Hardcore (Paul Schrader, 1979)

The only explanation I can come up with to explain why the glass partition in the nudie booth where George C. Scott hooks up with/enlists the help of Season Hubley is so thoroughly jizz-laden, is that the spunk cleaners must have been having some kind of labour dispute. I mean, how else can you explain why the glass, and, I suppose, the floor (some guys are dribblers), was covered with, to quote N.P.H., "love stains"? Unless what we saw was the result of only ten minutes of self-abuse. Think about it, it's 1979, and people loved to ejaculate sperm in places other than their home. Nowadays, no one does anything away from home. They jerk off, they watch movies, they jerk off to movies, they play video games, they read books (or book-like facsimiles) and they consume massive amounts of carbohydrates all within the confines of their own home. In Paul Schrader's Hardcore, however, if your teenage daughter runs off to do porn in L.A., you going to have to physically get on an  airplane (i.e. leave your home) and pretend to be a shady, toupee-wearing smut peddler if you ever want to see her again. Imagine someone doing that today. Actually, if this film was made today, I bet the parents would be the one's driving their kids to audition* for, oh, let's say, "Anal Face-Fuck Fuck-Face Fuckers Vol. 17" -- thanks to E! and MTV, depravity and indifference are in vogue.

And the reason has nothing to do with bad parenting skills on the behalf of the parents. It's because porn is viewed differently today. At the present time, thanks to the internet, porn is everywhere. But back in the 1970s, porno was still seen as taboo. Oh, sure, the climate that created porno chic was a real thing. That being said, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, specifically, its Dutch Calvinist community, porn is the personification of pure evil.

I don't know if this was done on purpose, but the first twenty minutes look like something straight out of one of Lawrence Welk's wet dreams. Meaning, it's extremely square and lame as fuck. Seriously, Christmas caroling, turkey craving, tobogganing... white people in sweaters?!? What is this shit?

Call me callous and somewhat deranged, but I let out a mild cheer when Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott) learns that his daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis) has gone missing. It's not that I want anything bad to happen to her, it's just that I want this small town nightmare to end; it's like watching a greeting card come to life.

Anyway, over in California to attend some kind of church camp, Kristen apparently took off while at Knott's Berry Farm. And like any good father, Jake flies over to L.A. to talk with the police. Since the cops are swamped with cases involving missing teens, Jake decides to hire Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), a sleazy private detective.

I'd like to say, before I continue, that I couldn't help but notice how pervasive Star Wars was in this film. Now, of course, I'm acutely aware how insanely popular the movie was back in the late 1970s, but I had no idea it was this popular. There are at least three separate instances in Hardcore where the film is referenced. The first comes when Jake pokes around his daughter's bedroom looking for clues that might shed some light on her disappearance and we see a Star Wars calendar on her wall. The second occurs when a Star Wars billboard is briefly visible on the side of a building near Jake's hotel. And the third, and my personal favourite, takes place when Jake enters a sex club and we see two strippers mock fighting on stage with light sabers.

What I think I'm trying to say is this: It baffles the mind to think that something that was originally conceived to amuse ten year-olds in 1977 is still being talked about. In fact, J.J. Abrams–yeah, that's right, the guy who did the score for Night Beast–is apparently making a new Star Wars movie. Weird, wild stuff.

Okay, let's get back to George C. Scott's journey into the scummy yet strangely beautiful world of porn, shall we?

Realizing that neither the police nor Peter Boyle are fully committed to finding his daughter, Jake strikes out on his own. This strike out, by the way, is signified by a deep, synthy-sounding synth flourish followed by the sound of a screeching guitar; the film's score is composed by Jack Nitzsche, Cruising (another film with great synthy-sounding synth flourishes).

Of course, who is the first person George C. Scott runs into during his initial foray into the porn world? Why, it's Repo Man's Tracey Walter! Just as Jake is about to start browsing the shelves of an adult bookstore, the clerk (the aforementioned Tracey Walter) informs him that there's a fifty cent browsing fee. Can you believe that? A browsing fee.

The next stop on his foray are a couple of pseudo massage parlors that offer "body-to-body contact." As you might expect, Jake gets nowhere at these places, and leaves with nothing but a bruised face (his failure is punctuated by being thrown face-first into a parked car by a bouncer after getting rowdy).

Deciding to employ a different tactic (and a different wardrobe), Jake pretends to be a businessman from Detroit who is interested in becoming a porn producer. After getting his foot in the door, Jake eventually meets Nikki (Season Hubley), an adult film actress, who agrees to help him, for a sizable fee, naturally.

