Sunset Gun

The Super Mother Bug

When William Friedkin's Bug hit theaters, the movie left many viewers confused, even angry. Based on the picture's previews and poster art, audience's unfamiliar with the Tracy Letts play it was adapted from, thought they were going to see another Saw or Hostel or whatever Lions Gate horror film was currently released. But, nope. They saw something far superior. Too bad so many didn't appreciate it. As I sat in the theater (I saw the movie alone, on my birthday, which was an oddly perfect personal present) I heard jeers, witnessed walk-outs and when the credits rolled, grumblings of "wanting my money back." I however, couldn't wait for the fascinating freak-out to come out on DVD. Happily, since yesterday, it has done just that, and after watching the picture for the second time, I’m re-running my review. If you missed it on the big screen, now’s your chance to catch up on one of this year's best movies. Or rather, catch this Bug.

“Guess I’d rather talk with you about bugs than nothing with nobody.”

There’s a moment in Bug during which I was so significantly moved, I almost crumbled in my theater seat. It comes when Agnes (Ashley Judd), the worn out, drug abusing, but still beautiful (in that way only certain kinds of damaged women can be) realizes she might be a alone again. As her newfound future partner in psychosis, Peter (Michael Shannon) leaves her; she closes herself in her seedy motel bathroom and sobs. In spite of presenting herself as a tough cookie -- she needs this guy. He’s a lot smarter and sensitive than her ex-husband (a bullying, abusive Harry Connick Jr.) and in spite of some of his crazy rants, she likes the way he talks.

And then…he returns and reveals his distinctly special problem. The reunion of these lovers is so weirdly romantic and such a relief, that you almost forget it will be poor Agnes’ undoing. If love is mad, if love is crazy, then Agnes and Peter are, as Laura Dern stated, “wild at heart and weird on top.”

So begins their folie à deux but one that moves beyond these lost soul’s tortured union and into modern ideas of conspiracies, post war insanity, disease, infected blood and the kind of paranoia that can spread like wildfire once the flame is (quite literally) ignited. And of course, it’s also about bugs, aphids to be specific, though they’re not swooping down on the pair a la Mimic -- they’re horrifyingly in their blood, brain, skin, teeth and, even more terrifying, we can’t see them. We simply have to believe. Or rather, we have to want to believe. I certainly wanted to believe, just so these people’s lives would make the labyrinthian sense they so desire.

Directed by William Friedkin and adapted from Tracy Letts’ revered play, Bug is a movie that will baffle, excite, horrify and anger those who can’t stay with its unwavering intensity. It will even in moments provoke titters, purposefully so, which should be honored rather than mocked -- obsession can be very, very funny. Bug is a rare picture that balances realistic, literal psychological horror with metaphorical meaning with small punches of satirical wit. It’s nothing like you’ve ever seen and so skillfully, artfully executed and so brilliantly acted (especially by Judd ) that the result is less movie and more wide awake fever dream. If you can relate to paranoia and desperate love in any way, you will meld into this movie -- and that only lends to its horror. It is (I’m not going to mince words here), a masterpiece.

The drama starts via the way most people hook up -- through a friend. Judd’s Agnes meets Shannon’s Peter after her lesbian friend R.C. (Lynn Collins) introduces the two and drops him at Agnes’s depressing hovel. She’s immediately intrigued but aware he’s a bit strange (after overhearing the women argue about his weirdness, he repeats “I’m not an axe murderer” -- his timing with this line is like his simultaneously subtle and wacked out performance: perfect). He admits that he makes others uncomfortable (“I pick up things unapparent”) but Agnes is refreshed by his shy, though straightforward sweetness. She’s also, eventually open to his unending beliefs about bugs, egg-sacks, insects implanted in his body via the military or whatever else. And though she argues at first, she will more than believe, becoming necessary and complicit -- partly out of love for her man, partly out of her own burgeoning psychosis (which we question is brought on by speedy drugs and her own past trauma) and partly because, well, maybe there’s something to this bug thing. She is hearing crickets in her room, she’s being bitten and helicopters are flying overhead. Or maybe not.

The fact that Friedkin leaves a small crack open for interpretation (and I really think he does -- especially when the weird-o drug taking doctor comes for a visit) gives the film an extra power and poignancy. Friedkin is a master with sound (you hear those damn bugs so much they burrow into your brain too) and, when in top form, showcases a kind of visceral suspense that, like The Exorcist, feeds from possession. These lovers are quite obviously, afflicted, and so the tension doesn’t come in simply their journey to the other side of sanity, it comes in how far they will go. And where will they go? And will they figure it out? And what are they going to carve out of their body next?

