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Posts Tagged ‘James Brolin’

Gas Food Lodging

Thursday, August 4th, 2022

“Women are lonely in the ‘90s. It’s our new phase.”


July 10, 1992. Future Grammy-winner “Baby Got Back” had just hit #1 on the Billboard charts, questioning Eurocentric beauty standards in American culture and allowing Seattle’s best known rapper to perform on top of a giant fiberglass ass. In arguably more feminist news, we have our third woman-directed movie of the summer (following POISON IVY and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN).

GAS FOOD LODGING* is another one from IRS Releasing (RUBIN & ED, ONE FALSE MOVE), and it’s the sophomore film from writer/director Alison Anders, whose debut BORDER RADIO (1987) (co-directed with Dean Lent and Kurt Voss) had been nominated for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. This one’s loosely based on a 1971 young adult novel called Don’t Look and It Won’t Hurt by Richard Peck, but it fits pretty well into this period of American indie cinema when Anders’ future FOUR ROOMS neighbor Quentin Tarantino hadn’t arrive yet and directors were more influenced by her former boss Wim Wenders (she was a production assistant on PARIS, TEXAS). It’s about two sisters growing up with their single mother in a mobile home in dusty (fictional) Laramie, New Mexico, and doesn’t try to bullshit you with much more of a hook than that. That’s what Anders is interested in. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Car / The Car: Road to Revenge

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

I don’t have a car and there’s not a drive-in near me, but I think it’s great that the drive-in movie experience is making a comeback in response to the pandemic. Nature finds a way. In honor of this great revival I offer you a drive-in double feature: two horror movies about a car. In fact, about the car.

THE CAR (1977) is directed by Elliot Silverstein (CAT BALLOU) and written by Dennis Shryack & Michael Butler (THE GAUNTLET, CODE OF SILENCE, PALE RIDER) and Lane Slate (DEADLY GAME) and it’s a killer car movie before CHRISTINE. Its faceless villain is a cool looking matte black 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III customized by George Barris, designer of the Munster Koach, Knight Rider and maybe the Batmobile (rival Wikipedia editors seem to have added conflicting information on that). Anyway it kinda looks like a hearse and has a big, distinctive grill. I could see the Tall Man from PHANTASM cruising around in this thing.

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Pee-wee’s Big Adventure

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020

August 9, 1985

In an attempt to put a finger on the ineffable singularity of PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, let us consider the Rube Goldberg machines of Summer of 1985 so far:

THE GOONIES. First scene after the prologue. Mikey pulls a string that drops a bowling ball into a bucket and sets off a chain reaction that involves a balloon, a hen, a football and a sprinkler, just to pull open the gate for Chunk. Why? I don’t know. Because it’s cute. Its cool. Kids like it. No reason needed.

BACK TO THE FUTURE. Opening titles. A series of timers act as Doc Brown’s breakfast machine. The coffeemaker turns on, an alarm swings an arm that flips a switch that turns on the morning news, the toaster is toasting, a can of dog food slides down to a robot arm that swings around to a can opener that opens it and it dumps into a dog bowl. It’s not as elaborate or chain reaction based as the GOONIES machine, but it’s more organic to the story because it’s the work of an inventor who’s a genius and a nut and interested in time. And also maybe Steven Spielberg is just into these things, since he produced both movies.

And now, PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. Again, the first scene after the prologue. Another breakfast machine. After getting out of bed in the morning, Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens in his followup to MEAT BALLS PART II) tells his dog Speck, “Come on, let’s get some breakfast!” He turns on a fan and lights a candle under a string. The reaction involves a row of interlocked pinwheels, a dropping anvil, a toy ferris wheel… this one could be an homage to the one in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, but with the addition of kitsch: an egg rolls through a tube and is cracked open by a Drinking Bird, wooden models of dinosaur skeletons carry bread slices and squeeze oranges, an Abraham Lincoln statue flips pancakes. As the meal is made (and the dog food is served) the orchestral score builds from dreamy, tinkly chimes to a booming, stomping anthem. And in the end the food is somehow plated with eggs for eyes, a strawberry for a nose and bacon strips for lips. Pee-wee calls him “Mr. Breakfast,” and they seem to already be acquainted. For his own breakfast, Mr. Breakfast requests Mr. T Cereal. (read the rest of this shit…)

Oldboy (2013 remake)

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

tn_oldboyBefore I talk about the remake of OLDBOY it’s important that I say I liked the original but only saw it one time 8 years ago. Here’s what I wrote about it then.

In the remake directed by Spike Lee and written by Mark Protosevich (THE CELL, I AM LEGEND), Josh Brolin (THRASHIN’) plays a Nick Nolte character named Joe Doucett. He’s an alcoholic, sexually harassing deadbeat dad and advertising asshole who after a long night of drinking, puking and crying in 1993 meets a woman who takes him to a hotel and when he wakes up he realizes she’s not there and there are no windows or doorknobs. One of those hotel conundrums, you know. And this was before Yelp and shit like that so he couldn’t even give them a bad review. Turns out this is not a normal hotel in that you can’t leave. Someone, for some reason, has locked him in this weird prison. Every day they stick a plate of dumplings and a bottle of vodka through a hatch in the door, but they don’t tell him why he’s here.
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Savate

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

tn_savateIsaac Florentine’s third movie (after FAREWELL TERMINATOR and DESERT KICKBOXER) is a western starring Olivier Gruner as Joseph Charlegrand, a Frenchman trailing somebody through the American west. The box claims it’s a true story, but the internet disagrees.

In the grand spaghetti tradition, Charlegrand is a mysterious stranger wandering through the desert on his horse. Some cowboy assholes knock him off his horse and he drops his gun, so he busts out the kickboxing. They know all about punching, of course, but this shit blows their minds. It’s like he came down from space. (read the rest of this shit…)