Abel Ferrara - C/D

I remember finding The Funeral deadly boring. His version of the Body Snatchers is a snooze too. Dangerous Game is nearly unwatchable and New Rose Hotel IS unwatchable. Fear City is eh sub-Miami Vice level thriller and China Girl is only a little better. Bad Lieutenant is over the top, but great performance by Keitel none-the-less and it sorta works. Ms. 45 on the other hand was great and King of New York is even better.

Not seen Driller Killer (but I've heard goodish things) the Kelly McGillis one and he's got a couple of things on IMDB I'd never even heard of but that don't look promising. Anyway the guy is definitely prolific enough. That's certainly not his problem.

This is the only other movie I've ever seen Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks in (as the Commie speaker at the beginning)

Ha I REALLY REALLY loved King of New York and kept hoping that his other stuff was going to have that same spark.

Wait you are kidding, right? HE'S IN THE WARRIORS!

have been curious about Driller Killer for years, but I don't rent (or buy) many movies

Yeah he's in the kitchen late in the movie, IIRC. It's pretty neglible part (I don't think he even has a line.)

It's sad. KING OF NEW YORK, MS 45 and most of BAd LT are fricken great. DRILLER KILLER has an interesting cranky energy, and for NYCers it evokes a certain perverse nostalgia for the soil of yesteryear, but the rest...like Alex said. Although I really, really like his INVASION version.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a worse film,

classic for ms.45, king of new york, the addiction. the funeral is pretty good too. but,yeah, spotty. driller killer is mostly good as artifact. i liked the crime story pilot. i even have a soft spot for china girl and fear city. king of new york is the jewel in the dirty crown.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1627/badlieutenantsplsh.jpg

love this film

While some of them saw small or tiny or non-existent U.S. releases, try finding an Abel Ferrara film made from 2002-2009 on DVD. It’s not easy. “The only thing you need to see them is the internet,” he said. “Go find the torrents. That’s my big distributor. You got to leave it to that. They’re all on there. I just don’t want to find the one I’m working on. That’s the only thing that scares me. But just go on the internet for the rest.”

http://www.vogue.fr/culture/portrait/diaporama/abel-ferrara-presente-go-go-tales/7082

Just watched King of New York and was disappointed. What is it that people think is so great about it? Dialogue is cliche. Acting is spotty except for a couple of scenes with Caruso. Some scenes are too long and others too short. Only saving grace is Walken but he alone does not carry the film.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/102

Really liked this as a read for its novelty - a lot of flighty chops which don't make it onto film writing, but I haven't seen it.

what ppl think is so great about King of New York is that it's bad, obv

Biggie Smalls liked it well enough.

yes, Generations Y & Z look to dead gangsta rappers as the vanguard of film culture.

isn't there a Larry Semon Film Festival for you to attend, or something?!?

I have my quota of semen for the week

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12250

hes got some miles on his for being 60

interesting they touch on a project w/ dafoe playing pasolini

cant imagine this 4:44 movie is good tho

the thing about KONY (whoa, makes you think) is not that it's not good but it's got this brutal momentum w/everyone in the film casting everything aside and trying to kill each other w/o regard for anything else and the actors kinda throw themselves into it really well imo and i love the OTTness and how everyone seems to be doing their own version of how to approach the material w/o much guidance. walken owns here, caruso is pretty exceptional, snipes and fishburne are great, victor argo is really good (as probably the only "decent" person in the entire film.) all of ferrara's films have this kind of energy, but i think this distills everything down to the basics nicely.

the graveyard scene is pretty tremendous, you think the film is going to take it from there in one direction but then walken shows up as if anticipating it and just finishes it there. not quite as awesome as the shotgun to the face at the end of 'to live and die in l.a.' but pretty dope regardless.

I really appreciate that you caught the levels of "owning," "great," "pretty exceptional," "pretty dope," "really good" ... the kind of discernment I expect from the minds of Cahiers du ILX.

done with film threads now I think, cept for the Snob ones

jesus spoilers for TL&DILA tho

SPOILER ALERT xxpost

morbs i really hope you don't keep that promise, you would be sorely missed.

by me especially

Best of Abel Ferrara's King of New York commentarypic.twitter.com/bgXeTBrR2F

— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) September 11, 2021

This is not getting the love here, why not?

