Cashiers De Cinema

BEST AND WORST OF 2011

2011-12-31T15:47:00.049-05:00

By my last count, I saw 98 new movies released in theatres in 2011. Most of those I didn't actually see in the theatre, of course. And more than 60% of them I saw at the tail end of the year, sandwiched in the four months between September and December when the studios decide to unload the stuff that actually looks interesting all at once. But I'll leave the raw statistics to Billy Bean in Moneyball or Kevin Spacey in Margin Call (both of which I saw but didn't make the list).

To put it bluntly: I'm a bit tired of watching movies at this point. I need a break both from compulsive viewing and impulse blogging. I'm not sure if this will be the last Best-Worst list I ever do, but I know for certain this will be the last blog entry for quite a while. For 2012 is The Year I Write The Book…not the blog. And I need to get crackin'.

But before I go, here's how the chips stacked and the popcorn popped for me film-wise in 2011…

THE BEST

10. Shame

There are sequences in Shame you watch in awe of director Steve McQueen's facility with actors and camera. For example, Michael Fassbender's wordless seduction of a married woman on a subway car achieved solely through glances. Or the minutes-long tracking shot of Fassbender taking a midnight jog through Manhattan. Then there are the sequences you watch through your fingers, wincing at McQueen's complete lack of subtlety, feeling bad for his emotionally (and often physically) naked actors. Say, the extra long close-up of Fassbender's agonized face as he achieves joyless orgasm. Or, maybe, Fassbender descending into the "bowels" of a gay sex club, lit with demonic flair and cut to ominous thumping house music. This movie about a Manhattan sex addict who can't display emotion (and his couch-hopping sister who displays WAY too much) takes a lot of risks—some of which succeed brilliantly, some which fail miserably. Even the core brother-sister dichotomy teeters wildly between the painfully obvious and the fascinatingly self-aware. The key is McQueen is willing to take those risks (Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, even more so), for better or worse. And I must applaud them all for that.

9. The Robber

Admittedly, I'm the target audience for this little-seen Austrian film. An existential crime thriller about an ex-con who does nothing but run marathons and rob banks? Count me in. You know from the start Johann's twin compulsions are going to bring about a tragic end. But the key—as they tell beginning marathoners—is not in winning or even crossing the finish line but enjoying the race. The Robber (which could have as easily been called The Runner) is a fine race, all the way to its harrowing finish. I've only run one or two marathons but have fantasized (and written) endlessly about robbing banks. I'm pretty sure if I had the balls/skills to pull a heist on the Bank of America, it would end something like this.

8. Contagion

Two things I learned from Contagion: 1.) Bats and pigs should never get together 2.) From now on, avoid the bowl of peanuts at the airport lounge. The DNA for this up-to-the-minute supervirus thriller may be cheesy, star-studded Irwin Allen ‘70s disaster flicks, but Soderbergh's cold, methodic direction crystallizes the genre, raising the stakes on The Towering Inferno a zillion notches. The way in which he dispatches with myriad characters and subplots all in under two hours is nearly as mercenary as the MEV-1 virus itself. When I first saw the trailer for Contagion, I thought it an odd choice for Soderbergh—didn't we get enough of this stuff in the late ‘90s with Outbreak and Virus? But midway through, his suspect motivations became startlingly clear: 1.) Give our germaphobic, Purell nation the horror movie it really deserves 2.) Give a generation of moviegoers what they secretly want—to see Gwenyth Paltrow die a horrible onscreen death. Thanks for both of those, Steven. Even if I can now no longer touch the poles on the subway without gloves.

7. The Descendants

Alexander Payne's razor-sharp satiric edge may have dulled a bit in the seven years since Sideways, but this smoothing over works for The Descendants—perhaps Payne and Clooney's most mature work. Sure, there are still a few flip jokes, both verbal AND visual (as witnessed in the pic above). But there's a well-earned world-weariness that underlines and softens them all. The Descendants is a film about coping with loss, betrayal, familial duty and loud Hawaiian shirts. And a reminder that Payne is still the modern master of the sad-funny moment.

6. A Dangerous Method

Given that this film comes from the man who gave us Crash, Videodrome and Naked Lunch, I'm tempted to call Cronenberg's drawing room drama about the birth of psychoanalysis his most "reserved" work. But that's not exactly the case. Cronenberg's old obsessions are still on full display: the war between mind and flesh (or "New Flesh"), the limits and liberations of sexual perversity/promiscuity, the human brain as the ultimate erogenous zone. It's just that here the same themes are poured over in dialogue, analyzed and then re-analyzed by the three main characters—Jung, Freud and their star patient Sabina Spielrein. You'll find no freaky highway three-ways in the back in the back of a speeding car (though Kiera Knightley does get a little "verklempt" in a moving stage coach and later enjoys a good spanking). What you'll find is the headiest, most intellectually stimulating film of the year, even though based on psychological concepts more than a century out of date.

5. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Speaking of mind games, this little indie-film-that-could about a teenage girl losing her identity to a cult completely took me by surprise. Who thought a movie so buzzed about at Sundance could ever turn out to be good anymore? Who thought anyone even distantly related to the Olsen Twins could actually ACT?! I hereby admit to being systematically re-programmed by John Hawkes and MMMM. I even dug the "shock" ending, which half the audience at the screening I saw loathed. While they howled in protest at the screen, I sat silently among the other half in the dark, smiling like a loon. Or, better yet, a latter-day Squeaky Fromme.

4. Poetry

Like last year's brilliant Mother, Poetry is another fantastic export from South Korea that deals with a mother (a grandmother, technically) coming to terms with the violent acts of her emotionally distant son (the rape/suicide of a local girl). She's also dealing with the early symptoms of her own Alzheimer's. But, unlike the mother in Mother, 66-year-old Yang Mija doesn't respond to crisis with murder and interrogation. Instead, she signs up for a local poetry class, then gets freaky in the bathtub with the older stroke-victim she sponge bathes for work every day. What is it with Koreans and their crazy mothers? I'm not sure exactly. But it makes for some great art.

3. The Tree of Life

Cut out the stuff with the digital dinosaurs and the cosmos near the beginning and all the heavy-handed stuff with Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and others walking silently through sand dunes near the end, and I think you have the Best Film of the Year. Leave in all the stuff with the kids in the ‘50s running through the gorgeously photographed grass in the backyard, Father (Brad Pitt) staring at them with a vague menace and Mother (Jessica Chastain) staring from the kitchen, vaguely angelic. Plus, everyone ruminating in elliptical voiceover, of course, as per usual in a Terrence Malick film. The problem is…Malick left in the dinosaurs, left in Sean Penn and left in the beach. A few judicious cuts (and a little less metaphysics) and—walla!—a modern masterpiece.

2. Take Shelter

Michael Shannon has carved out a very nice career playing crazies in everything from Jesus' Son to Bug to Boardwalk Empire to Revolutionary Road. The difference is, this time, director Jeff Nichols has given Shannon a proper starring vehicle to examine "crazy" (schizophrenia, specifically) with much more depth than ever before and with enough meteorological foreboding to make the most hardened career weatherman (or career psychologist) quake in his rubber flood-boots. I am onboard with this movie 99.9%. Only the ending—one of those "twisters"—gives me pause. But shouldn't great endings give you some pause? Especially in a film about mental illness? I'm not sure. Maybe I need to schedule an appointment.

1. The Future

I understand it when people say they hate Miranda July. When they claim her movies (and short stories and performance art) are willfully weird, hipster curio objects that reek of an ego run amok through a vintage clothing store in the darkest recesses of Silverlake or Williamsburg. I understand them completely; I'm just not one of those people. What can I say? The talking cat narrator worked for me ("Paw-Paw"). July's interpretive dances in oversized t-shirts on YouTube worked for me. The boyfriend stopping time worked for me. The old guy met through a Penny Saver ad worked for me. And when July's character asked the suburban dad she's having an affair with why he wears a gold chain and he replies that it lets women know he's "ready to fuck"…that completely worked for me, too. Though this movie might seem a slight choice for Best of the Year, there's something incredibly NOW about a thirty-something couple so in fear of adult responsibility and commitment that they can't even keep it together long enough to adopt a stray cat. Me, I'm a dog person. And, it seems, a Miranda July person as well.

HONORABLE MENTION

Bellflower

What better way to respond to a break-up than with flamethrowers and a souped-up muscle car that serves grain alcohol through the air conditioning system? This interesting first effort from Evan Glodell has a lot of problems, can be annoyingly fetishistic in a fanboy type way and, at the core, comes from a very emotionally retarded place. But it might just be the ultimate guy's movie gone off the rails, mashed up with some unknown experimental film from the ‘60s, then burned to a crisp.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams / Into the Abyss

Herzog knocks it out of the documentary park TWICE this year. First, in 3-D, with a film about centuries old cave paintings and mutant albino crocodiles. Second, with a real life gloss on Capote's In Cold Blood. Whether he's traipsing through prisons in rural Texas or underground caves in Southern France, the man is certainly our most tireless and, arguably, best documentarian. When's the last time Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock went spelunking?

Drive

At the end of last year's Best-Worst list, I cited Drive as The Most Anticipated Movie of 2011. After finally seeing the film this fall, I think I might still be anticipating it. What I mean to say is…the film I imagined after reading the James Sallis book. Where the novel is a slim, fast-paced noir tale about a movie stunt driver who also moonlights as a getaway driver and only kills people when he absolutely has to, Nicolas Winding Refn's take on the material was more along the lines of "violent sociopath who also happens to drive." Add to that Refn's overbearing ‘80s Michael Mann fetish (which I kind of liked) and the casting of alabaster white Carey Mulligan in place of the Latina single mother in the book (which I absolutely did not like) and, needless to say, I was a little disoriented. Despite my misgivings, though, the movie Drive is still a solid crime offering and boasts a standout bad-guy performance from Albert Brooks. The opening anti-"chase sequence" alone is enough to earn it a spot on the list.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Gary Oldman playing against type. Cold War paranoia so thick you can't cut it with a knife. Lots of old Brits brooding and deceiving each other and smoking and drinking single-malt scotch. What more can you ask for out of a spy thriller? Décor! Just take a look at those orange sound-proofed walls.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

I don't remember much of what went on narratively in this strange, hallucinatory film from Thailand, if much happened at all. I just remember the Uncle on his deathbed draining his failing kidneys through the tubes of his homemade dialysis machine. I remember the images of the girl in the river having sex with a catfish. And, most of all, I remember the "Monkey Ghost" (pictured above) who arrives to dinner with red glowing eyes and the family members talking to him casually…as if a Monkey Ghost came over to your house for lasagna every night of the week. I'm pretty sure director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (say that three times real fast!) wouldn't mind that I only remember scattered images though. I'm guessing he might even say that's the whole point.

THE WORST

10. Sucker Punch

The apotheosis of modern day Hollywood action filmmaking as a grab-bag of video game plotlines, back-to-back music video montages and wall-to-wall CGI. A high water mark in cinema if you like that sort of thing. Nauseating if you don't. The only thing "real" about this movie was the headache I had when I turned off the Blu-ray. At least there were some pretty cool images.

9. J. Edgar

I have to applaud Clint Eastwood for stepping outside his tough-guy comfort zone to direct a bio-pic of the most notoriously closeted gay man in American history/politics. But I can't applaud his choice to have DiCaprio under ten pounds of heavy "old-man" makeup for more than half the film. It makes everything he's saying a farce, and all I could do was look for seams in the latex. This is one of those cases where it might have been better to have DiCaprio play the young J.Edgar and an older actor (let's say Jack Nicholson) play the old J. Edgar. Not that DiCaprio's bad in this—he does the best he can under the rubber mask and within the needlessly convoluted Dustin Lance Black script which intercuts back and forth between young and old Edgar "thematically" rather than chronologically. Sometimes, it's better just to follow the timeline. And,sometimes, it's better to leave the makeup to the ladies.

8. Colombiana

Father to Young Colombiana: "Listen to me, daughter. In about 30 seconds, three cartel thugs are going to burst through that door, cut me and your mother to shreds with Uzis right in front of your very eyes. You will be very traumatized, but not so traumatized that your eight-year-old body can't scale walls and hurdle a series of rooftops in escape, as if you were a tween Jason Bourne. You might even use some Parkour. You will then grow up to look like Zoe Saldana, become an expert assassin bent on revenge but with an artistic soul. You know, because cold-blooded assassins in these films must have a artistic side, especially if they are women. You will also have a boyfriend who is a sensitive painter, just in case we didn't get the picture. He will be played by that guy from Alias. Tell me, my daughter—quickly—how do you feel about these things?" Young Colombiana to Father: "Fuck it. Just shoot me now."

7. Passion Play

Mickey Rourke! Bill Murray! Megan Fox with angel wings! How could things go wrong? Wait…did you read that last part? "Megan Fox with angel wings." 'Nuff said.

6. Super 8

The French may call it homage, but in America it's just called brown-nosing. Once again, hyphenate director-producer-whatever J.J. Abrams kneels and grovels at the Altar of Spielberg and suckles the '80s Amblin teat for all it's worth. The result is something sub-Spielberg, *Batteries Not Included or worse. And, seriously, blue lens flares alone (every few minutes) does not a directorial style make. If all of Super 8 were actually shot on Super 8 film, maybe it would be of minor interest. But it's not. It's an HD production through and through, reaching desperately for celluloid retro. And that "H" stands for "hack."

5. The Ward

My love of '70s-'80s era John Carpenter has lead me down some dismal paths—Vampires, Ghost of Mars—and now his "comeback film" The Ward. But this one's worse than bad…it's boring. It almost made me lose my hots for the incredibly foxy Amber Heard (no easy task). I've read interviews where Carpenter cops to having grown bored with filmmaking—it shows here. I've also read he's always wanted to make a western. Film funding powers that be, please let this genre master saddle up and go out with a bang. The world doesn't need another Ward. Or an Escape from New York remake for that matter.

4. Red State

Please, God, if you exist, deliver us from Kevin Smith already! You're WAY late to the game on this. I mean, honestly, you should have shut this guy down in the late '90s. Right around the time of Dogma.

3. Cowboys and Aliens

I'm pretty sure if you gave just the title of this movie to a class of high school creative writing students they could come up with at least eight more interesting films. But, no, they gave it to eight overpaid Hollywood screenwriters who, together, came up with little more than a metal wristband that shoots lasers. Dreamworks, I hope you got your money's worth. Because absolutely no one else who saw this movie did. Thank my lucky stars, I saw it for free.

2. I Melt With You

See the picture above? That's not a recreation of Munch's The Scream; it's just Jeremy Piven high on coke. Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe and Some Other Guy I Didn't Recognize are in the other room, also high on Oxycontin and Ecstasy and booze, bemoaning their lives as privileged white males in their 40s against a non-stop soundtrack of obvious '80s alt-rock songs. Because that's what you do in these Big Chill warmed-over movies. That and a lot of designer drugs. And have plenty of banal conversations about LIFE. I watched this movie on cable only because its meager plot involves a suicide pact between guys in their 40s—slightly similar to a screenplay I wrote years ago. The difference is mine was a comedy. I Melt With You is too—it just doesn't know it.

1. Your Highness

Placing this harmless medieval stoner comedy as Worst Movie of the Year might seem like a potshot (no pun intended) on my part. But, be certain of it, there WAS harm done here. First off, harm done to the relatively funny script I read a few years back, apparently tossed away then undermined by lazy, knee-jerk improv and lame dick/gay panic jokes. Second, harm done to the careers/credibility of everyone involved—from Oscar winner Natalie Portman to James Franco to Danny McBride (fast on his way to becoming Larry the Cable Guy 2.0) to director David Gordon Green, once on his way to becoming the next Terrence Malick and now seemingly on his way to shooting second unit on the next Adam Sandler flick. Third, and most importantly, the harm done to the $18 in my wallet. Your Highness falls between the cracks of all the genres it attempts to celebrate/exploit. As a comedy, it is not funny. As an '80s style sword and sorcery movie, it boasts little adventure and too much modern CGI. In short, Your Highness is a big, steaming Minotaur turd of a film. Or perhaps just a Minotaur cock (see above). It's a backyard movie based a drinking game joke that probably should have stayed just that…in the backyard, as a joke between friends, shot on VHS.

DISHONORABLE MENTION

Carnage

After hitting a home run last year with The Ghost Writer, Polanski returns from house arrest with this tossed-off real-time quickie based on a hit play that all takes place in one apartment. There are some good moments, but the material (smug Brooklyn parents squabbling over their children) doesn't really do Polanski's close-quarters gifts justice the way it did in Repulsion or even Death and the Maiden. Hopefully next time, someone gives him a more interesting script and lets him out of the house.

Of Gods and Men

I have to go against the critical grain on this very well-reviewed, yet very dull film about a group of Algerian Trappist monks under threat from Muslim fundamentalists who must decide whether to leave their monastery and live or stay and face certain death. Such a great, of-the-moment set-up! Such potential for stimulating discussion and debate! Instead, the monks mostly sit around looking forlorn. There is discussion, but, for me, none of it as interesting as its premise. I don't know—maybe if I was Muslim or Christian or a monk, all the polite brooding would have worked for me. But a monk I am not.

The Beaver

Not even a talking beaver puppet or Jodie Foster can save Mel Gibson's career at this point. This one had an interesting premise and was free at my local library. So I gave it a shot. In the end though, it felt like an insult to people suffering from real-life major depression. An insult delivered by Mel Gibson and a talking beaver puppet.

The Rum Diary

I'm kind of suffering from Johnny Depp fatigue at this point. But I went ahead and paid for a matinee of this since it's a kissing cousin to Gilliam's awesome Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And Depp was a wonderful Hunter S. Thompson in that. Long story short: Somewhere around Barstow (and the Second Act), the drugs never took hold.

30 Minutes or Less

You know it sucks when the movie's only 80 minutes long and midway through you're already cracking bad jokes in your mind about how the movie should have taken a lesson from its title. The thing is, that bad joke is on par with about 90% of the ones in this film. A disappointing follow-up to Social Network for Jesse Eisenberg. More disappointing for people (like me) who were hoping for more than a minute or two's screen time from Fred "Remo Williams" Ward. Travesty!

SUPERLATIVES

SURPRISINGLY DECENT ENTRIES IN TIRED ACTION FRANCHISES

Fast Five, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

SURPRISINGLY TOLERABLE REMAKES

The Mechanic, Straw Dogs

BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE FOR PEOPLE SICK OF SUPERHERO MOVIES

Super

MOST JUSTIFIED USE OF 3-D TECHNOLOGY

Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Hugo

BEST SEX SCENE AS PARTICLE PHYSICS DISCUSSION

The Big Bang

LEAST TITILLATING SEX ADDICTS

"Brandon" in Shame, "Laura" in Leap Year

BEST DYSFUNCTIONAL MALES

The family of brothers in Septien, Woodrow and Aiden in Bellflower

BEST DYSFUNCTIONAL FEMALES

Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, Charlize Theron in Young Adult

BEST HIGHLY-FUNCTIONAL DIGITAL SIMIANS

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST BLUDGEONING BY HAMMER

I Saw the Devil

BEST BEHEADING BY SWORD

13 Assassins

BEST YOUTUBE GIMMICK AS FEATURE LENGTH FILM

The Artist

BEST DOCUMENTARY ON LEAST DESERVING PERSON

The Arbor

MOST BEAUTIFULLY PHOTOGRAPHED APOCALYPSE

Melancholia

BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

The radial tire in Rubber

MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIE OF 2012

A two-way tie: Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie and Django Unchained

HAPPY 2012!!!!!!!!!!

STRAIGHT TO HELL RETURNS (1987) - Alex Cox

2011-12-21T09:55:00.004-05:00

"I.G. Farben"

Hopper has but a brief three to four minute cameo in this indulgent mess of a film, one that's little more than an excuse for director Cox (who I normally love) to play spaghetti western dress-up with a gaggle of his rocker/cult celebrity friends (Joe Strummer, Shane McGowan, Jim Jarmusch, et al.). He plays a slimy oil tycoon who arrives to the town saloon with Grace Jones in tow, basically to throw some money around and be a cardboard bad guy. The odd thing is...Hopper's presence inadvertently classes up the joint (and the movie) for those few minutes. Here's a real actor having fun, slumming it among the multi-tasking musicians. His few moments are a small oasis in a desert of half-baked ideas. If only he could have taken some of Courtney Love's lines...

In truth, I mainly re-watched this re-vamped version not for Hopper, but to test out the Hulu Plus streaming service on a new Blu-ray player. Good news-- it works. Bad news-- Straight to Hell still doesn't.

OUT OF THE BLUE (1980) - Dennis Hopper

2011-12-18T13:31:00.009-05:00

"Don"

Out of the Blue is a movie so bursting with life that it has no choice but to extinguish itself in the end. Like the opening images of bad dad Hopper and his precocious daughter drinking and laughing in a tow truck as they hurtle towards the mother of all drunk driving accidents, the film is on a collision course with its own wild energies from the very first frames. I've never seen a movie so exuberant yet predicated on the massacre a yellow bus full of elementary school children. Like, Don, Hopper's deadbeat ex-con of a father, the movie is unrepentant, unapologetic. It's some kind of malevolent masterpiece.

