A Fistful of Influence! (Brad's Picks)

A couple of days ago I was tagged on Facebook by my buddy (& former co-cineAWESOMEr) Jeff Wildman to whip up one of those "15 Movies That Stuck With You" statuses.  I started to type up my Top Ten films, but stalled out...as much as I love those movies, I got nothing else to say about them right now.  They're great.  They sum up my tastes perfectly.  Still, Jeff's status got me thinking.  What are the movies that molded me into the Film Freak that's currently clacking away on this blog post?  Last year, I was lucky enough to capture Martin Scorsese's Jefferson Lecture at the Kennedy Center.  He called it "The Persistence of Vision," and a good chunk of was devoted to discussing the movies that shaped him as a director.  I've been mulling over these films since the lecture, and Jeff's status was just the excuse to get them up on ITMOD.  Again, these are NOT my all time favorite movies.  These are simply the films that steered my tastes.  Some of them seem obvious, a few others maybe not so much.

5.  Pickup on South Street:  Growing up an 80s/90s kid, Black & White was old & boring.  I wish I could claim a youth filled with culture and erudite thinking, but I pretty much matured strictly on a diet of Schwarzenegger & Star Wars (more on that later).  During those early years on the planet, I managed to catch a few of the inevitable classics (Psycho, Casablanca), but they never connected with my dumb kid brain.  In my teen years, as I (and everyone else) was obsessing over Quentin Tarantino, I discovered Samuel Fuller through the documentary The Typewriter, The Rifle, & The Movie Camera.  As guys like QT, Jim Jarmusch, & Tim Robbins gushed over his genius, I got curious.  I first watched The Big Red One, Shock Corridor, & I Shot Jesse James.  I thought they were interesting, but I still didn't understand the big deal.  Pickup on South Street knocked me out.  Despite a plot firmly rooted in The Cold War, Pickup is a mean little crime story with a very modern sense of cynicism.  "Don't Wave That Flag At Me!"  Richard Widmark is one of the most likable unlikable characters ever.  A beautiful bastard that sent me running into Film Noir - The Big Heat, Kiss Me Deadly, Sweet Smell of Success, Touch of Evil.  This set off a chain of events that lead me all the way to Citizen Kane - a movie that genuinely lives up to the hype, as Citizen Kane really is The Citizen Kane of Movies.  Black & White = old & boring?  Only children & idiots believe that.

4.  Death Race 2000:  Kids love all kinds of movies (unless they're Black & White as established above) - Indiana Jones, Airport, Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Good, Bad, Wonderfully Bad. They all live on the same playing field when you're young.  Some kids grow out of the crap films.  Some grow into ironic enjoyment - a nasty trait that I sometimes fall into.  But I'm pretty sure I would be a hipster asshole if not for Roger Corman.  His movies represent a can-do spirit that I find tremendously uplifting, and no other film embodies that "Where There's A Will There's A Way" attitude better than Death Race 2000.  You may not have the budget, you may not have the talent, but you've got an idea.  That's enough to make entertainment.  I love that.  If the world blesses me one Death Race 2000 for every Transformers I have to suffer through than All Is Right.

3.  Hellraiser:  It was a big deal the first time I sat down to watch Clive Barker's original horror.  I was a born scaredy cat.  When I was probably far too young, I braved a peek at both The Shining & Alien, and survived thanks to some strategically placed hand blocking.  Horror held an attraction, but I also worried that it was all Devil Music, a one way ticket to a fiery inferno. Then one day a classmate of mine told me that Hellraiser was cinema's greatest achievement.  I'm not so sure that's true, but to shut him up, I got my hands on the VHS.  It was scary...really freaking scary.  And it was badass.  The makeup.  The gore effects.  The monsters.  I'd never seen anything like it.  I went running to the books. I read the original novel, as well as The Damnation Game.  Clive Barker finally got me to Stephen King, and Stephen King pretty much cemented my interest in spook stories.  It's a genre I don't deal much in lately.  Modern Horror stories feel repetitive if not redundant.  I've got my favorites, I dare you to do better.

2.  Reservoir Dogs:  Before Quentin Tarantino I pretty much got all my entertainment through action movies.  Five minutes into Reservoir Dogs, I discovered that I could get as much enjoyment out of a conversation about Madonna as I could from a lightsaber duel.  1992 was a game changer.  Independent Cinema.  The Auteur theory.  I started reading books about filmmaking.  I became a movie nut, not just a fan.  When Pulp Fiction finally came around I was already preaching Tarantino's gospel.