He also bleeds powerhouse performances from his actors, notably Judd, who might possibly be the greatest, bravest and most electrifying actress working. In Bug, she is sheer genius. Moving from a quiet, seen-it-all cynicism to a deranged, focused conspiratorial rambling, her transformation is without question. In her earlier moments, you can see that spark of insanity so when it blooms to full flower, you truly believe she’s exiting the smothering cocoon of her life. She’s found her purpose. She's also attempting to reconcile her damaged past and neglect in one of the most destructive, insane ways possible. But in Judd's hands, she’s so good, so real, so with her character (my God, just the way Judd sits on a couch is remarkably natural) she becomes, in a tragic, twisted way, inspirational.

Some critics believe her character not too bright -- easily led by a sick manipulator who feeds off her to justify and complete his mental illness -- but I don’t see her in such simplistic terms. The real tragedy is she’s stuck in a dead end, trashy life and like a lot of smart “crazy” people, able to make that leap, able to embrace the bizarre, able to question the very nature of things, be it love or the government or some other vast conspiracy, to the point of no return. Like the movie, Agnes knows that nothing, even bugs, can be that easy -- nothing. And, depending on how you express it, understanding such complications is both comforting and crazy.

Cronenberg's 'Crash' Test

With the passing of the great J.G. Ballard, I'm returning to my favorite adaptation of his work, David Cronenberg's auto-erotic Crash.

"Crash is an autobiographical novel in the sense that it is about my inner life, my imaginative life. It is true to that interior life, not the life I have actually lived."

--J.G. Ballard

A survived car accident can be one of the most exciting, disturbing and hallucinatory events in a person's life, and not simply because of life endangerment and pain. Time is sped up, then suspended; physical and mental sensations are heightened, blurring reality. Life feels strangely, in the moment but dazzlingly surreal. And yet, a car accident is such a common occurrence that when we drive by one we frequently do so with a titillated, detached interest.

Inside cars, those speeding microcosmic shelters, we see distinct personalities -- aggressive, meek, and distracted -- the potential of which Godard envisioned in his maddeningly extraordinary car wreck loop Week End. To enter these personal realms, we act in mildly subversive ways -- honking at a trucker, making an enraged cutoff, flirting on the freeway. Arranging this entry erotically so as to combine man with machine with sex is less familiar. But perversions often rear up in mundane environments, especially ones surrounded by seat belts, door locks and steel.

David Cronenberg, the auteur known for turning "safe" environments (apartment complexes, hospitals, the gynecologist) into terrifying, erotic and reality shaking locales, penetrated the world of the automobile and stretches its "normalcy" tenfold. Adapted from J.G. Ballard's brilliant novel, Crash is a rare picture with unconventional plotting. Cronenberg constructs the exposition, action and conclusion (as well as its subtext) through sex scenes, scenes that open and flower -- or, depending on your viewpoint; grow increasingly perverse -- throughout the film's rather short running time.

James Spader plays TV-commercial producer James Ballard, who is introduced to the auto-erotic world of the peculiar scientist Vaughan (Elias Koteas) by Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter) a woman he meets via a near-fatal car accident, and with whom he first experiences the automobile's turn on potential. James, his wife Catherine (the strikingly icy Deborah Kara Unger) and Remington join Vaughan and his subculture of dazed crash survivors, including Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette), a walking Helmut Newton-esque fetish doll of scars, leg braces and support suits (she is, in her own way, a glorious vision). They swap partners not only to satisfy their craving for dangerous, pulse-quickening sex, but also for an exploration of what J.G. Ballard calls "psyhic fulfillment."

From its opening shot -- Catherine laying her breast on the cold wing of an airplane -- Crash immediately expresses its alignment of technology and the human body, a physical relationship that occurs daily, though we don't often notice it. Vaughan leads James and Catherine to a sexual awakening with their mechanical connections, infusing their human relationship with the charge its lost through deadened senses and alienation. There are negative ramifications to these people's sometimes repulsive acts, but there is also a broadened knowledge of the world around them and the creation of a strange beauty through their meticulously visual orchestrations.

