etc

[Adam]

Disclaimer: this is a rebirth of sorts of a thread of the same name on Sedaka. Lots of time, photo copy-and-pasting, and plain geek-style bitching went into the posts. So to honor that hard work, I'll be reposting some reviews of mine while thinking of other titles to talk about.

So let's start this off with one from John Carpenter.



This is just pure pleasure, folks.
Sure, the martial arts choreography isn't up to snuff (Yuen Woo Ping or Cory Yuen could've been needed here), and the hair is bad (but this is an 80s film; and its a given), but this is a one-of-a-kind, mixed genre explosion: crazy as hell, funny as hell, sometimes even gross as hell.

As with my post on The Thing, I'll just list what I love here (some spoilers are abound here, to those who haven't seen this:
- Kurt Russell as Jack Burton. What a perverted effort of genius here: take a good-looking, well-built, charismatic actor who would fit well into an action film and make him clownish, ignorant, clumsy. He should be the hero but he's the laughing stock and you love him.
- How the film changes the hero/sidekick dynamic. Because Burton makes an ass of himself throughout the film, the ass-kicking reins are given to Dennis Dun in the climactic battle where he becomes Master of the Flying Guillotine.
- James Hong as Lo Pan. He's another one of these great character actors who has done tons of supporting work. He's a hoot here as the villian: a kabuki-looking demon with powers one moment and a fast-talking, horny old man the next.
- Victor Wong as a tour guide/sorceror. Like Hong, he's been in a bunch a films; the only difference between the two is that Hong is still among the living (I think). Anyway, he's the guy who takes the threat of Lo Pan seriously and manages to be quite an adversary. He's also got some good one-liners.
- The humor. I'm not talking big one-liners per se, but its the rapid-fire delivery by the entire cast that generates the big laughs.
- Lo Pan's bodyguards: Rain, Thunder and Lightning. These three represent quite a threat to the heroes at the beginning. Rain's a sword expert, Thunder's built like a fucking tree trunk, and Lightning has the ability to generate...well, lightning (Mortal Kombat's Raiden is too similar to this guy). And yet their demises are hilarious: Rain gets kabobed by Dennis Dun; Thunder gets REALLY pissed off, expands like a balloon and explodes; and Lightning gets crushed by a statue (well, that's not very funny but his reaction to the falling statue is).

And I think I'll wind it up with some great one-liners, some un-PC, others not:

- "All I know is that this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a goddamn alley while his buddies are flying around on wires cutting everybody to shreds while he just STANDS there waiting for me to drive my truck straight through him with LIGHT coming out of his mouth!"

- Jack Burton: What is that stuff?
Egg Shen: It is black blood of earth.
Jack Burton: You mean oil?
Egg Shen: No, I mean black blood of earth.

Jack Burton: I don't get this at all. I thought Lo Pan...
Lo Pan: Shut up Mr Burton! You were not brought upon this world to "get it!"

Jack Burton: Okay, I get the picture White Tigers, Lords of Death, guys in funny suits throwing plastic explosives while poison arrows fall from the sky and the pillars of heaven shake, huh? Sure, okay, I see Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu and a hundred howlin' monkey temples, and that's just for starters, right? Fine! I'm back! I'm ready, goddammit let me at 'em!

Jack Burton: Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says, "Give me your best shot. I can take it.

[Adam]

Here's another archived post:



Usually when people ask me what I find to be the scariest movie ever, I respond with an obvious (yet understandable) choice: The Exorcist, The Evil Dead or - more recently - Halloween. Yet I somehow keep forgetting this sick fucking puppy of a film. On an estimated budget of $111,000, John McNaughton and some dedicated unknown actors (including Michael Rooker as Henry, who is the only one - as far as I can tell - who has crossed over into the mainstream) made a film so frightning that I don't ever want to watch it again.

It simply follows Henry (based on Henry Lee Lucas, I presume) and two visitors, a fucking asshole cousin by the name of Otis and his sister Becky. After a scene in which Henry and Otis drive around, pick up two prostitutes and fucks them in the car in a nowhere location, Henry dispatches both and Otis rather quickly expresses an interest in accompanying Henry in his exploits. Henry serves as a tutor to dumbfuck Otis, whose approach to killing is too narrow-minded and sloppy compared to Henry's methodical and improvisational strategies. Things get worse when Becky, increasingly lonely, starts to feel for Henry (not knowing at first what he does in his spare time) and Henry gradually expresses mutual feeling (or seems to). This inspires jealously and annoyance in Otis, who has some incestual feelings for Becky.

Much as been said about the sequence in which Henry and Lucas murder an entire suburban family on videotape and the same could be said about any other scene of killing. There is not much gore per se but the choreography and relentless screaming of some of the victims give each scene a sense of realism.
One early scene troubles me as well: Henry and Otis pretend to have car trouble on a highway and when a good samaritian pulls up, eager to help, they shoot the poor bastard.
What's scary here is how these two easily manipulate what are common situations when dealing with other people to make them bloodbaths.
There is also an unnerving scene when Henry is at a mall, looking at various women and you realize he's observing potential victims.
The few scenes between Henry and Becky hint at the empty core of Henry and why he commits murder (some allusions to childhood abuse but he obviously suffers from some kind of brain damage). The film carefully avoids the trap of making him (and Otis) inexplicalbly evil. There is always a reason or explanation but the truth can be a psychological mess.

