The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, January 25-31
Teknolust (2002)
Directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson
Wow, this movie is bad—deceptively worse upon rewatch than in memory—but the cheap, near-pornographic veneer is a spectacle in itself. Thing is, it’s hard to look away from a movie that stars not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR Tilda Swintons, including a nerdy scientist named Rosetta Stone (yup), and the trio of cyborgs she’s cloned in her own image, who are color-coordinated with different wigs and made to look like extras in a Björk music video (funny enough, they keep referencing Björk haircuts). Taking the concept of cybersex to quite the literal extreme, these clones rely on doses of semen to survive, and it’s up to the leader of the cyborg pack, Ruby, to go out and seduce men to get that funky stuff. In her trail, she leaves men branded and impotent, but things get even more complicated when she meets a man she catches the feels for. Lynn Hershman Leeson works with a lot of ideas here, and some surprisingly tender moments, but Teknolust hasn’t quite paved a way for the feminist sci-fi subgenre. Still, there’s an incredible dance sequence amongst the clones that’s worth sticking around for. Kristen Yoonsoo Kim (January 29, 4:30pm at the Museum of the Moving Image with Lynn Hershman Leeson in person; the screening is sold out, but standby tickets may be available)