Point Blank

Maybe I've anticipated seeing this movie too much. After all it's based on the fantastic crime novel The Hunter by Richard Stark aka Donald Westlake. Which I highly recommend you go pick up right now since it has been reprinted by The University of Chicago Press. It has also been made into an acclaimed graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke. It has also been made as mid-90's Mel Gibson vehicle Payback which I haven't seen but people like Ed Brubaker say that the director's cut is quite good. But. It stars noted anti-semite and crucifixion-porn-enthusiast Mel Gibson. I don't know if I can handle a Parker surrogate who mugs for the camera and tries to be "charming" every five minutes.

But before all that nonsense, there was Point Blank. Directed by John Boorman in a style that vacillates between "are you tripping yet maaaaaaaan?" and "bleak British crime drama" and starring The Man Himself, Mr. Lee Marvin as master criminal Walker (Parker in the book) hellbent on revenge. Or so you would know if you had read the book. For some reason the filmmakers decided to go another route and change a few plot points just so Angie Dickinson could have a part to play. But the greatest mistake they made was in jettisoning the whole opening sequence from the book.

If you've not read it, the book opens on Parker crossing the George Washington bridge in a ratty suit smoking his last cigarette without a cent to his name. Once in the city he systematically scams his way into a false driver's license, checkbook and suit, all the while plotting revenge onhis wife and the low level gangster she betrayed him to, Mal Resnick. This is all done away with for the film which starts with Walker being shot and left for dead inter-cut with flashbacks that just about make sense. And lots of echo-echo-echo sound effects. Because professional thieves and their exploits are so trippy. And inexplicable shots of Mal and Walker evidently at a Professional Thieves High School Reunion drunk as lords and babbling to each other incoherently while Mal begs Walker to help him on a heist at the abandoned Alcatraz prison.

Horribly miscast as Mal is John Vernon (forever known as Dean Wormer from Animal House) who is just too damn menacing and ruthless to be a good Mal. Mal is a supposed to be a fuck up. A loser who gets in deep to The Syndicate for $93,000 and then once he pulls a job with Walker, decides that he'll double cross everyone and steal Walker's wife for himself. So not a smart fellow at all and John Vernon is too much of a hard ass to really portray those qualities of the character. He doesn't do cowardly. Or at least to my mind. Great actor, just miscast.

Lee Marvin on the other hand is great as Walker. He's cold and efficient and focused. Always moving forward, like a shark. There is an odd angle to Walker's story in the film. He has a mysterious benefactor giving him information on how to find Mal. A character called Yost and played cryptically by Keenan Wynn.

Sharon Acker plays Walker's wife Lynne who is surprised to find Walker alive and kicking after Mel forced her to shoot him. Even though she will having nothing to do with Mal he pays for her apartment to keep her quiet. When Walker finds her and demands an explanation we get a trademarked dour 60's monotone monologue which takes some life out of the film. And out of Lynne too. Overcome with guilt she overdoses on pills leaving Walker with little help on how to find Mal. But then a knock comes at the door and it's Mal's underling delivering the rent money. Walker beats info out of the man and is soon on his way for payback.

Along the way Walker runs into Lynne's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson) who he uses to get at Mal by sending her to Mal's hotel to seduce him. For the most part this role is invented only for the film and to up the female character numbers, which is very few.

At the hotel Walker busts in on Mal and Chris and beats him and demands his half of their take. Mal cries and says it's all gone; that he used it to square himself back with The Syndicate and if Walker wants it, he'll have to go through them.

And so we come to The Syndicate. One of Westlake's favorite all purpose villains, The Syndicate is the idea of The Mob or organized crime taken to a corporate structure. He's mentioned The Syndicate or The Outfit in several books and it is a great concept. They're something for an independent thief like Walker to rebel against. And the film touches upon it quite well. Lloyd Bochner (oh dip, Cecil Colby from Dynasty) plays Carter, the west coast man in charge and Walker's next nemesis after finding Mal. And he plays it with his trademark suave and creepy charm. Carter tries to set up Walker in a money exchange but gets shot by his own man who mistakes him for Walker.

Yost then leads Walker to the next man in charge, Brewster played by none other than Carroll O'Connor (!) who is great. Contrasting the debonair Carter, Brewster constantly taunts Walker with the futility of his quest for vengeance. The Syndicate is just too big for him.

And so Brewster leads Walker to the final showdown at Alcatraz, where it all began. The final twist is that Yost is the head of The Syndicate and has been leading Walker to this moment from the beginning. Which we shouldn't try to think too hard on or the film will fall apart.

