Out of the Blue

From its horrific opening - truckdriver Hopper drunk at the wheel with daughter Manz ploughs into a school bus full of screaming children - you're left in no doubt that you're in for an edgy experience. The teenage Manz, in a quite sensational performance under Hopper's direction, embodies the nihilistic ethos of punk in a way that other mainstream projects (Foxes, Times Square) couldn't begin to achieve. Manz impassively (and why not, with mum a junkie and dad an incestuous paedophile) observes life in small-town America's roadhouses and bowling alleys, embittered by the death of Elvis and Sid Vicious, and interested only in the drum kit at which she flails away in her bedroom. If ever there was a movie about Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll, this is it, a film of and about extremes, directed by an extremist.