legendtofski

I remember seeing this during Passover Holidays (easter) at my local cinema. It was marketed as a 'Star Wars' knock-off. I picked it up 20 years later in a 2nd hand bin on VHS. THIS FILM IS HILARIOUS DRECK!! Basically this race of aliens try to take over the Earth by mind control by causing earthlings to commit suicide!! Mixing UFO nonsense with ludicrous 'Star Wars' mythology and some demented ideas, I will never forget sitting in a cinema full of teens and pre-teens, and watching in horror as the main actress has her mind controlled, and she proceeds to slash her wrists! Kids were screaming in horror, and the projectionist had to stop the film!! It was truly one of those classic cinema experiences that people just don't experience in today's disgusting cineplex wasteland!

'Teenage Caveman' is a low-budget psychotronic blast. Larry Clark goes to town on the B-movie genre with his subversive, caustic and intense punk-naturalist style, mutated with shlock production values to deliver a true 'guilty' pleasure and a definite cult classic. There is some terrible over-acting in some scenes, but Clark's inimitable style is smeared all over this baby. Think plenty of pervy teen-sex, drug use, punk rock and shlock-industrial soundtrack, cool splatter effects and plenty of anti-authority/parent attitude and you have the cinematic equivalent of a Black Flag or Misfits record (there's a great scene using a misfits track!). 'Teenage Caveman' is a great mind bender, and is definitely a fun and intense watch, especially for fans of films like 'the re-animator', 'Kids' or even the better parts of 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome'. Did I also say this film kicks more ass than a dozen lame 'Scream' knock-offs?

'Eloge de l'amour' is pretty much a 60's style French 'New-Wave' film made in 2001. It's pretty cool to think that someone can make such an abstract, inpenetrable film and still find an audience. You have to consider though that he's been at it for our 40 years, so what you are basically seeing is an artist at the top of his game. It's inspiring to see a man in his 70's make a film with such caustic and non-conformist insight like Godard has made with 'Eloge de l'amour'. In an age where vanity, success, narcissism and 'psuedo' egalitarianism reign supreme, Godard has come out fighting - still romantic, still experimental, still bitter at the bullshit of modern sociey that prides success at any cost (both materially and spiritually),and still in love with the amorphous, anarchronistic - and when its great - non-dogmatic concept that is 'culture'. Watching a Godard film for the unititiated, takes an investment with patience, an attention span, and the ability to accept the s**t with the clay. Unlike Richard Linklaters' awful 'waking life' - a film that was too caught up with its bulls**t and banal American obsession with self-analysis - Godards' film oscillates like a dream. Presented like a moving slide show, images and ideas float in and out - when you feel like falling asleep a concept or situation will jump out and make you think, sparking the imagination. He is well beyond the propagandist agit-prop that was chic in the 60's, heck let DreamWorks, Mirimax and Good-machine churn that stuff out, rather Godard utilises fragments and unfinished expressions that linger in the mind well after the film has finished. True to his revolutionary visual methods, Godard is still playing with form with remarkable effects. The first half of the film, filmed in black-and-white, delivers a meditational vibe, and interesting is his overt visual nods to the mack-daddy of the French cinema, Bresson. Static almost angelic imagery and contrasting lighting swamp the viewer, but the real kicker is his use of digital video. Harmony Korine's 'Julien Donkey Boy' might have made inventive and artisitc use of DV, but Godard has taken it to the truly transcendent. Godards' films can really be described as 'head movies', so the use of substances of recreation is not out of the question when viewing them. However, his manipulation of the form of cinema into a realm that exists in other hard artisitc forms like 'literature' is quite literally a sight to behold, and 'Eloge de la'amour' is simply no exception to that fact.