Trash
2008-02-06 23:45:38 ET

I mostly know Andy Warhol movies by reputation, having only seen "Blood for Dracula" (which involved the wimpiest vampire ever anywhere). I've heard things, though, and seeing his name in the credits puts me on guard. So here is a movie he produced, and Paul Morrissey directed, called "Trash." It's an odd film for many, many reasons.

In what basically amounts to a series of vignettes, heroin addict Joe suffers from drug-induced impotence, meets a lot of people (more on this later), and attempts welfare fraud. If it sounds uneventful, it sort of is. Joe wanders through the movie in a daze and mostly just reacts (or fails to do so) to what goes on arround him. His girlfriend, who sells things she finds in the garbage, is played by Holly Woodlawn, the drag queen that Lou Reed sang about in "Take a Walk on the Wild Side."

First of all, this is a pre-Altamont, pre-Thompson counter-culture anti-drug movie. As such it carries an almost heretical feel to it, like somebody is seriously breaking ranks here. Despite, or because of, several graphic shooting up scenes (he was clearly injecting something during filming), the movie is pretty unglamorous. It doesn't even have that gritty anti-romance that recent issue movies have. Nobody dies, nobody OD's or turns to prostitution or anything like that. It just kind of comes across as a sort of dumb way to live your life.

Despite the fact that Joe is impotent, nearly catatonic, and smells bad (mentioned by at least one character), every woman on earth wants to get in his pants. Seriously, the first few scenes play out like a porno movie, except for the rather important failure previously mentioned. Also, all the women in this movie are rock stupid. A few of them are so vapid as to make me phsycially uncomfortable. Despite what the t-shirts say, stupidity does hurt.

The final scene is a corker. Even if the rest of the movie is too much for you, skip ahead to that last scene. It's like the best ever episode of "Cops."

I can't actually recomment this movie, except as a cinematic oddity. It's long, sometimes boring, sometimes frustrating, but definitely a different take on the subject, especially for its time. And that last scene is a riot, so at least it ends on a (relatively) positive note.


2008-02-07 12:32:03 ET

"It just kind of comes across as a sort of dumb way to live your life."

BEST QUOTE EVER!!!

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