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Red Rocket

When I found out The Florida Project’s Sean Baker was releasing a new film, I avoided reading/seeing everything I could about it, so I could see it with no preconceptions. I’m glad I did. I was thrilled to see Dirt Nasty given an opportunity to play a dramatic role in a good movie, as I saw talent in him beyond the trashy rapper persona he lampooned for MySpace. I was double thrilled to see Sean chose Galveston County to set and film his next story. I love that place. I was not so thrilled about the 16mm, but I got used to it. So, what can I say about Red Rocket without giving too much away? It is a rough film, but a good rough. The sex and violence Sean includes in his movies are not to shock or titillate the audience, but to land a sound impact of the crushing drama life on the ropes weighs in. The sort of subtle pain that’s easy to dismiss, but clings on the clothes like cigarette smoke. This is not the melodrama of a theater play, but the melodrama down on Eighth Street. It’s these moments of emotion, pain, and suffering left in the wake of sex and violence which separate a Sean Baker film from the commercial exploits of a B movie and the out-of-touch lofty ideas of an art house movie. Just as they shouldn’t be glorified as cool, they shouldn’t be dismissed as “part of life” either. Sex and violence are the most powerful interactions humans can have with one another and Sean likes to explore their aftermath. It’s that sense of love and understanding for poverty and criminality and the predatory behaviors which come with it, that allows Sean to embrace the human spirit within it, while condoning the harmful behaviors. We see that in Red Rocket as our protagonist is introduced, charmingly, with grand promises of reformation, given a home in clemency, denied honest employment, then turns full swing back into the very cycle that caused his problems ...and the denial of employment. It is a very strong film about a part of America we rarely see. A condemnation of (soft)pimping*, while not losing sight of the lives effected and not piously looking down in judgment. Sean manages to make moves with a sense of pride in poverty while also exposing it’s problems. *referred to here as “suitcase pimping”

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Is this the film Barton Fink wrote?

I first saw The Wrestler when I was 28, on the same day I saw Gran Torino and Slumdog Millionaire.

I only revisited it now.

The Wrestler is the story of a retiring wrestler and an industry which treats it's employees like objects.

It's also the story of a selfish man who only loves himself.

*spoilers*

Randy seeks a relationship with Pam. And on her advise, he reunites with his estranged daughter Stephanie, which leads to some heart-warming moments.

But it all comes crashing down, when Pam chooses not to go further in their relationship, and that leads Randy to (re)abandon his daughter. Leaving him to go back to the ring, and to the only true relationship he's ever kept - the audience.

While the Wrestler is well shot and paced, I feel the side characters are left underdeveloped. And a drama at 1 hour 49 mins could spend another eleven on two or four scenes with them.

Pam is an ageing stripper. And like Randy, she sells her body in a performance to an anonymous audience. And like wrestling, the profession treats it's employees like disposable products. Because of their similarities, the movie could spend more time with Pam without losing the audience. Because of their similarities - their age and the abusive environments they work in, they are a match. So that begs the question - why did Pam reject him? Did she cross that line and it hurt her? Did she cross every other line and this line was the last hold out?

Stephanie is Randy's daughter, who he abandoned before and the hurt is still there. We see them reunite and we see him repeat his pattern of lack of commitment. But, why doesn't Randy value his daughter? What happened between him and her mother?

These questions being unanswered fit the story, because if Randy doesn't really care about these people, why should we?

Randy only sought to reunite with his daughter to get Pam, and Randy only sought Pam to not die alone. But, he was never alone, he had the audience. And the audience is who he chose to end with.

The Wrestler is a fine film.

And it has a bitchin' soundtrack.

But, I still wanted to know more about Pam and Stephanie.

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The Greatest Picture Ever Cast

“[Emotion is] a powerful and irrational master.” -  the Criminologist, an expert The brain child of an out-of-work actor, Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show settled in the bottom of my top 100 movies list for the longest time. It’s a B movie - a convoluted plot / cliché dialogue / bad sound design - and I didn’t appreciate it was intentional - a perfect swan song to all B movies - the love letter to them.

“You chew people up and then you spit them out again. You’re like a sponge. You take, take, take and drain others of their love and emotion.” - Columbia

It wasn’t until I saw a shadow cast in 2014 that this film skyrocketed into my top ten. Here was a movie that for over 40 years, every weekend, had one or more theaters across the world filled with an audience - quoting every line, acting out every part, adding their own story to it. It became more than a film. It became an experience, a catharsis, a midnight communion. This is what film can do? Since then, I’ve seen about a dozen shadow cast shows and at home watched it a dozen time or more and made it a Halloween must.

Why has this movie been so successful? There’s the obvious counter-culture storyline throwing sex and gender norms out the window and giving an alternative audience a film they could identify with. There’s the aforementioned homage to horror and sci-fi - from King Kong to Flash Gordon. And despite being a B-movie, it’s expertly crafted with a breakneck pace pushed along by a dance-inducing soundtrack of original rock-n-roll songs. In an age of internet distractions, this movie still stops me from what I’m doing to watch and sing-a-long (even while writing this review). So, what about the story?

Well, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a rites-of-passage tale of the fear of monogamy going into marriage - cold feet. It’s also the damning warning of sacrificing love to lust. Whatever your boundaries of sex and love are, you must respect the boundaries of others, even if they don’t match your own. To not is to cause hurt and pain.

A naïve, conservative young couple, Brad proposes to Janet at a wedding, then head out to meet an old friend, Dr. Scott. Only they break down and horror ensues. They come upon the mansion of an extravagant and libertine aristocrat who represents everything they are not. Dr Frank-N-Furter seduces them into a love web which corrodes relationships to the point of hate and death, only to reform again into a crescendo of a pool orgy ...only two people were left out - the servants. And they ...are ...scorned. 

It’s a rollercoaster ending in tragedy. Why? As Columbia beautifully states, Frank doesn’t respect the people he seduces and has sex with. He chews them up and spits them out. The orgy in the pool is forced by Frank, but at that moment, everyone is happy, in love. Only when he is caught by those left out and faced with death, his plea for life isn’t about love or others ...it’s about him. He never learned his lesson. And for that, he dies and nearly takes everyone with him.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a fucking great story and one worth replaying and singing along to forty-five years later.

“It’s not easy having a good time.” - Dr. Frank-N-Furter