Welcome to the film-related musings, complaints, and comments of Zack Clopton, an amateur film-critic, scholar, and screenwriter. Featured here are Director's Report Cards, essays, and other reviews. Enjoy!
Last of the Monster Kids
"LAST OF THE MONSTER KIDS" - Available Now on the Amazon Kindle Marketplace!
Watching your way through a movie star's entire career allows you to see how their style and screen persona evolved. There's always been a bit of a contrast between Chuck Norris: Memetic Bad-Ass, as depicted in his more ultra-violent eighties action-fests, and the distinctly Americana-infused cowboy do-gooder of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” The actor intentionally softening his image in the late eighties also, probably not coincidentally, dovetailed with his own brother taking over directorial duties on most of his movies. Despite that, I guess the industry and the demands of the marketplace can still throw you a curve ball sometimes. Right at the start of the nineties, the Norris siblings would work on a project originally conceived for Charles Bronson, who had starred in increasingly grittier variations on his “Death Wish” movies all throughout the previous decade. Being roughly three hundred years old at the time, however, forced Bronson to pass the mantle over to another mustachioed tough guy. The resulting film, “The Hitman,” would be “presented” by the barely-hanging-on Cannon, with no involvement from the company's previous execs. It represents an odd fusion of Norris' preferred style and the more intense violence that was becoming popular in the action genre at the time.
Cliff Carret is a Seattle police officer, investigating drug smuggling operations run by the local criminal empires. During one such bust, he is betrayed by his partner, Delany. Shot in the chest and pushed out a window, Cliff's heart stops momentarily in the emergency room. His police chief seizes this opportunity to have Carret declared dead. Under the new identity of Danny Grogan, a ruthless hitman, he goes undercover with the Luganni mafia family. The Lugannis are currently attempting to consolidate their empire with the LaCombe family across the border, against an in-coming intrusion into the area by Iranian criminals. Garret/Grogan, secretly in the employ of the police, attempts to complicate this fusion and dismantle both families. All the while, he continues to live a double life, helping out a bullied youth in his apartment building while still plotting revenge against his crooked partner.
Some ads promoted "The Hitman" with tagline “No more Mr. Nice Guy!” Unavoidably, the gimmick here is that Chuck is playing a “bad guy” or, at least, a violent anti-hero. Considering Norris had already portrayed a remorseless mass murderer in “Invasion USA” and “The Delta Force,” that really says a lot about the relative morality of eighties action movies. I guess it's okay when Commies and brown people are being slaughtered. The star sports a greasy looking mullet, a scar over his left eye, a black trench coat, and tough looking sawed-off shotgun. He has multiple scenes devoted entirely to intimidating people and is re-introduced into the story blasting an unarmed man across a room. This choice is reflected in the tonal atmosphere of “The Hitman.” This is a story of rival mafiosos, peppered generously with outrageous profanity. There's at least two scenes of extended torture, one involving pig guts being shoved into someone's mouth and face. Racism is a reoccurring theme, alongside betrayal, greed, and corruption. The film also features Chuck's character evidently going down on his female love interest, something that's definitely not happened in any of his previous roles. If that scandalized any of his more religious fans, don't worry, she's shot in the head in the next scene or so.
For a brief series of scenes, “The Hitman” seems like it's actually committed to the idea of Norris playing an irredeemable criminal. Perhaps whatever good was left in Cliff Carret died on that operating table, Grogan emerging as a Hydeian alter ego. That would've been interesting but “The Hitman” quickly gets cold feet. Upon returning back to his apartment, the “Grogan” persona is dropped entirely. He befriends a latch-key kid in his apartment, the boy's mom working three jobs just to support them. He enthusiastically shows the kid his model airplanes, as wholesome a hobby as a professional killer could have. When the lad reveals that he's being bullied, Grogan teaches him martial arts for self-defense. This leads to a light-hearted montage of the two training, set to a whimsical score. (There's also a scene where Grogan talks about growing up on an Indian Reservation as a white kid, getting bullied by darker skinned boys, which would probably be an insensitive thing to say to a black kid but this is apparently a real anecdote from Norris' own childhood.) This subplot – alongside inexplicable moments like mulleted Chuck basking in the quiet majesty of a Beluga whale – removes any ambiguity from the premise. See, this guy might be a brutal killer of bad men but he's ultimately a good man, who fights for justice and protects kids. He, in fact, is a nice guy.
