Adaptive Curmudgeon

This post will list movies which should have been on the list of 100 cult movies had the list been written exactly I’d have written it.  Which is to say, perfectly.

Note that “cult” means something transcending the ordinary and also not wildly popular in an of itself.  That doesn’t mean that the movie must be great, important, relevant, life altering, or get you laid when you watch it with your girl.  It’s not a cut and dried definition.

In no particular order I present my abridged list of movies which you must see before you’re allowed to die:

Idiocracy (2006). Because we’re living in it. This is not a good movie. It is a stupid/fun movie. However we live in a stupid world so the movie gets at something with a lazer like focus.  You will wish you could forget this silly movie and you will fail.  Events will remind you of it every week.  The studio tried to kill this movie and they failed.  Because it’s true and we’re doomed.

We're already in it.

Blue Velvet (1986). Because Dennis Hopper’s unhinged “bad guy” character scared the living shit outta’ me.  While you’re at it, remove Lynch’s appallingly bad Eraserhead from any list of anything ever.

David Lynch knows how to brew up a seriously disturbing experience.

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962). Marvelous. I watched this on a small screen and robbed myself of it’s majesty. For that misjudgment, I should be shot.

Watch it big.

The Third Man (1949). It turns out that Orsen Welles was a hellish good actor and not just a fat washed up loser. Who knew? A movie with a superb villain not because he was outscale like a Bond caricature but because he was totally believable. World class.

Yeah, go down that tunnel. I dare ya!

Tremors (1990).  The only reason to watch this movie is for Michael Gross undergoing a weird transformation from loser beta male from Family Ties to the hapless Bert Gummer.  Apparently Michael Gross can act.  Who knew?   The movie is neither deep nor intelligent.  Tough shit Einstein.  Watch it anyway.

You broke into the wrong damn rec room didn't ya, you bastard!

Easy Rider (1969).  A good movie in it’s own right.  Sadly hampered by the miasma of bullshit that lingers over the Boomer’s (and our society’s) misty eyed sympathy for “the 1960’s”.

A road trip with a happy ending.

Gran Torino (2008).  A masterpiece.  Clint Eastwood was trying to say something far to complex for clueless media twerps to favor but he got the point across with a sledge.  Not a “cult movie” but I put it on my list because I felt like it.

Stay off the lawn.

Falling Down (1993).  Just as cheerful as Gran Torino but 15 years earlier.  Also not a cult movie but it should be.

This is why I no longer live in California.

I read a blog post which commented on another blog’s post which refers to an an article about book which discusses movies.  So of course I wrote my own post; an astounding fifth order commentary.  We’re doomed as a species aren’t we?

It’s a list of 100 cult films.  I bolded the ones I’ve seen and added comments which are worth precisely what you paid to read this blog.

2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, 1968

One of the best musical scores I’ve ever heard.  Play it loud and forget all the times you’ve heard it re-made.  Imagine hearing it for the first time.  Everyone babbles about how deep this movie is but don’t let that get in the way of simply enjoying it.  However, it’s not light fare for a first date or just to kill an afternoon.

Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988
Angel of Vengeance, Abel Ferrara, 1981
Bad Taste, Peter Jackson, 1987
Baise-moi, Virginie Despentes, Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000
Begotten, E. Elias Merhige, 1991
Behind the Green Door, Artie Mitchell, Jim Mitchell, 1972
La belle et la bête, Jean Cocteau, 1946
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer, 1970
The Big Lebowski, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 1998

A good movie.  I’m not sure why it deserves cult status but so be it.

Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982

An excellent movie.  How they made a Phillip K. Dick story into a movie with a logical plotline is a mystery.  The happy ending is bullshit.  Bonus points for a plot that includes Daryl Hanna’s thighs nearly crushing Harrison Ford’s skull

Blue Sunshine, Jeff Lieberman, 1978
Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985

I have watched Brazil approximately 2,345 times.  I never get tired of it.  Dystopia with humor.  Superb!  Terry Gilliam really is all that and a bag of chips.

Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale, 1935
The Brood, David Cronenberg, 1979
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920
Café Flesh, Stephen Sayadian, 1982
Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, 1979
Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942

A surprise winner.  I expected it to suck and was blown away.  Sometimes the classics really are as great as people say they are.

Un chien andalou, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí,1928
Coffy, Jack Hill, 1973
Daughters of Darkness, Harry Kümel, 1971
Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero, 1978
Deadly Weapons, Doris Wishman, 1974
Debbie Does Dallas, Jim Clark, 1978
Deep Red, Dario Argento, 1975
Dirty Dancing, Emile Ardolino, 1987

Are you shitting me?

