It took me way too long to get to my first movies on 2017. Working too much and moving into a new place will do that to you. But at least I started with a pair of great films.
Peter Bogdanovich was there in person to say a few words before the first film and chat with Jesse Ficks between films. And he's hilarious, just like these movies. Oh yeah, this was part of SF Sketchfest, so it had to be comedies.
WHAT'S UP DOC? (1972): Bogdanovich said this was the only movie he ever made on a dare. When Barbara Streisand said she wanted to work with him after seeing THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, he was asked what he would do if he could make a movie with Streisand. He said, "a screwball comedy with a crazy girl and a stuffy professor." And so it came to be, and he didn't ruin San Francisco too much in the making of it. Ryan O'Neal plays a professor of musicology who has a theory that resonant igneous rocks were pre-historic man's first music. His domineering fiancé is played by Madeline Kahn (in her film debut! She didn't even know she was funny until she heard people laughing at her.) And Streisand plays...well, part Bugs Bunny and part a force of nature. She's been to school everywhere, and graduated nowhere. And now she's in San Francisco, scamming her way around, and making Ryan O'Neal's life miserable...while seducing him. Throw in 4 identical plaid overnight bags--holding everything from igneous rocks to precious jewels to the Pentagon Papers and wacky hijinx ensue. Oh boy, do they ever ensue. It's been a long time since I laughed that hard.
Then after a wonderful Q&A the laughs kept coming with...
NOISES OFF... (1992): Michael Caine narrates and stars as a director of a traveling theater troupe, making their Broadway debut after a disastrous tour. We then flashback to the dress (or is it tech?) rehearsal of their first performance. And the cast of Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve (underappreciated as a comic actor,) Denholm Elliott, Marilu Henner, Nicolette Sheridan, .... (I'm forgetting people, but the point is an amazing cast) stumble over their lines and each other with mere hours before opening night. But somehow it's a hit, pickled herrings and all. Flash forwards a few months in the tour to a disastrous matinee in Miami. There have been various hookups and breakups in the cast, and while backstage is now zanier and more calamitous than the screwball play itself. But the hijinx bleed over from backstage to front, and the show is a disaster. But they survive, even make it to Cleveland. And eventually Broadway. Where they will either finally crash and burn or have a rousing success. Michael Caine is too afraid to watch. Hilarious.
Total Running Time: 195 minutes
My Total Minutes: 440,038
Showing posts with label midnites for maniacs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label midnites for maniacs. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2017
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs and celebrate's Jesse's Birthday with Dean Cameron
Happy 40th Birthday to my favorite Maniac, Jesse Hawthorne Ficks! And what a better way to celebrate than to program a triple-bill of Teen and Alienated flicks at the brand new Alamo Drafthouse New Mission San Francisco. And better yet, have the star of all three films--Dean Cameron--there to talk about them, sign autographs, and hang out with the fans.
SUMMER SCHOOL (1987): First up was this comedy about teen dunces...only not really, they're actually kind of smart. Nominally starring Mark Harmon as Shoop, the PE teacher who gets roped into teacher remedial English over the summer, and Kirstie Alley as the advanced placement teacher whose kids actually want to spend more time in school (we mercifully never hear from them.) But the kids are the stars, and of course Dean Cameron as "Chainsaw" (as in "Texas...Massacre") with his equally movie obsessed buddy Dave (Gary Riley.) They don't want to be there, and neither does he. So they come to an agreement to just waste the summer away on "field trips." But that doesn't last long, when the vice-principal gives him an ultimatum--they pass their test or he's fired. So Shoop and the kids set up a little quid pro quo, they'll study if he'll help them out in various ways. Anything from teaching them to drive to playing TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in class (interesting trivia, originally they were supposed to be obsessed with Tod Browning's FREAKS, but the studio nixed that as too obscure.) Director and comedy genius Carl Reiner crafts a film that's not just very funny, but also has a heart about caring about the kids as people, not just as test scores. A message that's surprisingly politically relevant still today (perhaps more so today.) In fact, there's a lot about it that's still surprisingly relevant. In the aftermath of #OscarsSoWhite, it's interesting to see a movie from 1987 make a long joke about how the black kid is invisible (and secretly smarter than all of them.)
SKI SCHOOL (1990): And then this not-quite-a-sequel features Dean Cameron as Dave Marshak, an instructor at a ski school. I like to think Chainsaw took up skiing, then used it as a way to make a living while still partying all the time. He runs "Section Eight" the freakiest, loosest team on the mountain. First Section is run by uptight rich kids, and yes, as Jesse promised in the introduction, there's a fucking Holocaust metaphor there. Oh, you might want to dismiss this movie as mindless, but in order to be the best, you must lose your mind. And this movie loses its mind pretty brilliantly. There's a lot of partying (and a lot of naked ladies) and a lot of skiing, which is shot pretty well. And after all, skiing is partying, partying is skiing. And goddamn this movie is quotable.
ROCKULA (1990) And finally, we ended the night on this bizarre piece of pure silliness, from the waning days of Cannon Films. Dean Cameron is Ralph, a 400-year old teenage vampire. In his youth--well, in the early years of his youth--his true love was killed by a pirate with a rhinestone peg-leg and a hambone. He did nothing to stop it, and for his cowardice he is cursed to watch her be reborn, grow to 22 years of age, and be murdered again the same way every time (pirate, rhinestone peg leg, and a hambone--this last time played by Thomas Dolby.) His reflection in the mirror talks him into actually manning up and saving her this time, and to do that he has to--for some reason--become a rock star. Toni Basil co-stars as his mother, and Bo Diddley is his freakin' Axman. That was all way too much fun.
Total Running Time: 279 minutes
My Total Minutes: 420,577
SUMMER SCHOOL (1987): First up was this comedy about teen dunces...only not really, they're actually kind of smart. Nominally starring Mark Harmon as Shoop, the PE teacher who gets roped into teacher remedial English over the summer, and Kirstie Alley as the advanced placement teacher whose kids actually want to spend more time in school (we mercifully never hear from them.) But the kids are the stars, and of course Dean Cameron as "Chainsaw" (as in "Texas...Massacre") with his equally movie obsessed buddy Dave (Gary Riley.) They don't want to be there, and neither does he. So they come to an agreement to just waste the summer away on "field trips." But that doesn't last long, when the vice-principal gives him an ultimatum--they pass their test or he's fired. So Shoop and the kids set up a little quid pro quo, they'll study if he'll help them out in various ways. Anything from teaching them to drive to playing TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in class (interesting trivia, originally they were supposed to be obsessed with Tod Browning's FREAKS, but the studio nixed that as too obscure.) Director and comedy genius Carl Reiner crafts a film that's not just very funny, but also has a heart about caring about the kids as people, not just as test scores. A message that's surprisingly politically relevant still today (perhaps more so today.) In fact, there's a lot about it that's still surprisingly relevant. In the aftermath of #OscarsSoWhite, it's interesting to see a movie from 1987 make a long joke about how the black kid is invisible (and secretly smarter than all of them.)
SKI SCHOOL (1990): And then this not-quite-a-sequel features Dean Cameron as Dave Marshak, an instructor at a ski school. I like to think Chainsaw took up skiing, then used it as a way to make a living while still partying all the time. He runs "Section Eight" the freakiest, loosest team on the mountain. First Section is run by uptight rich kids, and yes, as Jesse promised in the introduction, there's a fucking Holocaust metaphor there. Oh, you might want to dismiss this movie as mindless, but in order to be the best, you must lose your mind. And this movie loses its mind pretty brilliantly. There's a lot of partying (and a lot of naked ladies) and a lot of skiing, which is shot pretty well. And after all, skiing is partying, partying is skiing. And goddamn this movie is quotable.
ROCKULA (1990) And finally, we ended the night on this bizarre piece of pure silliness, from the waning days of Cannon Films. Dean Cameron is Ralph, a 400-year old teenage vampire. In his youth--well, in the early years of his youth--his true love was killed by a pirate with a rhinestone peg-leg and a hambone. He did nothing to stop it, and for his cowardice he is cursed to watch her be reborn, grow to 22 years of age, and be murdered again the same way every time (pirate, rhinestone peg leg, and a hambone--this last time played by Thomas Dolby.) His reflection in the mirror talks him into actually manning up and saving her this time, and to do that he has to--for some reason--become a rock star. Toni Basil co-stars as his mother, and Bo Diddley is his freakin' Axman. That was all way too much fun.
Total Running Time: 279 minutes
My Total Minutes: 420,577
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a "Family Matters" double bill
And no, I don't mean that Urkel TV show. Movies about family.
MRS DOUBTFIRE (1993): I wasn't all that excited to see this. Not that it's a bad movie, it's just that I've seen it so many times. But it was the first time I saw it in San Francisco, and it's a very San Francisco movie, in many ways. It's also the first time I saw it with Jess Ficks introducing it, and he has a knack for making me see movies in a different light. Like this time, I didn't watch it as a screwball comedy (I knew all the jokes by heart anyway) but watched it as a very real, heartfelt, heartwarming, and heartbreaking family drama. As much as it's about a guy pretending to be an old woman, it's about a man distraught over losing his marriage and his kids. You can see something of the pain of life that Robin Williams knew far too well. And it's weird to think of how he was only loved when he was pretending to be someone else. I've read this Cracked article many times since Williams' suicide, and I wouldn't pretend to know what was going on in his head and in his life when he killed himself, but reading that article...makes a lot of sense to me. I can't write any more about this.
THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999): And then David Lynch's most overlooked film. In a career known for strangeness and violence, perhaps his strangest film is this G-rated movie released by Disney and based on a true story. Also, strangely, it stars a man who killed himself (shortly after the movie was made.) Richard Farnsworth is brilliant as Alvin Straight. He's an old man, stubborn, self-reliant, living with his special-needs daughter (Sissy Spacek, who is also great.) When he hears that his brother had a stroke, he sets out to visit him. One problem--he has no car...in fact no driver's license because his eyes are so bad. So he puts his stubbornness to use and comes up with a plan--he'll drive there (some 250 miles) on his riding mower. Of course, he has some trouble on the way, but he also meets some nice people. And ruminates on aging, on life, on old wounds, stubbornness, and brothers who haven't spoken in years. And that ending...when I first saw it I didn't think much of it. After his long journey, he and his brother (Harry Dean Stanton) just lie outside and look at the stars, like they did when they were kids. But this time I noticed something strange about the stars. They were moving slowly towards and past the camera. Like this wasn't just a view of people watching the stars from Earth. They...or their souls...ascended out into the stars, and through them. Maybe far through them. Perhaps even to a galaxy far, far, away....
Which brings me to the next movie I saw...
Total Running Time: 237 minutes
My Total Minutes: 412,983
MRS DOUBTFIRE (1993): I wasn't all that excited to see this. Not that it's a bad movie, it's just that I've seen it so many times. But it was the first time I saw it in San Francisco, and it's a very San Francisco movie, in many ways. It's also the first time I saw it with Jess Ficks introducing it, and he has a knack for making me see movies in a different light. Like this time, I didn't watch it as a screwball comedy (I knew all the jokes by heart anyway) but watched it as a very real, heartfelt, heartwarming, and heartbreaking family drama. As much as it's about a guy pretending to be an old woman, it's about a man distraught over losing his marriage and his kids. You can see something of the pain of life that Robin Williams knew far too well. And it's weird to think of how he was only loved when he was pretending to be someone else. I've read this Cracked article many times since Williams' suicide, and I wouldn't pretend to know what was going on in his head and in his life when he killed himself, but reading that article...makes a lot of sense to me. I can't write any more about this.
THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999): And then David Lynch's most overlooked film. In a career known for strangeness and violence, perhaps his strangest film is this G-rated movie released by Disney and based on a true story. Also, strangely, it stars a man who killed himself (shortly after the movie was made.) Richard Farnsworth is brilliant as Alvin Straight. He's an old man, stubborn, self-reliant, living with his special-needs daughter (Sissy Spacek, who is also great.) When he hears that his brother had a stroke, he sets out to visit him. One problem--he has no car...in fact no driver's license because his eyes are so bad. So he puts his stubbornness to use and comes up with a plan--he'll drive there (some 250 miles) on his riding mower. Of course, he has some trouble on the way, but he also meets some nice people. And ruminates on aging, on life, on old wounds, stubbornness, and brothers who haven't spoken in years. And that ending...when I first saw it I didn't think much of it. After his long journey, he and his brother (Harry Dean Stanton) just lie outside and look at the stars, like they did when they were kids. But this time I noticed something strange about the stars. They were moving slowly towards and past the camera. Like this wasn't just a view of people watching the stars from Earth. They...or their souls...ascended out into the stars, and through them. Maybe far through them. Perhaps even to a galaxy far, far, away....
Which brings me to the next movie I saw...
Total Running Time: 237 minutes
My Total Minutes: 412,983
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a tribute to Arnold and Sly
Call it COM-RAMBO night. And call me a sucker for some mid-80s tough guy action flicks. Or call it time to reexamine these films, and find something new in them.
COMMANDO (1985): Okay, first up is Arnold, at the top of his muscle-bound, wise-cracking, ass-kicking game. Although it starts with a common theme of the night--soldiers who don't really want to fight anymore. But that all goes out the window when he is blackmailed into doing the bad guy's dirty work or risk his daughter's life (Alyssa Milano, in nearly her first role ever.) Of course he fights back, in an escalating series of incredible action pieces, obligatory detective work, and snappy one-liners. This isn't his most famous film, but this might be Arnold at his most Arnold-iness, and it's some damn good fun.