So a bit of an end to the tale and hard to square if you've read the book several times before seeing the film. My best advice would be to see this film first and then read the books. It'll be a letdown to envision Lee Marvin doing all the badass shit in the book to only see half of it make the film.

Intermission or Love Actually Goes Hardboiled

Argh! It's been a busy week so we'll try to get this one out of the way fairly quick. No need to go on tangents about community ensemble pictures which will eventually lead to 500 words about how much I couldn't stand Magnolia since it was a blatant rip-off of Short Cuts. At least Pulp Fiction had the common courtesy to rip-off several different films at the same time. I'd say something disparaging and libelous about Two Days In the Valley but dear lord I have never had the resolve to actually watch more than 10 minutes of it at a time.

But I seem to be getting away from what we really need to talk about. And that is the Irish film Intermission. I figured I'd record it since I am going to Dublin soon and this film takes place there. Yes, I was looking for lots of scenery which this film doesn't really deliver. It could have been filmed in Dublin, Ohio from what I could tell.

And that's not to say that it was a bad film. It was quite good but tended to ladle on extra servings of the Quirky Sauce. The thing about having quirky characters is that you need some non-quirky ones to set the balance, otherwise it just looks like you're trying too hard.

I'll try to not go overboard on plot description like I did in the previous review and god help me if I tried to explain every connection between characters in this one. Basically you have your genre of Community of People's Lives Intersect In Many Ways, Most Hinging On Them Falling In Love (or CPLIIMWMHOTFIL) that we've seen done by a few UK filmmakers. Intermission's twist is that a bunch of characters hook up or break up and then a crime plot happens too. So it's like Love Actually meets Pulp Fiction (not a bad thing) and who knows, it may have been pitched just like that.

We get to meet plenty of quirky Irish folk like a wheelchair-bound drunk from the pub, a grocery store manager who likes to use cliched phrases "As they say in The States", Shirley Henderson has a feminine mustache, Colm Meaney as a surly cop, and Colin Farrel as a chavy thief. Oh yeah, and Cillian Murphy (instant approval to watch by my wife Jean) and Kelly Macdonald (instant approval to watch by me) as a couple that the plot hinges on.

So it breaks down like this. John (Cillian Murphy) and Deidre (Kelly Macdonald) break up because John is a lowly grovery store clerk who has no ambition aside from stealing cases of brown sauce with his mate Oscar. So Deidre hooks up with an older man, a married banker. The banker's wife miraculously hooks up with Oscar who's really got eyes for Deidre's sister Sally (Shirley Henderson) who is so depressed about life that she refuses to take care of her mustache.

Meanwhile, copper Gerry Lynch (Colm Meaney) is out to bust chav ne'er do well Lehiff (Colin Farrel playing it with a giant band-aid on his neck the whole film) and goes as far as accosting Lehiff in the bathroom of a pub and pissing on his shoes.

Wackiness ensues and in a plot to win back Deidre, John and his friend Mick join up with Lehiff to concot a plot where they'll kidnap Deidre so the banker will have to pay ransom to get her back. Of course nothing works as it should and plot points work themselves out and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Lehiff since he's a scoundrel.

I hope this doesn't read like a hatchet job since I really enjoyed this film. It was visually interesting and it balanced the comedy, drama, and violence well. No small feat. Some films try to do it and the differing tones just jar, but here the director and director of photography keep things tight.

I'd say the only thing that stretched the believability quotient is that Deidre and John hook back up at the end. After he had been directly involved in her kidnapping.

And for all the Look At How Quirky We're Being moments, there are also some subtly played twists that more than make up for it. The opening scene with Lehiff is brilliant. The shoe pissing scene is pretty nuts. I feel dirty just talking about it. So lets move on...

In the final analysis, it's a good film and even Jean wanted to watch it. Which is saying something since I am the frequent offender of recording esoteric programs on the DVR and not watching them in a timely manner.

W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings or Smokey and The Bandit Meets Thieves Like Us

First things first; a bit of Film Criticism 101. Any film critic worth their salt loves to attribute the success of both Star Wars and Smokey and The Bandit to the fact that  1977's post-Vietnam/Watergate America was sick and tired of depressing and morally ambiguous films like Taxi Driver or The French Connection or The Godfather* reminding them about the last 10 years. Americans wanted to see good triumph over evil in no uncertain terms. And I can buy that. I see the sense in it. I was an infant in 1977 so I wasn't there for first-hand experience of this phenomenon but I know I definitely watched them both religiously as a kid and am a fan of both. But I will say that Smokey has aged better than Star Wars and just might even be the better film.

There are plenty of similarities. Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon are Bandit in his Trans-Am and Cledus in his semi. Princess Leia is Frog. Darth Vader is Sheriff Buford T. Justice. They're all chasing through action-packed set-pieces while the plot points tick along at a pace anyone can follow.