Even though Season Hubley's Nikki walks the same streets as Princess, her character from Vice Squad, I think her performances are vastly different. And that difference has a lot to do with George C. Scott, who brings out the best in Season. Not to imply that she isn't good in Vice Squad. It's just that Wings Hauser is no George C. Scott. Look at George's body language when he enters the adult bookstore run by Tracey Walter and compare it with the body language he displays when he enters another adult bookstore later on in the film. He was able to convey a change in his character simply by the way he walks. Now that's fine acting.

While the film ultimately has more to do with snuff films (pure fantasy), Hardcore is a pretty authentic look at the porn world pre-videotape. Well, everything except the scene where the show a porn being shot outside at night. Edit: Having recently seen Alex de Renzy's Pretty Peaches, I can confirm that some porn films did in fact shoot outside at night. Nonetheless, I'm sure it's still kinda rare.

* Audition? How cute. Your teenage daughter is making a D.I.Y. version of "Anal Face-Fuck Fuck-Face Fuckers Vol. 17" in her bedroom as we speak. Go check. I'll wait... Pretty rad, eh?

Cat People (Paul Scrader, 1982)

Dare I fetishize thigh-high hip waders? (What are you talking about? You better fetishize thigh-high hip waders. I mean, I didn't click on your review of Paul Schrader's for you not to fetishize thigh-high hip waders.) Fine. I'll fetishize thigh-high hip waders. If the reason the name "Paul Schrader" sounds familiar, it's because he wrote Taxi Driver. (Hey, what do you think you're doing?) Um, hello? I'm writing about Cat People. (I can see that, but what about the thigh-high hip waders? I'm no brain doctor, but the thigh skin that periodically pokes out from the top of  Nastassja Kinski's thigh-high hip waders while fishing for some crawfish from a Louisina river ain't going to describe itself.) But I read somewhere that it's mandatory to mention the fact that Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver when doing a review of Cat People, or any other non-Taxi Driver-related Paul Schrader film for that matter. (Since when do you do what's mandatory? You're going to stand out from the crowd if you blather endlessly about the brief scene where the too luminous for words Nastassja Kinski wears thigh-high hip waders.) But won't I come off as perverted and weird if I do that? (Yeah, but you want to come off as perverted and weird.) I do? (You know it.) Okay, if you say so. All right, let me think, how does one craft a movie review that centres around thigh-high hip waders? (Well, first of all, you should stop calling them "thigh-high hip waders." Think about it, how can they be thigh-high and go up to your hip at the same time?) You mean I should call them thigh-high fishing boots instead? (Or better yet, just drop the "hip.")

You would think Paul Schrader was channeling Jess Franco by the way his camera focuses on Nastassja Kinski as she struggles to deposit some recently caught crawfish into a bucket. (Are you implying that Paul's decision to show Nastassja bending over with her back to the camera was gratuitous? 'Cause if you are, you would be dead wrong. The reason he does this is to show that the curator of the New Orleans Zoological Park is developing amorous feelings towards Miss Kinski.) Don't you think it's obvious that he's developing amorous feelings towards her? He did, after all, land her a sweet job at the zoo's gift shop. (That's true, but nothing sends prudish American men over the titillation edge more than the sight of an ambiguously European woman bending over in thigh-high fishing boots. It's science! Okay, maybe it's not an exact science; more like a loose collection of half-baked theories and asinine brain anomalies. But can you think of anything else that's sexier than the sight of Nastassja Kinski in thigh-high fishing boots?)

Oh, I don't know, how about the sight of Lynn Lowry (Score) in black stockings? (Holy crap, that is sexier.) Told you. And get this, I've always thought Lynn Lowry had a bit of a feline vibe about her. (But she doesn't play a cat person in Cat People.) I know, but she plays a prostitute who attracts a cat person. (I think I get it. She's not a cat person.) Right. (But cat people find her attractive.) Keep going. (Hence, she has a feline vibe about her.) Bingo! (I can't believe I'm about to say this, but that makes perfect sense.)

Cat people might find her attractive, but that doesn't mean they're not going to try to tear her apart. You see, cat people can only have sex with other cat people. No matter how appealing they may look in black lingerie, the desire to rip the flesh from their bones is unstoppable.

Now, someone, like, say, a cynical prostitute with a flat stomach, might have no trouble whatsoever deciding that it's probably a bad idea to get romantically involved with a cat person. But what if you're a mild-mannered curator of an old-timey zoo (one that stills uses cages with bars) who falls in love like it were bodily function, what advice would give them?

Step softly and always have enough rope on hand, as you never know when you might have to tie your cat girlfriend to a bed. (Yikes, that sounds kinky.) Yeah, I guess it sort of does. But then again, I was mildly turned on by the scene where Ruby Dee explains the origin of character's name, so, maybe I'm not the best person to decide what is kinky and what is not kinky.

