5/31/09
Tomb of Forgotten Film: The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
As I wisk myself off to the City that Care forgot, this week is going to be devoted to films that take place in New Orleans. All your favorite features will go on as normal thanks to the magic of computers (and my working way far ahead). In the meantime, don’t forget that this week I’ll be talking about my time in New Orleans including things to do, food to eat, and where some of these films were shot. So click on the link in the sidebar to check out I Got the Ways and Means: A New Orleans Travel-blog.
Today’s film features one of my favorite actors of all time, and even though you wouldn’t know it from the title, it’s one of my favorite New Orleans films. I’ll cut the buildup short this time and get right to the heart of it with today’s selection from the Tomb of Forgotten Film…
The Cincinnati Kid (1965) starring Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Karl Mauldin, Ann Margret, Rip Torn, and Tuesday Weld. Directed by Norman Jewison.
In every city you go to there’s a top poker player, in New Orleans, that player is the Eric ‘The Kid” Stoner (McQueen). So when poker legend Lancie “The Man” Howard (Robinson) rolls into town a game in inevitable. First, the man rolls though Slade (Rip Torn), a poker player from the upper crust of New Orleans society. When Slade is cleaned out, he tries to get the dealer, Shooter (Karl Mauldin) to fix the game between “The Kid” and “The Man”, but when it comes game time; all their fates hang in the cards.
The Bugg Picture
While poker is at the heart of this picture, character is what really drives it. While McQueen played more action-oriented roles, as “The Kid”, he really flexes his acting chops as the upstart player coming up against the established pro. Playing against an actor like Edward G. Robinson, who brings gravitas to the role of Lancie “The Man” because of his legendary silver screen roles. McQueen makes the story about more than two generations of poker players. It becomes a battle between one of the coolest customers in ‘40’s cinema and the king of cool himself.
As if this film didn’t have enough going for it in the cool department, it was almost directed by Sam Peckinpah, but after the producers canned him, he went on to make Major Dundee. Sam had intended to shoot the film in black and white,and unbeknownst to the producers intended to include some nude shots. They were outraged that Sam would try and make “a vulgar kind of picture”. Jewison was brought in to replace Peckinpah, and the producers scrapped the footage along with actress Sharon Tate, replacing her with the more demure Tuesday Weld.
Norman Jewison, what is there to say about this guy who directed The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, Rollerball, and In The Heat of the Night. Even if you don’t think you’ve seen one of his films, chances are you have. Norman eschewed Peckinpah’s notion to shoot in black and white. He is said to have felt that the poker game with it’s high contrast black, red, and white cards lost something without color. Muting the color palette, Jewison tries to create the feeling of the late 1940’s. Unfortunately, the costuming varies widely, McQueen’s character rocks a wardrobe that could have been the sixties or last week, but assuredly not the forties. There are a few other anachronisms including the diesel trains that “The Kid” ducks behind while escaping though a train yard.
While there are some slipups, it is easy in the post Pulp Fiction era we live in to chalk up the tiny discrepancies to that magical occurrence known as “movie time”, and like QT’s films, Cincinnati Kid relies on sharp, crisp dialog. Thankfully even beyond McQueen and Robinson we get some great performances. Ann Margret does a wonderful and very sexy job as Melba, Karl Mauldin’s philandering wife. There’s a scene where we are first introduced to her character, Melba, and she is cutting a piece of a jigsaw puzzle to make it fit. It’s a beautiful piece of character, and Margret captures the essence of the man eating woman child.
As her put upon husband, veteran actor Karl Maulden, whose been in everything from Pollyanna to Argento‘s Cat o‘ Nine Tails, also puts in a stellar performance. Mauldin’s “Shooter” must contemplate whether to buckle under the strain or compromise his spotless 25-year reputation. Mauldin plays it all in posture, “Shooter” begins to look as if he has a massive weight on him. While McQueen is all easygoing luck, Maulden just can’t catch a break.
Rip Torn, who always makes a film better, makes an appearance here as the villainous Slade. It always completely throws me off what a baby face Torn has in the film he comes off like the New Orleans society ass he‘s supposed to be. You also get appearances from Joan Blondell, a siren of film noir, and her exchanges with Robinson are brilliant, Jack Weston who is emblazoned on my mind as the resort director in Dirty Dancing, and Mr. Hi-Di-Ho himself, Cab Calloway. As all these characters converge around the poker tables it becomes something of a prehistoric episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown, so I was none too surprised when I saw the disk had a commentary track from Dave Foley and Phil Gordon.
