21. Dead Ringers: Cronenberg's crowd-pleasing follow-up to The Fly

After a mainstream success, an artist will either try to mimic that success by making something in a similar vein, or will use this newfound clout to make something truly unique. Sometimes it works beautifully (such as The Big Lebowski following the massive success of Fargo for the Coen brothers), and other times it's a complete disaster (such as M Night Shyamalan staking his entire career on Lady in the Water). With David Cronenberg, he largely ditched the body horror gooeyness of his successful remake of The Fly with his follow-up Dead Ringers. However, the subject matter, tone, and Jeremy Irons' performance makes this an even grosser and less fun effort than The Fly, with none of the standard movie payoff. True, The Fly wasn't exactly a fun-filled romp, but Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis were likable leads that you could sympathize with and root for, and while the climax ended in tragedy, it did follow a logical path that the audience could at least get on board with.

All of this is to say that Dead Ringers is about the furthest you can get from an enjoyable, crowd-pleasing film, even though it's a great work of art. Irons gives a stunning performance as twin gynecologists Beverly and Elliot Mantle, with each twin having clearly different personalities but sharing a professional and personal need for each other. You get some of the standard camera tricks when an actor plays twins, but my favorite is a scene of Beverly and Elliot both slow dancing with a woman that Elliot has brought up to their apartment, with her sandwiched between the brothers while Elliot guides her hand up and down Beverly's back. Irons' performance should have gotten an Academy Award, but let's not kid ourselves, the grey-haired Academy probably chucked the screener of Dead Ringers so hard into the trashcan after viewing it that it left a dent.

There is much to dislike about this film. While the twins are great characters, it's impossible for the audience to get behind and root for two drug users who will sometimes both fuck the same woman without her knowing which one she slept with. Once Beverly's actress girlfriend leaves town to work on a project, he falls further into a cycle of drug use and madness, ordering specially made gynecological instruments for mutant women, using the wrong instrument on a patient and hurting her, and then finally injuring a patient with one of these instruments during a surgery. While Elliot is portrayed as the cocky asshole twin, you can barely tolerate the timid Beverly as he continues to fuck both his and his brother's lives up with his addiction and delusions. This leads to Elliot becoming a drug user himself in an attempt to synchronize with Beverly. The film ends with the two celebrating their birthday the way many twins do, with Beverly disemboweling Elliot in an attempt to "separate" himself. Then Beverly dies in Elliot's arms while the audience members scream at the poor Regal staff for a refund.

I've been continuously hammering away at how unenjoyable this film is, but I need to make something clear: David Cronenberg is my favorite horror director, and one of my favorite directors, period. Not only that, but I'm a huge fan of the body horror genre and will watch the worst pieces of shit if they even vaguely fit into the genre. I love Cronenberg films because they successfully mix intelligent, smartly written philosophy with lurid gore hound thrills. It's what H.G. Lewis would have made if he had an interest in medicine, better writers and no contempt for his audience. However, I'm not so blind in my fandom that I can't recognize his films as being the most audience-unfriendly works out there. There's a reason why his movies typically don't turn a profit; his sensibilities are too "out there" for most people.

I've watched Dead Ringers a few times now, and I still don't love it. I appreciate what Cronenberg's doing here, and I think it's a brilliant piece of filmmaking, but it's such an uncomfortable viewing experience that I find it difficult to sit through even though I admire it. Still, my inclination is to rank it higher than films that I've had a better time watching, because realistically, I'm going to end up watching this one again. There's so much going on in this film that I find interesting and that sticks in my mind that I can't rank it lower than, say, A Night to Remember. However, I can't put it higher than This Is Spinal Tap because at that point I'd be bullshitting myself. I enjoyed Tap more and will probably rewatch it sooner than Dead Ringers. Plus as a film I just like it more, so the sweet spot is #13, right between Tap and The Naked Kiss.