1.  Star Wars:  I can't even remember a time before Star Wars.  Almost all of my early baby photos feature me clutching upon some Kenner action figure.  Simply put, I would not be ME without George Lucas.  I'm sure the same can be said for a lot of folks my age.  However, I don't really talk too much about it these days.  I spent the first 19 years of my life obsessing over Luke, Han, & Leia but the hurt of The Phantom Menace was so strong that it took several years before I could even watch the original trilogy without the sting of remorse.  You'll probably never see a Star Wars film get recognized on one of my Top Ten lists.  Not just because of the Phantom Menace burn, but because Star Wars is practically fused with my DNA.  I may say that Unforgiven is my favorite film, but Star Wars probably floats in the ether right above it.  It's time to drop the baggage, I need to give Lucas' originals another watch.  100, 200, 300 views?  I can do 301.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/3/2014-8/9/14)

    Coming back to the world after a genuine vacation…Ugh.

Howard the Duck:  What can I say?  I love this movie.  Yeah, it’s got some awkward dialog and acting.  Yeah, it’s weird as hell.  Yeah, it’s super goofy.  But it’s so wonderfully 80s.  I just can’t get enough.

Game of Thrones Season 3:  The third season is more of the same.  If you’ve liked the previous two, you should like this one.  It does feel slightly more on task this season.  There was a point at the beginning of season 2, where even I, nudity aficionado that I am, was wishing everyone would just put their danged clothes back on and get on with the story.  Season 3, while heartily dosed with naked flesh, doesn’t let it get in the way of telling the tale.  A fine show, and some seriously good fantasy.  I keep going back to my thought that this is a chronicle of the events that happened in the next Age of Men, after the King’s return in the Lord of the Rings.  Anyway, good show.

Redline:  While it has more style and panache than 90% of the anime you’re likely to see, Redline will still feel just as familiar.  People who aren’t bored to tears by the handful of recycled plots/characters/designs that you find in anime should find plenty to enjoy.  I am not one of those people, so I found the whole thing pretty dullsville.  If it wasn’t for the attempted, pseudo-Heavy Metal magazine vibe, there’s be nothing to make it stand out.

Hercules:  This is not a good movie.  The script is bad.  The usually charming Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a bit bland.  The effects aren’t good.  That said, I mildly enjoyed watching it.  I liked several of the supporting characters/actors, particularly Ian McShane.  I liked the idea of how the mythology was used, even if I didn’t always actually like it.  I like the idea that people, so indoctrinated in their supernatural worldview, would see the supernatural first, and reality a distant second.  Actually, that very thing is quite common today.  I was frustrated by the way Atalanta was used.  A supreme badass in the myths, and a member of Jason’s crack team of heroes, she is written like a token female in this film, and dressed in what looks like ancient Greek fashionable work-out gear.  Now, the costumes in these films are never going to fly in modern film, with everyone being so prudish.  If they were going for accuracy, there’d be a lot more male nudity, and a lot more nudity in general.  But her costume stood out in a way I found off-putting.  It looked extra wrong.  Anyway, this is better (by far) than The Legend of Hercules, but not as good as most of the other Greek myth related films of recent years (Clash and Wrath of the Titans, Immortals, 300, etc.).  Well, it’s better than 300: Rise of an Empire.  But then, most things are.

    Friday night, I headed into DC where I enjoyed a Lincoln Assassination walking tour.  Another of those events in US history it seems like we hear about all the time, but hear very little detail of the affair.  The tour had many interesting factoids I was completely unaware of, and it was cool to walk to the various locations where the events took place.

The Trap:  Richard Widmark bastards his way around the high desert as a mob lawyer roped into doing what he doesn’t want.  Tensions run high, blood will spill, and Widmark will stare hatred as fierce as he fires bullets.  Lee J. Cobb is extra sleazy, with his squinky eyed smarm.  I feel like this is a forgotten classic.  Fans of Noir especially should like the mean characters and vile dialog.  Worth tracking down.

