A guy I know told me a funny anecdote about renting this in the early ’90s when he was a teenager. He said he got it at a tiny little mom and pop store in a suburb of Seattle. You don’t really see stores like that now but they used to be around, especially in the ’80s, before Blockbuster and Hollywood were everywhere. This one had a nice old man who ran it (the pop) and when this kid and his little sister brought up BAD LIEUTENANT the old man got excited. “My niece is in this movie!” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Watch for the scene where he pulls over the two teenage girls. She’s one of the girls!”
So, of course, if you’ve seen the movie you will remember the scene where Harvey forces one girl to show him her ass and the other one to pretend she’s sucking a dick as he stands there jerking off and repeating “you ever had a guy’s cock in your mouth? You ever have a guy’s cock in your mouth?” over and over again. Well, don’t worry, one of those actresses has a proud uncle.
That’s right man, that Harvey Keitel is one bad lieutenant. I’m not talking about a baaaaadass lieutenant. I’m talking about a coke snorting, crack smoking, heroin shooting, hard drinking, walking around naked, money stealing, lying, gambling addicted, n-word using, jerking off in front of some teenage girls he pulled over, spying on a naked rape victim, law enforcement sonofabitch. That would be a more accurate title but it’s too long to fit on a marquee and gives away pretty much 95% of what happens in the movie. (more…)
So this Dark Sky label has been sending me their DVDs ever since I reviewed their great TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE ULTIMATE EDITION. Most of them aren’t classics like that, they’re obscure little things I never heard of, and they can be pretty interesting. This month’s titles are TRAGIC CEREMONY and RICCO THE MEAN MACHINE.
TRAGIC CEREMONY is a 1972 Italian horror movie about a TRAGIC CEREMONY. A group of young people go boating, then driving around in a dune buggy, they run out of gas and end up having to go up to a mansion to ask for help. Little do they know there’s a TRAGIC CEREMONY that’s gonna happen there. See, there’s a satanic cult, and one character has this pearl necklace that has a spooky past, and who knows what kind of crazy shit will go down?
Well, I know. I saw the movie. Some heads get chopped off, a guy gets thrown out a window, etc.
I like the feel of the movie but it’s pretty slow, and let’s be honest, satanic cults are obsolete as a source of horror. Yeah, there was that time in the ’80s when Geraldo did a special and it seemed like at any moment you could find some satanists sacrificing bunnies in the woods by your house. But as soon as Anton Lavey and those type of dudes started actually appearing on talk shows it was all over. Those guys aren’t scary, they’re hilarious. Who’s gonna be afraid of a guy in a cape? Come on.
Luckily, as soon as the TRAGIC CEREMONY is over the movie gets more interesting. It suddenly and unexpectedly gets gory, the young people flee and since one of them left his guitar it’s suspected that a Charles Manson type hippie cult was responsible for the TRAGIC CEREMONY. But they don’t really have to prove their innocence because they seem to be kind of cursed and one–by–one meet gruesome fates. (more…)
You might not have noticed this, but I’m obsessed with THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. I consider it one of the all time great American independent films. I watch it over and over and I still keep noticing things I hadn’t before. I’ve read the book about how it was made, I’ve watched the documentaries, I took the fuckin remake personally like somebody had broken into my apartment and smeared shit all over the walls.
But I’m not the only one. I run into others like me every once in a while. I get contacted by them. We are everywhere, but you will not notice us. We have the power to blend in with our surroundings. You are probably staring right at us right now and you can’t even see us. We are invisible. Whoah – behind you! Too late. Nice try.
Anyway, I was intrigued when I heard that one of us obsessives is trying to make a movie about Tobe Hooper and friends actually shooting THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Not a documentary, but a drama, a re-enactment, I guess like BAADASSSS! or SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, minus the vampire. The movie is called SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, and the director is named Christopher Garetano. I tried to get him to describe the movie in his own words, but as you will see he got a little abstract there, so you might want to check out this little featurette he made to explain the idea to investors:
I have no idea how good a movie that could be, or whether this guy can pull it off, or even if he will end up getting it finished. But he seems pretty tenacious and I know I’m hoping to watch this movie some day. So I got him to answer a few questions about it. Maybe we’ll check in with him again when he’s further down the road.
