Emperor Tomato Ketchup

1971 blockbuster

Rating: no rating

Plot: In a land governed by children, kids run around abusing adults and drawing X's over things.

The only thing I really knew about this movie is that the band Stereolab grabbed its title for one of their album titles. I'm not sure what it's about. It's a frenzy of worn black 'n' white shock images, a lot involving children doing things they're not supposed to be doing. I'm sure director Shuji Terayama is saying something here, but it's going to be next to impossible for most viewers to see it through some really shocking visuals. The imagery invited Holocaust comparisons and thoughts about censorship and totalitarian governments, but none of it was cohesive enough to make a point that a dumb guy like me could fully grasp. No, I'm the type of viewer who's content in being entertained by a scene of a little person emerging from a hole while wearing an army helmet and what appears to be a diaper, running to another hole where he extracts a chicken that he takes an ax to, an act accompanied by a too-loud screech and some scattered applause. There's no real dialogue, but there's some words thrown in (found sound or stock sounds, I assume), none of it that I could understand because I don't speak whatever language it's in. There are also some words that appeared in white on the screen that I wouldn't be able to read even if I could read German. The music is nice if not all over the place. Like many foreign avant-garde productions, I'm missing way too much context to fully appreciate this or even understand it. This might have loads of interesting ideas but it's distracted by its own imagery.

Note: There's a 70-something minute version of this and a much shorter 20-something minute version that I'm guessing only shows the highlights. Like a Michael Bay movie with just the explosions maybe.

Idioterne (The Idiots)

1998 Von Trier joint

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Karen, a woman looking for answers and meaning in a life full of questions and futility, flees that life and joins a group of pretentious radicals calling themselves The Idiots. Led by the megalomaniacal Stoffer, they go out in public and "spazz," their term for acting like they are developmentally disabled. They make scenes in restaurants, during tours of insulation factories, at public pools, in the woods, and elsewhere. As they search for their "inner idiots," Karen tries to figure out what's going on and whether she belongs in the group or not.

First off, the self-important Lars Von Trier makes it very difficult to like his movies. He filmed this one as part of Dogme 95, an avant-garde filmmaking movement. And I expected to watch it and be reminded of a bowel movement. I don't want to spend too much time with this, but the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" includes the following rules, almost all of them strictly enforced for Idioterne:

1. On-location filming. No props.

2. No sound effects or music.

3. Hand-held camera.

4. Color but no special lighting.

5. No optical work and filters.

6. No "superficial action" (murders, weapons)

7. "Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden."

8. No genre.

9. Not widescreen.

10. No directorial credit.

Add to all of this pretentious artsy-fartsy nonsense the fact that this is a movie about people acting like they're mentally challenged, and I fully expected to kind of hate this movie. I really did. Instead, I unequivocally loved it. I honestly finished the movie and thought it was a real documentary about people who really did this. That's a testament to how great both the "story" and the acting is, the former not seeming written at all, natural and free-flowing, while the latter is the amongst the most realistic I have ever seen. At the center of this movie is Karen and her struggles although for most of the movie, she meanders around the edges of the group and has one of the least dynamic personalities of the idiots. But the action unspirals, the group's ideals are shattered, and we're left with Karen at the end, returning to her home and finishing the movie with an absolutely stunning moment that nearly made me cry. And that's strange because the majority of this movie is about as weird as anything I've ever seen. There are lots of funny Borat-like moments where the idiots interact with the unsuspecting public, but they're all moments that'll make you feel guilty while you laugh at them. That's probably Von Trier's jerky intent, making the audience uncomfortable, forcing us to leave our skin and dance around in our bones. The dogme rules don't exactly make this a comfortable experience either, and some shocking nudity and an even more shocking, and extremely graphic, orgy scene also force the audience far out of the comfort zone. Watching this without being affected in some way is impossible, and I think different people will grab different things from Idioterne. It's definitely not for everybody; in fact, I'm not sure it's for very many people at all, and a lot of people . For me, it's a shockingly original and amazing movie experience.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One

1968 meta shit

Rating: 15/20

Plot: William Greaves directs an inane conversation in Central Park. Meanwhile, his crew is filmed filming the inane conversation. A few times, the crew is shown sitting around discussing Greaves' ineptitude.