1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. Sid and Nancy (1986)
9. The 400 Blows (1959)
10. Walkabout (1971)
11. The Killer (1989)
12. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
13. Dead Ringers (1988)
14. The Naked Kiss (1964)
15. A Night to Remember (1958)
16. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
17. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
18. Amarcord (1973)
19. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Next up: I fire up some Sublime, put sunscreen on my nose and chill out to the sweet surf rhythm of David Lean's Summertime. Or maybe not...I have no idea what this movie's about, so this marks the second Criterion film that I'm seeing for the first time, and the first one that I'll be going into blind.

20. Sid and Nancy vs The 400 Blows

I'm going to preface this with a confession: I typically can't stand music bio films. When they're not just a vehicle to showcase the lead's performance then they're light jaunts through said musicians' greatest hits, with a couple of tragedies thrown in. The hagiography aspect is also grating, with people like Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly treated as pure, sin-free vessels that the Gods saw fit to deliver their music. That's why in films like La Bamba a side character like Bob can come in and steal the entire movie from the lead. Bob is flawed, obnoxious, and has a great character arc. Ritchie's just a good kid who faces standard odds, gets famous, and dies. No one quotes Ritchie's dialog from that movie, and I'd say that a larger number of viewers were more touched by Bob's reaction to Ritchie's death than the death itself.

Sid and Nancy is a movie that I lived and breathed for several years. As a young would-be punk I watched this film regularly and would incessantly quote it with friends. Well, maybe just the first half. It was acknowledged among us that the first hour of this film is a hilarious, fun-filled romp, and the ending is slow and depressing. We would typically finish the film, but the sensation at the mid point was always that the good times were behind us.

This was not an accident. While Sid and Nancy kicks off with booze and drug fueled punk rock fun, director Alex Cox then slows things down to show the downward spiral this lifestyle led to for Sid and Nancy. It's not a cautionary tale, and can been seen as a fairy tale romance between two junkies, but one can't shake the overall feeling that doing hard drugs will lead to misery and death. Like Requiem For a Dream and Kids, just because a movie doesn't set out to be a PSA doesn't mean that it won't become one by its very nature.

Thankfully, while Sid's a lovable loser, there's no attempt here to show him as someone that society "wronged" in any way. He's not an innocent lamb, and both him and Nancy knew what they were doing and came to their ends inevitably due to choices that they willingly and happily made. They liked doing drugs and abusing themselves, and though they hint at times at a desire for something better (Sid's insincere statements about wanting to kick drugs, Nancy's complaints about how her life has been largely unimportant), it never feels like either one of them really means this. They have no intentions of giving up their lifestyle, and music was only there for Sid to get money to pay for drugs, pizza, and rent. If anything, while Johnny Rotten's undeniably a prick in this movie, you find yourself sympathizing with his frustrations at seeing his friend go from an enthusiastic drunk to a stumbling, non-functioning junkie. Aside from teenagers, no one watching this movie is going to end it by wanting to hang out with these people.

Sid and Nancy is a biopic, yes, but it's also one of the best because, like Amadeus, it's informed by Cox's artistic sensibilities (such as the shot of Sid and Nancy leaning against a dumpster and making out while garbage rains down on them). There are layers to this film that make it something more than a greatest hits of The Sex Pistols and Sid's solo work. You get those scenes, but they feed into the larger story about frustrated, low-class bored youth turning towards drugs, music and self-destruction as a way to act out their justifiable frustrations at their place in society.

My love for this movie is once again going to bump it higher than most people would rank it. Incidentally, it's a battle between two frustrated youth movies, and my personal leanings are putting it just above The 400 Blows. I love that movie, but it was never a seminal feature of my life like Sid and Nancy was. My own youth, boredom and frustrations were directly spoken to by this film, and it got into my bones the way something like The 400 Blows never did. Thankfully, seeing it a decade after my last viewing, it still holds up.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. Sid and Nancy (1986)
9. The 400 Blows (1959)
10. Walkabout (1971)
11. The Killer (1989)
12. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
13. The Naked Kiss (1964)
14. A Night to Remember (1958)
15. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
16. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
17. Amarcord (1973)
18. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)


Next time: I strap myself up and spread 'em for David Cronenberg's classic Dead Ringers.