Between the movies, our host Jesse Ficks expounded on his theory of Arnold and Stallone being the Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin of action flicks. And darn it, the theory actually works. Arnold is Keaton--if not the Great Stone Face, at least the cool, clever calm in the center of the storm. Stallone, on the other hand, is the Tramp, the emotive character who is often down on his luck and wears his heart on his sleeve. Which brings us to...
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985): It's accepted wisdom that FIRST BLOOD (1982) is a good dramatic movie that devolved into mindless violence with its sequel. And it's time to revisit that, with first acknowledging one simple fact--Rambo doesn't want to fight. In fact, that's largely an over-arching theme to Stallone's career (spoiler alert for my upcoming CREED review)--that life is a brutal struggle that's not necessarily of your own making, but there's dignity and honor in that struggle. Rambo is now plucked from prison for a simple reconnaissance mission, and double-crossed and left for dead. But of course, he doesn't die. In fact, he finally wins the Vietnam War and beats the Russians (don't think too hard about what the Russians were doing in Vietnam, it was the 80s, Russians were everywhere.) At least, that's the Cold-War-Fantasy interpretation of the movies, that it's post-Vietnam military wish fulfillment. And that interpretation simply overlooks glaring plot points like how the U.S. military brass are the bad guys in the film and Rambo only fights to rescue abandoned POWs. For an alleged pro-USA military fantasy, this is a pretty anti-American plot. At least, anti-American leadership. It might be time to reexamine the entire Rambo series as much more complicated and nuanced than I remember them.
Total Running Time: 186 minutes
My Total Minutes: 411,756
COMMANDO (1985): Okay, first up is Arnold, at the top of his muscle-bound, wise-cracking, ass-kicking game. Although it starts with a common theme of the night--soldiers who don't really want to fight anymore. But that all goes out the window when he is blackmailed into doing the bad guy's dirty work or risk his daughter's life (Alyssa Milano, in nearly her first role ever.) Of course he fights back, in an escalating series of incredible action pieces, obligatory detective work, and snappy one-liners. This isn't his most famous film, but this might be Arnold at his most Arnold-iness, and it's some damn good fun.
Between the movies, our host Jesse Ficks expounded on his theory of Arnold and Stallone being the Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin of action flicks. And darn it, the theory actually works. Arnold is Keaton--if not the Great Stone Face, at least the cool, clever calm in the center of the storm. Stallone, on the other hand, is the Tramp, the emotive character who is often down on his luck and wears his heart on his sleeve. Which brings us to...
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985): It's accepted wisdom that FIRST BLOOD (1982) is a good dramatic movie that devolved into mindless violence with its sequel. And it's time to revisit that, with first acknowledging one simple fact--Rambo doesn't want to fight. In fact, that's largely an over-arching theme to Stallone's career (spoiler alert for my upcoming CREED review)--that life is a brutal struggle that's not necessarily of your own making, but there's dignity and honor in that struggle. Rambo is now plucked from prison for a simple reconnaissance mission, and double-crossed and left for dead. But of course, he doesn't die. In fact, he finally wins the Vietnam War and beats the Russians (don't think too hard about what the Russians were doing in Vietnam, it was the 80s, Russians were everywhere.) At least, that's the Cold-War-Fantasy interpretation of the movies, that it's post-Vietnam military wish fulfillment. And that interpretation simply overlooks glaring plot points like how the U.S. military brass are the bad guys in the film and Rambo only fights to rescue abandoned POWs. For an alleged pro-USA military fantasy, this is a pretty anti-American plot. At least, anti-American leadership. It might be time to reexamine the entire Rambo series as much more complicated and nuanced than I remember them.
Total Running Time: 186 minutes
My Total Minutes: 411,756
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a tribute to Wes Craven
RIP Wes :(
What a great Halloween's Eve lineup for Midnites for Maniacs. And an exploration of horror meta-films.
Of course we start with some horror trailers from the 80s before the first film, including HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and FRIDAY THE 13TH...forming the hidden message of Happy Birthday, Jason?! And by the end of the night it was! I have no idea if Jesse Hawthorne Ficks even knew my birthday is Halloween, but I like to think either he did it on purpose or whatever dark forces were guiding him were sending me Birthday wishes. Either way, on to the films.
SCREAM (1996): This is the movie that catapulted meta-horror movies into the mainstream, and can rightly be considered a classic now, although I remember when it divided audiences back when it was first released. The idea of a movie playing with the clichés of horror films just wasn't an idea everyone was on board with. But it gives everyone a chance to feel smart for a moment when they get a reference. And then realize how little they don't know when they realize how many references the film made that went right by them. And then to give everyone all the rules they needed to supposedly figure out who the killer is...and then still surprise them. That's fantastic, masterful horror filmmaking. And makes me want to see a Wes Carpenter film.
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994): And then this one is even more overlooked than SCREAM but you can see some of his ideas about meta-horror bursting out in this one. We don't start with Freddy and his prime target from the first film, Nancy. We start with Heather Langenkamp, the actress who played Nancy, and who now has an adorable but troubled little boy. And we start with Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy. And we start with Wes Craven writing again, because he's having nightmares again. And it's an exploration of why we tell scary stories in the first place. Wes Craven's monologue about how evil exists, and it can be trapped by storyteller's should be taught in film school (or at least studied by anyone interested in making horror films.) It's brilliant...and more importantly, true. The world is an evil place--at least sometimes. And scary stories are the way we practice being scared for when reality is actually scary. Jesse told an amazing and moving story about that when introducing the film--about his best friend and trick-or-treating buddy who fought off bullies for him, and then tragically passed away at 19. It also reminds me of something I heard Neil Gaiman say once about why his stories ostensibly for children (specifically Coraline) were so scary. He told of how scary stories are our way of practicing for when life is scary (yea, I borrowed that line from him) and about how when he is doing book signings he'll often see young women, very shy, gripping a well-worn copy of Coraline and--if they can bring themselves to speak--they'll tell him stories of the most awful, abusive childhoods and how reading Coraline was the one thing that gave them both escape and strength. Stories are powerful. More than that, stories save lives.
Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the story of NEW NIGHTMARE. It was great, that's all you need to know.
And we ended the night with trailers of (nearly) all of Wes Craven's career. Excellent.
Total Running Time: 223 minutes
My Total Minutes: 407,661
What a great Halloween's Eve lineup for Midnites for Maniacs. And an exploration of horror meta-films.
Of course we start with some horror trailers from the 80s before the first film, including HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and FRIDAY THE 13TH...forming the hidden message of Happy Birthday, Jason?! And by the end of the night it was! I have no idea if Jesse Hawthorne Ficks even knew my birthday is Halloween, but I like to think either he did it on purpose or whatever dark forces were guiding him were sending me Birthday wishes. Either way, on to the films.
SCREAM (1996): This is the movie that catapulted meta-horror movies into the mainstream, and can rightly be considered a classic now, although I remember when it divided audiences back when it was first released. The idea of a movie playing with the clichés of horror films just wasn't an idea everyone was on board with. But it gives everyone a chance to feel smart for a moment when they get a reference. And then realize how little they don't know when they realize how many references the film made that went right by them. And then to give everyone all the rules they needed to supposedly figure out who the killer is...and then still surprise them. That's fantastic, masterful horror filmmaking. And makes me want to see a Wes Carpenter film.
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994): And then this one is even more overlooked than SCREAM but you can see some of his ideas about meta-horror bursting out in this one. We don't start with Freddy and his prime target from the first film, Nancy. We start with Heather Langenkamp, the actress who played Nancy, and who now has an adorable but troubled little boy. And we start with Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy. And we start with Wes Craven writing again, because he's having nightmares again. And it's an exploration of why we tell scary stories in the first place. Wes Craven's monologue about how evil exists, and it can be trapped by storyteller's should be taught in film school (or at least studied by anyone interested in making horror films.) It's brilliant...and more importantly, true. The world is an evil place--at least sometimes. And scary stories are the way we practice being scared for when reality is actually scary. Jesse told an amazing and moving story about that when introducing the film--about his best friend and trick-or-treating buddy who fought off bullies for him, and then tragically passed away at 19. It also reminds me of something I heard Neil Gaiman say once about why his stories ostensibly for children (specifically Coraline) were so scary. He told of how scary stories are our way of practicing for when life is scary (yea, I borrowed that line from him) and about how when he is doing book signings he'll often see young women, very shy, gripping a well-worn copy of Coraline and--if they can bring themselves to speak--they'll tell him stories of the most awful, abusive childhoods and how reading Coraline was the one thing that gave them both escape and strength. Stories are powerful. More than that, stories save lives.
Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the story of NEW NIGHTMARE. It was great, that's all you need to know.
And we ended the night with trailers of (nearly) all of Wes Craven's career. Excellent.
Total Running Time: 223 minutes
My Total Minutes: 407,661
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites 4 Maniacs and sees a Genuine Tribute to John Carpenter
THEY LIVE (1988): We started with this classic that really seems more relevant every day. John Carpenter, under the guise of an alien invasion movie, made a brilliant critique on how media controls our minds. This should be rewatched frequently. And that fight scene.... Man, that's brutal, but also surprisingly deep. It's got more going for it than just the fact that he has one of the best wrestling heels of all time as his hero. RIP Rowdy Roddy Piper, with this movie you've made the world a better place.
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976): A brilliant little no-budget B-movie with horror, tension, drama, acting. On the last day of a police station's operation, a rookie cop has to hold off an invasion from a psychotic gang who are after a man who killed one of theirs after they killed his daughter. Complicating things is that a ruthless criminal is locked up there after car trouble caused a deviation from their planned transport route. And that ruthless bastard might be the only guy who can help them survive the assault. Excellent flick.
Total Running Time: 405,867
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976): A brilliant little no-budget B-movie with horror, tension, drama, acting. On the last day of a police station's operation, a rookie cop has to hold off an invasion from a psychotic gang who are after a man who killed one of theirs after they killed his daughter. Complicating things is that a ruthless criminal is locked up there after car trouble caused a deviation from their planned transport route. And that ruthless bastard might be the only guy who can help them survive the assault. Excellent flick.
Total Running Time: 405,867
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Jason goes to Mindites for Maniacs and Drives Nowhere Fast
Woo hoo! Midnites for Maniacs! I was at the Castro last Friday for a double bill...er, triple bill...um, but one was a short film...so a two-and-a-half bill of wild automotive action flicks.
First up was MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981): Before FURY ROAD this was easily my favorite Mad Max movie, and it's still definitely the one I've watched the most. So it was amazing to realize how much I had forgotten. Like the rape scene. Or the opening sequence. But it still has all the energy I remember. And watching it after FURY ROAD you can see how a lot of the ideas that started here became bigger, better, and wilder there. Like the endless chase, of course. Or people crucified on the fronts of cars. Or a strong female warrior who is never treated differently for being female. Or the opening shot with Max driving off in the Interceptor. Or the music box. Or....
You know what, there's a fan theory going around that says Max in FURY ROAD is really the feral kid from ROAD WARRIOR. This explains how Max doesn't seem to age even though it must have taken a lot of time to build up the civilization in FURY ROAD. I don't buy it. What I think makes more sense is that they're the same story. Mad Max is a legend, told by survivors and their descendants long after some sort of peaceful civilization has been rebuilt (this is actually kind of explicit in the narrator framing device.) And like most legends, they grow the more they get told. So the first time the narrator tells this story around a campfire, it goes like ROAD WARRIOR. But he keeps embellishing it every time, and so maybe the tenth time he tells it it sound more like FURY ROAD.
Either that or they're just two stories, and they both kick ass.
THE HITCHER (1986): And then this sick classic. A driver, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is hired to drive a car from Chicago to California. On the monotonous drive he dozes off and almost crashes into a truck. So he picks up a hitchhiker, John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) to keep him company and keep him awake. But Ryder turns out to be a psycho who threatens to kill him (specifically to cut of his legs, and arms, and head.) And when he narrowly escapes, Ryder starts to stalk him, kill others, and frame him for his crimes. Gruesome, tense, and all the more interesting for the apparent lack of motivation for Ryder. The dude's just evil...of some sort. But what struck me was a line early on, where Halsey asks him what he wants and Ryder replies "I want you to stop me." There are theories that Halsey actually crashed into the truck and died in the beginning, and that this is some sort of hallucination before he dies. Or this is hell and Ryder is the devil. Or that Ryder actually is Halsey suffering from split personality. Whatever Ryder is, he's an evil that came out of nowhere for the sole purpose of convincing Halsey to grow a pair and kill him. Which explains why sometimes Ryder seems to be helping Halsey (like busting him out of jail...and killing all the cops there.) If nothing else, it's a very interesting take on the nature of evil.
CHINA LAKE (1983): And then we got this little bonus. The first short by the director of THE HITCHER, Robert Harmon. Charles Napier plays an L.A. cop on vacation in China Lake, a depressed little dump of the town where he can get some peace and quiet and do whatever he wants. Like kill any locals who annoy him...or whom he thinks would just be amusing to kill. You can see the style of THE HITCHER being developed here. Visual storytelling with little dialogue. Mysterious motivations for the villain (anti-hero?) A sick, sadistic sensibility. And some solid violence. You know, good stuff.
