Good Prattle: culture following

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Cult(ure) following: "Repo! The Genetic Opera" (2008)

Prosperous Christmukah, my dear readers! I've got a special Christmas Eve post for you: the newest installment of our cult cinema showcase, this one spotlighting Repo! The Genetic Opera. Stay tuned this next couple of weeks; as a holiday gift to our readers, you should soon see the site positively inundated with roundtable interviews. In the meantime, let's take a look at the legacy of tonight's cult(ure) following.

Then…: Underfunded and under-advertised by Lionsgate, this celluloid cyberpunk opera was shunted to red-headed stepchild status at the studio almost as soon as it received the greenlight. Even after its release, it never played in more than 11 theaters at once.

…And now: Okay, so those who haven’t seen it still tend to tune out as soon as you mention that Paris Hilton is in the cast—which is probably fair, considering the heiress’s cinematic track record. On the whole, however, the Hilton Factor has done surprisingly little to hinder Repo!’s success: despite its meager theatrical run, the film quickly gathered a rabid cult following and to this day boasts midnight showings across the country—many of them complete with shadowcasts of their very own. (In fact, Hilton herself even makes appearances on occasion.) Repo! is still relatively recent as far as cult films are concerned, granted, but it’s off to a pretty good start.

See it with: Machine Man protagonist Charles Neumann; any cybernetics enthusiast who you think might have taken the wrong message away from said novel.

Drug of choice: The Repo!-verse painkiller Zydrate, duh. Failing that, its real world equivalent—just about any hardcore prescription opiate—should suffice.

Predecessor to: Biopunk. Hey, you can’t start theorizing about the possibility of a designer-organ market until you’ve already conceptualized the organ-as-commodity, amirite?
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Cult(ure) following: "Heathers" (1988)

Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce our latest feature: "cult(ure) following," in which we take a look at classic and recent cult films. First up? 1988's seminal black comedy Heathers. Let's take a look.

Then…: So dark that the producers had to sort through nearly all of Young Hollywood to find its cast, Heathers bombed at the box office. The moral gatekeepers of society were shocked and outraged at its release, and though quite a few critics counted it among their favorite films of 1988 most were scandalized.

…And now: Tame with regards to the body count yet still edgy in its conceit, Heathers would never get made today. Perhaps that’s why it has endured so well. Aside from its own continued presence in pop culture and its ever-intense popularity among film geeks and kitsch enthusiasts alike, most of whom could quote the entire film on command, Heathers revolutionized the teen movie genre. Seriously, take a look: pre-Heathers, we had wide-eyed idealist Molly Ringwald. Post-Heathers, we got deadpan snarker Daria. Just about everyone who has been a teenager since the release of Heathers owes their adolescence to Michael Lehmann and Daniel Waters.

See it with: Jaded Gender Studies majors; any hipster chick who secretly hasn’t entirely gotten over being “uncool” in high school; Tavi Gevinson.

Drug of choice: Crushed shoulder-pad fibers and aerosol hairspray.

Predecessor to: Jawbreaker, Mean Girls, Juno—just about any marginally-snarky film with a teenaged girl for a protagonist.

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