CULT PROJECTIONS

Welcome to my parlour said the spider to all the flies! Yes, this is where you’ll get all sticky as you find yourself bewitched and entranced by my personal selection of CULT MOVIES; films which have lingered long and hard in my mind and in my dreams. I trust you’ll find most of my movie reviews, and directors’ oeuvres, more than a little alluring, tickling your cinematic sensibilities, toying with your artistic morals, caressing your screen desires, and exhilarating your movie experience. I’m opinionated, colourful, witty, (more. . .)

South Korea | 2003 | Directed by Chan-wook Park

Logline: An ordinary man is kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, then suddenly released, confused and bewildered, only to be informed he must find his captor in five days.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.”

Adapted for the screen from a Manga comic, Oldboy is a tour-de-force of cinematic storytelling, a stunning darkly poetic vision of identity and revenge. It is not for the prudish, nor is it for the squeamish, as it burns (more. . .)

USA/France | 2005 | Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

Logline: A ranch foreman honours the final Mexican burial wishes of his murdered best friend and makes sure the man responsible, an arrogant and reckless Border Patrolman, is held accountable.

It’s curious how a respected actor decides he needs to try his hand at directing, gets a feature made, and never makes another, even though his efforts are incredibly impressive. I can think of three great examples, all of them dealing with violence, alienation and the troubled soul: (more. . .)

Sweden/Denmark | 1998 | Directed by Lukas Moodysson

Logline: Two teenagers – an unhappy girl with a secret crush on the cute popular girl  – find themselves the centre of attention, much of it very awkward.

Writer and director Lukas Moodysson had been writing serious poetry for years before finally turning his hand to telling stories for the screen, but his deft hand at inspired irony, lyrical imagery, wry nuances, and delicate juxtapositions of desire, both metaphorical and literal, have been transferred superbly to the language (more. . .)

Spain | 2007 | Directed by Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza

Logline: A television reporter and her cameraman are trapped inside an apartment building along with two firemen, two policemen … and a bloodthirsty virulent disease that is spreading amongst the residents.

A low-budget horror that twists the zombie conventions on its head and delivers a tour-de-force of shock tactics amidst the pseudo-realism of a mock-documentary, [REC] (the in-camera abbreviation for “recording”) is part of a swag of fantastic Euro-horror that has emerged in recent years, and has won (more. . .)

UK/USA/Australia/Japan | 2007 | Directed by Anton Corbijn

Logline: The story of Ian Curtis, the singer of seminal UK indie band Joy Division, whose personal and professional troubles lead to him committing suicide at age 23.

“When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low.

And resentment rides high, but emotions won’t grow.

And we’re changing our ways, taking different roads.”

It was inevitable that a biopic would be made on the short life and even shorter career of one of the most important English bands to emerge from the debris (more. . .)

Hungary | 2006 | Directed by György Pálfi

Logline: Three generations of dysfunctional men; a lusty, flame-sucking soldier, an obese, champion extreme eater, and a ratty embalmer on an artful perversion.

The themes of copulation, consumption and preservation are studied in perverse, visceral and controversial detail in one of the most outlandish and exceptional tales of a family’s history ever to grace the screen. This is no Fanny and Alexander, although, magic realism does intervene from time to time, Taxidermia is a much darker and more desperate, yet is (more. . .)

Australia | 1996 | Directed by Megan Simpson Huberman

Logline: A couple struggling to make a relationship work wake up one morning to find each trapped in the other’s body and the struggle to relate to friends and work becomes a comedic nightmare.

This is the kind of comedy Hollywood would never make. They dabble close with the premise of a much older character waking up inside a younger version of themselves (Big, Suddenly Thirty, 17 Again), or swapping bodies with an older family member (Vice Versa, 18 (more. . .)

New Zealand | 1981 | Directed by Mike Newell

Logline: The true story of Stanley Graham, a poor farmer, who shot dead seven men during a WWII arms surrender, then hid in the surrounding bush land, whilst a manhunt was launched.

Despite the B-movie title this is a highly competent production with a compelling narrative and excellent acting. The movie is based on the book Manhunt – The Story of Stanley Graham by Howard Willis, and was written for the screen by Andrew Brown. Englishman Mike Newell was given the (more. . .)

USA | 1978 | Directed by John Carpenter

Logline: An escaped psychopath returns to his childhood neighbourhood, terrorising and killing several people whilst his doctor desperately tries to warn the local sheriff of the killer’s intent.

“Black Cats and Goblins and Broomsticks and Ghosts
Covens of Witches with All of Their Hopes,
You May Think They Scare Me, You’re Probably Right,
Black Cats and Goblins on Halloween Night . . .
Trick or Treat!”

For nearly three decades Halloween was the most profitable independent feature ever made (excluding the porn feature Deep (more. . .)

Brazil | 2005 | Directed by Andrucha Waddington

Logline: The plight of a woman, and her feisty daughter, over the span of nearly sixty years, as she tries in vain to adapt to a life in a desolate landscape of shifting sand dunes.