It's also FULL of Linda Manz, a young actor who is very FULL of herself (which is both a good thing and a bad thing). Thus, by the transitive property, Out of the Blue is FULL OF ITSELF. It's constantly copping a punk pose, wearing its fuck-you attitude on its druggy sleeve, constantly assuring you what a rebel it is, like an annoying adolescent who just heard the Sex Pistols (or, better yet, Elvis) for the very first time and popped a safety pin through its OshKosh B'Goshes. You love Out of the Blue for its spunkiness, but also want to smack it on its little precocious ass, send it to bed without any supper.

And did I mention the repeated, overbearing Neil Young needle drops? From Easy Rider all the way to Colors, Hopper has never been subtle when it comes to scoring his films with rock standards and HEAVILY underlining their themes in lyric. Don't misread me here-- I love Neil Young and especially "Hey Hey, My My," the title song that gets repeated ad nauseum throughout. But do I need to hear little Linda Manz threaten another teenage girl with the words "I'll take you out of the blue and put you into the black," echoing the songs lyrics almost verbatim, THEN have Hopper play the song (yet again) in the transition that follows, thus echoing Manz's own echo of its lyrics? Rust Never Sleeps, sure. But neither does Dennis' insistence on reinforcing the obvious.

Somehow, all this thematic headbutting works for the film though, as does Dennis' warts-and-all portrayal of the completely repellent Don. This may be Hopper's most despicable character of all time: more so than the raving, laughing gas-inhaling Frank Booth in Blue Velvet; more so than the feckless, blow-up doll fondling Feck in River's Edge; MUCH more so than whatever cardboard cut-out baddies he played in Waterworld and Speed. When the father of one of the deceased kids Don killed in the school bus crash comes looking for an apology, Hopper humiliates the guy in front of his friends, then later conks him over the head.

Out of the Blue kind of does the same thing to you as viewer. It's improvisational filmmaking as blunt force trauma, a bash to forehead that you're happy to receive.

THE LAST MOVIE (1971) - Dennis Hopper

2011-12-18T12:12:00.005-05:00

"Kansas"

I stayed away from Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider for many years and many reasons. For one, I could never find anything other than badly worn pan-and-scan VHS copies of the film and missed out, for one reason or another, every time it played at the revival houses in NY and L.A. Also, I had been told by several trusted acquaintances not to bother-- reading Peter Biskind's account of the troubled production (and, more so, post-production) in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls would suffice. Finally, knowing that the film was shot in Peru (sandwiched so conveniently between Colombia and Bolivia) and that Hopper was riding a post-Rider high of more than one variety, I always suspected the film was just an elaborate, paid excuse for Hopper to score some really good cocaine.

After finally watching The Last Movie earlier this week on a semi-decent VHS-to-YouTube transfer, my suspicion remains the same-- South American production as front for massive drug score-- BUT Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider isn't the total bomb I had feared. It's got some really good ideas swimming around in it...all completely muddled by desperately elliptical editing masquerading as '70s art film deconstruction.

I'm talking about the random title cards, of course. The "Scene Missing" slates inserted randomly. The fact that half of the opening titles come about about a third of the way in and the other half, I don't know, maybe half of the way in. I get it, Dennis...we're watching a film within a film. You don't have to hit us over the head with empty post-Godard technique. The fact that this film was shot in the '70s, takes place on a film set and has director Sam Fuller playing the director in the film...I think that's more than enough.

Actually, given the compromised way in which I watched the film, I didn't mind these filmic forced entries in the narrative (and I use the term narrative very loosely with The Last Movie) as much as I probably would have if I saw it in a theater. They at least reminded me that this thing I was watching on a laptop from a digital stream transferred from an old analogue piece of magnetic tape had once, believe it or not, originated on celluloid. It seemed to somehow gel with the film's central conceit of the Peruvian village people mimicking the American film set with cameras and lights built of sticks-- a fantastic idea pregnant with narrative possibilities that Hopper flirts with but mostly leaves under-explored.

According to Wikipedia, Alejandro Jodorowsky is the man responsible for influencing Hopper to re-edit a reportedly bad but much more linear cut into the final truncated form The Last Movie exits in today. It might have been a good idea...if Hopper had shot a Jodorowsky film. But Hopper shot a Hopper film-- much more literal, much less planned, much more American-- and, unfortunately, tried to turn it into something French once his production high bottomed out and he was confronted with the lackluster result.

I hope the blow was good, at least.

EASY RIDER (1969) - Dennis Hopper

2011-12-08T08:34:00.010-05:00

"Billy (the Kid)"

Friends and acquaintances are always asking me whether I think it's worth it for them to go Blu-ray when their regular DVD works just fine. My standard response is generally something along the lines of: "I don't know-- do you watch a lot of digitally shot Hollywood movies with massive amounts of CGI?" Because that, to me, seems to be the medium's strongest attribute: rendering ornate but ultimately "phony" mise en scènes in the crispest lines and sharpest colors possible.

After re-watching Easy Rider the other night on Blu-ray for the first time, I may have to amend my question-answer. "I don't know-- do you want to see ALL the shades of pink and orange in the Southwestern sunset as Captain America and Billy ride their choppers across the country? Do you want to see EVERY grain of cocaine stuck in Hopper's brush mustache after he takes a bump of the "good Mexican shit" in the film's opening?" If you answered "yes" to these, then, yeah, it might be time to plunk down your $150.

Some things I noticed this time (besides the crystal clear coke and brilliant orange skies)...

1.) Hopper's Hostility: I mostly remembered Hopper's "Billy" as a kind of perpetually stoned Sancho Panza, shadowing Fonda's "Captain America" Quixote with a chorus of "yeah, mans" and 'shroom-infused giggles. But, this time, I noticed just what a dick Billy can be. Whether he's in the background interrupting drifter Luke Askew's psychedelic non sequiturs around the campfire, getting too touchy-feeling with the hippie girls at the Colorado commune, rushing contemplative Wyatt to leave the commune for Mardi Gras almost as soon as they're there, or talking about retiring to Florida on their drug deal earnings, Billy can be...well, kind of a frat-boy douche. Fonda's Captain America may represent the ideals of the '60s, but Hopper's Billy is most definitely the sign of bad, materialistic '70s (and '80s) things to come. That's probably why he has no clue when Fonda says: "We blew it."

2.) Nicholson Dies!: OK, I can't blame this one on the format. Only my flagging memory. Even watching a lousy VHS copy, I should have picked up that Nicholson's boozy lawyer George dies after getting beat-up by rednecks at their camp site. I may not have caught the machetes, or the high-definition blood on his forehead the first several times I saw it on grainy analog. And the scene where Captain America and Billy decide what to do with him afterwards is a little glossed-over. But, come on, it's Jack...perhaps the best (or, at least, the showiest) performance in the film. How did I not remember that George bought the farm?

3.) The Goiter: I DID remember the giant, hellacious goiter on the neck of the shotgun-wielding hick that blows Hopper off the road at the film's end. How could you not? It's perhaps the most perfect example of backwoods casting and iodine-deficiency ever committed to film. But, man, does Blu-ray make that sucker pop! I guess it just goes to show that the format's not all about highlighting digitally pristine images. It's also good for a second look-see at a classic film's ugly, ugly truths.

NIGHT TIDE (1961) - Curtis Harrington

2011-12-05T12:08:00.006-05:00

"Johnny Drake"

A nascent stage Hopper in his first feature starring role, playing a Navy boy on shore leave who falls in love with the Mermaid act at the Santa Monica pier. But is she a real mermaid? A murderous sea siren plotting to do him in? Or has she just gotten a bad (fish) wrap?

This is Dennis before he became "Dennis." While it's diverting to see cinema's wild man playing wide-eyed and naive, this film's kind of a slow drag...like Splash by way of Rod Serling, but less interesting than that might sound. You're kind of hoping for one of the Chesterfields Johnny's constantly smoking to be laced with something, just to get a just a small glimmer of the unhinged Hopper we'll come to know and love.

No such luck. Johnny's a square, man. And the love of his life is blander than Starkist Tuna. The Age of Aquarius awaits...

DECEMBER DENNIS

2011-12-01T10:50:00.005-05:00

When Dennis Hopper died in May of last year, cinema lost one of its great '70s actor/director mavericks. And '60s mavericks. And '80s mavericks. And, perhaps, even '90s mavericks. The aughts...not so much. Guest spots on Entourage? E-Ring? Voice-over for cartoons? We forgive you, Dennis. By then you had several families to support. Not to mention a sizable art collection. Water under the bridge.

It's taken me a while to get around to paying tribute to the man...about a year and a half to be exact. I've seen most of his "classic" performances already-- Billy the Kid in Easy Rider, Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, Feck in River's Edge, just to name a few. But there are still a few interesting ones I missed and need to see for the first time-- Don in Out of the Blue, Kansas in The Last Movie, Dennis as himself in the documentary American Dreamer (if I can manage to snag a bootleg copy).

All December, I'll be watching and re-watching vintage Hopper, parsing the madness from his method, the method from his madness.

Dennis, you kick-started the whole indie film thing. We miss you desperately, man.

ROBOCOP (1987) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-30T10:17:00.003-05:00

Question: Is there a movie out there with a better cast of sleazeball villains than Robocop? Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker ("Bitches, leave!"). Ray Wise as Nash ("Don't touch me, man!"). Ronny Cox as Dick Jones ("I'm cashing you out, Bob"). Miguel Ferrer as Morton ("That's life in the big city," in response to watching a co-worker executed in a hail of machine gun fire by a malfunctioning ED-209).

Answer: No, I really don't think so. And if there is, please let me know.

Some people watch Robocop for Robocop. I watch it for the bad guys. And then re-watch it. I suspect Verhoeven, in his first major Hollywood studio outing, was a little worried about being saddled with an emotionless cyborg as his main character for most of the movie's duration. So he peopled his rogue's gallery of baddies with absolutely despicable, fantastically over-the-top character actors just in case. It was a wise choice; as was obliterating Peter Weller's somewhat bland Officer Murphy with countless shotgun blasts in the beginning so you had no choice but to be in his emotion-free cybernetic corner for the remainder.

Will the director who eventually remakes Robocop be so wise, so bold in his decisions (there have been so many names attached I've lost count)? Will he be as bloodthirsty? As enamored of New Detroit's sleaze?

I highly doubt it. But, if so, "I'll buy that for a dollar."

THE FOURTH MAN (1983) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-27T11:32:00.008-05:00

Imagine, if you will, a threesome: one in which a Spellbound-era Alfred Hitchcock vies for sexual dominance with Passion of the Christ's Mel Gibson while-- I don't know, let's say-- Gregg Araki takes them both from behind. This might give you some small idea of the perversely random mix of styles on display in this film. And who's the "fourth man" behind the camera, gleefully filming the clusterfuck with a peep-show voyeur's glee: you guessed it.

Yet, somehow, Verhoeven makes it all work. You want penises snipped in half in close-up by a large pair of scissors? You got it. You want overbearing Biblical references sandwiched in between? No problem.

Or maybe a nursing baby on a train with a makeshift halo above its head is too subtle for you. Fine. I offer you...Jesus in a Speedo.

Originally, I knew of the The Fourth Man as the Dutch early work Verhoeven supposedly pilfered for his stateside blockbuster Basic Instinct. And this is still true: The Fourth Man is awash with bisexual authors losing themselves in their work, femme fatales wielding sharpened objects (here barber's scissors instead of an ice pick), and more than a few shot-for-shot sex scenes.

But The Fourth Man is that and, oh, so much more. It is a long, leering peek into the dark, twisted mind of Mr. Verhoeven, minus the generic Hollywood thriller conventions and with Christ allusions thrown in for good measure. Be warned: It's not a pretty place to visit. But it sure is fun.

SOLDIER OF ORANGE (1977) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-27T10:43:00.006-05:00

Anyone curating a World War II Resistance Fighter film festival would be wise to include Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange on its slate...if only as stylistic counterpoint to Melville's Army of Shadows. Where Melville's French Resistance ops go about their shadowy missions with quiet economy in scenes that are the definition of wire-taut suspense, Verhoeven's Dutch Resisters are a more boisterous, opportunistic lot, prone to folly, switching sides, even sleeping with the enemy when necessary (i.e., the Nazis). Maybe it's because the Dutch had less at stake on the surface of things than the French. Or maybe it's because Verhoeven sees war first and foremost as a good excuse for more bad behavior. Hard to say for sure.

That said, Solider of Orange--like Keetje Tippel before it-- is Verhoeven in period piece, based-on-the-novel mode. It's one of his more restrained efforts (in terms of his usual sexual appetites) but perhaps the first film on his resume to hint at the action dexterity he would later display in Robocop, Total Recall and, especially, Starship Troopers. Verhoeven proves early on he knows his way around a battlefield scene, almost as much as a bedroom scene. As for the politics of World War II-- Nazism, fascism, etc.-- Verhoeven's stance seems about as ambivalent as some of his side-switching protagonists. But, hey, who in their right mind looks to Verhoeven films for moral certitude?

All in all, a fine (if lengthy) World War II film. If you happen to have a long weekend to kill, bookend it with Verhoeven's more recent Black Book for maximum effect.

KEETJE TIPPEL (1975) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-14T17:14:00.006-05:00

After the excesses (and Dutch box office success) of Turkish Delight, this is a somewhat odd choice of follow-up for Verhoeven. Granted, it shares the same two fantastic leads (Rutger Hauer and Monique Van de Ven) and deals with prostitution as a means of big city survival. But the period melodrama Keetje Tippel plays rather chaste considering the man already covered with the subject in Business is Business (on a more farcical note), not to mention the utter perversity he got away with in Delight.

Don't get me wrong-- Keetje Tippel is a fine film, if a little underwhelming. While the story follows a rather generic up-from-poverty, loss-of-innocence trajectory, the actors are fantastic across the board and cinematographer Jan De Bont's visuals are 19th century pristine. And THERE ARE a few signature Verhoeven "touches" sprinkled throughout: Keetje dunking a mean sweatshop co-worker's head in a vat of acidic dye (Robocop face melt, anyone?), Keetje's mother forcing her to walk the streets for the first time so she can buy a huge phallic sausage for her own dinner, Keetje forced to strip for an old john her first night at the Amsterdam brothel while her sister masturbates on a couch nearby.

And did I mention the XXX-rated game of shadow puppets?

With scenes like these, I can't rightly accuse Verhoeven of gunning for Oscar gold by taking on a historic period piece based on an acclaimed piece of literature. But, I suspect, in Paulie V's mind, Keetje Tippel may have been some kind of screwed stab at respectability. Shadow puppets aside, he mostly hits his mark.

TURKISH DELIGHT (1973) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-13T12:19:00.007-05:00

Like the gummy confection from which it derives its name, Turkish Delight is an acquired taste. Whether or not you're able to enjoy it, to see past all the bedroom schadenfreude, all the bared flesh to the doomed love story at its gooey center will depend largely on your tolerance level for the casual blending of three signature ingredients: aggressive sexuality, gleeful scatology, unapologetic romance.

Yes, I said "romance." True romance. In a Paul Verhoeven movie. Of his own special variety, of course.

Example: How do you feel about a man snipping off a thatch of his lover's pubic hair with a pair of scissors, placing it on his upper lip like a mustache to taunt her playfully? Or the same man reaching into a toilet bowl to inspect his lover's bloody bowel movements to determine if she is ill? Or a wedding wherein a pregnant woman's water breaks in the middle of the ceremony and a small dog runs over to lap it up? Do you find your heart aflutter or your stomach more than a little upset?

The thing of it is, Verhoeven was probably aiming for both. And his messy, double-barreled shotgun blast approach to youthful passion mostly worked for me. It's an "in-your-face" romance movie, like Betty Blue times-two or a Dutch Like Water for Chocolate with ZERO table manners. I can see it from both sides: someone calling it a romance masterpiece, someone else calling it "Love Story as directed by Larry Flynt."

They would both be wrong. They would both be right.

BUSINESS IS BUSINESS (1971) - Paul Verhoeven

2011-11-07T19:18:00.009-05:00

Paul Verhoeven's first full-fledged feature, also known as Diary of a Hooker, plays a bit like a '70s-era Pretty Woman had it been tag-team directed by Benny Hill and a young Brian DePalma in his Hi, Mom! days. It's a surprisingly good-natured sex farce (surprising, in that Verhoeven is not usually known for his sweet nature), irreverent in spots and generally business-like about the world's oldest profession without ever sinking into gritty expose.

As in Pretty Woman, Verhoeven's sex worker Greet is auburn-haired...and that's where the Julia Roberts comparisons end. Greet's no fresh-faced ingenue pretending to slum it in designer streetwalker stilettos. She's an Amsterdam 'ho a little past her prime, who works out of her apartment and entertains just about any odd fetish that walks in. Her best friend in the world is not a plucky Laura San Giacomo type, but the plump housewife across the hall who occasionally "assists" with some of Greet's tricks for a little extra cash when her fisherman husband's away. There is a john who becomes more than just a customer and teases with promises of taking her out of the life. But this guy's no billionaire corporate raider with Richard Gere's limo and/or looks. He's just a good-natured, balding business man, bored with married life and keen on Greet's prowess between the sheets, at least until the wife at home becomes preggers.

So much for Roy Orbison. So much for the fairy tale.

Business is Business is by no means the Citizen Kane of hooker movies. But it's a fun, fine-enough first outing for Verhoeven-- a solid planting of his horndog flag in international cinema sands. It sets his agenda right out of the gate, hinting at future pervs, prostitutes and other fine Verhoeven things to come.

NOVEMBER VERHOEVEN

2011-11-01T10:22:00.006-04:00

Before Hollywood came calling with million dollar paychecks, before Officer Murphy became a cybernetic crime-fighting machine, before Sharon Stone spread her legs and made her/his career, before Elizabeth Berkeley did likewise and pretty much ended it...Paul Verhoeven used to make small, thoughtful movies back in Netherlands.

Or so I'm told-- I've only seen Spetters.

The month of November will be devoted to investigating the early, artier works of pre-Hollywood Mr. V. Hold that yawn-- these films are still sure to be sex-obsessed and laced with ultra-violence in their own special way. And, just in case they're not, I'll try to revisit some of the Verhoeven classics around Thanksgiving...Robocop, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, you know the drill.

For in November we give thanks for the peculiar, perverse talents of this singular Dutch director, the one who may have been corrupted by the system but at the same time upped the popcorn ante, showed the system a thing or two about its own sleaze.

This month is dedicated to one of Paulie V.'s most ardent fans, though he would probably never admit it in mixed company, definitely not during a job interview. You know who you are, Tamikazu. Get that diaper ready. Bring it on...

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980) - Ruggero Deodato

2011-10-31T23:55:00.002-04:00

What better way to spend your Halloween than with the Grandaddy of All Cannibal Films? OK, I could think of one or two but... Live muskrat, sea turtle and wild boar executions caught on film! Genital mutilations of every kind! Very real-looking native peoples impaled on large poles! An all-white film crew torn limb from limb in the jungle and eaten like a rack of Chili's Baby Back Ribs!

I first watched this grindhouse classic about a decade ago, around the time of Blair Witch mania, just when CGI was beginning to wrap its dirty digital hands around the throat of Hollywood genre filmmaking and slowly squeeze the life out of it. I was completely shocked by what I saw. Forget the "found footage" angle-- I concede, this grindhouse cheapie got there first. But how did they get that native woman up there on a giant spit? How did they make cutting that guy's wang off look so real without, you know, cutting off his wang? Is that foam rubber latex they're using? Cow entrails? Dug-up human bodies? WHO MADE THIS SICK, TWISTED DARE OF A MOVIE AND WHY?

His name is Ruggero Deodato. Why did he do it? Because it works, even down to the oddly melancholy synth score, one that makes the already disturbing visuals SUPER-DISTURBING. This movie is just as shocking seen a second time, ten years later. It is some kind of very deranged masterpiece.

More hack Hollywood horror directors could take a cue from Cannibal Holocaust-- it's all in the editing, dummy! Drop the mouse, the After Effects and get thee to a bucket of pig hearts and lungs post haste. Place them carefully upon your nude, willing actress. Then place your camera further away but just as carefully, perhaps obscured by the limbs of a jungle tree.

As for your nude, willing actor, when it comes time to sever his wang...yeah, I still have no idea how they did this. You're on your own. Happy circumsizing. And Happy Halloween!

PARENTS (1989) - Bob Balaban

2011-10-30T19:21:00.008-04:00

Once upon a time, Randy Quaid was only crazy in the movies. He specialized in oddball, off-kilter supporting performances in classics like The Last Detail, National Lampoon's Vacation, Midnight Express or Quick Change, just to name a few. Now that he is real-life certifiable, on the run in Canada for fraud, buglary, raging paranoia etc. with his reportedly batshit wife, his recent resume leaves much to be desired.

I've always loved Randy, even in small portions. That's why Parents is such a rare gem-- it's a great big ol' helping of Randy, with extra crazy sauce on the side. Though the film's protagonist is a nearly mute adolescent who suspects his Mom and Pop might be cannibals, it's Randy's line readings-- so '50s suburban father bland yet sinister at the same time-- that steal the show. The kid's eventual revelation that there's something in the nightly "leftovers" besides what they ate for dinner night before won't come as much surprise, but Randy's ability to play truly menacing (and not a mere slackjawed yokel) just might.

This one also boasts a boppy Angelo Badalamenti score and some snappy Better Homes and Gardens by way of Blue Velvet set design. Plus, some of the most disturbing looking breakfast sausages I've ever seen on film. It was almost enough to put me off meat for good. Almost.

EAT THE RICH (1988) - Peter Richardson

2011-10-26T17:54:00.006-04:00

Known primarily for its all-Motorhead (i.e., all-awesome) soundtrack, this obscure late '80s British satire is actually quite fun...and quite in tune with the current disillusionment over our own country's economic miasma. Occupy Wall Streeters, take note: Perhaps the best way to deliver payback to corrupt business tycoons and the politicians who enable them is not to occupy their parks, their public bathrooms and vent your rage in cheap cardboard signs concerning vague percentages, but to actually COOK THEM UP and EAT THEM. Better yet, make a profit while you're at it. Serve the rich back to the rich as high-priced dishes in five-star, five-month-wait restaurants.

That's pretty much the gist of Eat the Rich. But the real fun with this one comes in the Where's Waldo-like riches of Brit comic/rocker spotting. Hey, was that a young Miranda Richardson? Both Absolutely Fabulous ladies? Three-quarters of The Young Ones (minus Mike the Cool Person)? Was that Lemmy from Motorhead? Shane McGowan? Paul McCartney?!!

Hey, Hollywood, like everything else good and British on your plate, this one's ripe for a lousy American remake. Maybe even a good one. Hmm...who is the Motorhead equivalent these days? An all-Mastodon soundtrack perhaps? All Lamb of God? All DevilDriver, all Coheed and Cambria?

Actually, scratch that-- just give Lemmy a call. Judging from last year's Lemmy doc, I think he's pretty available outside of collecting Nazi memorabilia and playing his nightly Fruit Machine at The Rainbow. The world needs new Motorhead, dammit. And pâté made of Wall Street CEOs.

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (1989) - Peter Greenaway

2011-10-26T10:38:00.006-04:00

"Try the cock. I hear it's a delicacy."

- Helen Mirren as "The Wife" Georgina

This is probably one of the LEAST crude lines uttered in The Cook, The Thief, a movie I hadn't seen since it first came out when I was in high school. No, most of those lines are reserved for Michael Gambon's "The Thief," perhaps the most boorish character in all of film history. His crude gangster Spica is not just boorish...he's boooooooooooorish.

This is a beautifully shot film (as most of Greenaway's are) but also one of his most re-watchable (unlike, say, Prospero's Books). It takes great pains to remind us again and again of the intimate relations between eating, sex and excretion, all in gloriously art-designed, NC-17 rated color. Or as Albert Spica would put it...

"The pleasures are related because the naughty bits and the dirty bits are so close together that it just goes to show how eating and sex are related. Georgie's naughty bits are nicely related, aren't they, Georgie?"

That they are. Helen Mirren, who was a few years shy of 40 when this was made, proves once again she is game for anything. She even makes sex in the loo (or on a butcher's table or in a meat freezer) seem somehow regal. Though Gambon may have all the best, most boorish lines, this is Mirren's movie. She doesn't need much; she sums it up with but a word and a bullet.

"Cannibal"

TROUBLE EVERY DAY (2001) - Claire Denis

2011-10-17T19:47:00.003-04:00

If I HAD to be eaten alive by someone suffering from a vague (i.e., French) lab experiment-related malady and in a more-than-somewhat sexual manner, then, yes, I would want Beatrice Dalle to be the one to eat me. Come to think of it, I can't imagine any better way to go...licked and chewed to death by the lush lips and sultry gapped teeth of one Betty Blue.

Vincent Gallo? Sorry. Deal's off.

KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT (2000) - David & Laurie Gwen Shapiro

2011-10-16T12:07:00.009-04:00

I've suffered a bit from documentary fatigue in the last few years. Too many docs post-Fahrenheit 9/11 seem to be pushing some agenda or polemic (either from the left or from the right) and are a compendium of things you already kinda know. With documentaries, I expect to explore new worlds, new psyches, learn a thing or two. This pre-9/11 portrait of artist/author/anthropologist/arguable cannibal Tobias Schneebaum provides all those things. Plus, a little Norman Mailer to boot!

Five things I learned while watching Keep the River on Your Right...

1. If you happen to be in New Guinea and meet a member of the Asmat tribe, you greet them by rubbing chins together (see above pic) rather than shaking hands.

2. Conversely, other tribes in the area you greet with a mutual palming of the testicles (no pic provided).

3. Documentary filmmakers will do just about anything to juice their movie, including brow-beating a man in his late-70s with early onset Parkinson's (Tobias Schneebaum) into climbing up the muddy steps of ruins in Peru and revisiting the third world jungle locale of some of his darkest memories.

4. Schneebaum was the out-and-proud "house homosexual" at one of Norman Mailer's Village residences in the late '40s.

5. Human flesh tastes like pork; not chicken (as per Schneebaum)

I am enriched.

HOW TASTY WAS MY LITTLE FRENCHMAN (1971) Nelson Pereira dos Santos

2011-10-12T16:34:00.004-04:00

Mmm...not so tasty. Unless you're into '70s-era National Geographic titillation. Or region-specific black humor so bone dry you barely know it's there.

Basically, a Frenchman mistaken for an enemy Portuguese by an indigenous Brazilian tribe gets taken captive and willingly "goes native" for the duration of the film. Eventually, he goes commando too (squeamish beware: lots of flaccid dongs and droopy mammaries on display in this one), then hunts with the tribe, gets a red-dyed wife, realizes none of this will save him from becoming the main course in the group's upcoming victory feast. For a formerly uppity Frenchman, he doesn't much seem to mind. Neither will you, most likely. Pass the Hollandaise.

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2010) - Jorge Michel Grau

2011-10-11T20:08:00.006-04:00

If this film lends any new twist to the usual cannibal lore, it's that cannibal clans require breadwinners just as much as the Wilsons down the block. In We Are What We Are, the "Wilsons" are a poor Mexico City family who repair watches at an open air market during the day, feast on human flesh at night. Problem is, provider Pop's just passed away after a particularly nasty episode procuring a street whore for the family dinner. So the question on the table is: Who will now step up and bring home the bacon? So to speak...

The task falls on the eldest son of the three teen children (two boys and a girl). To make matters more difficult, Mom refuses to allow any more streetwalkers be the main course in the weekly dinner "ritual." Junior and siblings are left with no choice but to explore various other food groups-- gay club-hopping teens, taxi drivers, cops, even each other.

Using the cannibalism angle to explore Mexico's rampant poverty and rapidly disintegrating patriarchal family dynamic is We Are What We Are's biggest (and perhaps only) coup. At times, it does feel a bit like a gimmick, and, for my sanguinary tastes at least, the "ritual" of flesh preparation was left a little under-explored. But there is a pleasingly minimalist horror vibe running throughout the film and some gratifyingly gritty Mexico City street shooting.

I'm guessing the success of the Norwegian Let The Right One In paved the way for the stateside release of this, yet another low-key horror import about flesh-eaters from other parts of the world. And I'm wagering this, its Mexican cousin, did not make nearly as much at the bank. Then again, we can't all be the breadwinners...

OCTOBER CANNIBALS

2011-10-03T09:46:00.004-04:00

Cannibalism. Anthropophagy. Wrong. Right. Call it what you will.
In October, I desire the exquisite taste of human flesh.

Don't let the above picture fool you (from the classic gut-muncher Cannibal Holocaust). Not all the titles this month will be horror films. And not all the items on the menu will consist of South American expeditioners consumed by native tribesmen. We will also sup upon a few wayward Frenchman, '50s American suburbanites, Mexico City denizens, a few upper crust Brits, perhaps even a gay Fulbright scholar Manhattanite.

The menu is eclectic and varied this month-- other than it all revolving all the consumption of human flesh. So what are you in the mood for? A little French, a little Mexican, a good old fashioned American burger made from suspiciously pink meat? Let's chow down...

THE BIG RACKET (1976) - Enzo Castellari

2011-09-27T19:27:00.005-04:00

Like Castellari's earlier Street Law, The Big Racket is an energetic, well-edited piece of Euro-crime popcorn, more fun than any movie starring a guy named Fabio has a right to be. This time, Mr. Testi's a cop taking on an arm of the Italian mob (headed up by a British dude, oddly), an arm that's gotten too cavalier in its protection services as of late, adding murder and molestation to the monthly bill in addition to its normal cash pay-offs. It's up to polizia Fabio, the wronged business owners and many, many guns to take their just revenge on "the racket."

The end of this movie has one of the best warehouse shootouts I've yet to see and a wonderful Vincent Gardenia, here playing an ace pickpocket/police informant. Not to mention a theme song that sounds a scant note or two away from Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." What's not to love...

I was going to finish off September Poliziotteschi with another Castellari effort, the intriguingly titled Heroin Busters, and make it a trifecta. But wouldn't you know it-- Qwikflix-- I mean, Netster-- I mean Netflix/Qwikster has been refusing to send me the disc for two weeks even though it's on "Short Wait." First, they're cutting manipulative 30-month delay deals with the studios, then jacking up the prices on their DVDs and miserable streaming selection, then dividing the company into two. Talk about a "big racket." I'm seriously considering giving the red envelope a permanent rest at this point.

We'll see what new travesty October brings...

LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN (1976) - Ruggero Deodato

2011-09-23T12:05:00.012-04:00

What does it take to become a cop in Rome's ultra-elite, ultra-secret task force? The one so secret and so elite that even other cops in the precinct don't know its name?

Here's a handy slide show presentation...

1.) You must have no reservations about patrolling the city doubled up in tandem on the back of your partner's motorbike, hugging him about the waist. (Not to mention, sharing his close-quarters apartment, possibly his toothbrush)

2.) You must have no qualms about lewdly propositioning the office secretary with promises of multiple orgasm, tantric sexual abilities, threesomes with your partner (as long as you get first dibs, of course).

3.) You must have absolutely no compunction about setting 50 to 60 sports cars ablaze in parking lot for reasons only vaguely related to the case and culprit you're pursuing.

4.) You must be skilled at "enhanced interrogation techniques." (i.e., squeezing a suspect's testicles in your fist until they sing like a jaybird or pass out...whichever comes first)

5.) Finally, you must be willing to shoot a suspect point blank in the head. Or snap his neck when no one's looking. Whatever does the trick. Forget the handcuffs. Forget human rights in general. You're in an Italian crime movie in the '70s. You have a "license to kill," dummy. So use it!

Think you have what it takes to live like a cop, die like a man? Then check out this morally suspect yet massively entertaining piece of Eurotrash grindhouse cinema. Much like Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, it delivers the genre thrills and then some in the seediest possible way. You'll have a blast while you're watching then hate yourself in the morning.

STREET LAW (1974) - Enzo Castellari

2011-09-18T19:51:00.007-04:00

The same year that Charlie Bronson's wronged architect began cleaning up the streets of New York vigilante-style in Death Wish, Franco Nero's wealthy engineer had a similar idea on the slightly-less-mean streets of Genoa, Italy. Let's face it-- purse snatchings by way of Vespa and bank robberies that result in temporary kidnapping and a light smacking-around require a little less vengeance than, say, your wife being murdered by muggers or your daughter being beaten to a vegetative state. Public humiliation is one thing; homicide, quite a different ball of wax.

Yet, the Nero character's diminished motivation to violence (light in terms of the vigilante/revenge genre) does little to diminish Castellari's energetic camera. The dude knows how to frame an interesting shot, cut a wham-bang opening montage, make an otherwise dull chase scene go POP. I was not that impressed with his original '78 Inglorious Bastards, but with Street Law I begin to see what the fuss is about. I've never actually seen the original Death Wish (or any of its endless sequels), but I have a sneaking suspicion...this one's way more fun.

FOUR BY FERNANDO DI LEO

2011-09-14T18:47:00.012-04:00

Imagine the grimiest 1940s bottom-of-a-double-bill film noir that you can. Now imagine that same movie set in Italy, awash in garish 1970s colors, scored to a prog rock soundtrack, and peopled with some of the swarthiest men you're likely to find this side of Vic Tayback's "Mel" from the TV show Alice. This, essentially, is the Fernando Di Leo effect. How much you like it may depend on your tolerance for Vitalis and overblown machismo, like a Michael Mann flick with its veneer of professional cool stripped away and the remaining raw nerve doused in too much cologne.

Me? I thought they were just OK.

Thanks--I'm sure in no small part--to the ravings of longtime Fernando Di Leo fan Quentin Tarantino, interest in his several of poliziotteschi films have been enough for Raro Video to release a box set. Instead, I saw them streaming on Netflix in several successive nights. Here's what stuck...

CALIBER 9 (1972)

Familiar story of the thug who gets out of prison, wants to retire but is soon forced back into a job by the mob. Throw in a bit of hidden-loot intrigue-- did he or didn't he stash the money before going in the joint?-- and a pretty blonde love interest, and you've got a standard crime movie that putters along well enough until a nifty downbeat ending that pumps it up an existential notch.

THE ITALIAN CONNECTION (1972)

Probably the best of the bunch and, supposedly, the film that most influenced Tarantino's black-white hitman dynamic in Pulp Fiction. Here they're played by Woody Strode and Henry Silva instead of Jackson and Travolta and rarely talk of French fast food. In fact, they really don't factor that much into the plot at all. The star of the show is really the guy they're after, the small-time pimp Luca Canali (above) who's just a foil for some larger New York mob versus Italian mob in-fighting. And what a wonderful foil this guy is-- Mario Adorf! The craftiest greaseball since Al Lettieri. And so many contradictions! Such a scumbag, yet he takes time out of a junkyard gunfight to rescue a kitten. Adorf's performance alone makes this movie. I eagerly await the Luca Canali t-shirts to pop up at the IFC Center, if they're not already there.

THE BOSS (1973)

Henry Silva as a mob hitman again, this time with designs on the Family's top spot. Also, the source of yet another probable Tarantino needle drop. The opening scene wherein Silva executes an entire screening room of baddies with a flamethrower is the end Nazi movie theatre premiere in Inglourious Basterds in miniature. Like Caliber 9, this one kind of putters along on crime film autopilot for most of the duration then nails it with a nifty twist ending. Also, there is some frothy and very un-PC Stockholm Syndrome intrigue with the boss's kidnapped daughter. Antonia Santilli, where have you been all my life? Ciao bella!

RULERS OF THE CITY (1976)

Must admit...I snoozed through large portions of this one. But, in my defense, see the thin-armed guy in the goofy cartoon Brazil t-shirt above? We're supposed to believe him as a top mob enforcer. You know, the guy who flexes his muscles and collects the money-- NOT the dude who waits in line in front of you for Jens Lekman tickets at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Jack Palance is in this one too...at least I think he was, a little bit. Who can tell? I either slept too much or not enough. The gunfire at the end woke me up. Then some dudes were riding off laughing in a red dune buggy. The screen read "Fine." Indeed...

VIOLENT CITY (1970) - Sergio Sollima

2011-09-07T19:30:00.006-04:00

Peek-a-boo! Guess whose idyllic Virgin Islands off-the-grid getaway is about to turn very bloody. And guess who's going to be looking for some payback when he's left for dead and his girlfriend goes missing. That's right-- old Charlie Bronson, here playing a contract killer brought out from retirement to New Orleans by the baddie, a Kojak-era Telly Savalas.

Plotwise, Violent City doesn't offer much new that the classic Point Blank, Bronson's later The Mechanic or even the more recent The American doesn't do better. But there are some very fine and very fun pulpy moments to be had, if not very many polizia in this Italian-directed (and randomly subtitled) American-based potboiler.

See Charlie Bronson expertly steer a sports car through the narrow island streets in a great dialogue-free opening chase! See Bronson play chicken with a tarantula in crowded prison cell! See Bronson do a long distance sniper hit in the middle of a crowded Formula One race track! See him do an even better one...on his own girlfriend...in an even better, even more dialogue-free see-through elevator takedown!

See Violent City...but only if you're really into this sort of thing.

SEPTEMBER POLIZIOTTESCHI

2011-09-01T10:11:00.004-04:00

September say what?! Allow me to link the shortcut explanation...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliziotteschi

Basically, '70s Italian crime films. Grindhouse directors such as Di Leo, Deodato, Castellari, Lenzi, Sollima. Actors like Franco Nero, Tomas Milian, Fabio Testi, Henry Silva, even Charles Bronson.

This is what I'll be watching this month. I've only seen a few of these flicks but know enough to say with certainty...it's going to be a corrupt, bloody September.

Divertiti!

LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1989) - Uli Edel

2011-08-31T09:32:00.008-04:00

Red Hook, 1950s...by way of Bavaria, Germany. I'd seen bits and pieces of this down and dirty late '80s indie over the years, thanks mostly to a college roommate's pirated VHS copy. The DVD I watched last night from Netflix wasn't much better quality, but at least now I've seen LE to B from beginning to end and am duly impressed.

Like Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, this movie pulls no punches with Hubert Selby's grim source material. It may not be as slickly edited, but it wallows in the Brooklyn gutters and empty lots and dive bars and stinky low rent apartments enough that you feel you need a second shower by credit's end. On the seediness scale, I'd put it on par with Barfly, another late-'80s film by a Germanic director that wallows authentically in the American underclass. What is it with these Germans that they know how to nail American city squalor better than we do?

LE to B mostly concerns the few days surrounding a factory strike in Brooklyn, but that is probably the least interesting element here. You watch this one for the "fearless" performances. There's Jennifer Jason Leigh (no slouch when it comes to giving body and soul to a role) as the tragically hardened street walker Tralala. There's that guy from Avatar (Stephen Lang), here playing a factory worker husband dabbling in the gay underworld when he's not running the strike office. There's the always welcome Burt Young, playing father to a knocked-up Ricki Lake and, for the most part, "Paulie" from the Rocky movies but with a little more responsibility. There's also a very young Sam Rockwell with no lines to say and Stephen Baldwin with, perhaps, a few too many.

LE to B can delve into the melodramatic at times (i.e., Stephen Lang in his "Jesus Christ Pose" after being beaten in an alleyway), and the score by Dire Straits front-man Mark Knopfler sometimes tips toward the heavy-handed. But that shouldn't stop you from checking it out if you cotton to dirty city dramas. One word of caution though: Don't jump the gun with the import Netflix disc like I did. This one is set to hit Blu-ray in October. Wait for the better transfer. You owe it to Brooklyn to see it in its best worst light.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) - John Badham

2011-08-24T17:26:00.016-04:00

Bay Ridge, the era of Disco. I may not know much about doing the "Tango Hustle," but I know the above is a damn fine way to eat a slice of pizza (nay, TWO slices of pizza).

Of course, most people remember Saturday Night Fever for Travolta's goofy dance moves, if not the Bee Gees' upbeat disco soundtrack. But this double-folded, double-stacked slice of Brooklyn life is also a pretty engaging drama in its own right. And a pretty damn depressing one, too.

Tony Manero may have the best moves in Bay Ridge, but he's also got a rather psychologically abusive family. He's got a sycophantic neighborhood girl who's just begging for him to impregnate her, only to later be date raped by his buddies in the back of their car. About the same time, his other buddy is taking a suicide dive off the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. And this all comes after he's won a rigged dance competition, given back the prize, learned some disheartening life lessons...

"Everybody has to dump on somebody. Nobody can do it straight, right? My pa gets dumped on at work, so he dumps on my mother. The spics dump on us, so we have to dump on them. Everybody's dumping on everybody. Even the humping is dumping!"

Speaking of "the humping," Tony's love interest is the most depressing of all-- a cold-hearted Brooklyn striver who's just toying with this hometown boy, trying to get a leg up (literally) in Manhattan. Ah, Tony, if you could only fast-forward six short years to Staying Alive. Soon you will be dancing on Broadway! And directed by Sly Stallone!

A side note...I'm not sure why, but I've had more trouble getting through this movie than any other film I know. The first trouble was when I was about five or six, when I boogied over in the backseat of a station wagon with my father and brother to see it as the second feature on a drive-in double bill with Grease. The problem: I was FIVE or SIX. It was WAY past my bedtime by the time the Bee Gees started singing and Travolta started blow drying his hair in the mirror in his Speedo-- I fell promptly to sleep.

The second time I went to watch it was sometime in the '80s, my Dad's personal copy on VHS. I somehow managed to break the videotape off the spool fast-forwarding it too fast, our old family Zenith VHS chewing the tape to bits-- bits which I hid away for years deep in the VHS cabinet for fear of being found out and grounded for life.

The last time I had trouble...the other night. The Blu-Ray Netflix sent me contained more skips and freezes than Manero's got butterfly collars. I had to jump ahead multiple times, miss large swaths of plot, larger portions of the Bee Gees "More Than a Woman."

I think someone out there is trying to tell me I shouldn't like disco or to get the f*** out of Brooklyn. Either that or the Movie Gods are just dumpin' on me.

LITTLE ODESSA (1994) - James Gray

2011-08-15T18:55:00.010-04:00

Brighton Beach, Russian mafia ground zero. It's good to know there are still some places in Brooklyn where you can get away with piggy-backing a dead body in broad daylight. At least, you still could in the mid-90's.