I won't pretend I know exactly what's going on here. Like Greaves' film crew, I'm a little more than perplexed by the shiznit taking place in the park, but it's a completely captivating look at the creative process and entertaining. It's very nearly a product of its time (scratching the surface of race relations, feminist issues, and being a fag in 1960's America) but retains relevance because of the questions it brings up about the process of creating a movie and watchability because of its playfulness. Miles Davis adds a fusiony soundtrack. I especially liked the philosophical homeless guy interviewed near the end of the movie. In a way, I wish there would have been more regular inhabitants of Central Park interviewed or shown wandering through the shoot, but perhaps Greaves was saving that for the four sequels that were supposed to come out following the success of this first installment. This is a challenging chunk of filmed anarchy that might serve as an interesting companion piece to Man with a Movie Camera.

Jubilee

1978 punk rock unpleasantry

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Thanks to a mystic mime with a shimmering crotch, Queen Elizabeth I, an advisor, and a midget are able to travel to 20th Century England. They find that it's a pretty trashy place. Living in that modern England are several filthy punk rockers. Like most punk rockers, they're funny looking. Scantilly-clad Crabs, spiky-haired Mad, the shirtless Amyl Nitrate, Chaos, Angel, Sphynx, and Viv, bored out of their minds, talk a whole lot and then run out and do what punk rockers do best--act punky. They vandalize, murder, pillage, and expose themselves. This likely upsets the midget. Then they play Monopoly. But, since they're punk rockers, they don't follow the rules! Hell yeah!

Made with his non-actor punk rocker friends on a budget of apparently sixty-five dollars and seventy-three cents, Derek Jarman's Jubilee looks exactly like you'd expect it to look. It looks like trash. Now I understand that Mr. Jarman was probably intentionally making a trashy film and that's generally something that I can appreciate, but this was not entertaining or insightful at all. I believe the non-relatable characters rambling long and philosophical, the shocking images of late-70's counterculture, Hitler allusions, and the bad hair were supposed to make me feel something, but that's the biggest problem with this movie--I didn't feel anything at all. Jubilee is a poorly written and even more poorly acted, and with the possible exceptions of pretty boy Adam Ant and oft-nude Crabs (my brother's favorite part of the movie, it seems), there's very little here worth seeing. This is gross, languid, and stupid when it needed to be full of energy and dangerous. It's not shockingly memorable enough to be as "good" as a John Waters' movie, it's not satirical or smart enough to be A Clockwork Orange, and it's not original enough to be truly avant-garde. It's nothing more than an embarrassing pop culture artifact that nearly made me wish I was watching a movie about deviant disco dancers instead.

Sort of recommended by my brother.

Begotten

1990 film school project that probably got a low grade

Rating: 4/20

Plot: A masked individual hacks away at him/herself with a straight razor and finally dies. A woman emerges from beneath the corpse and wanders aimlessly while fondling her breasts. Suddenly, she's pregnant. She wanders some more but outside in a bleak and barren landscape. Then, in an uplifting twist, a twitching guy (her son?) is attacked by cannibals. In the end (spoiler alert!), giant burlap-clad people make pudding.

This disturbing little avant-garde nonsense is definitely one of those "either you like it or you're normal" type movies. There's not another movie that looks like this one out there, but that honestly just makes me feel a lot better about "out there" than anything else. I will give credit to the man who plays "twitching guy" because there's some quality convulsing that goes on for about half of this film's length. Let's see Tom Hanks pull that off! Recommended for anybody who likes to watch grainy disturbing image after grainy disturbing image with some ambient music and minimalistic sound effects including birds chirping, scraping, farts, thunder, crickets, slurping, dripping, gurgling, more crickets, dragging, and rubbing. I never thought I'd say this, but there are so many grainy disturbing images in this that I got a little sick of them and don't even know if I can call myself a fan of grainy disturbing images anymore. The same thing happened with me and Will Ferrell actually. Seriously, if you watch five minutes of Begotten (which, if my little review has inspired you to, you can see online), you've really seen it all. While watching this, I couldn't help but wonder if the director's main purpose was to make a movie that is more difficult to watch than footage from the Holocaust. This is apparently one of those "cult films," but these cult members probably need to drink the Kool-aid as soon as possible. To Elias Merhige's credit, at least he hasn't made a sequel.

Man with a Movie Camera

1929 documentary

Rating: 18/20

Plot: None. A man with a camera photographs Russians going about their everyday business from dawn until dusk.