The tonal disconnect between these two parts of the film is amusing, as if a hyper-violent shoot-em-up is randomly interrupted by a B-plot from a moldier episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” That's exactly how Aaron Norris and cinematographer João Fernandes shoot these scenes too. Funny enough, the rest of “The Hitman” actually looks quite moody. Fernandes' talent for misty urban locations, blue head lights and street lamps piercing the shadows of corners and alleyways, get a good work-out here. That slaughterhouse torture scene definitely reminds you of Fernandes' horror roots. Setting the film in Seattle and Vancouver – cities whose criminal empires I was previously unfamiliar with – with so many scenes happening in dark warehouses inevitably make this feel like an episode of “Highlander: The Series.” Joel Derouin's musical score, which is heavy on the warbling saxophones and bouncy synth bops, repeatedly draw attention to how cheesy and cheap “The Hitman” is overall. It's another contrast in the film, some decent neo-noir visuals standing alongside TV melodrama and a soft jazz soundtrack.
If “Delta Force 2” suggested that Norris was becoming aware of Steven Seagal's style of limb-twisting action nudging into his territory, “The Hitman” makes me think that “A Better Tomorrow” must have made its way to Texas by 1990. The scenes of Chuck duel wielding firearms while dodging around further bullets brings the Heroic Bloodshed style to mind. While the heroic part is debatable, the film definitely has plenty of bloodshed. The squibs here are very big and wet. Limbs are blown apart, blood splatters from every wound, and people are visibly agonized by their injuries. A notable moment has a grown man reduced to blubbering like a child after a gut shot, an unexpectedly realistic moment in an otherwise exaggerated action movie. Again, if not for so many other things about “The Hitman,” it would be a pretty gritty crime flick. The bad guy explodes into flailing bloody giblets in the final scene, which is presented as a moral victory.
The result is a bit of an odd ball. “The Hitman” seems designed to challenge Chuck Norris' established good guy act in many ways while also hilariously backtracking to cuddly, kid movie antics. All the actors playing the mobsters and crooks are giving suitably hard-boiled performances. Michael Parks is his usually colorful self as the film's main villain. The somewhat convoluted subplots concerning the mob world double-crosses point towards this possibly being a more serious crime movie. Then we'll leap back to the son/little brother figure that Chuck has to support or him rubbing a whale's head. Fascinating in its own way, it represents the direction the action genre was going in opposition to what Norris wanted to keep doing. He would pick the cheesy kids movie/TV stuff, mostly leaving the hard-hitting violence (and that awful mullet) behind. [6/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face [X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
Chuck Norris' previous feature film for Orion Pictures was “Lone Wolf McQuade,” a modernized homage to the spaghetti westerns that first made Clint Eastwood a global superstar. His next Orion production would essentially see Norris stepping into a role not dissimilar from Eastwood's other most iconic reoccurring character. Screenwriters Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, previously of “The Car” and “The Gauntlet,” originally wrote “Code of Silence” as the fourth “Dirty Harry” movie. Eastwood passed on the script – Butler and Shryack ended up writing “Pale Rider” for him next instead – but the writers continued to shop it around as an original project. Orion eventually picked it up and eyed it as a starring role for Kris Kristofferson. When he and half-a-dozen other tough guy actors passed, it ended up in Chuck Norris' lap. The film won the star the best reviews of his entire career and he would later cite it his favorite of his projects.
Eddie Cusack is a cop on the rougher side of Chicago. Along with his partner Dorato and a whole group of cops, he's part of a sting operation to bust a dealer working for Colombian drug lord, Luis Comacho. Instead, the set-up descends into chaos when killers in the employ of rival mobster, Tony Luna, open fire on the building. During the shoot-out, Dorato is shot, several crooks are killed, and another cop on the force named Craigie shoots an unarmed teenager. He then plants a gun on the dead kid. Cusack refuses to exonerate Craigie and ends up working with his inexperienced partner, Kopalas. As revenge, Comacho targets Luca's family, killing all of them except his teenage daughter, Diana. Seeking to protect the innocent girl, Eddie Cusack soon finds himself in a fight between mob families and with no fellow cops on his side.
