More balls-to-the-wall mid 1990s punk rock, this time from Boss Hog, Jon Spencer’s other big band of the era (aside from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion). Boss Hog not only featured terrifically abrasive guitar work from Spencer, but also some of the most ferocious vocals in all of rock and roll from Spencer’s spouse, the beautiful and sometimes nude Christina Martinez. Bang your head, indeed!
Some primo 1990s gunk-punk from Norfolk, VA. The Candy Snatchers, along with such bands as The New Bomb Turks and The Oblivians, were an important part of a defiantly lo-fi punk movement from the 1990s that belched and farted all over the corporate “alternative nation” that erupted thanks to Nirvana’s success. These were bands who just rocked out with little regard to digital recording or political correctness and epitomized everything that corporate alternative bands claimed to be.
“Bitter Moon” is one of Roman Polanski’s best and most underrated films. This is a film that polarized most critics and audiences back in the day and there’s a good chance that if you don’t love “Bitter Moon,” it will either piss you off or upset you. I don’t think there’s anyone who just “likes” or “dislikes” this film. It’s a real “love it or hate it” kind of enterprise.
The film chronicles a ocean cruise journey that a troubled married couple, named Nigel and Fiona (played by Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott-Thomas respectively), are undertaking to save their marriage. Nigel becomes infatuated with a beautiful young French woman named Mimi, played by Polanski’s real-life wife Emmanuelle Seigner. Mimi’s husband, a self-loathing and disabled drunk named Oscar (played by American actor Peter Coyote), offers his wife to Nigel, but Nigel must listen to a very long story about Oscar’s relationship with Mimi first. The story takes several days to tell and as it unfolds, we are witness to one of the most twisted views of a relationship ever committed to celluloid. It makes the marriages in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” look healthy by comparison.
However, as Nigel is getting ready to close the deal with Mimi, Mimi, Oscar, and Fiona seem to have other plans and make what’s already a very strange and creepy film even more so.
Despite the fact that “Bitter Moon” may leave you with a sour feeling in your stomach, there is a lot of humor, albeit extremely dark. In addition, the acting by the leads and the way that Polanski unfolds this very disturbing tale is terrific.
The film contains some very graphic sexuality and language and the attached European trailer (which contains nudity) is definitely not safe for work. However, if you’re looking for something audacious and envelope-pushing, “Bitter Moon” is highly recommended.
Another stroke of genius from the Kinks. At face value, this song could be taken as the lament of a rich man bitching about “mo’ money, mo’ problems.” But Ray Davies and the gang have always been a bit more complex than that. Granted, Davies has never shied away from being the contrarian and the lyrics of this song could represent his genuine disgust over having to pay taxes. But he’s such an ironic bastard, he could be laughing at the rich man bitching about his taxes. Confuse and conquer is not a bad motto for an artist on the make. You decide.
This was one of the defining songs of my 10th grade year in high school. Mainly because I got rides to school with my older brother and he played the “Earth Crisis” cassette in his car every day. I finally got to see Steel Pulse live during my first year of college when they opened for Bob Dylan. In retrospect, the acoustics were so horrible in the basketball den where I saw them, that it wasn’t quite the transcendent experience I was expecting. Fortunately, I was too chemically enhanced to care.
From Brian Eno’s magnificent and near-perfect first solo album “Here Come the Warm Jets,” comes “Baby’s on Fire.” The title is appropriate because the song descends into an inferno of guitar noise, supplied by King Crimson’s Robert Fripp. F–k Rick Wakeman and Emerson Lake and Palmer! This is the real 70s progressive rock.
Yeah! Here’s a loud, raucous, wall-of-noise garage punk cover of Brian Eno’s glam-punk classic from 1974. This is part of a genre I made up called “wind tunnel music” where the sheer size of the sound will knock you down … guaranteed.
One of the finest ballads of the last decade and a song that took on special meaning post-Katrina. The accompanying video, starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jamie Bell as a young couple dealing with a difficult choice one of them makes, may not present the most original story. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t ring true.