Total Running Time: 225 minutes
My Total Minutes: 403,016
First up was MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981): Before FURY ROAD this was easily my favorite Mad Max movie, and it's still definitely the one I've watched the most. So it was amazing to realize how much I had forgotten. Like the rape scene. Or the opening sequence. But it still has all the energy I remember. And watching it after FURY ROAD you can see how a lot of the ideas that started here became bigger, better, and wilder there. Like the endless chase, of course. Or people crucified on the fronts of cars. Or a strong female warrior who is never treated differently for being female. Or the opening shot with Max driving off in the Interceptor. Or the music box. Or....
You know what, there's a fan theory going around that says Max in FURY ROAD is really the feral kid from ROAD WARRIOR. This explains how Max doesn't seem to age even though it must have taken a lot of time to build up the civilization in FURY ROAD. I don't buy it. What I think makes more sense is that they're the same story. Mad Max is a legend, told by survivors and their descendants long after some sort of peaceful civilization has been rebuilt (this is actually kind of explicit in the narrator framing device.) And like most legends, they grow the more they get told. So the first time the narrator tells this story around a campfire, it goes like ROAD WARRIOR. But he keeps embellishing it every time, and so maybe the tenth time he tells it it sound more like FURY ROAD.
Either that or they're just two stories, and they both kick ass.
THE HITCHER (1986): And then this sick classic. A driver, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is hired to drive a car from Chicago to California. On the monotonous drive he dozes off and almost crashes into a truck. So he picks up a hitchhiker, John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) to keep him company and keep him awake. But Ryder turns out to be a psycho who threatens to kill him (specifically to cut of his legs, and arms, and head.) And when he narrowly escapes, Ryder starts to stalk him, kill others, and frame him for his crimes. Gruesome, tense, and all the more interesting for the apparent lack of motivation for Ryder. The dude's just evil...of some sort. But what struck me was a line early on, where Halsey asks him what he wants and Ryder replies "I want you to stop me." There are theories that Halsey actually crashed into the truck and died in the beginning, and that this is some sort of hallucination before he dies. Or this is hell and Ryder is the devil. Or that Ryder actually is Halsey suffering from split personality. Whatever Ryder is, he's an evil that came out of nowhere for the sole purpose of convincing Halsey to grow a pair and kill him. Which explains why sometimes Ryder seems to be helping Halsey (like busting him out of jail...and killing all the cops there.) If nothing else, it's a very interesting take on the nature of evil.
CHINA LAKE (1983): And then we got this little bonus. The first short by the director of THE HITCHER, Robert Harmon. Charles Napier plays an L.A. cop on vacation in China Lake, a depressed little dump of the town where he can get some peace and quiet and do whatever he wants. Like kill any locals who annoy him...or whom he thinks would just be amusing to kill. You can see the style of THE HITCHER being developed here. Visual storytelling with little dialogue. Mysterious motivations for the villain (anti-hero?) A sick, sadistic sensibility. And some solid violence. You know, good stuff.
Total Running Time: 225 minutes
My Total Minutes: 403,016
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Jason goes to a Midnites for Maniacs tribute to Penelope Spheeris
As soon as I was done with SFIFF, the very next night I was back at the Castro for a triple-feature, because I'm a movie masochist!
Penelope Spheeris--along with her daughter--was in the house for a Midnites for Maniacs very special evening. I had first seen her way back in 2002 when her Ozzfest documentary WE SOLD OUR SOULS FOR ROCK 'N ROLL played at Indiefest. That was, believe it or not, my first time at a film festival. So in a way my film-watching career has been connected to Spheeris from the get go. So it was a treat to see her and hear the discussion. Particularly moving when Jesse Ficks credited Spheeris with saving his life through her movies (although we didn't get into personal details of why.) And equally moving when Penelope credited her daughter with saving her life, because she gave up drugs when she found out she was pregnant (after passing out on set and waking up to Richard Pryor saying, "This bitch is pregnant!" She's had an interesting life.)
Anyway, on to the films!
DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (1981): Opening with a montage of performers at the microphone reading her release statement, mocking it, and tearing it up, the audience is immediately thrown into the 1980 L.A. punk scene. With bands like Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X (some of those I heard of before, I swear.) We get the feel of the performances, the danger in the venues, the boozing and hard-living life of everybody involved. Remember back when movies could actually spark riots? Well, I'm not sure if you can blame the film itself or just the fact that screening it in L.A. got so many punks together that fights were bound to break out. But the riot at the L.A. premiere forced the chief of police to swear it would never be played in L.A. again. It recently got a 30th anniversary gala screening there. Stick to your artistic vision, kids.
WAYNE'S WORLD (1992): Still the best SNL movie ever. And the movie that transformed Spheeris from a struggling independent director (with some friends like Lorne Michaels) into a millionaire. And it's still fuckin' hilarious. And I don't think that's just because I was at the right age when it came out and I'm now watching it ironically. It still fucking works. Perhaps some of the meta-humor has aged, but the jokes about movie cliches and the plot about corrupting influences in the entertainment business are still perfectly relevant. Maybe even more so.
DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION PART 2: THE METAL YEARS (1988): Here's a little trivia for you, Penelope Spheeris turned down an opportunity to direct THIS IS SPINAL TAP to make this movie. She's a rock 'n roll gal, and rock music has been an important part of her life forever. So rather than make a movie mocking heavy metal music, she made one celebrating it. And in retrospect...it kinda looks like it's mocking it anyway. She starts in the same way, with people reading and trashing the release papers, and then we get to the acts--KISS, Alice Cooper, Poison, Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeath...and Odin? Okay, a lot of those were the soundtrack to my youth, so I was much more interested than in part 1. But also...these acts were a lot sillier. With part 1, you felt there was something real in the anger in the music. With part 2, it's about sex, drugs (alcohol is a drug, right?) and rock 'n roll...in that order. Okay, put showmanship on top, because that's what this time in music was about--big, garish, outlandish stuff that you can look back at 27 years later and point and laugh. But also remember how important it was back at the time...and how we kids took it a lot more seriously than a lot of the artists. Damn, that was fun.
Total Running Time: 287 minutes
My Total Minutes: 396,812
P.S. Back in 2002, Penelope also had the greatest Q and A exchange I've ever seen, but I didn't want to clutter the start of this post. WE SOLD OUR SOULS FOR ROCK 'N ROLL featured a sideshow act called The Reverend B. Dangerous, who is (or was) an Oakland-based performance artist who would do stuff like stick skewers though his cheeks. He was there for the Q and A as well. So a woman got up in the audience afterwards and praised Penelope and the film, and then said, "As a mother I have to ask--how do you avoid infection?" The thing is, nobody in the theater could tell she was addressing the Reverend B. Dangerous, everyone though she was addressing Penelope. So she answered, "How do I avoid infection? I don't sleep with the roadies!" Wise words from an incredible woman!
Penelope Spheeris--along with her daughter--was in the house for a Midnites for Maniacs very special evening. I had first seen her way back in 2002 when her Ozzfest documentary WE SOLD OUR SOULS FOR ROCK 'N ROLL played at Indiefest. That was, believe it or not, my first time at a film festival. So in a way my film-watching career has been connected to Spheeris from the get go. So it was a treat to see her and hear the discussion. Particularly moving when Jesse Ficks credited Spheeris with saving his life through her movies (although we didn't get into personal details of why.) And equally moving when Penelope credited her daughter with saving her life, because she gave up drugs when she found out she was pregnant (after passing out on set and waking up to Richard Pryor saying, "This bitch is pregnant!" She's had an interesting life.)
Anyway, on to the films!
DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (1981): Opening with a montage of performers at the microphone reading her release statement, mocking it, and tearing it up, the audience is immediately thrown into the 1980 L.A. punk scene. With bands like Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X (some of those I heard of before, I swear.) We get the feel of the performances, the danger in the venues, the boozing and hard-living life of everybody involved. Remember back when movies could actually spark riots? Well, I'm not sure if you can blame the film itself or just the fact that screening it in L.A. got so many punks together that fights were bound to break out. But the riot at the L.A. premiere forced the chief of police to swear it would never be played in L.A. again. It recently got a 30th anniversary gala screening there. Stick to your artistic vision, kids.
WAYNE'S WORLD (1992): Still the best SNL movie ever. And the movie that transformed Spheeris from a struggling independent director (with some friends like Lorne Michaels) into a millionaire. And it's still fuckin' hilarious. And I don't think that's just because I was at the right age when it came out and I'm now watching it ironically. It still fucking works. Perhaps some of the meta-humor has aged, but the jokes about movie cliches and the plot about corrupting influences in the entertainment business are still perfectly relevant. Maybe even more so.
DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION PART 2: THE METAL YEARS (1988): Here's a little trivia for you, Penelope Spheeris turned down an opportunity to direct THIS IS SPINAL TAP to make this movie. She's a rock 'n roll gal, and rock music has been an important part of her life forever. So rather than make a movie mocking heavy metal music, she made one celebrating it. And in retrospect...it kinda looks like it's mocking it anyway. She starts in the same way, with people reading and trashing the release papers, and then we get to the acts--KISS, Alice Cooper, Poison, Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeath...and Odin? Okay, a lot of those were the soundtrack to my youth, so I was much more interested than in part 1. But also...these acts were a lot sillier. With part 1, you felt there was something real in the anger in the music. With part 2, it's about sex, drugs (alcohol is a drug, right?) and rock 'n roll...in that order. Okay, put showmanship on top, because that's what this time in music was about--big, garish, outlandish stuff that you can look back at 27 years later and point and laugh. But also remember how important it was back at the time...and how we kids took it a lot more seriously than a lot of the artists. Damn, that was fun.
Total Running Time: 287 minutes
My Total Minutes: 396,812
P.S. Back in 2002, Penelope also had the greatest Q and A exchange I've ever seen, but I didn't want to clutter the start of this post. WE SOLD OUR SOULS FOR ROCK 'N ROLL featured a sideshow act called The Reverend B. Dangerous, who is (or was) an Oakland-based performance artist who would do stuff like stick skewers though his cheeks. He was there for the Q and A as well. So a woman got up in the audience afterwards and praised Penelope and the film, and then said, "As a mother I have to ask--how do you avoid infection?" The thing is, nobody in the theater could tell she was addressing the Reverend B. Dangerous, everyone though she was addressing Penelope. So she answered, "How do I avoid infection? I don't sleep with the roadies!" Wise words from an incredible woman!
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a Macho Maestros double feature
Screw your fancy art-house cinema, these are some serious guys' flicks. And it's time to give them their due.
ROCKY IV (1985): Widely mocked as a weird bit of Cold War propaganda (and winner of the Razzie Award,) this movie actually has a bit more going for it than you might expect. For no reason in particular, I had seen this movie more than any other Rocky film, but hadn't really considered its merits until Jesse Ficks (aka, the Maniac of Midnites for Maniacs) starting talking about it. So I watched it with new eyes, and noticed some things about it. Like while it's about the Cold War, it's not really Cold War pro-U.S. propaganda, if anything it's anti-Cold War propaganda. It's about nationalism, but it isn't nationalistic. In fact, the crazy, over-the-top nationalism that accompanies Apollo Creed into the ring in the first match comes crashing down with his death (this move is 30 years old, spoilers are okay, right?) Consider that as the image of the prevailing 80s attitude of America #1, we're unbeatable! And Stallone intentionally kills it. And then Rocky steps up, with the weight of his nation on his back (along with all those logs!) and goes and trains in the wilderness. The training montage is secretly brilliant. I think in the 80s everyone read it as a contrast of the American individual spirit vs. the Soviet state machine. But watch it again, seriously. What comes out isn't the contrast, but the similarity--shot for shot they're doing the exact same thing just with different trappings around them.
So then we get to the actual fight, and what is still the least plausible part of the film. When Rocky starts winning the crowd over, and they start chanting his name. It still kind of strikes me as silly Hollywood wishful thinking/happy ending. But for the first time I watched it not as Rocky winning them over to America, but as Rocky winning them over with his sheer humanity. Perhaps the beating he is taking resonates with something about their experiences under their political system, and the fact that he keeps getting up and keeps punching gives them hope for themselves. And then the real turning point--when Drago turns on the party official and declares that he is fighting for himself. Finally even the supposed villain embraces his humanity and proclaims himself an individual fighting for himself. At that point, I don't even think it matters anymore who wins the fight (of course Rocky has to.) Because it's not a story about America winning the Cold War, it's a story about individuals transcending the Cold War and embracing their shared humanity. And it's secretly great.
Or it's a rah-rah "go 'Murica!" boxing flick. I could always be wrong.
THE ROCK (1996): And then we watched this film, which has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Even I will point to this and say Michael Bay has made a damn good movie. (And I did dismiss TRANSFORMERS by saying there's not enough venereal disease in the world to make Michael Bay pissing on my childhood hurt for him as much as it does for me.) Nicolas Cage brought his Nouveau Shamanic acting style to action flicks for the first time in this one, and a 65 year old Sean Connery brings total badassdom to his role. Ed Harris brings gravitas as the noble villain, and it all comes together in a great mix of comedy, action, and drama. And I've actually been known to use my favorite line from the movie--"Your 'best!' Losers always whine about their best! Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!"--in conversation...when I can get away with it. Damn, I don't think I've watched it since it came out, and I was in college, and it was a staple flick among me and my friends. That was quite a trip back in time and a joy to realize the film still fuckin' works!