VERN: First of all, could you explain what SOUTH TEXAS BLUES is?
CHRISTOHPER GARETANO: SOUTH TEXAS BLUES represents the struggling artist’s state of mind. There’s a specific scene in STB that emphatically represents the title. It’s a fantasy sequence titled (in the script) “Beyond the Blue Wall.” Tobe’s line from the script (that he reads in narration during the scene) is: ”It’s a wall that separates the artists who suffer from the blues from the industry that despises them. It’s hard to bring the two camps together because they’re always fighting for different goals.”
That particular scene (visually) will be represented by one very long twelve-foot-high (guarded) brick wall. On one side of the wall is a cliché paradise right out of the most extravagant 1930s Hollywood movie set. It’s like David O. Selznick meets Shangri –la except for the heavily armed guards. On the other side is a murky dark blue circle of hell with one hundred or so vicious creatures called the “putrid blue artists.” They foam at the mouth, have razor sharp fangs, blue skin, black hair, and the blackest eyes. Voluptuous blue actresses carry (normal looking) headshots and expose themselves to the wall. Others carry cameras, scripts, etc. From out of the murky crowd comes Tobe wearing streaks of blue from head to toe.
Even his cigar and Panama hat are blue. Tobe fights his way (cigar in mouth) to the base of the wall. The putrid creatures claw at him as he scales the wall to the top. Some of the putrid blues make it to the top of the wall but are swiftly shot through the head by the guards. Once Tobe reaches the top, his body is bathed by the rays of the golden sunset (from the other side) and the blue begins to completely dissolve from his body. Tobe then jumps over into Shangri-la. (more…)
Man, I try to be a nice guy. I try to be an optimist. I was ready to burn the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake at the stake, but then I saw it and it wasn’t too bad. It’s a hollow action movie version of the original, but it’s a fun one, and it’s pretty well executed. I’m not too much of a hardliner to admit that.
So if they already remade that and did okay I wasn’t gonna be too up in arms about a DAY OF THE DEAD remake. And I was rooting for Steve Miner too. He’s the director and I’ve seen people talk shit about him here, but I have a soft spot for him. He directed my two favorite FRIDAY THE 13THs (parts 2 and 3) which are fun and have a good energy to them. And he still had some of that spark when he did HALLOWEEN H20: H20 STANDS FOR HALLOWEEN TWENTY YEARS LATER. Nobody seems to like that movie, and to be honest the Michael Meyers mask looks terrible, but I think it’s a pretty good movie. The ROCKY BALBOA of the HALLOWEEN series. And it has that great chase at the end, you gotta at least enjoy that. Ignore that bullshit in the next one about how Michael Meyers switched clothes with a paramedic. That’s for conspiracy theorists. Anyway because of those three movies I figured if they had to do a fast running DAY OF THE DEAD then maybe Steve Miner wasn’t a bad choice to do it.
Well, nope. I was wrong and the proof is called “DAY OF THE DEAD” and coming straight to DVD on a date which I will not specify because you should not watch it. And don’t look it up, either. Just forget about it. The cover shows a zombie projectile vomiting a bunch of green slime and eyeballs into the air. This doesn’t happen in the movie but is a good description of how you will feel watching the movie. (more…)
Poor John Rambo. Drafted into ‘Nam, transformed into a killing machine, trained to eat things that would make a billygoat puke. He came home, butted heads with an asshole sherriff, fought a bunch of cops, got a pardon so he could rescue some POWs and “win this time,” lived at a monastery I believe, real good stickfighter, made some allegiances in Afghanistan that in retrospect were not so hot but you know what they say about hindsight. Now he lives in a shack in Thailand where he catches deadly snakes for a living. His first line in the movie is telling a guy to go fuck himself. He’s real cynical about the state of the world and the inevitability of bloodshed, but some Christian missionaries convince him against his better judgment to take them in his boat and drop them off in a war zone in Burma. You guys run along now, don’t get raped or blown up. Then when they don’t come back on time he has to go back and drop off the team of mercenaries the church hires to rescue them. I wish the team had a cool name like The Holy Rollers and had pictures of Jesus, Joseph and Mary airbrushed on their weapons, but no, they’re just regular guns for hire, they don’t give a shit about that stuff. They don’t even care about the money that much, so they’re gonna turn around when things look bad. But Rambo (to them “the boatman”) changes their minds. Using a bow and arrow.
