1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)
Dir: Enzo G. Castellari
Must I revoke my Mondo card for being weirdly underwhelmed by Enzo Castellari’s The Bronx Warriors? Mad Max and Doomsday aside, I feel I’m just not a fan of the post-apocalyptic stuff. This includes Escape From New York. I simply can’t shake the feeling that the overwhelming majority of the genre consists of a lot of aimless wandering around building sites avoiding shadey characters who weren't able to get into variety of terrible nightclubs.
It’d be disingenuous to not admit a few of stand-out moments which enliven the narrative stagnation, though albeit momentarily.
* the excellent random dummer who accompanies an early death scene. He's plainly the star of the show
* Fred Williamson in his extraordinarily array of exceedingly camp silk shirts
* Vic Morrow laughing both in and out of a helicopter.
However, there are two major problems which are insurmountable.
Major problem #1 is with The Bronx Warriors's post-apocalyptic status: it is not actually set after any discernable apocalypse.
Major problem #2 is with The Bronx Warriors’ location: many scenes in the BRONX Warriors are demonstrably filmed in BROOKLYN and STATEN ISLAND.
Having said this, Shameless Screen Entertainment's DVDs are, regardless of the film's individual merits, pretty indispensible for any exploitation fans' cinema library.
Thursday 14 January 2010
Monday 11 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #7
The Exterminator (1980)
Dir: James Glickenhaus
The reputation of this James Glickenhaus film, at least to me who has only just caught up with this delightfully sleazy piece of post-grindhouse exploitation cinema, has been sketched out as that of a cheap Death Wish knock-off. Which is wildly unfair, given the tone, atmosphere and peculiar poise Glickenhaus lends both his screenplay and the direction of his performers.
Like William Lustig’s Vigilante -- and more importantly very *unlike* Michel Winner’s more coldly punitive Death Wish -- there's a begrudging love of New York here. Winner has a foreigner’s detachment which screams like a tabloid headline whereas The Exterminator and Vigilante possesses the weary deference to violence as a way of life, something to be rallied against at the cost of a man’s soul rather than his quest for simple blood vengeance. This what is drives these latter "knock offs".
It’s something Glickenhaus’s film shares with its more overt forebear: John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder. There, too, a man who was once demonstrably human has returned from Vietnam a virtual automaton, his moral compass skewed so that his primary mode of behaviour is a terrifyingly measured, primal and, most chilling of all, *lucid* defense of his fellow citizens at the mercy of the ruthless, avaricious and plain wicked. There’s even a yearning country ballad (reprised, bizarrely but just as hauntingly in The Ninth Configuration) that's evocative of a happier, simpler and more heartfelt era, accompanying the opening credits.
The Exterminator is the best kind of reactionary cinema. Sombre and sorrowful nihilism without resorting to tabloid didacticism to make its points.
Dir: James Glickenhaus
The reputation of this James Glickenhaus film, at least to me who has only just caught up with this delightfully sleazy piece of post-grindhouse exploitation cinema, has been sketched out as that of a cheap Death Wish knock-off. Which is wildly unfair, given the tone, atmosphere and peculiar poise Glickenhaus lends both his screenplay and the direction of his performers.
Like William Lustig’s Vigilante -- and more importantly very *unlike* Michel Winner’s more coldly punitive Death Wish -- there's a begrudging love of New York here. Winner has a foreigner’s detachment which screams like a tabloid headline whereas The Exterminator and Vigilante possesses the weary deference to violence as a way of life, something to be rallied against at the cost of a man’s soul rather than his quest for simple blood vengeance. This what is drives these latter "knock offs".
It’s something Glickenhaus’s film shares with its more overt forebear: John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder. There, too, a man who was once demonstrably human has returned from Vietnam a virtual automaton, his moral compass skewed so that his primary mode of behaviour is a terrifyingly measured, primal and, most chilling of all, *lucid* defense of his fellow citizens at the mercy of the ruthless, avaricious and plain wicked. There’s even a yearning country ballad (reprised, bizarrely but just as hauntingly in The Ninth Configuration) that's evocative of a happier, simpler and more heartfelt era, accompanying the opening credits.
The Exterminator is the best kind of reactionary cinema. Sombre and sorrowful nihilism without resorting to tabloid didacticism to make its points.
Sunday 10 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #6
Play Time (1967)
Dir: Jacques Tati
Utterly beguiling Jacques Tati comedy-fantasy-tableaux…*thing*. It’s almost indescribable. Though it has no story, no real central characters and no set pieces to speak of, it’s surreal, very funny and dazzlingly constructed in every way. One of those pictures which it’s difficult to fathom was actually crated by somebody. A remarkable and quite lovely experience.