There's so much to see here. The titular man risks injury to capture some unique and kinetic moving pictures of everyday people absorbed in mundane activities. I struggle to understand exactly what the point of it all is (one could discuss its connection with modern day reality television or paparazzi, I suppose, but I'm not sure Dziga Vertov was familiar with MTV's The Real World--Tucson or how grotesque that Amy Winehouse looks in cut-off jean shorts); however, I sure enjoyed watching it. There's a lot of shots of men and women interacting with machinery which, in a way, makes this an interesting companion for Chaplin's Modern Times. Director Dziga Vertov uses (invents?) an assortment of film tricks--double exposure, stop animation, split-screen, slowed down film, etc.--which makes this not only an important document for sociologists but folks interested in cinema. Even if you're not interested in either, the images come at your rapidly enough that the movie remains interesting for its duration. Vertov creates a language of images here that is startlingly unique today and must have really blown 1929 audiences away. The version I watched had music by Michael Nyman who scores Peter Greenaway's movies, and it's always great to hear his stuff.

Recommended by Cory.

La Jetee

1962 science fiction non-motion picture

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Things ain't good in post-war Paris. Scientists are exploring time travel with human guinea pigs for the purpose of finding a solution to modern problems. One poor guy, during an expedition to a time before the war, becomes infatuated with a woman from the past.

Ninety-nine percent of this half hour flick is still photography, often enigmatic and often nightmarish imagery providing the visuals for the narrator's story. The lone scene with movement is seemingly random, but the effect is nonetheless powerful. The still lifes give this a coldly disturbing ambiance. Add a cool little time travel story (although admittedly, the surprise ending wasn't much of a surprise at all) and some eerie sound effects/music, and you've got yourself a winner. A dreamy little visual essay on time and memory.

Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers

Animated shorts from '84-'03

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Animated realizations of the nightmares of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.

These macabre, surreal miniature epics creep and crawl through the shadows of Joe the Plumber's dank subconscious. Busted puppets are employed to dust off bric-a-brac and twitching baubles, uncovering perversity, fears, obsessions, and things Joe the Plumber will never ever understand. Moody musics (Stockhausen the most known name; some guy named Lech Jankowski does the music for 2/3 of the shorts though) accompany grotesqueries. Strings waver, eggs vibrate, antiquated instruments flutter, and feathers dance. The Quays are brilliant with set design, mostly artistically-designed miniatures in black and white, but the camera work is stunning as it maneuvers delicately through secret places, loses focus, becomes engulfed in shadows, etc. Less comedic (more uneasy) than Svankmajer, seemingly an influence since one of these pieces is named after him, these surreal shorts are abstract spectacles, the works of visionary auteurs. My favorites: "Street of Crocodiles" and "Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies" but also, for sentimental reasons, the videos for rock-and-rollers His Name Is Alive which was my introduction to the Quay world. Recommended for Eraserhead fans.

People my age may recognize this MTV-commissioned short:

The Quay Brothers are likely Youtubable. Check it.

The Color of Pomegranates

1968 biographic poem

Rating: 19/20

Plot: Sayat Nova was an Armenian troubadour. He was born, had a childhood, read books, saw a nipple and a seashell, touched a chicken, learned the lute, fell in love, dressed in red, dressed in black, reflected, entered a monastery, swam in a river of lambs, moved his hands around, lit candles, and died.

So Parajanov made an even better movie than Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. The fact that I have never seen a movie like this and will never see a movie like this again means something. With no camera movements and no dialogue (not to mention how the "actors" all stare expressionless directly into the camera), this is far from conventional. But it's also the most stunningly original thing I've ever seen. Symbols float in shots that belong on museum walls. Delicately surreal, jaw-dropping, and hypnotic, The Color of Pomegranates sucks you in and spins you, tickles your mind, licks your lungs, strokes your lobes, and sets fire to your genitals (in a good way). This is one of those movies you watch and then say, "I can't believe I just watched that." Can't remember the last time that happened. Actually, after watching this, I can't remember any other movie I've seen. I would not be surprised at all if this is the best movie I see this year.

Faust

1994 Svankmajer flick

Rating: 17/20

Plot: See Marlow, Christopher.

