Freejack (Geoff Murphy, 1992)

We've all been there. You're staring at your twenty year-old girlfriend, when all of a sudden, this kooky thought trickles through your mind: Why can't my twenty year-old girlfriend be a sexy woman pushing forty? I'm no math whiz, but you're going to have wait fifteen maybe twenty years for that to happen. But what if I told you there was a way speed up the milfication of your twenty year-old girlfriend? All you have to do is become a race car driver in, let's say, 1991, and hope Mick Jagger and Esai Morales decide to zap your body to 2009 just before the car you're driving explodes into a million pieces during a big race. Sure, your twenty year-old girlfriend in 1991 is going to be upset that you died and junk. But your thirty-nine year-old girlfriend in 2009 is going to be... freaked out when she learns that her dead boyfriend from 1991 is still alive. Okay, the plan isn't perfect, but that's the beauty of Freejack. It wants to be the Blade Runner of the '90s, but it unwittingly becomes the ultimate ode to insta-milfing. You see, while your girlfriend has slowly been aging for the past eighteen years, you haven't aged one bit. Meaning, you can rub your taut twenty year-old cock all over her fine thirty-nine year-old vagina. Well, in theory you can. Convincing a twenty year-old Rene Russo, who seems to channeling Drew Barrymore, to rub the shaft containing your organic tautness all over the bean-sized squishy lumps that pepper her not even close to being weather-beaten vulva is pretty much the epitome of easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. However, managing to persuade a thirty-nine year-old Rene Russo, one who is now a sophisticated executive with a wardrobe to match, to do is same is going to be difficult.

How difficult, you ask? Well, the makers of Freejack try to answer that question by showing the lengths a hot shot rookie race car driver named Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) will go to get a delicious piece of mature pussy. I know, you're thinking to yourself: That's a pretty crass way to describe Rene Russo. But I can't think of a less vulgar way to put it.

In a way, Rene Russo should be flattered that Alex Furlong is so eager to enter her fully-developed lady-hole. In the majority of movies that explore the insta-milf phenomenon, the man usually dumps the older woman for someone younger. But not here. Uh-uh. Alex Furlong risks his life multiple times to get with the sexually attractive older woman of his dreams.

Of course, the reason Alex Furlong has to risk his life in order to hook up with Julie Redlund (Rene Russo) has nothing to do with society's reluctance to accept relationships that involve young men dating older women, but everything to do with Mick Jagger and Esai Morales wanting to use his body for reasons that are a tad complicated.

Actually, they're not that complicated. In the future, certain people on the verge of death can transport their mind into the mind of a healthy body. I know, why go through the trouble of snatching the bodies of race car drivers from the early 1990s just as they're about to die in a horrific car crash? Well, the reason the individual Mick Jagger and Esai Morales work for, McCandless (Anthony Hopkins), the CEO of McCandless Corp., wants this particular body is personal/convoluted. But it makes sense overall, as the bulk of today's society are too sickly to transport one's mind to.

It's like that movie Millennium. Only, instead of transporting an entire doomed airliner's worth people into the future, they transport one person. And that person is called a "freejack." Unfortunately for McCandless, his freejack manages to escape moments after being transported from 1991 to 2009.

After a narrow escape, Alex Furlong sets about finding his milfy prize. That is, of course, if she's still alive. I mean, the 2009 version of New York City looks a tad on the bleak side.
  

Helped by a shotgun-wielding, internet surfing nun (Amanda Plummer), Alex is sent to Park Slope, Brooklyn, where his agent from '91 (David Johansen) apparently now lives. Despite the constant raging gun battles in the street, Alex manages to find his agent and is well on his way to reuniting with Julie. All he has to do is not get caught by Mick Jagger's Vacendak, and his band of armored car driving, helmet-wearing laser-rifle-packing goons.

Even though it sounded like I was joking about Rene Russo channeling Drew Barrymore, I'm actually dead serious. Since the bulk of the film's budget went to designing those futuristic bubble cars and paying the steep rental fees for the fleet of armored cars used in this movie, there wasn't anything left over to cover the cost of making Rene Russo seem believable as a twenty year-old. Well, after watching Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy, Rene Russo decided right then and there that her (Saturn Award winning) performance in the early going of Freejack would be based on Drew Barrymore (watch her eyes, they're so Drew). It's true, I still didn't buy that Rene Russo looked twenty. But she did act the part, I'll give her that.

As for Emilio Estevez... Since he stays the same age from start to finish, no make-up is necessary to make him seem older. Nevertheless, he brings nothing of note to the film. Personally, I would have cast Christian Slater or James Spader as Alex Furlong.

My opinion as far Mick Jagger goes seems to change from day-to-day. One minute I'm like: Can you believe Mick Jagger is in this movie?!? And the next minute I'm like: Can you believe Mick Jagger in this movie?!? Wait, that's the same exact thing I said about the first minute. Either way, the sound of Mick's unique accent uttering lines like, "Get the meat!" and "Who's firing hard ammo?" was quite something. But like I said, I can't really decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I will say this, I did let out a mild giggle every time they would show Mick Jagger wearing his helmet (safety first).

When we do eventually meet Rene Russo in 2009, she's so chic it hurts. And, yes, her legs are usually adorned with hosiery. What kind exactly, I'm not entirely sure. But they were typically jet black and worn with long, slit-friendly skirts.