The movie itself is pretty good, if equally unsubtle. As with director James Gray's two other crime dramas (The Yards and We Own the Night), Little Odessa is finely observed, well-acted and exquisitely photographed but a little too humorless and self-important to ever want to sit through more than once. It's operatic, bush league Ukrainian Godfather stuff, probably best washed down with a Styrofoam cup of Stolichnaya and a steaming boardwalk weenie from Nathan's.

DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) - Spike Lee

2011-08-12T17:00:00.008-04:00

Bed-Stuy "Do or Die," Summer of '89. The thermometer reads HOT! according to WLUV's Senor Love Daddy. Racial tensions on the block are even hotter than a Sal's Famous slice straight outta the oven. And, worst of all, "your Jordans is fucked!!!"

Seen some 21 odd years later (and maybe for the six or seventh time), Spike's Brooklyn masterpiece Do the Right Thing is still his best film and still a stylistic revelation, even if Bed-Stuy may look a lot different these days. It hits you like a blast of cool Korean deli freezer air when you reach for that first ice cold Miller High Life of the day. Or if you're not a drinker, perhaps it hits you a little more like this...

"What you mean you got no High Life?! I don't drink this Lite shit. Tastes like cold pot liquor!"

That's Da Mayor coming at you. If you don't know what I'm talking about by now, you probably don't want to and never will. If you don't know the significance of those scuffed Jordans at the top of the page or the brother-less "Wall of Fame" at the bottom, then you're probably either too young or too white to care. And if you couldn't give a lick about the Rosie Perez's iced-up boobies sandwiched in between, then you might be a eunuch...or maybe Jeff Foxworthy.

So I'll keep it simple, tell it to you straight: "Doctor, always do the right thing."

That's it? I got it. I'm gone.

THE LANDLORD (1970) - Hal Ashby

2011-08-07T12:42:00.006-04:00

Park Slope, circa 1970. Decades before the double-wide strollers, the predominantly white lesbian couples walking arm-in-arm, the Montessori-schooled brats zipping down the sidewalk on Razor scooters while gabbing on their iPhones. This is when Brooklyn looked more like the Bronx.

Enter Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders (Beau Bridges), a well-heeled Hamptons honky with a fixer-upper jones, a sizable trust fund, a shoulder load of white guilt and a small case of Jungle Fever. Renovating the dilapidated P-Slope brownstone he just purchased is Elgar's Great White Whale. That is, until he meets his all-black tenants-- the ones who haven't paid rent in years and aren't so keen on handing over their piece of the pie to this light-skinned interloper.

Racial-based humor and culture clash comedy touchstones ensue, but with a much smarter, subtler, naturalistic touch thanks to first-time director Hal Ashby. As with his later classics Harold and Maude and The Last Detail, here Ashby shows early on his facility with sprawling, easy-going dialogue scenes. The man is a master of what I would call the "sad-funny" moment. Though he's saddled with a bit of a boob main character in landlord Elgar, Ashby lets the side players come alive, especially Lee Grant-- just fantastic as Elgar's upper crusty yet free-spirited mother.

This is a finely observed comedy about gentrification both in the streets and in the bedroom. Highly recommended to lovers of smart '70s satire, especially those who would call themselves Brooklynites. Apparently, this stretch of Brooklyn has always had "baby fever" in one form or another, be the little tykes black, white or somewhere in between.

AUGUST: BROOKLYN IN THE HOUSE

2011-08-01T12:41:00.004-04:00

Unfortunately, the next two months of my life look to be heavily consumed with finding a new apartment. Hopefully, in the same place where I live now...Brooklyn.

Therefore, there will be fewer posts here than usual. And the four or five films this month will all be BK-themed, a shout-out to my current (and possibly future) abode.

So bust the lock on that fire hydrant, scrape the bottom off that tin can and let the spray of dirty NYC sewer water shower off the summer heat. We're going Bay Ridge, Bed-Stuy, P-Slope to Brighton Beach. Let me hear ya say "Brooklyn's in the House"! Can I get a hell yee-eah?!

TANGO & CASH (1989) - Andrei Konchalovsky

2011-07-31T14:12:00.005-04:00

If the 1980s had ended a year early, it could have ended on a high (and Hard) note as far as action movies go. Instead, it ended in late December of 1989...with Tango & Cash.

Appropriately, Tango and Cash may be the zenith of divinely stupid '80s action cinema. Or its nadir, depending on how healthy your sense of humor. I fall somewhere in the middle. You kind of know what you're in for in the first five minutes minutes when Stallone shoots a hole in an oil tanker truck and cocaine pours out. Apparently, we're to assume the entire tanker is filled with blow. What would the street value of that be-- maybe a zillion, gagillion dollars? That's a spitball estimate.

But that's just one of numerous absurd things the Tango and Cash screenplay asks us to assume and accept. Like why would villain Jack Palance go to all the trouble and spend a whole movie trying to frame and incarcerate these two cops when he could maybe, I don't know, just have them killed. To enjoy T & C, it's better not to focus on these questions. Or the story at all really. Instead, focus on the following...

1. Jack Palance plays the bad guy...a French bad guy.
2. Clint Howard plays a convict named Slinky...because he plays with Slinkies.
3. Eddie Bunker is in it!
4. Maniac Cop is in it!

Now, some things to ignore in order to better enjoy Tango and Cash...

1. All banter, "witty" repartee and dialogue in general between Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell
2. Stallone playing an "intelligent, worldly" cop
3. The words coming out of Teri Hatcher's mouth

Also, unless you're into Beefcake, you might want to ignore this shot...

And, with that, '80s Action month comes to a fitting, um, end.

DIE HARD (1988) - John McTiernan

2011-07-31T11:24:00.012-04:00

I first saw Die Hard on a date in July of 1988. Back then, I didn't know anything about the movie going on, other than it starred the guy from Moonlighting (a show I didn't watch) and had the longest run time of all the movies playing at my local four-plex. This second factor sealed the deal. It was early high school, I didn't drive yet, and you needed as much time as possible in a darkened theater to try and weasel your way into your girlfriend's bra before her mother arrived to pick you both up in her station wagon. It was a delicate operation that required time and finesse. I guess you could say her Hanes B cups were my Nakatomi Plaza.

By the movie's midpoint, I had managed not only to get my grubby little fingers beneath her brassiere, but also remove it entirely. I was even so cavalier as to swing it around on my finger, pretend to toss it a few rows over as a joke. I guess this was my idea of courtship in the late '80s. Would Hans Gruber be so bold? Probably not.

But something rather curious happened on my way to second base-- I started to really get into the movie. I'm not sure exactly where it was. Maybe it was when John McClane is crawling through the air vents in escape from Alexander Godunov. Maybe it was when Sergeant Al Powell showed up on the scene with his twinkies. Maybe it was when the wonderfully sleazy businessman Ellis attempts a coked-up negotiation between Gruber and McClane, only to get capped in the head. Yeah, it must have been the Ellis scene. "John Boy." It still makes me giddy with glee.

Whatever scene it was, I was hooked. So much so, that I completely forgot about my high school girlfriend and sliding into second base and slipping beneath her bra. I was watching something very special, a movie that would be the template for modern action movies for the next decade ("Die Hard on a..." etc). I was watching Bruce Willis beat the shit out of Godunov on a stairwell and yelling that he was going to "cook him and eat him for breakfast" as he was doing it. I was turning into a honest-to-goodness film geek, teenage boobies in the seat beside me be damned. My loser destiny had been written in stone. Is it any wonder that relationship never made it to the tenth grade?

I've seen Die Hard at least ten times since that date on VHS, cable, DVD, etc. Now, the fun for me is not so much following the plot or feeling-up someone beneath their shirt while doing so. It's trying to keep track of the 12 henchmen, all of Gruber's goons. This movie has some of the best disposable gunmen of all time, an international smorgasbord of toughs, each with their own quirks and shorthand personalities.

There's the so-Aryan-it-hurts brothers Karl and Tony. There's Theo, the black computer whiz. There's the henchmen who looks like Fabio. The henchmen who looks like Chris O'Donnell. The henchmen who looks like Huey Lewis. And the Asian guy who steals candy bars from the snack bar when no one's looking!

There is an embarrassment of henchmen riches in the first Die Hard, to the point where I wanted to write them all down on my arm with a Sharpie as John McClane does midway through, cross them off along with him as he snuffs them out.

Someone should make that into a drinking game if they already haven't. Maybe he's out there right now, wearing 3D glasses in a darkened theater, trying to cop his first feel of female breast in a screening of The Smurfs 3-D.

Good luck with that one, me old son. As they say, Yippie-kie-yay.

LETHAL WEAPON (1987) - Richard Donner

2011-07-25T09:23:00.005-04:00

For a cop movie, there is shockingly little actual police work done in this film. It's kind of the inverse of a studied procedural like The Wire. Or maybe its loud, abusive movie brother.

By the movie's mid-point, the general strategy becomes just to shoot people. Either that, or tell the entire LA police force to stand aside while your partner beats the shit out of a suspect under a raining fire hydrant on your front lawn. I'm not just talking about "Crazy" Martin Riggs but also sane family man Roger Murtaugh. Maybe it's because almost everyone in this film seems to be harboring some sobering 'Nam experience.

During one of the few scenes of actual investigative work, Murtaugh talks to a group of neighborhood kids about a suspicious man they might have seen. The kid "Alfred" (with 3D glasses below) tells him the man had a tattoo, one which Riggs realizes is the same as his own Special Forces tattoo. I have no idea how a kid (especially one who habitually wears 3D glasses) would notice a small Special Forces arm tattoo on a man from across the street unless his 3D specs also have X-ray vision. I was half expecting young Alfred to announce that he recognized it easily-- from his tour in Saigon.

Despite all of the above, Lethal Weapon still works for me as one of the pinnacles of ridiculous '80s action cinema. Guess I'll never be "too old for this shit."

BLACK MOON RISING (1986) - Harley Cokeliss

2011-07-24T10:52:00.008-04:00

For a movie about a top secret, high speed super car, Black Moon Rising is pretty slow going in its first hour. The film starts with some light intrigue involving freelance thief Quint (Tommy Lee Jones) breaking into a corporation by way of a dubious device that blinks a lot when attached to the building's passcode panel. He steals an incriminating tape and later, more dubiously, hides it in the rear bumper of said supercar rather than hand it over to the Feds who hired him (William Sanderson, Bubba Smith!). Most dubious of all, the inventors of the super car then decide to go clubbing on the Sunset Strip at some joint called "The Betsy" and leave the keys with attendant outside along with the other Mercedes, Beamers.

Now, I lived in L.A. for five years and had a pretty crappy Toyota Echo with an effeminate light blue "swoosh" on the side. I rarely took the valet parking option, mostly due to embarrassment and economics. But I'm pretty sure if I owned a stylish black top secret super car I wouldn't valet park it either. Seems like kind of a bonehead play in general as far as super cars go. I mean, how mad can you really be when Linda Hamilton steals it along with your top secret government tape right out from under you?

Things gets a little more exciting once Tommy Lee and Hamilton shack up and join forces to steal the car back from her employer Robert Vaughn, now ensconced in some highrise building in downtown L.A. The plan involves a combination of old reliables from the heist movie playbook: blinding security cams with laser beams, creating video playback loops to cover their tracks, repelling between two 80 story buildings, driving the super car out the window of one high rise and smashing through the other.
You know, all the usual tricks.

I wasn't quite as excited re-watching BMR as the first time around. Most of the fun this time just came from seeing a younger Tommy Lee in a legitimate action hero role and, as mentioned previously, the always welcome Bubba Smith. And the script by old fave John Carpenter suffers mostly from the fact that, well, he didn't direct the thing and some hack named Harley Cokeliss did. But the film (or VHS, more likely) must have made a strong impression on me as a kid. Just check out this eerily similar auto-themed action thriller High Gear that I penciled up that same year (according to the copyright just above the giant gear shift in the poster's middle).

Please forgive the literal, bone-headed tagline-- "Two Choices: Live or Die!" Forgive my very amateur attempt at incorporating perspective into my drawings. Forgive me for not bothering to apply a little more elbow grease to fully erase the stick shift from beneath the villain's hand. Most importantly, forgive me Tim Swaim (a childhood friend) wherever you are for making you the star of this lame-brained ad for a non-existent flick. I would have spared you had I only been in second grade with Bubba Smith.

COMMANDO (1985) - Mark L. Lester

2011-07-21T21:21:00.010-04:00

I can say this much for the 1985 pecs n' punchlines bullet-fest that is Commando: At least, it runs short. At a swift 90 minutes, it's gets its run-of-the-mill kidnap/revenge scenario over with pretty quickly with minimal plot detours, maximum body count. I would call it "short and sweet," but the only thing "sweet" in this film might be the young fawn Schwarzenegger and daughter Alyssa Milano feed in soft focus at the film's beginning. And how do we know for sure Arnie's not feeding it hollow-point bullets?

I would also call this early Arnie action extravaganza "efficient," but that wouldn't entirely be the case either. I expect ridiculous feats of human impossibility from my '80s action (i.e., John Matrix jumping out of an airborne plane without a single sprain), but for a movie about an ace ex-Army commando his tactical skills are pretty damn weak. The dude has about five chances (and 11 hours) after he jumps from the plane to simply grab one of his shrimpy captors (a wonderfully weasly David Patrick Kelly) and force him to take him to where they're hiding his daughter. Instead, he goes with this ass-backwards plan (i.e., the movie's plot) to use Rae Dawn Chong to lure him away (or something like that) which results in nothing but an hour of so of wrecked shopping malls, exploded buses and sporting goods stores and, eventually, "World War III" waged on an rich dude's mansion/compound.

Now, I've got nothing against Rae Dawn Chong. She's easy on the eyes and, apparently, knows how to operate a military rocket launcher within seconds of picking it up. But, Arnie, have you ever heard the saying "taking the longest route to go the shortest distance"? You are a decorated commando! Or does that decoration just refer to your all-guns, no-underwear preference?

Yes, I know. If you didn't do it this way, there would no pretty-girl-along-for-the-ride comic relief. And, yes, the movie would probably end after about 25 minutes. So take my nit-picking with a grain of salt.

Forget the fact that you're supposed to be the ultimate soldier and that your first tactical error comes 5 minutes in, when kidnappers descend upon your home and you tell your twelve year old daughter to go hide under the bed while you raid your personal armory of very big guns. Forget all that, Arnie. Forget the thing with the maid, that whole bankruptcy thing with the State of California, even your miserable cameo in The Expendables. I know David Ayer's remaking this film, and you're told old for it now. But come back to us, boy-o. And when you finally do, remember to bring the rocket launcher. It's a beaut.

FEAR CITY (1984) - Abel Ferrara

2011-07-17T13:27:00.007-04:00

OK, so I'm fudging this month's theme a bit. Fear City isn't really an action movie in the truest sense. But what can I say? My DVD-R copy of Red Dawn turned out to be defective, and Netflix streaming had Billy Dee holding a gun on cover with the year "1984" and "Abel Ferrara" in the slugline next to the title. Done and done.

After watching Fear City for the first time last night, I'm still not sure what it IS exactly. Neo-noir? Maybe. Abel Ferrara's worst film? Perhaps. Mid-80s sleaze at its most ridiculous? Without a doubt.

In a nutshell, Fear City concerns a serial slasher stalking Times Square and cutting up strippers. I say "serial slasher" because he frequently doesn't kill them, just slices a new smile in their foreheads and lets them go. Um...OK. Also, he knows karate and is writing a novel called (you guessed it) "Fear City" in his spare time. Yeah....uh-huh.

Tom Berenger is the stripper's manager, also an ex-boxer who beat some guy to death in the ring. For some reason, the only way he can figure out who's killing his girls is to rent a room in a seedy by-the-hour hotel near the end of the movie and practice shadow boxing in front of a mirror. Huh? I mean, I know NYC apartments are small, but couldn't he have done this in his own second floor railroad walk-up?

Also, there's Rae Dawn Chong as a lesbian stripper. And "Maria Conchita" sans the "Alonso" as the, um, mouthy one I guess. Poor Melanie Griffith gets the shortest straw (and most onscreen nudity) here as Berenger's ex-flame and top stripper. She has a raging heroin addiction that, for some reason, only seems to rear its ugly head after she's slept with Berenger again.

Billy Dee Williams probably makes out the best of the bunch as a vice cop. Unlike Nighthawks two years before, this time he gets to belt out gloriously un-PC lines like "Keep the pussy off the bar" (referring to a stripper dancing in the service area) and "There's nothing more I hate than when guineas drive Cadillacs." Also, he doesn't have to know kung-fu, as he gets to hold the gun.

This is a truly terrible movie.
Guess I need to get a new copy of Red Dawn.

BLUE THUNDER (1983) - John Badham

2011-07-17T12:14:00.005-04:00

If you're an LAPD cop, what's the first thing you do when the U.S. government loans you a highly weaponized helicopter teched-out with the latest in surveillance and recording equipment (in '83, that's 3/4" videotape)? You do a fly-by of the local yoga instructor's apartment building, of course. So you can spy on her doing extreme nude Hatha moves in her high rise apartment.

That vicious assault on Ventura? That pesky government conspiracy back at base? Yeah, it can wait.

Ah, Blue Thunder. I had forgotten how much fun you were. I saw you on HBO when I was a kid, and then you were just "that helicopter movie." But now that I've watched you again you will forever be "that helicopter movie written by Dan O'Bannon with Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, and Warren Oates!!!"

I didn't know who any of these guys were back in the mid-80s, so I guess it's understandable I might have been less than impressed. But now I see the blue shining light. This is Roy Scheider doing Travis Bickle as a helicopter pilot instead of a cabbie. Granted, it's a much more watered down version with repeated goofy flashbacks to some Asian guy (presumably Viet Cong) getting tossed out of his chopper in 'Nam. And, instead of stalking Cybill Shepherd or talking into mirrors, Scheider's psychosis mostly manifests itself in him obsessively checking out his Casio, counting down the number of minutes left in his sanity.

Sure, I'll buy it. And why not when Blue Thunder rewards you with so much other great stuff. Forget the helicopter chases/dogfights (which are still pretty impressive by the way). There's Malcolm McDowell doing his best British prick villain, channeling Clockwork's Alex De Large but in military fatigues instead of a bulbous white codpiece. The guy's sabotaging Scheider right off the bat, already unscrewing bolts in BT's fuselage seconds after he's been introduced.

Plus, you get Warren Oates in, sadly, his final film role as a crusty old commander, barking orders like "If you're walking on eggs, don't hop" and "You're supposed to be stupid, son-- don't abuse the privilege."

Like BT, the script by Dan O'Bannon (of Alien and Return of the Living Dead) is an efficient, weaponized '80s action movie machine with just enough "Big Brother's watching" hoo-hah to give you something to chew on along with your popcorn. Be forewarned: If you live above the third floor, are thinking about doing some nude Kundalini or seeing what's doin' on ScrewTube, you may want to crack the curtains first, make sure Blue Thunder's not hovering out there in "stealth mode" seeing what's doin' with you.

MEGAFORCE (1982) - Hal Needham

2011-07-12T14:56:00.011-04:00

Thanks to this supremely goofy 1983 action movie, there was a time in my childhood when I wanted nothing more in life than a motorcycle that could shoot missiles from its handlebars. Since Santa never came through with the heavy artillery, the best approximation I could muster was an assortment of empty paper towel rolls painted red, white and blue and scotch-taped to my BMX. While the other kids were in their backyards with plastic light sabers pretending they were Mark Hamill or Harrison Ford, I would ride my bike around my suburban neighborhood popping half-wheelies, launching imaginary surface-to-air strikes, pretending I was Barry Bostwick.

Barry Bostwick as Megaforce Commander, Ace Hunter:
"The good guys always win...even in the '80s"

For better or worse, certain films from childhood loom large in your memory. Watched nearly 30 years later, some hold up like The Dark Crystal or even Under the Rainbow, which still has its slapstick charms. Megaforce, I'm sad to report, doesn't hold up. My memories of it were apparently as rickety as the cardboard Bounty "Quicker Picker Upper" missile tubes taped to my Diamondback BMX.

Seen today, it's still good for some laughs, if not for its action. Stuntman turned director Hal Needham (of Cannonball Run pedigree) delivers all manner of motor vehicles with gadgets and hardware from laser cannons to holograms to hovercraft ability (another thing the Delta MK 4 motorbike could do that my Diamondback could not). These are still awesome and ridiculous in a MacGyver '80s sort of way. It's the terrible one-liners and endless mugging by Bostwick, sidekick Michael Beck (Swan in The Warriors) and bad guy Henry Silva that drop like SCUDs all over the movie, throwing mushroom clouds of badness all over the already radioactively absurd, incomprehensible plot. You see, the Megaforce is this ultra-secretive, very well funded special ops army with an underground fortress to rival NORAD and...

Oh, never mind. Just watch it for the handlebar missiles. In fact, don't bother watching it unless it's already part of your childhood. It's not on DVD, and it's purely a nostalgia piece. And don't be fooled by the misleading original theatrical poster art if you do. Megaforce in no way, shape or form takes place in outer space. It takes place in some desert near Las Vegas.

As for the classic 1985 "picture" (note the scrawled copyright below) that Megaforce obviously inspired...

Coming to Blu-Ray (and Sharpie) in 2012.