Django, Sergio Corbucci, 1966
Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly, 2001
Don’t Torture a Duckling, Lucio Fulci, 1972
Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton, 1990
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Aristide Massaccesi, 1977
Emmanuelle, Just Jaeckin, 1974
Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse, 1973
Eraserhead, David Lynch, 1977

This is student filmmaker crap that wouldn’t go anywhere if Lynch hadn’t done so well later in life that people are brainwashed to think he farted brilliance from day one.

The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi, 1981
Fight Club, David Fincher, 1999

This movie is a Rorschach test.  Either you’re a baffled metrosexual who doesn’t get it or you’re on the edge of your seat dying to join fight club and start getting bloody.  Excellent movie.

Flaming Creatures, Jack Smith, 1963
Freak Orlando, Ulrike Ottinger, 1981
Freaks, Tod Browning, 1932
Ginger Snaps, John Fawcett, 2000
The Gods Must Be Crazy, Jamie Uys, 1981

Meh.  Not bad.

Godzilla, Ishirô Honda, 1954

How can you not love Godzilla?  Though the version with Raymont Burr is pasted on top like spray paint on your car’s hood.  Subtle?  No!   For fun look for hints of the Green Movement cool aid drinker’s attitude that’ll become commonplace 50 years hence…you’ll see it in spades with this odd creation.

The Harder They Come, Perry Henzell, 1972
Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby, 1971
Häxan, Benjamin Christensen, 1922
Hellraiser, Clive Barker, 1987
The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973
The House with the Laughing Windows, Pupi Avati, 1976
I Walked with a Zombie, Jacques Tourneur, 1943
Ichi the Killer, Takashi Miike, 2001
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh, 2008
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Don Siegel, 1956
Invocation of My Demon Brother, Kenneth Anger, 1969
It’s a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, 1946

It’s only good because James Stewart relentlessly jacks into your brain’s sympathy centers and stomps on it.

The Killer, John Woo, 1989
Lady Terminator, H. Tjut Djalil, 1988
The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, 2001–3

Really?  No.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, George Miller, 1981

Yes!  All hail the vaguely gay, oiled up, football pad wearing king of all high drama; the Humungous!  If Australia existed for no other reason then as a setting for a movie this would be the movie.  Bonus points for the entirely logical premise that when gasoline is rare enough to kill to obtain it, the logical adaptation is to drive muscle cars around in the desert.  It’s more realistic than any movie involving a bicycle.

Man Bites Dog, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992
Manos, the Hands of Fate, Harold P. Warren, 1966
The Masque of the Red Death, Roger Corman, 1964
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975

Required fare of every college student and most sentient high schoolers.  The ending pissed me off…which probably amuses Terry Gilliam to no end.

Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow, 1987
Nekromantik, Jörg Buttgereit, 1987
Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero, 1968
Pink Flamingos, John Waters, 1972
Piranha, Joe Dante, 1978
Plan 9 from Outer Space, Ed Wood, Jr, 1959

This is total shit.  Grafting Bela Lagosi on shit doesn’t make it into a rose.

Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, 1985
Reefer Madness, Louis Gasnier, 1936

Good grief this was horrible.

Repo Man, Alex Cox, 1984

One of my favorite movies.

Ringu, Hideo Nakata, 1998
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jim Sharman, 1975

A bad movie made fun because fruit loops act it out not because the material has special spark.

Rome Armed to the Teeth, Umberto Lenzi, 1976
The Room, Tommy Wiseau, 2003
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975
She Killed in Ecstasy, Jesús Franco, 1971
Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven, 1995
Soul Vengeance, Jamaa Fanaka, 1975
The Sound of Music, Robert Wise, 1965

A movie so good I can tolerate a musical with Julie Andrews.  No small feat.

Star Wars, George Lucas, 1977–2005

It’s easy to forget how awesome this movie really was.  George Lucas re-edited them and then made three movies all with the goal of destroying it.  Even his incredibly bad judgment can’t tarnish the original genius of the first series.

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Todd Haynes, 1988
Suspiria, Dario Argento, 1977
Tank Girl, Rachel Talalay, 1995

Meh.