This is a stunningly realised character study of mother and daughter, juxtaposed against a harsh, unforgiving, yet beautiful geography that reflects and absorbs the personalities of the lead characters; a meditative terra cosmos. It feels like it’s based on a richly-etched novel (echoes of (more. . .)

UK | 2009 | Directed by Duncan Jones

Logline: A harvesting contractor who is working alone on the moon, and keen to return to his wife and baby daughter, is badly injured, so the earth-based company tries to rectify the situation, but a glitch has occurred with alarming results.

Moon joins the ranks of District 9; an intelligent, superbly made movie set in a disturbing future of industrial automation and conglomerate greed. District 9 can be viewed as sci-fi (being an action-horror movie), whereas Moon is classic sf (being based around (more. . .)

USA | 1982 | Directed by John Carpenter

Logline: A scientific research station in the Antarctic is infiltrated by a xenomorphic alien life-form that steadily consumes and imitates each member.

John Carpenter’s brilliant remake of Howard Hawk’s B-movie The Thing From Another World (1951) is without a doubt one of the greatest modern horrors ever made. Up with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Day of the Dead, Halloween, and, of course, Alien. It is a masterpiece of escalating paranoia, increasing atmospheric density, and spectacular visceral intensity. When it was first (more. . .)

Hong Kong | 1995 | Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Logline: In an urban nightscape the lives of a contract killer and his agent working at a distance, a drifter searching for her ex-lover, and an eccentric mute vying for attention in outlandish ways, all cross paths.

Amidst the big neon glitter, the cluttered, claustrophobic alleyways, the towering architectural sheen, and the strangely lonely bars and cafes, five lost souls clamber and mumble, peer and glance, laugh, cry, perspire, and ponder. They dream of love and desire; of connecting (more. . .)

Italy/France | 1973 | Directed by Marco Ferreri

Logline: Four wealthy and successful middle-aged men, in contempt of their lifestyles, move into a plush villa and proceed to overeat until they expire.

There’s not a straight forward translation for this exceptionally uncompromising display of gastronomic, erotically perverse and scatological self-indulgence. In Italy it is called La Grande Abbuffata, which translates roughly as The Big One Eaten like a Pig, while in the rest of Europe, America and Australasia La Grande Bouffe is interpreted as The Big Blow-out (“Bouffe” (more. . .)

“My films deal with a stylized, expressionistic world that has a kind of grotesque beauty about it.”

Brian De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey, USA, on September 11^th, 1940 to Italian-American parents. Citizen Kane was one of several movies that had a profound impact on him and he subsequently changed his university major from physics to film studies. Whilst at Sarah Lawrence College he had the privilege of being taught by Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Warhol, amongst others.

De Palma was one of the original (more. . .)

USA | 1995 | directed by Abel Ferrara

Logline: After a brilliant philosophy student is accosted and bitten on the neck by a strange woman she struggles to understand the ethical complications of her affliction with the bloodlust of the addiction.

This is the vampire tale for the intellectually-anemic; soul food for the hungry undead. An existential study of vampirism juxtaposed against the social degradation and moral corruption of humanity. This is a primal headfuck; horror turned on its head to question just what it is that (more. . .)

UK | 1986 | Directed by Bruce Robinson

Logline: It’s 1969 and two disheveled, unemployed London actors decide to spend a rejuvenating weekend in the country only to have their escapade turn into a series of embarrassing incidents and disasters.

Quite frankly I think Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical yarn is one of a rare handful of perfect screenplays. It’s also one of the most moving and affecting films about friendship. And it also happens to be exquisitely funny. I’ve watched this movie more times than any other, except (more. . .)

USA | 1986 | Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Logline: When three mischievous strangers find themselves sharing the same jail cell after each being set-up, framed or simply acting in self-defence, they escape into the wilderness of the Louisiana everglades.

Maverick indie auteur Jim Jarmusch hit the nail of bittersweet irony squarely and beautifully on the head with this black and white jazz riff on unlikely friendships forged in times of despair. It is arguably one of the most egocentric comedies of the 80s, and certainly one of Jarmusch’s (more. . .)

USA | 1985 | Directed by William Friedkin

Logline: A Federal Secret Service Treasury agent becomes recklessly obsessed with bringing a dangerous counterfeiter to justice after the criminal has his older agent partner murdered.

This was the quintessential 80s cop thriller; fast-paced, action-packed, violent, and profane, but more importantly, unpredictable, uncompromising, and that Wang Chung soundtrack. William Friedkin was back on the streets delivering the other side of the coin to his seminal NYC cop thriller, The French Connection, and it’s vibrancy holds steadfast.

Director Michael Mann tried unsuccessfully (more. . .)

USA | 2008 | Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Logline: A middle-aged professional wrestler struggling with drug addiction, thankless gigs, and being estranged from his daughter, is told to retire by his doctor, yet he’s reluctant to throw in the towel.

This was the comeback gig that touched Hollywood’s heart, but not quite enough to win Mickey Rourke the Oscar everyone thought he should get (although it must be said Sean Penn’s performance as Harvey Milk was very deserving). In one of those art-imitating-life curiosities, The Wrestler reflected much (more. . .)