NIGHTHAWKS (1981) - Bruce Malmuth

2011-07-09T09:56:00.009-04:00

Though only a year into the new decade, 1981's Nighthawks is far removed from the streetwise '70s NYC action thriller it desperately longs to be. The movie is rife with motivational and geographical potholes, routinely sacrificing logic in favor of neat-o action set pieces. In short, the perfect '80s actioner in embryonic form.

Why would a supposedly smart international terrorist (Rutger Hauer) expose himself by shooting someone in the back in a crowded disco for no good reason when the cops aren't sure of his identity yet? To prompt a neat-o foot chase through the streets and subways of Midtown, of course. Why would a group of U.N. Delegates be taking the aerial tram to Roosevelt Island? The better to be taken captive in a nifty mid-air hostage situation, obviously.

Sure, Nighthawks has its hard slap to the forehead moments, but that doesn't mean it's not solid '80s fun. It's great to see a young Rutger Hauer doing his Scary Aryan thing in his prime. It's great to see Billy Dee Williams hoofing it on the gummy sidewalks of New York instead of the floating walkways of Cloud City (he doesn't have much else to do here other than hoof it, really). And Stallone, well, at least you get to see him in drag. Twice.

The whole time I was watching Nighthawks I couldn't help but notice how badly it wanted to be The French Connection. From the foot chases to the "international element" pursued by NYC beat cops, it was all painfully obvious which movie master it served. So imagine my surprise (or lack thereof) when I go to the Nighthawks Wikipedia page to discover that the script for this one was originally set to be the never-realized The French Connection III. Starring Gene Hackman and...Richard Pryor? I can't decide if Hackman dodged a bullet on that one. Or turned down the best action three-quel the '80s might have seen.

THE OCTAGON (1980) - Eric Karson

2011-07-04T17:27:00.003-04:00

It's the year 1980. Brush mustaches are worn routinely and non-ironically. Terrorists come in the form of ninjas. Straight action pictures are few and far between. And what action there is IS Chuck Norris.

Although I couldn't get enough of action and/or ninjas as a kid, I was never a big Norris fan. Of all the action schlock he did in the '80s, all I remember seeing was the first Missing in Action and Invasion U.S.A on home video and not much caring for either. He just never did it for me as a hero. I'm not sure-- maybe I had a childhood premonition he would later morph into the right-wing Fox News espousing, horrific toupee-sporting, Texas-secession advocating douchebag that he is today. Either that, or I was just too geeked about Superman II or Flash Gordon in the year 1980 to notice otherwise.

After suffering (and laughing a bit, but mostly suffering) through
The Octagon, I am still not a Norris fan. But at least I know now what Lee Van Cleef looks like in a earring (a bald bad-ass, of course) and where to find the eight-sided training compound of the world's most dangerous ninja-terrorists (Reseda or Griffith Park, from the looks of it). When you're only on a mission to kill some Hollywood backlot black ops, no Seal Team Six is required. Just send old Chuck and can of 'stache wax. It'll do the trick.

JULY: '80s ACTION

2011-07-01T17:14:00.015-04:00

After a month of subtle French auteurist crime, I'm looking to turn off my brain for a while as well as onscreen subtitles. In short, I'm looking for some Big Dumb American Action.

Since this July's theatrical slate of greenscreen robots, pubescent wizards and goofy Marvel superheroes leaves much to be desired in the honest blood and guts department, I'm flashing back 30 odd years for my cheap summer thrills. I often make fun of the ludicrous testosterone-fests that were the bread and butter of the Me Decade (most recently, in this post for Le Samourai). But I have to admit these dunderheaded actioners hold a special place in my heart. I grew up on these films, for better or for worse. If you don't believe me, take a look at this childhood drawing I recently unearthed...one with an alarming similarity to the "Wolverines!" moment above from Red Dawn, with a smidgen of Rambo: First Blood Part II thrown in.

Who's this guy the son of? And what's he "revenging" anyway? Don't ask me. I didn't even have armpit hair back then. I can't figure which is sadder: that so much of my youth was spent indoors with dull No. 2 pencils mimicking the one-sheets of gung-ho Reagan Era rabble-rousers, or that I had enough free time to come up with fake names for the fake movie's credits (see drawing's left-hand side).

Fear not, though. I guarantee the month of July will hold some more familiar names in store...some Stallone, some Schwarzenegger, some Norris, some Eastwood, some Bostwick. That's right -- Barry Bostwick. I'm watching ten '80s actioners, one for each year in the decade, and some years you have to get a little creative. I may even post a few more of my kiddie one-sheets as the month wears on. Wolverines!!

UN FLIC (1972) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-28T18:06:00.003-04:00

Melville's final film Un Flic often gets a bad rap as being the weakest of his crime films. For the most part I agree, though I can't honestly say I remember much of Le Deuxième Souffle, which I saw only a year or so ago. So let's call it a tie for last place.

Still, last place in the Melville crime canon is better than first place in most other directors'. If I had to quickly pinpoint why Un Flic (A Cop) didn't work as well for most viewers (including me), I would say it's because Melville tried a noble casting switcheroo but failed. Instead of casting Alain Delon as the slick, scarily handsome criminal like he did in Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge, he gave him the doggedly pursuing cop role and, for some reason, cast Richard Crenna in the usual Delon part.

Not that I have anything against Colonel Trautman, but it's just a whole lot more fun watching the unreadable iceberg that is Delon doing nefarious shit than it is to watch Crenna and crew stumble through a bank robbery. You kinda want your crooks slick, your cops a step or two behind but with an sturdy moral code. I respect Melville for trying to mix things up, keep it fresh, futz with the formula. But, sometimes, the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it rule also applies.

There's some other weak stuff in here, like the opening beachside bank robbery and some melodramatic business with Delon's transvestite informant. Also, for some reason, Delon has a habit of suddenly slapping people across the face which comes off like an Airplane! moment instead of the harrowing or shocking act I think it was intended to be...all three times.

And, speaking of air transit, this film contains one of the worst, most obvious use of miniatures I've seen in quite some time -- a toy helicopter flying over a toy train that looks like it was filmed in the basement of FAO Schwartz. Yet, Melville's skills as a master of suspense usurp even his budgetary limitations. Once locked inside the interior of the speeding train and inside the mechanics of the heist, he makes you forget the whole Hasbro angle and delivers one of the best robberies I've ever seen on film. Or, at least, on a moving train.

LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-26T11:18:00.006-04:00

This one's been on the American remake chopping block for years now. First there was talk of John Woo directing, a diehard Melville fan, yes, but his slo-mo operatic style is diametrically opposed to Melville's ruthlessly minimal action efficiency. I feared for The Red Circle's future-- one sure to involve someone flying through the air firing two guns at a time or, worse, John Travolta.

Then there was mention of Johnnie To in the director's chair. My ears perked up. Yes, Johnnie To! Awesome! Now, you're in the style ballpark. But what is this...Orlando Bloom in the Alain Delon role? Hmm, what could be worse? Only a Le Samourai remake starring Taylor Lautner (please don't go there, Hollywood, please).

The latest rumor involves Liam Neeson and some dude who directed, um, House of Wax and Unknown (which, appropriately, I know nothing of). OK, I give up. It doesn't matter. This movie is all about the Melville style anyway, which no one will be able to approximate. Viewed again, the plot's really standard film noir/heist fare. What sets it apart is that Melville really takes his time (the film runs 2 hours and 20 minutes), allowing you to linger over the details of prisoner escape, casing a jewelry joint, the intricacies of fencing stolen goods, etc. It's almost documentary-like in that respect. And no studio today is going to greenlight an action movie with such a bloated run-time without jamming a lot of extraneous plot into it.

I hear there's a decent Steven Knight script out there (if anyone has it, please send it along-- I'm curious). But I no longer hold my breath. As far as I'm concerned Le Cercle Rouge is a closed loop as of 1970. Anything else is merely a tangent.

ARMY OF SHADOWS (1969) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-26T10:32:00.007-04:00

Thanks to a bunch of late '60s political foofaraw at this blog's namesake French film rag, Cahiers du Cinema, Melville's somber masterwork about everyday soldiers in the French Resistance was quashed upon its release with abysmal leftist reviews and, thus, never made it to the States. Could you imagine a critic (or film blog for that matter) having that much pull in this day and age? If only the Huffington Post or Daily Kos could shut down tripe like Green Lantern or Transformers 3 with such expediency.

I first saw Army of Shadows in its grand American re-release in 2006 along with every other come-lately. And, like every other film nerd at the time, I slathered it with pie-eyed praise (here, in fact, at #6 on the 2006 Best List). So I won't belabor the point.

Viewed a second time, it's still as subtle and devastating as the sudden, silent knife plunged into the Nazi throat that comes just moments after the shot above. When it comes to WWII flicks and killing Nazis, you can keep your "Bear Jew" with his bloody baseball bat. I'll take Lino Ventura with a quick shiv to the carotid any day.

BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-18T10:52:00.009-04:00

After taking a backseat to Cocteau, Jean-Pierre arrives to the crime genre a fully-formed auteur with a brash "Un Film De Melville" credit to boot. While this might not be his most action-packed heist pic, it is definitely his classiest. I had forgotten that Bob (and this movie) was so well-mannered he never got around to pulling the actual robbery, unless you count his ginormous Baccarat take. Quite a "flambeur," indeed. And "la femme"...very easy on the eyes.

LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1950) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-18T10:30:00.006-04:00

There's a reason it says "Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants Terribles" on the cover of this Criterion DVD. You'd be hard-pressed to find much "Melville" in this early Jean-Pierre effort, a rather straight adaptation of Cocteau's book.

Apart from a few head-on, talking-into-the-camera takes (Melville can't get enough of those), he stays in the background and faithfully serves the material, a claustrophobic story of a twisted and much too intimate brother-sister relationship. There's no real crime to be had here, other than maybe crimes against nature, and only a few acts of schadenfreude. The brother and sister are mostly just shitty to each other and a little on the dull side.

For completists, it might be interesting to see Melville working outside of genre. For most everyone else it is Les Enfants Tedious.

LE SAMOURAI (1967) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-14T12:57:00.008-04:00

Roger Ebert has identified a movie convention he terms "The Fallacy of the Talking Killer." Highbrow name, sure, but if you've seen any lowbrow action movie from the '80s or '90s you know what he's talking about. The killer/villain is holding the hero at gunpoint at the climax, has him right where he wants him, then suddenly decides to get all loquacious, espouse his theories of evil, etc. giving the hero ample time to make a getaway or, if he's John McClane, pull the pistol he's got Christmas-taped to his back. Sometimes, this "fallacy" is delivered artfully, as in Pulp Fiction when Sam Jackson takes a five minute break to deliver a Biblical sermon on Ezekiel before making a hit. But most of the time it's just plain stupid, lazy screenwriting.

For the most part, I grew up on these lowbrow '80s action movies. So what a revelation it was the first time I saw contract killer Alain Delon as Jef Costello walk unannounced into a room to shoot a guy with little more than a sentence's explanation (or non-explanation).

Owner: Who are you?
Costello: Doesn't matter.
Owner: What do you want?
Costello: To kill you.

BANG!

Watched for the third or fourth time, it is still a breathtakingly efficient scene. As is the rest of this methodical, minimalist, mostly silent action masterpiece. I've gone off on Le Samourai many times on this blog before. For instance, here and here and here. I will now take a cue from Costello, shut my trap and get back to business at hand. Something other than talking killers or blogorrhea.

LE DOULOS (1962) - Jean-Pierre Melville

2011-06-11T10:07:00.005-04:00

When Belmondo points a gun at you in Le Doulos, you don't know if he's doing you a favor or doing you in. You don't know if he's already called the cops to finger you or someone else for the murder or robbery beforehand. You don't know if his gun is loaded or if it's his or yours. Belmondo's Silien is so slippery, you don't even realize he's the film's protagonist until midway through. You suspect it might be the guy who looks like an angry Mr. Bean (Serge Reggiani), but that's only because you saw him first.

Peeling back the layers upon layers of duplicity in Belmondo's poker-faced finger man and Melville's hard, raw onion of a crime classic is pure pleasure, even the second or third time around when you should already know all of its tricks. You look into Meville's grim double-sided mirror of a movie, tell yourself you won't get fooled again, but then it happens and you're glad that it did.

JUNE-PIERRE MELVILLE

2011-06-01T00:05:00.002-04:00

It's June already and getting hotter by the minute. Time to bust out the cut-off shorts, the Li'l Smokey grills and baby pools on apartment rooftops. Also, your trench coats and fedoras if you got 'em.

Because, this month, I'm re-watching the seminal Jean-Pierre Melville French crime classics in conjunction with a current writing project. So expect the reviews to come in terse, minimal, no-nonsense style like Melville's tight-lipped noirs. I may also check out a few of his earlier non-crime works just to keeps things interesting.

Who can tell? I might even need to pull a few bank jobs of my own to cover the A.C. bill.

NETWORK (1976) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-30T10:27:00.004-04:00

In an age where Glenn Beck, Fox News, Celebrity Rehab, Bridalplasty and the Iraq War are the daily norm, it's inevitable that the satirical bite of Network might seem to have dulled over the years, its righteous outrage now almost quaint. Honestly, would most modern viewers even blink at this point if a show called Gitmo's Greatest Interrogations or Terrorist Pawn Stars popped up in their DVR queue on the Military Channel or SpikeTV? What was once prescient is now, unfortunately, just plain old current.

I think the last time I watched this Lumet classic was sometime about ten years ago, before the reality TV virus had really become the epidemic it is today. So, all the craven corporate opportunism stuff spilling out of the mouths of network execs Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway and Ned Beatty probably seemed fresher, if not a little more shocking then. This time, it was the quieter, offbeat relationship stuff I gravitated towards more than the bombastic Chayefsky "jeremiads" -- the war comrade-like friendship between old news horses Howard Beale and Max Schumacher, the doomed May-December, Type-A/B coupling of Holden and Dunaway, the no-bullshit 25-year marriage between Holden and his wife. Of course, most of these moments are packaged in very lengthy, urbane monologues that still feel like Chayefsky preaching an angry sermon on the mount. But, hey, no one does angry and articulate better than Paddy C.

My favorite tirade this time around wasn't Beale's famous "I'm mad as hell" speech but Beatrice Straight's non-nonsense "winter passion" speech to husband Holden who's just told her he's having an affair with Dunaway. She got an Academy Award on the back of that speech alone and deserved every ten-cent word of it. "Emeritus years," "I get the dotage," "penitent drunk"...wonderful stuff. Though I kind of wish Holden hadn't ruined the ending of Anna Karenina for me in his equally lengthy, equally literate response. I'm only 100 pages in, 600+ to go with a spoiler suicide to look forward to. Thanks, Paddy. Do all your characters have to be so well-read?

In the words of the Great Ahmed Kahn, after firing off his Magnum: "Man, give her the fucking overhead clause. Let's get back to page twenty-two, number 5, small 'a'. Subsidiary rights..."

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-28T20:03:00.010-04:00

Re-watched this today...in the afternoon...while dog-sitting.
Still my favorite Lumet film of all time.

What struck me most the four or fifth time around? Why has no one ever made a sequel/spin-off about Stevie (circled above), the third bank robber who abandons Sonny and Sal within the first five minutes of the film? We get to know everything under the sun about Pacino's character -- from his disapproving parents to his nagging female wife to his pre-op male wife -- but what's the deal with Stevie?

Granted, he bails before the robbery has even begun in earnest, so Stevie's story probably wouldn't be as tense or action-packed as Dog Day proper. But I found myself wanting to know how that guy spent the rest of the day. Did he watch the hostage situation like everyone else on TV? Did he drown his sorrows/cowardice in a 24-hr bender and/or his white man's Afro? I mean, the guy tried to borrow their getaway car on the way out the door...because he didn't want to take the subway! At least Stevie's got chutzpah, if not cajones.

So maybe Stevie's story isn't big studio material. But how about a nice low-budget indie flick? Maybe Dull Day Afternoon,
The One That Got Away, or simply What's the Matter With Stevie? It's got that most desired of movie producer commodities...
"pre-awareness." Everyone knows Dog Day even if, for the life of them, they couldn't place Stevie in a lineup (which he wouldn't be in anyway because he never actually committed a crime).

Let it be known to any interested parties that I am available to write/direct Stevie's heart-rending, untold story for a modest fee and will be fielding offers anytime of the dog day and/or night.

SERPICO (1973) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-26T20:01:00.006-04:00

Perhaps the only thing more egregious than the number of bribes, payoffs and outright threats honest cop Frank Serpico is privy to in Serpico are the number of costume changes we are subjected to as audience. By the time Pacino rolled into the precinct an hour and a half in wearing full-on Hassidic garb, I had to spit out my Two-Buck Chuck, throw my hands in the air and seriously wonder if I was re-watching the '70s Lumet classic or Fletch. Worse, perhaps, Cruising.

Still, an ironclad template in the police corruption genre, despite the parade of eyesore fashions or the syrupy Mikis Theodorakis score. One must wonder: Had honest Frank taken one of the smaller bribes, bought himself a nice conservative Brooks Brothers suit, could he have avoided getting shot in the face?

RUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-24T13:14:00.006-04:00

I'm not exactly sure why I never saw this film at the movies or on VHS when it first came out in the '80s. I suspect it had something to do with me hating on River Phoenix at the time, given that all the girls in middle school seemed to have mad Tiger Beat crushes on him and not me. Later in college, I know exactly why I didn't see it - because a friend convinced me to help out and act a scene from the film in her acting class, the pivotal one where Phoenix confesses his love to Martha Plimpton and that his family is on the run from the FBI. I didn't want to be "influenced" in my performance, so I didn't watch the film at that time either. Long story short, I sucked hard in scene. I think I even forgot most of the lines. So, for me, Running on Empty has always been haunted by the ghost of my own inadequacies in some form or another.

My tangled history with it aside, the film's pretty good. A little slow in the running in spots and maybe some missed opportunities for intrigue considering its intriguing family-on-the-lamb premise, its Weather Underground-like roots. But it's solid in a quiet under-the-radar sort of way like Pope family itself. Lumet plays the material as straight drama for the most part, perhaps even verging on melodrama in spots. There are some interesting ideas about the costs of idealism filtering down through generations, especially those ideals of the '60s.

I would never want to watch Running on Empty again, but at least I no longer hold a grudge.

DEATHTRAP (1982) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-22T17:58:00.003-04:00

This movie used to come on all the time at night when I was a kid and our family first got HBO. For some reason, I never caught more than the preview, even though I probably could have easily snuck out of my bedroom and stayed up late to watch it. It's a good thing because I think one of film's central twists would have blown my tiny nine-year-old mind to smithereens. Superman is gay! With the English guy from Jaws 3! And complicit in murder! No f%$king way!!!

Also, I probably would have been too hung up on the narrative twists and turns of Ira Levin's script to really notice how deftly Lumet breathes life into an otherwise claustrophobic dinner theater meta-murder mystery piece, how much of a well-oiled movie machine it is. I'm pretty sure I still would have had the hots for ditzy Dyan Cannon though.

Like Orient Express before it, a very chewy piece of pulp entertainment. Well-played, Sidney. Well-played.

EQUUS (1977) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-22T16:53:00.006-04:00

There's no getting around the more disturbing zoophiliac elements in Peter Shaffer's play Equus, the story of a sheltered teenage boy whose fixation on a horse as both a sexual object and religious icon drives him to commit a ghastly, violent act. These icky elements are the foundation upon which Shaffer's masterful indictment/exploration of modern psychiatry stands. To Lumet's credit, he doesn't tip-toe around the unseemly stuff but dives right in no-hoofs-barred, all foreskins front and center. More than this, he often shoots the disillusioned psychiatrist's diatribes directly into camera, Richard Burton not only breaking the fourth wall but practically spitting in anger right through it.

To most modern audiences, I'm guessing this would be TOO much, too heavy-handed, inciting more nervous titters in a darkened auditorium than any kind of introspection. I'm guessing, like Tree of Life, it's the type of all-in approach that would be greeted on the Croisette today with boos and rapturous applause in equal measure. But, hey, what can I say...it worked for me.

Shaffer's play is confrontational by nature. Lumet seems to know this and ups the ante in his filmed version. I read the play years ago in college and coming to the film for the first time after many years assumed there were multiple things Lumet would have to "tell" and not "show," places where other directors would have probably gone artsy and vague with diffuse light and smeared lenses. Well, Sidney shows them all and in crisp, hard focus, and the film is the better for it. Were Equus to be remade today, I'm pretty sure all these scenes would be nixed first thing, the disturbed young teen's neurotic compulsions turned to superpowers and the object of his fixation no longer a horse but Kate Hudson.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-16T15:06:00.003-04:00

Proof positive that Lumet can do playful, too. And do it well.

It's hard to believe this frothy, star-studded murder mystery came smack dab in between the more poker-faced Pacino classics Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon on Lumet's resume. Maybe he needed a break from the NYC grime and corruption. And, like Detective Hercule Poirot's own abbreviated sojourn by rail, this movie feels like a grand vacation gladly interrupted by a call to work, a happy chance to ply one's trade while traveling abroad.

Lumet does so without phoning it in, relishing the chance to juggle a classic Agatha Christie plot along with 12 or 13 of the world's best actors. You feel his camera delight in the challenge of shooting them all in such a cramped space. I, for one, was delighted to see what Ingrid Bergman looked like in color (a lot like her daughter Isabella, actually).

