And, finally, the last of the B's collaborative works, 'Vortex.' And, quite possibly, the last widely released (such as it is) film of the No Wave movement.
Sidebar: I'd seen this film before, on September 27, 1985 to be exact. It was part of a two-night thing at the Walker Art Center, the second part of which, the following day, was a live appearance by Lydia Lunch and Clint Ruin -- Lunch did a reading which was interrupted by a pair of dipshits trying to heckle her (which she shut down pretty quickly and quite brutally) and Ruin, walking onto the stage with a bottle of whisky (I think), proceeding to sing/scream along to backing tracks off of 'Nail,' then-current album from his Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel project, until the bottle was empty (a lot of it drunk and the rest tossed about the stage). I liked 'Vortex,' but frankly the live show made more of an impression on me at the time.
Anyway, the film. Following the interest generated by their earlier releases, the Bs secured an actual budget (I mean, a tiny one, comparatively speaking, but a budget none-the-less), an actor (at least, one who wasn't a scenester that'd already appeared in one of their earlier projects) in James Russo, wrote themselves a finished script, you know, before they started shooting, and made themselves an honest to god feature film.
Shot in color, it's a murky, noir-adjacent, proto-cyberpunk story of a surly detective's investigation into internecine corporate subterfuge & assassination and the surveillance state. The resulting intersections of those things make up the film's vibe, but before you get all excited thinking this is going to be some sort of streamlined, gleaming work of cutting-edge futurism, know that this is only fractionally less grimy than the duo's earlier works and the main differences the budget affords is 1) the ability to have sets that are more robust than a large sheet of colored paper taped to a wall and 2) the option to shoot on rooftops as opposed the street.
On the acting front, the best scenes feature Russo and B-regular Bill Price (who turns in another classic, as a Howard Hughes-like weirdo living on milk, donuts, and injections) with the former being able to play exasperated off the latter's tenuous reality to great effect. Russo amps up his character's own derangement perhaps a bit too much in scenes with the rest of the cast, which includes Lydia Lunch (as horny detective Angel Powers), the always great Ann Magnuson (pre-Bongwater, as a corporate climber with an amazing pussycat bow), other B regulars & more.
There are a lot of cool shots (mostly the overhead ones -- and particularly the two with Russo and Lunch), and the whole thing holds together, though probably more as a vibe than a film. I like it, but I can see how many (especially those who've not watched the Bs earlier material) might not get with it as much. The score is somewhat atonal, the plot isn't quite there, and the emotions are, above all, cold and mercenary, but then again, it's a slice of Reagan-era anger looking to make its audience uncomfortable.
And, finally, the last of the B's collaborative works, 'Vortex.' And, quite possibly, the last widely released (such as it is) film of the No Wave movement.
Sidebar: I'd seen this film before, on September 27, 1985 to be exact. It was part of a two-night thing at the Walker Art Center, the second part of which, the following day, was a live appearance by Lydia Lunch and Clint Ruin -- Lunch did a reading which was interrupted by a pair of dipshits trying to heckle her (which she shut down pretty quickly and quite brutally) and Ruin, walking onto the stage with a bottle of whisky (I think), proceeding to sing/scream along to backing tracks off of 'Nail,' then-current album from his Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel project, until the bottle was empty (a lot of it drunk and the rest tossed about the stage). I liked 'Vortex,' but frankly the live show made more of an impression on me at the time.
Anyway, the film. Following the interest generated by their earlier releases, the Bs secured an actual budget (I mean, a tiny one, comparatively speaking, but a budget none-the-less), an actor (at least, one who wasn't a scenester that'd already appeared in one of their earlier projects) in James Russo, wrote themselves a finished script, you know, before they started shooting, and made themselves an honest to god feature film.
Shot in color, it's a murky, noir-adjacent, proto-cyberpunk story of a surly detective's investigation into internecine corporate subterfuge & assassination and the surveillance state. The resulting intersections of those things make up the film's vibe, but before you get all excited thinking this is going to be some sort of streamlined, gleaming work of cutting-edge futurism, know that this is only fractionally less grimy than the duo's earlier works and the main differences the budget affords is 1) the ability to have sets that are more robust than a large sheet of colored paper taped to a wall and 2) the option to shoot on rooftops as opposed the street.
On the acting front, the best scenes feature Russo and B-regular Bill Price (who turns in another classic, as a Howard Hughes-like weirdo living on milk, donuts, and injections) with the former being able to play exasperated off the latter's tenuous reality to great effect. Russo amps up his character's own derangement perhaps a bit too much in scenes with the rest of the cast, which includes Lydia Lunch (as horny detective Angel Powers), the always great Ann Magnuson (pre-Bongwater, as a corporate climber with an amazing pussycat bow), other B regulars & more.
There are a lot of cool shots (mostly the overhead ones -- and particularly the two with Russo and Lunch), and the whole thing holds together, though probably more as a vibe than a film. I like it, but I can see how many (especially those who've not watched the Bs earlier material) might not get with it as much. The score is somewhat atonal, the plot isn't quite there, and the emotions are, above all, cold and mercenary, but then again, it's a slice of Reagan-era anger looking to make its audience uncomfortable.
