Showing posts with label film making. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film making. Show all posts

Hardcore Collection (2002) Review

Hardcore Collection (2002)
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Hardcore Collection (2002) ReviewFor those of you joining the party late, Richard Kern is a New York City based filmmaker/photographer who during the 1980's created a slew of short films that highbrow critics call "cinema of transgression" and everybody else calls "some sick and twisted s***." By fusing the arthouse aesthetic of Godard with grindhouse horror meets porn, Kern created a look and language for the post-punk subculture that grew (festered?) in the Lower East Side at the time. Appropriately, the soundtracks to his depraved fever dreams were often supplied by local underground acts such as Sonic Youth, Cop Shoot Cop, and especially Jim Thirlwell, a.k.a. Foetus. His performers likewise were local art scenesters such as Lydia Lunch, Karen Finley and the late David Wojnarowicz (forgive my spelling if it's off). For my money, though, his greatest star/diva/muse was the inimitable Lung Leg, whose drugged-out, nervous anti-acting virtually invented the "waif look" that models like Kate Moss would later water down for the mainstream.
The films in this collection assault the viewer with sex, violence, sex, and a general atmosphere of scuzz. Did I mention sex? Kern reveled in undressing his punk princesses and putting them in situations guaranteed to make doctinaire feminists howl in protest. In "The Evil Cameraman" a very skinny young adult woman (who nevertheless looks about 13) is bound naked with ropes and tortured by Kern in the title roll. It seems completely awful until you consider that the film depicts Kern as well, evil, a real scumbag. You instead identify with the women and laugh when Kern gets his comeuppance. Likewise, the phone-sex worker portrayed by Lydia Lunch in Kern's masterpiece "Fingered" is completely in control of the pathetic, depraved psychos who call her. She even manages to menace poor hitchiker Lung Leg later on, and the latter's performance is something to behold. Lung doesn't act so much as drift into her "character" like some incredibly strange ghost. By any normal standards she's awful, but as you may guess these aren't exactly normal films. Some, like "Death Valley '69," are music videos that MTV wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole and a hazmat suit. "The Right Side of My Brain" is a psychosexual monologue/rant starring Lydia Lunch during which we get to see way too much of Thirlwell and Black Flag's Henry Rollins. The teeny-tiny "Nazi" is just a striptease by a woman who starts out dressed as a you-know-what. It's contrived and brilliant at the same time. "You Killed Me First," starring Lung Leg as the rebellious teen from hell, with Finley and Wojnarowicz as equally hellish parents, doesn't hold up so well, despite Ms. Leg's weirdly atavistic "performance." Here, contrivance overtakes brilliance by a mile; it's practically unwatchable.
Of course, 90% of human beings will find this entire package unwatchable. These are extreme visions for extreme sensibilities; only hardened shock-hounds need sniff this out (and what a smell! Did something die in here or something?). I assume if you've read this far, you're one of those freaks. So what are you waiting for? Amazon is a store, y'know.
Side note: because of these films, Kern was hired by Marilyn Manson to direct his "Lunchbox" video, and Kern made it to MTV at last. More recently, a friend tells me he spotted Kern's name in the photo credits of an issue of "Barely Legal." (That's right, a FRIEND. I swear I don't read that rag. I mean it. Stop Laughing!) It doesn't seem likely that Kern will ever conquer Hollywood, although that would be a wonderfully sick and twisted idea worthy of one of Kern's films.Hardcore Collection (2002) Overview

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House of Flying Daggers Review

House of Flying Daggers
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House of Flying Daggers ReviewAs like Crouching Tiger and Hero, the impressive impact and emotion of the movie is be attributed a large deal to the score, but I think House of Flying Daggers offers the best one yet.
Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger was beautiful, very traditional and emotional, with some epic sounds thrown in for the desert scenes. Hero tried to follow suit, but I think it sounded way too much like Crouching Tiger, and thus became extremely repetitive. House of Flying Daggers on the other hand offered something entirely new. It has a more contemporary sound than the other two, and is one of the least repetitive soundtracks I've heard.
The running theme of 'Lovers' is extremely moving, whether it be in the melancholy Er-hu solo in track 10, the operatic title song by Kathleen Battle (with a beautiful piano opening) or track 8, the soaring 'Lovers - Flower Garden', where the heart of the soundtrack lies (and which is also my favourite track!)
There are also other elements in the score, such as the middle-eastern sounding 'Battle in the Forest'(after a serene intro), the epic orchestra in 'No Way Out', and the rhythmic strings in 'Farewell'.
The HOFD soundtrack is so multifaceted it's hard to get tired of listening to it. A must for your record collection!House of Flying Daggers Overview

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