Dir: Jacques Tati
Utterly beguiling Jacques Tati comedy-fantasy-tableaux…*thing*. It’s almost indescribable. Though it has no story, no real central characters and no set pieces to speak of, it’s surreal, very funny and dazzlingly constructed in every way. One of those pictures which it’s difficult to fathom was actually crated by somebody. A remarkable and quite lovely experience.
Saturday 9 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #5
Un Sulla Ultra (Perversion Story) (1969)
Dir: Lucio Fulci
...in which, strangely for a Fulci, there’s not an awful lot of *actual* perversion. This was 1968 for Cthulhu’s sake: was sleeping around considered perverse?? It has a fabulous Riz Ortalani score and great last act twist that is kind of E.C. Comics in its own way and I certainly didn’t see it coming. I wonder if Clint Eastwood saw it before he made True Crime? (Joke. Sort of.)
Dir: Lucio Fulci
...in which, strangely for a Fulci, there’s not an awful lot of *actual* perversion. This was 1968 for Cthulhu’s sake: was sleeping around considered perverse?? It has a fabulous Riz Ortalani score and great last act twist that is kind of E.C. Comics in its own way and I certainly didn’t see it coming. I wonder if Clint Eastwood saw it before he made True Crime? (Joke. Sort of.)
Friday 8 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #4
The Seven Ups (1973)
Dir: Philip D'Antoni
Producer-turned-director Philip D’Antoni’s hard-nosed cop thriller is the mid-point between Lumet and Friedkin. The slow burn drama of Prince Of The City collides with bursts of tight, terrific action that, while not quite matching the intensity of The French Connection, honestly, blows Bullitt out of the water. The car chase conjured up here is a real jaw-dropper and inexplicably unheralded when discussing great vehicular mayhem.
Dir: Philip D'Antoni
Producer-turned-director Philip D’Antoni’s hard-nosed cop thriller is the mid-point between Lumet and Friedkin. The slow burn drama of Prince Of The City collides with bursts of tight, terrific action that, while not quite matching the intensity of The French Connection, honestly, blows Bullitt out of the water. The car chase conjured up here is a real jaw-dropper and inexplicably unheralded when discussing great vehicular mayhem.
Thursday 7 January 2010
Wednesday 6 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #2
Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
Dir: Spike Jonze
I just didn’t feel this. And I think that’s the *key* to the film.
Formally it’s a fine enough piece of filmmaking. Lance Accord demonstrates that he one of the most deft and sensitive cinematographers working today and the production design is as striking as the smart f/x that bring the Wild Things’ faces to life. Yet on an emotional level, it’s the psychological baggage you bring to this picture which determines how big the reward you receive from its slight premise. This could, of course, be said for any picture, but I’d argue that the sheer distance of suspension of disbelief and identification that one brings to the party when one is trying to identify with wild eyed murderers, spacemen, superheroes or robots goes a long way to filling in the empathetic gaps one is confronted with in a situation that is ostensibly “real” (a child with problem issues) yet so far from one’s own experiences, no matter how fantastical his adventures get. Because no matter how imaginative the realm of the Wild Things, ultimately, the kid is the key to all the rumpus. More on that below.
That makes me either cold-hearted, devoid of empathy or just lucky. My reaction to two other recent pictures dealing in similar emotional baggage (the thoroughly charming and heart-wrenching duo of Up and Away We Go) make me unwilling to cop to the former two, so…
Either way, the mawkish, achingly affected, melancholy-tinged presentation of this child, Max, who is shown to have a nice house, a mother who genuinely cares for him under rather stressful circumstances and who is obviously a smart and creative child, reveals itself to be quite nauseating and, ultimately, rather dull. It's a self-examination of the kind of irritating misunderstood artistic soul who feels the need to ram home exactly how adrift he is in the bustling highway of modernity (look at the pernicious computer his mother works on at dinner time with all of it’s troublesome graphs and evil tables and technological iniquities!! Now marvel at the whimsical cardboard mountain range that Max has constructed in his bedroom!! How delightfully lo-fi!).
The film is about a kid; but it’s really *about* the kid in all of us, isn’t it? And therein sits the problem, arms folded, a precious tear-stained frown upon its sullen face. It’s too distancing and remote for many children to engage with as they would, say, a Pixar film. So we’re left with the adults. And for them the film is about the journey that they have either had similar travails undertaking in adolescence or, perhaps, still haven’t taken to this day. And as such, it feels phony, or at least some kind of shallow avoidance of the actual process of growing up which, when I was a rampant, boisterous child, involved a measured yet stern talking to about manners and respect and generally being a nicer person in a family with a variety of its own issues to work through as daily life tossed them our way. My experience involved adults and the proximity to the real world which seemed so strange and sometimes unfair. It didn’t involve a precious internal fantasy that somehow cured behavioural issues without any particular rhyme nor reason.