The weakest performence came from Tuesday Weld., but I’m not convinced it was all her fault. As “The Kid”s girlfriend, she seems to only crop up as a motivation for McQueen’s character, and never has any real personality. When you examine her performance versus the femme fatale embodied by Ann Margret, it becomes even more diminished. It’s too bad because it leaves the romantic subplot to a series of long scenes that go by without a real spark between the leads.
I think its about time to end now with the beginning. As the film opens, we get a great title song done by the indomitable Ray Charles, and then the movie moves quickly into establishing the local with one of the classic New Orleans shorthand’s, the Jazz funeral. As we continue to explore these films set in the Crescent City, nearly every one will contain one of these things: a Jazz Funeral, Mardi Gras, a Voodoo Priest or Priestess, or a swinging Jazz Combo (which also applies here with an appearance by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band). While the city doesn’t play a major role in the film (in the novel by Richard Jessup, the basis for the script, the setting was St. Louis), it does add a certain flavor to the proceeding that only New Orleans can bring. As for me, well I’ll be back tomorrow with another NOLA flick, in spirit at least, but my body is somewhere on Bourbon Streets sippin’ a hurricane or a Big Ass Beer and feeling just as cool as Steve McQueen. Later, folks.
Bugg Rating
5/30/09
Where Y'at, Bugg?
Heya folks, just wanted to let you all know that I'll be on vacation for the next week, but that don't mean that things grind to a halt around here, au contraire. While the Bugg relaxes in New Orleans, this week you can check out a specially themed week I've got lined up for you. Each of the features this week will feature a movie set in The Crescent City, and all your favorite features will be full of New Orleans goodness.
You can also check out my Travel-blog, I Got The Ways and Means, to find out what I'm up to every day. So I hope you folks enjoy the films I have lined up, and I'll be back revitalized and ready to get down to the nitty gritty next week.
5/29/09
Mental Health Awareness Month: Disturbed (1990)
As the month comes to a close, that means that we must bid adieu to Mental Health Awareness Month. We’ve seen our share of loonies and maniacs, movies where people are being driven mad, those that are far beyond help, and even films calculated to drive the audience nuts. Yet how could I possibly bring this month to a just conclusion without an appearance from one of my favorite actors? When you have a character who needs to be a crazy bastard there’s one name that stands above all the rest, Malcolm McDowell. So, I’m happy to wrap up this month with an obscure pick with a picture that is bound to leave you feeling….Disturbed (1990) starring Malcolm McDowell, Geoffrey Lewis, Pricilla Pointer, Pamela Gidley, Clint Howard, and Irwin Keyes. Directed by Charles Winkler.
A woman was raped at Bergen Field Mental Heath Facility, and being unable to deal with the strain, she committed suicide by leaping from the building. Ten years later, pretty Sandy Ramirez (Gidley) is being committed to the same institution, and she is put under the care of Dr. Derrick Russell (McDowell). One night, Dr. Russell takes her from her room, straps her to a table, and injects her with what he believes to be valium. It turns out the injection was filled with penicillin which Sandy is fatally allergic to. With the help of Michael (Lewis), another patient, Dr. Russell tries to cover up the murder by making it look like a suicide. However, the next morning, the body is missing. Things start going bad for the Doctor. Russell begins to have nightmares and suffer from hallucinations, and soon the Doctor becomes crazier than his patients.
Disturbed is a completely underrated and forgotten gem, and if I can bring this film to one person’s attention, then I’m going to be a happy man. While it is no means as good as the high water marks of McDowell’s long and storied career, it does come up an interesting and different twist on a classic theme. In some ways, this psychological tale reminded me of a giallo, and all it really lacked was a few bodies piling up as the Doctor goes round the bend. While Disturbed does not tally a body count, it more than makes up for it with solid performances and some incredible interesting camera work.
Now, for my money, no one can come off as completely bonkers quite as well as Mr. McDowell. Even when he’s not doing anything, he has a natural look that just says crazy. To prove my point all I think I have to do is point to Clockwork Orange, but this is some nineteen years later and gone is the youthful maniacal grin. Instead, we get the middle-aged man coming apart at the seams. As the film progresses and the nefarious Doctor becomes more and more unraveled, McDowell brilliantly amps up his performance. In nearly every consecutive frame, he looks more manic than the last. By the time he’s in the fill throws of some glorious overacting, you’ve been lulled into accepting it.
Plus, McDowell’s larger than life performance fits in perfectly with what amounts to one of the strangest black comedies I’ve ever seen. In the opening scene we see the original rape and the suicide it caused, but as soon as Girdley’s character arrives at the hospital, we are greeted with a cast of patients that is much more Crazy People than Cuckoo’s Nest. While the tone takes a while to get used to, but if you get accustomed to its wind swings between screwball comedy, heavy drama, and tense thrills, you’ll be rewarded. How rewarded you may ask? Try this on for size, a Point of View shot from the perspective of Clint Howard’s penis. Ever seen that in any other film? No, I didn’t think so. If nothing else in this flick puts a smile on your face, then that moment, as quick as it might be, definitely will.
