Here in the U.S. Sunday was Valentine’s Day, yesterday was President’s Day, and today is BLACK DYNAMITE Day. If you didn’t catch it at a random film festival or in its limited theatrical release (or even if you did) today is the day when you can finally buy or rent it on DVD or Blu-Ray.
I hope I haven’t raised expectations on this one talking about it so long, but I’ve seen it three times now and it definitely stands as one of my favorites of recent years, a really funny and affectionate blaxploitation homage that, while making fun of the absurdity of the genre also happens to capture exactly what I love about those movies. I will proudly put it on my shelf next to my previous favorite blaxploitation comedy, THE HUMAN TORNADO. (read the rest of this shit…)
There was a time in our cultural history, or in our life’s journey or whatever, when the freaky grossout shit seemed real interesting. The odd top shelf Troma, the young and hungry Peter Jackson, the works of Frank Henenlotter. These are home made labors of love obsessed with bodily fuction and dumb humor, trying hard to disgust you but not really to scare you, and not to be taken very seriously. For a while it’s fun, but you can only go so far with that. It gets old after a while, or you get old after a while.
I rented a PAL import of WHITE OF THE EYE after some of you guys were talking about it in the comments back around Halloween. I really didn’t know anything about it, so I was off balance from the beginning. The opening credits said in huge letters DONALD CAMMELL’S WHITE OF THE EYE so at first I assumed that was some writer like Dean R. Koontz or John Grisham. Turns out it’s the director, he co-directed PERFORMANCE, did a couple weird ones like this, then killed himself.
Cash is the full name of a big-shouldered, square-jawed, fresh-out-of-the-pen-and-eager-for-revenge individual on a rampage in an unnamed city that happens to have the Space Needle in it (more on that later). He’s a guy nobody should ever fuck with, but unfortunately for a couple guys it’s too late for that. They betrayed him on a messy bank job, and you never really know what could happen but I’m leaning toward him not accepting an apology. In the opening narration he says something like, “I was only ever good at two things. Killing’s one of ’em. I forget what the second one is.” So he goes to different clubs and back rooms roughing people up, shooting off heads, biting off ears, trying to get to the big man who betrayed him, or something. 
But I couldn’t really make out the last name on his signature there. Fortunately, a new ad has surfaced, featuring much neater handwriting on a parking ticket:
There you go. Harold Alexander Swan. No word on if Judge Moody or Thomas O’Malley are that ugly overbite/glasses guy. But we’ll learn eventually.
Apparently the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK remake is still happening. You guys know how I feel about that. In the unlikely event that somebody good was doing it this could actually be a good story to retell. The problems are
I laughed the first time I saw this DVD cover, Christian Slater with a combover and nerd glasses beneath that title, and clutching a bunch of dynamite. But I thought it was a serious movie. It turns out it’s a bit of a dark comedy and since it’s the only other movie from Frank Cappello, director of AMERICAN YAKUZA and NO WAY BACK, I decided to give it a shot.
The new Steven Seagal picture comes out in the States today. I couldn’t wait so I already imported the UK version. I like the design of the American cover a little better, but I don’t regret a thing because the UK one has the all important “Steven Seagal is” before the title, something that’s been sorely lacking from Seagal movies lately, not to mention from movies in general.
I wasn’t planning to see THE BLIND SIDE, but I’d seen 8 out of the 10 best picture nominees already, and I heard it wasn’t that bad. So what the hell. Figured I could start filling out the checklist and have a review for Super Bowl Sunday.
