Mandy, Panos Cosmatos, 2018
So, this was a one-night only pre-release screening, simultaneous with a screening at the Egyptian in Hollywood. After the movie, we were treated to a live discussion moderated by Kevin Smith, with director Cosmatos, Nicholas Cage, and Linus Roache. Pretty cool.
If an actor manages to upstage a blood-covered, screeching-in-existential agony, bent-on-revenge Nicolas Cage, that's a movie I'm going to like.
Red and his wife Mandy live an idyllic life in the woods of some 1983 rural fantasy. Mandy draws intricate, Heavy Metal-esqe type art and reads fantasy fiction, works at the local country store, and waits for her man to come home from his logging job.
But something deep and dark and nasty also resides in the woods... and it destroys Red and Mandy's life, forcing Red to go on a murderous rampage of revenge.
Holy moly.
Mandy is unlike any movie I've ever seen. It's a feverish, grindhouse, LCD trip, comic book, Herzog-like, insanity that will not be for everyone. Like Cosmatos' previous film,
Beyond the Black Rainbow, Mandy has a 80s' vibe and sheen to it, from it's setting to it's monochromatic color pallet to it's rock opera synth score by the late Johann Johannson (his last film). But it is night and day from the former film.
Black Rainbow is all sterile and interior while
Mandy is outside in nature and Dark with a capital D. Both in theme and cinematography.
The movie is like the Road Warrior by way of Polanski, with Ralph Bashki-style animation and lots and lots of smoke surrounding two warriors in a ****ing CHAINSAW battle, backlit by unnatural colored light and fire.
There are three or four leather-clad demons that ride off-road quad runners and resemble the Zenobites from Clive Barker's ouvre.
Mandy is a pastiche of 80's B-movies that we watched over and over on VHS, or late-night Cinemax - and it looks it, as it was shot on a Ari Alexa with Panavision AL series anamorphic lenses.
Andrea Riseborough is an actress I've liked for years, and she always looks different in every damn movie she's in...great presence.
Linus Roache plays the Jesus-on-acid leader of a small-time cult who takes a shine to Andrea Riseborough's Mandy. He and his band of followers kidnap her and leave Nicolas Cage's Red for dead.
Roache has been in a lot of film and TV, and he always seems to stand out. I remember liking him a lot in
The Chronicles of Riddick, but holy hell, I don't know what he was channeling here, but he makes Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in
Blue Velvet look positively quaint. When you're taking your eyes off a Cage to watch this other nutcase, you know you're going to have a good time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but I don't recommend it for most people. This is a B-movie art film that will generate screams and laughter in equal measure. It's pretty damn violent, but it is also lyrical, painterly, and a sonic sledge hammer.
Grade: A (for film snobs like me)
C for a normal movie-goer. No way someone like MrBaseball would like this lol.