Seeing from the perspective of Opie’s brother’s junk is not the only time the camera work pays off in this film. As we experience Dr. Russell’s decent into madness, the film is shot in an increasingly bizarre series of shots that reflect Russell’s increasingly paranoid world. This device works brilliantly, and as the film draws to a close, the viewer is left feeling equally unsettled. Bernd Heinl was the cinematographer, and it’s somewhat disappointing to see his biggest credit is arguably 1991’s Hulk Hogan schlock Suburban Commando. He and director Charles Winkler did a great job getting across the feeling of loosing one’s mind.
This was only Winkler’s second film, and while his catalog since hasn’t included many notable titles, he did serve as second unit director on the 1981 John Huston soccer/hostage film Victory and 2006’s Rocky Balboa. Winkler also wrote the script to Disturbed, and it is quite something that he penned such a puzzling mystery with such a great part for McDowell. Disturbed is not a one-man show though, and the story is dotted with great character performances. Irwin Keys and Clint Howard both give very entertaining turns as inmates of the asylum, but its Geoffrey Lewis as McDowell’s co-conspirator/patient who almost steals the show. Lewis’ character seems like he just got off the couch in Bob Newhart’s office and showed up in McDowell’s hospital, and he has the ascots to prove it. Something about his performance reminded me of Douglas Fairbanks, and every scene he was in became more enjoyable.It’s too bad that more people haven’t seen Disturbed. It’s such a strange little piece of work. I really can’t think of another film that I’d even classify as black comedy that includes one rape and one attempted rape, but somehow, and I don’t understand how, Disturbed manages to do it. So seek this one out especially if you’re a fan of McDowell’s. I think it’ll end up being a film that you want to come back to again and show your friends. One last thing, there’s a bit of extra goodness after the credits, and I won’t even hint at the surprise, its well worth staying until the end.
Bugg Rating
Here's the trailer, but unfortunately I could only find one in spanish.And One last song to close out the month. I just couldn't resist this Betty Boop version of "Crazy in Love"
5/28/09
B.L.O.G Presents Evil Breed (2003) with Jenna Jameson
Hello and welcome back to the last week of May, and the last B.L.O.G. girl of the month. This month as we’ve taken a look at XXX Divas gone mainstream we’ve seen the girls succeed, Rabid with Marilyn Chambers, and try their best, Ginger Lynn Allen in Vice Academy, but what we haven’t seen yet is when the formula fails. To illustrate this we must take a look at a film starring the woman sometimes called "The Queen of Porn".
Jenna started her porn career in 1993 with a pair of scenes with legendary porn stud Randy West. From these humble beginnings Jenna built an empire and became the face of porn for a generation of horny teens in the mid '90's. Nowadays she's often found in mainstream films such as her 2008 film Zombie Strippers, but there are some films a XXX actress might get involved in for a paycheck. The producers are looking to add to the fodder of direct to DVD releases on the shelves, and what better way to make sure your box gets noticed than Jenna gracing your cover. There's more to a film than a cover though, and sometimes inside what you find is...
Evil Breed (2003) starring Bonnie Phillips, Howard Rosenstien, Ginger Lynn Allen, Chasey Lain, Jenna Jameson. Directed by Christian Veil.
A group of college students travel to a house in the Irish countryside to study the rituals of the ancient pagan cultures that used to inhabit the land. Once there, they are warned by the caretaker not to wander into the woods lest they want to encounter monsters and death. Naturally, the teens wander directly into the woods and sure enough there is plenty enough monsters and death to go around.
The Bug Speaks
I’m going to tell you right here, in the first line of the first paragraph of what will undoubtedly be a venom soaked but rather short review, this film is horrible. Not as horrible as say, Blown, but pretty dang close to being as bad as Isle of the Damned. For anyone who’s familiar with The Lair knows that those two pictures are the epitome of bad around these parts, and Evil Breed now gains the dubious distinction of joining those films. That being said, I am going to spoil the hell out of this film because no one, for any reason short of a threat to their lives should make themselves watch this flick.
To explain how badly this flick goes wrong, I have a simple story to tell you, but first I must go off on a tangent. I love the NBA. It’s the only sport I ever got into watching, and for many years one of my favorite teams has been the Boston Celtics. Now we all know where the team got it’s name. There’s a leprechaun involved here after all, but surely, it is common knowledge that their moniker is a gross mispronunciation, Selt-icks and not with the hard ‘K’ sound that is intended (i.e. Kelt-ics). If everyone knows that, then why does Bonnie Phillips’ professor with a specialty in Druids and Irish mythology proudly announce that the students are there to study the ancient Selts.