But I digress. This is, without a doubt, the scariest film ever made and I don't ever want to see it again.

[Adam]

And another:



Also known as the last good J.Lo film, I don't remember this being either finanically successful or critically acclaimed.
Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) gave such a positive review (he included it in his best-of-year list) that, along with its mesmerizing trailer, I had to go see during the summer of 2000.

I was fucking freaked. The dream sequences are nightmarish to the extreme but fantastic. Vincent D'Onofrio's killer is one sick little monkey. The gorier scenes are more implied than explicit. Mark Protosevich's script is terrific, along with its cast. It's director, Tarsem Singh, has a vivid imagination (he previously directed R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion video and I swear, there's a shot in that vid completely duplicated in the film: look for the scene where J.Lo interrogates D'Onofrio at the bathtub near a wall with a window) yet he hasn't directed anything since. I think.

Howard Shore's score owns. Eiko Ishioka's costumes are magnificent, on par with those she created for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Anyway, a wild ride. I've owned the DVD since I bought my player 4 years ago and the film just gets better with each viewing. And it still creeps me out.

[Adam]

And yet another:



Not sure whether this belonged here or not. I know it did badly at the box office (here in the states, at least) despite acclaim and was recovered by the public on video (all too easy for that as well).
Anyway, I visited this again Saturday morning and while watching it I always get the sneaky feeling that this is still Tarantino's best film. It had the misfortune of coming after Pulp Fiction (and it was unfair of the masses to expect something exactly like that behemoth) and wasn't as fucking crazy. Colorful cast of characters: check. Wonderful, monologue-like prose with excellent doses of profanity: check. Complex but easy-to-understand plot with flashbacks and forwards: check. High body count and gore: uh-oh. Gratuitious drug use scenes: double uh-oh (despite Fonda's constant use of bongs, which are tame). No John Travolta: triple uh-oh.

What losers.
Along with Out of Sight (released a year later), this is the finest Elmore Leonard adapation (Rum Punch; terrific read by the way).
And what would a cult review by me be without a goofy list of highlights:

- Pam Grier. She's still looking fucking foxy and her character is given 2 equally strong attributes: she'll pop a cap if necessary and she's super smart.
- Robert Forester. Sadly, he's dropped out of the limelight again (along with Grier, unless you watch her in The L Word) but he was so fantastic here. So laid back and straight-arrow (but not enough to make you queasy, he's just experienced and world-weary) and as smart as Grier. And these two make a great couple by the way (which the film neither forces or delivers).
- Sam Jackson. Not the most ignorant character (see De Niro entry below) but its such a delight seeing his character get duped in the biggest way. He's funny as hell, says "nigger" way too much and has that terrific scene in the van with De Niro where he just calms down, buries his head in his arm, thinks long and hard and concludes without a doubt that Jackie Brown fucked him big time.
- De Niro in the unlikely casting as the stupidest character in the movie. While Bridget Fonda's beach bunny serves as the catalyst for his actions later in the film, he convincingly goes throughout the entire film with the sole mission of seeming more zonked out than Jeff Bridges' The Dude.
- The awesome soundtrack. Buy it now if you don't already have it. Betcha you'll like The Delfonics afterwards. Case in point: Forester is so smitten with Grier that he buys a Delfonics compilation cassette after she plays a record for him in an earlier scene.

There's other stuff to go goo-goo over but the message is clear: see this if you haven't already or see it again.

"My ass may be dumb, but I ain't no dumbass."

[limitdeditionlayla]

The fact that you choose to post Big Trouble in Little China first really highlights your film-geekiness, Adam

[Adam]

That or I have the hots for Kurt Russell

The ones I've chosen so far were picked for how good/geeky my comments were (so I think). I've been searching through the old board and I noticed how we started off for nearly 20 pages just posting movie posters and the choice film quote.

[limitdeditionlayla]

No, they are good reviews.

[Adam]

Archival:



Still the best of the Max films (Beyond Thunderdome almost was, were it not for that shaky 2nd act).

And kudos to Vernon Wells, who portrayed one of the nastiest thugs:


And who would eventually play the gayest thug:

[Adam]

This 1974 grimy, bloody tale of greed, revenge and loss was, with the exception of Cross of Iron (1977), the last great Sam Peckinpah film. Within the plot, the un-actorly performances, and the downward spiral tone of the film, you can sense how booze began its conquest of Peckinpah, both through his personal and professional life. For the rest of his career, he's make sloppy films, like they're noticeably made by a drunkard. Peckinpah, I've read, was discontent for several reasons but one reason is that he has fought with studios for control of his films all his career, starting with Major Dundee. Some of Peckinpah's best work have been editorially warped during their original theatrical release - The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid - but this was one of the few that came out more or less how Peckinpah wanted it.