One of the most controversial films ever released by a major Hollywood studio (in this case, United Artists), “Cruising” was definitely the wrong film at the wrong time. Released in 1980, the film is about a detective, played by Al Pacino, who goes undercover into the gay leather S&M subculture to find a killer who is stalking and killing people who are part of the scene. As the film progresses, Pacino’s character becomes more distraught and disturbed by what he’s finding. Pacino’s character is not only discovering things about himself he doesn’t want to admit, but he may also be losing his sanity in the process.
OK, based on the above description, my plot description reads like some retro gay-panic cautionary tale penned by someone like Jerry Falwell. Given the fact that in 1980, there were very few films with positive gay role models, it’s easy to see why gay people were outraged by this film.
However, after over 30 years of a much more diverse representation of the homosexual community in media, the complexities of this film are more apparent and it can now be viewed a lot more objectively. I don’t believe this film is saying that anyone who hangs around homosexuals will suddenly become gay and insane. “Cruising” is a character study of one man, who was probably not stable to begin with, being overwhelmed by what he’s supposed to investigate. If you watch carefully, Pacino provides many clues to his character’s internal demons early on, without explicitly calling them out. That is the work of a fine actor.
“Cruising” contains one of Al Pacino’s best acting performances and it was right before “Scarface” turned him into one of cinema’s most overbaked hams. This is not to say Pacino delivered a bad performance in “Scarface” or in other films since then. It’s just that this is one of the last times Pacino didn’t chew the scenery. From what I understand, Pacino has refused to discuss this film at all.
Director William Friedkin has never been one to shy away from troubling material or to leave audiences feeling uneasy when they leave the theater. Even his most popular films “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist” don’t have tidy conclusions. “Cruising” is no different. While it’s understandable why someone may not like “Cruising,” the film shouldn’t be dismissed as the homophobic (or homophilic) garbage the critics of the time alleged. The film is brilliantly directed and edited. The sound design alone (where you can hear leather and chains throughout the entire film) is enough to be very unnerving. There’s also an overwhelming sense of dread that permeates the film. Had it been released in the mid-1980s or beyond, everyone would say the film was a metaphor for AIDS.
The film also contains some excellent supporting performances from Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Joe Spinnell, Don Scardino, Powers Boothe, and Mike Starr. It also has one of the first punk soundtracks on a major studio film, featuring songs by Mink DeVille, the Germs, and Rough Trade. Jack Nitzsche does another fine and effectively creepy score.
If you’re curious about “Cruising,” be warned that the film contains some very disturbing graphic violence. In addition, the film does very explicitly show the gay leather S&M underworld of the late 1970s. It barely squeaked by with an R-rating in the permissive late 1970s and I’m sure it would have a hard time now.
“Cruising” also inspired James Franco’s recent film called “Interior. Leather Bar.” Co-directed by Franco and Travis Mathews, the film attempts to chronicle the explicit footage that was cut of “Cruising” and has been subsequently lost. It’s telling that a major Hollywood star being involved in a film like this gets no more than a shrug these days. Especially when he’s the lead in an upcoming hyper-expensive Disney fantasy film.
Probably the most bizarre footnote is that Steven Spielberg was attached to direct “Cruising” at one point in the early 1970s.
UPDATE (Oct. 2015): The clip of this from “Coming Home” has since been removed from YouTube. I’ve posted a non-film version here as a substitute. You are strongly urged to check out “Coming Home” when you get a chance.
One of the most powerful uses of a song in a film. This is the ending of Hal Ashby’s Vietnam War drama “Coming Home” from 1978. The scene features Jon Voight’s paralyzed Vietnam War veteran talking to a group of high school students, while Bruce Dern’s veteran character commits suicide by swimming into the sea.
Apparently, Dern’s suicide scenario was one that Ashby often thought of. The use of Buckley’s “Once I Was” was especially meaningful, because before Buckley’s death from an overdose of heroin, was Ashby’s choice to play Woody Guthrie in his biopic “Bound for Glory.”
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