That’s right, Selts. That’s what she says loud and clear.
And that’s what kind of movie we’re looking at here. There is no rhyme or reason to the goings on, and the plot that is intended to be a variation on the legend of Sawney Bean, the same ground Wes Craven covered in The Hills Have Eyes, makes little to no sense. I mean I should have known what I was getting into when in the first three minutes of the film they manage to kill off both Richard Greico, oh, he of 21 Jumpstreet and If Looks Could Kill fame, and porn actress Chasey Lane. When a film opens up and they kill off Richard Greico, arguably the biggest star name attached, and then you know you’re in some bad shape.
Then there’s the other big draw, Jenna Jameson. As you can see from the DVD cover, Ms. Jameson is front and center on the cover art, and if you could see the back of the box then you would see that two of the three stills from the film feature the porn queen. Unfortunately, these are the only two scenes she appears in. Jenna shows up once to establish she is looking for her friends (who we can assume were Greico and Lane), and then the second time she shows up to get gutted and her implant ripped out. Her total screen time, less than one minute.
Now the plot of the film, if you can call it that, has to do with these inbred mutants coming out on Samhain to gather girls to further their genetic line. That would make great sense if they didn’t kill every girl they see! While I am no big fan of Jenna Jameson (too plastic for my tastes), it still boggled my mind that the mutant things would rather kill her off than breed with her. You’re inbred mutants for fuck’s sake, don’t be so picky. They also put an end to another porn star when Ginger Lynn Allen meets her demise. Ginger, who as you know from my review of Vice Academy, is one of my favorite X rated stars, but in this flick, she deserved to die. I don’t know who thought that letting Ginger Lynn tackle an Irish accent was a good idea, but believe you me, folks, it was not a good plan. Generously, I would say that every third of fourth word, and the occasional line, was said with some kind of accent, but for the most part Ginger sounded like she had a cold. It was horribly embarrassing and the best part of the film was when she died. I nearly cheered in joy that she didn’t have to talk again.
I’m going to wrap this up because there’s nothing more to really say, and if I keep going then there will be a few more paragraphs of me tearing this film a new one. Now I understand that Christian Vale, the writer/director had this film taken from him after completion and almost the whole picture was re-shot. So I won’t pass any judgment on him as I don’t really feel like I saw his work. I understand that somewhere on the internets there is a bootleg copy of his cut that makes sense, has plenty of gore, and a fair amount of nudity. Perhaps someday I’ll track down his version and give it a whirl, but until I do, remember folks, you really can’t judge a DVD by the cover. What I thought would be a cheesy horror flick starring one of porn’s reigning queens turned out to be nothing more than a shiny, DVD shaped turd. Stay away from this one folks, seriously as far away as you can.
Bugg Rating
No Trailer for this one. Instead check out some clips dubbed into Spanish. At least you don't have to hear Ginger Lynn's accent.
5/26/09
Terrifying Tuesday: Susperia (1977)
It’s well known, to readers of The Lair that is, that I have yet to fall into the throws of passionate love with Dario Argento which seems to dominate the minds of many horror fans. Today however that day may well have finally arrived. I will admit my experience with Dario is kind of limited, and I have seen only a handful of his films, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Opera, and The Card Player. Of those, only one reached the above average point for me, and for that reason alone, I have spent far more time with the works of other Italian directors. Tonight’s film has changed my mind considerably, and I have had to reassess my priorities when it comes to Mr. Argento after seeing his film….
Susperia (1977) starring Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Ailida Valli, and Joan Bennett. Directed by Dario Argento.
Suzy Banyon (Harper) travels to Germany to attend a ballet school. She arrives on a dark and story night and is turned away from the school when she arrives. As she is leaving, she sees a girl running through the woods, the girl, Pat Hingle will die before the night is over, the victim of an unnamed killer. The next day Suzy begins her time at the school in earnest, and she soon is beset by many strange occurrences that lead her to question if the school is more than it seems.
The Bugg Picture
So this is the review where I make up for being under whelmed by Argento’s other films because, with Susperia, I was plenty whelmed. This was Dario’s sixth film, and perhaps his most well known and with good reason. It is an astounding effort not only of suspense and terror, but of cinematography, art direction, and acting. This is a film with precious few flaws, but there are some and I will surely get around to them so this review is not all peaches and cream.
