AT CLOSE RANGE (JAMES FOLEY, 1986)

At Close Range, 1986, USA
Dir: James Foley
Cast: Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson

The 1980s played host to an array of young, up and coming actors who were vying to be the next Paul Newman or Robert De Niro. Among them were Mickey Rourke, Patrick Swayze and Sean Penn. Rourke starred in some high profile films but by the start of the 90s had bottomed out and started an unsuccessful boxing career. Swayze headlined some box office hits but faded from the public’s subconscious by the late 90s. He passed away in 2009 from cancer. Penn, however, has become a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Actor and one of the Hollywood’s most vocal and recognized leading men.

Penn’s breakout role was as a stoner in the high school comedy classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). By the mid-80s, Penn shored up his image and began doing dramas. He continued acting throughout the decade but failed to reach high status as an actor. He turned to directing and collaborated with Jack Nicholson on several films. As the 1990s approached, Penn’s star slowly began to rise. He worked with top tier filmmakers like Oliver Stone and Woody Allen. Then in 2003 he won his first Oscar starring in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. He continued his success with 2003’s 21 Grams, and 2008’s Milk, which netted him another Oscar statuette. He is now widely considered one of the best actors in the business.

In 1986, however, Penn was still only 25 years old, acting alongside his younger brother Chris Penn and a young actress named Mary Stuart Masterson. At Close Range concerns a reckless teenager, Brad Whitewood Jr., who becomes close with his estranged father, Brad Sr., a noted thief and criminal. After being initiated into his father’s gang, Brad Jr. realizes that he got more than he bargained for, and tries to get out. His ruthless father, afraid that his son might talk if approached by authorities then goes to extreme lengths to ensure his son doesn’t talk. The story was inspired by a real life event that took place in Pennsylvania at the end of the 1970s.

The film features brilliant cinematography by Juan Ruiz Anchía and clever direction from James Foley, who would later gain fame for directing the star-studded Glengary Glen Ross, based on the infamous David Mamet stage play. The film also featured the never before heard song "Live to Tell" by Madonna (Mrs. Penn at the time), which propelled to #1 on the song charts.

In addition to Walken and Masterson, the supporting cast also includes a young Kiefer Sutherland (24), David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck), and Crispin Glover (Back to the Future). At Close Range works on many levels and showcases the broad talents of an actor before he became one of our generation’s finest performers.

Here’s a funny story that explains Penn’s early instincts as an actor: When Christopher Walken works with guns in film, he checks them himself before each scene for safety reasons and his own personal ease. During the scene when Sean Penn sticks a gun in Walken's face, Walken checked the gun before the scene started. Before the director had the chance to say "Action", Penn ran off camera and shouted, "Give me the other gun!" He immediately returned to Walken and started the scene. This is the cut that made it into the movie, and Walken was really terrified.

TALK RADIO (OLIVER STONE, 1988)

Talk Radio, USA, 1988
Dir: Oliver Stone
Cast: Eric Bogosian, Alec Baldwin, Leslie Hope

"You're afraid of the bogeyman, but you can't live without him."

Talk Radio is a 1988 dramedy starring and co-written by Eric Bogosian who took direction from Oliver Stone straight off his Oscar-winning Platoon and Oscar Winning Wall Street. The movie is not what you'd expect. Its a talky, thought-provoking satire (and/or farce) about radio-talk-show hosting, but more importantly about the perks and hazards of celebrity. Stone does a modest job shooting this film, which was based on a claustrophobic play by Bogosian himself.

The cast is a particularly special one, with great 90s performers in their younger 80s days. Alec Baldwin stars as a hot-shot radio show producer, and John C. McGinley plays a disc jockey. As for Bogosian, while his story resonates strongly with the audience, and the writing is pretty sharp, he simply doesn’t belong in front of the screen. There are theater actors and there are screen actors. Steve McQueen was a screen actor. Eric Bogosian is a stage actor, and his wit and intelligence cannot defeat the fact that he is not a leading man in a serious tragi-comedy such as this one.

