blasting pop songs from the late 50's and early 60's to fetishized images of motorcyclists putting on their leather attire and fixing their bikes, kenneth anger creates a fantastical, often grotesque world that seems intent on being run by madness. here you have religious imagery intercut with tawdry costume parties, a bedroom covered in james dean insignia, and a vague sense of homoerotica that all culminates in a cycle race, the surf classic "wipeout" wailing in the background. there are many films that are called "groundbreaking," but with its pre-mtv aesthetics and visual ecstasy, it's hard not to see why it caused such a stir then and why it still blows many blockbusters out the water today.
simplicity itself. the lady struts around in rachel marron digs on a decidedly eighties sidewalk, writhes on a fire escape, and sits pretty next to clarence clemons on the stoop of a building. there are no dancers, no frills, no routines. no night-on-the-town with a lover, no sentimental longing for nostalgia. just a pop star straddling between fiction and reality, while making her already double-meaning song free of symbolic illusions.
the tackiest, funniest, most garish shit to come from the united kingdom, ab fab focuses on two fortysomethingishes who spend their time wearing designer clothes, lighting cigarettes, getting drunk, and barely going to work. i watch it every time it's on logo, even if i've seen it a few times before. it's that funny. ahh, la dolce vita.
the infamous 1994 interview. post-erotica madonna says "fuck" a zillion times while smoking on a cigar. the best part is when she asks david if he's "ever smoked endo." even more ironic considering the queen looks blitted as shit.
