Posts Tagged ‘Abel Ferrara’
Monday, October 28th, 2024
Abel Ferrara’s BODY SNATCHERS (1993) was my first body snatcher invasion movie. I saw it when it was new on video, and I knew it had been poorly received, so I figured my ignorance of the original and the original remake must’ve helped me to enjoy it more than everybody else. But watching it now with a deep appreciation for the other ones, yeah, it’s still good anyway. So maybe I liked it better because I’m a unique individual with my own feelings and not a plant programmed only for survival. Or because I was ahead of my time – it seems to have a pretty good reputation now.
The title sequence is admittedly chintzy compared to the one in Kaufman’s version. Something about the long sequence of the title flying through a crude starscape and letter-by-letter turning from red to black, set to the score by Joe Delia (MS. 45, FEAR CITY, THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL’S OUT), was putting me in mind of a Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna type movie, but that might’ve been my subconscious remembering that this was actually from a screenplay by Stuart Gordon & Dennis Paoli, rewritten by Ferrara’s guy Nicholas St. John. Gordon was supposed to direct but couldn’t get a commitment from the studio to actually make it until leaving to do FORTRESS. He told Fangoria that his version was originally designed as a sequel to the Kaufman version and went into more detail about how the pod people are plants. “It’s not like they have a brain in their head. The creature’s consciousness is throughout its whole body, so that if you destroy the head, it doesn’t kill or stop it.” That would’ve been fun! But what Ferrara did is good too. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Billy Wirth, Christine Elise, Dennis Paoli, Forest Whitaker, Gabrielle Anwar, Kathleen Doyle, Keith Smith, Meg Tilly, Nicholas St. John, R. Lee Ermey, Stuart Gordon, Terry Kinney, Tom Burman, Tonea Stewart
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, February 8th, 2022
FEAR CITY is a 1984 crime movie by Abel Ferrara, his followup to MS. 45 and prelude to the TV movie THE GLADIATOR. This one has that sleazy Ferrara New York City, but compared to MS. 45 it seems pretty normal and commercial, getting him ready for those TV gigs.
Tom Berenger (between EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS and RUSTLERS’ RHAPSODY) plays Matt Rossi, well known and liked for his days as a boxer (before he killed a guy in the ring), now running Starlite Talent Agency in Manhattan with his buddy Nicky Parzeno (Jack Scalia, right after AMAZONS). That means booking the strip clubs in the neighborhood, basically. They do the rounds at the clubs and everybody’s treating him like a V.I.P. or an old friend, smiling or saying “hi, baby” when he shows up. And he’s Tom Berenger so he’s fucking cool.
He’s troubled, though. One of those guys who likes to go out to some spot on the shore where there’s nobody else around and just look across. Day or night, doesn’t matter, the man likes to brood with good scenery. And he has flashbacks about the fateful boxing match. It really changed him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Billy Dee Williams, David Johansen, Jack Scalia, Melanie Griffith, Nicholas St. John, Rae Dawn Chong, Tom Berenger
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 9 Comments »
Thursday, March 2nd, 2017
featuring Abel Ferrara as “First Rapist”
MS. 45 is a simple, palatable slice of early sleazy arty Abel Ferrara. Much like his previous film DRILLER KILLER it’s his New York art scene take on a genre movie, and a great time capsule of that world, but it’s a much more captivating story and – crucially – the people in it are far less obnoxious. Instead of playing the insufferable lead, Ferrara just plays an alley rapist in a Halloween mask at the beginning.
Yes, it’s a rape-revenge story like THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE, and also a vigilante movie like DEATH WISH. The rape scenes are as disturbing as any, but mercifully short compared to I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE or something. The vast majority of the slim 80-minute running time is given over to our 17-year-old protagonist Thana (Zoë Tamerlis, later known as Zoë Lund)’s urban murder spree. When she beats a rapist to death with an iron she could report it as a legitimate case of self defense, but she makes the less orthodox choice of hiding the body and using his gun for the .45 caliber execution of adult men who make moves on her, attempted gang rapists, pimps she sees beating prostitutes, etc. A fun new hobby for a young woman living on her own in the city. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Eddita Sherman, rape-revenge, vigilante, Zoe Lund
Posted in Crime, Horror, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
THE GLADIATOR is another movie I found on VHS by accident while browsing the video store. It’s a car vigilante TV movie, so I was surprised to find it with the Abel Ferrara movies. Yes, the director of KING OF NEW YORK and BAD LIEUTENANT also did a TV movie starring Ken Wahl and guest starring cheeseball ’80s top 40 DJ Rick Dees as his obnoxious boss. From about ’85 until ’88 Ferrara mostly worked in TV, doing some episodes of MIAMI VICE and CRIME STORY, plus this one in ’86. Seemed like something I should investigate.
Wahl plays Rick Benton, a stoic car mechanic working for Dees’s specialty car business. The only people in his life are his kid brother who he raised (Brian Robbins, director of NORBIT), his Vietnam buddy who works at the junkyard, and a customer he’s starting to date, talk radio host Nancy Allen. He works for rich people but chugs along in the kind of lower middle class existence not usually depicted casually in a TV movie. A couple nice touches I noticed: they eat on paper plates, and they wrap gifts with the Sunday funnies. You ever notice how presents on TV and movies are usually perfectly wrapped with shiny bows and sometimes even lids that just lift off? I could never pull that off. The Sunday funnies is more relatable. Good one Ferrara. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, car chases, TV movies, vigilantes
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
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!” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Harvey Keitel
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Sunday, April 17th, 2005
In this movie Christopher Walken plays Frank White who is the King of New York. He is not literally a king but actually some sort of crime boss of New York. He’s fresh out of the joint and unlike certain heroic individuals who choose to turn their life around and follow a path of Positivity, making the world a better place through art and culture, he decides to be king of new york. But he says he’s gonna build a hospital so that makes it okay.
The director is Abel Ferrara, an asshole director who I sort of like. I mean I never met the guy obviously but he’s one of those greaseballs like Vincent Gallo where, before you even see an interview with the guy, you just get the feeling he’s an asshole. In his movie DRILLER KILLER I didn’t even realize he was the star (he used a pseudonym) and I kept thinking this star really thinks he’s hot shit, it’s not just the character. What a fuckin asshole. But then I listened to the commentary track and heard Ferrara say the same exact thing about himself. So I had to like him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Paul Calderon, Roger Guenveur Smith, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 19th, 2002
The two strongest feelings I have about Abel Ferrara’s latest are “that was pretty good” and “what the hell?” I will cover these two feelings in order.
This is the story of Christmas for a rich couple in New York in 1993. We see them videotaping their young daughter’s private school Christmas play, trying to get her the most in demand Christmas toy, and that kind of business. Then they put her to bed, some fellas come over and they start filling up baggies of cocaine.
So the idea I guess is that drug kingpins aren’t that much different from any of the other rich fucks in new york. I mean you pretty much like these people. They really do care about their daughter and want to make her happy, even if they think they have to do it by buying shit. They have lots of old ladies sitting around the house and they hug and kiss them alot. When it comes down to it, their family life really is more important to them than their drug empire, although they don’t know how to live like a regular working class individual. And one thing that’s refreshing is that other than the fact that he sells drugs, the husband never shows a dark side. You never see him being ruthless. He doesn’t only SEEM charming and innocent, but have a furious anger hidden beneath. As far as we see, he’s just a sweet, romantic guy. Come to think of it, this guy is BETTER than the other rich fucks in new york, if a little superficial. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Christmas, Christmas crime, Ice-T
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »
