God Told Me To (1976)

(Directed by Larry Cohen, 1976, USA)

"God Told Me To" is a good example of a neat B-movie thriller going off the cinematic rails into plot insanity after a good hour or so of murder and mayhem.
Tony Lo Bianco plays a detective investigating a series of murders wherein random, seemingly normal people start killing others for no reason except that God told them to. How can you go wrong with that?

A lot of ways, definitely. The opening shot (hehe) starts off with a visual bang representation of Andre Breton's surrealist dictum of the ultimate surrealist act: firing a revolver into a crowd. In this case it is a sniper on a watertower picking people off around mid 1970's Bloomingdale's. Our intrepid detective climbs up and talks to said sniper only to hear the reason why he's doing this: "God told me to".
There is a great setup here, and even better when the same occurence happens at the St. Patrick's Day NYC parade with an unknown (yes, it's really him) Andy Kaufman going nuts, picking people off in police uniform. And God told him to of course.



The movie starts to combine different elements: the love life of Detective Lo Bianco involving a girlfriend Deborah Raffin and an ex-wife played by the late great Sandy Dennis, alien abduction, a Sylvia Sydney cameo, scary sci-fi elements, a short journey into blaxploitation territory and a weird quasi-early David Cronenborgish finale. As an ambitious B-movie, all of these said plot elements do not cohere together competently. On the Internet Movie Database page for this movie, I did feel happy that a lot of viewers didn't understand what was happening in the ultimate scene. I guess you can chalk it up to an ambitious director's screenplay trying to cover everything: for me, it was nice to see Lo Bianco in a lead role, NYC in the 1970's,the weird religion-gone-wrong vibe. It's admittedly a cult film, but the first part doesn't match the second part. I give props to Larry Cohen, thirty-plus years later after this low-budget film was released, it is still being argued about.
For a good hour, it's really good, but ultimately sinks under the weight of its ambition. Fun ride though!

Brand Upon the Brain! (2006)

(Directed by Guy Maddin, Canada, 2006)

The Canadian director Guy Maddin seems to make movies for film geeks and afficionados, obviously being one himself. His films are beautifully photographed, while his stories are deliberately over the top, so much so that they defy any attempt at synopsis and analysis.

His latest work "Brand Upon the Brain!" is being shown theatrically in two ways: as a live multimedia "happening" complete with live celebrity narrator, foley artists and small theater orchestra and also as a prerecorded narration by the wonderfully voiced actress Isabella Rossellini. If I ever directed a silent film, I would want her to narrate it.

Well, dear readers, I saw the latter version. An older 'Guy Maddin" returns home to the isolated island where he grew up, to paint the lighthouse where his parents kept the "Mom and Pop Orphanage", he will refresh the place with a fresh coat of paint. And then the memories start coming back and the movie is an extended flashback to Guy's childhood and the subsequent baroque intensity/insanity. As with most Maddin's current work, this involves a lot of Freudian complexes worked into the plot as well as a lot of absurdist plot complications as well. Some are resurrection, weird substance abuse and anti-aging serums, a Nancy Drew character dressing as a boy and entering into a lesbian affair with Guy's sister SIS and other assorted mayhem.

It's nice to say that Maddin has improved on his editing since the earlier "Cowards Bend the Knee", indeed this film is reminiscent of the earlier one: with rapid fire montage, very deadpan title cards and beautiful images recalling some of the earliest surviving film images and silent film techniques. Some surrealism is apparent too in this film: the 'aerophone' that distorts everything coming out of it and holds on to earlier spoken commands and the sentence "Father was replaced by a hamster and a metronome" among others.

Let's just say you can watch this film as you experience a dream, letting each successive image wash over you. If this is not your cup of tea, there's probably another movie ending with '3' awaiting you at the multiplex.

The live show sounds like fun, if it's playing at a theater near you, see it!

Mommie Dearest (1981)

(Directed by Frank Perry, 1981, USA)

What can be said about "Mommie Dearest" that hasn't already been said? Since I've never read Christina Crawford's 'tell-all' memoir, I can't really compare between her book and the campy, cheesy cinematic train wreck/adaptation that is this cult film. Yes, 'it's so bad it's good' comes to mind, Faye Dunaway does an exceptional acting job channelling Crawford except when she crashes off the rails (at least three times during the movie). I do admit that Faye gives an awesome performance here, even when she is 'over the top', not just acting: she lives, breathes and IS Joan Crawford that, on a recent youtube search, many posters lampooning this movie thought that she WAS Joan Crawford. It's unfortunate that she refuses to talk about this movie after 26 years and no longer wishes to be associated with it. Besides the scenes where she soars completely over the top (the notorious 'No wire hangers!" scene, the garden butchery, and the scene where she tries to strangle Christina in a reporter's presence), she is totally convincing. Yes, we remember this film for the alleged child abuse depicted, but there are also scenes where Dunaway shows the character's vulnerable side. These scenes occur during the second half of the film featuring the actress Diane Scarwid as the teenaged Christina, the first part of the film featuring Mara Hobel as a younger Christina are the most excruciating to watch. There is a 'laundry room scene' where a tearful Joan confides about her future to the teenage Christina and, towards the end of the film when she visits Christina's NYC apartment with a gift of pearls.

Yes, and then there are the famous lines, which I don't need to repeat here (they can be found on the Internet Movie Database entry for this movie). My favorite comment comes from the real-life Christina Crawford who (after seeing this movie) declared: "They turned it into a Joan Crawford movie!" (not sure if this is true or not, but it's great that Joan C. gets revenge from beyond the grave!!!).

When the bestseller "Mommie Dearest" came out (around 1979), there were two Crawford camps: for and against. The book and subsequent movie did a great deal of damage to the memory of Joan Crawford and her posthumous fame. Being a Bette Davis fan, I never really saw much of Crawford's films until cinema studies classes and TCM. I remember a summer night watching "Mildred Pierce" in Bryant Park and the audience cheering on her every move. A revival of Nicholas Ray's "Johnny Guitar" was revealing: how bizarre it was to see two strong women duke it out in a western no less. "Mommie Dearest" makes you want to rewatch "Mildred Pierce" and other Crawford films, you want to discover who this woman was, what made the actress unique, why she was such an icon for so long.

The "Mommie Dearest: Hollywood Royalty" DVD is a real hoot, with a hilarious commentary from John Waters, and a few features on the making of this movie and its continuing 'popularity' as a high camp classic.

It's hard to watch this without feeling that queasy reaction of not knowing whether to be shocked or to laugh, it just continues to tread that line between camp and melodrama.