Total Running Time: 227 minutes
My Total Minutes: 392,735
ROCKY IV (1985): Widely mocked as a weird bit of Cold War propaganda (and winner of the Razzie Award,) this movie actually has a bit more going for it than you might expect. For no reason in particular, I had seen this movie more than any other Rocky film, but hadn't really considered its merits until Jesse Ficks (aka, the Maniac of Midnites for Maniacs) starting talking about it. So I watched it with new eyes, and noticed some things about it. Like while it's about the Cold War, it's not really Cold War pro-U.S. propaganda, if anything it's anti-Cold War propaganda. It's about nationalism, but it isn't nationalistic. In fact, the crazy, over-the-top nationalism that accompanies Apollo Creed into the ring in the first match comes crashing down with his death (this move is 30 years old, spoilers are okay, right?) Consider that as the image of the prevailing 80s attitude of America #1, we're unbeatable! And Stallone intentionally kills it. And then Rocky steps up, with the weight of his nation on his back (along with all those logs!) and goes and trains in the wilderness. The training montage is secretly brilliant. I think in the 80s everyone read it as a contrast of the American individual spirit vs. the Soviet state machine. But watch it again, seriously. What comes out isn't the contrast, but the similarity--shot for shot they're doing the exact same thing just with different trappings around them.
So then we get to the actual fight, and what is still the least plausible part of the film. When Rocky starts winning the crowd over, and they start chanting his name. It still kind of strikes me as silly Hollywood wishful thinking/happy ending. But for the first time I watched it not as Rocky winning them over to America, but as Rocky winning them over with his sheer humanity. Perhaps the beating he is taking resonates with something about their experiences under their political system, and the fact that he keeps getting up and keeps punching gives them hope for themselves. And then the real turning point--when Drago turns on the party official and declares that he is fighting for himself. Finally even the supposed villain embraces his humanity and proclaims himself an individual fighting for himself. At that point, I don't even think it matters anymore who wins the fight (of course Rocky has to.) Because it's not a story about America winning the Cold War, it's a story about individuals transcending the Cold War and embracing their shared humanity. And it's secretly great.
Or it's a rah-rah "go 'Murica!" boxing flick. I could always be wrong.
THE ROCK (1996): And then we watched this film, which has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Even I will point to this and say Michael Bay has made a damn good movie. (And I did dismiss TRANSFORMERS by saying there's not enough venereal disease in the world to make Michael Bay pissing on my childhood hurt for him as much as it does for me.) Nicolas Cage brought his Nouveau Shamanic acting style to action flicks for the first time in this one, and a 65 year old Sean Connery brings total badassdom to his role. Ed Harris brings gravitas as the noble villain, and it all comes together in a great mix of comedy, action, and drama. And I've actually been known to use my favorite line from the movie--"Your 'best!' Losers always whine about their best! Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!"--in conversation...when I can get away with it. Damn, I don't think I've watched it since it came out, and I was in college, and it was a staple flick among me and my friends. That was quite a trip back in time and a joy to realize the film still fuckin' works!
Total Running Time: 227 minutes
My Total Minutes: 392,735
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs and rides the rails
My 2015 cinema adventure started at the Castro, with a double-bill of train movies.
First up was SNOWPIERCER, the cult hit from last year that sharply divided audiences and critics. You either loved it or hated (or to steal the Mitch Hedberg joke, thought it was just okay.) Or, like me, you somehow didn't see it. Director Bong Hoon Jo (THE HOST, MOTHER) has created something that at the very least I can't stop thinking about. The premise is as outrageous as it is unrealistic--a failed climate change experiment has plunged the world into unlivable cold. Just being outside for an hour or so could kill you (15 minutes can freeze an arm solid enough it cracks under a sledgehammer.) The remnants of humanity live on a constantly moving train, the titular Snowpiercer. Please ignore how this could be--that this train, which completes a circuit around the world every year, has run for 17 years with no track maintenance, without running out of fuel, etc. That's not the point. The point is to put humanity into an artificial living arrangement so we can examine notions of fairness, survival, sacrifice, duty, social standing, etc. Those in the back of the train live in filth, fed gelatinous protein bars and occasionally whisked away to do the mysterious bidding of those living in luxury in the front. It's painfully obvious that this caste system is unfair, and so Curtis (Chris Evans) leads a revolt, fighting his way from one train car to the next to make it to the engine and take down this unjust system. Along the way Tilda Swinton plays the perfect middle-management baddie, but worse villains than her soon emerge. And then...there's a big turn at the end. I will try to avoid spoilers, but it becomes clear that this isn't as simple as fighting the unjust system. Things are controlled, things are engineered, carefully designed to stay in balance. Because that's what is necessary for humanity to survive. Ultimately the movie isn't about a valiant and heroic fight against injustice. Well, it is, but it's about much more. It's about a question--if gross injustice were necessary to avoid humanity's extinction, is it worth it? And it's the turn to that question that made me initially not sure if I even liked it, but looking back more than a week later, I'm sure I loved it.
And then the second film was RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985.) Jon Voight and Eric Roberts are prisoners in a jail in Alaska (incidentally, I recognized Portage Glacier in one of the scenes, cool!) Cool, tough Oscar (Voight) has a plan to bust out, and young, excitable, won't-shut-up Buck (Roberts) tags along. After their escape, they hop on a train where the conductor conveniently dies of a heart attack shortly after pulling out of the station (see, they're runaways, and so is the train, clever title, no?) Throw in a sadistic warden chasing them down, Rebecca De Mornay as an assistant on the train (who had fallen asleep) and the panic in the control room as they try to keep the train from derailing in a truly dangerous area (like a chemical plant) and you have a pretty wild fucking ride. But amid all the action the heart of the movie is really the relationship of Buck and Oscar, and how Buck goes from hero worship to learning that his hero is actually a pretty big asshole. And ultimately...without giving too much away, Oscar doing a little bit at the end to maybe win back a bit of the hero's mantle. What a ride, what a great movie.
Total Running Time: 237
My Total Minutes: 378,793
First up was SNOWPIERCER, the cult hit from last year that sharply divided audiences and critics. You either loved it or hated (or to steal the Mitch Hedberg joke, thought it was just okay.) Or, like me, you somehow didn't see it. Director Bong Hoon Jo (THE HOST, MOTHER) has created something that at the very least I can't stop thinking about. The premise is as outrageous as it is unrealistic--a failed climate change experiment has plunged the world into unlivable cold. Just being outside for an hour or so could kill you (15 minutes can freeze an arm solid enough it cracks under a sledgehammer.) The remnants of humanity live on a constantly moving train, the titular Snowpiercer. Please ignore how this could be--that this train, which completes a circuit around the world every year, has run for 17 years with no track maintenance, without running out of fuel, etc. That's not the point. The point is to put humanity into an artificial living arrangement so we can examine notions of fairness, survival, sacrifice, duty, social standing, etc. Those in the back of the train live in filth, fed gelatinous protein bars and occasionally whisked away to do the mysterious bidding of those living in luxury in the front. It's painfully obvious that this caste system is unfair, and so Curtis (Chris Evans) leads a revolt, fighting his way from one train car to the next to make it to the engine and take down this unjust system. Along the way Tilda Swinton plays the perfect middle-management baddie, but worse villains than her soon emerge. And then...there's a big turn at the end. I will try to avoid spoilers, but it becomes clear that this isn't as simple as fighting the unjust system. Things are controlled, things are engineered, carefully designed to stay in balance. Because that's what is necessary for humanity to survive. Ultimately the movie isn't about a valiant and heroic fight against injustice. Well, it is, but it's about much more. It's about a question--if gross injustice were necessary to avoid humanity's extinction, is it worth it? And it's the turn to that question that made me initially not sure if I even liked it, but looking back more than a week later, I'm sure I loved it.
And then the second film was RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985.) Jon Voight and Eric Roberts are prisoners in a jail in Alaska (incidentally, I recognized Portage Glacier in one of the scenes, cool!) Cool, tough Oscar (Voight) has a plan to bust out, and young, excitable, won't-shut-up Buck (Roberts) tags along. After their escape, they hop on a train where the conductor conveniently dies of a heart attack shortly after pulling out of the station (see, they're runaways, and so is the train, clever title, no?) Throw in a sadistic warden chasing them down, Rebecca De Mornay as an assistant on the train (who had fallen asleep) and the panic in the control room as they try to keep the train from derailing in a truly dangerous area (like a chemical plant) and you have a pretty wild fucking ride. But amid all the action the heart of the movie is really the relationship of Buck and Oscar, and how Buck goes from hero worship to learning that his hero is actually a pretty big asshole. And ultimately...without giving too much away, Oscar doing a little bit at the end to maybe win back a bit of the hero's mantle. What a ride, what a great movie.
Total Running Time: 237
My Total Minutes: 378,793
Monday, November 10, 2014
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs and gets a double bill of Cassavetes
First the junior Casavettes, Nick, John's son, with his melodrama THE NOTEBOOK (2004): This has become the go-to movie to hate to prove you're too cool for melodramas. Well...I won't argue with that, if you're too cool for melodramas then don't watch this movie. I wouldn't say that I'm a great fan of melodramas, but I am a great fan of Midnites for Maniacs and it's mission to take a serious look at overlooked or poorly regarded films. Melodramas make you feel things--sometimes things you don't really want to feel. Sometimes it's easier for the heart to harden and to just navigate life without feeling much. Melodramas break that. And this one, in particular, is very effective.
Damn, I just reviewed it without telling you anything about it. Well, it's ten years old, easy to find, and has been written about extensively. Its IMDb page has a good synopsis. Read that if you care.
And then the legendary John Casavettes with MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971): So I guess in introduction I should point out that Gena Rowlands--John's partner and Nick's mother--plays the aging version of the female lead (oops! spoiler alert!) in THE NOTEBOOK. And she plays Minnie Moore in MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, opposite Seymour Cassel's walrus-mustached Seymour Moskowitz. In his introduction, Jesse primed us to think of THE NOTEBOOK as a remake of MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, and both of those movies as the story of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Well, I can see that, but they're very different takes on the story. While THE NOTEBOOK presents a very, very romantic, graceful version (although full of fighting, heartache, and pain,) MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ is many things, but nobody would accuse it of being graceful. In fact, it's kind of a subversion of the romantic comedy genre, hitting all the plot points--mismatched personalities challenge each other, they fall in love, there are bumps on the road, but ultimately love conquers all. But while the typical melodrama tugs at the heartstrings, MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ--with it's hysterical yelling and crazy behavior--slaps you in the face instead. And just maybe a slap in the face is a better way to find love than the tugging of heartstrings.
Total Running Time: 237 minutes
My Total Minutes: 372,968
Damn, I just reviewed it without telling you anything about it. Well, it's ten years old, easy to find, and has been written about extensively. Its IMDb page has a good synopsis. Read that if you care.
And then the legendary John Casavettes with MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ (1971): So I guess in introduction I should point out that Gena Rowlands--John's partner and Nick's mother--plays the aging version of the female lead (oops! spoiler alert!) in THE NOTEBOOK. And she plays Minnie Moore in MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, opposite Seymour Cassel's walrus-mustached Seymour Moskowitz. In his introduction, Jesse primed us to think of THE NOTEBOOK as a remake of MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, and both of those movies as the story of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Well, I can see that, but they're very different takes on the story. While THE NOTEBOOK presents a very, very romantic, graceful version (although full of fighting, heartache, and pain,) MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ is many things, but nobody would accuse it of being graceful. In fact, it's kind of a subversion of the romantic comedy genre, hitting all the plot points--mismatched personalities challenge each other, they fall in love, there are bumps on the road, but ultimately love conquers all. But while the typical melodrama tugs at the heartstrings, MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ--with it's hysterical yelling and crazy behavior--slaps you in the face instead. And just maybe a slap in the face is a better way to find love than the tugging of heartstrings.
Total Running Time: 237 minutes
My Total Minutes: 372,968
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Jason watches a M4M exclusive--HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH and THE GUEST
Re-using my review from when I watched HALLOWEEN III last year.
And then we saw Adam Wingard's THE GUEST. Ummm...I'm really sorry I've been so behind on my blog. Because apparently it's not in theaters anywhere in the bay area anymore, and that's a shame because it's kind of brilliant. A family is mourning their son killed in action overseas. A wandering soldier knocks on their door, and introduces himself as David, a friend of their son. He promised him that he'd look after his family, and so they invite him in and at first everything is awesome. He's the cool big brother who helps the young son deal with bullies. He's the sexual fantasy for the older daughter. And he's a great help around the house. And, yeah, he goes out and kills people occasionally, but they're bad guys. He's a good guy, right? Well, I won't get too spoiler-y, but imagine if Jason Bourne was a complete psycho, killing the good and the bad alike, and all he's really interested in is staying alive. Yup, that's it, and it turns dark really, really quickly. And it's awesome.
So...again, I'm sorry I didn't get this written up until it was already out of theaters, but it's a great movie so find it on VOD or DVD or whatever (or, if you happen to be reading this from Philadelphia, it's playing in a couple of theaters there right now!)