"Lookit his hair. That's the star of this film."

Not to stray from that ^^, but didn't realize he'd made another movie with Dafoe, following last year's Tommaso:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KKuxA4sPDk

Shit, according to Wikipedia, he's made six movies with Dafoe.

I posted the Driller Killer commentary video on the old horror thread and it's funny too

He did a documentary called Napoli Napoli Napoli which I saw in Porto at, like, the only edition of some weird film festival. I remember little of it, except a scene where Ferrara puts on a show in a female prison and there's all these middle aged ladies from Naples looking bemused as he goes through a punk rock cover of "King Of New York".

― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, July 16, 2017 6:34 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

heres that scene btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2GeLEhfUqo

Was rewatching some Entourage as a pandemic balm, and there’s a great moment when a Herzog-type director has been fired from a major film and Johnny Drama says he could call up Abel Ferrara.

This is one of those threads that makes me worry it's a death revive when it pops up.

A critic I love on a movie I love, even if he misnames her “Thanta.”

https://www.artforum.com/film/howard-hampton-on-abel-ferrara-s-ms-45-45920

They should screen KONY twice - once as is, and once with the DVD commentary track running. Listen to Ferrara call his own work fascist!

― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 2 April 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQRzH9BAzks

Handy supercut but it leaves out the last few minutes of this commentary which is um... a vibe?

Not understanding how Keitel found those guys in Bad Lieutenant, I assumed he just picked up two guys and blamed it on them (because he's out of his mind) but wiki plot synopsis says they were the actual rapists

New Rose Hotel was great! Unusual structure; total rethinking of the cyberpunk aesthetic (which turned out to be more prophetic); Walken letting 'er rip. Was uncomfortable w/ A. Argento's presence but the trail of destruction her character eventually leaves has unforeseen connotations now. Glad I finally got around to this one.

KONY commentary with AF is just extraordinary, the least bullshit-y commentary imaginable. Incredible to think they got multi-million dollar funding from Berlusconi, nowadays he says you couldn't get a tenth of the budget from anyone. Took five years to write. AF is appalled at the suggestion any of it is improvised. KONY is the best truly good-looking sleazy movie ever. For much of the night time shots they used the 'Blue Congo' filter.

Anyone seen Sportin' Life (2020)? Anyone know where to find it?

Director's Statement:
I have been shooting predominately documentaries the past 10 years or so. Whatever the subject—Piazza Vittorio, Padre Pio—we also film the process itself... so our team and I are a part of it. The subject of my new documentary is the relationship I have to my work, to Willem Dafoe, and my music and art. These relationships are the starting point and I could not avoid facing what the world went through this year with the pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLijhoL1_O4

Ferrara hit both NYC and LA for a massive retrospective of his films. It was amazing to see New Rose Hotel in 35mm, which was just a transcendent experience.

Go-Go Tales and Mary were in celluloid as well, and it’s astounding that American distributors were too stupid to pick them up. He mentioned that Silvio Burlusconi (whom he abhorred) financed two of his films, and it was presumably those

recently watched Dangerous Game for the first time and thought it was incredible.

It’s so sad that the brilliant China Girl has never had an HD release. Love it

Hey Eaxy -- I have a copy somewhere. Unfortunately my iLX email belongs to a hacker now - thus don't mail me there! - but you can find me on Bluesky
if you want to hit me up.

jorgevelez.bsky.social

I know about this guy and his hardboiled deal, but for whatever reason have never seen one of his films. I watched about half of "King of New York" (so far), and boy is it full of acting. Overacting, underacting, bad acting, weird acting ...

I watched King of New York. A few things I keep thinking about (I'm sure they're obvious, but still)

- David Caruso's wedding speech (he's legitimately good in this)
- Fishburne dying, shrieking, dancing
- Walken's weird delivery of 'my feelings are dead'
- The hospital cake
- Walken's uh, romance, on the tube train
- Schoolly D
- The mob boss pissing on Paul Calderon's foot in the shittiest of restaurant back rooms
- How much it appears to be in dialogue with Goodfellas (Scorcese in general)

What a strange, scuzzy film. Real.

