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Reviews
Welt am Draht (1973)
Not one of Fassbinder's best, but still worth watching
The premise of this made-for-TV movie is fascinating, but the pacing and styling make it a little difficult to watch. It moves very slowly, particularly in the first half, with a lot of stylized, stilted acting. However, the visuals (costuming, hair and makeup and early 70s sets) are consistently interesting and create a creepy feeling that you can't quite explain. Don't expect a lot of action (this is Fassbiner, not The Matrix). It doesn't rank with his best cinematic offerings, but it's still well worth watching, especially if you're already a Fassbinder fan wanting to get a better grasp of his enormous body of work.
Liquid Sky (1982)
It Captures A Particular Time and Place
I can understand why many people would hate this film because it is very extreme, but more than any film I've ever seen, it captures that very brief era in New York City. Punk was over and pseudo-bohemianism was coming next but hadn't arrived yet. The film depicted a fantasy, but that's what New York felt like at that time. I remember going to see it with some friends and being astonished because I had never seen anything remotely like it. It was like "The Wizard of Oz" meets "Naked Lunch". I think what made it work was the combination of the clothes, the disaffected people, and the soundtrack which probably sounds a little cheap now, but sounded spectacularly strange and beautiful at the time.
Anne Carlisle's performance as Margaret was a heartbreaker. It wasn't until near the end of the movie that I realized that it was, essentially, a love story between her and the aliens. Paula Sheppard's performance as Adrien was also a standout. Unfortunately it was Paula's last movie, and Anne only had a couple of very small roles after that.
A couple of trivia points: the club they went to was The Underground, which was located at the corner of Broadway and 17th Street, across from Union Square. There is a now a big box pet supply store at that location, but it was kind of a seedy area in those days. I was working down the street at the time and remember the movie being made. The penthouse apartment appeared to be somewhere nearby. I would guess that it was on 18th, 19th or 20th Street, between Fifth Ave and Sixth Ave. It's now a very fashionable area, but in those days it was the photo district, and was semi-industrial with very little residential space.