Total Running Time: 197 minutes
My Total Minutes: 370,903
HALLOWEEN III: THE SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982): is often unfairly maligned as the "bad" Halloween movie just because it has nothing to do with the Michael Myers character of every entry in the series. The fact is, John Carpenter's original idea with the HALLOWEEN series is to produce a new low-budget horror film every year, to be released around Halloween. And this is really the only time they fulfilled that vision. To all the haters, can you really say this film is worse than an endless string of re-hashed Michael Myers stories (including the remakes)? I think it's a great story on it's own, a cult classic about a madman who plans to wipe out all the children on Halloween using magically booby-trapped masks. Very sick, and a great ending (which I won't spoil even though it's over three decades old.)I know it has become the hip thing to now like HALLOWEEN III decades after it flopped initially. And I don't want to be the hipster who claims he loved it before everyone else caught on. I always found it interesting, just from the standpoint of how the whole HALLOWEEN series could've been different if it was a different, unrelated, quick-and-cheap horror film released on Halloween every year. But over the past couple of years, it has started becoming my favorite Halloween movie (as in, not just my favorite in the series, but my favorite movie to watch on Halloween.) Especially the cynicism about mass commercialism.
And then we saw Adam Wingard's THE GUEST. Ummm...I'm really sorry I've been so behind on my blog. Because apparently it's not in theaters anywhere in the bay area anymore, and that's a shame because it's kind of brilliant. A family is mourning their son killed in action overseas. A wandering soldier knocks on their door, and introduces himself as David, a friend of their son. He promised him that he'd look after his family, and so they invite him in and at first everything is awesome. He's the cool big brother who helps the young son deal with bullies. He's the sexual fantasy for the older daughter. And he's a great help around the house. And, yeah, he goes out and kills people occasionally, but they're bad guys. He's a good guy, right? Well, I won't get too spoiler-y, but imagine if Jason Bourne was a complete psycho, killing the good and the bad alike, and all he's really interested in is staying alive. Yup, that's it, and it turns dark really, really quickly. And it's awesome.
So...again, I'm sorry I didn't get this written up until it was already out of theaters, but it's a great movie so find it on VOD or DVD or whatever (or, if you happen to be reading this from Philadelphia, it's playing in a couple of theaters there right now!)
Total Running Time: 197 minutes
My Total Minutes: 370,903
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Jason experiences the madness of William Lustig with a 2-day, 6 movie marathon
This weekend deserves a better write-up than I can give it, but I'm still crawling back to only being a month behind on my blog. 2 days, 6 crazy fucking movies, and Mr. Lustig himself to talk about all of them (even the one he hates!) So let's jump right in.
MANIAC: Joe Spinell (who also wrote) stars as the titular maniac. And it's an ultra-low-budget, ultra sleazy story of a crazy man who both misses and despises his whore (literally, she was an abusive prostitute) mother who died in a car crash. So he kills beautiful young women, scalps them, and makes wigs for his mannequins. It's a pretty fucked-up premise, with grisly execution (pun intended) including an infamous Tom Savini exploding head scene (which caused Gene Siskel to walk out of the movie and declare it "unredeemable.") Low budget exploitation Grand Guignol guerrilla film-making at its best/worst. Also, apparently the actual original inspiration behind the song "Maniac" from FLASHDANCE.
VIGILANTE: A classic "take back the streets" story of a vigilante group led by Nick (Fred Williamson) who is ridding their town of pimps, gangs, and drug dealers.) His co-worker Eddie (Robert Forster) is sympathetic but doesn't want any part of it. Even when his wife and kid are murdered by a gang, he prefers to let the justice system do its work...but it doesn't. The gang leader is let off lightly by a corrupt cop, and Eddie snaps, leading to jail time for himself. And when he gets out, Eddie is the vigilantiest vigilante ever, killing everyone in the entire fucking gang. Robert Forster does an excellent descent-into-hell slow burn, and his revenge is as satisfying as it is gruesome.
HIT LIST: Rip Torn as a mob boss, Lance Henriksen as a deadly hit man, and Jan-Michael Vincent as...well, to hear Lustig tell it, as a drunk who could barely stand up straight. Seriously, when you watch it notice how many times Vincent is leaning on something. Anyway, Rip Torn's character is being brought up on charges, so he has Lance Henriksen kill all the witnesses the feds have lined up. Except on the last one, he gets the wrong house and kills Jan-Michael Vincent's wife and kidnaps his kid instead. The cops actually think this is good--Luca doesn't know he has the wrong kid--which is kind of fucked up because they're sacrificing an innocent kid to put this mobster away. But JMV escapes custody and goes after the bad guys on his own. Unfortunately, the film ran long so I had to run off and catch the last BART out of the city before it ended, so I missed the last 10 minutes or so of the ending. But it was getting pretty damn exciting before then (and Lance Henriksen appears to be unkillable.)
Then the next day was the world premiere of the MANIAC COP trilogy back-to-back-to-back.
MANIAC COP: Shot between VIGILANTE and HIT LIST, a story of a muscular giant in a police uniform who is killing random people in New York. Bruce Campbell stars as a young officer who is having an affair, and in true film noir style his dalliance gets him into untold trouble when he is framed as the Maniac Cop. But eventually the truth comes out and he has to find and defeat the real killer--an ex-cop, a legend on the force who was disgraced by charges of abuse and allegedly killed in prison by all the criminals he put away. Turns out he's alive...and badly brain damaged.
MANIAC COP 2: William Lustig claims this is his favorite film of his. The Maniac Cop is back from the grave and deadlier than ever. This time he's supernatural, not just brain-damaged. He's also far deadlier, and the stunts are bigger and badder than before. And you have to remember this is 1990, back when people did actual stunts, it wasn't all CGI. If there's one thing you should take away from this trilogy, it's the amazing work of stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos (who has had quite a career, which is still going strong.) Everything about this film is bigger, better, and more awesome than the original (even if Bruce Campbell dies early on...oops, spoiler!)
MANIAC COP 3: BADGE OF SILENCE: And this final film of the trilogy (although there's allegedly a prequel in the works) is one that William Lustig hates. And having heard about that--how the entire story had to be badly re-written to get funding from Japanese investors who didn't like the original racial-tinged voodoo story, how he was disgusted with the romantic subplot, etc...I can understand his point of view. What intrigued me the most was how it completely changed the Maniac Cop's backstory--instead of a "supercop" who actually was too abusive, now evidence emerges that he was actually framed for the abuses and was a good guy all along (at least until the maniac-creating brain damage.) That...changes everything in the previous movies. It's no longer about criminally abusive police behavior (by coincidence, I saw this trilogy right when Ferguson, MO was blowing up over the Michael Brown shooting) but about good cops being accused of brutality and railroaded by a corrupt system. And that is...unsettling. Or maybe I'm thinking too much. The stunts are still fantastic. Allegedly Lustig turned the entire last reel over to Spiro Razatos to direct, and he once again takes it even further over-the-top. That, at least, is awesome, even if Lustig himself hates this film.
Total Running Time: 524 minutes
My Total Minutes: 369,648
MANIAC: Joe Spinell (who also wrote) stars as the titular maniac. And it's an ultra-low-budget, ultra sleazy story of a crazy man who both misses and despises his whore (literally, she was an abusive prostitute) mother who died in a car crash. So he kills beautiful young women, scalps them, and makes wigs for his mannequins. It's a pretty fucked-up premise, with grisly execution (pun intended) including an infamous Tom Savini exploding head scene (which caused Gene Siskel to walk out of the movie and declare it "unredeemable.") Low budget exploitation Grand Guignol guerrilla film-making at its best/worst. Also, apparently the actual original inspiration behind the song "Maniac" from FLASHDANCE.
VIGILANTE: A classic "take back the streets" story of a vigilante group led by Nick (Fred Williamson) who is ridding their town of pimps, gangs, and drug dealers.) His co-worker Eddie (Robert Forster) is sympathetic but doesn't want any part of it. Even when his wife and kid are murdered by a gang, he prefers to let the justice system do its work...but it doesn't. The gang leader is let off lightly by a corrupt cop, and Eddie snaps, leading to jail time for himself. And when he gets out, Eddie is the vigilantiest vigilante ever, killing everyone in the entire fucking gang. Robert Forster does an excellent descent-into-hell slow burn, and his revenge is as satisfying as it is gruesome.
HIT LIST: Rip Torn as a mob boss, Lance Henriksen as a deadly hit man, and Jan-Michael Vincent as...well, to hear Lustig tell it, as a drunk who could barely stand up straight. Seriously, when you watch it notice how many times Vincent is leaning on something. Anyway, Rip Torn's character is being brought up on charges, so he has Lance Henriksen kill all the witnesses the feds have lined up. Except on the last one, he gets the wrong house and kills Jan-Michael Vincent's wife and kidnaps his kid instead. The cops actually think this is good--Luca doesn't know he has the wrong kid--which is kind of fucked up because they're sacrificing an innocent kid to put this mobster away. But JMV escapes custody and goes after the bad guys on his own. Unfortunately, the film ran long so I had to run off and catch the last BART out of the city before it ended, so I missed the last 10 minutes or so of the ending. But it was getting pretty damn exciting before then (and Lance Henriksen appears to be unkillable.)
Then the next day was the world premiere of the MANIAC COP trilogy back-to-back-to-back.
MANIAC COP: Shot between VIGILANTE and HIT LIST, a story of a muscular giant in a police uniform who is killing random people in New York. Bruce Campbell stars as a young officer who is having an affair, and in true film noir style his dalliance gets him into untold trouble when he is framed as the Maniac Cop. But eventually the truth comes out and he has to find and defeat the real killer--an ex-cop, a legend on the force who was disgraced by charges of abuse and allegedly killed in prison by all the criminals he put away. Turns out he's alive...and badly brain damaged.
MANIAC COP 2: William Lustig claims this is his favorite film of his. The Maniac Cop is back from the grave and deadlier than ever. This time he's supernatural, not just brain-damaged. He's also far deadlier, and the stunts are bigger and badder than before. And you have to remember this is 1990, back when people did actual stunts, it wasn't all CGI. If there's one thing you should take away from this trilogy, it's the amazing work of stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos (who has had quite a career, which is still going strong.) Everything about this film is bigger, better, and more awesome than the original (even if Bruce Campbell dies early on...oops, spoiler!)
MANIAC COP 3: BADGE OF SILENCE: And this final film of the trilogy (although there's allegedly a prequel in the works) is one that William Lustig hates. And having heard about that--how the entire story had to be badly re-written to get funding from Japanese investors who didn't like the original racial-tinged voodoo story, how he was disgusted with the romantic subplot, etc...I can understand his point of view. What intrigued me the most was how it completely changed the Maniac Cop's backstory--instead of a "supercop" who actually was too abusive, now evidence emerges that he was actually framed for the abuses and was a good guy all along (at least until the maniac-creating brain damage.) That...changes everything in the previous movies. It's no longer about criminally abusive police behavior (by coincidence, I saw this trilogy right when Ferguson, MO was blowing up over the Michael Brown shooting) but about good cops being accused of brutality and railroaded by a corrupt system. And that is...unsettling. Or maybe I'm thinking too much. The stunts are still fantastic. Allegedly Lustig turned the entire last reel over to Spiro Razatos to direct, and he once again takes it even further over-the-top. That, at least, is awesome, even if Lustig himself hates this film.
Total Running Time: 524 minutes
My Total Minutes: 369,648
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Jason is Faster Than You at getting to Midnites for Maniacs
But I'm not faster at blogging. I'm falling desperately behind.
Anway, a few weeks ago, right after SFIFF ended, instead of getting a good night's sleep I was back at the Castro for a double bill. First up, SPEED (1994.) Keanu Reeves and Sadra Bullock in the classic (it's a classic now, right?) about a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) who rigs a bus so that once it goes above 50 it has to stay above 50 or else it will blow up. When I say that out loud, that premise still sounds ridiculous. But dammit it still works. In large part because of the daring of Keanu Reeves doing his own stunts (kind of unheard of in today's CGI-heavy cinematic worlds.) And the chemistry between him and an (at the time) under-appreciated Sandra Bullock. And especially (and I didn't know about this until just recently) the uncredited script doctoring by a young...Joss Whedon. Quite a treat to see this again on the big screen.
And then the second half of the double bill, GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974.) Not the Nicolas Cage/Angelina Jolie remake. This is the original H.B. Halicki super-independent version. Halicki stars (and injured himself doing his own stunt driving) as an insurance investigator who runs a stolen car racket (using the serial numbers of the crashed cars on his stolen cars. A drug lord contracts him to steal 48 cars, and 47 are easy. That last one--a 1973 Ford Mustang code-named "Eleanor" (all the cars are code-named with women's names) is a little problematic, though. Thanks to a tip-off from a peeved business associate, the cops are onto him and we get the showcase of the film--the longest car chase ever all over the extended metropolitan region of Los Angeles. And it's pretty freakin' awesome!
Total Running Time: 221 minutes
My Total Minutes: 362,982
Anway, a few weeks ago, right after SFIFF ended, instead of getting a good night's sleep I was back at the Castro for a double bill. First up, SPEED (1994.) Keanu Reeves and Sadra Bullock in the classic (it's a classic now, right?) about a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) who rigs a bus so that once it goes above 50 it has to stay above 50 or else it will blow up. When I say that out loud, that premise still sounds ridiculous. But dammit it still works. In large part because of the daring of Keanu Reeves doing his own stunts (kind of unheard of in today's CGI-heavy cinematic worlds.) And the chemistry between him and an (at the time) under-appreciated Sandra Bullock. And especially (and I didn't know about this until just recently) the uncredited script doctoring by a young...Joss Whedon. Quite a treat to see this again on the big screen.