If you like the board game Clue, are a rail enthusiast or just appreciate fine acting, this train is not to be missed.

THE HILL (1965) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-15T17:21:00.003-04:00

In case you ever wondered what it might look if someone other than Stanley Kubrick directed Paths of Glory or the first half hour of Full Metal Jacket. In case you ever wondered what it might be like if Sean Connery replaced Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. In case you ever thought Sidney Lumet could only direct actors and not camera. I offer up Exhibit A...The Hill.

Sidney successfully mashes up Paris Island sadism with prison film intrigue in a story about court martialed British soldiers in North Africa suffering under the yoke of crazy physical endurance tests and crazier commanding wardens. Lumet's touch is bit more humane than Old Cold Stanley, but damn if he doesn't put his desert setting to good use in some fabulous moving crane and deep focus shots. Connery is solid as always, as are the four or five British R. Lee Ermey barking-dog staff sergeants. But it's Ossie Davis who steals the show when he decides in the middle of prison camp that he is retired from the army, has no need to take orders and strips down his skivvies to walk around like he owns the place and smoke the Commandant's cigars.

THE PAWNBROKER (1964) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-10T18:03:00.005-04:00

Simply put, a New York City classic. I put my Brooklyn Public Library Pawnbroker copy in the tray rather late last night with some hesitation, anticipating a slow-moving black and white drama with weighty themes (the man's a Holocaust survivor after all). Tired and beset with allergies, I was sure I risked snoozing through parts, if not encountering the legions of the stutters and freezes that often accompany municipal DVDs. Not only did I end up staying wide awake for the duration, but the disc didn't skip once. A major triumph for both Lumet and Kings County.

Rod Steiger has always been fantastic, especially in showier roles like On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night or as the gleefully amoral bandit in A Fistful of Dynamite. But the role of Harlem pawnbroker Sol Nazerman is arguably his toughest and his best, requiring him to play a shell of a man hollowed out by trauma, mostly given to awkward silence, mostly given up on humanity itself. Like the old Jewish grandfather in the next room often shouts, he is "one of the walking dead!"

You wouldn't know it from Lumet's vivacious direction, though. All around the willful void that it Sol Nazerman, Lumet smartly fills in the corners of the frame with bursting life, mostly in the form of the oddballs who come into his shop every day to pawn useless crap. He contrasts Sol's deathly silence with the ramblings of his over-eager Hispanic apprentice played by Jaime Sanchez (Angel from "The Wild Bunch"!), with the charismatic threats of the pawn shop's pimp proprietor Brock Peters, with the pleas of the lonely but optimistic volunteer worker who tries to befriend him and fails (Geraldine Fitzgerald, picture above). And when Lumet's not throwing some of the finest '60s character actors Steiger's way, he's upending Sol's daily routine with perfectly timed (and exquisitely frustrating) shock cuts that give us just enough of an idea of his concentration camp past without, ahem, belaboring it too much.

There are few films I watch these days and consider instant classics, especially when viewed so late in the evening. But The Pawnbroker had wedged itself in my cortex as a five-star flick as soon as I took the BPL copy out of the tray. It's one of Lumet's best, right up there with Dog Day, Network, The Verdict. Watch it any time of the day or night, Claritin at your side.

THE FUGITIVE KIND (1960) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-08T12:39:00.005-04:00

Generally, I'm not a fan of Tennessee Williams's hothouse Southern melodramas. Streetcar, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...they always come off just this side of daytime soaps to me. Well-written, sure, if not a little baroque and overheated for my tastes. But I can see why these plays are pure catnip for the best actors and directors to try their hand at filmed versions.

Lumet does a respectable job breathing some air into this otherwise claustrophobic theatre piece about a drifter with a PAST (Brando) who comes to clerk at a small town drugstore run by the repressed middle-aged wife (Anna Magnani) of bedridden old racist. There are some nice widescreen compositions on display. Yet, Lumet knows he has gold in his hands with Brando and holds on him in long close-ups when appropriate, as in the opening courtroom scene where he pleads the case of his prized in-hock guitar without us ever seeing the judge. I mean, why cut to the bailiff when you've got several simultaneous subplots going on behind Marlon's weary eyes?

I can't say I really enjoyed The Fugitive Kind. In fact, I was kind of bored for a good 40 minutes or so in the middle. But at least now I know for certain where Nic Cage got Sailor's snakeskin jacket for Wild at Heart. He pawned it off Valentine Xavier.

12 ANGRY MEN (1957) - Sidney Lumet

2011-05-03T14:51:00.007-04:00

Lucky for me, on the two occasions a dreaded jury duty notice arrived in my mailbox the court dates were soon canceled thereafter. I didn't even have to attempt the "prior work obligations" excuse. But if I had been assigned a murder case with these dozen ornery NYC palookas I don't think I would have minded showing up.

Because 12 Angry Men is like the all-star game of mid-20th century character actors. Just consider the roster: Martin Balsam, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, Robert Webber, to name only half the team. It's like catching up with 12 of your favorite uncles for an hour and a half. You grouse about the heat, talk about the ball game you're headed to later, occasionally deliberate life or death matters, and only then when pressed. Granted, you know the movie's ending from the first moment that clean-cut Henry Fonda walks into the cramped jury room and is the only one of the twelve to put in a "Not Guilty" vote on the accused Latino teen. You know Fonda's going to convince every last one of the others to swing the other way calmly and with much conviction. The surprise isn't that he gets them to reconsider but how and what details sway each one, from the racist to the ad man to the effete snob to the solid brick wall that is Lee J. Cobb.

Most surprising of all is which one of the twelve ends up being the most fun to watch, considering the big league talent involved. Surprise! It's this guy...

He's Joseph Sweeney, the oldest but certainly not the angriest of the twelve. I'd never heard of him before, but the man is a treasure trove of reaction shots. Bemused, amused, befuddled, belligerent -- he does them all to a tee, acting circles around the rest of the angry young Turks half his age and reminding us all that cinema once was a silent venture. Too bad this guy get his own spin-off sequel. 12 Angry Men II: Juror 9's Electric Boogaloo or One Not-So-Angry Old Man.

MAY LUMET

2011-05-01T13:32:00.012-04:00

Were you to ask me as a senior in high school if the above monthly heading rhymed I would have answered an assured "Yes." Having been blown away at that point by Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and, if memory serves, Serpico, there was a time I was walking around as a misguided, nascent film geek pronouncing his name Sidney "Lu-MAY," instead of "Lu-MET." Don't ask me why; there was no Wikipedia pronunciation key then. And maybe I just thought any director so talented with actors, handling subject matter with such a hardened, cynical edge must in some way or another be French.

Lucky for all of us, Sidney was not only a solid American, always questioning the our homegrown democratic experiment, but also a hardcore New Yorker to the bone. And, unluckily, he passed away a few weeks ago at the ripe old age of 86. But the man left behind an amazing filmography, one that not only included the NYC classics listed above but a host of others like The Verdict, 12 Angry Men, Fail-Safe. For a director who worked solidly as long as he did (roughly 60-some years, if you include his early TV work), there are only a few head-scratchers (The Wiz, Garbo Talks, etc.). His predominantly streetwise crime and punishment oeuvre is surprisingly solid, and that's WAY better than most directors these days can say.

Like his last name, Sidney directed his films with a hard T. Sometimes that meant hitting you over the head a little heavily with THEME in the way of early TV films. And most always, it meant a deference to the THESPIAN over visual flair. Just look at the picture above from the Dog Day set; how intensely in character young Pacino is at the edge of the right frame, how driven and in command Lumet seems to be in the middle, how the camera itself is sidelined, halfway out of frame, a simple device used to capture performance rather than King of the Show. That seems to sum it up: Lumet's actor-driven, camera-practical approach to making movies. If you haven't already, just read his Making Movies. It's film school in a book, all you ever need know of no-frills New York filmmaking. No insane tuition required and everything from pre to post for under 10 bucks.

I may not have consciously realized it then as a misguided, Wikipedia-less high school senior, but Lumet was probably one of the directorial inspirations for me to come and study film in New York one year later, along with more obvious ones like Scorsese, Woody Allen, the Coens and Spike Lee. The man made the city come alive onscreen in all its squalor and glory. I've only seen about half his work. So the month of May is about going back and paying tribute, cleaning up many of the the lesser-known films that I've haven't. If there's time, I might even squeeze in a few replays of a few of the old favorites as well. I'll go light on the rhyme, I promise.

LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995) - Mike Figgis

2011-04-29T18:25:00.009-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- LAS VEGAS COUNTY MORGUE

DECEASED'S NAME: Ben Sanderson, white male, 40s

TIME OF DEATH: 8:03 PM, March 25th, 1996 (Oscar Night)

BODY DISCOVERED AT: The Whole Year Inn (aka, The Hole You're In) just behind Circus Circus.

PROFESSION: Ex-Screenwriter (though from his dress and personal effects, seems more like an agent)

INTESTINAL CONTENTS/TOXINS: Gallons upon gallons of vodka and no traceable food. Blood samples consisted of 83% pure grain alcohol, 16% distilled manic depression, 1% water.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Badly receding hairline (which magically grew back in subsequent films).

KNOWN CAUSE(S) OF DEATH: Drinking while driving. Drinking while attempting to have intercourse (unlikely due to the drinking). Drinking while gambling. Drinking while at the bank. Drinking while at the store. Drinking while showering. Drinking while swimming. Drinking while drinking. Drinking in suicidal quantities.

LAST WORDS: "Are you desirable? Are you irresistible? Maybe if you drank bourbon with me, it would help. Maybe if you kissed me and I could taste the sting in your mouth it would help. If you drank bourbon with me naked. If you smelled of bourbon as you fucked me, it would help. It would increase my esteem for you. If you poured bourbon onto your naked body and said to me "drink this". If you spread your legs and you had bourbon dripping from your breasts and your pussy and said "drink here" then I could fall in love with you. Because then I would have a purpose. To clean you up and that, that would prove that I'm worth something. I'd lick you clean so that you could go away and fuck someone else."

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EMBALMING/TREATMENT OF THE DECEASED: Let the man have his Oscar. He darn well still deserves it for this highly depressing, hot-poker-to-the-eyeballs grueling but impressive method performance. But, be forewarned, it might go to his head-- literally-- in a series of subsequently terrible career choices and even worse toupees. You know the ones I'm talking about...Con-Air, Gone in Sixty Seconds, 8MM, just to name of few. Except for standouts like Adaptation and Bad Lieutenant, it seems to have been mostly downhill for Our Man Cage after this Academy-snagging performance. It's the Curse of the Golden God all over again, and by that I mean mostly Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. I know Cage has been getting into some Ben Sanderson-esque drunken troubles in real-life New Orleans, but let's hope the man keeps the heavy drinking on-screen and puts in a few more performances like this one before he retires or goes completely bankrupt (financially, artistically or otherwise). For he is, without a doubt, still one of our best thesps.

Side Note: This movie watched again 15 years later features WAY TOO MUCH Sting music. And Julian Sands as a violent Russian pimp was a horrible joke even back in the '90s .

That caps the bottle for April Alcoholics. The summer heat and the month of May fast approaches. Happy ~~drinking~~ swimming!!

DRUNKEN MASTER (1978) - Yuen Woo-ping

2011-04-27T15:14:00.008-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- WONG KEI-YING'S ROYAL REHABILIATION HUT, MANCHU PROVINCE

PATIENT NAME / AGE: "Beggar So." Asian male in his 80s, perhaps 90s. Also known as Su Hua-chi or Sam Seed.

DATE: Sometime during the Qing Dynasty

LOCATION: Manchuria / Northern China

PROFESSION: Kung-fu expert, Master of the Eight Drunken Gods. Rarely passes on his teachings, and only then when paid in alcohol.

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Entire jugs of rice wine, imbibed in one sitting.

SYMPTOMS: Slurred speech (even when dubbed). Rosy red nose like a Chinese W.C. Fields. Often doses off during training sessions. Wobbly posture, staggers frequently -- though he would argue it's all part of his drunken fighting style.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: "Don't be fooled by my staggering around. There's power inside the kilt. It looks real enough, yet it isn't. The fact that you're pretending to lose lets you win. To study my style, you'll find that it's easier if you have a drink first."

DIAGNOSIS: Beggar So's extreme, decades-old alcoholism is of a piece with his surprisingly youthful athleticism. How else could a geezer this old fend off five dudes pulling Snake, Crane and Tiger moves unless constantly hopped up on hot sake? Without his jugs of rice wine and his Eight Drunken Gods, we fear Beggar So would be doomed to roam the dusty streets forever, babbling to himself like a Manchurian Gabby Hayes.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Let the Master drink, kick ass and be merry. If, like me, you have never seen his drunken style until now (due to Jackie Chan fatigue from long ago), you might find yourself pleasantly surprised and more than a little entertained.

THE THIN MAN (1934) - W.S. Van Dyke

2011-04-25T15:31:00.006-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- PLAZA HOTEL "DRY-OUT" CLUB,
MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE

PATIENT(S) NAME(S): Nick and Nora Charles, married.

DATE: Prohibition (not as though you would know it)

LOCATION: Central Park South, Manhattan

PROFESSION: Professional socialites / reluctant amateur detectives

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Martinis, heavy on the bathtub gin

SYMPTOMS: Copious alcohol consumption, minimal clue-gathering. An aversion to any case that cannot be solved within the confines of a speakeasy or bar. Tendency to determine the culprit of a crime by inviting all suspects to a large dinner party and seeing which one shoots first. Reliance on pedigree fox terrier, Asta, to perform most of the crime-solving "legwork."

PERSONAL STATEMENT(S): When a reporter asks Nora if they're working on a case..."A case of scotch. Pitch in and help." When a reporter asks Nick if he can tell him anything further about the case..."Yes, it's put me way behind in my drinking."

DIAGNOSIS: These two bring new meaning to the term "social drinkers." They never met a highball they didn't like or case they couldn't solve without one (or two or three...). The detective genre has a long history of gumshoes battling the lure of the bottle, but Nick and Nora Charles have surrendered that fight long ago. It's one long party with them, well-stocked with fine booze and witty banter. The murder and intrigue that accompanies their profession is strictly incidental. To them, gunshots are mere noisemakers, a splash of blood on a dead body little more than spilled merlot. As says Nick: "The murderer is right in this room. Sitting at this table. You may serve the fish."

RECOMMENDATIONS: Regarding the planned remake to star Johnny Depp as Nick and to be penned by addiction-literate scribe Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight), there will surely be much hand-wringing and internet blather as to which young ingenue will play his Nora. Kristen Stewart? Emma Stone? Carey Mulligan? Pish-posh, we say. You're missing the forest for the trees. The question, ladies and gents, is who will play beloved Asta?!

BARFLY (1987) - Barbet Schroeder

2011-04-19T17:52:00.007-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITAL,
WILSHIRE BOULEVARD

PATIENT NAME: Henry "Hank" Chinaski

DATE: December 25th, 1987

LOCATION: Downtown Los Angeles / Hollywood outskirts

PROFESSION: Back alley pugilist. Occasional writer. Just got a $500 check from a short story he forgot he submitted to a publisher three years ago. Recently fired from a position in a toy factory.

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Scotch and water. Will also drink beer or a chilled port from neighbor's refrigerator when they're not around.

SYMPTOMS: Persistent nightly dedication to getting the piss kicked out of him by Frank Stallone. Uncommonly nihilistic world view. Enjoys Mahler symphonies in his boxer shorts. Tendency to bleed profusely from open head wounds for hours without noticing it.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: "Anybody can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance. Endurance is more important than truth."

DIAGNOSIS: Frankly, we at the facility are surprised Mr. Chinaski is not dead already. He claims openly to be both a drunk and a writer, embraces the chaos and "beautiful anger" (his words) of the dirty Los Angeles streets, spends whatever money he has in East Hollywood dive bars as soon as he gets it, and disdains the "rat race." What others might call their "dream home" in the Hills, Mr. Chinaski refers to as a "gilded cage." He is unrepentant alcoholic, yes, but, more curiously in this day and age, a proud pauper.

RECOMMENDATIONS: To treat this man for alcohol dependency would likely jeopardize his vocation, or avocation given your opinion of his work. His vices and talents appear intricately linked. Some might argue that what Mr. Chinaski needs is not an AA sponsor but a Triple A publisher; others would argue the opposite. Mr. Chinaski would likely despise both parties. Either way, we at Good Samaritan still find Barfly to be the best of the Bukowski film adaptations (Factotum, Tales of Ordinary Madness, etc.). There is no substitute for the gutter-fabulous performance of Rourke, the Guido bouffant on Frank Stallone, the swell gams on Faye Dunaway. Not to mention that old Buk penned the nicely minimal screenplay himself.
"To all my friends!" indeed.

LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO (1983) - Eagle Pennell

2011-04-17T11:03:00.008-04:00

NOTICE OF GOD-DANGED FORECLOSURE

NAME OF BIZNESS: The Alamo (not the god-derned one in San Antone, but the one that serves likker)

LOCATION: Houston, TX (down the road a piece from the Piggy Wiggly)

PROPRYETOR: Skipper (just Skipper, never got his family name)

CURRENT USE: Waterin' hole, honky-tonk. Though it's mostly just a loiterin' spot for locals and barflies at this point. Fuckwits like Claude or Ichabod or Willie who ain't got but a dollar in their pockets and two cents between their ears. These shitbirds rarely drink the good stuff, hardly ever the rail likker. Mostly just suck back Lone Star after Lone Star and bitch and moan about the wife they got or the tail they ain't gettin'. Every so often, Cowboy stops by and throws around some Double Sawbucks from hell-if-I-know-where. Challenges the boys to a two-fisted tequila and Lone Star drink-off. Then talks real big about going to Hollywould or some big shot he knows in Austin, a fellow Aggie that he sayz can keep the the Alamo from shuttin' down. Sure, I tell him, and my morning turds taste like pure molasses. Want I should pour some on yer griddle cakes?

FUTURE USE: Shopping mall, most likely. Or maybe another Mickey D's. And if those shitbirds don't like it, they can take their candied asses down to the Double B up the road a piece.

RECOMMENDATIONS: SHUT 'ER DOWN! I ain't got nothin' personal against these fuckwits. Sometimes they're good for some fine down-home conversationing. But these boys don't have enuff going on in their lives, don't spend enuff god-danged money! And other than those two toehead blondes came in the other night-- stiffer than two pool cues in a petrified forest-- the heifer sitiation at the Alamo leaves much to be desirable. That old drunk Eagle's a fine director-- least as far as The Whole Shootin' Match. That boy knew his way around sadsack Texans and blue collar misery like a prize mare knows its own saddle. But he mighta had one too many Lone Stars on this one, dropped the script in the shitter when he was taking a piss. Remember the Alamo? Sure. But only if you god-dang remind me first.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962) - Blake Edwards

2011-04-16T17:59:00.008-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS,
EMBARCADERO CHAPTER

PATIENT(S) NAME: Joe Clay & Kirsten Arnesen Clay, married/separated

DATE: 1962

LOCATION: San Francisco, CA

PROFESSION: Joe - Public Relations Man (recently "let go" for bad public relations); Kirsten - Housewife (recently burned down half the house)

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Joe - scotch, rye whiskey; Kirsten - Brandy Alexanders, chocolate liqueurs, whole bottles of gin (Note Bene: Neither touch wine. Joe frequently cuts the heads off roses, though).

SYMPTOMS: Joe - Drinks socially with clients, even once they've stopped drinking, even when he no longer has clients. Known to demolish entire greenhouses looking for a bottle of whiskey hidden beneath a potted plant. Has experienced post-bender psychotic episodes that have landed him in a sanitarium and straight-jacket twice.

Kirsten - Tendency to leave cigarettes burning while drunk on the couch watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. Often forgets she has a three-year old daughter in the next room (as does the movie). Used to crave chocolate bars; now it's the other type of bars she can't get enough of.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: Joe - "You and I were a couple of drunks on the sea of booze, and the boat sank. I got hold of something that kept me from going under, and I'm not going to let go of it. Not for you. Not for anyone. If you want to grab on, grab on. But there's just room for you and me - no threesome."

Kirsten - "You see, the world looks so dirty to me when I'm not drinking. Joe, remember Fisherman's Wharf? The water when you looked too close? That's the way the world looks to me when I'm not drinking."

DIAGNOSIS: Joe - Classic codependent caretaker. Has renounced alcohol after two psychotic breaks. Has admitted at weekly AA meetings that he is an alcoholic, but seems unready and unwilling to make the break from addictive relationship with wife Kirsten (as per his sponsor Oscar Madison, er, Jack Klugman, er, "Jim Hungerford"). Most likely wracked with guilt at having given wife her her first Brandy Alexander, introduced her to the bottle in the first place.

Kirsten - Refuses to admit she is an alcoholic. Has this thing about everything looking dirty. Feels that Joe is "judging her" with his newfound sobriety.

RECOMMENDATIONS: It is the opinion of the Group that Joe is well on his way to full recovery, about Nine Steps into the full Twelve. Kirsten, on the other hand, refuses to take even that First Step. Though it pains us at AA (and Cashiers) to report this, Joe (i.e., Jack Lemmon) is a bit of a bore around Kirsten (i.e. Lee Remick), sober or soused. If he must drink, he might be better off doing it as Felix Unger with man-spouse Oscar Madison. Klugman or Matthau, we'll take either one.

