Downtown 81 (Edo Bertoglio, 1981)

Simply stick your photographic device out the window of a slow moving automobile, instruct artist Jean Michel Basquiat to walk down the street like he would normally do (spray painting verbose doodles on the wall every other block), add a mildly profound narration (the voice of Saul Williams stands in as Basquiat's subconscious), and presto change-o, you've got yourself a movie. Of course, it helps greatly that the streets being wandered are located in New York City. I mean, who would want to watch a guy in a trench-coat walk around, oh, let's say, Burlington, Ontario for eighty-something minutes? Sure, it's a nice jaunt and all, but it doesn't have the same energy, the same vitality of a New York street circa 1981. Cobbled together with half-realized fragments, misshapen ideas and found footage, Downtown 81 (a.k.a. Glenn O'Brien's New York Beat Movie) is a gritty portrait of what life must have been like during the hectic club and art scenes of New York City's much ballyhooed Lower East Side.

Recently discharged from the hospital after a lengthy stay (his affliction is kept from us), the film is about artist Jean Michel Basquiat and his attempt to reestablish himself in the cities erratic art scene. Broke, and a tad disoriented, the nomadic painter-musician (he fronts a band called "Gray") seems lost at first. However, the deeper he gets into the city, the clearer it becomes that he is quite the mover and shaker.

Attractive models just back from Milano offer him rides in their fancy convertibles, all the drug pushers are on familiar terms, the prostitutes, while aggressive, appear to respect his space, and the his fellow graffiti artists are pleased to see him. In other words, things aren't as bleak as they seem.

Put in touch with a rich art connoisseur by a friend (Claudia Summers, sporting super-terrific hair) he meets in the park, Basquiat sells a painting he was able to snag just as he was being thrown out of his apartment. The sale seems to cheer the artist up, as there seems to be a spring in his step. The pep, however, dissipates somewhat when he notices that his band's gear is being ripped off.

While it may sound like a mindless journey through the self-indulgent morass of an offbeat wall scribbler, in actuality, it's an excellent showcase for the music and fashion that was peculating in the city at the time. We're talking hip hop, new wave, post-punk and no wave.

The first thing that struck me about the hip hop scene were the tight-fitting designer jeans of the rappers. The second was the use of the term "Sucka MC's." I had previously thought that expression was coined around 1986. Learning is fun.

Another in a long line bands I mistook for being an industrial group from Belgium, Tuxedomoon were definitely one the highlights as far as sounding all weird and sinister go. Their performance of "Desire" accompanies Basquiat as he tags a wall with a nonsensical verse in white spray paint.

Making an unstructured racket, DNA, lead by Arto Lindsay, show up next. While I've heard a shitload of disorderly bands in my day, there was something uneasy and beautifully unpleasant about their particular type of noise.

The inclusion of Japanese new wavers The Plastics was a wonderful surprise. In that, I thought all the bands were going to be from New York, or at least American. Anyway, giving an interview ("How do you say 'New Wave' in Japanese?") and performing "Copy," the band, best known in North America as "that group who appeared on SCTV that one time," delight us with their robotic dance moves and bubbly brand of pop.

Keep an eye out for Cookie Mueller as "2nd Go-Go Dancer" (Catherine Rebennack plays "First Go-Go Dancer") during a brief aside at a strip club. Which reminds me, keeping track of everyone who makes an appearance in Downtown 81 is almost impossible. I was only able to spot Cookie because I'm quite familiar with her work thanks to Female Trouble ("Just 'cause we're pretty everybody's jealous!") and Desperate Living ("You lazy bitch! I'm out working my tail off all day, and you're in there fucking Midgets!").

The enthusiasm of Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Coati Mundi (Who's That Girl) was downright infectious. Now, I normally shy away from bands that are named after tropical food and feature back up singers in leopard print outfits (just kidding, I love leopard print), yet there was something enticing about their funky groove. This is especially true when Coati hits the stage of the Rock Lounge (not to be confused with Jimbo's Rock Lounge); the guy's a maniac. (Kid Creole and the Coconuts' "Stool Pigeon" was a staple of Deadly Hedley's Saturday night radio show on Toronto's CFNY-FM back in the late '80s. Ha-cha-cha-cha.)

You'll also notice that the luminescent Lori Eastside (Get Crazy) is on the other side of the stage putting on a new wave clinic as a guest Coconut.

After the Rock Lounge, Basquiat, who is, by the way, searching for the attractive woman in the convertible, heads over to the Peppermint Lounge. There he witnesses the no wave jazz of James White and the Blacks. Again, like Kid Creole and the Coconuts, the band wow audience (which includes Debi Mazar) with their sheer exuberance.

Call me completely unaware of one's surroundings, but the erotic nature of the new wave fashion segment had me fumbling for my non-existent inhaler. Erotic, in that, I got to see a pre-Liquid Sky Anne Carlisle (credited as Anne Carlyle) posing and preening as a new wave fashion model.

Up until then, the Glenn O'Brien (the host of TV Party) penned, Edo Bertoglio directed film had very little go for it in terms of visual flair (New York City pretty much does all the heavy lifting when it comes to style and substance). Yet, they seem to have made an exception when it came time to shoot the fashion model sequence, as it is teaming with peachy colours and creative camera work.

