I've worked a lot of crackpot jobs in my life. I pounded pickles into glass jars with immigrant workers in Colorado. I checked for cracks in the chocolate casings of Necco Sky Bar candy in Boston. I was lowered into a vat of cow intestines at a rendering plant outside of Denver wearing a rubber suit and wielding a shovel to keep the sluice gates free. But all pale in comparison to being a film critic for PAPER for the past 20 years. Just last week at a screening, Rex Reed borrowed a Kleenex from me. He was in Myra Breckinridge, for God's sake!
I vaguely remember my first film review for PAPER. I think it was Field of Dreams, that metaphysical baseball movie starring Kevin Costner -- my review encouraged audiences to "burn down the cornfield." But spitting out mean reviews is way too easy. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. When you have limited space and the opportunity, why not rant and rave about movies that make you insane? Sitting in a dark, hushed movie theater is a religious experience for me. And there are many films and moments of watching them over the years that make me genuflect. The first screening of Todd Haynes's Safe was one. That perversely ironic tale, which starred Julianne Moore as a housewife with insurmountable allergies, was so strangely funny and sad that it blew me away. Then there was the screening of David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. I'd been a fan of Cronenberg since Rabid and The Brood, but this movie about murderous twin gynecologists (stunningly acted by Jeremy Irons) was so terrifying and lyrical it took my breath away. I remember sitting with a close friend during the Coen brothers' Fargo, a film so utterly perfect and uniquely funny that we kept squeezing each other in sheer delight. Pedro Almodó var's All About My Mother is such a lovely distillation of everything Pedro does so beautifully -- the melodrama and convoluted plot twists and fabulous women -- and delivered such a powerful emotional punch, I felt limp when I left the theater. Same with Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, with its swooning, romantic mood and those elegant shots of Maggie Cheung in her high-necked dresses walking down streets, a trail of cigarette smoke following behind her.
There were new directors that spoke personally to me. The work of Gregg Araki in The Living End felt dangerous and wonderfully transgressive. Araki is a director I have continued to cherish right up to his recent sublime film Mysterious Skin, which was disturbing and moving and masterful. I remember responding positively to Spike Lee's first film, She's Gotta Have It, which was fresh and funny, but it was School Daze that made me go berserk. I recall seeing that in a packed movie house in Times Square and thinking the film was all over the place -- part angry diatribe, part musical, part comedy. It was as if Spike was throwing everything in but the kitchen sink. It burst at the seams. But it was so thrillingly cinematic that I loved every second of it. I stayed to watch it again and only loved it more.
[Clockwise from top left: Myra Breckenridge, Edward Scissorhands, Mala Noche, Todo Sobre Mi Madre, Fargo, School Daze, Field of Dreams]
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