20th Anniversary: POINT BREAK (1991)

By the time Point Break emerged in the summer of 1991 I was already a fan of Kathryn Bigelow having obsessed over Near Dark (1987) on VHS in, I think, 1990? I was not disappointed since Point Break has at least a couple of sequences in it that made good on Near Dark's terrifying bar massacre for the sheer "finger lickin' good" adrenaline that pumps through them. When I think of great action direction the foot chase sequence in Point Break always comes to mind if I don't get stuck in James Cameron oeuvre. With the recent rebirth of both Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and Cameron (Avatar) perhaps there is hope for action cinema still?

Online searches for Point Break screencaps reveal yet again the dearth of movie images online from the early 90s (just before the internet took over, natch) so we can't marvel at Kathryn Bigelow's generous attention to Keanu Reeve's wetsuit ass or the way his wet bangs cling so perfectly to his forehead in slow motion as if entire action sequences were shot as frame-by-frame meticulously as any frozen fashion shoot meant to be blown up on billboards everywhere.

I asked Team Film Experience to share their most vivid memories of the one arguable classic in the pretty-FBI-agent-meets-new-age-bankrobbing-surfer-guru genre. Shut up! It is so a genre.

Kurt (Cinema de Gym): Collectively, my most vivid memory of Point Break is definitely the skydiving scenes. In my teens, I went through a phase where I was totally obsessed with extreme sports and extreme sports movies, perhaps because extreme sports don't exactly require the same hand-to-eye coordination of regular sports, which I extremely lacked. Point Break was one of my big, masculine extreme sports movies, along with Airborne and Drop Zone, the Wesley Snipes skydiving movie. I totally had it my head that I would skydive as soon as humanly possible, especially since my dad had done it back in the day. My thoughts have since...changed. Now I can't imagine just jumping out of an airplane. Maybe if I magically ended up in Point Break 2...

Editor's Note: If we get 150 new subscribers today (see sidebar for TFE's budget to 'dream a little bigger darling') Nathaniel will personally foot the bill to convince Kurt to skydive and share the video for your viewing pleasure. Kurt is very handsome so wouldn't you love to see him terrified and screaming in the clouds as he plummets to possible death?!? If we reach 300 paid subscribers this week (the goal) Nathaniel, whose father has also sky-dived and who is also terrified at the thought of leaping from a plane, will do it with him. Editor's Note Pt 2: The Film Experience accepts no responsibility if anyone dies while trying this.

Craig (Take Three): What I remember most is Kathryn Bigelow showing 99% of her action-filmmaker peers of the time exactly how action cinema is done 100% of the time. 

Michael (Unsung Heroes): All my strongest memories of Point Break involve Nick Frost's anguished Keanu interpretation in the movie Hot Fuzz, so methinks I may be due for a refresher viewing of Bigelow's surf/heist opus.

JA from My New Plaid Pants: I've been meaning to revisit it but I was never a big Point Break fan as a kid. Even back then surfer talk set my nerves on edge. But the first thing I think of is that post-coitus shot of Keanu and Lori Petty in bed where she's about a hundred thousand percent butcher than he is. He looked like a pretty porcelain doll and she was this motorcycle mama that was just gonna pick him up and smash him on the floor.

Ha! I love that image, too. Whatever happened to Lori Petty? Ah well. At least she'll always have the early 90s see also: A League of Their Own and Tank Girl.

P.S. Team TFE is looking for a couple of new members to gear up for Oscar season. If you consider yourself a fine writer who is able to get interesting fun points across in short bloggy doses (no current blog is necessary if you have samples), understand TFE's voice (i.e. you "get" and enjoy the site) and live in a major market (and can thus get to screenings or festivals), contact Nathaniel at film experience (at) gmail (dot) com. 

Secret Messages: "You Are Crazy"

secret messages from the movies...

Can you guess the movie? Check your guesswork after the jump.

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Matthew Ludwinski in "Going Down in La La Land"

There's a new gay film from Casper Andreas (Violet Tendencies, Slutty Summer) making the festival rounds. In fact, it's currently playing at Outfest in Los Angeles. The film is an adaptation of the comic memoir novel Going Down in La La Land which chronicles the adventures of a naive young actor who gets mixed up in porn/hustling when he tries to make it in Hollywood. As one does. Model/actor Matthew Ludwinski has the lead role.

