Easter Monday Special: The Ten Commandments as Movies 🙏
Easter Monday Special: The Ten Commandments as Movies 🙏
Plus, our latest Toronto Rep Rec: Drag Me To The Movies!
The Ten Commandments As Movies You Should Watch
by Kawai Shen
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Embrace of the Serpent (2016). When I lived in a northern community, some Indigenous residents explained to me that colonizers didn’t understand the gods. Embrace’s protagonist, an Amazonian shaman, would probably say the same. I’m not sure I understand the gods. Unless cinema counts as a god.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Helter Skelter (2012). I love both Kyoko Okazaki and Mika Ninagawa so I ate up this candy-coloured cautionary tale of a supermodel’s descent into madness and the pitfalls of idolatry. Though watching this might have engraved Lilico’s lurid, gold-gilt, maximalist apartment onto my retinas. Forget wanting her looks—I’m really into her bonkers bathroom.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Candyman (1992). The moral of the story here is to be careful with taking names in vain because three time’s a bloody catastrophe. (I know there’s a remake that updates the gentrification takes but it doesn’t go near the miscengenic sexual prohibitions that drive the original, so start here.)
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Week-End (1967). I was told by a film prof that Jean-Luc Godard’s epic right scroll of a traffic jam from hell with its chorus of cars horns beeping for deliverance is basically the cinematic equivalent of an act of god so let’s go with this.
Honour thy father and thy mother.
Cruising (1980) and Paris is Burning (1990). These two films paying homage to leather daddies and house mothers are best viewed with family members of your own choosing <3
Thou shalt not kill.
The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973). We can all agree that murder is not cool, but there’s nothing in The Ten Commandments that prohibits defecting from the CIA to train freedom fighters in guerrilla warfare, yes? Spook is one of my fave “Blaxploitation” movies (it was slapped with the label just for having a Black-led cast and scenes of violence) because as a docile Oriental female, I have also made good use of the benefits that come with being unseen by white people.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
The Ceremony (2014). I was going to go with, “don’t have affairs, have threesomes.” But why stop there when one could be an octogenarian dominatrix in a palatial French estate with a stable of young submissives utterly devoted to servicing you? I had to watch this doc by repeatedly hitting the rewind button because I’m slow at French and I couldn’t find a version with English sous titres when it first came out. It was still worth it.
Thou shalt not steal.
The Cook The Thief His Wife Her Lover (1989). More than not being a thief, thou shalt definitely not be an anti-intellectual who voted for the Iron Lady. Since we’re here, may I suggest a double bill where you open a screening of this with that little viral clip titled, “A Scottish Woman Reacts to the Death of Margaret Thatcher”? Chef’s kiss.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
A Separation (2011). You probably shouldn’t lie, especially not before a judge. But you also shouldn’t tell the truth either because everyone else is lying. Actually, life is suffering, so you might as well say whatever you want.
Thou shalt not covet.
Millennium Mambo (2001). Don’t be a jealous little shit, especially if you chose to shack up with a party girl. Remember Commandment #7’s explainer? You can’t keep a good woman down so you might as well relax and enjoy the woozy, booze-infused ride. (Dear Reader, if you are now thinking that jealousy is not the same as covetousness, you would be correct. But if we didn’t have covetousness, then we wouldn’t have that work of cinematic worship that is In the Mood for Love (2000) and surely the gods are smiling upon that paragon of a film, that much I know.)
Kawai Shen is a writer based in Toronto.
T.O. REP REC: DRAG ME TO THE MOVIES
In the Mood’s monthly recommendation of what to see in Toronto’s repertory venues.
We locals might complain about our city, but we are truly spoiled by Toronto’s rep scene. There is always something to see, but you may not find anything as raunchy or wacky as what drag queen, film obsessive, and host Weird Alice is programming at The Paradise. Through three series, Drag Me to the Movies, Evil Women, and Sleaze Factory, she chooses films that live up to the name. The mission is “To corrupt the minds of film lovers all over by virtue of introducing them to bizarre, interesting, underappreciated, and wacky camp art.”
With all the options on offer in the city, Weird Alice understands there is a challenge in keeping the mission while picking films audiences will come to see. Her programming runs from tried and true favourites such as The Fly (1986) and The Birdcage (1996), to underseen curios such as Desperate Living (1977) and Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984): “It’s like walking on a tightrope attempting to balance what I want to share with what the audience is clamouring for and hoping that I don’t topple and end up with a groin injury.”
This month, we recommend taking a chance on Drag Me to the Movies’ April 12th screening of the grimly funny Shakes the Clown (1991). Starring and directed by iconoclast comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, the film follows an alcoholic party clown trying to make a name for himself, and who must clean up his act when he is mistakenly accused of murder. A barely veiled satire of the stand-up comedy world (many of the other clowns on the circuit are sexual predators, drunks, or egomaniacs), Shakes the Clown revels in the humiliating nature of being a paid performer.
While she loves to program raunchy, flippant fare, at a Weird Alice screening, manners still matter: “Anyone who regularly sees Drag Me to the Movies exists to amplify the enjoyment of watching movies with a crowd but with none of the dick-ish behaviour that has been plaguing cinemas as of late. See: being on your phones, yammering about your day to your seatmate, or trying (and failing) to MST3K your way through a movie when no one cares about your jokes.” If you’ve been a regular attendee in Toronto’s rep cinemas, you’re sure to appreciate Weird Alice’s hard-line approach to movie-going.
There is a large audience of filmgoers who just want to see their favourite film on screen with others, but she hopes that filmgoers will take a chance on films they don’t know yet. “The main change I hope to see [in Toronto’s film scene] is people continuing to expand their horizons and go see the movies that sound the most intriguing to them as opposed to clinging to convenience and familiarity.”
And you may get more than a film for your ticket price: a Weird Alice show always includes a pre-show, maybe a stand-up set from your host or a performance from one of the city’s best drag queens, like Pearle Harbour who will perform before the Shakes the Clown.
So show up on time for the performance, win some movie bingo prizes, and take a chance on a clown named Shakes. And a last note from Weird Alice: “Oh, and get off your phones!”
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Submissions OPEN for Issue 10: TEN
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