Rambo’s changed over the years, at least physically. He no longer looks like he’s chiseled out of stone. Now he’s chopped out of wood. He’s a fuckin tree trunk wearing a headband. Wide and thick and definitely not pretty anymore.
I like the character of Rambo, and I always like seeing him, but the mentally ill can make some bad choices. In his case that includes going on a rampage as well as making three ridiculous sequels to his classic original. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that crap too, to a certain point, but FIRST BLOOD is a legitimately great movie that towers above them and tries to be polite about it but most likely would not want to hang out with the other ones if at all possible. The idea of the original book and movie was to “bring the Vietnam War home,” but the idea of the sequels is just to send Rambo off to different wars. (more…)
Hey, remember me? Name’s Vern. I’m back on the scene with my CLOVERFIELD review. Also, I forgot to link to the DTV triple-header I did starring Dolph Lundgren (MISSIONARY MAN) Jason Statham vs. Wesley Snipes (CHAOS) and some dude (ROCKAWAY). Also, did you notice that was me who asked Sylvester Stallone that last question about Rambo eating things that would make a billygoat puke? (I didn’t really understand his answer, though.)
SPECIAL REQUEST: if there are any Dutch readers who have a minute to help me out please email me (outlawvern at hotmail dot com). I just got a quick question or two about modern Dutch cinema for some research I’m doing.
[UPDATE: I got the information I needed - thanks for all the help everybody.]
Oh, and, hey man – check out this book I just noticed on Amazon. Sounds interesting.
CLOVERFIELD is a new movie about a giant monster named Cloverfield who comes out of the water and attacks New York City. Cloverfield knows he has a sissy name that’s way too close to that asshole cat Garfield. He wants it to have a more rebellious ring to it, like [Holden] Caulfield, or at least semi-respectable, like Seinfeld before he started advertising BEE MOVIE. So to prove he’s not fucking around and to establish dominance one of the first things Cloverfield does on his visit to the big city is rip the head off the Statue of Liberty and throw it across Manhattan. If he was trying to bowl it was a gutterball but, poor bowler or not that shit is threatening to a human like you or me. Let’s face it, he has a size advantage. That is the main thing going on between Cloverfield and us. More weight, more reach. Not really a fair fight.
Since we don’t actually witness the incident (except for where the head lands) it’s hard to really know for sure what Cloverfield’s motive is. It’s easy to jump to conclusions that he’s making a statement about the loss of liberty in America post 9-11, or perhaps he is some sort of rabid anti-American and is threatening our liberty. He should realize that it is very insensitive in the post 9-11 world to not only attack landmarks in Manhattan but to make people think of being beheaded. I don’t care if the fucker’s from space, if you’re visiting some place you gotta do research on the local customs and not just be a big asshole like that. So he’s either very anti-american or just a prick. Or maybe he hates women. My guess though is he thought the statue looked at him funny. Or he saw that torch and thought she was armed and just acted on reflex. After all, it is New York. Okay, I have gone through alot of theories here but I’m sticking with that last one, the Amadou Diallo theory. If anybody finds evidence to back me up on one of those stupid “viral marketing” websights everybody got all caught up in please let me know.
The truth is we don’t really know alot about Cloverfield. He comes from the sea. He is not careful about damaging buildings. I heard he eats people. He has some bad hygiene, because giant poisonous spiders flake off of him. Worst dandruff ever. The movie really isn’t about Cloverfield though as much as it’s about some urban professional youths who are having a party that gets interupted by Cloverfield’s out of control behavior. As you know this is a movie like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or MAN BITES DOG or THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or THE LAST BROADCAST or GUINEA PIG or THE LAST HORROR MOVIE or the first part of BEHIND THE MASK or the last part of SNUFF or various parts of FACES OF DEATH or MY LITTLE EYE or REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET MARKET or REDACTED or THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES or DIARY OF THE DEAD or WAITING FOR GUFFMAN where it pretends to be actual footage of a real event. There’s a going away party for a guy named Rob, and his brother’s girlfriend wants to make a video for him to remember them by. Then they keep taping during the monster attack “because people will want to know,” and you are watching their tape, which was found in Central Park. (more…)
Vern’s DTV Triple Header: LUNDGREN vs. SNIPES/STATHAM vs. SOME DUDE FROM TV I NEVER HEARD OF!!!