Vera:  I can’t say that I loved this movie, but it was certainly interesting.  It’s a heck of a weird movie, with lots of images and not much talking.  It suffers a bit from the lack of budget, but then if it had a much bigger budget, they’d have probably had trouble getting such a strange film made.  It feels a bit like a horror movie, and a lot like a particularly strange fantasy film.

    I read Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites.  It’s the selection for the next graphic novel club meeting.  I wasn’t blown away, but it was definitely the best thing we’ve read in a while.

The Tiger Woman: Perils of the Darkest Jungle:  Though she does get knocked out and tied up a lot, The Tiger Woman is a shockingly tough lady for the time this movie serial was produced.  Though women wielding their strength weren’t all that unusual in pre-Code movies, by the 40s, they certainly were.  So this Tarzan knock-off stands out.  Linda Stirling isn’t a great actress (few in this serial are), but she trades jabs and kicks with the roughest of them.

    Though getting back into the swing of things is always difficult, the week had some bright spots.  Also, as the Dreamlands crowd-funded film made the needed money, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Dreamlands, and about some of that trippy, psychedelic 70s fantasy music.  Iron Butterfly, Caravan, David Bowie, and more.  Good stuff.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/6/14-7/12/14)

    Not a lot of movies this week.  But I got some in, and some reading.  I also did a lot of prep work for some stories.  I just haven’t been writing the nitty-gritty of anything (outside of this blog) for some time.  It’s something I feel the desire to get my head back into, but I’ve been out of practice for so long.  It’s tough.

    On Sunday, I read Storm Dogs and Pretty Deadly.  One was good, the other kind of sucked.  Because of another book I’ve been reading, and not enjoying, I think I’ve been finding other things to read.  Probably the reason behind my recent spate of comic trades.

The Last Performance:  There are a few interesting bits in this film, but the story is kinda meh.  The main attraction is Conrad Veidt, and for fans, it’s nice to see him working his mojo.  The man can stare, with the best of ‘em.  Other than Veidt fans, though, this film holds little to recommend it.

The Ballad of Narayama:  Gorgeously produced, this film has the artificiality of a stage play, but the magical wonder of film.  The story looks at the simple life of country villagers who try to scrape out a living from the unforgiving mountains.  And one lone old lady, ready to take a spiritual (and suicidal) pilgrimage to a nearby holy mountain.  It’s also nice to see a film that feels like it’s set during that near-myth era of samurai, that has nothing to do with samurai at all.  Not a sword drawn in the whole film.  Quite good.

Pickup on South Street:  Though the ending is a bit wonky, this movie about a two-bit pick-pocket getting more than he bargained for is some classic Noir fodder.  A dizzy dame, some fist-happy cops, double dealing commies, and a heap of trouble.  Plus, Widmark is on fire as a relentless prick.  It’s wonderful.

Persona:  More the sort of thing I always thought of when I heard the name Ingmar Bergman, this meditation on the masks we present, the versions of ourselves we use when we’re around other people is challenging.  But it’s also captivating.  Typically gorgeous; the location work, the lighting, the whole thing looks amazing.  It’s charged with eroticism, but also with gut level discomfort.  I’ll certainly be revisiting this film, but it’s not one to just pop in on a whim.

The Robe:  The film assumes you already know the story of Jesus.  Probably not a bad assumption, but I always have a bit of a problem with a movie that makes assumptions like that.  It’s interesting, and there are some good performances.  But for a film that is so much about converting to being a follower of Jesus, there is precious little in the way of explanation as to why someone would.  Spiritual quest wise, this film lacked some important content.

Glengarry Glenn Ross:  Another of my cinematic resolutions for 2014 down.  The sad, stressful life of salesmen is presented Mamet style in this punchy little film.  Looking at it, you’d think it was made for TV.  But what it lacks in visual flourish or polish, it makes up for in performance and script.  Alan Arkin and Jack Lemmon are both very good.  But Jonathan Pryce and Al Pacino really had me.  Pacino is such a huckster, and Pryce such a sad-sack mark.