But Smokey has one thing going for it. There is no Luke Skywalker ("But I was going to the Tochi Station to pick up some power converters!" blah blah) to be found and no damned "mythical hero's journey" to contend with. Instead we have the smuggler in the fast car making buffoons of the authority figures while becoming a folk hero to all the common townspeople. The Bandit is a hero in the sense that he's sticking it to The Man for all the shit kickers, moonshiners, rum runners, lot lizards and trailer park madames of Dixie. The end. They never needed to make another one except as a license to print money and eventually let Jerry Reed drive the Trans-Am.

So yes, Star Wars certainly did ring in a new era of blockbusters and "hero's journey" spectacles as did Smokey and The Bandit, in its way, and they both had plenty of exploitation versions of themselves made by the usual suspects (Roger Corman, Samuel Z. Arkoff, etc.) but I would argue that Smokey still had a foot in the anti-hero tradition of the early 70's. It's based more in reality (cars jumping ravines and not smashing to bits aside) than Star Wars and at times Burt Reynolds can be a real grade-A bastard in ways that Harrison Ford as Han Solo just can't be. So it's all a bit more subversive than the familiar elements of Star Wars (we'll just not even go near the strange Star Wars/Muppets/Saturday Night Live/Cocaine connections that further defined the 80's, and trust me, I love talking about that shit).

But this subversive streak had to have come from somewhere, right? Hal Needham could NOT have thought this up all on his lonesome but then again the subversiveness of Smokey and The Bandit doesn't run too deep. It's nothing too kinky. It's still a very amusing car picture with Burt Reynolds and his mustache taking the piss out of Jackie Gleason and his mustache. And that's where W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings comes in.

Predating Smokey by three years, watching W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings is like seeing a proto-Smokey and The Bandit. Some things are very familiar while others are very different. We have Burt Reynolds in a fast car getting into adventures, Jerry Reed, and a former cast member of The Honeymooners (this time Art Carney) as the authority figure dead set on catching them, but this time it's all played straight and set in the 1950's instead of the 70's. There's also a love interest but this time she's Dixie, a small-town country singer played by real-life country singer Conny Van Dyke, and not Sally Fields as some hussy from New York City who's been "poontanging" around. And Burt and Jerry aren't even buddies at all for the first hour!

The story breaks down like this; W.W. Bright (Burt without mustache so you know he's trying) has a grudge against the SOS Oil Company. To exact his revenge on them he robs every SOS gas station he comes across. When he does this he always gives the poor attendant on duty some cash and tells him to lie about who robbed the station.

While on the run from a cop one night W.W. hides out in a dance hall and befriends the band, Dixie and The Dancekings (all while making them bust into an impromptu version of "Johnny B. Goode" hmm). He becomes attracted to sweet innocent Dixie but her band mate Wayne (Jerry Reed) doesn't trust W.W. Soon, W.W. becomes their de facto manager and tries to get them a shows in Nashville and eventually The Grand Ole Opry so they can hit the big time and get a record deal (such a quaint idea but then again this is supposed to be the 50's).

They then try to get hit-maker and Opry emcee Country Bull (Ned Beatty) to write them a hit song. This scene is great. In the film, W.W. and the band sneak backstage at The Opry to find Country Bull and his boys drinking and whooping it up. They bullshit their way through to meet him and it works for a while until Bull sets his lecherous eye on Dixie. For a minute you think W.W. is going to let Bull have her, but after Dixie sits in Bull's lap for a minute W.W. is disgusted and gets down to it to ask point blank how much it'd take for Country Bull to write them a hit song. Bull realizes that they're small-timers and that he's been ungentlemanly to Dixie and says for $1000 he'll write them a song. Great scene and it really undermines the wide-eyed idea of "going to the big city to be discovered".

Now W.W. hits every SOS station he can and he's even doing it with the band in his car. Meanwhile the owner of SOS has hired Deacon Gore (Art Carney) a Baptist preacher and bounty hunter to find this mysterious bandit who has been robbing him blind. Art Carney is really great in this. He's actually got a cold deadly menace to him that I did not expect at all. Deacon Gore hits up all the local Baptist Radio Revival shows and asks all the good christians out there to help him find this devil who has been robbing the kind & benevolent SOS Oil Company.