Now working for the McCandless Corp., Rene Russo has no idea that her boss (Anthony Hopkins) is planning on bringing her dead boyfriend from 1991 to 2009. If I was her, I would be flattered by the amount effort both McCandless and Alex Furlong go through to be with her.

If you think about it, the whole thing is freakin' romantic. Of course, Rene Russo doesn't see it this way. At least not right away. And because of this, Alex Furlong must jump through even more hoops to claim his milfy prize. And by "hoops," I mean, car chases, laser gun battles, and, not to mention, defeat a more conniving than usual Jonathan Banks (he plays an evil McCandless employee named Michelette). Just for the record: When it comes to being an asshole twenty-five years ago, no-one can top Jonathan Banks.

Anyway, it's a good thing Alex Furlong's "milfy prize" looks like Rene Russo, as I wouldn't have bought the film's premise (twenty year-old race car driver jumps through multiple hoops to hook up with a thirty-seven year-old executive) had the so-called "milfy prize" been someone who lacked milf-appeal. And Rene Russo... (Has milf-appeal?) Yeah. She does.

On the other hand, I didn't buy that nightclub's in 2009 would be playing Jesus Jones. Remember them? They were briefly popular back in 1991. Hell, the film can't even get 1992 right, as the use of a Scorpions song over the closing credits seems dated. Though, to be fair, hardly anyone predicted that grunge would take off the way it did at around the time of this film's release.

Oh, and keep an eye out for Jerry Hall as a newswoman (she appears during the nightclub scene) and Grand L. Bush as "Boone" Rene Russo's driver/body guard, who carries a TEC-9 and a samurai sword.

Performance (Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970)

One moment you're shaving a chauffeur's head, the next you're ingesting psychedelic mushrooms in the presence of a bored rock star with pillowy lips. Such is the mixed up spiritual trajectory of a gangster named Chas in the astutely weird Performance, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's oblique meditation on what it must feel like to be repeatedly confronted by loopy foreign chicks in an enclosed space. Shrewd camera angles, an irregular film score (Jack Nitzsche), and flashy editing attack the viewer right from the get-go, as the film makes its bohemian intentions nice and sparkling clear the second we encounter our modishly svelte protagonist. The universe we first enter may seem trite and familiar–British organized crime–but make no mistake, the techniques used to depict this well-worn world are anything but. It's true, they still throw around words like, "ponce" and "geezer" when threatening rivals, yet I don't many mobster movies that feature scenes where disrobing henchman are serenaded by Mick Jagger in a sharp business suit. It's this singularity, the clash between buttoned-down gangsterism and freewheeling hippie culture, that made the film so fascinating.

Despite the aforementioned irregularities, the film starts off like a million of other gangster flicks: A well-regarded crime syndicate foot soldier, Chas (James Fox), finds himself on the lam after a shakedown goes awry; his boss sent a couple of thugs to his flat after he disobeyed him and one of them ends up dead. Desperate to find a place to crash until he get his getaway plans in order, the beaten and bruised Chas stumbles upon a building where a reclusive musician named Turner (Mick Jagger) and two unusual women, Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michèle Breton), are living in a chaotic stupor.

The ruthless Chas, one who is used to having everything properly organized (we see him early on meticulously arranging the magazines on his coffee table), is shocked by the level of perversion and topsyturviness that permeates this lair of inactivity.

Conning his way into renting a room in the basement, Chas thinks he's got it made–after all, it's a pretty cool hideout However, the innate inquisitiveness of his free spirited flatmates is starting to test the ostracized gangster's resolve. You see, he's told them that he's an artist and juggler, and, as you would expect, he's having a hard time convincing them that he is. And can you blame him? I mean, it's not that easy to go from being violent hoodlum to a sensitive artist in the span of twenty-four hours.

Luckily, Anita has a giant bag of hallucinogenic fungi, Lucy has her awkwardly boyish frame (like Chas, I, too, thought she was a twelve year-old boy), and Turner has his voluptuous lips to help unlock the dapper goon's plethora of secrets.

Unfamiliar with the music of The Rolling Stones ("Undercover of the Night" is the only song of theirs I will listen to on purpose), I viewed Mick Jagger with a fair amount of puzzlement. At first, I found his appearance to be strangely alluring. But after while, I was downright mesmerized by Mick and his kooky mannerisms. Whether provoking Chas with a florescent pole, haphazardly strumming his guitar, or belting out the lyrics to "Turner's Song: Memo from T" in the film's lone surrealistic musical number, I found the sparing nature of Mick's performance to be top drawer in terms of modesty and decorum.

Since I've already mentioned his lips twice, I'll stay consistent by saying how full and rich they looked when ever they came on-screen. Call me needle-shaped, but every time Mick opened his mouth, I would think of that toothless mountain man from Deliverance and his immortal line: "He got a real pretty mouth ain't he?" A dreamy, intimidating gob if I ever saw one.

Nasty and cruel one minute, a blank canvass the other, James Fox gives the most complex performance in Performance, a role that requires him to do a fair amount of multitasking. Overcoming some of the film's more meandering, hippie-fueled moments, I thought Fox did a terrific job of balancing the many different emotional states his character goes through. Of course, that doesn't mean he was balling in every other scene (he pretty much sports the same expression from start to finish). But as far as creating feelings through body language and nuance, Fox was a steely behemoth.

Deep and profound, yet maddening at times, this hippie era curiosity created a sense of being trapped under a soiled poncho better than any than any film I've seen all year. Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I've haven't decided yet. Mentally stable viewers, proceed with caution.

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