Released at the tail-end of the 1980s, it weighs in on topics that concerned America during that time period. The 80s were concluding and everyone was analyzing its influence on the world. The 60s brought Vietnam and the sexual revolution. The 70s brought Watergate and disco music. The 80s always seemed to lack in terms of cultural influence, a decade most remembered for big hair bands and the invention of the franchise movie.

Being a film based on a stage play, the most important factor of Talk Radio is naturally its script and dialogue. The writing is top notch and hits on major topics such as racism and anti-semitism as well as giving an opinion about love, death and the dangers of being a celebrity, particularly a controversial one.

While watching this film, one evokes memories of Howard Stern with his big, poofed up hair parading around his radio station trying to excite his co-workers, guests and most of all -- his audience, by performing weird and wild segments on the air. Bogosian’s character, Barry Champlain, is similar with his no-holds barred tactics, and controversial approach to radio.

In the end, the film leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Nobody wins, nobody loses (although this can be debated), and the audience is left wondering whether there was anything to be won or lost in the first place. It doesn’t matter of course. Its not the end result that matters, it’s the journey you take that people most remember. Talk Radio is one of those movies that you have to be in the mood to watch. But it is definitely worthy of a rental on a rainy night. Instead of reading 30 or 40 pages of your new book, or catching a few re-runs of The Simpsons, check out this late-80s forgotten gem. It might pleasantly surprise you.

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (TOSHIO MATSUMOTO, 1969)

Funeral Parade of Roses, Japan, 1969
Dir: Toshio Matsumoto
Cast: Peter, Osamu Ogasawara, Toyosaburo Uchiyama


What can be said about Funeral Parade of Roses other than that it is the personification of a fever dream, and the definition of a “mindfuck.” Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 cult film is nothing but a nightmare that stares down at you with glaring eyes, and never allows you the opportunity for a rest even after it’s over because it will stay with you and haunt you for days. The images are so stark and hellish that one begins to believe that they are in the pits of hell, either that, or inside the mind of a mad genius. Matsumoto’s controversial film was a re-telling of the classic Oedipus Rex tale by Sophocles, and was given a brief release in the US in 1970.

Notorious for its candid portrayal of several drag queens and how their lives intersect with one another, the film played an enormous influence on Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 shock-masterpiece A Clockwork Orange. Featuring a superb electronic score that mixes music of old and new, Funeral Parade of Roses was the film that inspired Kubrick to find an electronic score for his upcoming film, which turned out to be A Clockwork Orange.



Funeral Parade of Roses is arguably one of the most visionary, trance-inducing films ever made. It depicts the unforgiving reality of transvestites, in particular Eddie, whose horrible past continues to haunt him everywhere he goes, and finally merges together with his present life. Eddie was portrayed by singer, performer and sometime actor Peter, the stage name of Shinnosuke Ikehata, who was only 17 years old when the film was released.

The film was made during a time when the movie-making industry was at its most experimental stage since the development of filmmaking in the 1910s and 20s. Employing drug-induced surrealism and avant-garde aesthetics, Funeral Parade of Roses is a film that is more concerned with pure emotions and sensations rather than pure intellectuality. After 40 years of being locked away in the vaults of obscurity, the film remains one of the ultimate enigmas in cult film history. In fact, to this day, it has never been given a proper DVD release in the United States and only became available on the foreign market several years ago.


Funeral Parade of Roses was Toshio Matsumoto's feature film debut. He began his career by making experimental shorts in the late 50s and 60s and continued playing with the aesthetics of film with his first feature length work. He directed several others films in the 70s and 80s which have also remained relatively unknown since their release.

The haunting and surreal original score by Jôji Yuasa, and excellent cinematography by Tatsuo Suzuki make the film a memorable one. It manages to be a mosaic of music, montage, and the sex & drugs scene of the late-60s Tokyo underworld. The risks the filmmaker takes with the story and characters and the way he experiments with the camera work is phenomenal. Funeral Parade of Roses is a must for cult movie fans. Be prepared for an extremely disturbing and bloody conclusion.