    Friday night, we headed out to The Alamo to check out the new Apes film.  Before the theater, though, we ate at Nando’s Peri Peri.  I’m definitely going to have to go back when there’s more time.  Because that shopping area is starting to open up, there are a lot of people, and the restaurant was pretty full.  I enjoyed the food, but didn’t feel like I had time to really enjoy the place or think about what I wanted to eat, or any of that.  Next time.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  Humans have mostly died in plagues and wars.  The apes, after having escaped into the woods at the end of the previous film, have set themselves up a new society and are doing pretty well.  Things can’t last, as the human survivors need resources that lay in Ape territory.  Here’s the thing.  This movie is pretty good.  And all the stuff around the apes is quite good.  The problem is that the human characters are kind of ridiculously stock, and at no point did I care about them or their plight.  The apes were interesting, and I’d have liked the film to focus much more on them.  In fact, completely on them.  I could have used way, way less human parts.  Visually impressive and well made, it’s a good film.  Maybe even a really good film.  But it misses the mark on being a great film.

The Last Wave:  I wasn’t in the right headspace to watch this film.  So, while I recognize that there were some interesting aspects, and I liked the performances, I just couldn’t get into it.  I think I’m going to have to revisit it while I’m more focused.  There are some powerful images, for sure.  And I like the Michael Mann movie type soundtrack.  I have a feeling this is a movie I'll really enjoy on second viewing, when my head is on straight.

True Detective: Season 1:  “You are like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.”  This is a beautifully made program, with lots of excellent elements.  The last episode spoils the milk a bit, but the overall show is quite good.  I love the references to Robert W. Chambers and his King in Yellow.  I wish it had gone a bit further.  I wanted to see the mythology of the murders explored.

    Saturday night, I forced myself to push through Aya: Life in Yop City, a book I’d been laboring through.  I had to skim much of the latter half of the book, as nothing seemed to happen, and that was becoming a bit much.  Sad, because the art was interesting and vibrant, and I thought the subject matter and setting could be really interesting.  I still do; but this isn’t.  I was fully planning on writing a review of this book.  But the more I look at it sitting there, the less of a crap I give, and the less I feel the need to revisit it.  We'll be discussing it this coming Friday night, and other than some variation of 'YAWN!' I've got no idea what to say.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/1/14-6/7/14)

    Not a lot of movies in this week.  I’ve been busy, though.  I’ve been listening to a bunch of music (really gotta do a write-up on some of that), reading, and out on the town.  Still trying to work my way through Preacher.  Man, I know people love it, but it’s a chore.

See you in your nightmares!

The Long Ships:  OK, so this movie isn’t very good.  It’s certainly not historically accurate.  And it’s got some weird, bordering on silly performances.  But, I enjoyed the heck out of it.  Richard Widmark as a Viking?  OK, sure.  Why not?

Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack:  I enjoy some parts of this movie, but it’s really not very good.  And man, does it look cheap.  It’s also weird, because it makes Godzilla a straight-up villain, with other monsters (including Ghidorah) being defending monsters(?).  It just doesn’t work for me.

A Field in England:  This is a heck of a fun, strange movie.  It’s like the lowest brow characters from a Shakespeare play stumbled into a drug-fueled nightmare.  Magic, mayhem, madness, and mushrooms.  It’s hard to describe the film.  But for those with a taste for the weird, it’s a must.

Futurama Season Seven:  The show never hit the levels of its first three seasons again, but was still quite fun throughout.  This last season has several good episodes, and the final episode is a good exit for the show, assuming it never comes back.  I love the characters, the various running jokes, and all the fun they have with various clichés and tropes of science fiction.  Any buff should watch this show, for sure.

Tobacco Road:  When I fell head over heels for Gene Tierney after watching Leave Her to Heaven, I found many fantastic photos and movie stills of her on the internet (love the modern world).  Images that kept coming up were of her as a young woman, dirtied up in a hillbilly outfit, which I found was from Tobacco Road…By John Ford.  Readers may have picked up something of a negativity on my part toward Mr. Ford.  With the exception of The Grapes of Wrath, I’ve pretty much disliked everything I’ve seen from him.  Oh, The Quiet Man.  I f’in HATE The Quiet Man.  I was skeptical of this Depression era film.  But Tierney looked so good.  Having now seen the film, I can attest to Gene Tierney looking all kinds of amazing, and you can certainly see why people took note of her.  The rest of the movie?  It sucks.  A comedy about what trash, in which their ‘down home’ ways, which keep them impoverished, are lauded as being wonderfully rustic.  And it’s NOT funny.  Not at all.  Skip it.  Unless you’re the sort who finds The Quiet Man or Donovan’s Reef amusing.  Then you might like this.