Like the conventional contact between two cars, the movie's sex is rarely face-to-face, revealing the couple's disconnections, but also the idea that they're stretching toward something. As the picture unfolds, James' desire builds into perversion yet somehow also becomes more personal: After Catherine’s rough coupling with Vaughan in a car wash (the scene's commingling of cleaning fluids, sperm, car seats and human skin is the movie's best visualization of J.G. Ballard's language), James kisses her bruises with a tenderness previously unexpressed. At this moment, when we see that the couple is truly in love, we grapple with both the benefit of their experience and its implications; questions that we cannot immediately answer bubble to the surface.

There were obvious questions that came to me: Is Crash a cautionary tale about people so numbed by the modern world that they must seek excitement in dangerous measures? Is it commenting on our dissatisfied consumer society? Is it simply a turn-on? I think the answers are yes and no. Though the novel's relentless descriptions of bodily fluids and organs coalescing with twisted steel ("his semen emptying across the luminescent dials that registered forever the last temperature and fuel levels of the engine") are rendered less graphic by Cronenberg, J.G. Ballard's vision of the "liberation of human and machine libido" remains potently intact. In both novel and film form, Crash takes a non-moral and non-celebratory approach to its subject matter, creating an alternative perception of the physical world that is as beautiful as its is horrific. And that amalgamation is, unlike many movies and true to Cronenberg, disturbingly, unnervingly sexy -- enough to make you check yourself. Or at least check yourself in the rear-view mirror.

Seedy Sexy Dirty Drum Boogie

American cinema isn’t really that dangerously sexy anymore. Not in any mysterious way. It lacks the edge and thrill of say, Peggy Cummins shooting between her legs in Gun Crazy. Or Decoy’s Jean Gille laughing with maniac, orgasmic glee after she’s offed her duped boyfriend who’s just dug up the only thing that turns her on -- money. Or Cloris Leachman’s hard panting, hyper-ventilating co-mingling with Nat King Cole’s silky singing over the credits to Kiss Me Deadly. Or, dear God, Lana and that lipstick in The Postman Always Rings Twice. American films can pretend they're sexy, and some are. And yes, some stars will put it out there (in nude scenes, in magazine spreads, or simply in the work of Maggie Gyllenhaal -- check Sherrybaby and Secretary for proof). But in my mind (and with some expections, obviously), the look John Garfield gives Lana Turner when that tube of red rolls across the floor is worth one thousand contemporary sex scenes.

But, clearly I’m showing a bias. Based on my examples, it’s not surprising that film noir is the place (or rather, my place) for screwy sexy made all the more erotic because even as sex, often toxic sex, motivates many of its character’s actions, the genre’s aim isn’t merely to steam your glasses. So when it does hits an arousing bulls-eye, well, as the lady says, put your lips together and blow.

Which led me to a film I hadn’t seen in years -- Robert Siodmack’s Phantom Lady -- a picture that features a performance by Ella Raines that’s so sizzling and yet so alluringly poignant, you’re a little overwhelmed by it.

Adapted from the Cornell Woolrich novel, Phantom Lady was Siodmak’s first American screen success and he would later craft some sublime noirs including Criss Cross, Cry of the City, The Dark Mirror, The File on Thelma Jordan and The Killers (among others). I’ll run down the story: Ella Raines (her character’s nicknamed “Kansas” -- which seems like a Wizard of Oz reference given the subterranean world she will find herself in) works as Alan Curtis’s secretary. When he’s framed for the murder of his wife, she sets out to help him because she doesn’t believe he did it. She's also besotted with him (lucky fella). Sexing up her image as cub private dick, she’s off to find this “Phantom Lady” with the help of Curtis’s friend (Franchot Tone) and an off duty police detective (Thomas Gomez, so wonderful in Force of Evil). OK, so that's the story, but what I really want to discuss is Raines's interaction with the hep cat, hopped up jazz drummer, played by noir staple, the great Elisha Cook, Jr.

I am absolutely gob-smack over their famed moments together. Ella’s seduction of Elisha -- an overwhelming sexy, conflicted, crazily drugged sequence (you can practically smell the booze, marijuana, heroin and dexies permeating the joint) in which Raines plays hot-to-trot, seems to be eating up her vampy method of getting to the straight dirt and yet, is repulsed by both Cook (that kiss!) and herself for having to go this far. Showcasing Siodmak’s (and cinematographer Woody Bredell’s) evocative, angled compositions (used gorgeously throughout the movie), the style brilliantly underscores the mounting hysteria and varied state of Raines’s psychology. This is an extreme example, but what Raines reveals is something many women feel when finding themselves in the belly of the sleazy beast. It's a little fun and a little horrifying and you're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Not that this situation isn't also sickly erotic -- it is. And the frantic, psychosexual, hop headed-ness makes me feel high (I'll have what Elisha's having, thank you). It sure as hell makes me want to put on some Gene Krupa -- his drum boogie was, in real life, probably a lot sexier, dirtier and seedier than we even know. I'll bet Ella knew.