This version of the Faust story is a lot funnier than 1920-something silent Murnau version. It's even, arguably, more visually imaginative and fantastically stylized. Arguably. Svankmajer's mix of live action, marionettes (sometimes sans strings), and stop animation creates an off-kilter universe of twitching cobwebs, junk-drawer chicken bones, and closet ash and shadows. And a dude has sex with a seven-foot tall wooden puppet. I know what folks'll say. Folks'll complain that this is too much of an onslaught of the random, too much of that weird-for-the-sake-of-weird type stuff. But I disagree completely and think that this grows with multiple viewings. Surrealist funk that hits you right in the loins! This isn't my favorite Svankmajer movie, but it is my brother's and is probably one of the easier ones to locate.

The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer

1965-1992 animated shorts

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A collection of Czech stop-motion surrealist Jan Svankmajer with images yanked from twisted dreams and perverse memories. "A Game of Stones" is about rocks. "A Quiet Week in the House" is about an intruder drilling holes. "Meat Love" is about meat engaged in coitus. "Food" is about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There are two Edgar Allan Poe stories. "A Trip to the Cellar" is about a little girl trying to get a basket of potatoes. "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia" details the autopsy of a statue of Stalin. Etc.

Surrealism doesn't get more fun than this. Unforgettable imagery ranging from the hilarious to the grotesque and occasionally managing to be hilariously grotesque or grotesquely hilarious. Lots of "What the hell?" moments countered by amazing "How'd he do that?" moments. I love how in the later shorts, Svankmajer begins using people, stop-animating them just like he would his puppets or clay sculptures although I probably like the earlier shorts best. Likely unlike anything you've seen unless strange late-night dietary habits somehow fuel funky nightmares. Or you've got some wires crossed in your head. Recommended if you do have wires crossed in your head or if you've ever wanted to watch furniture have sex or enjoy voyeuristically watching vegetables rot.

The Falls

1980 fake biographical catalogue

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A mysterious event (V.U.E. or Violent Unknown Event) has affected the world. Lots died, but others were affected in other ways--immortality, anatomical changes (chambers added to the heart, wings, webbed fingers), the obtaining of new languages, new genders, recurring dreams of water, the need to drive in circles. The Falls is an encyclopedic chronicle of 92 of these people, all with a last name beginning with F-A-L-L.

The cinematic equivalent to Gravity's Rainbow? I have a confession to make--it took me nearly an entire year to watch this three hour, twenty minute film. I started it in January, watched a little more in October, and finished it tonight. It's bewildering, frustrating, and difficult. However, it's also a work of unquestionable genius. As far as I know, there is nothing else even close to being like this. Self-referential with interlocking mini-biographies and themes or motifs or even characters who will pop up in later Greenaway movies, the focus isn't necessarily on the collection of stock footage, found footage, shots from early Greenaway shorts, and stuff Greenaway shot specifically for this film, but on the narrators (there are at least five) who dryly deliver dadaist details--magically realistic, absurdly humorous, head-scratching. The music--mostly Greenaway regular Michael Nyman but there's also a snippet of Syd Barrett and lots of Brian Eno in here--is really terrific. There's so much to digest here, so many parallels and so many allusions to literature, other films, folklore, science and anatomy, etc. that it makes me wonder what multiple viewings will reveal. Is this a grand, elongated joke, a riddle, a game, maniacal masturbation? Whatever it is, I dug it.

Lynch (one)

2007 documentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A portrait of the artist as a strange man. Footage of Lynch making Inland Empire and interviews with the director as he expounds on subjects like film, transcendental meditation, art, and hitting bloated animals with pick axes.

I guess I knew I was in trouble when the director's name popped up on the screen and it was blackANDwhite. What a self-indulgent mess this turned out to be. I truly enjoyed listening to a lot of what Lynch had to say and watching him work with his actors or on his set design. Whether you like his movies or not, he's an interesting and funny guy, and as a glimpse into the creative process, this should have worked. But the direction of this thing was such a distraction. Do I really need to see Lynch from the perspective of the floor? Do I really need to see Lynch through a layer of gauze? This became less about David Lynch and more about how clever blackANDwhite could be. Shame on blackANDwhite.

Mysterious Object at Noon

2000 thing

Rating: 10/20

Plot: ???