And then the second half of the double bill, GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974.) Not the Nicolas Cage/Angelina Jolie remake. This is the original H.B. Halicki super-independent version. Halicki stars (and injured himself doing his own stunt driving) as an insurance investigator who runs a stolen car racket (using the serial numbers of the crashed cars on his stolen cars. A drug lord contracts him to steal 48 cars, and 47 are easy. That last one--a 1973 Ford Mustang code-named "Eleanor" (all the cars are code-named with women's names) is a little problematic, though. Thanks to a tip-off from a peeved business associate, the cops are onto him and we get the showcase of the film--the longest car chase ever all over the extended metropolitan region of Los Angeles. And it's pretty freakin' awesome!
Total Running Time: 221 minutes
My Total Minutes: 362,982
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a double dose of Kill or be Killed.
THE RUNNING MAN (1987) and BATTLE ROYALE (2000.) Let me just sum this up quickly. Back in 2012 when THE HUNGER GAMES came out, many people compared it to BATTLE ROYALE. I spent quite a bit in my review explaining how that comparison isn't apt. And watching Schwarzenegger's classic (possibly his best movie from the best part of his career) back to back with BATTLE ROYALE and having THE HUNGER GAMES buzzing around in the back of my brain...well, the better comparison is THE RUNNING MAN and HUNGER GAMES. No question about it...they're both about placating an unruly populace with crass, glitzy entertainment. BATTLE ROYALE, on the other hand...changes every time I see. I used to think it was about kids killing kids. Sure, they're forced, but some get into it and some don't. I.e., it's about out-of-control kids. This time, I saw it as more about adults punishing kids for their own failures. The most important part wasn't even any of the action on the island, but Takeshi Kitano's painful, awkward phone conversation with his daughter who hates him. Interesting. I wonder what it will be about the next time I see it.
Total Running Time: 215 minutes
My Total Minutes: 359,737
Total Running Time: 215 minutes
My Total Minutes: 359,737
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs--Creative Killers
I'd like to start by once again thanking On the Road Mechanics for getting my truck back in good working order Friday morning. Without them, I would've been stuck taking a very slow series of buses home in the middle of the night, or bailing on the last film so I could take off while BART/Caltrain are still running. So seriously, this guy is awesome. And he'll drive right to wherever your car broke down, diagnose the problem, and usually be able to fix it quickly.
So anyway, I drove up to the Castro last week Friday, braved the insane traffic, found a good parking spot, and settled in for a triple bill of Creative Killers.
CLUE (1985): First up was this pretty hilarious comedy. And, interestingly enough, the movie I thought about the most afterwards. First of all, what a great comic cast. Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, Lesley Ann Warren...wow. I had seen it a few times, and always liked it, but hadn't seen it since college (which would be the mid 90s.) And I had never really thought about its importance in the history of movies. Not just basing a movie on a board game, which is something people still ridicule (heck yeah I wanna see HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS) but for the multiple endings. Now I didn't see it in theaters when it first came out. Partly because I was only 11 and wasn't going to movies on my own (and with our big family we didn't go out to the movies very often anyway.) But even at that young age I saw it as a crass way to sucker the audience into buying multiple tickets to see all three endings. It was a gimmick and a pretty transparently money-grubbing one at that. The thing is, on home video they slapped all three endings on, with some title cards saying something to the effect of "or it could have happened this way" and "but this is what really happened." And that was the way we saw it at the Castro (in 35 mm, of course.) And a couple of thoughts struck me. This way makes it very clear that there is one "right" ending. That wasn't the case when it was released in 1985 was it? That's...interesting. Does it take something away to designate one ending as the "real" ending? But more importantly, all three endings are equally plausible...at least given the ridiculous events in the movie. So is this kinda taking the piss out of the entire whodunit genre? There's a whole genre of films that make you wonder who the killer is, rewarding you with bragging rights over your friends if you get it right, and maybe making you feel a little stupid if you guess wrong. And CLUE, with its three equally plausible endings, shows how fraudulent those movies often are. Or maybe not. Maybe if you take the average whodunit, you can't really come up with three different twist endings and have them all make sense. Maybe CLUE is just brilliant that way. But either way I think I've just convinced myself that CLUE is way smarter than the average whodunit...and that's pretty fuckin' cool.
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989): And now the serious, 'important' film of the the night. This was programmed months in advance, so its pure coincidence that M4M played this right at the time when Woody Allen controversies are back in the news. And I'm not touching the controversy with a 20 foot pole. The movie, of course, is great. As always, Allen puts together a great cast, and along with himself, he's got Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda, and Sam Waterston. On the "Crime" side, Martin Landau is a doctor who has been having an affair for years. When his mistress threatens to tell his wife, he's faced with a moral dilemma. And when his brother proposes using some of his organized crime connections to "take care of her" he's faced with an even bigger moral dilemma. Meanwhile, on the "Misdemeanor" side, Woody Allen plays a documentary filmmaker who once won an award at a film festival. He loves movies, takes his niece to the matinee, etc. And to actually make some money, he sucks it up and films a puff, hero-worship documentary about his brother-in-law Lester (Alan Alda) who's a massively successful TV comedy producer (allegedly based on Larry Gelbart, who both Allen and Alan worked with.) While making it, he kind of hits it off with his assistant (Mia Farrow) who Lester also has eyes for. So he has his adulterous thoughts he has to struggle with. It's kind of gun to think of him as at a point where Martin Landau's character was about 20 years ago, and how things could've gone differently.) Woody Allen has always had a great insight into human foibles, whether milking them for comedy in so many films or using them to show us how horrible people are in this one.
THE DRILLER KILLER (1979): And finally, we ended the night with this Abel Ferrara cult classic. Abel himself stars as Reno, an artist who is struggling to pay rent, finish his masterpiece painting of a buffalo (for the life of me, it looks finished the whole time,) take care of his two female roommates, deal with the loud rock band practicing next door, eat pizza, etc. So he snaps and goes on a killing spree with an electric drill and a battery pack belt (for just $19.95.) This is the third time I've seen it, twice on the big screen, and...I'm not impressed. I'm sorry, I just don't see what's so great about it. The descent into madness is kind of disjointed and rambling, but that I don't mind. It's that the actual payoff--the drilling killing--is not that impressive. It looks fake, and weakly fake. I can appreciate this as a dirty grindhouse experience (especially when it's shown on a kinda scratchy 35 mm print) but I just don't like it as a movie.
Total Running Time: 294 minutes
My Total Minutes: 352,929
So anyway, I drove up to the Castro last week Friday, braved the insane traffic, found a good parking spot, and settled in for a triple bill of Creative Killers.
CLUE (1985): First up was this pretty hilarious comedy. And, interestingly enough, the movie I thought about the most afterwards. First of all, what a great comic cast. Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, Lesley Ann Warren...wow. I had seen it a few times, and always liked it, but hadn't seen it since college (which would be the mid 90s.) And I had never really thought about its importance in the history of movies. Not just basing a movie on a board game, which is something people still ridicule (heck yeah I wanna see HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS) but for the multiple endings. Now I didn't see it in theaters when it first came out. Partly because I was only 11 and wasn't going to movies on my own (and with our big family we didn't go out to the movies very often anyway.) But even at that young age I saw it as a crass way to sucker the audience into buying multiple tickets to see all three endings. It was a gimmick and a pretty transparently money-grubbing one at that. The thing is, on home video they slapped all three endings on, with some title cards saying something to the effect of "or it could have happened this way" and "but this is what really happened." And that was the way we saw it at the Castro (in 35 mm, of course.) And a couple of thoughts struck me. This way makes it very clear that there is one "right" ending. That wasn't the case when it was released in 1985 was it? That's...interesting. Does it take something away to designate one ending as the "real" ending? But more importantly, all three endings are equally plausible...at least given the ridiculous events in the movie. So is this kinda taking the piss out of the entire whodunit genre? There's a whole genre of films that make you wonder who the killer is, rewarding you with bragging rights over your friends if you get it right, and maybe making you feel a little stupid if you guess wrong. And CLUE, with its three equally plausible endings, shows how fraudulent those movies often are. Or maybe not. Maybe if you take the average whodunit, you can't really come up with three different twist endings and have them all make sense. Maybe CLUE is just brilliant that way. But either way I think I've just convinced myself that CLUE is way smarter than the average whodunit...and that's pretty fuckin' cool.
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989): And now the serious, 'important' film of the the night. This was programmed months in advance, so its pure coincidence that M4M played this right at the time when Woody Allen controversies are back in the news. And I'm not touching the controversy with a 20 foot pole. The movie, of course, is great. As always, Allen puts together a great cast, and along with himself, he's got Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda, and Sam Waterston. On the "Crime" side, Martin Landau is a doctor who has been having an affair for years. When his mistress threatens to tell his wife, he's faced with a moral dilemma. And when his brother proposes using some of his organized crime connections to "take care of her" he's faced with an even bigger moral dilemma. Meanwhile, on the "Misdemeanor" side, Woody Allen plays a documentary filmmaker who once won an award at a film festival. He loves movies, takes his niece to the matinee, etc. And to actually make some money, he sucks it up and films a puff, hero-worship documentary about his brother-in-law Lester (Alan Alda) who's a massively successful TV comedy producer (allegedly based on Larry Gelbart, who both Allen and Alan worked with.) While making it, he kind of hits it off with his assistant (Mia Farrow) who Lester also has eyes for. So he has his adulterous thoughts he has to struggle with. It's kind of gun to think of him as at a point where Martin Landau's character was about 20 years ago, and how things could've gone differently.) Woody Allen has always had a great insight into human foibles, whether milking them for comedy in so many films or using them to show us how horrible people are in this one.
THE DRILLER KILLER (1979): And finally, we ended the night with this Abel Ferrara cult classic. Abel himself stars as Reno, an artist who is struggling to pay rent, finish his masterpiece painting of a buffalo (for the life of me, it looks finished the whole time,) take care of his two female roommates, deal with the loud rock band practicing next door, eat pizza, etc. So he snaps and goes on a killing spree with an electric drill and a battery pack belt (for just $19.95.) This is the third time I've seen it, twice on the big screen, and...I'm not impressed. I'm sorry, I just don't see what's so great about it. The descent into madness is kind of disjointed and rambling, but that I don't mind. It's that the actual payoff--the drilling killing--is not that impressive. It looks fake, and weakly fake. I can appreciate this as a dirty grindhouse experience (especially when it's shown on a kinda scratchy 35 mm print) but I just don't like it as a movie.
Total Running Time: 294 minutes
My Total Minutes: 352,929
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs and celebrates Nicolas Cage's 50th Birthday
Happy 50th Birthday to an actor who doesn't always get respect, but is always interesting. A man who never phones it in, even if what he brings is a little...out there. Or, in his words, Nouveau-Shamanic.
Before I get to the movies, I just want to tell you all about the time I very briefly saw Nicolas Cage in person. This was back in my college years. I went to college in Pasadena, and one of the favorite spots for my friends and me was the Original Pantry in downtown L.A.--a classic 24/7 greasy spoon diner. They would start serving breakfast at 4:00 am, but at one point we were such regulars if we showed up at 3:30 they'd switch to their breakfast menu right then. One night, we accidentally got off a few exits too early and we ended up driving through downtown L.A. in the middle of the night (if you take the 9th street exit you get off and you're practically there.) There was almost no traffic, and we knew the way by surface streets (some of us had actually walked there from Pasadena, but that's another story) so this wasn't a problem. But then a cop pulled us over. Although we thought we had obeyed all traffic signals (i.e., we waited for the light to turn green) it turned out the streets were partially blocked off for filming a major studio project. When that occurs, you're not supposed to look at the traffic lights, you're supposed to look at the motorcycle cop off in the corner and cross when he signals you to. Anyway, we were given a brief talking to but no ticket, and we made our way to the diner easily enough. As we were walking in, there was a guy in a dirty, bloody wife-beater walking out. This is...not common, but not that surprising for the place and time of day. So we sort of averted our eyes and walked past him. But something made me turn around for a second look, and I suddenly recognized Nicolas Cage. He apparently was taking a break from filming and grabbing a bite at The Pantry just before we got there. It was too late (and I was too timid) to stop him and say anything to him. But a few months later, we started seeing advertisements for CON AIR. So...I brushed by Nicolas Cage in costume during a break on CON AIR. Pretty cool story, isn't it?
Shut up. On to the movies.
VALLEY GIRL (1983): The movie that made Cage a star. And, of course, a teen classic. And an R-rated teen comedy with tits...so it deserves to be a classic. Why isn't director Martha Coolidge a bigger name? I looked her up on IMDb, and was surprised to be reminded that she also directed REAL GENIUS. Which--tying back to my rambling story about brushing past Nicolas Cage--was shot at and (sort of) based on my Alma Mater. So now I'm not just more of a Nicolas Cage fan, I'm more of a Martha Coolidge fan, too.
RAISING ARIZONA (1987): And of course, the Coen brothers (I swear I'll see INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS soon!) I love this movie. There was a time I watched this so often it was undoubtedly my most-watched Coen brothers film (I think THE BIG LEBOWSKI has overtaken it, mainly because of Indiefest's annual Lebowski party.) I don't even feel a need to describe it, instead I'll mention a friend of mine in college (bringing me back to my rambling Nic Cage story again!) who was adamantly not a fan of Cage (way, way before he was a joke to nearly everyone, this guy thought Nicolas Cage was a talent-less hack. But even he admitted that RAISING ARIZONA was a great movie and Cage was great in it. He just attributed it to the Coens giving him such a great role. And at the time, I would've listened. But after this night of Cage-apalooza, I disagree. Nicolas Cage is just...great. Just fucking great, man!