ARTHUR (1981) - Steve Gordon

2011-04-11T12:01:00.005-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- BETTY FORD CLINIC,
V.I.P. ANNEX

PATIENT NAME: Arthur Bach, of the noted Bach Dynasty

DATE: 1980s (the "Me" Decade)

LOCATION: Upper East Side, Manhattan / Southampton

PROFESSION: Heir to the Bach Fortune (given that he weds Ms. Susan Johnson, as prescribed by father Stanford Bach's will).

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Only the best single malt, dry martini, champagne, vintage Chateau Blanc, etc. etc. Whatever the limousine or Hobson's stocking at the time.

SYMPTOMS: It is not the belief of this facility that Mr. Bach has a drinking "problem" per se, but that he is a "spirited" man who donates graciously to the foundation in charitable lump sums. But, for the purposes of this intake exercise, some "traits" of playful inebriation we have noticed: 1.) Tendency to cackle openly after anything and everything he says (humorous or not) 2.) Childlike reliance on manservant Hobson 3.) Delightful slurring of speech. Simply delightful! 4.) Harmless fondness for top hats, bubble baths, toy trains
5.) Perplexing devotion to mannish Queens-bred petty thief Linda Morolla (Liza Minelli), though Arthur is neither a gay man or otherwise fond of showtunes.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: "Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have? Don't you wish you were me? I know I do." (insert cackle)

DIAGNOSIS: Drinking problem? What drinking problem? Mr. Bach is a delight! A slurring, cackling delight! His only problem is this pesky Ms. Morolla. THIS is the habit we at Betty Ford must labor to rid Mr. Bach of immediately. Otherwise, his charitable donations may soon run out!

RECOMMENDATIONS: When you're caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is cue up "Arthur's Theme" by Christopher Cross on the old turntable. That should take care of it. The movie itself, probably not worth revisiting (Arthur's quips are not as funny as you might remember). As for the remake, we at Betty Ford understand the film is wretched. Simply wretched! Though we may possibly add it to the bottom our Netflix queues for the delightful Ms. Mirren and Ms. Gerwig alone. Russell Brand, mmm, not so much.

ON THE BOWERY (1957) - Lionel Rogosin

2011-04-11T10:31:00.008-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- BOWERY MISSION,
"Leave the Sneaky Pete On the Sidewalk, Buster!"

PATIENT NAME: "Ray," mid-40s (??)

DATE: circa 1950s (when there was still an above-ground El train on the Lower East Side and only white people as far as the eye could see)

LOCATION: The Bowery. Skid Row. Armpit of Manhattan.

PROFESSION: Various odd jobs. Just came off railroad stint in Jersey. Thinking about heading to Chi-Town, though.

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: Never-ending pints of Ballantine Ale. Muscatel, when he has to (though it ain't his preference, you know). Sterno, when there's absolutely no other choice.

SYMPTOMS: Heads direct to the gin mills as soon as he gets off the train. Swills until blackout. No qualms about bedding down on the sidewalk. Can't stomach the food at the Mission...or its No Sneaky Pete policy. Sometimes picks up wino dames, then leaves 'em the street with a shove to the face.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: (re: the most recent drink being offered) "I'm not going to say I'm not going to do it. I'm going to try not to do it."

DIAGNOSIS: Certified, grade-A rummy. Follows classic hophead cycle of getting a few nickels, spending it all on hooch, waking up on the street the next morning and hating himself for it, then finding himself back on the nearest gin mill stool by late afternoon. Has big dreams of getting off the sauce for good and making some hard-earned. So does every other Joe on the Bowery.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Get "off" the Bowery before he dies in the gutter (apparently, real-life "Ray" wasn't so lucky, dying of alcoholism a few years later). Ray's story, a mix of documentary and very slight fiction, is a cautionary tale everyone on their way to AA should see. Depressing in the best possible way. And so everyday sad it might just keep you off the Muscatel for good.

IRONWEED (1987) - Héctor Babenco

2011-04-06T15:02:00.011-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- METHODIST MINISTRIES INFIRMARY. ALBANY, NEW YORK

PATIENT NAME: Francis Phelan, white male, early 50s

DATE: December, 1938 (Great Depression)

LOCATION: Skid Row. Albany, NY.

PROFESSION: Former Pro Ball Player (Washington Senators). Current Homeless Indigent (i.e., Bum, i.e., slumming Jack Nicholson).

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: A jug of whiskey, any whiskey will do. When he doesn't have the coin for whiskey, beer. When he has no coin at all, reluctantly sober.

SYMPTOMS: Tendency to see dead people from his past and shout at them (possibly alcohol-induced or manifestation of early stage schizophrenia). Known to drop small children on their heads under the influence (sometimes his own). Has co-dependent relationship with fellow female indigent Helen Archer (Meryl Streep, see separate intake form). Known to associate with confirmed alcoholic "Rudy," who frequently sings "Big Top Candy Mountain" and sounds suspiciously like Tom Waits. Also, possesses very bad teeth (probable gingivitis).

PERSONAL STATEMENT: (to dead infant son, at his graveside) "Your mother said two words, 'Sweet Jesus,' and then we both crouched down to snatch you up. But we both stopped in that crouch because of the looks of you. Billy come in then and saw you. 'Why is Gerald crooked?'"

DIAGNOSIS: After decades of grieving and consoling himself with depressants, patient professes dedication to finally renounce the bottle. Recently, patient has even returned to make amends with his middle class family, long ago abandoned in shame. Patient then routinely comes into a few dollars (usually rag-picking or odd errands), falls "off the wagon," loses resolve.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Minimal outpatient treatment only, as patient refuses to accept Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior and possesses very little money. Also, refuse request for Oscar Award film so fervently desires as a serious, slow-moving "issues" film based on literary source. Patients Nicholson and Streep are fine in their roles, but this one's a groaner. Like The English Patient but drunker.

UNDER THE VOLCANO (1984) - John Huston

2011-04-04T17:12:00.015-04:00

INTAKE FORM -- EL INTERNO DE DESINTOXICACION

PATIENT NAME: Geoffrey Firmin, white male, mid-50s (?)

DATE: November 2, 1938 (Day of the Dead)

LOCATION: Cuernavaca, Mexico

PROFESSION: British Consulate Representative to Mexico,
Recently Retired

PREFERRED BEVERAGE: The King's Whiskey. Though, given the nature of his location / desperation, usually settles for entire bottle of tequila (Mezcal).

SYMPTOMS: Rambling monologues at Red Cross functions re: odd transport of dead bodies by locomotive. Hiding half-finished bottles in bushes for later use. Sleeping face down in the middle of heavily traveled dirt roads. Inability to become sexually aroused for beautiful spouse Jacqueline Bisset (patient complains of infidelity issues).

PERSONAL STATEMENT: "How, unless you drink as I do, can you hope to understand the beauty of an old Indian woman playing dominoes with a chicken?"

DIAGNOSIS: Patient appears to be in the late stages of chronic alcoholism. Makes poor choices re: drinking establishments / companions. Often lets others clothe, shower and shave him as he is unfit to do so. Needs to get over his wife's one-time infidelity, as it is destroying him, perhaps use his retirement funds to hire a wet nurse instead. Patient muses that he will soon write his memoirs, but it seems his drinking may not allow him to do so before meeting untimely end. They don't call it Dia de los Muertos for nothing.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Seek treatment immediately. See this film (Albert Finney fans, John Huston aficionados, cineastes especially).

APRIL ALCOHOLICS

2011-04-01T09:53:00.006-04:00

A month of Mike Leigh has driven me to drink. Probably not as much as the men and women of April, those viewed through the bottom of the bottle and just trying to get one more boilermaker in before closing time. I might tie one on now and again, but I've got nothing on this crew of prodigious tipplers -- from depressed writers to professional barflies, from Bowery boys to billionaires.

Those aren't Olympic rings in the picture above. But rest assured there will be a certain type of athleticism on display in these films. Whether it be the odd three day bender, a long lost weekend, the month-long drunk or a mad alcohol-poisoned rush to the grave, these guys and gals have a special kind of endurance.

Call them what you will: drunks, winos, alkies, souses, lushes, bums, hoboes, hooch mongrels. Me, I refuse to judge. I just call them "thirsty."

FOUR DAYS IN JULY (1985) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-31T22:59:00.008-04:00

The fact that I had to look up the Twelfth of July on Wikipedia directly after watching this is surely a solid indicator that I'm not the target audience for this last Mike Leigh TV film of the month. I'm sure it would have also helped tremendously if I was a Protestant or Catholic or had some stake in or opinion about the past or present conflicts between the two. Or maybe if I was an expectant mother.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am none of the above, and to make matters more bewildering the accents in Four Days in July were often thicker to my ear than the head on a properly pulled pint of Guinness. Needless to say, July left me a little dry.

That said, there's still a few things for non-Anglophile Yanks to enjoy here when you can parse the language. Leigh manages to get his most political without being overtly preachy in the twin tales of two expecting couples, one Protestant and one Catholic, in the days leading up to and following the Twelfth celebrations and the births of two new babies. A sweet coochie-coo structure until you realize these babies may very well grow up one day to fire guns or detonate car bombs at one another.

As always, Leigh's method hits the realism target so square on you feel guilty that you might be eavesdropping. If you're like me though, you might prefer a translator whispering into your ear instead of priest or pastor either persuasion.

HOME SWEET HOME (1982) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-27T11:55:00.004-04:00

Who knew postmen got so much action? Who knew Timothy Spall was once wafer thin?

True, you probably wouldn't want the type of action postman Stan gets-- dreary middle-aged laundromat loiterers and other postmen's wives. Nor does Timothy Spall's postman Gordon even get to enjoy his youthful physique with his weight-obsessed better half constantly hen-pecking him that he's fat. As for postman Harold, he consoles himself with bad jokes and the telly, blissfully ignorant that Stan's schtupping his wife while he does his daily delivery route.

Life be hard out there for a postie.

After the drudgery of Grown Ups, Home Sweet Home was a welcome bit of working-class intrigue. Yes, the intrigue involves every day adultery performed rather laconically during postal runs, but you can't look a gift horse in the choppers as they say. And in case you were beginning to enjoy things, there's the subplot of Stan's depressed daughter rotting away in a social home while he philanders and "forgets" to visit her to make sure you don't have too much fun.

All in all, a solid triptych of intertwined stories. For maximum mail order effect, sort with Bukowski's Post Office and make a night of it.

GROWN UPS (1980) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-27T11:08:00.006-04:00

The beauty of Mike Leigh's "devised by" directing method is that it often results in character-rich films finely attuned to the stale rhythms and slow-burn frustrations of everyday life. Though you may not "enjoy" being with his coterie of alternately manic and monosyllabic low to middle class Londoners, you respect the films that contain them because they just ring so goddamn TRUE. In the case of Grown Ups, the proceedings may have been TOO true to life for me for the first time. I found myself midway through craving a plot, craving a pulse, anything to save me from another ten minutes with these freshly domesticated dullards.

The bare wisp of a story involves a young couple newly moved in to a council house fixer-upper, one that they never much get around to fixing up. That's because they spend most of their time trying to avoid the girl's lonely, chatty sister who's always stopping over for a visit. When they're not doing that, they're wondering what life is like for the slightly better-off couple next door, the male of which happens to be their former teacher, a stuffed shirt who makes odd sighing noises and has little interest in humanity (see pic above). Their answer: not much more interesting.

The usual Leigh class resentment elements are all here, along with younger versions of a few of his most reliable actors -- Brenda Blethyn and Lesley Manville. But for some reason, the misery on display didn't coalesce into dramatic gold for me this time. By the time the lonely sister (Blethyn) finally flies off the handle and locks herself screaming in the neighbor's bathroom, I was already making my own odd sighing noises. Then humming Tom Waits by way of Joey Ramone.

WHO'S WHO (1979) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-18T12:06:00.004-04:00

Or "Scenes from the Class Struggle in the West End."

Who's Who is a milder Leigh television outing, not so caustic as Abigail's Party or even Nuts in May. He's back to film again and ticking between the lives of the haves and have-nots in a loosely connected series of stories about workers high and low in a London brokerage firm.

The "who" who gets the most screen time is the mustachioed striver above, a sycophant to all things Royal who keeps a carefully tended file of coveted publicity photos and rejected fan letters when he's not shooing away one of his wife's horde of pedigree Chinchilla cats. This guy kind of reminded me of a married version of Michael Scott on The Office, with maybe slightly more self-awareness.

Less amusing but angrier is the have-not worker who shares an apartment with a young, slumming-it blue-blood. Though he strives hard to be proper and agreeable, you see the bile on his face every time he offers to clean the dirty bathroom tub, get the groceries or a prepare an extravagant dinner for his idle roommate's friends who barely lift a finger to help. Even though they are roommates and pay the same rent, there is no doubt in his mind or in ours that, no matter what he does, he is and will always be this man's butler.

ABIGAIL'S PARTY (1977) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-17T15:10:00.007-04:00

Abigail's Party is possibly the most depressing, spiritually draining mixer I've ever attended. And I say that having once lived in Los Angeles for five years. What starts out as stale chorus of suburban get-to-know-you banalities ("What do you do for work?", "Do you like olives?", "You enjoy being married?") gets even grimmer as night wears on and the gin and tonics pile up. Simmering spousal animosities bubble beneath the party's polite surface. Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual" is put on the record player. Someone gets sick and throws up in the loo (because of the gin, not the Tom Jones). Someone has a heart attack (again, not the Tom Jones). In short, it's the perfect sad-sack shindig for the glass-half-full director Leigh to emcee. Or should I say "devise."

To beat all, Abigail's Party doesn't even take place at Abigail's party. In a devilish reversal of setting, Abigail's party is actually the off-screen teenage party next door to the middle-aged parent's soiree we're trapped in for two hours. And, from the sounds of late '70s British punk and reggae jams that occasionally waft through the walls, Abigail's pad is the much funner place to be. Typical Leigh to invite you to a mixer and then flip the script so you end up in the most miserable house on the block for the duration. Tom Hanks, Tawny Kitaen and a drug-sniffing mule this is not. Unless maybe you're referring to present-day Kitaen.

This is the first shot-on-video TV effort of Leigh's I've seen. The 3/4" U-Matic format kind of works for the material--basically filmed theatre--and kind of doesn't. At first, it feels like you're on a soap opera set. Later, on the set of Fawlty Towers or some old British sit-com. And still later, once Netflix Streaming had knocked my video out for the fifth time with the message "Title Not Available," like the early days of the internet trying to watch old '80s porn clips by way of 56K dial-up. Perhaps, Netflix was trying to act as my chaperone, get me to leave the party early, save me from a gathering that only gets grimmer and grimmer by the minute. As with many of Leigh's works, I was glad I stuck it out, even if I barely escaped by the skin of my teeth with a nasty soul-crushing hangover.

THE KISS OF DEATH (1977) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-13T14:07:00.008-04:00

In The Kiss of Death, Mike Leigh tinkers with the awkward romantic fumblings of gawky mortician's assistant, Trevor. This guy might be the most curious social misfit he's featured apart from Ewen Bremmer's undecipherable spastic "Archie" in Naked. Except Trevor isn't prone to violent outbursts or Gaelic-infused profanity. He's mostly just a space cadet with an occasional, disturbing "British hillbilly" laugh.

At a lean 74 minutes, this is definitely one of Leigh's slighter efforts, both in scope and character. Not bad -- just a minor character study of a guy who's not much more than an acne-dotted cipher. Kay Adshead as his pseudo romantic interest, Linda, is really the one to watch here. A brilliant compendium of hair tosses, chewing gum smacks and cheeky sexual gamesmanship, she is definitely the life of this death-obsessed party.

NUTS IN MAY (1976) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-13T12:58:00.007-04:00

The chatty, nature-nut couple at the center of Nuts in May probably seemed a new, alien breed back in '76. But if you live anywhere near Park Slope, Brooklyn circa 2011 you might recognize them as virtually the norm; those shopping or volunteering at Park Slope Food Co-op, playing the banjo or Frisbee golf in Prospect Park, hectoring the local Korean deli owner in their passive-aggressive way for not carrying fair trade gluten-free vanilla soy breast milk (or some such locally-sourced product). Well, Keith and Candice Marie are the '70s British version of the same but with less money. They quite can't afford to go to backpacking in Goa or Cambodia; so they just go camping in Dorset.

Nuts in May finds Leigh in a looser, more whimsical mood than the previous two efforts. Most of this TV film involves the couple sticking to their daily schedule of hiking, fossil-hunting, foraging the local countryside for non-pasteurized milk from an "accredited herd" or planning their elaborate meals of beans and nuts and berries. Trouble for the couple comes in the form of some lower-class campers who arrive near their site wanting nothing more than to pitch a quick tent, play their radios loud, drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Keith and Candice Marie reluctantly "befriend" them with affably condescending lectures about noise pollution, the gastrointestinal rewards of a meatless diet, a few super-cheesy banjo ditties. Keith and Candice Marie may have smiles on their faces, but you know their middle-class back-to-nature Eden has been compromised. The snakes in their garden aren't snakes, just everyday joes.

While Nuts in May isn't laugh out loud funny, it is quietly amusing and quite effective in a stealthy kind of way, a soft-on-the-surface satire with an acid bitter aftertaste. Roger Sloman provides most of the laughs as the loquacious fountain of useless trivia, Keith. He's an actor you'll recognize if, like me, you're a fan of The Young Ones where he had a number of walk-on parts ("Right Bleeding Bastard," for instance). His militant naturalism, aggressive geniality and quickness to pick up the nearest fallen tree branch in violence is the contradiction-- Leigh seems to be saying --that lies at the not-so-chewy center of many a die-hard granola-head.

HARD LABOUR (1973) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-11T10:43:00.004-05:00

Poor, hard-working Mrs. Thornley. The soundtrack of her life is a chorus of complaints, though none of them her own. If it isn't her moody husband grousing about the rheumatism in his shoulder and demanding beans and toast when he gets home from the night shift, then it's the rich lady she cleans house for whining about her own husband or a chip in her fine china or her room-temperature tea. Mrs. Thornely is stoic though, a working class trooper, going through the motions of her loveless marriage and thankless job fueled by pure inertia. This may be the hey-day of the Stones in London, but the only "satisfaction" in the Thornley household comes courtesy of a sticky balm applied weekly to her hubby's very hairy rheumatoid back. Mrs. Thornley's life is a walking tragedy of the most commonplace variety.

Hard Labour is Mike Leigh's first entry into the BBC's "Play for Today" series. It's a fine, if typically depressing, character study, perhaps more interesting when viewed as an initial glimmer of better films and bigger film careers to come. The moody husband's job as a security guard at a toy factory brings to mind the later Nostradamus-fearing rent-a-cop Brian in Naked. A subplot involving Mrs. Thornley's daughter trying to secure a back alley abortion for a friend hints at the expanded treatment the subject gets later in the powerful Vera Drake. Plus, there's a fine turn by a young Ben Kingsley (with hair!) as an Indian cab driver foreshadowing another, later Oscar-winning performance. Not to mention the first (to my knowledge) appearance of Leigh stalwart Alison Steadman (Life is Sweet, Another Year) in a small role as a prissy daughter-in-law.

If only poor Mrs. Thornley's dreary life held anywhere near so much promise...

BLEAK MOMENTS (1972) - Mike Leigh

2011-03-06T19:44:00.005-05:00

"Bleak" may be too slight an adjective to describe the moments contained herein. Try "torturous." Try "cringe-worthy." Try "excruciating."

In his very first film, Leigh establishes a career m.o. right out of the gate...exploring everyday human misery in drab, unadorned London surroundings with fully-committed actors squirming under the microscope of a dramatic documentarian's merciless gaze. Sounds like a blast, doesn't it? Well, not exactly.

But there is an art to drudgery rendered so precisely, so truthfully. Long before indie hucksters like Todd Solondz were exploiting painful topics like child molestation for shocks and laughs in lengthy, static takes, Mike Leigh was modestly mastering the art of the sustained awkward moment as early as 1972.

There are a number of these moments to choose from in Bleak Moments-- basically, every scene between the beginning and end credits. Some are leavened with hints of humor, but many more are not. The story revolves around a pretty but reserved secretary in London tasked with the full-time care of her mentally-disabled sister. Her only friend is a chatty, shrill co-worker at the accounting office. Her only romantic prospects, a stuffy, asexual school teacher and the nearly non-verbal hippie renting out her basement to mimeograph assorted pseudo-radical leaflets. It's not much surprise when we see her slugging shots of sherry between offerings of tea and biscuits. But even the sherry seems to provide little relief, only a faster fast-track to impending spinsterhood.

Unlike Naked or Happy-Go-Lucky, there are no effusive characters (happy, ranting angrily or otherwise) to distract from the grim societal mechanisms in place. This time, all the characters seem to brood on same psychic level. Poverty, familial obligation, miscommunication, depression, alcoholism, despondency, despair. Bleak Moments has them all in spades. It is Mike Leigh undistilled, straight-no-chaser. Not a "fun" film by any means, but a fitting one for a rainy, dreary Sunday afternoon.

