Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I know Harry’s a big fan of this one. I haven’t had the chance to see it personally, but I’m always a fan of a film that can drop you into a subculture with the right energy and a convincing sense of sleaze...
Hey Moriarty.
Just thought I finally have a chance to contribute a review. Tonight I attended the opening night of the San Francisco Indie Film Festival. It is my first film festival so far. Being a film and illustration student at the San Francisco Academy of Art college definitely has its benefits. Anyway, on to the review. Tonight i was extremely lucky to get into the opening night screening of Spun. Going into the film I knew what to expect from it. I wasnt caught off guard by any of its shock value scenes. Which there are a few of. Most particularly, for me atleast, was a scene where John Leguizamo calls a sex line and masturbates with only a sock on, American Pie style. Now the masturbation doesnt bother me. But John Leguizamo running around with only a sock on, and fairly erect, masturbating, jumping on a bed while masturbating, cut together with Mena Suvari trying hard to take a shit in the next room, is a little gross, but I guess that didnt really shock me either. John Lequizamo plays Spider Mike, a drug dealer. The part is perfect for Leguizamo and he does some of his best work so far here. His character isnt very deep or anything, but none of the characters in this film are.
Surprisingly Jason Schwartzman plays his role very very straight. He doesnt flip out or act really crazy like everyone else in this film except for Mickey Rourke. This doesnt mean he doesnt do crazy things drug addicts do, like after a crazy sex scene leave his stripper girlfriend handcuffed on the bed, tape her mouth and eyes and run errands, and then forget to let her go for 3 days. Those scenes I think are some of the most dark and serious of the movie. The sex scene in particular is one of the best scenes. It is not particularly hot or sexy, it is just very different. It is treated like sex that is bringing about the apocalyspse. As if an god and the devil got together and fucked. The scene is edited at a crazy pace, clips of evil apocalyptic clouds rolling and shit like that. It was very cool.
Brittany Murphy plays Nikki, who is Mickey Rourke's character The Cook's girlfriend. Brittany is pretty good as usual. Nothing great though. She is pretty much just Brittany Murphy as usual only more of a bimbo. But I liked her.
Mickey Rourke as The Cook is the best in this film along with John Lequizamo. The Cook makes methamphetamine in his motel room with Nikki. The cook is also probably the most sane character in the film. He never really does anything crazy except for make drugs. The Cook is of course a badass, and might come off as a pretty cool guy if he werent always wearing these silly cowboy outfits, not that thats a bad thing, it definitely adds to the character. And Mickey brings probably the most depth to his character than anyone else in this film. That said, its still not a lot.
Other highlights of this film is Eric Roberts in a small role as The Man. A gay guy with a crazy outfit and two almost naked gap model looking boy slaves. Pretty entertaining. I also quite enjoyed Peter Stormare and Alexis Roberts as two really sleazy cops trying to bust up the drug operation. They play their roles strictly for laughs. And they are quite good. I always enjoy Peter Stormare as some crazy russian guy in a lot of movies like recently Minority Report as the doctor and a scene stealer in Armageddon.
If you want to know what to expect this film just think of the feel of The Salton Sea and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but filmed more in the style of Requiem For a Dream. I should say that this film is heavily influenced by Requiem visually, not as far as directly copying the filmmaking style, but pretty damn close. But it does have a very different feel. This is not one of those drug movies you come out of really caring about the characters or even feeling particularly effected or depressed, its just an experience. The Film begins going at a breakneck pace, i mean really quick cutting. And when it slows down, you are thankful for those breaks. The whole film is made to be both assaulting audio and visual wise. I should mention the score is by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins who also makes a funny, unrecognizable cameo as the doctor. And I almost forgot to mention one of the best visual parts of the film, which is its use of 2d animation in some drug sequences. It is pretty original stuff and is not overused at all. The scene where Jason Schwartzman is watching a stripper dance and suddenly we see her animated 2d pussy open up and Schwartzman is sucked in floating with sperm and pills floating around, is pretty damn cool. This movie is the director's unrated cut and most of the explicit stuff are all in the animation. To cut any of that stuff would definitely be unwise since it somewhat makes this movie worth seeing.
At the end of the movie I also got to meet one of the producers and Will De Los Santos the writer of the movie and the basis of the film. Jason Schwartzman as Ross is playing Will De Los Santos and apparently all the characters in the movie are real but names have been changed. Will De Los Santos showed up just after the film ended because he had just gotten off the plane as the film was about to begin and had no money and was begging people for cab fair. He couldnt stay long either because his cab was still waiting for him outside with all his luggage in it. But I did manage to get some info out of him like how accurate the story is, which he says is very accurate except for he didnt really leave the girl tied up for 3 days, it was only one, and the end death scene never happened, that character never died. I also found out the whole story took place in Oregon around Portland and Eugene where I am from. Also where some of Drugstore Cowboy is based. I also found out from the producer that they have been struggling to get the movie edited down with an R rating. And they had settled on just blurring things out. But after seeing the effect, it was decided they might as well release it how it is. So everyone will be lucky enough to see this unrated directors cut in theaters in late march I was told. Great news.
If this makes it onto the site please call me Samurai Artist.
By the way I also found out this little movie that I keep hearing about on AICN is going to be showing, called Bubba Ho-Tep! with Bruce Campbell! I gotta see this movie but I here it is the only film already sold out. What the fuck, i gotta see this movie. I know some other Academy Students volunteering at the festival so maybe I can get snuck in, or maybe I will just have to stand outside trying to buy tickets from people. I am also planning on seeing Irreversible on Saturday and give a review for that. I also just found out that on Feb. 15 at the SF Indie fest they are having the world premiere of House of the Dead, the new movie based on the series of video games from Sega. It is also the uncensored Director's cut. So count on a review of that coming soon too. And one other thing, there is all these horror films showing, know if any of these are any good? Alive (Ryuhei Kitamura), Hell's Highway (S. Lee Taylor), Horror (Dante Tomaselli) and The Beast which I hear is 25 years old and mostly unseen because it has been banned all over the world. Directed by Walerian Borowczyk this French film is supposed to be half exploitation cinema and half hardcore pornography. Quoting from the SF Indie Film pamphlet "It features a giant hairy monster with a huge erection (and gallons of ejaculate) pursuing a nubile young woman through the forest for hot sex. For some srange reason, they just dont make them like this anymore." Sounds fucking brilliant to me. Feel free to edit this whole last part and anything else if you want. Samurai Artist is out.
THE BEAST is definitely worth seeing, and ALIVE is interesting. Haven’t seen the others you mentioned. Whatever else you see and want to send in reviews for, please feel free, and thanks for this one, man.
"Moriarty" out.