Allegedly inspired by the surrealist parlor game The Exquisite Corpse, this sort-of documentary tells a fragmented story of a crippled boy, his teacher, and a star child. Intermingling throughout, there are fairly random shots of Thailand daily life--folks selling tuna, kids playing soccer, people driving. And that's about it. This is probably the most boring movie I've seen all year. I like the idea, but the execution of that idea just doesn't work. Chunks of this dragged so much that I had to work hard just to stay awake. This starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and ends nowhere. I'm sure my tiny brain is completely missing the point of this one, but I'm not sure I care enough to ever figure it out.

Age of Gold

1930 surrealist dickery

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Scorpions defend themselves, deteriorating bishops are located, Rome is founded, men fall in love and then leer lustfully at the toes of statues, a son is shot, and they must get the cow out of bed as soon as possible. And what's Jesus doing in there of all places?

I'm not really positive there was a midget in this. The violinist was awfully short. Awfully short! However, even if there's not a midget in this, it's got the right spirit. Midget spirit! Follow-up to An Andalusian Dog is a bit more linear (there's a love story sort of weaving itself in and out of the nonsense) and probably more provocative. Bunuel's obsessions are here--attacks on the bourgeoisie, religion, and government. Alternately funny and disturbing, Age of Gold still works today and I can't imagine how revolutionary it would have seemed at the end of the 1920's. There's enough here to offend the whole family!

Brand upon the Brain!

2006 magically realistic silent dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Guy Maddin (the movie's director), summoned by his dying mother, returns to the island on which he grew up in order to paint the lighthouse his parents used as both an orphanage and a laboratory for bizarre experiments with anti-aging treatments. While painting, he reminisces about his childhood on the island--the overbearing mother's suppers, his faceless father's tinkerings, his first love, his sister's first love, the tics and twitches of his friend Neddie, and other bizarre happenings.

A fantastically and grotesquely unique offering from Canadian Guy Maddin. It's like a silent movie that would have driven 1920's audiences completely insane and likely kick-started an even Greater Depression. Vomit-inducing jump cuts, obscene camera angles, general fuzziness. It's a singularly odd effort, an oddness that is difficult to sustain in a movie that might be a little too lengthy for its own good. This thing toured (tours?) with guest narrators (Isabella Rossellini is the default narrator on the dvd, but I couldn't pass up the Crispin "Hellion" Glover option!), sound effects guys, an orchestra, and even a castrato. That'd be a hoot! Too bizarre for most tastes, but I really like this guy's voice. Spazzy montages set the mood; images melt into poetry and struggle to tell a tale or two. The title cards and the narration ("Good for dippin'" and "What's a suicide attempt without a wedding?") are very funny, especially when they completely clash with the imagery. And Katherine Scharhon, who plays young Guy's love interest Wendy and the alter-ego detective Chance Hale, needs to be in every single movie. To date, this is her only role. It's not a movie. It's an experience!

The Face of Another

1966 Japanese drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Mr. Okuyama has been left with a badly disfigured face following an accident of some kind at his work place. Oh, snap! He feels a weighty loneliness, and his wife, although she claims none of her feelings have changed, refuses his sexual advances. He gets a psychiatrist to make him a very realistic mask so that he can once again be part of society and hopefully seduce his wife. The results are depressing as the mask seems to alter his psyche. To add to the fun, there's a parallel storyline involving a badly-scarred woman who seduces her brother and then kills herself. And the laughs just keep on coming!

This is something I'm going to have to see again. It moves slowly, but the imagery is strikingly horrific and surreal. Attention grabbed, you've still got to wade through a lot of philosophical/psychological dialogue, and I'm not sure if it was a language thing or just the fact that my mind is very small, but I got lost a few times. Intriguing themes--identity, different kinds of masks, freedom. It's like I fell into the existential deep-end but forgot my arm floaties. This is another Hiroshi Teshigahara film, and like Woman of the Dunes, one of the best movies I've seen this year, this has a unique style and completely breathtaking visuals. But it's heavy and it's ponderous, and therefore definitely not for everybody.

The Films of Kenneth Anger Volume Two

Shorts from 1964 to 1981

Rating: 12/20

Plots:

Scorpio Rising is about a gay motorcycle gang who go to a party because they've got great juice. "Juice me!" they keep saying.

Kustom Kar Kommandos is a low-budget commercial.

Invocation of My Demon Brother is about how Mick Jagger should never be allowed anywhere near a Moog synthesizer. It's also about how the 60's were turbulent times.