First off I have to talk about the thing that will stay with me longest about this film. It is intensely beautiful. Making use of an incredible color palette, the likes of which I have never seen, Argento makes each scene a feast for the eyes. There were several scenes I ran back over a few times just to take in the subtle colored lights, the artistry of the set design, and the richness of the textures that permeate the shots. While I am sure much of it was created under Argento’s own careful eye, I have to give props to Giuseppe Bassan, the production designer who also worked with Argento on Deep Red (1985) and Tenebre (1982). As the look of the film’s setting is so integral to the stylish, atmospheric tone, his contribution to Susperia should not be overlooked.
Luciano Tovoli, who would also pair with Argento again for Tenebre, served as cinematographer for the film, and perhaps the only thing more important to the feeling of the film than its style is its look. The camera moves freely through the scenes in a style that feels improvisational while clearly being entirely thought out. The crisp camera work drinks in all the colors of the setting and the splashes of colored lighting, and it reminded me very much of Mario Bava’s work turned up to 11. As with Bava, the use of colored lighting never feels forced, but instead we readily accept it as part of this very creepy world.
Now you could have all the lighting and camerawork in the world, and if the acting did not mesh with it, you’d be left with a picture that was stunning to look at but without substance. This is no problem with Susperia though. Jessica Harper starred in the 1974 De Palma cult classic Phantom of the Paradise and would later go on to be the replacement Janet Majors in the Rocky Horror “sequel” Shock Treatment, star opposite Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year, and cut a rug with Chris Walken and Steve Martin in Pennies From Heaven, but to fans of Susperia, she is surely the film’s grounding force. Her performance as the terrorized Suzy gives the film the guts it needs to fill the skeleton of feeling provided by the style and skill behind the camera. Harper is extremely believable, and it’s unfortunate that while she appeared in several other cult films, she never strayed back into pure horror.
Apart from Harper you also get some other gangbuster performances. Joan Bennett, veteran actress of the screen and over 380 episodes of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, chews the scenery as the rather strange headmistress. Aliada Valli comes across every bit as cold and strong as she did as the countess in Bava’s Lisa and the Devil. There is also a good, but brief performance by Uko Kier, and Stephanie Casini brings the requisite foolishness needed for her performance as Suzy’s friend Sara. I could go on at length about every performance because there were none on display that were not pitch perfect.
I will be brief about my one complaint about the film, and that is the special effects. Even giving it some slack for the time in which it was made, they looked terrible. The blood in the film was reminiscent of that lovely shade of orange which was used in the Hammer films, and while it was quite the burst of color, it struck me as off that Argento would go though all this perfect set design only to include blood no human being could ever expel. I have a feeling it may have been an intentional stylistic choice, but it was one I think he should not have taken. There is also a scene where a character is killed by a dog, and while the aftermath with the dog biting off bits of flesh to snack on is suitably disgusting, the actual attack itself left much to be desired as the dog puppet looked very little like the actual dog in the scene. These are nitpicky little criticisms I am well aware, but it was during the moments of violence I found myself most taken out of the film. For a film of the horror genre, I think this is important to point out.
The real hero of the whole project has to be the script by Argento and frequent collaborator/ muse Daria Nicolodi. It is a well written taut supernatural thriller that will leave the audience guessing. I for one hung on every word for some kind of clue as to what was going to happen next, but generally, I found myself surprised with what lay around the films ever tricky corners. Then you pair a great script and glorious photography with Gobin’s ethereal score, and Susperia becomes the most beautiful nightmare ever put to film. So yes, perhaps my love affair with the works or Argento has only really started in earnest, but now I can see what the fuss was all about.
Bugg Rating
4
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5/25/09
The LBL Memorial Day Special with Missing In Action
When Memorial Day was established, it was first intended to be a day to remember the dead soldiers of the Union army, but after World War I it was repurposed to be a day of remembrance for any of war’s fallen dead. With this in mind I chose a film about a man who never forgot his fellow soldier, so today I’m talking about a fellow called Braddock and a film called…
Missing in Action (1984) starring Chuck Norris, M. Emmett Walsh, James Hong, and Ernie Ortega. Directed by Joseph Zito.
Col. James Braddock (Norris) had only recently escaped a Vietnamese prison where he had been held for many years, and now he’s on a mission to save other Americans held hostage. However, the Vietnamese government, through spokesman Gen. Trau (Hong) denies that there are any such prisoners. Enlisting the help of former army buddy Tucker (Walsh), Braddock makes his way deep into the jungles of Vietnam to bring back any men he can find that have been missing all these years.
The Bugg Speaks
After the success of First Blood (1982), all the studios were looking for a film to capture the same zeitgeist as the first tale of John Rambo. So who better to call in than one of the most jingoistic of action stars, Mr. Chuck Norris, and while Chuck’s film did not have the impact of Stallone’s, it did lead to two more sequels and plenty more chances for Norris to show off his beard. Unlike First Blood’s portrait of a PTSD nightmare, Missing in Action portrays Norris’ Braddock as troubled, but strong enough to overcome it. He’s also strong enough to kick anyone’s ass who gets in his way and magical enough to pull off some incredible feats of daring. In some ways, one might wonder if Missing in Action influenced the broader action in 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II.
