I used to babysit when I was about 14-16, in the mid-to-late 1980′s. The people I babysat for would rent these artsy independent movies that nobody had ever heard of for me to watch late at night. They weren’t playing at the mall. Those movies made an impression on me and I still watch them for different reasons. It’s fun to connect the past to the present. I remember two movies in particular I watched late at night after the baby was put to bed: 1) Stranger than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch and 2) Ciao! Manhattan [about 'factory girl' Edie Sedgwick] . Stranger than Paradise was complety deadpan, strange, quirky, and funny. The second movie was Edie Sedgwick playing herself in Ciao! Manhattan. It was an oral narrative, shocking in parts, about her tragic life, from hip to the spiral downward. She died at age 28. I watched the movie again last week. Her short life so represented the 60′s. For days I wondered how she could have gone from heiress to incoherent and self-destructive. The fascination with her style remains.
I guess I still primarily like artsy, really quirky movies, non-plots, and strong fashion sense that is not Hollywood Blockbuster. It’s that strong sense of character that I connect with and a certain mood that I like, more than plot.
Holden and Thompson Nothing (93 returning mix)