And it wasn't just the movies, it was the 20-some Nicolas Cage trailers. Kinda like seeing an abbreviated version of his career arc, I realized that there are a lot of Nicolas Cage movies that I've skipped (not necessarily avoided, just wasn't interested in) that suddenly seem a lot more interesting.
I still refuse to acknowledge that there was ever a remake of WICKER MAN, though. I know this is against all the high-minded principles of M4M, but...no...I draw the line there.
Total Running Time: 193 minutes
My Total Minutes: 346,920
Before I get to the movies, I just want to tell you all about the time I very briefly saw Nicolas Cage in person. This was back in my college years. I went to college in Pasadena, and one of the favorite spots for my friends and me was the Original Pantry in downtown L.A.--a classic 24/7 greasy spoon diner. They would start serving breakfast at 4:00 am, but at one point we were such regulars if we showed up at 3:30 they'd switch to their breakfast menu right then. One night, we accidentally got off a few exits too early and we ended up driving through downtown L.A. in the middle of the night (if you take the 9th street exit you get off and you're practically there.) There was almost no traffic, and we knew the way by surface streets (some of us had actually walked there from Pasadena, but that's another story) so this wasn't a problem. But then a cop pulled us over. Although we thought we had obeyed all traffic signals (i.e., we waited for the light to turn green) it turned out the streets were partially blocked off for filming a major studio project. When that occurs, you're not supposed to look at the traffic lights, you're supposed to look at the motorcycle cop off in the corner and cross when he signals you to. Anyway, we were given a brief talking to but no ticket, and we made our way to the diner easily enough. As we were walking in, there was a guy in a dirty, bloody wife-beater walking out. This is...not common, but not that surprising for the place and time of day. So we sort of averted our eyes and walked past him. But something made me turn around for a second look, and I suddenly recognized Nicolas Cage. He apparently was taking a break from filming and grabbing a bite at The Pantry just before we got there. It was too late (and I was too timid) to stop him and say anything to him. But a few months later, we started seeing advertisements for CON AIR. So...I brushed by Nicolas Cage in costume during a break on CON AIR. Pretty cool story, isn't it?
Shut up. On to the movies.
VALLEY GIRL (1983): The movie that made Cage a star. And, of course, a teen classic. And an R-rated teen comedy with tits...so it deserves to be a classic. Why isn't director Martha Coolidge a bigger name? I looked her up on IMDb, and was surprised to be reminded that she also directed REAL GENIUS. Which--tying back to my rambling story about brushing past Nicolas Cage--was shot at and (sort of) based on my Alma Mater. So now I'm not just more of a Nicolas Cage fan, I'm more of a Martha Coolidge fan, too.
RAISING ARIZONA (1987): And of course, the Coen brothers (I swear I'll see INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS soon!) I love this movie. There was a time I watched this so often it was undoubtedly my most-watched Coen brothers film (I think THE BIG LEBOWSKI has overtaken it, mainly because of Indiefest's annual Lebowski party.) I don't even feel a need to describe it, instead I'll mention a friend of mine in college (bringing me back to my rambling Nic Cage story again!) who was adamantly not a fan of Cage (way, way before he was a joke to nearly everyone, this guy thought Nicolas Cage was a talent-less hack. But even he admitted that RAISING ARIZONA was a great movie and Cage was great in it. He just attributed it to the Coens giving him such a great role. And at the time, I would've listened. But after this night of Cage-apalooza, I disagree. Nicolas Cage is just...great. Just fucking great, man!
And it wasn't just the movies, it was the 20-some Nicolas Cage trailers. Kinda like seeing an abbreviated version of his career arc, I realized that there are a lot of Nicolas Cage movies that I've skipped (not necessarily avoided, just wasn't interested in) that suddenly seem a lot more interesting.
I still refuse to acknowledge that there was ever a remake of WICKER MAN, though. I know this is against all the high-minded principles of M4M, but...no...I draw the line there.
Total Running Time: 193 minutes
My Total Minutes: 346,920
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Jason goes to Midnite for Maniacs and has some Hard Times During the Holidays
I'm only posting this about a week late, but Midnite for Maniacs celebrated the holidays in its own inimitable style.
First up was Jodie Foster's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Holly Hunter plays Claudia Larson, a recently unemployed art restorer whose life is kinda a mess (not just the recent unemployment, but also kinda making out with her soon-to-be-ex-boss, and learning that her daughter is planning to lose her virginity to her boyfriend over Thanksgiving.) She heads home for a Thanksgiving with her insane family, dominated by her annoying man-child of a gay brother played with gusto by Robert Downey, Jr. It's a movie of all the most awkward holiday moments. It skips over the family meals and gets right to the family fights. And yet, there's still a positive, supportive heart to it all. It's about family--both the ones you're born with and the ones you make--and how frustrating, insane, and insufferable they can be. And how they're the only ones you can turn to when you need help dealing with your frustrating, insane, and insufferable family.
And then we moved on to LOVE ACTUALLY. It's become kind of a cliche to finally see this film after avoiding it for a long time and then admitting that LOVE ACTUALLY is a surprisingly good film (this showed up as a throw-away joke in the Holehead film BUCK WILD.) Well, let me live up to the cliche by admitting this is the first time I've seen the film (after my girlfriend won the award for seeing it more times than anyone else in the audience) and I will admit that it's actually a pretty good film. What's surprising (and made me enjoy it more) is that it's not a particularly romantic movie. It's about love in all it's surprising, awkward, sometimes silly, sometimes sad forms. It's about love that almost sparks an international conflict, but it's also about love that a cynical, bitter rock star feels for his manager that was with him through all the worst times. It's about love that blossoms between co-workers--especially when they're stand-ins for a movie blocking out some particularly steamy love scenes. Or it's about love for a mentally ill brother that gets in the way of romantic aspirations. Or it's about the love between an old, reserved husband and wife when he is tempted to cheat, comes back as a fool, and they stay together for the kids. Or the love of a man for his dead wife, or the first boyhood crush of a kid who is wise enough to know that falling in love means his life is over. Like I said, not actually as romantic as you'd think. But kind of an interconnected survey of all kinds of love, straddling the line between cynical realism and cartoonish comedy, with everything in between. And most importantly, it's pretty damn funny.
And then the theater crawl to the Roxie for Harmony Korine's TRASH HUMPERS. It's a movie about... humping trash (why should I be surprised.) And while it didn't feel that festive at first, it's definitely the movie I thought about the most afterwards. It's intentionally lo-fi, ugly, and difficult to watch (even boring and long despite a bare 78 minute running time.) Old people (who are obviously young people in old-age masks) run around at night, break shit, and hump trash. And near the end they make a grand speech about how they're free. And in the middle there is one Christmas carol, so at the very least it superficially fits the theme. But it's also about our consumerist culture. Imagine all the trash and waste from the holidays. Now think, is it more shocking to hump that trash than to create that trash? Well, by the norms of society, yes it is. But that's the sort of weird idea that kept me awake for a few nights after seeing it.
Total Running Time: 316 minutes
My Total Minutes: 347,784
First up was Jodie Foster's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Holly Hunter plays Claudia Larson, a recently unemployed art restorer whose life is kinda a mess (not just the recent unemployment, but also kinda making out with her soon-to-be-ex-boss, and learning that her daughter is planning to lose her virginity to her boyfriend over Thanksgiving.) She heads home for a Thanksgiving with her insane family, dominated by her annoying man-child of a gay brother played with gusto by Robert Downey, Jr. It's a movie of all the most awkward holiday moments. It skips over the family meals and gets right to the family fights. And yet, there's still a positive, supportive heart to it all. It's about family--both the ones you're born with and the ones you make--and how frustrating, insane, and insufferable they can be. And how they're the only ones you can turn to when you need help dealing with your frustrating, insane, and insufferable family.
And then we moved on to LOVE ACTUALLY. It's become kind of a cliche to finally see this film after avoiding it for a long time and then admitting that LOVE ACTUALLY is a surprisingly good film (this showed up as a throw-away joke in the Holehead film BUCK WILD.) Well, let me live up to the cliche by admitting this is the first time I've seen the film (after my girlfriend won the award for seeing it more times than anyone else in the audience) and I will admit that it's actually a pretty good film. What's surprising (and made me enjoy it more) is that it's not a particularly romantic movie. It's about love in all it's surprising, awkward, sometimes silly, sometimes sad forms. It's about love that almost sparks an international conflict, but it's also about love that a cynical, bitter rock star feels for his manager that was with him through all the worst times. It's about love that blossoms between co-workers--especially when they're stand-ins for a movie blocking out some particularly steamy love scenes. Or it's about love for a mentally ill brother that gets in the way of romantic aspirations. Or it's about the love between an old, reserved husband and wife when he is tempted to cheat, comes back as a fool, and they stay together for the kids. Or the love of a man for his dead wife, or the first boyhood crush of a kid who is wise enough to know that falling in love means his life is over. Like I said, not actually as romantic as you'd think. But kind of an interconnected survey of all kinds of love, straddling the line between cynical realism and cartoonish comedy, with everything in between. And most importantly, it's pretty damn funny.
And then the theater crawl to the Roxie for Harmony Korine's TRASH HUMPERS. It's a movie about... humping trash (why should I be surprised.) And while it didn't feel that festive at first, it's definitely the movie I thought about the most afterwards. It's intentionally lo-fi, ugly, and difficult to watch (even boring and long despite a bare 78 minute running time.) Old people (who are obviously young people in old-age masks) run around at night, break shit, and hump trash. And near the end they make a grand speech about how they're free. And in the middle there is one Christmas carol, so at the very least it superficially fits the theme. But it's also about our consumerist culture. Imagine all the trash and waste from the holidays. Now think, is it more shocking to hump that trash than to create that trash? Well, by the norms of society, yes it is. But that's the sort of weird idea that kept me awake for a few nights after seeing it.
Total Running Time: 316 minutes
My Total Minutes: 347,784
Friday, November 15, 2013
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs for a triple-bill of Acid Westerns
I'm a week behind on my blogging, and in some ways that's a good thing. It gave me some time to think about what to write (so it will be all the more disappointing in the moments where I got nothing.)
THE LONE RANGER (2013): Midnites for Maniacs mission statement is to honor and appreciated unseen, under-appreciated films. I read Jesse Hawthorne Ficks review of THE LONE RANGER too late to catch it when it was still in it's regular theatrical run (full disclosure for those who don't know, Jesse also runs Midnites for Maniacs and has been pushing this movie for months.) Re-reading it today...I'm tempted to just say "me too" and be done with it. He certainly points out a lot of things that bewildered, angered, or bored many critics, and interprets them in a way that makes it clear that the filmmakers are a lot smarter than their critics. In full disclosure, the one thing I couldn't quite reconcile on my first viewing was the slapstick self-parody moments in what I thought was a surprisingly deep movie. I felt it undercut the fact that's smarter and deeper than most people will acknowledge, sort of saying "hey, don't take me seriously" even though it makes some pretty good points. But Jesse makes some good points about that, and convinces me (not that I wasn't already convinced) that I should watch this again.
This movie is in large part an origins story, but not really about the origins of the character of the Lone Ranger. It's about the origins of the myth. It's about how--and why--we tell stories (specifically stories about America, and stories on film). It's weird that the first (that I caught) of dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of movie references is to THE RED BALLOON. This is chock full of movie references, from the origin of cinema with THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY to...well, at least to Verbinski and Depp's first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. And that's more than just a game for cinephiles, this movie is obsessed with the art of telling stories--and making you think about storytelling.
Now the elephant in the room, is that this is Tonto's story far more than the Lone Ranger's. It's actually told by an aged Tonto in 1920's San Francisco to a young boy in a Lone Ranger mask. And for about half the movie I was thinking 'If only they had called the movie TONTO instead, people would have loved it.' It would be like WICKED retelling THE WIZARD OF OZ from the witch's point of view (not that Tonto is ever the villain, but retelling stories from a non-traditional point of view has been pretty popular in modern literature for quite a while.) But then something pretty cool happens. John Reid (Armie Hammer) finally understands why Tonto kept telling him to wear the mask, and he puts the mask on. And when see him shortly afterwards, and the William Tell Overture plays...well, my heart started racing. I finally got to root for him, and it was all the better for knowing I was doing it for the right reasons. For nearly two hours this movie had told me to forget everything I know about the Lone Ranger, to even hate the myth or at least feel guilty about the white male-centric nature of it. And then it gave me a Lone Ranger to believe in, and earned it's title.
Jesse ends his review with some thoughts about Tonto's meditative walk during the end credits, and speculated about its meaning. Here's my thought. Just before the credits rolled, Tonto finishes telling his story to the little boy in San Francisco. He (the little boy) thinks about it, puts his Lone Ranger mask on, and says, "Never take off the mask." I think Tonto's walking off to finally rest and pass away in peace knowing that at long last he finally told his story to someone who got it.
And now it's way too tempting to think about that in terms of the success (or lack thereof) of the movie. Verbinski et al. actually knew they were making a movie that's difficult to get. A movie that takes multiple viewings (and on screens bigger than your damn phone.) And maybe they can let this movie rest peacefully if at least one kid gets it. I'm pretty sure I'm not (yet) that 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure that Jesse Ficks, as big a fan as he is, is the 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure if Quentin Tarantino, who has an intimidating knowledge of film and put this on his top ten of the year list, is the 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure that there is any 'kid who gets it' yet, really. But if all it takes is one...I'm convinced it can happen. But it will be quite an undertaking, because this movie is big and deep.