SPARTACUS (STANLEY KUBRICK, 1960)

Spartacus, USA, 1960
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons


Spartacus is a spectacle to watch on the big screen, an epic film with a once in a life time cast, who were lucky enough to take direction from not one but two great filmmakers.

In 1959, Ben-Hur swept the Academy Awards and was a box-office sensation, and remains one of the most classic films in cinema history. Kirk Douglas, one of the biggest stars of the 1950s, was considered for the film but director William Wyler chose to go with Charlton Heston instead. Douglas was offered the role of the villain in the film, but he refused to play second fiddle to Heston, so he rejected the role and the film went on without him. The rest is movie history.

Douglas, still feeling burned by the events, decided to pursue his own epic movie project, and thus was born, the grand tale of Spartacus on the big-screen. Based on a novel by Howard Fast, Douglas pursued the making of the film single-handedly. He hand-picked blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo to adapt the book into a screenplay, and also chose to work with acclaimed director Anthony Mann. The cast was enormous – Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis, and Peter Ustinov all co-starred alongside Douglas, who might have given the best performance of his storied career.

Problems started on the film when Douglas clashed with Mann, and after several weeks of production, decided to have him replaced. When the studio asked what director he’d like to work with, Douglas chose the young filmmaker who directed him several years before in the acclaimed Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick had never directed a big budget film of this magnitude. He had directed four films, all independently financed, all under the creative control of Kubrick. Spartacus, however, was his big chance to make a name for himself where it really mattered – Hollywood. Kubrick was hired, and the film’s production continued. The shoot was gruesome and long, as were all of Kubrick’s productions. Lasting nearly a year, the actors became so frustrated that at one point Tony Curtis, himself a big star at the time, was reported as saying “Who do I have to screw to get off this film?”


Kubrick clashed with everyone including Douglas, as well as the director of photography, Russell Metty, who would go on to win the Academy Award for best cinematography. He also clashed with Trumbo, and asked Peter Ustinov, who would occasionally write for film, to re-work some of his scenes in the film. Trumbo at the time was notorious for being blacklisted in Hollywood and worked under a front, thus he couldn’t have his name in the credits for the much-anticipated film, and Kubrick offered to have his name listed under the writer credits instead. After this sly move, Kirk Douglas was infuriated and used his clout in the business to fight for Trumbo’s name to be included in the credits, and essentially ended the Hollywood blacklist when he was successful at doing so.

The film was an enormous success, making more than five times its budget in box office receipts. It was also nominated for six Oscars, winning four, including one for the brilliant Ustinov for his supporting role. The film has few errors, except its length. It is an overlong film, one that exceeds the time required to tell its story. The original version was 184 minutes long, with several scenes cut due to censorship issues. In 1991, historian Robert A. Harris restored the film and added in several key sequences that were originally deleted, including a scene between Olivier and Curtis that has subtle homosexual undertones hidden beneath an impeccably written conversation between the two about “oysters and snails.” This restored version, which has now come to be the generally accepted one, runs 197 minutes in length. The climax of the film ends too early, and instead we are subjected to another thirty minutes or so of characters contemplating their fates, with the inevitable conclusion prolonged to an unnecessary extent.


This was Stanley Kubrick’s one and only Hollywood film. After the difficult experience of working with a large studio system with little control on the script and the post-production phase, he retreated to England, where he subsequently directed all of his films and remained living there until his death in 1999. It should be noted, however, that Spartacus should not exactly be considered one of Kubrick’s classic works, lacking the Kubrick touch he became famous for in later years. It is more of a Kirk Douglas film than it is a Stanley Kubrick film. It is the only film he was hire to direct, it is the only film he made in Hollywood, and it is the only film in which he did not write and/or produce.