The moment when Basquiat is sold drugs caused me to get a tad misty-eyed. Seriously, the fact that I'm never asked to purchase illegal drugs anymore when I walk down the streets is a sad state of affairs. It's true, in some circles this lack of hashish solicitation is seen as an improvement. Though, I must say, I do miss the unsavoury attention. They (the pushers) kept me on my toes. Unlike today, where I basically wander around in a crack-pipe-less funk, desperately hoping that the next person about to pass me on the street wants to alter my state of consciousness.

Exploring the city, drifting aimlessly, call it what you will, it's no secret that hitting the pavement of my city's streets is one of my favourite pastimes. And I think that's what lead me to being so tolerant of the directionless temperament of this film. His approach to city and its streets was very much like my own. The way Basquiat seemed to penetrate the sidewalk, instead of merely walking on it, was an eye-opening experience.

Oh, and meeting up with Deborah Harry in the dark alleyway behind the Mudd Club and hurdling through the night air to the eerie strains of Suicide's "Cheree" ("My black leather lady / I love you") was an almost too perfect way to end this wonderfully off-the-wall movie.

video uploaded by Recall Records

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Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985)

The urbane charm of New York City lures yet another suburban dreamer into its concrete vagina in the cockamamie Desperately Seeking Susan, Susan Seidelman's tangled followup to the more straightforward Smithereens. Taking place during the apex of new wave culture, the fashion conscious film covers the same the territory as Miss Seidelman's debut effort did, in that, they both feature gals who want to escape their ho-hum lives in New Jersey and undergo a dramatic rebirth of sorts. However, whereas Smithereens' Wren was essentially a bratty bag lady who urgently wanted fame and fortune at any cost, Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) just wants a little excitement in her life beyond hosting parties for her hot tub selling husband and his yuppie scum friends (her journal paints an even more mundane picture). And if that means buying a chichi jacket, inadvertently pretending to being the amnesiac boyfriend of a constantly touring rock star, landing a job as a magician's assistant, and replacing Liquid Sky's Anne Carlisle as the girlfriend of a dreamy, cat-loving projectionist who lives above a Chinese restaurant, than so be it. I don't know about you, but it sure beats another night of not sucking the wrinkled cock of a sauna salesmen.

The manner in which Rosanna Arquette's Roberta longingly gazed across the river was quite revealing in it the way it revealed, you know, stuff. You see, the 1980s didn't come to New Jersey until March 1, 1994, and so what Roberta was doing was hankering for the opportunity live through the 1980s during the 1980s. Speaking as someone who was alive during the 1980s, but didn't technically "live" through them, I found plenty to sympathize with Roberta and her many spiritual quandaries.

Sure, I've never been bored housewife, or coveted a gold jacket with a giant pyramid on the back. But as a little girl growing up wherever the fuck it was that grew up, the desire to be swept off my feet by a guy who looked like Aidan Quinn, his extra large eyes drinking in the shapely contours of my sexy body, was just as strong as hers. Even more so, when you factor in that I'm considered clinically insane in most provinces and territories. (Provinces and territories? Hey, that means that I probably grew up somewhere in Canada. Weird.)

The cryptic messages left by a musician (Robert Joy) to his flaky lady friend Susan (Madonna) in the classifieds are what give Roberta the courage to breakout of her comfort zone and experience the rejuvenating splendour that is New York City circa 1984. Like I said, new wave was at its height during this period, and Susan Seidelman's unique directorial vision, Santo Loquasto's costume and production design, and the lush, synth-friendly music score by Thomas Newman (Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael) really do the era justice. I mean, check out the authentic street flavour of the scenes that take place in Greenwich Village. There's a crackling vitality to these sequences.

The opposite is true when we venture into the vaudevillian haunt known simply as the Magic Club. Yet even these seemingly old fashioned scenes had a new wave sheen to them. It was probably because the stylish Ann Magnuson lurked in the background as a cigarette girl.

Or maybe it was the fact that when Anna Levine (Sue) takes off her frilly magicians' assistant clothes, the neon gaudiness of her green and pink ensemble is revealed for the world to see. (Seriously, those are some bright tights.)

The use of Material Girl's "Into the Groove" during the nightclub rendezvous between Gary Glass (Mark Blum), the hot tub guy, and Susan has always my favourite sequence in Desperately Seeking Susan from a purely aesthetic point of view. The way the multi-coloured lights cascade across the crowd of hardcore new wavers was a true thing of beauty. Particularly when it hit the gothy guy in the corner who seemed enamoured by the ruffled nature of his fabric-generous sleeves. Of course, there's something innately perverse about dancing so enthusiastically to your own music, but I think Madonna is one of the few people who can safely get away with such an egregious act of egocentricity.

Even though they don't really interact much in terms of screen time together, you really get the sense Rosanna Arquette and Madonna are each other's throat in this movie. The envy on Rosanna's face as she gazed at her co-star from afar was palpable, and the frustration Madonna displayed over the fact that her jacket was being worn by someone pretending to her literally oozed off her skin. Actually, that's a tad reaching. Madonna's character, and apparently the pop singer herself, is so aloof and self-involved, that something as serious as identity theft wouldn't even faze her.