DEAD MAN (1995): Well, after THE LONE RANGER left my head kind of spinning, almost anything would be a bit of a let down. So I was grateful to follow this with a movie I had seen before. But only on home video, and not since it was first out. It's slow, it's black and white, it's poetic, it's weird. Johnny Depp as William Blake (not the old English poet, but you'll be forgiven for that mistake) arrives in a frontier town with a letter offering him a job as an accountant. But he's too late, the job has already been filled. And he's out of money, and he meets a girl, and he sort of kills the guy who is attacking her. Which is bad, because he's the son of the guy who runs the town (same guy who through him out on his ear.) So wounded and hunted, he goes on the run and meets an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who becomes his guide to...well, to fulfilling his death. I think there's something wrong with me that when I saw it back in college I didn't run out and learn all about William Blake's poetry (or his drawings.) When I was in college, I thought I was deep and smart for liking it. Now I feel shallow and dumb for realizing how little I get this. Also, I'll confess that I kind of dozed off for some parts of it.
WALKER (1987): And finally, after a theater crawl to the Roxie, we got this piece of the extreme weirdness. Alex Cox (REPO MAN, REVENGERS TRAGEDIE) directed Ed Harris in this story based on the real life William Walker. In the beginning, he's the leader of a band of American mercenaries in Mexico, facing certain annihilation. But a freak sandstorm gives them cover to escape and he returns to America where he's promptly put on trial. He gets off pretty easily (there's a strange air about him that no matter how many bad things happen he's supremely confident, calm, and sure of success). Cornelius Vanderbilt calls for a meeting with him, and tasks him with leading a coup in Nicaragua to secure transportation lines between the Atlantic and Pacific (this was in the 1850's, well before the Panama canal.) So he goes...and he slaughters them. And he makes deals with the local officials. And the locals fight back. And he promises him men no harm will come to them even as they're being slaughtered. And he becomes President...for a year, before everyone rises up, overthrows him, and executes him. Basically his story is the least successful version of 'White American sticks his nose where it doesn't belong and screws everything up' ever. And the contrast between the action on screen and his hilariously upbeat letters home is priceless...and resonates with other recent "They'll greet us as liberators!" moments.
And that was M4M's salute to Acid Westerns. Next month for Christmas on December 20th they'll be doing HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1995), LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) and...we don't know yet.
Total Running Time: 364 minutes
My Total Minutes: 341,710
THE LONE RANGER (2013): Midnites for Maniacs mission statement is to honor and appreciated unseen, under-appreciated films. I read Jesse Hawthorne Ficks review of THE LONE RANGER too late to catch it when it was still in it's regular theatrical run (full disclosure for those who don't know, Jesse also runs Midnites for Maniacs and has been pushing this movie for months.) Re-reading it today...I'm tempted to just say "me too" and be done with it. He certainly points out a lot of things that bewildered, angered, or bored many critics, and interprets them in a way that makes it clear that the filmmakers are a lot smarter than their critics. In full disclosure, the one thing I couldn't quite reconcile on my first viewing was the slapstick self-parody moments in what I thought was a surprisingly deep movie. I felt it undercut the fact that's smarter and deeper than most people will acknowledge, sort of saying "hey, don't take me seriously" even though it makes some pretty good points. But Jesse makes some good points about that, and convinces me (not that I wasn't already convinced) that I should watch this again.
This movie is in large part an origins story, but not really about the origins of the character of the Lone Ranger. It's about the origins of the myth. It's about how--and why--we tell stories (specifically stories about America, and stories on film). It's weird that the first (that I caught) of dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of movie references is to THE RED BALLOON. This is chock full of movie references, from the origin of cinema with THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY to...well, at least to Verbinski and Depp's first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. And that's more than just a game for cinephiles, this movie is obsessed with the art of telling stories--and making you think about storytelling.
Now the elephant in the room, is that this is Tonto's story far more than the Lone Ranger's. It's actually told by an aged Tonto in 1920's San Francisco to a young boy in a Lone Ranger mask. And for about half the movie I was thinking 'If only they had called the movie TONTO instead, people would have loved it.' It would be like WICKED retelling THE WIZARD OF OZ from the witch's point of view (not that Tonto is ever the villain, but retelling stories from a non-traditional point of view has been pretty popular in modern literature for quite a while.) But then something pretty cool happens. John Reid (Armie Hammer) finally understands why Tonto kept telling him to wear the mask, and he puts the mask on. And when see him shortly afterwards, and the William Tell Overture plays...well, my heart started racing. I finally got to root for him, and it was all the better for knowing I was doing it for the right reasons. For nearly two hours this movie had told me to forget everything I know about the Lone Ranger, to even hate the myth or at least feel guilty about the white male-centric nature of it. And then it gave me a Lone Ranger to believe in, and earned it's title.
Jesse ends his review with some thoughts about Tonto's meditative walk during the end credits, and speculated about its meaning. Here's my thought. Just before the credits rolled, Tonto finishes telling his story to the little boy in San Francisco. He (the little boy) thinks about it, puts his Lone Ranger mask on, and says, "Never take off the mask." I think Tonto's walking off to finally rest and pass away in peace knowing that at long last he finally told his story to someone who got it.
And now it's way too tempting to think about that in terms of the success (or lack thereof) of the movie. Verbinski et al. actually knew they were making a movie that's difficult to get. A movie that takes multiple viewings (and on screens bigger than your damn phone.) And maybe they can let this movie rest peacefully if at least one kid gets it. I'm pretty sure I'm not (yet) that 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure that Jesse Ficks, as big a fan as he is, is the 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure if Quentin Tarantino, who has an intimidating knowledge of film and put this on his top ten of the year list, is the 'kid who gets it.' I'm not sure that there is any 'kid who gets it' yet, really. But if all it takes is one...I'm convinced it can happen. But it will be quite an undertaking, because this movie is big and deep.
DEAD MAN (1995): Well, after THE LONE RANGER left my head kind of spinning, almost anything would be a bit of a let down. So I was grateful to follow this with a movie I had seen before. But only on home video, and not since it was first out. It's slow, it's black and white, it's poetic, it's weird. Johnny Depp as William Blake (not the old English poet, but you'll be forgiven for that mistake) arrives in a frontier town with a letter offering him a job as an accountant. But he's too late, the job has already been filled. And he's out of money, and he meets a girl, and he sort of kills the guy who is attacking her. Which is bad, because he's the son of the guy who runs the town (same guy who through him out on his ear.) So wounded and hunted, he goes on the run and meets an Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who becomes his guide to...well, to fulfilling his death. I think there's something wrong with me that when I saw it back in college I didn't run out and learn all about William Blake's poetry (or his drawings.) When I was in college, I thought I was deep and smart for liking it. Now I feel shallow and dumb for realizing how little I get this. Also, I'll confess that I kind of dozed off for some parts of it.
WALKER (1987): And finally, after a theater crawl to the Roxie, we got this piece of the extreme weirdness. Alex Cox (REPO MAN, REVENGERS TRAGEDIE) directed Ed Harris in this story based on the real life William Walker. In the beginning, he's the leader of a band of American mercenaries in Mexico, facing certain annihilation. But a freak sandstorm gives them cover to escape and he returns to America where he's promptly put on trial. He gets off pretty easily (there's a strange air about him that no matter how many bad things happen he's supremely confident, calm, and sure of success). Cornelius Vanderbilt calls for a meeting with him, and tasks him with leading a coup in Nicaragua to secure transportation lines between the Atlantic and Pacific (this was in the 1850's, well before the Panama canal.) So he goes...and he slaughters them. And he makes deals with the local officials. And the locals fight back. And he promises him men no harm will come to them even as they're being slaughtered. And he becomes President...for a year, before everyone rises up, overthrows him, and executes him. Basically his story is the least successful version of 'White American sticks his nose where it doesn't belong and screws everything up' ever. And the contrast between the action on screen and his hilariously upbeat letters home is priceless...and resonates with other recent "They'll greet us as liberators!" moments.
And that was M4M's salute to Acid Westerns. Next month for Christmas on December 20th they'll be doing HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1995), LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) and...we don't know yet.
Total Running Time: 364 minutes
My Total Minutes: 341,710
Monday, October 21, 2013
Jason goes to Midnites For Maniacs and learns that Movies Can Kill!
Another Midnites for Maniacs theater crawl. Starting at the Castro.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999): I remember seeing this movie when it came out in theaters. And I remember both the hype (super low budget, heavily promoted on the Internet back before that was a thing) and the backlash (people complaining that it wasn't scary, mainly because [spoiler!] it never actually showed the witch). But mostly I remember a coworker seeing it a few days before me, and just ripping on it constantly. Thing is, I really didn't like this guy, so I went in there determined to like it just to spite the guy. 14 years later, I'm convinced I was right. It's an effectively scary movie, not for the mystery as much as for the terror of being lost in the woods and friends turning on each other. And for you kids out there, this was before you could just whip out your smartphone and pull up a map with GPS to lead you out of there. Getting lost in the woods used to be a real thing. God damn I feel old.
RINGU (1998): The original Japanese version of THE RING, the terrifying story of a cursed VHS tape that kills you one week after you watch it. Kids, a VHS tape is...awww, what's the use? Now this one I saw originally in the best possible way. I ordered a set of bootleg VHS tapes off the Internet because A: there was one movie I wanted (I don't even remember what it was anymore) and B: it was a great price. Something like $25 for 6 tapes of J-horror (although I don't think we were calling Japanese horror movies J-horror yet). So I pop in RING--alone at home--and this story unfolds about a videotape that after you watch it the phone rings and you have one week left to live. And I swear to God, as soon as the movie was over, my phone rang! It was just a friend, and we had a good laugh over it. But for a split second...nah, I'll never admit to actually believing it. But it is still one of the best J-horror movies ever, if not the best (for my money the only competition is the Japanese version of DARK WATER.)
Then a brisk walk to Roxie, pop into a convenience store to grab a beer for the theater, and on to the midnight movie.
DEMONS (1985): Produced and co-written by Dario Argento, directed by Lamberto Bava, a brisk, funny, and actually scary story of a cursed/infected mask that unleashes a plague of demons/zombies/call 'em whatever you want inside a theater where the audience is watching...a silly, cheesy horror movie. This is a film about genre film making, and more importantly genre film watching. And it was a good 11 years before SCREAM came out and (eventually, through multiple sequels) wrung every last bit of cleverness out of that idea. But this is still a good, fun movie and some of the scenes mixing the parallel action in the theater and in the film-within-a-film are pretty damn smart. A really cool way to end the night.
Next month, on November 8th M4M brings you Acid Westerns with Johnny Depp in this year's THE LONE RANGER and DEAD MAN at the Castro, and a TBA midnight movie at the Roxie.
Total Running Time: 265 minutes
My Total Minutes: 339,428
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999): I remember seeing this movie when it came out in theaters. And I remember both the hype (super low budget, heavily promoted on the Internet back before that was a thing) and the backlash (people complaining that it wasn't scary, mainly because [spoiler!] it never actually showed the witch). But mostly I remember a coworker seeing it a few days before me, and just ripping on it constantly. Thing is, I really didn't like this guy, so I went in there determined to like it just to spite the guy. 14 years later, I'm convinced I was right. It's an effectively scary movie, not for the mystery as much as for the terror of being lost in the woods and friends turning on each other. And for you kids out there, this was before you could just whip out your smartphone and pull up a map with GPS to lead you out of there. Getting lost in the woods used to be a real thing. God damn I feel old.
RINGU (1998): The original Japanese version of THE RING, the terrifying story of a cursed VHS tape that kills you one week after you watch it. Kids, a VHS tape is...awww, what's the use? Now this one I saw originally in the best possible way. I ordered a set of bootleg VHS tapes off the Internet because A: there was one movie I wanted (I don't even remember what it was anymore) and B: it was a great price. Something like $25 for 6 tapes of J-horror (although I don't think we were calling Japanese horror movies J-horror yet). So I pop in RING--alone at home--and this story unfolds about a videotape that after you watch it the phone rings and you have one week left to live. And I swear to God, as soon as the movie was over, my phone rang! It was just a friend, and we had a good laugh over it. But for a split second...nah, I'll never admit to actually believing it. But it is still one of the best J-horror movies ever, if not the best (for my money the only competition is the Japanese version of DARK WATER.)
Then a brisk walk to Roxie, pop into a convenience store to grab a beer for the theater, and on to the midnight movie.
DEMONS (1985): Produced and co-written by Dario Argento, directed by Lamberto Bava, a brisk, funny, and actually scary story of a cursed/infected mask that unleashes a plague of demons/zombies/call 'em whatever you want inside a theater where the audience is watching...a silly, cheesy horror movie. This is a film about genre film making, and more importantly genre film watching. And it was a good 11 years before SCREAM came out and (eventually, through multiple sequels) wrung every last bit of cleverness out of that idea. But this is still a good, fun movie and some of the scenes mixing the parallel action in the theater and in the film-within-a-film are pretty damn smart. A really cool way to end the night.
Next month, on November 8th M4M brings you Acid Westerns with Johnny Depp in this year's THE LONE RANGER and DEAD MAN at the Castro, and a TBA midnight movie at the Roxie.
Total Running Time: 265 minutes
My Total Minutes: 339,428
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