Long before I had actually seen Azazel Jacobs’ second feature, The GoodTimesKid, I had heard tell of its final scene, in which the Gang of Four song “Damaged Goods” is played in its entirety. It takes a certain kind of confidence to use a Gang of Four song in a cinematic context. Deceptively simple post-punk loaded with weighty narrative, it’s virtually impossible to match this music with imagery without the filmmaker’s voice getting lost in the noise, without the soundtrack seemingly functioning as a mission statement above and beyond what the rest of the film has to say. Certainly, the thesis of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette seems most articulate in its opening scene, set to a lengthy excerpt of Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not in It” — the song serves as a key to unlocking that film’s visual indulgence, placing its evocation of angsty teen consumption and self-absorption within the irony of “problems of leisure” and the political context of the “body [as] good business.”

Jacobs makes the viewer wait about 70 minutes for the first use of “Damaged Goods,” but the song’s ethos still felt throughout the film. If there’s anything missed from Benten Films’ long-awaited release of The GoodTimesKid, it’s the full text of the letter, peeking out of the corner of the DVD box, that Jacobs wrote to the band asking for use of the song.

In Gang of Four songs, sex and commerce, personal relationships and socio-economic identity, are always inextricably linked, to the point where an apparent reference to one can be safely assumed to double for the other. It’s articulated best in another song, “Contract”: “Social dreams put in practice in the bedroom.” “Damaged Goods” swings back and forth: it’s a break-up song (“The change’ll do you good, I always knew it would/sometimes I’m thinking that I love you, but I know it’s only lust”) that dips into the language of transaction (“Damaged goods, send them back … open the till, give me the change you said would do me good/ refund the cost.”) It’s a fitting theme song for a film about three people desperate for change, bouncing back and forth between embracing the sentimentality of personal relationships and rejecting it. Never mind that it was shot on damaged short ends stolen from the set of Troy.

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Scott Macaulay asked me to contribute some year-end thoughts to the FILMMAKER Magazine blog, and I did, and they’re up now. Personally, in memorializing the year that’s about to end while getting ready for the year ahead –– which, for me and virtually everyone I know, really begins mid-month at Sundance –– I find myself optimistic regarding all the great work I’ve seen over the past year and all the new possibilities that are becoming available to filmmakers, and frustrated that things aren’t changing fast enough to make those possibilities a reality. Here’s an excerpt:

Almost ten years ago, circa Erin Brockovich, I remember lying awake one night worrying about Steven Soderbergh’s career –– once responsible for Julia Roberts’ Oscar, would he ever make something as personal and indifferent to Hollywood commercialism as sex, lies again? Now, I lie awake at night worrying if people who are making films as personal and indifferent to Hollywood commericalism as those by Gerardo Naranjo, Matthew Newton and Frank V. Ross will ever get to have a career anything like Steven Soderbergh’s –– because before we can even wonder if they’ll ever get to prove their mettle through the moderately-budgeted studio films which lead to the franchise blockbusters which result in the clout necessary to mount completely uncompromising 4.5 hour dream projects, we have to wonder if they’ll ever see success on the level of the million-dollar Sundance sale.

Check out the rest of the post here.

Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs’ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving.

15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician gets kicked out of his school and introduces himself at Maru’s suburban Mexico school via faking his own hanging at a talent show, the girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together.

Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally really leave home that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run.

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