In the Blood:  Gina Carano has a certain quality.  She’s not especially good at acting or especially beautiful (though, by no means terrible), but she’s sexy and cool in a way that makes her fun to watch.  Unfortunately, that’s not enough to base a film on, as this one clearly illustrates.  It’s boring, it’s poorly thought out, and it’s shot like an amateur vacation video.  The story is dumb, the action is uninspired, and Carano has little to do but make you wish you were watching her in a better film.

    On Saturday, Rebecca and I headed in to DC, where we ate at a swell restaurant called Founding Farmers.  From there, it was off to the National Archive to see the Making Their Mark exhibit.  Some very cool items in there.  Then it was off to the National Portrait Gallery to view the American Cool exhibit, and the Presidential Portraits.  Definitely better then the last time I went, to view that lame video game art exhibit.  And no weird smells, either.  After that, we were off to Politics & Prose, where we caught Sam Kean giving a talk on his new book about Neuroscience.  That was quite interesting, and I’m thinking I might have to read the book at some point.  I also found a couple cool hardcovers on the cheap.  Then it was on to eat at Paragon Thai Restaurant, one of the better Thai places around.  From there, home.  Man, I love DC.  A good day and a nice end to a Week in Dork.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Ten Favorite Film Noir (at this moment)

    A friend requested a list of good Film Noir to watch, so I put this together.  Like most genre there is no 100% sure rule for what does or does not count as Noir.  So I’m listing my ten favorite films that I think of when I think of Noir.  These are all must sees.  While I don’t think the order is arbitrary, the exact placement largely depends on how fresh in my mind each film is.  I think these should serve as a solid jumping-off point for any new Noir viewer.

10.  Double Indemnity (1944) Two horribly unlikable people fall into a sick kind of love that can only lead to one place.  Grim and weirdly kinky, it’s a must.

9.  Detour (1945) Don’t pick up a hitch-hiker.  Just don’t do it.  Things go from bad to much, much worse for a poor schmuck too dumb to get out of his own way when he gets mixed up with one seriously crazy dame.

8.  Tension (1949) A meek pharmacist with a horrid wife gets the rage and plans a murder.  Things don’t quite go as planned.  The twists and turns in this film are a bit hard to swallow, but the cast is so good, it manages to be a lot of fun to watch.

7.  Touch of Evil (1958) Orson Welles directs and plays the disgusting ogre good ‘ol boy cop at the heart of the movie’s darkest depths.  Charlton Heston is the honorable Mexican cop who has to brave bigotry and corruption.  Janet Leigh is his pretty young wife who goes on a whirlwind journey into terror.  Beautiful and disgusting.  And Welles saves the harshest and ugliest stuff for himself, looking like a bloated toad, ranting with vile hate.  It’s great.

6.  Pickup on South Street (1953) Perpetually shifty Richard Widmark is delightfully sleazy in this gritty tale of life on the streets and those danged dirty Reds.

5.  Out of the Past (1947)  Robert Mitchum plays a guy who just wants to be left alone.  But his dark and dirty past won’t stay behind him.  A very cool film with a really good cast.

4.  The Big Heat (1953) Filled with all the nasty this genre has to offer.  Glenn Ford is a bastard.  Lee Marvin is a beast.  And Gloria Grahame proves that Hell hath no fury like a woman scalded.

3.  The Hitch-Hiker (1953) This down and dirty, low budget flick is full of uncomfortable tensions and sinister behavior.  Director Ida Lupino may have been better known for her work in front of the camera, but it’s clear she had plenty of talent behind it as well.

2.  Kiss Me Deadly (1955) From Ralph Meeker’s casual evil (and he’s the protagonist) and the crackling dialog to the absolutely terrifying conclusion, this is one of the more brutal and nasty films of its time.  I’m often surprised people don’t talk about it more.

1.  The Maltese Falcon (1941)  While this is not even close to my favorite Humphrey Bogart film (that‘s In a Lonely Place), nor my favorite Noir (possibly Kiss Me Deadly), it does seem to be the film all others in the genre are judged by/compared to.  And with good reason.  The cast is awesome and it plays out in a lot of cool and crazy ways.  And when you think Bogart, you’re probably thinking about this or Casablanca.  It's an absolute must see and worthy of its classic status.

-Matt