At the any rate, the two get into a bit of a farcical cat and mouse over a pair of expensive earrings (the kind you might see in a Klymaxx video). Scandalous!

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Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)

An intense tingling sensation slowly crept through the icky confines of my sexy body as I basked in the neon glow of this groundbreaking masterwork by Soviet emigrate Slava Tsukerman. The early eighties film managed to turn me into a blithering three-armed baby with only one sock through the sheer power of its brash fucked-up temperament. A flamboyant potpourri of science fiction, portable rhythm boxes, leggy fashion victims, overweening synthesizers, unidentified flying dinner plates, irregular makeup, vaginal homicide, and crypto-feminism, Liquid Sky is the personification of cinematic perfection. A film experience so bizarre, and so original, that it makes all other films seem like rancid badger piss by comparison. I'm sure all the super-terrific people out there who are absorbing these typed words know exactly what I'm talking about. But if you need a refresher course: the film follows the voguish adventures of a fashion model named Margaret and her constant struggle to keep unromantic junkies from defiling her well-trafficked vagina with their pockmarked penises. Things begin to get weirder for the sylphlike Margaret when a mysterious saucer-like object lands on top of the roof of her Manhattan penthouse. The new wave fashion model doesn't notice the discus on her roof (it's roughly about the size of Lydia Lunch's diaphragm circa Stinkfist), but she does begin to notice that all the men that have entered her sporadically-moisturized penis passage as of late have died during their climaxes (early cunt-based casualties end up with a small crystal protruding from their skull).
 

 
She thinks her genitals is cursed, and rightfully so. But Johann (Otto von Wernherr), the gangly West German scientist who just arrived in town, knows better, as he's been watching her through his telescope from the building across the street. You see, the alien creature originally came to New York City because of its abundance of heroin users, but it has quickly discovered that the chemical produced by the human brain during orgasm is just as potent.
 

 
Observing Margaret from the apartment of Sylvia (Susan Doukas), a genial single gal with an insatiable appetite for jumbo shrimp and foreign men, Johann watches a steady stream of junkies, college acting teachers, journalists, fashion designers, hair stylists, photographers, drug dealers, and domineering lesbian nightclub singers come and go from Margaret's penthouse.
 

 
Giving one of the most complex and fascinating performances ever to be captured on film, the statuesque Anne Carlisle is flat-out hypnotic as Margaret, "an uptight cunt from Connecticut." Vulnerable, yet scrappy, and leggy as hell, Anne turns Margaret into a role model for little girls the world over, especially in the scene where she stalks the dance-floor looking for that diminutive coke dealer/rapist/soap actor.

 

 
The sublime Miss Carlisle not only co-wrote the screenplay, but she also plays Jimmy, a male model who loves to sneer and snort cocaine (I adored the way he snorted coke off the smooth side of a dartboard during the rooftop fashion shoot). The duel role leads to many great scenes where Anne gets to act with her male counterpart (she even has a sex scene with herself ala Divine in Female Trouble).
 

 
A brash and in your face Paula E. Sheppard (Alice, Sweet Alice) is a spunky delight as the diminutive Adrian, a drug dealer/performance artist. She brought an interesting balance to Anne Carlisle's work with her brazen portrayal of one severely pissed off individual. When she is not spouting cock and pussy-based insults at strangers, the garrulous little scamp likes to fuck the faces of the recently deceased and sing about the dependability of her rhythm box.
 

 
Which brings me to one of the greatest scenes in movie history: that being Paula's performance of "Me and My Rhythm Box" at the famous Danceteria nightclub in New York. A mind-blowing spectacle that literally drilled a hole in my head and proceeded to caulk it up with layers of pristine awesomeness. You can just feel her conviction as she extols the virtues of her rhythm box with the deadest of deadpan expressions on her face. The reaction on the audience during her execution of this minimalist masterpiece reminded me of the crowd at a Chris and Cosey concert I attended back in 1991. They were passive, but tragically hip, the audience gently swayed to the pulsating beat.
 

 
I swear, you could have eaten their nonchalance up with a freaking spoon.

 
Taking place smack dab in the middle of New York City during the whole glow-in-the-dark makeup craze of '82, the highly chromatic film is a dizzying array of loud fashions and bubbling synths. Costume designer Marina Levikova has created some of the most outré outfits I've ever seen. She is also responsible for the film's production design, so her work on Margaret's neon-infused apartment should be commended as well. The film's score is magnificent. Synthesizer-assisted coos of pleasure were spewing from my psyche as it clumsily chugged along. And it's 100% electronic!

 

 
The reason it felt like I was staring directly into a reflective pool as I watched the chromatic tawdriness unfold was because this movie is me. It represents everything I believe in and hold sacred in this gauzy world; a world where everyone is either gay or strung out on heroin. A subversively-coiffed universe that celebrates outlandishness with a techno-punk panache, this is where I want to spend the rest of my life.

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