Saw Drugstore Cowboy, a drug film about a petty criminal and heroin enthusiast who supports himself and his habit by knocking over drug stores in northwest America. The film came out in 1989 but is set in the early 70s. The mood is very 70s new wave in general. There's a raw, unpolished quality that mixes uneasily with old-fashioned institutions, like the milk man and the private eye.
The main character guy is well preformed and pretty good. He's a little too cool for this film however. Usually in drug films the main characters are cool and sexy but inevitably fall on hard times as the highs run out and reality set in. Unlike those films however, this guy gets off more or less scott-free. Like, his life is not ideal but he regrets nothing. William S Burroughs even makes a lengthy cameo as a priest-turned-junky to tell us "The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots." It's subversive in its own, low-stakes way.
I loved basically everything Burroughs did on screen. He's got this strange cadence that's very Christopher Walken-ish, very otherworldly. I thought the main character's girlfriend was pretty weakly acted however. I think she's supposed to be a sort of den mother but she came across most unlovely - very little chemistry between her and the main character.
Anyway, the film is very chill. It's never very emotional and mostly floats along with one thing happening after another. It seems like the sort of film that could go on all day long. It's fairly interesting but very much a film that you could unwind with at the end of the day. There's no high emotion or melodrama, but no stupidity either, no style overpowering the substance.
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