Review: "$alvation! Have You Said Your Prayers Today?"
"$alvation!" is the exuberant bastard descendant of films like "Elmer Gantry," "Videodrome," "Eating Raoul" and the Andy Warhol Factory films, backlit in MTV blue and pink. It's also the shady, more confessional, less self-congratulatory ancestor of "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." Consider it a time capsule, or, if you prefer a Rosetta stone of the 80's when the Reagan administration promoted getting rich by any means necessary over democracy and the line between fame and notoriety became permanently blurred. This film apparently had already been released by the time the nasty green Jell-O mold of the Jimmy Swaggart as well as the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker sex, money and televangelism scandals hit the media fan and we all got slimed. Ultimately, the Moral Majority was far better at unintentionally lampooning itself. Obsessive fans of Viggo Mortensen (Jerome), Exene Cervenka (Rhonda) or those merely curious as to how Henry's parents met may have to see this film.
If this video becomes hard to find, I would suggest "Floundering" (1994) instead: Mortensen, Cervenka and young Henry all appear and even though they're on for less screen time, it's a better film. "$alvation!" may one day achieve cult classic status, but somehow I doubt it.
- Colleen Wallace
Review: "Floundering"
Shot entirely in Venice, California, "Floundering" is an excellent snapshot of the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots and a well rendered dramatization of recent US history. The underlying causes were 12 years of the Reagan and Bush administrations in the US and the subsequent freezing of the minimum wage for as many years, coupled with a backlash against previous, more progressive policies. The social stratification all across the US became more like caste systems, where the rich became richer, the poor became poorer and only the most ambitious and audacious jumped the increasing barriers, but for what? The middle class became an endangered species with all the attendant paranoia. Add in racial tensions and police corruption well documented in the major cities, exemplified by the beating of Rodney King, which was probably the most repeated film clip in the US media of 1991. The spark was the acquittal of those four, armed men who were documented on film beating a single, unarmed black man senselessly and huge sections of south central Los Angeles went up in flames.
In "Floundering," some talented people from the neighborhood got together to tell a simply surreal, but ultimately openhearted story about what happened next. In "Floundering," we meet John Boyz (James LeGros) who has apparently lost his job in the riots where countless homes, businesses and jobs were destroyed in the worst civil unrest in the US since the Watts riots of the late 1960's. Boyz drifts through his days, consumed with concern about his brother (Ethan Hawke) who busted out of rehab and has difficulty making meaningful contact with his established friends. There's an apocalyptic, post-traumatic feel to "Floundering," from the burned out, busted up backdrop to Boyz's inner landscape. Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Wayans, Steve Buscemi, Lisa Zane, John Cusak, Maritza Rivera, Sy Richardson, Exene Cervenka and Viggo Mortensen are all among the amazing cast of characters Boyz meets as he navigates the currents between sinking and surfacing. While south central Los Angeles was the epicenter of the hit, tremors were felt all over the country. When "Floundering" was released in 1994, I had just finished design school and was working in a 20th century sweatshop. That year I discovered a dependable, hard working married couple working there was living in their car because even with two incomes from this company, they couldn't make a housing cost. Three of us in my office helped these folks find better work and more reasonable housing out of state. That's not the way the rest of the world sees the land of the free and the home of the brave, even though I'm sure it happens more than any of us would like to admit. "Floundering" tells some of that story with honesty, courage and still manages to entertain. I wish I had seen "Floundering" when it was first released. Maybe if I had seen it rather than a lot of the schlock I saw at the time, I wouldn't have been so envious of Kurt Cobain when he blew his head off.
Colleen Wallace
Floundering at Eonline website