Matthew Ludwinski photographed by David Waage for Mate Magazine

I recently interviewed him for global queer culture magazine mate (previously known as "winq") and that's the splash page for the start of the article above. Interviews can be tricky -- especially if the interviewee doesn't have a big resume to talk about -- but Ludwinski and his photographer David Waage for this profile were very friendly and fun. [Clicking on the image will take you to the magazine where you can sample bits or purchase.]

an Oscar Party scene from the filmI thought I'd share a bit that I couldn't squeeze into the article. There's an Oscar party scene in the film, where the staff is naked and painted gold (Hey, I had that idea like ten years ago... but alas, my parties are not that well funded). So when I sat down with Ludwinski at the hotel, given this Oscar party scene, I had to ask him about working with the Academy's favorite joke writer Bruce Vilanche, who plays a porn director in the film.

We ended up discussing the Franco/Vilanche Oscar night fallout kerfuffle very briefly.

Was Vilanche funny in person?

Hilarious. For a couple months afterwards he would send me dirty text messages. I always appreciate that.

Two of my favorite photos from the shoot after the jump...

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True Blood 4.3 "If You Love Me..."

Another Monday, another day spent thinking about last night's True Blood eppy. My favorite B story thread this season is definitely Arlene's devil baby so we must begin with my single favorite shot in the episode. The little monster slobbering all over Jessica's Capital C Creepy family heirloom doll.

He's so cute. Don't you just want to procure victims for him and grind them up into mushy baby food?

"If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?" is a solid episode but can't help but feel like a smidgeon of a comedown after last week's instant classic in which Eric was robbed of his memories by the new witch coven led by Marnie (Fiona Shaw). This week's episode provided several fun moments and some promising future-implications but the plot mostly was little beats in which characters were trying to decide how to deal with the major events of the previous episode: where should Sooki hide Eric? is Tara getting sucked back in for good? will Lafayette's fear of Eric continue to get everyone in trouble? who is Pam going to eat if she gets too angry? exactly what is Marnie channeling?

Cheers: True Blood is giving both Lafayette and Tara more subtle emotions to play this season.

The major B story his season appears to be Jason's stud captivity in that redneck nightmare village (they mean to use him to sire new werepups). Someone rescue him!

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Expecto Linkonus

JK Rowling hugs her child stars, all grown up.Since some of you Potterheads (Potterphiles?) haven't been too pleased with my flippancy about the world's most beloved film series I thought I should point out these neat morphs over at MSNBC which allow you to watch Harry, Hermione and Ron age up whilst Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint contemplate their goodbyes in voiceover.

It even got to me and I am no fan of the series. Because really... when something gets as huge as Harry Potter does it ends up being the culture and this is ten years of all of our lives that we're now saying goodbye to. We're all ten years older... *gulp*. It's just some of us are more eager to move on than others ;) MSNBC Movies is naturally devoting a lot of attention to this moment when "It All Ends."

OLDBOY. But why remake it?Links
Twitch just when we were beginning to wonder if Spike Lee would ever make a movie again he signs on for two. He'll direct the remake of Oldboy but first he'll recreate his character "Mookie" for his new joint Red Hook Summer. So little Spike and then a lot of it. Who knew?
Grantland on "The 'Poor Jen' Problem". Molly Lambert is like my new favorite essayist this month.
IndieWire in 'this is very cool' news AMPAS has announced a partnership with the Alama Drafthouse to preserve it's always awesome retrospective film posters.
Movie|Line wishes for Helena Bonham Carter to never stop with the personal uninhibited awesomeness. Like admitting she peed herself while shooting Harry Potter.
IGN the DVD Blu Ray release of Thor will include a sneak peak at The Avengers. This should surprise virtually no one. 

Finally...
Let's end with a "5 Second Film" starring Juliette Lewis.

p.s. that's exactly what I scream when I see Juliette Lewis only I run *towards* her. In case you missed my interview with her last fall -- she was awesome -- that was here.