#lenore zion

[madeofmovies]

"This bitch just puked a cat !"

Brand New Cherry Flavor. Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion. 2021

[cantsayidont]

March 2019 and August 2021. Two flavors of the L.A. apocalypse, part of a larger genre that also includes KISS ME DEADLY, REPO MAN, WILD PALMS, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and SOUTHLAND TALES.

NOW APOCALYPSE, which came and went in 2019, was created by Gregg Araki and cowritten with Karley Sciortino. It follows four sexually frustrated L.A. 20somethings: Ulysses (Avan Jogia), a stock Araki protagonist (mostly gay, perpetually baked, effortlessly hot) who's been suffering disturbing apocalyptic premonitions and weird visions; Carly (Kelli Berglund), his blond, white, mostly straight bestie, a struggling actress and part-time camgirl who I think is supposed to be Sciortino's self-insert; Ford (Beau Mirchoff), Uly's tragically straight aspiring screenwriter beefcake himbo roommate; and Ford's girlfriend Severine (Roxane Mesquida), an autistic French "astro-biological theorist" whose mysterious top-secret government project is probably connected to Uly's frightening visions.

Allegedly inspired by TWIN PEAKS, NOW APOCALYPSE feels more like a redress of Araki's 2010 film KABOOM. The surreal mystery aspects seem to be trying to make a point about the city's predatory appetite for hot, exploitable 20somethings (underscored by the return of Araki regular James Duval as a tormented homeless man), but if you're expecting the show to pay off or even pay much attention to its own mystery, you'll be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're in it for the sexually fluid horniness (which occupies about 85 percent of the plot and most of Araki and Sciortino's apparent interest), the flashes of weird David Icke-style alien conspiracy nonsense are distracting, and Araki seems either oblivious to or unconcerned about the antisemitic roots of conspiracy theories about sinister "Reptilians." As a modern sex comedy, NOW APOCALYPSE is pretty good, although it's familiar territory for Araki (it's really similar to KABOOM and even NOWHERE) and lacks the bite of his '90s work. The part that ends up standing out is the unexpectedly sensitive treatment of Severine; Mesquida manages to make this abrasive woman (whose personality Carly likens to nail polish remover) seem like a real person, who's not without feelings despite her discomfort with emotional expression.

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR, created by Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion based on a novel I haven't read, wants very much to be the love child of David Lynch and David Cronenberg: a surreal supernatural black comedy, set in the 1990s, about a driven young filmmaker named Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar) who turns to witchcraft after she loses control of her unsettling short film to a sleazy producer whose contract she hasn't read carefully. A weird Boyle Heights mystic who calls herself Boro (Catherine Keener at her deadpan best) agrees to curse the producer for her, which has unexpected consequences, beginning with the fact that Lisa now vomits up kittens at regular intervals. Meanwhile, the embittered star of Lisa's short film (Siena Werber) resurfaces to reveal the horrifying events surrounding the making of that film, and some extremely weird things are happening at Lisa's new apartment.

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR is frustrating because it almost works. It's full of interesting pieces (including a memorable if obviously derivative segue into Cronenberg-esque body horror) that don't quite add up and some spooky moments whose tension the story keeps failing to sustain. (While the showrunners have obviously seen MULHOLLAND DRIVE, their attempts to evoke a Lynchian nightmare-logic sense of incipient dread consistently fall flat.) The biggest issue is that the show can't make up its mind what kind of story it's trying to tell (is it a cautionary tale? a parable about the creative process?), which leaves the protagonist a cipher and many of the story threads going nowhere.

This is a common problem with modern media, especially in this generic vein: Deliberate ambiguity and creative indecision are not the same thing, and if a story lacks clear stakes and thematic direction, all the cool, creepy, intriguing bits in the world won't amount to much. Rosa Salazar tries very hard, but she's hampered by the writers' uncertainty about how we should feel about Lisa, and Manny Jacinto is wasted (literally) in a minor supporting role as her former boyfriend. The standout is Catherine Keener, whose flair for droll understatement makes Boro (who's both more and less than she appears to be) a memorable villain.

[filmap]

Brand New Cherry Flavor Nick Antosca, Lenore Zion. 2021

Lisa’s apartment 4121 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA See in map

See in imdb

[hopscotchfriday]

Brand New Cherry Flavor

Thank goodness the 90s are weird again. 

Which is not to say that the decade of third way politics and history ending did not have a prepackaged feel to it. I distinctly remember a sense that mainstream music, film and television had a studied ambience, like the exam paper of a student who had stolen the answers. 

But the early internet, pirate radio - and occasional weirdos I happened to associate with at house parties - were often a useful source of less traveled culture, pointing out cult artifacts of the time. Someone would put me on to Hal Hartley, Blonde Redhead, Sadie Plant, or Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol (not to mention Steven Shaviro’s Doom Patrols). 

My point being, there was plenty weird and coolly bleak about the 90s, a knife-edge to set you at unease, at odds with the hyper-commercialised calm of the time. 

