RICKY POWELL: THE INDIVIDUALIST is a 2020 documentary about the late New York City photographer/scenester who documented the golden age of hip hop and the ‘80s New York City art scene. Most of us know of him because of a line in a Beastie Boys song – he grew up with Ad Rock and went with them on their tours for around a decade, hanging out and taking photos. He also took many famous pictures of Run DMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy.
And it was more than that. He just lived in an interesting place and time, and knew a ton of people who went on to do big things, who were comfortable with him and let him take candid photos of them. Club kids, actors, graffiti artists. Some of his old friends are interviewed in the movie: Natasha Lyonne, Debi Mazar, Fab 5 Freddy, Laurence Fishburne, the graffiti writer Zephyr. (read the rest of this shit…)
JUNGLE FEVER is five films and five years into the career of Spike Lee. You have the financed-on-credit-cards debut SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, the polished studio debut SCHOOL DAZE, the explosion of DO THE RIGHT THING, the follow up MO’ BETTER BLUES, and then this. Like all of his movies it’s interesting and bold and full of greatness but in my opinion, especially in retrospect, it’s his first fumble. That’s fine. He did MALCOLM X next.
It is the story of possibly the most only-Spike-Lee-would-ever-name-a-character-this character of all time, Flipper Purify, played by Wesley Snipes, who had been in Lee’s MO’ BETTER BLUES and was coming off of the success of NEW JACK CITY. He’s an upper class architect, living in Harlem with his wife Drew (Lonette McKee, BREWSTER’S MILLIONS, ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT), and things seem to be going well from the hot morning sex that opens the movie (the sounds of which greatly amuse their daughter Ming [Veronica Timbers]). (read the rest of this shit…)
When Stuart Gordon died at the end of March I decided it was finally time to watch SPACE TRUCKERS, a movie I had been meaning to see for literally 23 years. You know how it is. You get busy sometimes.
Obviously I dig Gordon as a Master of Horror, director of RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, as one should. And in recent years I’ve really come to love THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM and CASTLE FREAK. But I also think he’s under-appreciated for his sci-fi movies ROBOT JOX and FORTRESS. And ever since I first saw ALIEN I’ve loved those stories that are about space but the heroes are just working class people doing their job, not some royalty or chosen one or member of any federation or academy. As the title makes clear, this is about characters like that. Truckers. In space. (read the rest of this shit…)
When we lost the great Stuart Gordon recently, I realized there were a few of his films I still hadn’t seen. It’s kind of nice, actually, to still have something left to discover. There’s a particular one that happens in space that involves truckers that I honestly have wanted to see since before it even came out, and somehow never have. It’ll be a few weeks before I can finally change that, because I decided to order a UK Blu-Ray instead of pay Amazon to stream it in standard def. But I wanted to watch this one first anyway – the one based on the David Mamet play.
Gordon and Mamet, if you don’t know, go way back. Long before RE-ANIMATOR, Gordon was doing envelope-pushing theater work in Chicago. He directed, at his Organic Theater Company, the production of Sexual Perversity in Chicago credited with establishing Mamet as a playwright, although there was an earlier one starring William H. Macy, who also stars in this movie.
Here he plays Edmond Burke, a dude who works for some kind of financial firm called Stearns & Harrington. He’s apparently had a bad day (his meeting on Monday got pushed back to 1:15 – WHAT IN THE LIVING GOD DAMN FUCK!?) when he heads home and, on a whim, stops to get a tarot reading. She tells him “You don’t belong here.” (read the rest of this shit…)
“Those who cannot remember [BATMAN FOREVER] are condemned to repeat it.” –George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
You guys wanna see a hit summer blockbuster that was well received at the time, but has since been disavowed like a discredited ideology? The summer of 1995 gives you BATMAN FOREVER.
Just six years earlier Tim Burton had smashed open the zeitgeist with BATMAN, which had been used as somewhat of a reference point for would-be blockbusters since, clearly influencing at least the scoring and marketing of DICK TRACY, DARKMAN, THE ROCKETEER and THE SHADOW, for example. But Burton’s second one, BATMAN RETURNS (1992) was weirder, more personal, and therefore less enthusiastically received by the public. That made the studio weary about plans for a Burton-directed part 3, and they parted ways. Burton is credited as an executive producer on FOREVER, but apparently his only role was to give the new director his blessing and meet with screenwriters Lee & Janet Scott Batchler once to discuss the importance of duality in Batman characters.
Joel Schumacher was a weird but not controversial choice for a replacement. People remembered THE LOST BOYS, FALLING DOWN and maybe FLATLINERS as good movies. And he did THE CLIENT – you know, those John Grisham court room thrillers were a big deal in the ’90s, for some reason. I wonder what happened to that whole genre. Anyway, a 1993 Entertainment Weekly article said “Hiring Schumacher to direct the summer-of-’95 release is seen by insiders as an attempt by Warner Bros. to get the Batman movies back on track” because “Warner doesn’t want a repeat of the macabre 1992 sequel, BATMAN RETURNS, which frightened small children and angered many parents.” It goes on to quote an anonymous “source close to the project” as saying they didn’t want Burton to direct because “he’s too dark and odd for them.”
Yeah, because Schumacher made a real normal movie. No oddness to see here. Just a couple of bros in shiny plastic muscles driving a car up the side of a building. Don’t worry about it, fellas. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Aktion Figure on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Nah Vern, this is all on me. I’m trying to parse out why I had that knee-jerk reaction to a…” Apr 18, 07:41
Mr. Majestyk on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “Solid review. What got me about the ending was how it recontextualized what up until then I had thought was…” Apr 18, 05:37
renfield on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Glad you caught this one Vern. Chapo Trap House did a cool interview with the filmmakers… the details about how…” Apr 17, 23:11
Adam Caka TaumpyTearrs on Legend of the Eight Samurai: “I finally got my epic Bastard Swordsman write-up done, and Maj I linked your remix in my review! https://adamsoverduereview.wixsite.com/adam/post/bastard-swordsman-1983 Still…” Apr 17, 22:36
VERN on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “I mean, maybe it’s a spoiler, but the fictional characters aren’t poseurs. They do blow up a pipeline. I guess…” Apr 17, 21:59
Mr. Majestyk on Cosmopolis / Maps To the Stars: “Miguel: Thank you for bringing GINA to my attention. I loved every second of it. A sleazy exploitation thriller, a…” Apr 17, 21:00
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Oh, a little off-topic… has anyone heard about this new martial arts movie Absolute Dominion? Directed by Lexi Alexander, with…” Apr 17, 20:31
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “@Vern, hadn’t heard that Legendary was upset with it, but I’m not surprised. PIPELINE is pretty straightforward, but “Cam” gets…” Apr 17, 20:29
Aktion Figure on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Vaguely heard of this one. You make it sound alright but, man, I dunno. It gives me (from the outside)…” Apr 17, 20:03
KayKay on G20: “Am with Petros. Am always down for some Viola Davis and the DIE HARD template never ever gets old for…” Apr 17, 18:15
VERN on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “JTS – Whoops, thanks for the correction. Glaive – Oh wow, I didn’t know that. The article I found said…” Apr 17, 14:21
Glaive Robber on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Very frustrated about that Faces of Death redo/reimagining. Supposedly that thing wrapped two years ago, and no distributor will touch…” Apr 17, 12:29
JTS on How To Blow Up a Pipeline: “Great review. I also really liked this one. Lukas Gage wasn’t the villain in the Road House remake, though, that…” Apr 17, 10:59
VERN on G20: “Petros, I think my “it’s fine I guess” review was much more damning than your exaggerations of how bad it…” Apr 17, 10:13