Tetsuo, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974
This Is Spınal Tap, Rob Reiner, 1984

Meh.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974
Thundercrack!, Curt McDowell, 1975
El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970
The Toxic Avenger, Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman, 1984
Two-Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman, 1971
Two Thousand Maniacs!, Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1964
The Vanishing, George Sluizer, 1988
Videodrome, David Cronenberg, 1983
The Warriors, Walter Hill, 1979
Witchfinder General, Michael Reeves, 1968
Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson, 1987
The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming, 1939

When I was a child this movie scared the living shit out of me.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it all the way through while sober.

My next post will list movies which any sane person would have added had they been exactly like me…which is everyone’s goal right?

The problem with prognostication is not the risk of being wrong, it’s the frustration if you’re right but still have to sit through the train wreck. Unfortunately, you must put your words on the record before you’re allowed to perch on a bar stool watching the Republic burn while saying “I told you so”. In no particular order I make the following predictions:

Election 2012

1. Newt Gingrich will never, under any circumstances up to and including the zombie apocalypse, become president. There, I’ve said it. We can all quit pretending. Newt could cure cancer on live TV and still lose. If I am wrong you may ridicule me in the future.
2. Depending on who becomes the Republican candidate, the press will either obsess over either Newt’s ex-wives or Mitt’s underwear. If you have a TV, throw it out the window while there’s still time.
3. Ron Paul will not win in 2012. He will probably never win. However, he’s the Energizer bunny and the longer Washington stays stuck on stupid the closer Paul comes to doing the impossible. Ron Paul will always cause the press to pull a Baghdad Bob but stranger things have happened than a president Ron Paul. Would you have bet on President Nelson Mandela or President Lech Walesa? (Not that Ron Paul has been locked in a South African Prison or faced down Soviet threats…only that sometimes the underdog wins big.)  Also Paul’s real value is as an unvarnished example of a man who sticks with his principles even when they’re unpopular. People like to think he’s so weird he’ll sprout antennae but I’m reminded of Orwells words: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
4. The 2012 election will go to the person who loses least. Obama’s mismanagement will continue to be so epic that it will eventually render Steven Colbert speechless while the Republicans will work equally hard to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.
   
5. Whatever interchangeable tool the Republicans choose will have the principles of a limp noodle and the excitement of a metronome. He will go to great lengths to shoot himself in the foot 37 separate and distinct times while studiously avoiding any clear stance on anything until he’s nothing but Forrest Gump waving the flag.
   
6. The press will label the Republican contender a racist, gay-bashing, badger raping, shithead who will personally attack voters during unverified but certain to be true monthly vampric killing sprees.  Right wing talk radio will claim that Obama is the anti-Christ and this election, like all other elections, is the most important election of all time. If you’re thinking of joining a cult in order to avoid politics, this would be a good year.
7. Congress, which has already gone 1000 days since the last full budget, will fail to approve a proper budget.  This is what we call “compounding the suck”.
8. Both campaigns will be entirely negative but leaks will be one sided and practically invented from whole cloth. If there’s a confidential report that a Republican candidate undertipped a waitress in Des Moines in 1972 it’ll be front page news that he stole her car and sold her cat on e-bay.
9. Obama will continue to be a mystery that teleported into existence through divine providence in 2008. There’s nothing more to see here…move along.
10. If the election is anything other than a landslide for Obama there will be multiple simultaneous localized recounts. Recounts will continue as needed until they get the correct pre-determined answer. A Republican candidate needs to win by an unmistakable margin. Mathematically the model is as follows: drop out third party voters, of the rest assume it’ll take 48% to elect Obama or 52% to elect his opponent, then hit yourself in the head with a mallet. The new 48/52 election system will be a permanent part of American life so long as it takes more ID to buy Sudafed than vote.
11. A major press outlet, staffed by people who barely understand algebra, will opine that the electoral college is outdated. Nebraska and Maine, which apportion electoral votes on a pro-rated basis, will split nearly 50/50 and be virtually irrelevant. As they should be.
    
12. The press, which gave up even the pretense of impartiality in 2008, will personally dry hump Obama every time the man is seen in public. Barack Obama could be seen gutting a live kitten on TV while naked and it would be presented as a great step forward in our economic recovery.

Yesterday I posted one of my several hundred anti-Volt screeds.  The most recent one had the following points.

1. The Volt is so ridiculous that I can’t help myself.  The way all those subsidies have produced so little is just begging for it.
2. In recent testing Volts caught on fire…Ha ha ha.

