White Lightnin'
Cinema 21, $8 admission
Feb 19, 7pm
Feb 21, 1pm
Feb 22, 6pm
Feb 23, 7pm
Feb 24, 8:45pm

Dominic Murphy
USA 2010
92 min.
If Taxi Driver-era Paul Schrader had somehow been stranded in the back hills of West Virginia, his Calvinist guilt might have oozed out something like this movie.
A redneck psychotropia set in honkytonk hell, this maniacal parable raises the stakes on the proud tradition of Brits masquerading as earthy American folk—a lineage stretching back to “Rocky Raccoon.”
Sure, it’s based on the true story of Appalachian step-dancer Jesco White (played with demented fervor by Edward Hogg and a series of frightening child actors), but this is a Holy Land where you must ceaselessly dance to keep the devil off your back, and even a habanera-tinged blowjob from Carrie Fisher provides only a moment’s relief from satanic panic. Jesco’s preferred demon is gasoline huffing (drench a rag in lighter fluid and breathe deep, boy), and this deceptively frenzied biopic takes the addiction-and-redemption tropes of Ray and Walk the Line to a place where they get high on themselves—and can then be taken seriously again. The movie gets inside your skull and lingers, like a neurotoxin.