I try to watch alot of DTV movies, but I don’t always succeed. Most of you have probaly never watched them, and you may assume that they are very good and enjoyable, and capable of adding meaning to one’s life. However, this is almost never the case. In the world of DTV filmmaking it seems pretty clear that nobody gives a shit. Most of them are trying to just reach 90 minutes and throw the shit on a shelf. You could argue that more effort goes into pornography, since some poor girl has to take it in the ass. That’s elbow grease.
So this is an unusual couple of days because I’ve managed to watch a bunch of DTVs and all of them were actually okay. So okay, in fact, that I was able to watch them in two or less sittings. In this world that’s almost a miracle. Either that or I have somehow increased my attention span overnight.
But what about the DTV viewer on the go who only has time to watch one of the three? Which one should they watch – which one was the MOST okay? Good question.
The candidates:
MISSIONARY MAN by Dolph Lundgren
CHAOS with Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes
ROCKAWAY starring various (more…)
I don’t know man, will there be blood? It’s hard to say. Click here to find out.
By the way, happy Last Fucking Year of Bush. And did you hear the war is over? I guess not the Iraq one though, just the format war. That’s what some guy at the video store said. “Warners” as my buddy Harry calls Warner Brothers is going exclusively Blu-Ray, so the rebels have declared victory. To me though it’s really not over until the peace treaty is signed and every one of our boys is home. We should not have to send the Blu-Ray of RAMBO in to rescue HD-DVD exclusive POWs such as the Kubrick box set. The sad thing is, nobody will really respect the Blu-Rays when they get home, and half of them will end up strung out and homeless.
P.S. The clock is seriously ticking on that super-rare first edition of Seagalogy. The contract is in the mail and as soon as they tell me they received it I gotta pull the plug. So this is your last chance to get the book until later next year. Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.
First of all, don’t get your hopes up. There won’t be that much blood. I was very disappointed.
Second of all, Paul Thomas “the ‘Thomas’ means I didn’t direct MORTAL KOMBAT” Anderson’s THERE WILL BE BLOOD has the feeling of greatness. It has the smell of greatness, the texture of it. It flirts with greatness. I’m pretty sure it even left the club with greatness last night but there is no way yet for us to know if it got lucky with greatness. We can only catch up with it later and ask it. If it turns out later that it was only faking it I’ll have to admit it had me fooled. Here’s why.
It has an epic feel, an epic length, a supreme filmatic confidence. It has long stretches with no dialogue, because it don’t give a fuck. It knows what it wants. If it wants to show an emotional reunion scene from all the way across a field it fucking will. It has authentic period detail. A classy, tension-building score. Nothing noticably digital. Hubris. Oil. Madness. Mustaches.
Whether or not it’s great, it reminds you of greatness. It’ll make you think of CITIZEN KANE sometimes if you know how to think of CITIZEN KANE as a movie about a specific thing and not just as the official best movie ever made. It reminded me of THE GODFATHER a couple times. Mostly it reminded me of Stanley Kubrick. Not in some specific similarity but just in the way it made me feel, like watching FULL METAL JACKET or EYES WIDE SHUT the first time. Not being sure where it was going, whether it was almost over or just beginning, but every big leap or twist always felt natural, like I was in good hands, this guy knows what he’s doing. When it was over I felt like I would probaly have to see it again or go up into the mountains and meditate for a month before I’d know exactly what it was supposed to be about. But I knew it was pretty fuckin good. A pleasure to be horrified by. (more…)
BR Baraka on The Woman From my link above:
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I read your comment:
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Rehydrated Dehydrated Pirate Paul on Potpourri’s Dead: The Final Nightmare “The Silence” – great.
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