(Don't worry, you're not in danger of losing your kink cred. The scene where a human male ties up his human/black leopard hybrid girlfriend so he can have sexual intercourse with her without having to worry about being torn apart during the post-coital aftermath is definitely kinky.) That's a relief, for a minute there I thought I was being a fuddy-duddy.

Just curious, am I the only one who thought Ruby Dee was smoking hot in this movie? Interesting, none of you have your hands raised, but I'm noticing some slight nodding here and there. Meaning, I wasn't the only one. Sure, her basement is filled with the half-eaten corpses of hookers and teenage runaways, but her accent is sexy and her bone structure is sublime.

Speaking of bone structure, Nastassja Kinski! Oh my god! Talk about sublime. I can't believe this is my first Nastassja Kinski film. (Are you sure about that? Maybe you should skim through her film credits.) Nah, I don't feel like doing that. Besides, this is definitely the first Nastassja Kinski film I've seen in the past ten years. Either way, I would have loved to have seen this film in theatre when it came out in the early '80s, as I would have loved to have heard the loud gasps coming from the audience the moment when Nastassja Kinski first appears onscreen. She is simply stunning.

Meeting her long lost brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) at the airport in New Orleans, Irena (Nastassja Kinski) seems excited to start her new life in The Big Easy. Taking her to his fancy house on Weird French Name Street in the Gumbo District (Go Saints, Go!), Malcolm, I mean, Paul, introduces Irena to Ruby Dee's Female (pronounced "fee-molly"), a Renfield-esque woman who takes care of Paul's affairs when he's out busy doing cat stuff.

After some awkward brother-sister closeness (I totally thought they were going to kiss at one point), Irena goes to sleep. But does Paul go to sleep? I don't think so. Donning a black tank-top, Paul, after doing some awkward brother-sister lurking in Irena's bedroom, heads out for the evening.

Even though we don't see Malcolm McDowell for quite some time, I'll go ahead and assume that he has transformed into the black leopard that is currently resting underneath a bed in a cheap hotel. Sitting on said bed is Ruthie (Lynn Lowry), a sexy prostitute who is dressed exactly the way a prostitute is supposed to dress.

Let's give her hooker ensemble a quick once over, shall we? Black bra? Check. Black stockings held up with black suspenders? Check. Black garter belt? Check. Black heels? Check. You see, she's perfect.

(Wait, you forgot to ask if she has a nasty gash on her right ankle.) Why would I ask that? Hold on, the black leopard resting underneath the bed she is currently sitting on is starting to get grumpy. You know what that means? Nasty gash on her right ankle? Check.

Here's a fun-fact: It turns out the gooey residue cat people leave behind when they transform from humans to leopards is edible. Gooey residue, it's what's for dinner...after you have just torn apart the bubbly blonde chick who gives sage advice to not-so bubbly brunettes from The Beach Girls; I'm talking about Tessa Richarde, by the way, she plays Billie, a ditzy gal who comes face-to-face with Paul's inability to get hard when he's with women who are not his sister.

Also struggling to come to terms with the fact she can't have sex with humans without getting the urge to tear them apart afterwards is Irena, who takes a liking to Oliver (John Heard from C.H.U.D.), an easy-going zookeeper. Someone should tell Irena to look somewhere else, but Alice (Annette O'Toole), a fellow zookeeper, is going out with Oliver. Oh, and before you say: Who wouldn't dump someone in order to go on a sexual bender with Nastassja Kinski? Please remember, Alice is played by Annette O'Toole. Who's she, you ask? Um, she's a redhead. And no no bra-wearing piece of Euro-trash can tarnish the intrinsic allure of a well-moisturized redhead.

This "intrinsic allure" could be real, but Oliver is totally making a play for Irena (he got her a job at the zoo's gift shop). I wonder if he knows that she's the descendent of an ancient tribe of leopard people? I don't think it matters, these cat folks have a way about them that causes non-cat folks to lose their kitty litter.

I know someone else who might have a problem with this cross-species relationship, and his name is Paul. Oh, yeah, I forgot about him. Torn between the human world and the animal kingdom, Irena must decide which realm is for her. Actually, the choice is actually between BDSM and incest, if you think about it.

With help of Italians Ferdinando Scarfiotti ("visual consultant") and legendary electronic music producer Giorgo Moroder, Paul Schrader has made one of the sexiest American horror movies of all-time. (So, what you're saying is, if it wasn't for the two Italian men you just mentioned, the film wouldn't have been sexy?) Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. I mean, would someone who wasn't under the influence of Italians have Annette O'Toole wear mismatched bra and panties? I don't think so. Featuring vibrant colours and a great location, Cat People is a rarity: A glossy Hollywood movie with a wonderfully perverted European sensibility.