19. Shock Corridor vs Sanity

Originally written by Samuel Fuller for Fritz Lang, Shock Corridor is an entry in the sub-sub-genre of people who lie to get into a mental hospital, only to have it bite them in the ass in the end. Granted, as far as I know there's just this and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but I like to think that there are a number of filmmakers who can't resist these stories. There's a hubris at play with our Shock Corridor protagonist Johnny Barrett, a journalist who wants to solve a murder mystery involving an inmate. He swears that by going deep undercover and cracking this case, he'll write a story so great that it'll win him the Pulitzer Prize. It works, and at the end he's somehow lucid enough to write the story, but his brain has become so damaged from being in that environment that he becomes catatonic and is permanently committed. Cue slide whistle.

I can't help but think that stories like this and Cuckoo's Nest are almost reactions to the insanity defense that criminals sometimes use to get away with murder. A public that's out for vengeance doesn't care if a murderer is legitimately insane. They want him either imprisoned for life or executed, preferably the later. Therefore, the story of someone lying to get into a madhouse and then suffering for it has a sick satisfaction for revenge-minded viewers. Johnny's not a bad guy, but he does have a big ego and is purposely playing with fire here. You don't hate him for his cockiness, but you do want to see him suffer a bit. The punishment Fuller gives him at the end is way out of proportion to his sins, but it still makes for a great story, especially when you already know what's coming and see the step-by-step process of Johnny clearly faking it early on and then losing his mind completely.

The murder mystery here is weak, just like it was in The Naked Kiss. It's a McGuffin that neither Fuller nor the audience gives a shit about. I'm willing to bet that there wasn't a single viewer who cared about the identity of the killer, and that's because Fuller is more interested in showcasing different forms of insanity and what caused them. The scenes of inmates snapping back to reality, giving their origin stories, and then going mad again are the meat of this film. Johnny pesters them the entire time for the identity of the killer, but mostly you want Johnny to shut up so you can hear where these people came from. There's a political/social bent to each of these stories, and while you already know that Communism and racism were big topics in the 60s, I like how Fuller uses them as issues that can literally drive a person insane. There's a lot of goofball antics, such as the fat guy who keeps singing opera and forces Johnny to chew several pieces of gum to help him sleep, but everything is caked with layers of unease about society, and even the funny scenes feel creepy.

I've only seen three Fuller films (the other being The Big Red One), and this is my favorite. The ending is never in doubt, and the relationship between Johnny and his girlfriend Cathy almost reaches Tennessee Williams heights of melodrama, and all of that works for this kind of film. This is one of those "your mileage may vary" films, but with my tastes, I loved it. Therefore, this one is going to get ranked a bit high. My love of this particular kind of drama outweighs my love of gorgeous, operatic shoot 'em ups, so I think I'm going to sandwich Shock Corridor between Grand Illusion and Hard Boiled.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. The 400 Blows (1959)
9. Walkabout (1971)
10. The Killer (1989)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Naked Kiss (1964)
13. A Night to Remember (1958)
14. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
15. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
16. Amarcord (1973)
17. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)


Next time: I bring out the farewell drugs for Sid and Nancy.

18. The Naked Kiss vs. Prostitution

Before I talk about Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss, I'd like to state how annoying it is that Criterion has this one numbered just before Shock Corridor. This annoys be because I typically like seeing how an artist changes over time (even just a year), and also because this film has a shout out to Shock Corridor as our hooker protagonist Kelly walks by a movie theater showing said film. Come on Criterion. I feel like you're just fucking with people now. I guess they wanted this to follow Salo so they could have a kind of "children in peril" double feature.

The Naked Kiss tells the story of a hooker trying to go straight. She gets a job in a children's hospital but is continuously harassed by asshole cop Griff, who screwed her on her first night in town and refuses to believe that she could stop hooking. She eventually gets engaged to a rich man about the town who turns out to be a child molester. Kelly kills him, goes to jail, and then is released when a little girl admits that he almost molested her. I typically don't like writing plot summaries, but this is some edgy shit for 1964. It's a neo-noir film, so of course it's going to have all the sexual perversions and lurid thrills of that genre, but Fuller amps it up to a degree that I don't think had been done at that point. It's a vicious film, but it has a "protect the children morality" running through it that softens the edge ever so slightly. At one point a girl is knocked up while hooking, and Kelly gives her cash but tells her not to have an abortion.

