Fun City Editions

[Drucker]

I wrote thoughts somewhere here (I think the separate Fun City thread got filtered back into this one?) but I liked both Born to Win and The Coca-Cola Kid, though neither will be eligible for sale prices. Walking the Edge is a blast, Smile is a good satire (much better than the comedic failure mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous) and I Start Counting! is an absolute masterpiece, though I have the BFI edition (if you're region free, I think it's supposed to have more extras). Don't sleep on that one- it's also a film that inverts whatever genre you think it is (horror, mystery, coming-of-age pic?) and becomes anti-genre in the most profound, unsettling, and satisfying ways

Just chiming in off the comments earlier in this thread. I picked up Coca-Cola Kid after seeing it on some year end lists and intrigued by the description, and having never seen a Makavejev film. I found it to be an absolute masterpiece. What a beautiful portrait of commercialism, displaying an American fish out of water. To me, it felt like a relevant, early critique on the neoliberal order, one where corporations insist we can all get along, as long as you do what you are told. This is done without considering what some entity without the same incentives may do when backed into a corner. I found it a strong critique of imperialism and the new economic order, while at the same time being a very enjoyable, fun, and tuneful movie.

[therewillbeblus]

Well said, but instead of going the easy, lucid, and direct route of blunt satire, it manages to pull off this critique in a mellow inebriated state intertwined with idiosyncratic and seemingly superfluous eccentric dressing, but features that color in the world of the film and become entirely relevant to its offbeat tone and subdued rhythm. If we ever get that separate Fun City thread maybe I’ll expand further on this part of my ongoing thesis of their ethos, but I think a case could be made for almost all of FCE’s releases doing some version of this: At once having a clear idea, genre, or tone they’re working with, but also liberated from the constraints of definition oddly by drenching them in extraneous yet rich details, elevating and transforming them into something singular and gently baffling.

[beamish14]

I wrote thoughts somewhere here (I think the separate Fun City thread got filtered back into this one?) but I liked both Born to Win and The Coca-Cola Kid, though neither will be eligible for sale prices. Walking the Edge is a blast, Smile is a good satire (much better than the comedic failure mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous) and I Start Counting! is an absolute masterpiece, though I have the BFI edition (if you're region free, I think it's supposed to have more extras). Don't sleep on that one- it's also a film that inverts whatever genre you think it is (horror, mystery, coming-of-age pic?) and becomes anti-genre in the most profound, unsettling, and satisfying ways

Just chiming in off the comments earlier in this thread. I picked up Coca-Cola Kid after seeing it on some year end lists and intrigued by the description, and having never seen a Makavejev film. I found it to be an absolute masterpiece. What a beautiful portrait of commercialism, displaying an American fish out of water. To me, it felt like a relevant, early critique on the neoliberal order, one where corporations insist we can all get along, as long as you do what you are told. This is done without considering what some entity without the same incentives may do when backed into a corner. I found it a strong critique of imperialism and the new economic order, while at the same time being a very enjoyable, fun, and tuneful movie.

I’m so glad that this wonderful film continues to gain new fans. Lorraine Mortimer’s book on Makavejev, Terror and Joy, devotes less than a single page to it. You’d think it was some useless, hack for-hire work instead of the very subversive comedy that it is. I love how Eric Roberts, who is just incredible in it, really plays up his Georgia accent to emphasize his status as the “ugly American”.

[Glowingwabbit]

So now for FCE, only Party Girl has been released independently? Strange to supposedly strike up a new deal and not include it on VS' site

Not really that strange since it's different distributor. It would be weird if it was on the site actually since it's not OCN. In an interview he talked about the new deal being a way to try something new since MVD has a different model.

[Ribs]

I believe Fun City has said this is the last title they will be doing through OCN (and only coming from them rather than their new partner due to how it was licensed). Going forward their releases will be only through MVD I think.

[colinr0380]

Mondo Digital's review of Fun City's release of the Breathless remake, which includes a blunt taking to task of an earlier Slant review from one of the previous releases of the film!