Rabbit Moon is about how wearing nothing but the color white will transform even the manliest of men into the gayest of bunnies.

Lucifer Rising is about how when the devil rubs his hands together, pyramids are built and volcanoes explode. Satan!

I watched these a couple weeks ago and forgot to post about them. This stuff is interesting, especially if you are a fan of the penis, but none of it seems all that revolutionary and most of it is pretty boring. It frequently hints at genius but genius not ever able to reach full potential. So all in all, this is more frustrating than anything else. Most interesting is Invocation of My Demon Brother although that Jagger music is abysmal. Powerful imagery though. The rest of this underwhelms.

Lent to me by my brother. Satan!

The Pillow Book

1996 drama

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Nagiko's the daughter of an aspiring Japanese writer. As a child, she derives pleasure from having her father write on her face. She adores her father and also has aspirations of becoming a writer. One day, however, she walks in on her (heterosexual?) father and his homosexual publisher completing a book deal that somehow involves the publisher putting his pants back on. Oh, snap! The body-writing thing develops into a sexual fetish as she reaches adulthood, and luckily for her, she can find lots of guys who want to write on her and then have intercourse with her. Later, she meets her father's publisher's lover and finds a way to get revenge.

Parts of this are undeniably beautiful as expected for any Peter Greenaway movie. And if you've always had the urge to see extended scenes involving a naked Obi Wan Kenobi (not Alec Guinness at 82...although that would have been great!), this is the movie for you. The score (specifically the Japanese stuff and the French pop song used repeatedly) works well with the imagery, the exception being this really tacky trip hop stuff. There's some interesting things going on here, most notably a picture-within-a-picture (also, unfortunately, twenty-five pictures-within-a-picture) thing (sort of like how people can watch multiple channels at the same time), the layered visuals, and the use of text (unfortunately, in multiple languages). Watching this, it's impossible not to see that it's coming from an auteur and virtuoso. That doesn't mean it's a good movie though. In fact, it's so pretentious and dull, I didn't even want to finish watching it. If not for all the penis, I'm not sure I would have. It's difficult when it doesn't have to be and insipid and vacuous when it shouldn't be. It's a lot closer to Greenaway's The Cook, The Monkey Trainer, His Lover, and the Archbishop (which I remember only as being boring) than Drowning by Numbers or A Zed and Two Noughts (which I loved despite the pretensions). Peter Greenaway's got huge ideas and ambitions, and although there's definitely nothing at all wrong with that, it's exactly what's wrong with The Pillow Book. It's artsy at its most fartsy with the tricks and style suffocating the substance. Frustratingly fartsy!

The Holy Mountain

1973 surrealist sci-fi religious horror romantic comedy fantasy adventure murder mystery

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 2/20)

Plot: A thief wanders through a religious wasteland with a midget amputee. They enjoy a frog/chameleon circus and run into some Roman soldiers selling Jesuses. They force him to drink something, and while he's unconscious, they make hundreds of paper mache models of his crucified form. Oh, snap! He wakes up, destroys most of those, and then carries one with him to a high tower. After entering the tower via a giant golden hook, he meets an alchemist (Jodorowsky himself) who tells him everything he could possibly want to know about the holy mountain, a place where the immortals live. He also introduces him to the world's most powerful individuals, each a representation of one of the planets, and trains them to overthrow the gods and possibly achieve everlasting life.

Jodorowsky once said, "Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles." I believe him! Any movie with the line "Rub your clitoris against the mountain" has to be in any discussion about the greatest films ever made. The Holy Mountain, which I might like even more than El Topo, is a two hour hallucination, a bombardment of the grotesque, a scrambling of the senses. Jodorowsky--actor, writer, director, artist, composer--uses unsettling imagery to satirize mostly religious ideas but also other aspects of society (war, money, art). This thing is just an audacious explosion of creative ideas, almost too much for one audience to handle; I don't think I've ever seen a movie with so many flashes of visual brilliance. I wonder about the budget for this. Lots of extras, lots of props, lots of impressively and artistically designed sets. It's surely not for everybody (see Jen's rating), but it is more than likely unlike anything else you've seen before or will ever see again. After all, it's got this in it:

Just one of the many scenes that made me say, "This is the best scene in the history of cinema!" I didn't take my eyes off the screen, but I think Jen probably rolled her eyes every time I said it. Almost overwhelmingly brilliant stuff!

Me: