Variously described as a writer, director, actor, producer, mime, composer, comic book writer and (believe it or not) psychotherapist, Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky is almost too preposterous to be real. The man has—rightly or wrongly—come to be a legend. That’s no small feat for a guy whose reputation primarily rests on three movies—El Topo (1970), […]
Author: Ken Hanke
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No Man’s Land
Twin Sisters
El Topo
Perhaps the best way to start any discussion on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970) is to quote its original advertising blurb, “See the naked young Franciscans whipped with cactus. See the bandit leader disemboweled. See the priest ride into the sunset with a midget and her newborn baby. What it all means isn’t exactly clear, […]
The Holy Mountain
One of the results of John Lennon’s interest in El Topo was the teaming of Alejandro Jodorowsky with Beatles manager Allen Klein. While this would ultimately be a mixed blessing that ended badly, it afforded Jodorowsky a $1.5 million budget (rumored to have come from John and Yoko) to bring The Holy Mountain (1973) to […]
The Fabulous Strangeness of Alejandro (Sometimes ‘Alexandro’) Jodorowsky
The Undramatic 79th Academy Awards
So Martin Scorsese finally has an Oscar and Peter O’Toole still doesn’t. Pan’s Labyrinth got shunted to one side as Best Foreign Language Film by the German film The Lives of Others, which almost no one has ever heard of. The supposedly unbeatable Eddie Murphy, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, went home empty-handed […]
Daddy’s Little Girls
Factory Girl
Ghost Rider
Music and Lyrics
God Is Brazilian
Of the small number of actors I can think of who’ve played God over the years, my favorite is probably still Rex Ingram in The Green Pastures (1936). But having seen Antônio Fagundes as the Crafty But Benign Old Gentleman Upstairs, I think I’ve encountered His most believable screen incarnation. Fagundes’ God is an interesting […]
Homicide
Homicide is very probably David Mamet’s most intriguing and complex film. It’s also his most muddled and contrived—flaws that are unfortunately the result of it being his most intriguing and complex film. Sometimes you have to pay the price for that, but in this case it’s not that heavy of a price, because of the […]
Siren of the Tropics
Siren of the Tropics (1927) is a pretty bad movie. Its plot is absurd, and its structure is as ragged as the tailoring on a $12.95 tuxedo. The story jumps from situation to situation in a manner that’s almost surrealistic. While it’s tempting to think this might be deliberate given Luis Buñuel’s name on the […]