[therewillbeblus]

Lengthy interview with label founder Jonathan Hertzberg

[Glowingwabbit]

As with Party GIrl, Letterboxd has done an announcement for FCE's Prime Time Panic 2. Presumably coming from MVD only.

The set includes the films The Death of Richie (1977), Incident at Crestridge (1981) and The Seduction of Gina (1984).

[therewillbeblus]

I really hope this is better than the abominable first set

[Glowingwabbit]

I really hope this is better than the abominable first set

I wouldn't go that far but it is my least favorite release for sure. I'm not sure if I'll get this new set though

[therewillbeblus]

I'm glad I sampled that set, Radio On, and Bilitis before purchase, since they're the only FCE-released films I find no merit in - I'm still on the fence about Alphabet City, but I'll probably pick it up at some point just to bathe in its style again. Otherwise, everything is worth owning

[Glowingwabbit]

On September 12, FCE is releasing a double feature, FATAL FEMMES, of early ’80s French urban-set noirs directed by women: Juliet Berto and Jean-Henri Roger’s NEIGE and Christine Pascal’s THE BITCH.

Link to the cover art: https://twitter.com/letterboxd/status/1 ... 30069?s=20

I've only heard good things about Neige, but also that it is definitely not a Femme fatale noir.

[therewillbeblus]

I've only heard good things about Neige, but also that it is definitely not a Femme fatale noir.

No it's not at all, nor is it a noir! Outside of systemic fatalism, which would make every social problem melodrama a noir too..

Unfortunately I didn't care much for this. It's definitely of a piece with FCE's output: striking location shooting, gritty milieus of atypical, unmoored protagonists and colorful characters, living out anticathartic stories that emulate authentic eccentricity... it just didn't add up to anything interesting for me. The second feature in the set isn't even available with English subs on back channels, so the jury's out on that one til this package hits the streets

[Finch]

FCE teased a Peter Hyams film on their Facebook feed with an image of Hyams sitting for an interview.

EDIT: correction: they confirmed 4 hours ago it's Herbert Ross's T.R. BASKIN, which Hyams wrote and produced.

[Finch]

Nice that Paramount are giving titles to FCE as well.

[therewillbeblus]

Herbert Ross's T.R. BASKIN, which Hyams wrote and produced.

This isn't very good - not quite the trainwreck it's been critically diagnosed as, but not far off. There's a lot of initial promise in Candice Bergen's wry verbage, foreshadowing a potential antecedent for Promising Young Woman's ethos pitting a jaded woman against pathetic men in an urban patriarchal milieu, but then flashbacks demonstrate that this attitude was not cultivated based on an incident, but is unexplained and unpredictably applied between scenarios in past and future scenarios. It'd be one thing if this was just who Bergen 'is' but we never get a sense of her identity underneath the defenses, and yet the film seems to want to show us character development - going so far as to demonstrate an instance of vulnerability bookended by this very protective behavior - while not cuing us into what prompts her to put up or take down the defenses in any given situation. It's hard to explain, but the film is poorly written, ignoring basic skeletal progressions that would give us hints at a character reacting to stimuli with some kind of internal logic, even if chosen to elide a lot of the material by choice. It's a mess, it's morals and purpose are sloppily conveyed, and the film doesn't seem to believe in whatever they are enough to issue them in full measures. Props to Bergen for doing her best - her delivery of some of these lines are a gas early on - but when we begin to feel the holes in the character-as-written, even these simple pleasures fall by the wayside.

[beamish14]

Nice that Paramount are giving titles to FCE as well.

I hope they ask for something better from them like Isztvan Szabo’s Sunshine

[John Cope]

Nice that Paramount are giving titles to FCE as well.

I hope they ask for something better from them like Isztvan Szabo’s Sunshine

Or Mindwalk if Paramount still has the rights to that.

[The Narrator Returns]

God willing someone picked up Baby It's You from the Olive fire sale, they'd do it the most justice.

