WORKING GIRLS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Punk heart still beating.

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Lizzie Borden's third film, behind "Regrouping" (1979) and "Born In Flames" (1983), is a perfect chamber-piece of neo-realist social satire.

The film's feminist trappings of an '80s era Manhattan brothel provides the frame for a piercing commentary on the effects of American capitalism on women.

"Working Girls" could easily be adapted to be a modernday Broadway play.

It would be a sensation for its timeless qualities of social, sexual, and economic truth.

Molly (Louise Smith), a professional photographer, lives with her lesbian girlfriend when she isn't working as a sex worker in a Manhattan brothel run by a domineering madam.

"Have you ever heard of surplus value?"

That theme line shoots like a sharp political dart when a character speaks it.

“All workers create more value at work than they receive in wages. The extra surplus value goes into the boss’s pocket as profit.”

Surplus value is "the surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated into profit in capitalism. Since the capitalist pays a laborer for his/her labor, the capitalist claims to own the means of production, the worker's labor-power, and even the product that is thus produced."

Female hands hold cups of coffee, count money, and remove cum-filled condoms.

Everyone chisels; there is no place to hide.

Not Rated. 93 mins.

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW — SHOCKTOBER!

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LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)

London-based actor CHRISTOPHER SHERWOOD brings THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with TRAILBLAZER IPA for us to imbibe. It doesn't hurt that Christopher was in town to brush up on his Tango technique for his performance in THE PEREGRINE, a play by BIG FEAST regular PHIL HOLT, opening at London's Stockwell Playhouse later this month.

Bon appétit!

Like the hugely successful B-Movie that inspired it — Harry Novak's 1965 sexploitation classic "Kiss Me Quick!" — "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is an exploitation musical that draws on a grab bag of social identifiers to expand on conventional hypocrisies with more than just a nudge and a wink.

For all of its outre sense of sexual liberation, "Rocky Horror" pays sincere homage to sci-fi movies of the '50s.

Writer/composer/actor Richard O'Brien's 1973 British stage play became a hit, and the play's director Jim Sharman wisely insisted on using its original cast — with the exception of American newcomers Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, when time came to direct the film version in 1975.

Famous as more of a social phenomenon than as a great piece of cinema, I would argue that "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is both, thanks to its witty dialogue, inspired musical score, and unforgettable camp performances. The cast is having so much fun that you can’t help but be swept up in the spirit of their joy.

As part of the '70s midnight movie craze that coincided with the advent of punk music, "Rocky Horror" attracted a playful young audience that was more than prepared to interact with the film's innuendo-riddled dialogue. Inventing sarcastic dialogue on the spot proved a fun thing to do for those imaginative audiences willing to play the game.

The film’s giddy narrative is a fetish-based story about an alien transvestite from the galaxy of Transylvania — called Dr. Frank N. Furter (played with Mick Jagger-swagger by Tim Curry) — who seduces two stranded newlywed visitors to his castle where the oversexed doctor is busy creating life in the form of a chiseled male named Rocky Horror.

Tim Curry rocks out the role with so much smirking confidence that his strangely erotic character is transfixing. In Curry's steady persona, Dr. Frank N. Furter becomes an LGBT icon for all time. Who wouldn’t want to party with Tim Curry’s scantily clad Frank N. Furter?

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is a retro movie of crazy excitement that you have to see with an audience skilled in the many retorts to be shouted back at the characters on-screen.

"Smells like fish, tastes like chicken, plug your nose and keep on lickin'."

You’ll be throwing rice at the wedding and spraying water during the rain sequence.

Fun, fun, fun!

Rated R. 100 mins.

 

MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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Mike and I throw a MOLOTOV COCKTAIL (from Evil Twin Brewing) at Gus Van Sant's New Queer Cinema masterpiece.

Bon appétit!

Writer/director Gus Van Sant adds an essential chapter to the New Queer Cinema movement of the early ‘90s that witnessed vibrant films from Todd Haynes (“Poison” 1992), Laurie Lynd (“RSVP” 1991), and Greg Araki (“The Living End”).

Van Sant’s understated masterwork is made all the more authentic by River Phoenix’s sensitive portrayal of Mike Waters, an orphaned narcoleptic street hustler. Mike is a best friend with Keanu Reeves’s bi-sexual hustler Steve.

Steve buffers Mike’s precarious existence by rescuing him when Mike [frequently] goes into narcoleptic seizures that leave him unconscious and twitching for hours on end. Mike habitually passes out in the middle of streets.

Mike is a dreamer by nature. He feels himself connected to the roads that he constantly travels, and passes out, on.

Mike is poor; Steve comes from money. Steve’s upcoming 21^st birthday promises to bequeath the young social experimenter with a considerable portion of his mayoral father’s fortune. Fat Bill, Steve’s tutor in all things poetic and bum-like, is promised a cut of the money.

Steve has serious plans for how he plans to emerge in society.

The film’s centerpiece is an intimate fireside conversation wherein Mike expresses his love for Steve in the hope that it will be returned. This beautiful scene gives the movie its emotional grounding. The chemistry between Phoenix and Reeves glows.

As friends before making the picture, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves agreed to be in the relatively unknown director’s low-budget film for the honor of working together. In his ratty red jacket, Phoenix’s Mike is a cousin to James Dean’s sensitive boy in “Rebel Without a Cause.” Reeves brings a theatricality necessary to his character’s complex makeup.

Van Sant uses a lively set of filmic techniques to frame the narrative in Shakespeare’s authorial tones and structure while keeping a punk esthetic. There’s a little “Repo Man” dissonance in the film’s cynicism. A sequence, in which characters talk to one another from the front covers of gay porn magazines, is perfect for its expositional and humorous effectiveness.

Udo Kier plays a pedophile named Hans who is right out of “Germany, Year Zero.” Naturally, Hans puts together a threesome with Mike and Steve in his hotel room. Van Sant’s use of tableau imagery to convey sex acts is downright groundbreaking. Cinematic energy just flows.

Steve’s yellow café racer Norton motorcycle lets us to experience the exhilaration that Steve and Mike share. The charismatic bike also extends the cool sense of danger that hangs over the story.

“My Own Private Idaho” is both a love story and a tragedy. It remains the high point in Gus Van Sant’s career.

Rated R. 104 mins.