Go (1999)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
Ranna (Sarah Polley) is behind on her rent, on the verge of eviction, but she might be able to score some cash with a quick one-time deal selling twenty hits of ecstasy.She’s never done anything like this before, though, and it’s a bad time to be new to the drug business, as DEA agents are lurking to make an arrest. Thus begins an epic night of early-20s danger and deception.”In the old days, you know how you got to the top? Huh? By being better than the guy ahead of you. How do you people get to the top? By being so fucking incompetent, that the guy ahead of you can’t do his job, so he falls on his ass and congratulations, you are now on top. And now the top is down here, it used to be up here… and you don’t even know the fucking difference.”
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| NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #294 [archive] MAY 23, 2024 |
Go‘s crazy complicated story is told from three interlocking perspectives, but director Doug Limon (The Bourne Identity 2002) keeps it coherent, terrifying, and hilarious, even as everything rolls along at 55 mph. There’s a dude tripping, another dude in the trunk, a grocery store Macarena, a woman’s face on fire, a hit and reverse-run, a telekinetic cat… It’s much more style than substance, but it’s perfect Hollywood entertainment.Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Go Ask Alice (1973)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
“This motion picture is based on the authentic diary of a 15-year-old American girl. The only alterations have been those necessitated by considerations of length and acceptability for family viewing.”
Authentic, my ass. Go Ask Alice is a famously fake book, originally purported to be the “found” diary of a drug-addicted girl, but actually written by church counselor and serial hoaxstress Beatrice Sparks, as anti-drug propaganda.This TV movie, based on the book, is preachy, but not as preachy as you’d expect, and also not as hokey. The very notion of Andy Griffith as a priest and drug counselor is preposterous, but he’s surprisingly OK. Even William Shatner, sporting glasses and a fat mustache, is OK as Alice’s father.Which is disappointing. I didn’t watch this for the message or entertainment, damn it, I wanted camp, some laughs.Sadly, though, this film is completely watchable. The readings from Alice’s diary sound very much like the inside of a teenager’s head, and when she’s stoned at her own birthday party, her parents don’t even notice; only her younger brother does. That’s realistic.There’s even a supporting role for Mackenzie Phillips.The theme song is “White Rabbit,” the song by Jefferson Airplane, but it’s performed by an anonymous studio band. There are a few other rock standards too, also by soundalikes, one hopes.Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Go, Go, Second-Time Virgin (1969)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
Rape is my second least favorite of the major crimes, behind only
murder. All the other crimes happen, but rape is the one where you’re
the scene of the crime, and walk around with it forever.Go, Go, Second-Time Virgin is a jaw-dropping contemplation of rape, that starts with a sickening gang rape while a teenage boy watches. I fast-forwarded through that, a relief unavailable to the victim.She’s Poppo, age 17, and she’s left naked and bleeding on a bleak industrial rooftop. With nowhere else to go, she falls asleep there, and is raped again in the morning. Having gotten the general artistic gist, I fast-forwarded again.Poppo has been raped before, and every survival instinct has been raped out of her. She wants to die, and ‘befriends’ (if that’s the right word) Tsukio, the boy who’d watched her being raped the night before.He’s been gang-raped too, so they have a lot in common, but this is not quite a romance, nor is it a feel-better story about recovery from rape, as the chipper title seems to imply. Unlike most pop-culture that swirls around rape, it’s not a plot element here; it’s the plot. Director Kôji Wakamatsu understands the agony, and revels in it. It’s beautifully shot in black-and-white that’s bleak as noir but more deadly, and with a killer score of jazz and mellow pop as a counterpoint. More nihilistic than Nietzsche, this is heavy stuff, poetic wreckage that’ll leave you wrecked.Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Go Go Tales (2007)
Streaming free at YouTube, with Spanish subtitles
“Long live the Paradise Lounge!”
Ray Ruby (Willen Dafoe) runs an artsy-fartsy gentleman’s club that’s on the verge of going out of business. The landlady (Sylvia Miles!) keeps stopping by, sputtering angry rants and threatening to close the club to make way for a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The strippers’ paychecks have been delayed. One of them uses a dog in her act, and the animal eats all the “free-range frankfurters” from the concession stand.Willem Dafoe sings. Bob Hoskins does not.The strip show must go on, but you know it’ll never be a financial success — an allegory perhaps, for capitalism in general, and/or writer-director Abel Ferrara’s career.Ferrara described Go Go Tales as his “first intentional comedy,” but it’s never particularly funny so I don’t know about that. It is a fabulous freak show, though.Verdict: YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Go Tell It on the Mountain (1985)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
John Grimes (James Bond III) is a teenage boy trying to escape his domineering father, the monstrous minister Gabriel Grimes (Paul Winfield).It’s a big black movie based on a novel by James Baldwin, which I haven’t read, with a host of characters dealing with basic soap opera issues, plus whites on a racist rampage.What reached and angered me most is the vivid and unending awfulness of Preacher Grimes, who never thinks of anything but God, and never stops berating his son for not being godly enough — but the movie loves him.Winfield’s performance is so powerful and the character so frickin’ horrid, it’s work watching this, and should earn me time-and-a-half at least.
Probably the movie’s a masterpiece, what do I know, but there’s way way way way too much preaching, and the whole shebang comes off as an infomercial for Jesus.Verdict: NO.5/23/2024 • • • Coming attractions • • • The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972)
The Goat (1921)
God Has a Rap Sheet (2002)
The Gods of Times Square (1999)
Godspell (1973)
… plus schlock, shorts, and surprises
especially starting with the letter ‘H’.
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Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.
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