It's about how a down-on-luck pianist (Warren Oates) and his girlfriend (Isela Vega) find themselves hunting for the head of dead man, Alfredo Garcia, in exchange for $1 million. It seems the dead man in question, while living, impregnated the daughter of a powerful Mexican. Everyone knows Garcia is dead but while $1 million is being offered, who gives a shit?

Two bounty hunters (Gig Young and Robert Webber) approach Oates in a bar and ask for his assistance. Oates knows that his flame had a previous relationship with Garcia and may be more instrumental in receiving the head. He also knows he leads a shitty, dead-end existence and that all he wants is for he and his girlfriend to escape, marry and grow old together.
Oates accepts the offer, takes his reluctant girlfriend (whose name is Elita, I think) and sets off to find the head. And of course, nothing goes right, as greed and double-crosses set off a body count and an unusual relationship with a head and the man planning to cash in on it yet not knowing if its worth the trouble after all the sacrifices and compromises.

I won't spoil anymore of the plot as the film's power depends on the crucial turning point of what transpires after Oates and Vega find Garcia's body. I've read many reviews that spoil too much yet make the film a must-see but I think a complete lack of knowledge about the 2nd half really makes all the difference. It's a testament to broken dreams and Oates' personal code of honor that really makes up the rest.

I will say that the performances are as great as anything on celluloid. Oates is one of the most underrated actors of the past century and this role can join his in Two-Lane Blacktop as his best work. You can't believe a man carrying on a conversation with a dismembered head can be poignant but Oates sells it. And Vega's portrayal of Elita is the best female character in a Peckinpah film. There's a crucial scene in which the two pull over for a picnic and discuss their future. The topic of marriage pops up and the dialogue ends with an act of improv on both actors' part (according to Kris Kristofferson, who has a brief part as a rapist who interupts the scene) that is one of the most heartbreaking things I've seen in my life.
Whether or not Oates brings the head back to the Mexican heavy is beside the point and that's what makes the film so great.

[phil]

Disclaimer: this is a rebirth of sorts of a thread of the same name on Sedaka. Lots of time, photo copy-and-pasting, and plain geek-style bitching went into the posts. So to honor that hard work, I'll be reposting some reviews of mine while thinking of other titles to talk about.

So ! How's things goin' at the Sedaka Clique
or wathever you guys called your Castaways' splinter group ??

It's a shame our little gang had to split right from the start ...

Oh well ...


I'm not sure how to define what makes a true Cult movie ...

So bad it becomes a classic as in "Reefer Madness" ... ?

So obscure, only you and your buddies know about it ... ?

It depends on who directed it or who acted in it ... ?


Jodorowsky and Arrabal certainly qualifies(IMO) as Cult directors !!

List to follow sometime soon - maybe - !!

[Ampage]

My fave "cult" films (if they are considered cult).

Heathers
Raising Arizona
Wild at Heart
Can't Buy Me Love
Flashdance


And Bridget Fonda was TOTALLY smoking in Jackie Brown.

[Adam]

phil said:

Disclaimer: this is a rebirth of sorts of a thread of the same name on Sedaka. Lots of time, photo copy-and-pasting, and plain geek-style bitching went into the posts. So to honor that hard work, I'll be reposting some reviews of mine while thinking of other titles to talk about.

So ! How's things goin' at the Sedaka Clique
or wathever you guys called your Castaways' splinter group ??

It's a shame our little gang had to split right from the start ...

Oh well ...


I'm not sure how to define what makes a true Cult movie ...

So bad it becomes a classic as in "Reefer Madness" ... ?

So obscure, only you and your buddies know about it ... ?

It depends on who directed it or who acted in it ... ?


Jodorowsky and Arrabal certainly qualifies(IMO) as Cult directors !!

List to follow sometime soon - maybe - !!

Layla herself laid a definition of sorts to what makes a cult film, as opposed to what's a crap film. I think it holds up well, but quite frankly, I'm willing to see what everyone comes up with.

A strict definition of a "cult film" is one which is usually removed from the mainstream (where people like YOU dwell) and popular with a smaller subset of film audience. So clearly, we're not talking Titanic. Or even Pulp Fiction.

But many crap films have garnered a hardcore fanbase (eg. "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood". I love it but its crap), so what sets CULT apart from CRAP?

Several factors come into play with cult films. Low budget. Poor box office takings (even better - NO box office takings - straight to video is cult gold). A director with a devoted following. Unknown actors, or sometimes washed-up actors. An outrageously ridiculous plot. A melding of several genres in the most ostentatious fashion. Major quotability factor & at least one character or scene that is instantly recognised as being iconic.

Most importantly, the good (and bad) cult film will have something that no film before it has had (like Glen or Glenda) or will improve/pervert on what came before (Rocky Horror).

[Adam]

All of your fav cult films are definitely cult, Ampage. Nice.

[phil]

"Flashdance" is a Cult Movie ... ??