MARCH: MIKE LEIGH, THE EARLY YEARS

2011-03-01T17:28:00.011-05:00

March's theme is as much of a 180 degree turn from February's as you can get. Out of the spotlight director's chair is Italian goremeister Fulci and in is master of "kitchen sink" realist cinema, Britain's own Mike Leigh.

I hopped on board the Mike Leigh misery train (working-class coach, of course) somewhere in the early '90s with the stateside release of Life is Sweet and have seen every Leigh feature since then. His masterpiece Naked is probably in my Top 20 films of all time, and I have a feeling Secrets and Lies would find a snug position somewhere in the Top 100. Even the films I was a little less excited about (Career Girls, All or Nothing, Another Year) all turned out to be very solid pictures in their own right, films that might have felt a little like broccoli going down rather than bangers and mash, but ones that I know were good for me nonetheless. From all I've seen, Leigh has yet to make a bad film. What can I say? The man just keeps me regular.

This month I'm going to be taking a look at his earliest works, starting with his very first film in 1972 then continuing on through his BBC years directing TV movies for "Play for Today" and a little bit beyond. I've seen one or two of his BBC works before (Meantime with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth and another I'm blanking on). Even these apprentice works were solid, so for all the rest I similarly have high hopes. Which, come to think of it, is another Leigh film I've seen and enjoyed (High Hopes, that is).

Almost all of these flicks are available on Netflix Streaming as of this post. So, barring any Wi-Fi glitches, I should also make a sizeable dent in my 120-plus Instant Queue. Feel free to play along at home over a spot of tea and some biscuits. Or maybe just a pint and a stale packet of crisps. Might be more fitting, given the dour subject matter.

MURDER ROCK (1984) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-28T11:55:00.005-05:00

The Academy may not have had much love for Black Swan or director Darren Aronofsky last night, but, judging from Murder Rock (aka Slashdance), I'm pretty certain Fulci would have gone ape-shit over it were he still alive today. Competitive dancing to the point of homicidal hysteria...Fulci was already rockin' that beat back in '84.

Murder Rock finds the old gorehound back on his most comfortable turf -- the giallo. This time, it's a mash-up of Flashdance and Suspiria, complete with leg warmers and sweaty breakdance moves and a mystery killer plunging sharp hatpins into numerous bared breasts. Sure, it may not be as fun as the quacking duck New York Ripper or as artsy as Black Swan, but it gets the job done. I can only have so much bad to say about a movie that begins with a slow pan of the Manhattan skyline then immediately cuts to kids in a dancehall doing "the worm." The Oscars, on the other hand, who needs 'em with their bland winners and blander speeches, King's or queen's or otherwise? They could use a little more blood and maybe even a few stray pop-n-locks in their yearly bored-cast.

From what I understand, Fulci fell sick with hepatitis after finishing this film, and his post-recovery efforts were all pretty lacking up until his death in '96. So, I guess this is as appropriate a place to end Fulci February as any. It's been fun while it lasted, Lucio. You've given my corneas a fine Jane Fonda Workout.

THE NEW GLADIATORS (1984) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-28T10:32:00.006-05:00

Rollerball meets The Running Man on a Troma Films budget. I was hoping for a little more Conquest-style sci-fi/fantasy lunacy from this one. Alas, it was strictly by the book.

Other than some shoebox and Christmas lights city miniatures and an excess of sparkle filter lenses (see pic above), there's not too much going on in the Year 2072 that you can't already see on reality TV in 2011. Like The Psychic, this one is probably for Fulci completists only.

I had planned to end my Fulci run here. But, in an effort to end this short month on a higher note, going to try and cram one more Fulci flick into this last waning day of Feb, given the spare time and a smooth YouTube stream.

THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-24T10:42:00.014-05:00

When a movie begins with a game of fetch by the East River that results in a Golden Retriever returning with a severed fist instead of a stick, you know you are in (excuse the pun) solid directorial hands. Not since DePalma's Body Double have I seen an '80s slasher film so gleefully perverse, so willing to mix sex and violence (often in the same shot) for simultaneous shock and humor and do it so well. This is a sick, twisted movie that knows it is sick and twisted like its eponymous killer who talks like Donald Duck. It peeps and peeps like a Times Square voyeur, then laughs and quacks and gets off on the whole shebang.

The story is nothing new, serial killer schmaltz that by this time in the '80s was already the bread and butter of the horror/exploitation racket. Instead, it's the wacko set pieces, skeezy NYC location shooting and exceptionally seedy city characters that give The New York Ripper its nostalgic NYC grindhouse gleam. When's the last time you've heard of someone killed by razor blade in a parked car on the actual Staten Island Ferry?

Or the last time subway interiors all looked like this?

Or the last time Times Square marquees actually looked like this?

Or the last time its theaters featured shows like this instead of a singing Lion King or dancing Toxic Avenger or an injured Spider-Man?

OK, I'm pretty sure '80s Times Square never had live peeps shows that looked quite like that, with stages quite so plush or performers so attractive. Except maybe in director Fulci's airbrushed, over-sexed imagination.

And that's just it-- no character, exterior or interior is immune to Fulci's dirty-old-man lens in this film. Even the hero cop who pursues the woman-hating Ripper beds down nightly with prostitutes and doesn't think twice about the disconnect. It's been a long time since horror films have been this cavalier with their "likeable" leads or their "innocent" victims, even given the current torture porn vogue (the Saws, the Hostels, etc) that is horror cinema's new bread and butter. I guess you can thank the City of New York for bringing out the best and worst in Lucio Fulci. He even managed to turn this shock-weary viewer's stomach with possibly the most repulsive game of footsie ever committed to celluloid, one that's no laughing matter like the game of fetch that begins the film.

Yes, that is a dirty man's foot invading a woman's underpants beneath a barroom table. And, yes, the man likely has athlete's foot, corns, bunions and a host of other podiatry-related ailments. Whether it's severed hands or playful feet, Fulci has got all the major extremities covered in The New York Ripper. The man was both an exploitation genius and one very sick puppy.

CONTRABAND (1980) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-22T10:41:00.008-05:00

Somewhere in the midst of his win streak with Zombie and "The Gates of Hell" trilogy, Fulci took a crack at the gangster genre with fair to middlin' results.

As one can probably guess from the title, Contraband concerns itself with the smuggling side of mob operations in Naples, primarily cigarette smuggling, oddly enough, but later in the film the prerequisite heroin and cocaine loads one would expect from any Godfather / French Connection rip-off. The story is one you've seen a million times: in-fighting and tit-for-tat retribution killings among rival gangs. Only this time it's bloodier with a little more brain matter involved considering Fulci is at the helm. Amidst all the mob hits, he even manages to squeeze in a very nasty fourth-degree facial cauterization by Bunsen burner during a drug exchange. Stretching the genre? Hmm, not really. But give the man points for keeping zombies and witchcraft entirely out of the picture this time.

Overall, Contraband is run of the mill mafia stuff, and Fabio Testi in the lead role is as bland as ever. However, there is nice sequence where all the old retired capos get together to "clean up the mess" the new young Turks have made of their city. It's kind of like The Wild Bunch in miniature among the cobbled back streets of Naples. Guess which old capo makes his cameo firing the most clips of all?

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980), THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981), THE BEYOND (1981) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-21T10:54:00.016-05:00

This past weekend found me on a three-movie Fulci tear and smack dab in what is arguably his most fertile period, the early '80s. Flush from the success of his fun Romero cash-in Zombie (or Zombi 2, depending on who you talk to), Fulci briefly abandoned the giallo genre and delved whole hog into horror, upping the ante on the gore and lowering the stakes on plot to the point at which it becomes irrelevant. Not that plot was ever was ever the man's strong suit. But dropping those serpentine murder mystery tales in favor of sheer witchcraft-inspired hokum seems to have been a boon to Fulci's craft as well as a mainline into the fat vein of the man's viscera-drenched subconscious.

Basically, the plots of all three movies -- City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery and The Beyond -- can be summed up as thus: The Gates of Hell open up in a small town and/or large house and f*cked-up sh*t starts to happen. Sure, there are minor mysteries afoot to be fretted over by various interchangeable journalists, psychics, house renovators or vacationing families, but for the most part it can all be vaguely explained away as the conjurings of the Devil. I guess this is why these three films have been unofficially termed Fulci's "Gates of Hell trilogy." The moniker cuts right to the chase.

There are also zombies in some form or other in each, probably because Fulci realized from Zombie that zombies are money in the bank. But these are not your father's (i.e., Romero's) garden variety zombie. They're not always out to chomp on brains, sometimes just happy to rip the backs of people's heads off or practice telekinesis or teleportation or (somehow, not quite sure) make people's eyes bleed. Better than this, one look from a zombie will sometimes cause you to slowly vomit out all of your intestines (see pic above) or, as Wikipedia contends, those of a very unfortunate sheep. Other City highlights include a rainstorm of maggots, a guy's jawline getting custom realigned by a drill in a vice, not to mention a buried alive scenario where the rescuer almost kills the rescuee accidentally by chopping through a coffin with an axe and coming within millimeters of her eye (a favorite Fulci motif repeated later in Cemetery with a child's eye and a stubborn cellar door).

As mentioned at the beginning of the month, eyes and trauma to eyes are numero uno in the Fulci playbook. So it only figures that a hot blind lady with green marbles for eyes figures prominently into his most famous work, The Beyond. I saw The Beyond years ago and at the time didn't really get what all the fuss was about. But watching it again this weekend after a fistful of other Fulcis under my belt I started see the gruesome light. Of the films I've seen, The Beyond is the most "lyrical" of Fulci's gorefests, a stream of consciousness surrealist oddity much like Un Chien Andalou if Un Chien Andalou were wholly concerned with its famous razor blade to the eye sequence. Yes, there is a lot of face melting, New Orleans voodoo foofaraw and a great, pulsing Fabio Frizzi soundtrack. But there is one cut alone that, for me, raised The Beyond from pure exploitation to something close to "art." It starts with -- surprise -- a man getting his eye plucked out by a demon in a dark cellar but then cuts to a very bright daylight shot through a car windshield moving down a very long, very flat Louisiana bayou bridge. It holds on this destabilizing change of scenery until the car arrives to a disturbance in the road and the film's very best shot. It's not everyday you find a blind supermodel and her seeing eye dog hitchhiking on a bridge.

Rewatching The Beyond made me reconsider previous judgments, but the last film in the "trilogy" was probably my favorite of the three. The House by the Cemetery is basically Fulci's riff on The Shining without Kubrick's great actors and or his perfect camera placement. It does however feature one of the best bat attacks/gougings in history and, most importantly, the blonde-haired moppet below who gives The Shining's "redrum" rasping Danny a run for his money in the creepy child department.

Sure, a lot of the kid's creepiness had to do with the terrible dubbing that gave the poor towheaded lad the voice of a fifteen-year-old girl, so he can't be blamed entirely. But I must admit there was a small part of me hoping that the father's rescuing axe splitting the wooden cellar door would fall a millimeter or two closer at the last second and take the creepy little tyke out. If not to slake the thirst of my own Fulci-inspired bloodlust, then at least so I could claim his stuffed Curious George doll all for myself.

THE PSYCHIC (1977) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-14T12:15:00.003-05:00

Rich lady has the ability from a childhood trauma to see into the future. Strange visions lead her to sledgehammer a hole in the wall of the Italian palazzo she is renovating, find a skeleton. Is this the remains of a former lover that her husband killed years ago? And, if so, is she next?

Pretty tame supernatural thriller with surprisingly little gore, even less suspense. For Fulci completists only.

FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE (1975) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-11T17:15:00.007-05:00

Westerns, I think it's safe to say, are not Fulci's strong suit. Unlike his fellow countryman, spaghetti maestro Sergio Leone, Lucio seems a bit out of his element in the American West (i.e., the Spanish or Italian countryside) as well as in Four of the Apocalypse. He seems unsure where to find a labyrinthine murder mystery plot amid the scattered prairie brush, unsure where to place his split diopter shots amidst the wide open spaces, unsure exactly where the signature gore will come from.

In fact, until the arrival of the sadistic "Chaco" (Tomas Milian, in headband above), this movie is oddly sweet-natured for a Fulci flick, content to roam the desert with very little plot and four mismatched travelers -- a prostitute, a drunk, a black guy who sees dead people and, er, Fabio Testi. They're all on the way to a town named Sin City or Sand City (hard to tell from the dubbing). But, either way, judging from the washed out color photography and on-the-nose soft rock theme songs that accompany them, I'm guessing it's not the one in the Robert Rodriguez flick.

But I digress...back to Chaco. He's only in this flick for about 20 minutes or so, but in those 20 minutes he makes sure to leave an impression. Whether he's carving out pieces of a captured man's stomach, tying up the foursome and force-feeding them peyote buttons or casually raping the hallucinating and very pregnant prostitute while the helpless Testi watches on, Chaco is the type of guy you might want to forget to invite to your bar mitzvah. On the other hand, he may serve as Four of the Apocalypse's sole reminder...ah yes, I am indeed watching a Lucio Fulci film.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-09T17:20:00.012-05:00

Another night, another questionably named Lucio Fulci giallo. Unlike Lizard, Duckling parks its multi-character mystery plot in a small Southern Italian village where the local children have been getting kidnapped one by one and turning up dead in local ponds. This setting provides a number of local color suspects for Fulci to make his narrative head-fakes towards, setting them up as The Killer Most Likely for all of ten minutes until moving onto the next. This includes everyone from the stuttering town idiot to the voodoo doll pricking town Wiccan (above) to the very foxy rich girl (below) on vacation to escape city drug charges and turn town boys' heads with offers of pre-pubescent sex.

In other words, think the board game Clue, but instead of Parker Brothers it's the Pennino Brothers, and instead of Professor Plum in the Conservatory with the Candlestick it might be the Redhead in the Bean Bag Chair with the Wave Machine and little else. And did I mention the town priest?

Apart from all this Agatha Christie in Apulia tomfoolery, Fulci is mostly up to his old tricks from the previous two films -- the split diopter shots, the many scenes of laughable police investigation and/or exposition, the caked-on gore out of nowhere wherever he can squeeze it in. For me, the true standout scene in Duckling involved the latter, more because of Fulci's use of Italian pop music than Red Dye Number 5. A group of toughs from town has assembled in the graveyard to beat and torture the suspected town witch. One of them has left his car radio on, the sounds of a syrupy Italian crooner singing love songs overtop their gruesome lashings. What we get is one of the earliest examples of ironic needle drops I've seen, one with a direct lineage to the "Stuck in The Middle With You" ear slice in Reservoir Dogs, the "Jesse's Girl" fireworks and crack cocaine meltdown in Boogie Nights or just about every other scene in Goodfellas. It's a doozy of a sequence and an easy one to point to when asked why so many film geeks crowd beneath the crooked altar of Fulci. The man simply got there first.

Oh, and in case you were worried the animal cruelty thing again...don't. No ducklings were actually tortured in the making of this film. Just a child's stuffed animal, a Donald Duck with the head cut off. Hey, it's Disney. No harm, no fowl.

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (1971) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-05T17:58:00.008-05:00

Be forewarned: You will see no actual lizard in a woman's skin in Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. That is, unless you are as fried on brown acid as the two Italian hippies pictured above. They're the only ones who can see said lizard, instead of the real live murder they should actually be witnessing, one which the viewer has actually already seen recounted in a dream by the person who may be the murderer and, depending on your drug of choice, also...er...the lizard.

Confused? Actually, Lizard, arguably Fulci's first true giallo, isn't all that mind-bending when you get right down to it. But Fulci and Co. work hard to complicate their scant dream-analysis-as-murder-alibi plotline by dressing it up in some then-fashionable psychedelia, chem lab pharmacology, Freud 101 musings and full-blast wind machine glamour photography. I probably would have been the target audience for all of this stuff my freshman year of college, but last night 'round about midnight I just wasn't taking the bait.

Supposedly, there is an infamous scene in this film where the lead protagonista is possibly being chased by a knife-wielding killer (she may be hallucinating it, maybe not) and stumbles into a room full up pinned-up and eviscerated dogs. Apparently, the gutted dogs looked so realistic that Fulci was dragged into court to defend himself on the grounds of "very good special special effects." According to another site online, that scene looks something like this...

Now, either the version of Lizard I watched last night simply didn't contain this scene or the scene went right by me and just didn't register. Which would be strange considering I'm a dog-lover. Either that, or someone dosed my Two Buck Chuck with a tab of very weak LSD and I've forgotten the whole damn thing.

A fine later scene I didn't hallucinate, though: The same protagonista being attacked about the face and hair ala The Birds by a vicious swarm of bats. All of which leads me to conclude the more genuine title for Lizard in A Woman's Skin might have been No Lizards, No Dead Dogs But A Woman With Bats for a Hat.

PERVERSION STORY a.k.a. ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER (1969) - Lucio Fulci

2011-02-04T13:06:00.016-05:00

Don't let the above picture or its dual title or even the year of release fool you...Fulci's Perversion Story is more than just a teasing Age of Aquarius quickie. Though there is plenty of bared flesh to be had in this Italiano-Hollywood nudie-noir hybrid, it's all in the service of a surprisingly effective and pretty twisted whodunnit plot.

Like fellow sex-obsessed guido director Brian DePalma, Fulci robs and remixes from the very best. Namely, Alfred Hitchcock. His recipe is thus: Take Vertigo's primary conceit -- becoming obsessed with a woman who's the spitting image of your dead lover -- keep the scenic San Francisco locations, turn virginal Kim Novak into an opportunistic stripper, toss boyscout Jimmy Stewart out and replace him with a protagonist who looks like a sleazier Alain Delon, then complicate matters further with a insurance scam/infidelity plot as intricate and tumescent as that of the latter-day Body Heat.

If that's not enough, add some eye-popping Day-Glo visuals, a jazzy instrumental score and enough split-diopter frames to make any first year film student giddy with glee.

Despite a somewhat clunky ending narrated by news reporter, Perversion Story delivers all the charge you might get out of reading a good, thin Black Lizard vintage crime novel while peeping over the top of the page every now and then to take in some Radley Metzger softcore porn. For lovers of noir and tastefully nude ladies alike, a movie like this is pure catnip. And for the first Fulci of the month, it's a fine start. Ciao bella, Lucio! Ciao bella!

FEBRUARY FULCI

2011-02-01T14:14:00.007-05:00

February might be a good time to finally make that optometrist appointment because there's sure to be a lot of ocular trauma coming my way with gore-meister Lucio Fulci in the spotlight director's seat.

I know Fulci is a grindhouse/gorehound/film geek favorite, but up till now I've only seen a few of his flicks. The film that many consider his splatter masterpiece, The Beyond, didn't really wow me when I saw it about five years back. However, after catching the insane Conan rip-off Conquest during Swords and Sandals and Sh%t Month last year and then remembering that Fulci was responsible for the scene I saw a year earlier wherein a zombie fights a shark, I figured it might be time to go back and do my director homework.

Judging from the titles of the films I've got lined up, I'm guessing it shouldn't feel too much like algebra -- Perversion Story, Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture A Duckling, etc. etc. Though Fulci remained consistent in his love of extreme gore throughout his career, he hopscotched around the genre map from erotic thrillers to giallos (or gialli?), westerns to zombie epics, good old fashioned horror to action policiers and apocalyptic sci-fi.

Appropriately, I've got a little bit of everything from Fulci for February. Rest assured, the year's shortest month is sure to be an eyeful.

THE LONGEST YARD (1974) - Robert Aldrich

2011-01-31T11:41:00.004-05:00

Since the Super Bowl is but one Sunday away and January Jailbirds is coming to an end, I figured there was no better way to run down the clock than with a prison-football movie I hadn't seen, the original The Longest Yard.

Yes, it's the same old underdog sports story done up in prison blues, but Longest Yard still made for enjoyable Sunday viewing. You have to admire the fact that the Big Game the film leads up to is in no way used as cover for an elaborate cell-block escape. It's just a football game and, more than that, a reason for the cons to hit the guards HARD (and often in the gonads), nothing more, nothing less. Ah, the '70s...gotta love their refreshingly low-key ambitions. There is a minor attempt at character redemption for Burt Reynold's ex-pro football point-shaving QB, but, really, that's perfunctory and almost negligible.

What's NOT negligible and most enjoyable about the original Longest Yard? 1.) Teen Wolf's Dad (James Hampton) is in it! 2.) Jaws (Richard Kiel) from Moonraker is in it! 3.) You learn how to kill a fellow convict with a light bulb 4.) Bernadette Peters' bulbous beehive, prompting Reynold's best line in the movie...

"You ever find any dead spiders in that thing?"

CAGED HEAT (1974) - Jonathan Demme

2011-01-28T12:37:00.009-05:00

Everything you could want or expect from a WiP movie. Mandatory strip searches, prison shower cat-fights, the sadistic female warden with repressed lesbian tendencies and a yen for censoring jailhouse theatrical productions. On the other hand, only one or two things you might expect from a Jonathan Demme production -- head-on camera angles and eclectic musical choices (John Cale? Just for this Roger Corman quickie? Really?). Other than that, this could easily be Russ Meyer.

All in all, an enjoyable apprentice effort from The Silence of the Lambs director and a fine enough excuse to spend 78 minutes holed up with '70s babes Erica Gavin, Barbara Steele and Rainbeaux Smith. Lock me up in Solitary with these ladies anytime. I've been naughty.