And so, on a gut level, I just didn’t feel it. And the picture is so whimsical and light, so content with evocatively mulling over the same sort of communication breakdown/behavioural ticks again and again with the Wild Thing characters standing in different facets of Max’s id that, if you’re not connected to Max at a primal level, there’s not a lot of other ground to cover or grist to mill. There’s nothing else to his dilemma that connects, since it’s all simply single-minded, fanciful, psychological-therapy-as-story.
Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the picture though, at least with regard to the outpouring of emotion from many quarters praising Jonze’s unique vision, is how the supposed high point of that emotion is as conventional as they come. The single moment of genuine sadness that leaked through the overbearing tweeness of the piece was, in fact, a moment of emotional manipulation as egregious as anything in a modern Hollywood blockbuster; the sort of thing, incidentally, so often seen being chortled at with condescending derision by certain sections Jonze’s ardent fanbase. Having found the little handmade trinket from Max, Carol runs -- and runs *just in time* remember -- over the sand dunes to bid his king a tearful farewell in his boat and as he does so Carter Burwell’s score lilts and swells with exquisite yearning and sorrow and they howl across the water to each other – well, it might as well be Bicentennial Man, by this point. Shameless manipulation is a fine commodity, from Sirk to Spielberg, but it feels here like it’s been hidden behind the laconic, boho-chic tinklings of Karen O’s rough hewn musical meanderings.
Reflecting after the film finally came to its quiet conclusion (the one other moment of emotional legitimacy), two other pictures were forefront in my mind: Maurice Pialat’s L’enfance nue and The Dardenne Brothers’ The Child. They’re French and Belgian, respectively and as low key and dispassionate as they come. Yet they both seem to say far more and with far more eloquence and poetry about the pain of loss and longing and loneliness than Jonze’s underdrawn piece of animated emotion ever could. They are truly deserving of well-earned, ingenuous tears.
Dir: Spike Jonze
I just didn’t feel this. And I think that’s the *key* to the film.
Formally it’s a fine enough piece of filmmaking. Lance Accord demonstrates that he one of the most deft and sensitive cinematographers working today and the production design is as striking as the smart f/x that bring the Wild Things’ faces to life. Yet on an emotional level, it’s the psychological baggage you bring to this picture which determines how big the reward you receive from its slight premise. This could, of course, be said for any picture, but I’d argue that the sheer distance of suspension of disbelief and identification that one brings to the party when one is trying to identify with wild eyed murderers, spacemen, superheroes or robots goes a long way to filling in the empathetic gaps one is confronted with in a situation that is ostensibly “real” (a child with problem issues) yet so far from one’s own experiences, no matter how fantastical his adventures get. Because no matter how imaginative the realm of the Wild Things, ultimately, the kid is the key to all the rumpus. More on that below.
That makes me either cold-hearted, devoid of empathy or just lucky. My reaction to two other recent pictures dealing in similar emotional baggage (the thoroughly charming and heart-wrenching duo of Up and Away We Go) make me unwilling to cop to the former two, so…
Either way, the mawkish, achingly affected, melancholy-tinged presentation of this child, Max, who is shown to have a nice house, a mother who genuinely cares for him under rather stressful circumstances and who is obviously a smart and creative child, reveals itself to be quite nauseating and, ultimately, rather dull. It's a self-examination of the kind of irritating misunderstood artistic soul who feels the need to ram home exactly how adrift he is in the bustling highway of modernity (look at the pernicious computer his mother works on at dinner time with all of it’s troublesome graphs and evil tables and technological iniquities!! Now marvel at the whimsical cardboard mountain range that Max has constructed in his bedroom!! How delightfully lo-fi!).
The film is about a kid; but it’s really *about* the kid in all of us, isn’t it? And therein sits the problem, arms folded, a precious tear-stained frown upon its sullen face. It’s too distancing and remote for many children to engage with as they would, say, a Pixar film. So we’re left with the adults. And for them the film is about the journey that they have either had similar travails undertaking in adolescence or, perhaps, still haven’t taken to this day. And as such, it feels phony, or at least some kind of shallow avoidance of the actual process of growing up which, when I was a rampant, boisterous child, involved a measured yet stern talking to about manners and respect and generally being a nicer person in a family with a variety of its own issues to work through as daily life tossed them our way. My experience involved adults and the proximity to the real world which seemed so strange and sometimes unfair. It didn’t involve a precious internal fantasy that somehow cured behavioural issues without any particular rhyme nor reason.
