Category Archives: Movies

Movies

The Juniper Tree: Ingmar Bergman meets Brothers Grimm in this 1990 Movie Starring Björk

Screenshot from The Juniper Tree (1990) starring Björk
The Juniper Tree (1990)

The Juniper Tree is one of those movies that’s been kicking around on my “To Watch” list for ages, but it wasn’t until last weekend that I finally saw it on Kanopy. The film, made in Iceland by American director Nietzchka Keene, was released in 1990 and is probably best known as “Björk’s first movie.” Several years ago, The Juniper Tree was restored and re-released. Since then, it’s been making the rounds on the repertory cinema circuit. In fact, if you’re in L.A. and want to see it in a theater, you can catch it at Philosophical Research Society on Saturday, February 22. 

While Björk is clearly the movie’s selling point now, she’s not the only reason you should check out The Juniper Tree. It’s a stunning movie that makes good use of the landscape to tell a modern-medieval fairy tale with a Seventh Seal feel. 

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Movies

Valley Girl Is the Best ’80s Teen Movie

Julie (Deborah Foreman) and Randy (Nicolas Cage) in Valley Girl.
Julie (Deborah Foreman) and Randy (Nicolas Cage) in Valley Girl.

Television and film is loaded with heart-to-hearts between kids and parents where young people learn that you shouldn’t judge someone by how they look or what they have, but by who they are. The conversation in Valley Girl, though, hits a little differently than the rest. Julie, the lead Val in the 1983 film, is torn between the Hollywood punk she likes and the preppy dumbass that her friends want her to date. Julie’s dad adds that it’s not just what’s inside a person that counts, but “what they stand for.” Then he reminds her that not everyone will be okay with her choice because, “There are lots of people out there who just ain’t happy unless you live and think the way they do.”

The answer should be simple, but it isn’t. It never is. 

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Movies

Pump Up the Volume Is the ’90s Teen Movie That’s Relevant Right Now

Pump up the Volume Christian Slater

There is no needle drop quite like the one that kickstarts Pump Up the Volume. We are less than five minutes into the movie. Credits are still popping up on screen in neon, graffiti script, but we’ve already seen that the kids are not alright in this completely ordinary town. The camera leads us into a bland suburban home, into a room stocked with cassettes and audio equipment. Someone— we’ve heard his voice, but have yet to see his face— literally drops the needle on a Leonard Cohen record.

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded/Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed,” he sings. 

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Movies

Finally, There’s a Horror Movie for the Vinyl Nerds

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light horror film 2024

Finally, there’s a movie that truly understands the vinyl nerd, one that gets the crazy, stupid and possibly dangerous lengths we might travel to procure an ultra-rare, likely-cursed album released by a hippie cult a half-century ago. Of course, this movie, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, is a horror flick served with a good dose of comedy. Where else did you think a hunt for Discogs gold would take you? 

Directed by Christopher Bickel, the South Carolina-based, “anti-Hollywood” filmmaker whose previous efforts include Bad Girls and The Theta Girl, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is no-budget cinema at its finest. It looks good, has a great soundtrack with original music and, most importantly, is a clever, well-written film. Released last year, Pater Noster has been streaming on Night Flight, which is where I caught it. There’s also a Blu-Ray release on the horizon.  

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Adventures in L.A., Movies

I Saw Y2K and You Should Too

Y2K Kyle Mooney Movie Promo poster
Y2K Kyle Mooney Movie Promo poster

We were looking for a movie to see because it was Tuesday, when tickets at Alamo Drafthouse are close to half-price. The problem was that little looked particularly worthwhile. I have absolutely no interest in ever seeing Wicked, Nightbitch looks like something I might eventually watch if it turns up on streaming and, IDK if I was really in the mood to be terrified by Hugh Grant in Heretic. 

But, this Y2K, the new movie directed by Kyle Mooney, sounds pretty funny, especially since we’re old enough to remember the build-up to that New Year’s Eve. In real life, people spent a full year playing “1999” ad nauseam and hawking survival kits, but, then nothing happened. The sky was not all purple. People weren’t running everywhere. We didn’t even get a computer crash. The world remained somewhat normal, or so we thought. And another two decades would pass before I could listen to “1999” again. 