#2 is something of an issue.  In all actuality I don’t care if a Volt catches on fire.  I just like making fun of Volts and catching on fire is hardly a good thing.  But one of my six loyal readers took me to task:

“honestly I had thought better of you, sir, than to attack the Volt on a false premise: namely, that they “burst into flames after crash testing”. Not that, strictly speaking, that is false — three of them did — but it implies that this is normal behaviour of the Volt in a crash, which it is not;”

He’s right!  Part of being adaptive is recognizing fault in oneself.  I enjoy bashing the Volt so much that I went ahead and let a cheap shot past my atrophied ethics circuits.  So I’ll back up a bit and clear the air:

“I, Adaptive Curmudgeon, did wrong by making light of the Volt’s ‘crash test fire’ issues.  I don’t really care about them.  There are many reasons to ridicule a Volt but fire hazard is not among them.  We’re accustomed to gasoline in a car but, because they are alien, are a bit oversensitive about batteries.  That’s unwise and I shall henceforth go back to bashing the Volt for more realistic faults.”

Wow!  I feel refreshed and honest; like an anti-politician.  I might as well double down and mention another of my favorite whipping boys; the compact fluorescent light bulb.  I don’t believe I’ve ever fretted about the mercury in them but mercury is a common gambit used by incandescent fans.

“I dislike CFLs whenever someone tries to force me to buy them.  Partly because they’re inferior in certain situations but mostly because I hate being bossed around.  However the tiny risk of mercury from a broken CFL is a tempest in a teapot that bores me.  Whenever I bitch about CFLs I’ll let the mercury thing slide.”

Yeah!  Clean slate baby!

A.C.

P.S.  I should also add that the Volt (and the Leaf and even hybrids like the Prius) are  victims of my high expectations.  Ever since the oil embargo during the Carter years I thought an electric car could be a “neato” compliment to the nation’s vehicular population.  Now, after all these years and endless subsidy, they advertised the wimpy uninspired blandness that is the Volt in the middle of the Superbowl as a sort of vote buying for Government Motors.  I just plain have never forgiven them.  When I was a kid I imagined an electric car as “awesome” and instead it’s overpriced, weak, and as inspiring as tapioca.  Maybe if I’d expected a $40,000+ crappy little commuter-box I would be more forgiving.

…that I posted about “green jobs” (tomorrow) and it wound up sandwiched right between twin rants about my favorite whipping boy (the Chevy Volt).  It was not planned.  It is an artifact of scheduling.

However, I did steal your last piece of pizza while you weren’t looking.  I’m sneaky that way.

Everyone needs a hobby.  I have several.  One of my stranger hobbies is bashing the massively subsidized Chevy Volt, the love child of Government Motors, “green jobs”, and Soviet economic thought.  Whenever I need something to cheer me up I think of the Volt…and a sledge hammer.  Yeah…my happy place.  I’m so Zen.

At any rate I was checking the official Chevy Volt web page to see what the official MSRP would be (if anyone actually bought one).  Officially it’s $39,145 and you’ll get a $7,500 shameless bribe tax credit if you’ll buy it.  I’d been planning a post whining about the price.  But the site’s slogan changed my mind.

The slogan on the Volt’s web page was:

“Somebody has to be the first.”

Here’s how it sounds to me:

“In a tuberculosis outbreak, someone has to be first.”

I laughed so hard I spilled my coffee.  I expected something like “oh boy you get to be the first” or the far more traditional “hot babes dig men with this car so you’d better get it first” or even “it’s awesome to be the fist person to own this cool thing we’re selling”.  That’s how you market an object hoping to make people want it. The Volt is nothing like a real consumer good.  It’s an underpowered monument to planned economies, “green” denial of reality, and most galling of all…a cruel mockery of the electric car I once imagined the shining future might hold.  This isn’t a car you desire…it’s a car you endure.  The slogan (probably inadvertently) plays homage to that.  It’s actually being marketed as if it’s miserable shameful difficult task that we must all undertake…so someone might as well get it over with.

Welcome to government managed industries:

“We’re going to kick you all in the balls.  Who’s first?”

or

“You all must go to the dentist…someone has to be first.”

or

“We’re convinced that everyone would stampede the doors if someone somewhere bought the first one.  Would someone please buy this piece of shit?”

You know…I used to mock Congress and the current president.  But the Chevy Volt is so much more fun.  Soon I’ll be joined by thousands of people who say that the Chevy Volt is a mess; we’ll drive our heavy duty trucks to a central meeting place…possibly at a shooting range where we all test out the Volt’s dent resistance and then have an electrically assisted bonfire.  It is a movement just waiting to happen.  I’ll be the one to start it because “someone has to be first.”