I recently saw the 1974 classic **Going Places ** for the first time, and it has immediately become one of my all time favorites. I am not a Depardieu fan, but this film shows him and Deweare to be a charming pair, depsite all the debauchery. Then I got to thinking, this movie features, among other things, molestation of woman, stauatory rape, forced male anal rape, child molestation, a gunshot to the crotch, fistfights, burglaries, vandalism, and on and on. Can anyone add any other films that are actually really good, despite really tasteless subject matter?
Tom Jones was hot.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is great, despite the twistedness of the themes.
You can’t get more tasteless than McDonald’s.
I nominate Supersize Me. Every time I pass a McD’s, I remember that guy rowfing up his super-sized meal out the car window.
Heroin addiction and overdose, AIDS, horrid toilet scenes and dead babies… wonderful movie.
I think Trainspotting takes the cake…
One of the most beautiful romances ever committed to celluloid is Eric Rohmer’s The Marquise of O, which centers around a rapist and his victim.
Wow, just like *General Hospital * (whose legendary supercouple Luke and Laura was born when he raped her).
**The Professional. Assassin teams up with teenage girl, teaches her the art of assassination, she develops a crush on him . . .
And, of course, pretty much every segment/subplot of Pulp Fiction.
Happiness. I won’t [del]soil it[/del] er, spoil it for you.
The subject matter of Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby (which is about a child prostitute) kept me from seeing the movie when it was first released. Later, when Pretty Baby showed up on HBO, I happened upon it by accident, and found it to be a sensitive and moving film with some beautiful performances by some of my favorite actors (notably Susan Sarandon and Keith Carradine).
Well, there’s Meet the Feebles, which just wallows in bad taste.
Set backstage at a theater, the knife-thrower is strung out on heroin and having flashbacks to Nam, the MC has so many STDs he’ll be lucky to survive the day, someone’s making hardcore porn in the basement, the stage manager is desperate to do his big, show-stopping song-and-dance about sodomy, the head of the troupe is getting a hummer from the understudy, and when his wife (the star) finds out, she goes on a killing spree.
How can this be a good movie? It’s all done with puppets. It’s like an x-rated Muppet Show.
And who do we have to thank for Meet the Feebles? The king of Kong and the lord of the Rings himself, Peter Jackson.
I was going to mention Pretty Baby, too. It couldn’t be made today, but it is a fine film.
The same director, Louis Malle, also made Le Souffle au Coeur a warm coming of age comedy about incest.
And no one’s mentioned South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut yet.
Freaks
Well, his first movie was called Bad Taste.
Eating Raoul, an urbane comedy of manners centered around a serial-killing couple who butcher their victims to supply meat to L.A. restaurants. Say what you will about the Blands, at least they weren’t sex perverts.
“Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas” is not for a family audience. Yet it’s one of my favorites.
David Kronenberg’s “Existenz” has some extremely yucky bits. Mutated amphibians, oh, my!
“Shadow of the Vampire” stars John Malkovich & Willem Dafoe. From there, it gets more creepy. (So, why do I find it so funny?)
Then, there’s “The Woman Chaser.” A sick, sick, neo-noir–again, “why am I laughing at this?” Not avalable on CD or VHS, alas.
“L.I.E.” was about gay men who basically prey on alienated, confused teenagers. Very distasteful, the “ick” factor was very high for me, and yet it was an interesting melodrama that gave me an interesting glimpse into a world I might never otherwise have seen.
P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights provides a look at the pornography industry in the late 70s and early 80s, but it’s much less about pornography and much more about surrogate families. One of my top five movies – I love it.