[Buttery Jeb]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I just noticed that Fun City is handling U.S. distribution for Dance Craze, a documentary about the U.K. 2 Tone ska movement. It's playing at BAM starting August 11 (Fun City was listed as the film source in their Aug-Sept program).

[beamish14]

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz available for pre-order. God, I’ve wanted this one on disc for decades. Easily one of the best comedies of the 1970’s

[What A Disgrace]

I was worried they'd drop off a bit after leaving the Vinegar Syndicate, but all the recent releases sound like precisely the odd sort of thing that made me start buying their releases.

[Finch]

Fun City's next title is Handgun (1983), also known as Deep In The Heart. The Blu-Ray's transfer is coming from a 4k restoration.

[beamish14]

Fun City's next title is Handgun (1983), also known as Deep In The Heart. The Blu-Ray's transfer is coming from a 4k restoration.

I love how Tony Garnett followed this up with producing the first Sesame Street feature, Follow That Bird

[therewillbeblus]

Handgun isn't a very good movie, but it is an interesting rape-revenge film, in that neither the lead-up, the assault, nor the aftermath follow a thinly-pronounced clearcut tone. The assailant's introduction is as attractive, he doesn't reek of malice, and there's no ominous formal prompting about what he will serve as the vehicle of. The incident itself is weird and messy and recognizes how the man could easily delude himself into believing the coercion was consensual. It's not that the film is ambiguous about the validity of the events' objective value, but it's all presented in a manner that reflects many accounts I've heard from women where coercion was involved, rather than an open-and-shut violent assault. The aftermath is rolled out more clinically in its examination of traumatic effects and symptoms, the neutrally-delivered advice from a variety of figures consulted, including religion leaders.. and because this period is presented as gradual, unstimulating (numb, even), nuanced and complex, we join Young in those overwhelming and alienated sensations that she alone is stuck with in limbo. Not your average TV-movie fare. Young sells her experience well, especially the haze in processing what's happening within her, and the feeling of loneliness even in the presence of potential supports. The predominate tone is not one of moral or emotional fury, but confusion, isolation, powerlessness, and insecurity. Young's attention on "guns" - the topical class that primed her exposure to her assailant and the tool used to disempower her - is built up after a long bout of inertia. In a thinner, paint-by-numbers rape-revenge film, there would be a sense of gratification in resilience signified here, but instead the arrival at the gun as a source of comfort is portrayed as primarily a 'relief' of her brain's struggle to grasp onto a tangible hold of either comprehension or empowerment amidst her trauma. None of this feels cathartically satisfying or logically-minded (i.e. sublimating trauma by becoming an expert in using same weapon used against you); it feels like psychological firefighting, treading water to not lose one's mind completely. And the climax is incredibly anti-climactic for a variety of reasons:

SpoilerShow

the outcome is not death but an emasculating joke with the huntress besting the teacher; there's an absence of cathartic admission by the assailant, who seems to remain convinced or no immoral act on his part; her characterization becomes diluted as trauma symptoms hone in on its tangible construct, so it feels unearned when the credits freeze-frame over a return to normalcy as she smiles holding a baby, the 'idealized' product of a healthily collaborative, intentional sexual endeavor..

It's also a timely release, considering how much focus is spent on gun control amidst the film's diverse milieu - reasons on both sides of the fence are parroted, and ultimately Young meets the world where it's at with the resources it has for her. However, there's an acknowledged sadness in the subtext: If the male-dominated society is cultivated and fortified based on Hobbesian fear-based logic, then an organically more sensitive and thoughtful woman's Lockean optimism that strives for emotional affinity is necessarily sacrificed in order to have a chance at coming out on top (even if she manages to retain some innocence based on the aforementioned anti-climactic punchline). The qualities that could be assets to progress humanity are definitively regressive in the current reality, and must be discarded - though again, this tragic commentary feels a bit muddled by the final hopeful image. Ms. 45 is a much better and more interesting film, but they feel of apiece in how they engage with and transcend elements of the rape-revenge thriller. I would like to hear a commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on a physical release. Otherwise, like the last few FCE announcements, I have no real interest in picking this up or seeing it again.