Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
“Under the crimson, primordial sky…”
Barry Manilow’s signature song, and first #1 hit, “Mandy” was actually derived from a Scott English song, “Brandy”. The title was changed because in the intervening years between English’s song being released and Manilow recording his cover, Looking Glass scored a #1 hit with their song, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”, prominently featured in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. And so “Brandy” became “Mandy” and the song’s origins as being anything besides a Barry Manilow original were largely forgotten.
None of this is relevant to the movie we’re discussing this week but hey you never know when a little bit of extra knowledge might help. If you end up winning on Jeopardy because you know that “Mandy” began life as “Brandy”, we expect to get a percentage. In cash.
Anyway. Mandy.
The second feature film from director Panos Cosmatos after his cultishly revered debut, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Mandy stars Nicolas Cage as Red, a reserved lumberjack living a quiet, voluntarily reclusive life with his equally reserved girlfriend, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) near the Shadow Mountains of California in 1983.
Their unassuming lives take a turn for the tragic when Mandy crosses path with the psychopathic Jeremiah Sand, (Linus Roache). Sand, a failed musician turned successful cult leader of the “Children of the New Dawn”, also commands a gang of feral, possibly demonic bikers, whom he promptly sics on the couple. In the aftermath, a physically and psychically shattered Red arms himself with a crossbow and a BFA (big fucking axe) and goes hunting for some payback.
But what Mandy is about is largely secondary to ‘how’ Cosmatos captures his tale of righteous vengeance. Even before things begin to slip into the mystic and mythic, there’s a hallucinatory quality to much of the imagery, Johann Johansson’s throbbing score (the late composer’s final completed work before his untimely passing) adding to the sensation of unreality.
Mandy proved something of an instant cult classic when it went into limited theatrical release last year. Audiences packed theaters to delight in features like the Cheddar Goblin, the Beast, the Black Skulls, and the truly never before seen heights of Rage Cage unleashed within.
So sound the Horn of Abraxas, sharpen the tainted blade of the Pale Night (straight from the Abyssal Lair, of course) and join us as we swim where the psychotics drown with Mandy.
Next Week’s Pick:
Baby Hugh Grant!
Not a baby but still very young Peter Capaldi!
Ken Russell! Bram Stoker! British Folklore!
What’s not to love as Two Cents voyages into The Lair of the White Worm, available to stream via Amazon Prime!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests
Chris Chipman:
Mandy is more than a film, it is an experience. Everything about it is both loose and nonlinear and at the same time so damn intention and singular in its vision. It begs every viewer to take something different away from it, like a Rorschach test on LSD. It is truly a wonder to behold.
The actors are all 100% committed to the material, with Nicolas Cage giving a top notch performance being being completely unchained like the best of his schlock work and also delivering a dramatic, emotional and wholly badass performance. The folks playing the religious zealots seem ripped right out of the late 70s / early 80s headlines. The villains, a demonic (possibly) biker gang of sorts with their Gwar style getups are terrifying.
The world building done by Mandy leaves you less fully understanding this alternate early 80s and what the rules are at play and more just accepting it. The movie makes it believable, it all feels lived in. When characters interact and offer exposition, you believe they have known each other for long periods of time, you don’t need every detail spelled out.
When the 3rd act kicks in and the movie turns into a psychedelic version of an Evil Dead film, complete with ridiculous hero preparation sequences resulting in Nicolas Cage wielding an insane weapon he makes himself, the movie has nicely beaten you into submission to accept it all and just hang on for the ride.
Mandy is a real treat!
Verdict: TREAT (@TheChippa)
Austin Wilden:
For all the wild stuff happening in Mandy, from the Black Skulls to the bathroom scene to Cheddar Goblin, the scene that stands strongest in my memory is the conversation Mandy and Red have about planets. Something so simple about the way the loving couple discusses the cosmos. Quiet contemplation of the scope of things beyond our atmosphere, undercut by Red cracking wise and bringing up Galactus. The two laughing together with their comfort apparent in their all glass bedroom. On this revisit, I valued scenes like that more as foreknowledge of what the couple was about to go through hit me hard.
Action movies and slashers both often use revenge as a motivating factor to fuel the character that will ruthlessly carve through anyone in their way. The incidents used to spark these roaring rampages can occasionally feel like a hollow check mark on the path to “the good stuff.” However, Panos Cosmatos and co-screenwriter Aaron Stewart-Ahn work on the story, along with Riseborough and Cage’s performances, made the relationship between Mandy and Red have a palpable soul. The first time I saw Mandy, my heart dropped during the sequence of Mandy being burned alive as Red watched helplessly. This time my eyes started welling up with tears in anticipation of what was going to happen. Every step on Red’s dark Hero’s Journey to pay back the pain he was dealt to everyone responsible feels earned with that understanding of what was lost.
