What About Me

source: What About Me

Rachel Amodeo's 1993 film "What About Me" is a rare gem well worth searching for. Filmed almost entirely in Tompkins Square Park and the Lower East Side; and starring Amodeo, Richard Edson, Nick Zedd, Rockets Redglare, Judy Carne, Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders, Dee Dee Ramone, and Gregory Corso; with cameo appearances by Jerry Nolan, Patti Palladin, Mariann Bracken, and a bunch of others I can't think of right now. Starting out with a young girl's bicycle accident, the hero of the story finds herself reincarnated as Lisa Napolitano, eventually losing her parents and living in Manhattan with her aunt. This is explained by a woman's voice; presumedly God's. The Aunt also dies, and Lisa is raped by the building super and evicted the next day. This all happens within the first ten minutes of the film, the remainder being concerned with how Lisa, a fragile soul with no job, no skills, and no prospects, fares on the cold, mean streets of New York. It all sounds simple enough, but you really must experience this film personally to understand just how vivid a story it tells. It's realistic to the point of frightening, thought-provoking and funny at exctly the same time. It really is a shame that this film is so hard to find. It's a story that needs to be heard, especially these days. On a final note, Johnny Thunders' music provides the perfect feel to this movie. If you've ever spent time on the street, you'll know just what I mean. So do yourself a favor and find this one- you won't regret it.

In a return to European-style auteurship, Amodeo writes, directs, and stars in this bare bones low-budget gem of a "Little Match Girl" reboot. Like Edward Hopper and the ashcan school of art, this film focuses on a ragtag milieu of mendicants, bohos, bums, and junkies in their natural habitat, a bleak dystopic graffiti-gilded New York cityscape in midwinter. All of whom come across refreshingly ingenuous and unrehearsed. Shades of early Truffaut and the bicycle thief! The meandering episodic nature of Lisa's last days comes across as both mundane and heart-wrenching--she is the littlest most unlikely saint of the meanest streets. One wishes to see her in a third incarnation where she is a perpetually pampered princess free of pain.

This Downtown New York Art Movie which seems to be by and for people from the NYHipster Scene which has all the punks in it and a pretty damn good soundtrack of Johnny Thunders tracks in it. For an arty, European style movie, it's surprisingly -very- straightforward and is really bittersweet, folloinng a poor girl Lisa who becomes homeless and subsequently all of the men that become enamored with her. Currently this has under 10 000 views on YouTube. For such an obscure movie, I think this is criminally underrated and I only clicked it by chance due to Johnny Thunder's name (erroniously) being in the title, and it seems to be the writer/director/star's biggest film. I hope she made more, or is doing very well in whatever she's pursued cuz she was alll around great in this.