W.W. tries to rob one more SOS station but the attendant is a stubborn old coot and won't take the cash W.W. offers him. Instead comes out of the station with a rifle. A big shoot-out ensues and now W.W. and the band are on the run, their description has been made; the band were all dressed in their matching stage outfits. They have to burn W.W.'s 1955 gold & black Oldsmobile Super Coupe (one of only fifty made) and hide-out in an old farmhouse. Here we really get parallels to Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. That bunker mentality of hunted people trying to hide out from the law trying to make time pass when most of them are pretty far from being real criminals. As it happens, W.W. and Dixie have a spat one night and Wayne writes a sure fire hit song about it.

The someone spots W.W. & gang and Deacon Gore comes snooping around. He pieces together that the burnt car in the yard and the five people with instruments are the who he has been looking for. He comes to the farmhouse and nearly gets the drop on W.W. but has a gun pulled on him by Leroy (Don Williams) the bass player. The Deacon leaves, vowing he'll catch them again.

With their hit song written, Dixie and The Dancekings return to Nashville to play it for Country Bull. All is forgotten about their first encounter and Bull decides to feature them that night at The Opry. As Dixie and The Dancekings rehearse for the show, W.W. goes out for a smoke and sees a gold & black 1955 Oldsmobile Super Coupe parked outside. But unfortunately this one has been bought and paid for by Deacon Gore. The Deacon comes from out of the shadows and apprehends W.W. at gunpoint.

He makes W.W. drive the car to the Nashville jailhouse. While en route the Deacon has W.W. turn on the radio to the local baptist station, much to W.W.'s frustration since he wants to listen to the broadcast from The Grand Ole Opry so he can hear Dixie and The Dancekings play. As they arrive at the station the preacher on the radio announces that the time is midnight and it is now Sunday morning. Hearing this The Deacon decides to have mercy on W.W. and lets him go free. A very weird ambiguous ending and not what I expected from this film. I almost expected the usual early 70's bummer ending but instead W.W. goes free to possibly hook back up with Dixie and The Dancekings.

So quite a good little film this was. The performances are all great. Pre-mustache Burt is a damn good actor. He's no thespian but given the right role he's always been watchable. And yes, he gets to drive a cool car and do his own stunts, but it doesn't seem like the usual cliche here. Maybe the 1950's setting helps in this regard.

And this is essentially Jerry Reed's first dramatic role and he's great. Playing a guitar player is no stretch for him but he definitely interjects some reality to it. There's a great scene where the band realizes their van has been towed for being illegally parked and you can tell that from his reaction Jerry has dealt with things like that in real life.

Conny Van Dyke is great as Dixie and after checking out www.imdb.com I couldn't believe that she hasn't been in many more films. She's sassy and innocent at the same time and yeah, that scene with Ned Beatty where he's coming on to her, she kind of goes for it and sits in his lap and starts being sweet to him, all in hopes of getting a chance at stardom...she plays the conflicting motives well. On one hand she looks up to Country Bull and must think he's a decent man and then also knows that playing along will get her something she wants.

It was great to see Art Carney playing against his usual comedic type and go for something more menacing. The only criticism is that he may have gone too far. He's almost too serious but then again he is supposed to be a stern Southern Baptist preacher. The only other criticism is of course, Art Carney is from New York so the accent is a little off. But I can forgive these things since hey, it's Art Carney as a villain. Don't see that everyday.

I was really surprised that John G. Avildsen (director of Rocky amongst others) was the director since we have the requisite Burt car chasing going on, but that doesn't take away from the drama at all. Scenes are played well if they're dramatic or comedic. The tone doesn't switch wildly between the two and that's always a good thing. It feels like a "whole" film.

So yeah, if you happen to see this on your cable listings, by all means give it a shot, especially if you'd like to see the more serious older brother of Smokey and The Bandit.








*In its way The Godfather is another hero's journey except that the hero is a revenge fueled murderer and crime lord. Maybe it's just more of a Classic Revenge Story but we do go through the motions of Micheal Corleone denying and then accepting his princely powers and duties. And there are plenty of Nixonian political corollaries to be had that were more in fashion in 1974 than 1977.

Welcome Aboard

"Love, exciting and new..."

And so we begin. Welcome to the blog that is dedicated to a) clearing out all the movies I have clogged our cable's DVR hard-drive with and b) have me review them.

Now I am no Pauline Kael but I will do my best to share my critical thoughts on what I've been watching while trying to fit it within a larger cultural context than "it was awesome" or "it sucked". Be forewarned that the vast majority of films will be from the stables of Turner Classic Movies since they really do the best job of programming in cable. Where else can you catch Citizen Kane every other day but also find Timothy Carey's self-produced oddity The World's Greatest Sinner? (which reminds me, I really need to see The Last Movie again and soon.) I'll also cover plenty of territory from IFC or Sundance Channel as well but ultimately I'll be covering whatever made me excited to push the "record" button while searching the cable listings.

And there you have it.