On DVD, Breezy, Witches And Cheap Trick

Not many memorable DVD’s were released this week so I’ll stick to a few standouts. The Eyes Without a Face (a movie that still shocks me) re-tool The Blood Rose, the comedy Blades of Glory (yes, I find the movie amusing, and yes, I enjoy ice skating) and the original 3:10 to Yuma (directed by Delmer Daves) with Glenn Ford and the fantastically named Van Heflin, whom I revere, especially in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

I'll try for more DVD's next week but in the meantime, check out my Film and DVD reviews at Strange Impersonation and anything else I'm thinking at Pretty Poison.

As for now, Three Obsessions:

1. Breezy (1973)  I have this small fascination with May December romances, especially when they border on highly inappropriate. But, to quote Woody Allen, who said (perhaps selfishly) “The heart wants what it wants.” So after recently watching that bizarre-o ,kind of horrible, but compulsively watchable bit of underage love called Twinkie (starring Charles Bronson and Susan George—and directed by Richard Donner! It’s worth looking at.), I returned to one of Clint Eastwood’s earliest efforts, Breezy. What an odd movie. And one of Eastwood’s reported personal favorites. Breezy is named for its title character, a teenage hippie chick who leaves her hometown of Intercourse, Pennsylvania (yes, that’s the name of the town) for Los Angeles, only to be hassled by a pervert while hitchhiking in Laurel Canyon. After evading the creep, she’s wandering the Hollywood Hills and comes upon an older professional (much older) played by William Holden. She charms him, beds him (in his fantastic house) and then attempts to get a relationship out of the guy, but the cocktail hour vs. age of Aquarius aspect gets in the way as does the whole Holden feeling like a creep (sort of). Indicative of its early 1970’s time period, this was Clint’s version of Petulia. And I love the scenes of Holden at his office. Though I'm not sure why.

2. The Witches (1990)   Along with Danny DeVito’s wonderful Roald Dahl adaption Matilda, The Witches is an overlooked mini-masterwork. Fun, frightening, sad and perfectly weird, it’s a kid’s movie that doesn’t talk down to them—it knows they know about good, bad, evil and whatever else in between. Directed by Nicolas Roeg, the master who made both the infinitely more adult fare The Man who Fell to Earth, Walkabout and the brilliant Don’t Look Now (a movie that puts me in the verge of a nervous breakdown in its final scene), the film features a nine-year-old boy who finds himself stuck smack in the middle of a witches’ convention. The High Witch (played by a deliciously evil Anjelica Huston) reveals her master plan to turn all children into furry little animals. With the help of his grandmother, who just happens to be a good witch, they battle the dark ones’ nefarious plans. Filled with unique special effects, impressive, scene-chewing acting and creative use of mice, The Witches (which maintains the darkness from Dahl’s classic children’s story) is subversive and frighteningly fun.

3. Cheap Trick "He's A Whore"  Last time I rhapsodized about Cheap Trick, a few readers thought I was abusing cocaine which made no sense and, you know, come on. I'm much too nervous a person for that stuff. Dolls, now those are fine. But they're legal. Last thing I want is some crappy drug cut with baby powder or worse, baby laxative. O.K., I'm sick of this not funny joke. So...back to Cheap Trick, a band I love with the intensity of a born again Christian (I will obnoxiously attempt to convert everyone, including a friend in high-school who only listened to hardcore and thought Robin Zander's suits were poofy -- which made me basically drop said "friend"). Anyway...Robin Zander is one of my heroes. So is Bun E. Carlos. Well, they all are. Aside from the fact that these guys are brilliant musicians and songwriters (especially Rick Nielsen), they're also the original freaks and geeks. Two hot cool boys tailor made to be rock stars who start a band with two nerds (the coolest of nerds) equals magic. When you think about it (or when I do anyway), Cheap Trick is like a beacon of light in our narrow minded snobby hipster world. That these guys merged these sensibilities makes me think greater events could happen...in life. Like world peace. Yes, I'm tired. Nevertheless, here’s an early 1977 look at “He’s a Whore” from their brilliant debut album. I must have Robin Zander’s pink pants and vest. I must.