As is usual, Norris plays the tough guy to the hilt, but unlike his earlier films, Missing in Action downplays his martial arts prowess for gunplay and enough explosions to make Michael Bay jealous. Braddock seems to mope about most of the time if he doesn’t have a gun in his hand, but he does show a few lighter moments that saved the story from getting monotonous. He also likes to change his shirt, and I do mean a lot. When I mentioned this to my wife, she informed me that women used to quite like Chuck, but I found it hard to believe that many women swooned over a man with that much orange hair on his body. At any rate Norris goes though at least a half dozen onscreen costume changes which, in its own rite, becomes quite funny after a bit.
Missing In Action also features a few of my favorite character actors. Gen. Trau is played by James Hong who has long been a fixture in Hollywood films anytime there’s a call for a thin, creepy Asian actor, but many may know him best as the diabolical David Lo Pan in the classic Big Trouble in Little China. Then you have M. Emmett Walsh, the reliable character actor that I consider something of a spiritual brother to Joe Don Baker. Walsh may be best known for his work in Blade Runner or as the sniper out to get Steve Martin in Th
e Jerk. In Missing in Action he provides some comic relief as Braddock’s army buddy, and he is a welcome relief from Norris’ increasingly serious tone as the film goes on.
e Jerk. In Missing in Action he provides some comic relief as Braddock’s army buddy, and he is a welcome relief from Norris’ increasingly serious tone as the film goes on. 
The film starts rather slow with over an hour devoted to setting up both Braddock’s character and the conflict with the Vietnamese, but once you get past that point the film kicks into high octane mode and it revels in explosions and gun battles that get pretty exciting and ludicrous. My favorite bit of action silliness has to be when the baddies think they have killed Braddock in a river, and he rises (in slow motion of course) from the water while firing his M-16 for all that it’s worth. It’s the perfect example of the excess of the ‘80’s action hero. Not only is it unbelievable, the way it’s played out is reminiscent of how one might film a bikini clad goddess rising from the water.
This is a film with a serious message, and I for one would never make light of the plight of any soldiers who are missing or imprisoned in a foreign land. The problem is how seriously can you take a message when the film is adorned with stereotypically bad Vietnamese, pyrotechnics for the sake of spectacle, and a man who changes his shirt so often you’re not sure if he’s a clothes horse or just get’s that smelly that fast? I have yet to see the sequels, but my wife who has tells me that they just get more over the top and ludicrous as the story goes on which hardly seems possible. Missing in Action does not rank up there with the greats of ‘80’s action cinema, and it seems to me that by this time Norris had already left the best of his work behind him. It’s not a bad film, but if you’re going to remember the soldiers, at least give them something great to be remembered by.
Bugg Rating
5/24/09
Tomb of Forgotten Film: The Fantasist (1986)
In the wake of my Wicker Man review a couple of weeks back, I was most interested to listen to one of my favorite pod casts, The Gentlemen’s Guide to Midnite Cinema, share their thoughts on the film in their most recent episode. As always, it was a great listen, and the hosts were musing about the limited career of Wicker Man director Robin Hardy. Since the 1973 classic, Hardy has had a very limited career that has included one episode of a TV show and a single film. While he does have another film in the works, a continuation of the Wicker Man saga entitled Cowboys for Christ; my interest was peaked as to what his other film was like. So I cruised on over to Netflix and, lo and behold, they not only had the film, they had it as one of their “Watch it Now” titles. I was thrilled and immediately hit the play button hoping for a hidden gem that would hold up against Hardy’s more popular title, I eagerly awaited to be thrilled, but perhaps I was….
The Fantasist (1986) starring Moria Harris, Timothy Bottoms, Christopher Cazenove, and John Kavanagh. Directed by Robin Hardy.
When a simple country girl, Patricia (Harris), moves from the Irish countryside to the city of Dublin, she takes a job as a teacher in a local school. After finding a place to live, Patricia goes on a date with English professor Mr. Foxley (Kavanagh), but she finds him to be a strange sort of fellow. Trying her luck by going to a disco she meets a man, Danny (Timothy Bottoms), but soon finds out that he is the husband of her neighbor upstairs. Soon after that Danny’s wife turns up dead, and Patty begins getting strange phone calls, the same type that women all over Dublin have been getting before they are killed. She begins to suspect the Danny is the culprit and shares her thoughts with police inspector McMyler (Cazenove), but all around her strange things begin to happen and she begins to think there’s no one she can trust.