Spartacus did help launch Kubrick into another stratosphere of filmmakers. The financial and critical success gave him the opportunity to make films on his own terms and allowed him to call all the shots on his projects. Douglas never succeeded in making films on the same level as when he collaborated with Kubrick twice in the 50s and early 60s. Kubrick, on the other hand, went on to achieve massive success, garnering 13 Oscar nods throughout his career, and an impressive resume of classic films still being discussed and analyzed to this day. Spartacus remains one of the early testaments of the glorious career of one of the grandest filmmakers that ever lived.

POSSESSION (ANDRZEJ ZULAWSKI, 1981)

Possession, France/Germany, 1981
Dir: Andrzej Zulawski
Cast: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent

“There is nothing to fear except God.”

Possession is a film set in Germany, starring a French actress, a British actor, and directed by a Polish filmmaker. This eclectic mix of personalities combined to make a brilliantly, head-scratching and bizarre horror film in the early 1980s.

The film opens with such gusto, and verve you experience a double-take and wonder whether or not you walked into the movie thirty minutes too late. There is no introduction to the film, rather it hits you in the face like a bucket of water immediately as it begins and delves into the complex state of being of its protagonists.

A married couple, Mark and Anna, played by Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani, having just taken a break from each other, reunite only to separate again once it is revealed that she has had a lover for over a year. This shakes Neill’s character to the core and he goes on a month long binge of alcohol-drinking and isolation which drives him to the brink of insanity and to the point where he is unable to even speak properly.

The camera roves around locations and characters like a fly buzzing through a room. The film moves at a quick pace and we soon enter an arena more suitable for filmmakers such as David Lynch or David Cronenberg. Possession transforms itself from a melodrama a la Kramer vs. Kramer, and into a surreal and bloody horror film a la The Exorcist, with mysterious doppelgangers and elusive conspiracy theories abound.

Suddenly, Adjani’s character turns into a woman literally possessed, by what we are unaware of, but certainly some sort of evil spirit that drives her to madness and to commit violent acts of murder. There is also a particularly disturbing scene where she experiences an excruciating mental and physical breakdown in a subway station, a seizure of sorts, which her character later describes in the following way: “What I miscarried there was sister faith, and what was left was sister chance.”

Possession is such an utterly bizarre film that it is quite difficult to put into perspective the experience of watching it. Perhaps there is a deeper meaning to it, in fact, I suppose there must be, there is so much going on, your eyes are not given a break until the closing credits make their appearance. The ending is an unexplained nightmare, a conclusion that suggests a hostile takeover by another planet, theoretically offering one sort of answer to the sordid puzzle that the audience are thrown into. Many viewers will find the film disgusting, alienating and cold. But that is perhaps the purpose of such a film, to alienate its audience, to disturb them, and to unnerve them.

Ms. Adjani does a magnificent job as a troubled housewife gone crazy, and won a Cesar (the French equivalent of the Academy Award) for her performance in the film. Also great is Heinz Bennent, who plays Adjani’s cool but eccentric lover. Possession is a love it or hate it type of movie that breaks all the rules there are to break and is unapologetic about it to boot. It is a work of art that could only have been delivered by a European filmmaker and remains one of the best cult horror films of all time.

NOSTALGHIA (ANDREI TARKOVSKY, 1983)

Nostalghia, Italy-USSR, 1983
Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Oleg Yankovsky, Domiziana Giordano, Erland Josephson


Great artists typically take painstaking measures to ensure their work is carefully measured out and executed before being delivered to audiences. In the late 1970s, Andrei Tarkovsky, a noted filmmaker who might be Russia’s most beloved of all directors, was essentially kicked out of his native country and forced to work in other European countries. He was only able to direct two films outside of the USSR, before his untimely death in 1986. The first of these films is Nostalghia, filmed in Italy, and released in 1983.

It is clear from the opening image, that the film would be another soul-searching, thought-provoking effort by Tarkovsky. The change in landscape and language did not affect his ability to direct a film which you could literally pause at any moment and find yourself staring at a painting created by a major artist.