And so, on a gut level, I just didn’t feel it. And the picture is so whimsical and light, so content with evocatively mulling over the same sort of communication breakdown/behavioural ticks again and again with the Wild Thing characters standing in different facets of Max’s id that, if you’re not connected to Max at a primal level, there’s not a lot of other ground to cover or grist to mill. There’s nothing else to his dilemma that connects, since it’s all simply single-minded, fanciful, psychological-therapy-as-story.
Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the picture though, at least with regard to the outpouring of emotion from many quarters praising Jonze’s unique vision, is how the supposed high point of that emotion is as conventional as they come. The single moment of genuine sadness that leaked through the overbearing tweeness of the piece was, in fact, a moment of emotional manipulation as egregious as anything in a modern Hollywood blockbuster; the sort of thing, incidentally, so often seen being chortled at with condescending derision by certain sections Jonze’s ardent fanbase. Having found the little handmade trinket from Max, Carol runs -- and runs *just in time* remember -- over the sand dunes to bid his king a tearful farewell in his boat and as he does so Carter Burwell’s score lilts and swells with exquisite yearning and sorrow and they howl across the water to each other – well, it might as well be Bicentennial Man, by this point. Shameless manipulation is a fine commodity, from Sirk to Spielberg, but it feels here like it’s been hidden behind the laconic, boho-chic tinklings of Karen O’s rough hewn musical meanderings.
Reflecting after the film finally came to its quiet conclusion (the one other moment of emotional legitimacy), two other pictures were forefront in my mind: Maurice Pialat’s L’enfance nue and The Dardenne Brothers’ The Child. They’re French and Belgian, respectively and as low key and dispassionate as they come. Yet they both seem to say far more and with far more eloquence and poetry about the pain of loss and longing and loneliness than Jonze’s underdrawn piece of animated emotion ever could. They are truly deserving of well-earned, ingenuous tears.
Monday 4 January 2010
2010 In Pictures #1
Gone Baby Gone (2008)
Dir: Ben Affleck
An exercise in queasy, incisive and mournful social observation, Affleck’s sensitive and actorly adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s pungent tale of, ultimately, conspiratorial wish-fulfillment that might perhaps bless a Boston suburb blighted by neglect, selfishness, apathy and a tragically fostered disdain for common decency is a low key gem.
Inescapably resting in the shadow of James Ellroy, this terrific picture might seem comparably slight and intimate but it's also free from the sensationalist grand-standing which pervades Ellroy’s sassy, bleak and provocative ret-conning of recent history’s brutality and perversion.
Beyond seeing a good story, well told, two things remain forefrton in the mind: firstly, Casey Affleck remains bafflingly underused by the industry, no doubt a product of his waif-like frame and a face that’s less beautifully haunted than etched with what might be some kind of uncomfortable, unconscionable memory that is his alone to endure for the rest of us; secondly there is no supporting turn more rewarding and heartening for the craft of screen acting than one by Ed Harris.
In the tradition in of modern actors crossing to the director’s chair, Affleck’s up there with Redford and Pollack. The US producers of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series would do well to keep him in mind as they look for prospective filmmakers for the impending English language remake.
Dir: Ben Affleck
An exercise in queasy, incisive and mournful social observation, Affleck’s sensitive and actorly adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s pungent tale of, ultimately, conspiratorial wish-fulfillment that might perhaps bless a Boston suburb blighted by neglect, selfishness, apathy and a tragically fostered disdain for common decency is a low key gem.
Inescapably resting in the shadow of James Ellroy, this terrific picture might seem comparably slight and intimate but it's also free from the sensationalist grand-standing which pervades Ellroy’s sassy, bleak and provocative ret-conning of recent history’s brutality and perversion.
Beyond seeing a good story, well told, two things remain forefrton in the mind: firstly, Casey Affleck remains bafflingly underused by the industry, no doubt a product of his waif-like frame and a face that’s less beautifully haunted than etched with what might be some kind of uncomfortable, unconscionable memory that is his alone to endure for the rest of us; secondly there is no supporting turn more rewarding and heartening for the craft of screen acting than one by Ed Harris.
In the tradition in of modern actors crossing to the director’s chair, Affleck’s up there with Redford and Pollack. The US producers of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series would do well to keep him in mind as they look for prospective filmmakers for the impending English language remake.
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