I've been a huge fan of King of New York since the 90s but never seen anything else Ferrara directed until recently, when I caught up on a couple of his movies.

Bad Lieutenant - This movie is extremely funny. It gets by on the magnetic performance of Keitel like KONY does with Walken (though KONY has a great supporting cast). That this movie was made while Ferrera was in the throes of addiction seems obvious upon reflection.

Ms. 45 - I really liked this movie, though it also feels extremely problematic. Maybe that is it's power - it is legit uncomfortable, the lurid sex and violence all mixed up, but somehow engages with real female rage (maybe). It's utterly disposable but also real? It's also cut like a horror movie, jump scares, etc., where the monster is NY circa 1981. My wife strangely liked it, maybe more than me.

SPOILERS - the most telling thing about Abel Ferrara is that after one graphic rape scene, he says, "you know what, this movie needs a second graphic rape scene right afterwards."

Both these movies have weird "happy" endings, Keitel finding redemption by following the nun's admonition to let the perpetrators go and the return of the lost dog.

Pasolini is v good

Driller Killer also extremely funny, would recommend

Harvey Keitel's arms outstretched moan-scream from Bad Lieutenant is how we express any mild displeasure in our household.

lol, I was doing that for a week after seeing it. *Breaks yoke when frying egg* > long existential moan/wail.

Both these movies have weird "happy" endings

spoiler, but

Been a few years since I've seen it, but doesn't Bad Lieutenant end with Keitel's character getting randomly popped while he is sitting in his car?

Not random; it’s related to the bets he keeps placing and losing the whole movie.

Yes, but he gets his redemption and goes to heaven like a good Catholic.

Very nice review of the autobiog.

https://archive.ph/it6dn

Watched The Addiction last night, nothing like seeing “Produced by Antony Blinken” followed by a couple minutes of mass graves and atrocity footage.

Bad Lieutenant - This movie is extremely funny.

huh

It's not a comedy, but it does have a lot of really funny scenes. Keitel and his horrible kids are amazing.

Yeah, if you don't find a lot of that movie so over the top it's funny than I dunno. What, are you taking it seriously?

*Bloody gym-body Jesus appears*. Oh, this is where shit gets real.

Lol, no.

Vinegar Syndrome is putting out what will presumably be the first decent (maybe even great) looking edition of New Rose Hotel. I just wish it wasn't so pricey.

"a new 2K restoration from the best surviving film elements"

New Rose Hotel wouldn't be worth buying on its own, but you get Ferrara's autobiography with that bundle, so I might go for it.

he seems to always be pouting

I didn't realize New Rose Hotel was so popular - they sold every single copy of their limited edition run in less than three days! I'm guessing there'll be a large standard edition run.

Now I regret missing the 35mm screening at Roxy Cinema that took place earlier this year (with Ferrara himself in person).

I'll eventually give this film another chance, but in all honesty, I didn't think Amy Taubin was wrong when I first saw this.

I'd never seen "Ms. 45" before, but boy was that movie great.

halfway through the Abel Ferrara memoir and it’s pretty great. It’s very nontraditional, semi chronological, bounces back-and-forth a bit in its timeline, but generally seems to be moving forward. It’s very insightful in terms of how he managed to scrape together the money for a lot of these films, and above all else it’s an absolutely fascinating story of him making his way through Fun City-era NYC. for all of his reputation as an unapologetic abuser of drugs, he clearly regrets it, and while he does note that a lot of it felt pretty damn good, he certainly doesn’t romanticize his drug war stories.

We watched New Rose Hotel and it is kind of the cyberpunk movie I've always wanted. Maybe I could have used a little more tech and neon, but the obvious cheapness fit well and I vastly preferred it to some blockbuster-style movie. Both Walken and Defoe are good even if it seems like they got the script five minutes before shooting. Asia Argento is not that good, some of it could be the language, but her stiltedness kind of works in the role.

And Ryuichi Sakamoto's in it (for about 30 seconds)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWdMv6Tv3Lw

I love the look of NRH; cities reduced to hotel rooms, hallways, screens and bodies. One of Ferrara's best movies.

The look and music is so 90s.

His new autobio is supposed to be very good, and also sad.

It is indeed very good.

(the autobio, that is. Haven't seen NRH yet)