Tarkovsky’s facility to combine sounds and images is a gift very few filmmakers have possessed. His early work such as 1962’s Ivan’s Childhood and 1966’s Andrei Rublev show an emerging talent who had reached a level of maturity far beyond his age. His talents culminated in the 70s with haunting works of art such as Solaris, Zerkalo (The Mirror), and Stalker, his final films in the USSR. Nostalghia is a continuation of the themes Tarkovsky visits and revisits in his work – memories, death, nature, adolescence, God, faith, and motherly love.


The story is about a Russian poet and his female colleague who visit a small Italian town. There, they encounter an aging Italian man who lost his mind years prior and locked himself and his family up in their house for seven years, until they were finally discovered and taken away from him. The poet befriends this man and is asked to fulfill a great deed – to enter a sacred body of water with a candle in hand, which the old man believes will save his town from damnation.

Tarkovsky’s films are sometimes reminiscent of work of other acclaimed filmmakers. Solaris can be seen as the Russian answer to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nostalghia remains very much Bergman-esque, very dark and very surreal. The lead character, Andrei, is haunted by dreams and nightmares of a past life which seem to intersect with the controversial past of the man he befriends. Frequent Bergman collaborator Erland Josephson, stars as the deranged old man. Josephson would also star in Tarkovsky’s last film, The Sacrifice, released in Sweden in 1986, the year of Tarkovsky’s death.


Italy has always been known as a historically rich country, and Tarkovsky manages to elevate the splendor and beauty of the country by carefully photographing characters and well-chosen locations. He also manages to highlight otherwise insignificant objects such as a puddle of water or a lit candle or a bottle standing on the ground growing lonelier as time passes. He takes objects that are usually taken for granted not only in film but in life, and puts them in the throes of the spotlight, as if asking the audience to give their attention not only to the things we typically expect to see in a film, but also these little things, the things we never pay attention to in life, the things that hold a lot of beauty when taken out of context.

Also starring Oleg Yankovsky as the poet, and the beautiful Domiziana Giordano, in her film debut, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia takes us on a spiritual trip that makes destinations at the bottom of our souls and at the top of hidden mystics we were unaware existed. This is the work of a master filmmaker, and the culmination of a brilliant career cut short a mere three years later.

THE TREE OF LIFE (TERRENCE MALICK, 2011)

The Tree of Life, USA, 2011
Dir: Terrence Malick
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken



What is The Tree of Life? In biblical terms, it is the plant from which Eve was enticed to eat the apple from, who later seduced Adam into breaking God’s first request of them, which was not to touch apples from the tree. In modern terms, it is the title of renowned director Terrence Malick’s new film. The Tree of Life is many things. It is a quiet and unnerving movie experience. At some points it is magical and at others it is at a standstill. The film finally showed its face last night at the Cannes Film Festival, a screening that has been highly anticipated and consistently postponed for several years. Filmed in 2008, Malick chose to take his time on post-production, working on several complex sequences that featured CGI.

The Tree of Life, in simple terms, is a simple film disguised as a multi-layered one. Malick has been directing since 1973, yet this is just his fifth film. He broke out onto the scene in the 1970s with Badlands and Days of Heaven and then didn’t make another film until 1998, when his epic Vietnam-set film The Thin Red Line garnered seven Academy Award Nominations, including two for Malick. His next film didn’t take quite as long to make, although it was seven years before he released The New World, a visually-stunning and lyrical variation of the tale of Pocahantas.

The Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as parents bringing up their three boys in the 1950s. We learn early on that one of the children dies at nineteen, and then we are transported back to the beginning of it all. And I mean, literally, the beginning of the world and life itself. What follows is the highlight of the film, and what I would call the cinematic equivalent of pre-ejaculation. It is a fifteen-minute long sequence that will remind audiences of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that dealt with the origins of life and the meaning of time and space. Malick uses this amazing, mind-altering sequence to tie together his meditation on God and faith with the story of fatherhood, and adolescence.