The Bugg Picture
There was 13 years between the releases of The Wicker Man and when The Fantasist made its debut, as to what Hardy did in those intervening years, I have no idea. One thing he did do was write the script on which he based his new film, and perhaps he had a little too long to work on it. The Fantasist is a film beset on all sides by problems. From the tone of the film to the acting, this was a film that was just all over the place. Where The Wicker Man was a deftly crafted story with tons of atmospheric goodness, The Fantasist seemed more of a loose collection of ideas that never come together to make anything happen. That’s not to say that it’s not an enjoyable film, but more on that later.
I want to start right off with the film’s biggest problem, tone. From the opening scenes of a ghastly rape and murder interwoven clumsily with the carving of a roast at Patricia’s family meal, I was not sure what to expect. Then in the very next scene, as the police find the girl, naked and raped, face down on her sofa, an officer quips that the killer “was not a missionary”. Not only is the joke in poor taste, but its poorly delivered. The latter of the two caused me to bristle where in another film I might have just thought the officer to be an ass, here it struck me that the film itself was the one with problems. As the story progresses her English professor date asks if he can rub her tummy because his mother did when he was a child with bad wind, Danny uses a dousing rod to try and get in Patty’s knickers, her roommate desires to discuss the merits of virginity, and Bottoms goes way over the top with all his reactions. Each of these scenes detracted from any tension that was building. There are copious other examples, but suffice it to say that Hardy’s story is broken by not maintaining a consistent tone throughout the film.
It’s too bad because I can tell there is a good story here. In fact, it’s a very engaging story. It would have to be to keep me watching through all the problems it has. To understand the story let me take a moment to talk about the title. The word fantasist, meaning one who creates fantasies, or more aptly a person who grows, makes or invents things, refers to almost every character you meet in the film. Patty has come to Dublin to “look around” and has an ideal of a man that she is seeking in the big city. Danny makes obscene phone calls to his own wife because the man who used to call her stopped some time ago. Patty’s roommate, the Inspector, and the English professor all have little character quirks that fit the bill. It actually lead me for a while to my own fantasy where the script took a more bizarre turn á la Hardy’s Wicker Man, but it was not to be. The way the characters develop in the little lies and flights of fancy are the key to the film, but in the end, while the device pays off, it does leave you wishing Hardy had been more inventive himself.
The other thing holding this film back is the acting. While many members of the cast are native Irish or English actors, Hardy cast then unknown American actress Moria Harris in the lead role. While she has appeared in many roles since, most notably in Terminator 3 and most interestingly in a couple of episodes of The Equalizer which starred Wicker Man lead Edward Woodward, Harris might be most well known now as the wife of CSI and Forrest Gump actor, Gary Sinise. While her acting was nowhere near the worst in the film, her on again/off again accent definitely hindered her role as a traditional Irish beauty.
The worst acting award for this film definitely belongs to Timothy Bottoms. Bottoms broke out in the Peter Bogdanovich film The Last Picture Show, but he’s never had discriminating choice in film, case in point the 1997 gimmick slasher Uncle Sam. In The Fantasist, his character Danny is supposed to be a writer with a wild side, but to Bottoms, that apparently meant he should play the role with unrestrained enthusiasm no matter what else was going on. This leads to several scenes where the tone (here we go again) of the film was shattered by Bottoms taking it way over the top. There were some good subtle performances in the film as Christopher Cazenove and John Kavanagh both hit the marks perfectly as the tummy rubbing English professor and the one legged Inspector.
Coming in as another plus for the film is the cinematography. Frank Gell, who was only on his second picture. As Hardy’s Wicker Man captured the beauty of the Scottish countryside, Gell’s camerawork perfectly encompasses the pastoral quality of the Irish countryside as well as making Dublin seem like a metropolis. This dichotomy meshes with the inner struggle Patricia has between her simple upbringing and her new urban life. As she finds out that the picturesque country life can be as unsettling as the city, the shots reflect this as well. This is one of the strongest features of the film, but unfortunately the music composed for the film by Stanislas Syerwicz, who also scored Ken Russell’s 1988 The Lair of the White Worm, is forgettable at best and intrusive at worst. Seeming even stranger are the pop songs shoehorned into the film by English pop rockers Level 42 and sometimes Elton John collaborator Kiki Dee. Neither tune seemed to fit in with the film, and they are unnecessarily featured.