I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It has the trashy feel of the best of the pulps, the performances are frantic enough to work (though Griff's screaming ass-hattery gets hard to take near the end), and it doesn't feel like anything else you'd see at the time. I can't stomach scenes of off-key children singing, but it works here because the song plays an important role later in the film, and on a second viewing feels much creepier when the camera pans up to show the smiling molester recording the song. I like how rough this film feels, without the slick veneer of studio polish that you typically see in Important Issue films. This film straddles the line between trash and art, and as an example of both, I highly recommend it.

Right now it's starting to get much more interesting when I'm trying to rank these films. The memory of the good times I had with The Lady Vanishes and A Night to Remember are starting to fade away, and films with lasting, powerful images are growing in my estimation. For example, for all its greatness, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I've ranked The Silence of the Lambs a tad too high. But for now, that doesn't matter. The Naked Kiss is great trash art, and I have it fighting with This Is Spinal Tap for the #10 spot. The Killer is too iconic to drop down, as is everything above it. Strangely, though my review for This Is Spinal Tap was admittedly a bit limp-dicked, I'm finding myself remembering certain gags from that film and laughing. Plus I can't get that fucking Big Bottom song out of my head. Therefore, Tap stays at #10, and The Naked Kiss squeezes into the #11 spot.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. The Naked Kiss (1964)
12. A Night to Remember (1958)
13. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
14. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
15. Amarcord (1973)
16. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)


Next time: I revisit my favorite Samuel Fuller film when I check into Shock Corridor.

17. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom: Mangia

There is probably no film in the Criterion Collection more notorious and harder to sit through than Salo. As a cinephile, this was also the most "legendary" Criterion release, since I would always see copies of its prior out of print release on special displays, covered in glass, for over $100 at various movie stores. When I got deep into cult/trash cinema, Salo was described as one of those films that operates at the highest level of vulgar. Even before popping it in I had an idea of what to expect.

Nothing really prepares you for how disgusting this movie is, or how gross you feel while watching it. It's not even so much the acts depicted in the film as the attitude the characters have while performing them. The film is one humiliation after another, with the fascists treating abuse, rape and coprophagia as delicacies that only their refined tastes can appreciate. The victims are barely allowed any humanity here, and in one rare scene where Pasolini allows two victims to speak to each other, one of the girls tells the other "I can't take it." Because this is one of the only lines of dialog the victims have, it's also one of the most heartbreaking.

Pasolini goes out of his way to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, and the final scene of the victims being tortured to death is all the more brutal because it's filmed through the point of view of the masturbating fascists. You see tongues being carved off, penises being burned by candles, all through binocular-framed shots. By forcing the viewer to see things from the torturer's point of view, you are being made a participant, and this stands as the cruelest trick that Pasolini plays on the audience. You're punished for even seeing his film, and are just as complicit in the violence as the fascists. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

This film was never going to get a high ranking. It's hard for me to even say whether or not I "liked" this movie. It's clearly the work of a great filmmaker, and there's a philosophy behind this film that makes it more than a standard exploitation flick. Despite all the nudity and sex, it stands so far on the opposite end of "titillating" that my girlfriend and I could barely even touch each other for weeks after watching it. Pasolini was successful in what he set out to do, but I never, ever, ever want to watch this movie again, nor would I recommend it to anyone other than a die-hard cinephile. To the bottom of the list you go, Salo.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. A Night to Remember (1958)
12. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
13. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
14. Amarcord (1973)
15. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)


Next time: I hopefully get some cheap thrills with Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss.

16. Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island muffs the ending

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island ends the Samurai Trilogy with a clever fight scene but numerous unanswered questions. Really, the film doesn't end as much as it just stops, and even though this is the second time I've watched this trilogy, my reaction to the ending was exactly the same this time around as it was the first: "That's it?" I know that endings are tricky and I'm sure the book ties everything up near the end, but this film almost feels like the crew said, "you know what? We're done here" and just stopped working on the story after the final duel.

I don't remember being as irritated by the ending the first time around as I am now, but boy did it ever leave me limp this time. I wanted to know what happens with him and Otsu. I wanted to know if he was going to continue his life as a samurai or give it up to settle down. I wanted to know if he was going to continue taking on apprentices, since he has two of them by the time he leaves for the last duel. And moreover, I wanted to know what the fuck happened to Matahachi, who had such an interestingly slimy character arc that disappeared after he was exposed as a fraud. After all the promise of the second film, which seemed to be setting up an emotionally powerful, epic climax, we get a run-of-the-mill rivalry between Musashi and another great fighter named Sasaki. It never feels as powerful as it portends to be, the outcome is never in question, and when it happens it only lasts a couple of drama-free minutes. Even describing it is pissing me off a bit.

Overall, after the promise of the second film I was on board with this series and eager to see how it ended. I hoped that things would wrap up better than they actually did, and even though I was all ready to boost this one up a few spots, the ending ruined that. The third film in this trilogy was a real disappointment, and while it was entertaining overall it didn't have the kind of emotional punch I was hoping for. Therefore, I'm going to leave it at #13. I appreciate the scope of this story, but there are far too many loose ends for me to put it any higher. I'm almost tempted to slide it down to #14, but I enjoyed this one more than Amarcord, so I'm leaving it where it is, regardless of my disappointment.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. A Night to Remember (1958)
12. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
13. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
14. Amarcord (1973)

Next time: The good folks at Criterion gag me with a shit-filled spoon as I force myself to sit through another viewing of the classic feel-lousy Pasolini joint Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Pray for me, dear readers, since the last time I watched this film I felt miserable for an entire week.

15. Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple: More macho dick waving

Samurai II picks up immediately where the last film left off, with Miyamoto going off to have adventures and seek enlightenment. I find myself wanting to continuously compare these films to The Lord of the Rings, and if I may be allowed to continue on that point, this film ups the action, introduces some new heavies for Miyamoto to do battle with, and makes the first film better in retrospect because now the full story is coming to light. The first Samurai film acted as a feature length origin story, and while Miyamoto is still developing, he's now a more interesting character, as is his douchebag friend Matahachi. It's been years since I've watched these films so I don't remember the outcome, but I'm hoping Matahachi gets his because fuck is that guy insufferable.

One thing about this film that makes me laugh is how ridiculously macho it is. This theme featured in the first film as well, but it starts getting over the top here, with constant references to people not acting "manly." Not that it's just the men who get this; the women here also get shit for not being womanly enough. Some are happy to play the lady in waiting, while others suffer sadder fates. In one scene a character is raped by a man who's been courting her, while her parents overhear it and smile in the next room. The dad approves of it, and when the mom displays some slight disapproval, her husband reminds her that she too was reluctant the first time. If anything deserves the label "rape culture," this is it. I can't imagine a society where rape is not only inevitable, but can be laughed off.

Even though I already suspected this going in, watching Samurai II hammered home that these are not individual films but one story sliced into three parts. This is clear as the movie starts; the action picks up right where the last film left off, with nary a prologue in sight. In fact, a bored editor could splice the opening shot immediately after the final shot of the previous film without much tweaking. Therefore, I'm going to adjust the ranking of this and just label it as The Samurai Trilogy and smash all three films into one spot on the list. The first film left me a bit soft, but the second one has so much more going on with character development and conflict that now I've bought into this series. I'm looking forward to watching the next one. However, because this story isn't finished yet, I'm not going to change the ranking. The ending of a film is crucial, and the final ranking of this trilogy hinges on how well it can stick the landing.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. A Night to Remember (1958)
12. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
13. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956) (tentative)
14. Amarcord (1973)


Next time: I finish off the Samurai Trilogy, and then...oh fuck, I just saw what comes after it and now I feel sick.