Unfortunately for the audience, once the sequence is over, the film continues by going back to the beginnings of the family at the center of the film, and does not return to more ambitious storytelling. Malick, after all, is a visionary, not a storyteller. He is the intellectual’s version of James Cameron, a filmmaker who wants to amaze you with beautiful images never seen before. If this was his goal in the past, then he succeeded with flying colors. He has succeeded again, presenting a film that has such rapturous, dreamy cinematography, one must remember to completely clear one’s mind before entering the theater, in order to make room for the dizzying array of images one is about to encounter. The Tree of Life is a film that requires patience and, more importantly, an open mind from its audience.

Disappointment came when the film immensely slowed its pace down, and when it was clear that Sean Penn, despite being in all the posters and trailers for the film, only had the most minor role in the film. Don’t be fooled by his name in the credits, he is featured in the film for about ten seconds, and has absolutely no lines. Call it a silent cameo, if you will. The real stars of The Tree of Life are Chastain, who plays the mother of the boys and Pitt, who plays a disillusioned husband and father. Pitt’s character is a manager at a factory who had ambitions to be a musician that dissipated over time, and whose various patents are continuously rejected. He raises the boys with an iron fist and is undermined routinely by the eldest boy, the one who eventually dies years after the action in the film concludes. Chastain portrays the emotional, young wife and mother of three with poise and elegance. In between the action, we see images of Sean Penn, one of the sons all grown-up, presumably in present day, working at his office, and then wandering around a desert, perhaps in a dream-state, looking for his brother and parents. Hunter McCracken is also excellent, playing the younger version of Sean Penn's character.


Malick has always been known to be a perfectionist, a filmmaker who focuses on what the eyes see and the ears hear. The music used in the film, all classical, is beautiful and makes one feel like they are watching a film from another time period or another planet altogether. The fact that Malick had the audacity to make such a film is commendable. It is slow, thought –provoking, surreal, and enigmatic. Of course, Malick, being from another generation of filmmakers, uses his name and recognition from the past to create a film that encompasses more than the sum of its parts. I am excited to see the reaction of the public and critics once it is released. It will certainly stir emotions and create debates that will last a lifetime.

EYES WIDE SHUT (STANLEY KUBRICK, 1999)

Eyes Wide Shut, USA, 1999
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack


In the twelve years since its release, Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut has developed a substantial cult following, in spite of, or maybe thanks to a rocky reception from critics and audiences during its release in July 1999.

It is an incredibly complex film, but screams out to be picked apart like a piece of meat devoured by vultures. I read Michael Herr’s brief memoir “Kubrick” recently and outside of the fact that it is an incredibly positive and optimistic view of Kubrick and his personality and particularly his films (Herr practically jerked himself off to every single one of Kubrick’s films, attempting to hide his overwhelming prejudice by calling several of his movies ‘flawed masterpieces’), he also commented heavily on Eyes Wide Shut in the last chapter of the book. His comments were interesting, particularly because I am a fan of the film, so its nice to see someone defend it, but he also said that Kubrick undoubtedly would have continued to fine tune the film even until the week of its release, because that’s just how he edited his films, until the last possible moment.

There are some who say that Kubrick loved Eyes Wide Shut and considered it his best work, others say its an impossibility that he would have held it in such high regard because it was unfinished and the first official final cut was completed days before his death, meaning in the months between this initial completion and the time of its release four months later, its unquestionable that Kubrick would have made further edits, cutting it down from its 159 minute release length to possibly something in the 140 minute range (similar to what he did with 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film originally running at a 160 minutes, and ending at a 141 after cuts following test screenings).


Kubrick was too smart, and more importantly, too much of a perfectionist, not to make further edits. The film that stands is indeed a flawed masterpiece, because it is a film that contains too much detail, and too much detail creates false tension, and false tension only drags the story along like a carriage dragging a dead body behind it through a dusty city street in the old west.