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Movies, The Playlist

I Swiped This Real Life Song From Voyage of the Rock Aliens

Voyage of the Rock Aliens 1984 movie title card

There’s a Real Life song that’s creeping into my DJ sets and it’s not “Send Me An Angel.” I’ve played “Openhearted,” from the band’s 1983 debut album, Heartland, in my sets at Splash! twice this month. Most likely, it will keep turning up in my new wave sets, at least at bar gigs or early in the night, because it’s a good alternative to the Australian band’s big hit, packed with drama and a sticky melody. Also, the song has been stuck in my head for most of this month, so I probably need to keep playing it until I dislodge the earworm. 

But, I have to make a confession about “Openhearted.” I totally, 100% swiped this Real Life song from Voyage of the Rock Aliens. In fact, I wouldn’t even know the song were it not for that bonkers movie and I probably should be embarrassed for saying that. But, also, I’m from L.A., where “Send Me an Angel” has been such a dominant banger for so long that any other Real Life song has long since faded from memory. That is, unless you are so baffled by Pia Zadora’s turn as a high schooler torn between her controlling rockabilly boyfriend and a new wave alien that you watch Voyage of the Rock Aliens every time it pops up in your Tubi recommendations. 

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Movies

The Legend of the Stardust Brothers Is a Wild Ride Through Pop Stardom

The Legend of the Stardust Brothers 1985 movie
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers

It’s Tokyo, 1985 and the vibe inside the nightclub is Cabaret, were that movie directed by David Lynch. The scene is shot in grainy black-and-white and filled with characters who look as if they are caught between the past, the present and a fever dream. At this moment, which is just seconds into The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, nothing could be too weird for you. Well, nothing, perhaps, except the appearance of the Stardust Brothers themselves. 

Kan and Shingo, the washed-up pop stars at the center of the film, bolt onstage and on screen in full color, their silver jumpsuits shining, their tale of woe set to a glam rock beat. Kan tries to keep it together as Shingo gorges himself on food and drink. They are a brilliant mess, but the crowd is thoroughly unimpressed. 

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Adventures in L.A., Movies, Television

Lost in Time at WHAMMY! Analog Media

Hammerman cartoon starring MC Hammer from 1991 on VHS at Whammy! Analog Media in Echo Park. (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
At Whammy! Analog Media, I learned that there was an M.C. Hammer cartoon. (Photo: Liz O.)

On a drizzly, Sunday afternoon, I half-forgot about what I was looking for inside WHAMMY! I was semi-crouched in a small aisle, scooting out of the way of passersby while scanning the spines of VHS releases of old cartoons. There was the Charlotte’s Web movie that I still vividly recall seeing multiple times on TV as a kid. (Was it one of the Family Film Festival movies? Do anyone else who spent ‘80s weekends watching KTLA remember?) Two Care Bears cassettes were filed next to something called Buttons & Rusty, which I don’t remember at all. 

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Movies

Greed Is an Overlooked Steve Coogan Movie About Fast Fashion and Money

Greed movie starring Steve Coogan directed by Michael Winterbottom

Before The White Lotus, Glass Onion and The Menu eviscerated the ultra-wealthy, there was Greed. Released right around the start of the pandemic, Greed is the story of a billionaire’s 60th birthday party-gone-awry directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan as the toothy asshole behind a high street empire. It’s tagged as a satire and, in some ways, it is, but the movie is so grounded in the realities of the 21st century global economy that I don’t think that’s quite the right classification. It’s a little too prescient to be a satire and perhaps that, plus its unfortunate early 2020 release date, is why its Rotten Tomatoes score belie how good this movie is.  

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Event Recap, Movies

A Der Fan Screening Reminded Me of the Importance of Going to the Movies

R on a TV set in 1982 German film Der Fan.
Seeing Der Fan in a theater beats watching it at home.

There’s a moment in Der Fan, when it’s obvious that something is extremely not right about Simone. A cute, teenage boy who clearly has a thing for the protagonist of this 1982 German film hands her a cassette tape. She rejects the tape so casually that I practically gasped while sitting in the front row of a screening at Alamo Drafthouse. 

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