Grief and rage intertwine and explode out into the hour-long Metal album cover in motion that is the movie’s second half. Calling it cathartic would be putting it mildly.
Verdict: TREAT (@WC_Wit)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
The thing about a movie like Mandy is, if you’re gonna make the heavy metal ’80s fantasy version of a “Tone Poem,” you better be *really* fucking good at both of those things.
Luckily, Panos Cosmatos is really fucking good.
Mandy initially got a lot of attention for the “perfect use of the Internet’s favorite gonzo eyes actor, Nicholas Cage!” — and that’s warranted. Not because it’s a film that turns him up to Full Cage and just lets him feast on scenery for 2 hours, but because, in Red Miller, Cage is given the perfect amount of genuinely established character and understated pathos so that, when that switch does need to get flipped, it’s as unsettling at it is cathartic. It’s arguably Andrea Riseborough’s titular Mandy that looms largest during the first half, and continues to haunt Red as well as the audience as she transitions from prophet to specter. With her art being one of our first introductions to the film’s signature visual stylings, it’s almost as though we’re watching this fever dream unfold through her eyes.
Mandy is a movie that takes its sweet time marinating in a shot or a color or a note of music, until it very much stops taking its time. As an experienced you let wash over you, it’s unique. As a tribute to stories you’d imagine went with the side of a van, it’s singular. As a movie where Nicholas Cage forges a custom axe to fight a demon biker gang, it’s…well, just as awesome as it sounds.
Verdict: TREAT (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
The first time I watched Mandy, I did not much care for it. While I admired Cosmatos’ commitment to his ethereal/heavy metal aesthetic admirable, and could find no fault in Cage’s operatic gusto, the first hour of the film seemed interminable, borderline antagonistic in the way it dragged on and on and seemed to actively repel engagement by being strange and obtuse in its every frame and every muttered dialogue exchange.
But the second half delivered enough on the “Nic Cage battles demon bikers, has axe” promise that I watched it again a little while later with a buddy who had seen the trailer and wanted to give it a look. And I don’t know, maybe it was having someone to react to it with, maybe it was just because I’d seen the film and knew its shape and could better appreciate its dimensions, but that time Mandy really, really worked for me.
Watching it again this week, it’s hard to remember what about the film rankled me so the first time. Mandy is definitely still an obtuse little movie that’s in no rush to spell itself out or let you in, but Cosmatos’ fever dream has me firmly under its spell. I love it, and expect to take many more return trips to this gorgeous nightmare country. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
I remember all my life
Nic Cage helping me through strife
A strong, talented man
His face on the TV
Can’t help but think
What’s he gonna do next
What am I gonna watch today
Turn on Shudder, look, and say
“They’ve got that new one
With those creepy cenobikers”
It’s time to press play
And watch Nic go FULL CAGE
How happy you make me
🎶OH MANDY🎶
Verdict: TREAT (@thepaintedman)
Editor’s Note: Justin wrote an actual review of Mandy back when it came out, and you can read that HERE.
In reading everyone else’s great reviews, one thing that hasn’t been brought up is Beyond The Black Rainbow, Panos Cosmatos’ 2010 debut feature. A surrealistic, stylized film with an incredible aesthetic — but so antagonistic to the audience with its non-sequitur anti-narrative that it was ultimately bufuddling and aggravating. Personally, I had several false starts trying to follow what was happening before breaking down and reading a complete plot synopsis and then finally making it all the way through the movie. It was kind of a miserable experience, yet I was so mesmerized by Cosmatos’ singular aeshetic and voice that I was absolutely ready for whatever he would give us next. Weirdly compelling, right?
Maybe he heard the criticisms of BTBR, because followup Mandy is an incredible leap forward. It maintains his incredible style and surreal nightmare experience, while matching it to an actual narrative. I would have settled for that, but it goes WAY beyond Black Rainbow as a heavy metal album cover come to life with Nic Raging Cage, Ghost Rider-esque mutant bikers, a badass homemade halberd (I’m a huge sucker for movies with iconic weaponry), cameos from Bill Duke and Richard Brake, and the best chainsaw battle since Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Verdict: Treat (@Austin Vashaw)
The Unanimous Verdict:
Trick: 0
Treat: 6
Next week’s pick:
Lair of the White Worm — available on Prime: https://amzn.to/2qlo5rQ