It is most definitely a Kubrick film. It’s a mind bogglingly enigmatic movie, with more questions than answers, perhaps because there are no answers to the questions that Kubrick invents for the audience. Whether he did this intentionally or because, as an artist, he was past his prime, is up to debate. It has been twelve years since the film’s release, and while there has been much debate over the film’s mystery and intrigue, it still has not generated the interest that his previous films have, such as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, or Full Metal Jacket.

Kubrick never lived to respond to his critics or to audiences after the release of Eyes Wide Shut. Nor was he around for the backlash to the movie and its lack of sex, which is what everyone expected out of the film. The interesting part is that there is plenty of nudity and sex in the film, and it is highly erotic. Even though there are no sex scenes between its stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Kidman is nonetheless nude for half the time she is on-screen. There are countless scenes of female nudity, and even an extended sequence of non-stop fucking at an underworld orgy party held for the rich and famous at a secluded mansion.


Kubrick’s main mistake during the making of this film is excess. Even though he had employed extreme measures in the makings of all his films since he moved to England in the 60s and started making movies there. He had spent four years making 2001, he spent three years making Barry Lyndon (his consolation project after the failure to make Napoleon, dubbed “The greatest film never made”). He shot The Shining, a movie set in Colorado, in England, his choice of place for filming. It took Kubrick nearly seven years to direct Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnam war film that he once again painstakingly shot in England, where he literally transformed a sect of London into a Vietnam look-alike.

It was a dozen years before Eyes Wide Shut was finally completed. Filming took place over the course of an excruciating 18 months, an insane amount of time for a movie’s filming. The movie takes place entirely in New York City, a very distinct, and unique and large metropolis that cannot be duplicated, not even by the greatest master of filmmaking and art. This was one of the most common complaints by critics, that the sets were poorly designed, and the city landscape was not believable enough.

Of course, that might just add to the surrealistic tone of the film, the fact that the whole city set was only two or three blocks, so you would see the same street signs and stores in the background even though the character has supposedly traveled many miles to a different location. The film is based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, and dreams are a theme that runs constant during the film. Many say that the movie is entirely a dream; some argue it is just a skewed, somewhat unrealistic version of reality. The only person, who can properly answer this question, and others, died nearly half a year before the film’s release.


Stanley Kubrick was 70 years old when he passed away. Kubrick was not a big believer in God, but he was born Jewish and in Jewish history, the number 70 has a large significance. Most importantly, it is the age at which King David, a savior of the Jews, died at. In fact, David was not supposed to live at all. Adam, the first man created was supposed to live forever, but after sinning by eating the apple, God only granted him 1,000 years of life. Adam foresaw a great man who had the potential to save the Jewish people but was going to die at birth, and decided to give this man 70 years of his own life. Thus, Adam lived to be 930 years, and allowed David a life until 70. This is not meant to be a comparison to David or Adam or any religious figure, or man of God. It is simply a coincidence that the two men both lived to be 70.

Stanley Kubrick is probably the greatest filmmaker that will ever exist. It is because there exists more questions than answers, not only in the filmmaking world, but also in the world of the general population. But for Kubrick, it was the other way around. He had more answers than questions, and it’s a reason why he tortured his writers and actors during the production of his films. He knew something they didn’t, and that’s the entire issue at hand. We want to know exactly what it was he knew that we didn’t. It might explain his movies a little better. It might also explain this world a little better, a world that perhaps he figured out, and was trying desperately, and frustratingly to explain to us through his work.

MENTAL MASTURBATION PART VI

Once again, if a film has a * symbol next to it, that means that the selected choice is an exceptional stand out. Rarely will I assign this symbol, but I feel that certain films deserve the extra special mention.


Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone,1914)
Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks 1955)
Purple Noon (Rene Clement, 1960)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) *
I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis Buñuel, 1964)
Women in Love (Ken Russell, 1969)
Bed and Board (Francois Truffaut, 1970)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
A Little Romance (George Roy Hill, 1979)
Somewhere in Time (Jeannot Szwarc, 1980)
Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Vladimir Menshov, 1980)
An Officer and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford, 1982)
The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)
Matador (Pedro Almovodar, 1986)
Nobody’s Fool (Robert Benton, 1994)
Spanking the Monkey (David O. Russell, 1994)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-duk Kim, 2003) *
My Life Without Me (Isabel Coixet, 2003)
L’enfant (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Luc Dardenne, 2005)
The Raftman’s Razor (Keith Bearden, 2005)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
I’m Here (Spike Jonze, 2010) *

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (BRIAN DE PALMA, 1974)

Phantom of the Paradise, USA, 1974
Dir: Brian De Palma
Cast: William Finley, Paul Williams, Jessica Harper


Phantom of the Paradise is a bizarre and beautiful film by auteur Brian De Palma. Beyond any measure, it is a fantastic blend of horror, and cheesiness, 50s du-wop nostalgia, and biting musical satire. It pays homage to countless classic films like Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well the story of The Phantom of the Opera and Faust. De Palma’s restless, uncompromised vision was a failure, both critically and financially when it was released on Halloween, 1974, just a year before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, another cult musical film that closely resembled Phantom of the Paradise.

Speaking after a screening recently, producer Edward R. Pressman said what drew him to produce several of De Palma’s films was his “intellectual eroticism and charm.” It’s scary to think that nearly 40 years already passed, but the film has developed quite a cult following in that time. Perhaps not as large as The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Eraserhead, another 70s cult film, the crowds that gather together to view the film four decades after its release is still quite respectable. De Palma himself refuses to attend retrospective screenings of the film, but its star William Finley attends every one that he’s invited to be present at, along with his wife, who choreographed several of the dance sequences in the film.


The plot is a twist on the classic Phantom of the Opera story. In De Palma’s wonderfully depraved version, a shy composer is deceived and sabotaged by an incredibly charismatic, and wealthy music producer, played by Paul Williams. According to Mr. Pressman, the megalomaniacal character is based on infamous music producer Phil Spector. Meanwhile, the same shy pianist suffers a terrible accident which renders his face horrific and obscene to others around him, thus forcing him to wear a mask to protect himself, and falls in love with a sweet young singer who he wishes to work with. The singer, played by Jessica Harper in her debut role, has spunk and charm and talent that the other ladies lack.

It’s easy to see why this film has become such a fan favorite over the years. It’s a pre-cursor to Rocky Horror, the Phantom's costume was the inspiration for the Darth Vader get-up in Star Wars, and the film also served as the inspiration for the band KISS, who saw the film and took its glam-rock approach to music and have created a rich musical empire that has lasted four decades and continues to grow.


This was De Palma’s final film entry before he hit it big in mainstream pictures with Carrie in 1976. He followed it up with another throwback horror film, Dressed to Kill in 1980, and directed another movie that has found immense success past its release date, Scarface, in 1983. He went back and forth between Hollywood and independent fare for the remainder of his career. He found success with Body Double in 1984, The Untouchables in 1987, which won Sean Connery an Academy Award, and re-teamed with Al Pacino in 1993 for Carlito’s Way. De Palma turned 70 last year and has not directed since 2007’s Redacted, a controversial socio-political film that dealt with accounts of soldiers in the Iraqi War.

De Palma’s influences such as Hitchcock, Welles, Eisenstein, and others play a large role in De Palma’s more offbeat work, such as 1973’s Sisters, and more so in Phantom of the Paradise, which mocks the music industry, and the price that some musicians pay so dearly to achieve a taste of fame.

Phantom of the Paradise is not a film ahead of its time. Rather, it is a film that came before its time. Perhaps that is the reason why it has taken so long for it to achieve cult status amongst fans.

One last juicy tidbit: The film begins with a mysterious voiceover, delivered by none other than Rod Serling, creator of the The Twilight Zone.