Which is my long preamble to Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion/Netflix adaptation of Todd Grimson’s cult novel Brand New Cherry Flavor.

Oozing with gonzo weirdness and queer asides - stars Rosa Salazar and Catherine Keener are simply unstoppable - this show retains the 90s setting of the novel, but uses only a small segment of the plot, focusing on Grimson’s black magic shenanigans in a seedy LA. 

The story is initially, deceptively, straightforward. Lisa Nova (Salazar) arrives in LA having recently finished a disturbing short film. Advance notice of her burgeoning talent, from what we see of the film there are touches of Bunuel and Kenneth Anger, has drawn the attention of skeevy yet avuncular producer Lou Burke (Eric Lange, just vibrating with nervous energy). The pair meet, Lou begins couching her on how to pitch her talent to investors and journalists and then, predictably, he makes a move. 

It is at this point Boro (Keener) appears, although her presence has been hinted at a few times already. She offers Lisa a deal - enter into a magical pact with her, and Lou Burke will suffer. The young film-maker is at first bemused. When Lou steals Lisa’s film away from her, offering the feature director gig to a less talented, mediocre young man, Lisa runs to Boro and the aforementioned black magic shenanigans begin. 

Oh and yes, there are scenes of Salazar ‘vomiting’ up newborn kittens, appearances by mummy-like spectres, spontaneous sex organs. Shenanigans, you see. 

At this point the show tends to earn the descriptor ‘Lynchian’ from folks. I was reminded more of Gregg Araki’s films, particularly Nowhere. 

Not only is there a shared vibe of hypercapitalist satire, such as hitmen easily found in local diners (ok, so maybe there is a hint of Mulholland Drive here, as well as the inimitable Patrick Fischler!), the coterie of beautiful boys doomed by their proximity to Lisa feels more like Araki than Lynch (who prefers to visit suffering and tragedy on pretty young women). 

For one, Roy Hardaway (Jeff Ward) enters the story as a famous blockbuster action star with a death wish, and quickly becomes obsessed with Lisa. She ‘brings out’ his self-destructive nature, he confesses. And Ward, looking pale, sunken-eyed and unhealthily skinny, seems fully aware that he is caught in some death trip, but is unable to swerve away. Memories of Montgomery (Nathan Bexton) from Nowhere there. 

Oh and did I mention the zombies? This show has zombies - more of the resurrected from some ritual, Haitian tradition, than Romero flesh eaters, but yes. They are there. One of the sour jokes of the show is Boro’s horde of visibly rotting undead easily navigate LA without many batting an eyelid. 

When one character falls afoul of Boro, their condition is mistaken by most - with the exception of Lisa, now wise to the bruja trap she is caught in - to be the result of a lost weekend. 

To be honest I am glad the show cuts off the story before Lisa’s trip to Brazil from the book. I read enough comics and novels in the 90s by pale Anglophone men riffing on their impressions of Native American mysticism, or voodoo ritual. 

Antosca and Zion presenting LA as a closed system of greed, exploitation, but also tragically naive druggy dreaminess, feels more apt, both to the use of magick as a metaphor for power imbalances, and the stillborn potential of the 90s. 

Which is to say - Manny Jacinto is also in this, and he will break your heart. 

So, so doomed. 

 - Emmet O’Cuana

[gncrevan]

Nightmare Bisexual: Brand New Cherry Flavor on Netflix

A ★★★★½ review of Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021)

i don't usually do reviews of television series, but i haven't had this much fun with a show in a while, especially not something put out by

i don't usually do reviews of television series, but i haven't had this much fun with a show in a while, especially not something put out by netflix. dark magical realism meets deliciously executed (frequently practical effects) body horror. brand new cherry flavor states its influences outright: cronenberg, verhoeven, little snippets of old-school trashy horror flicks all over, a black and white student film somewhere between german expressionism and hitchcock with a lead that looks like mia farrow in rosemary's baby and aims to act like isabelle adiani in possession - to just name a very few. it's a surreal little concoction with just the right amount of threat and mystery to keep you glued to the screen. the sets are absolutely stunning and we get treated to some beautiful, dreamlike visuals by the camera. the whole cast does a fantastic job, i know we're all talking about catherine keener, but i thought rosa salazar's performance as (openly bisexual!) filmmaker lisa nova was absolutely magnetic and i can't wait to see more of her. while the finale was kind of anticlimactic, i do understand that they are trying to set up a second season. i wonder how well that would work with an almost completely new cast, but i am excited about siena werber getting a bigger role, since i thought she played fantastic opposite salazar.

[kellymagovern]

The Jeselnik Offensive - Sacred Cow: Necrophilia [x]

[marginalutilite]

If Stupid Children is a memoir, it manages to be revelatory and shocking without crossing the line into sensationalist and exploitative. If it's wholly fictional, I honestly have no idea why it was written and am disturbed further imagining the morbid mind which gave it birth.

[marginalutilite]

Celebrity Crush Moment of the Day

Belatedly discovered that Lenore Zion (author of Stupid Children, the disturbing and disturbingly well written book I just finished reading) follows me on twitter.