The Fantasist is half of a good film. It kept my interest and I was guessing the identity of the killer right up until the reveal. Unfortunately once the reveal does happen there is still more than fifteen minutes left in the film, and the ending has a tacked on “shocking” feeling which is neither shocking nor necessary. I think that’s the big problem with the flick. There’s much of the film that is not at all needed, and if it had gotten a tighter pass in either the scripting or editing stages then it may have turned out well. As it was, it came nowhere close to the majesty of atmosphere that Hardy created in The Wicker Man, but there’s enough there that I have hopes that he can return to form after more than 20 years have passes since his last feature. So until Hardy finishes his new film, I would recommend anyone who liked The Wicker Man check The Fantasist out, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.
Bugg Rating
Sadly no trailer was available so in it's place here's a clip from a BBC Scotland doc about The Wicker Man. 5/22/09
Mental Health Awareness Month: Patrick (1978)
Hello folks and welcome back. In this third week of Mental Health Awareness Month, I’m going to do something a bit different. I’m going to talk about a movie that does surely contain a crazy person, but what I want to focus on is what drove me crazy about this flick. After I trudged through this one, I felt the need for some therapy or perhaps some shock treatment to stimulate my brain, but I toughed it out. After all it’s just not that interesting sitting around for a couple of hours with a guy like….
Patrick (1978) starring Robert Thomas, Susan Pantaloon , and Rod Mullinar. Directed by Richard Franklin.
When a young nurse gets a job at a hospital for mental patients, she is given the worst assignment, babysitting the catatonic Patrick. She begins to develop empathy for her silent, motionless patient and is very kind to him. Over the course of time, she begins to believe he is more aware of his surroundings that anyone knows, and when people around her begin to get hurt and killed, she suspects that somehow Patrick is behind it all.
The Bugg Speaks
Ok, before I get into it, let me say that this film, coming on the heels of Carrie in 1976, telekinetic killers were all the rage. In fact Carrie director De Palma went right back to the well with his 1978 feature The Fury. So when Australian director Richard Franklin, who had previously dabbed in more sexploitation fare, took on this film, it was not the most original thing on the block. That being said, daring make your titular character an unmoving, unblinking coma patient is quite a daring twist. One that I’m not sure pays off.
The problem is that the killer never moves a muscle or speaks a word, Sure eventually he uses his super brain powers to do some light typing, but how menacing can typing be. The killer is represented in the film by camera movements, and if they had been swooping and swirling, that might have been interesting. Instead the camera just moves erratically, and it instills no tension or fear for the viewer. So lesson learned, don’t make your killer a vegetable.
If you do make that choice though, then don’t write horrible dialog for everyone around him to spout. The one line I want to pick out as being the most atrocious is “Don’t move.” When Susan Penhaligon’s Kathy thinks that Patrick has tried to communicate by spitting (and don’t get me started on that), she goes to get a doctor, but before she does, she looks at him and says, “Don’t move.” So you’re a nurse, he’s been bedridden for three years in which he has never moved a muscle, and you really have to tell him “Don’t move.” This happened within the first thirty minutes of the film, and it really set the tone for the rest of the film. From Kathy to his Doctor, Robert Helpmann acting like the bargin basement Kinski, all the dialog is written so poorly that is painful to watch at times.
Making the film all the more painful is it’s running time. Two solid hours of a killer who can’t move and you never see committing a crime. Sure he looks plenty freaky lying there, but with bad dialog beset by middling acting, it makes the whole affair seem to go on forever. I usually can watch any film from beginning to end without pause, but I had to take two breaks to make sure I did not nod off. Not that I would have missed much. When it gets down to it, one of the real problems with Patrick is that very little actually happens, and when it does there’s nothing to see. I understand that the original cut of the film ran 2:20, but thankfully it was cut and the other 20 minutes were lost. With thirty of so minutes cut from this film, you may have been able to create some kind of tension. As it was, the film becomes too bogged down in storyline which is both uninteresting and unneeded.
So you see the sign in the picture beside this paragraph. It reads “Emergency Entrance”… or does it. For the vast majority of the film it has partially shorted out and generally just reads “Trance”. They show us that is says trance about 30 times. I’m not sure if this is the real figure because I only started counting after I was completely bored. So, I wonder if that means anything? Nah, surely it’s just a great shot, after all who would need to hammer home that Patrick is killing people with his mind, the film is just named after him and there’s never any other suspects.
Patrick is a picture perfect example of what I hate in a film, symbolism that you’d have to be in a coma to miss, people being mysteriously killed by camera angles, a killer who is one of the most uninteresting people ever put on film. This film really did just about drive me nuts, and I just can’t recommend it to anyone unless you’re strung out on Valium and won’t really notice anyway. While Franklin would go on to make one of my favorite childhood films (Cloak and Dagger) he also made the extremely suspect Psycho II, so do yourself a favor, save your brain and your mental health from this one.
Bugg Rating
Plus in honor of Patrick here's a little Ramones for you folks
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