Here in America, most major city's police forces are less concerned with protecting and serving the public trust than they are with protecting the rich and powerful, extorting citizens for money, operating as enforcers of the prison industrial slavery complex, murdering and harassing racial minorities, and bleeding billions of dollars from local taxpayers so they can buy themselves tanks and body armor. In fact, they have no legal obligation to protect people and have gone to court several times to prove this. However, if you're only encounters with American police are through our popular culture, you would think the cops are constantly under siege from organized crime, small time crooks, and damn regulators trying to get in the way of them doing their job. So-called “copaganda” is unavoidable in this culture. I love me a good action flick, as this series should make clear, and likely the overwhelming majority of that genre is more-or-less about how police officers should have the right to do whatever they want and kill whoever they please. Because, damn it, they get results. You really have to totally disconnect fictional cops from real ones if you want to enjoy ninety percent of American action flicks.
“Code of Silence” is notable for being one of the few eighties action flicks I've seen that actively acknowledges how cops are terrible. Honestly, I was shocked by the film unambiguously depicting a cop killing a black teenager as an impulsive choice and then planting evidence to make the murder look justified. You hear about this happening all the time now and I guess it's always been that way. Despite this set-up, “Code of Silence” is not an A.C.A.B. classic. Ralph Foody plays Detective Cragie as a despicable jack-ass who never feels any remorse at all for killing an innocent. Most of the cops around him believe it is their duty to protect their co-worker and stand-up for him. Eddie Cusack is the exception. He's the One Good Cop on the force that prevents all of them from being bastards. His testimony proves that the system works. His example gives at least one other officer the strength to also do the right thing. The film is not saying that the entire police system in America is fundamentally rotten but merely that it needs more “good” cops than bad ones.
I almost think “Code of Silence” is aware of the obvious contradictions in this statement. After the rest of the precinct basically cuts him off, Cusack goes outside of the law to do what is right. He is heading into bars and picking fights, clinging to the outside of moving trains, getting into car chases. The climax of the film involves him stealing heavy artillery from the police station and using it on his own. All of this is obviously illegal, the “good” cop ending up breaking the law just as much as the dirty ones. “Code of Silence” can't step outside of its eighties action movie viewpoint. Cusack's cowboy cop ways save the day. He faces no consequences for it. He continues to be a cop, when the obvious moral of the story would be him leaving the force at the very least. The movie comes dangerously close to realizing that any system where such wanton destruction is the “best” ending is hopelessly broken. But it's still an action flick so it can't go that far.
This is not so much a criticism as an observation. That a movie starring Chuck Norris manages to address these ideas with any sort of depth at all is surprising. “Code of Silence” benefits greatly from having a far grittier tone than most of the star's previous movies. The dialogue is hard-boiled, with quite a lot of colorful profanity. A strong supporting cast takes further advantage of this, with Dennis Farina as Dorato especially getting to dig into his part. The cinematography is from Frank Tidy, previously of “The Duelists,” and he gives the film a properly gritty, lived-in look. Director Andrew Davis, coming off atmospheric slasher “The Final Terror,” helpfully captures a sense of circumstances spiraling out of control for its hero. By the time he's getting wailed on in a bar, the feeling that he has no one to turn to and that the walls are closing in is clear.
As at odds as these two threads of “Code of Silence” are, I think the film actually does a very good job of balancing its status as both a cheesy action movie and a grittier neo-noir. You see this in the bar room brawl, which has Chuck doing both his trademark moves and still getting beaten up in time. The pacing is extremely fleet-footed, the film rarely not building towards its next set-piece. That sequence where Chuck is chasing a guy across a moving train is both an impressive stunt and a good example of how the film plays with how very vulnerable its hero is, in opposition to the invincible eighties action hero cliché. That car chase is actually fantastically assembled, with a wonderful shot of the vehicles sparking against the asphalt as they leap through the air. That the film manages to successfully capture an air of gritty realism and end with an over-the-top smorgasbord of explosions and gunfire that prominently features a remote controlled robot tank is certainly some kind of achievement.
By this point in his career, Norris has indeed developed into a decent actor. He's not Oliver or anything but he's become adapt at summoning up a certain degree of emotion. The scenes he shares here with an old friend are a highlight. “Code of Silence's” great weakness is that its primary villain isn't in more of the film. Henry Silva, owner of one of cinema's all time greatest psycho faces, gets to sleaze it up gloriously as a Colombian drug lord while still feeling strangely absent for most of the film. I also wish we got a little more interaction between Chuck and Molly Hagan as the distressed damsel, who he shares a distinctly fatherly energy with. Oh yeah, the movie is also set at Halloween, as if I needed another reason to like it. Contradictions at all, “Code of Silence” is some well engineered pulp and easily Norris' classiest flick. And Andrew Davis would go on to become the only filmmaker to direct two Steven Seagal filmsanda Best Picture nominee... [8/10] [THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face [X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
Bruce Lee's unexpected death in 1973 would leave a number of his proposed projects unrealized. The most well-known is probably his TV martial arts western that may or may not have morphed into “Kung Fu.” The most notorious is the partially filmed “Game of Death,” which later emerged as a widely loathed hodgepodge. Unlikely to be mentioned is a project Lee supposedly intended to star in for Lo Wei, his “The Big Boss/Fists of Fury” director. “Yellow-Faced Tiger” was to be about a jaundiced martial arts master. It would eventually be filmed as “The Man Called Tiger” with Jimmy Wang Yu in the starring role. That original title, however, would later be reused for a different project of Wei's. Starring the much less famous Wong Tao, 1974's “Yellow-Faced Tiger” furthered the Lee connection by emulating “Way of the Dragon” and casting Chuck Norris as the bad guy. The movie remained in obscurity until the early eighties, after Mr. Norris had been established as a box office attraction in his own right. A U.S. distributor scooped it up, dubbed it, cut out twenty minutes, re-titled the film “Slaughter in San Francisco,” and stuck Chuck's name above the title. The movie immediately fell back into obscurity after that, subsequent VHS releases furthering the misleading claim that this was a lost Chuck Norris vehicle. Cult movie nerds, however, rarely forget. Recently, Eureka Films would give it a Blu-Ray that includes both the original “Yellow-Faced Tiger” cut alongside the abbreviated American edit.
Wong stars as Wong, a Chinese man born in Korea and raised in the United States. He is a cop and close with his partner, John, the two fighting crime with their mutual kung-fu skills. An attempted arrest results in John being beaten by thugs on the beach, Wong killing one of the attackers to save his friend. He is arrested and his badge taken away. Years later, Wong and John remain good friends. After witnessing a bank robbery, John is pursued into the backyard of the Chus, where he's killed. The crooked police chief assumes the Chus are connected and locks them up. Looking to avenge his friend and protect the innocent Chinese family, Wong starts to investigate the crime. He uncovers a web of corruption involving the San Francisco police force that leads all the way to the city's most powerful drug lord.
Depending on one's perspective, “Yellow-Faced Tiger” represents either an interesting melding of a few different cinematic styles or a desperate chasing of several trends at the same time. Setting a kung-fu movie in San Francisco, right away, shows an intent to have a more international appeal than most Golden Harvest productions. Teaming up Wong with the afro-ed Robert Jones was clearly an emulation of Jim Kelly in "Enter the Dragon," speaking to the crossover in audiences between kung-fu flicks and blaxploition movies. This is also rather evident in the film's funky soundtrack, heavy on the groovy bass and rolling rhythm. The choice in setting was possibly influenced by "Dirty Harry" as well, another film about a vigilante cop. That aligns "Yellow-Faced Tiger" with the noir genre a little bit. That connection is most visible in the movie featuring a few too many story lines on the hero's way to confronting the bad guy. The corrupt police chief, a time skip, references to drug running, and the subplot about an innocent family and their imperiled lawyer feel like attempts to put more narrative meat on the script's bones. While it is interesting to see how the film blends various elements that were floating around in pop culture in 1974, it's not the most successful fusion. John's story line never feels fully formed, the conspiracy is underwritten, and the legal subplot drags the pacing down.
Many a fight movie has overcome a shaky script thanks to the quality of its action and its star's charisma. Don Wong Tao doesn't have the magnetic physicality or charm of Bruce Lee, who he is clearly called upon to imitate a few times. However, he's not bad either. He does a lot with an angry glare, conveying the hero's outrage at injustices going unpunished. He can't be as funny as the script needs him to be when shaking down witnesses but he otherwise does okay. He's also a competent fighter and the action in "Yellow-Faced Tiger" is solid throughout. His moves are fast and acrobatic. This really peaks during the last act, when Wong finally confronts the bad guy at his base of operations. There's an impressive mid-air double kick, a shovel being used as a melee weapon, a thug being kicked head over heels, and a few well done suplexes. While the final fight with Norris features a few awkward steps around a fountain, it still makes for a satisfyingly drawn out showdown.
And what of Chuck? The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut renames his character Chuck Slaughter while the original version only refers to him as "The Boss." Amusingly, some prints seem to credit Norris as himself, giving the impression that the karate champ had a side gig as a West Coast drug kingpin. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the movie and doesn't actually fight anyone until the finale, save for some random sparring practice. When asked to smirk wickedly behind big sunglasses, put a cigar out on a waiter's hand, or make offers you shouldn't refuse, Norris does not seem that confident. The Boss' villainous attributes are more informed than detailed. However, a sequence where he unsuccessfully attempts to assault the female lead clarifies that this character is a real scumbag and not only one by reputation. There is indeed some novelty in seeing Chuck play a cocky rich bastard with no redeemable qualities. When operating as a physical force against the hero, he manages to be intimidating. I'd go so far as to say he does more actual acting here than he did in "Way of the Dragon," a role that didn't ask him to do much more than fight.
The more widely available "Slaughter in San Francisco" largely excises the subplot concerning the Chu family and their attempts to defend themselves against a crooked system. This also links the movie to Bruce Lee's work, by adding an element of Chinese people and Chinese-Americans as social outsiders in a racist city. A local committee in Chinatown has to pool their resources to fund the Chu's defense team and the lawyer meets an unfortunate end as part of an organized cover-up. An innocent Asian family being accused by a white cop of being involved in an unrelated crime is clearly meant to comment on how the system protects the wealthy and persecutes the powerless, like racial minorities. The elder Chu tries to bribe the cop at first, knowing these guys only respect money but is still punished for not doing things the "right" way. This bends towards an unavoidable A.C.A.B. subtext. Wong is kicked off the force, turning in his badge, and that is when he really begins to protect the innocent and fight crime. The idea seems to be that true justice can not be served by an unjust system. Unfortunately, "Yellow-Faced Tiger" backs away suddenly and awkwardly from any bolder themes in its last act. The dirty chief is imprisoned, a good man takes his job. The cops arrive to restore order at the end, Wong being reinstated treated like a triumphant victory. It's a bummer that the movie takes aim at the status quo at first before seemingly changing its mind and deciding that the status quo is actually great at the end.
Perhaps this last minute backtracking on the powers that be is an indicator of the time "Yellow-Faced Tiger" was made. Other indicators of that include everything else about the movie, most noticeably it's fashion, music, and interior designs. Which makes it pretty funny that, at the start of the eighties, some producers tried to sell this as a brand new movie. (Also, the subtitles show Wong referring to John as "Blackie," which definitely suggests to me that no Americans were involved in the writing of the dialogue.) The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut is badly dubbed and I would recommend the original version if you get a chance to see it. I don't know how successful the film was in Asia. Don Wong Tao got top billing in a few other martial arts movies, mostly made in Taiwan, but his career doesn't seem like it took off to the degree that many of his contemporaries did. Clearly, it didn't do much for Chuck Norris' career either. However, taken on its own merits, it's a not-bad fight flick with some interesting elements to it. [6/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face [X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
If it wasn't obvious already, when I think of Spanish genre cinema, names like Paul Naschy or Jess Franco tend to come to mind for me first. Motion pictures of that sort were often exploitation cheapies, filtering familiar horror tropes through a distinctively European sensibility. A lot of them were also, notably, made while dictator Francisco Franco was still in power. When Franco finally died in 1975, it obviously led to wide-spread cultural shifts. Out of this moment emerged a social movement and subculture known as La Movida Madrileña. It was defined by punk rock, synth music, new attitudes about sexuality, and people doing lots of drugs. There were Madrileña movies too. Ivan Zulueta was a director artsy short films, a poster designer, and a full-time heroin addict. He would draw on all three of these inspirations when making 1979's “Arrebato.” Known as “Rapture” in English, the film would become a cult classic in Spain before slowly gathering a reputation around the world as a classic of art house horror. Well, let's give this one a look.
Jose is a filmmaker who has found little satisfaction directing low budget monster movies. His relationship with his girlfriend, Ana, is slowly dissolving because of his growing dependency on heroin. This is when he receives a package from an old friend, Pedro. Inside is an audio cassette and a film reel. The recording describes how Jose and Pedro, an obsessive creator of home-made movies and also an addict, first met. Pedro became increasingly obsessed with time-lapse photographer, determined to discover something special on-film. While trying to get clean and relapsing, Pedro discovered a time lapse recording of himself as he slept. Right before he startled awake, the film reel went completely red. He attempted to uncover what happened in those red squares. Jose becomes fascinated by this mystery as well, following the clues back to Pedro's apartment to uncover what led to his disappearance.
“Arrebato” is a motion picture about the medium of the motion picture itself. Its opening image is of an actress, playing a vampire, looking directly into the camera. This is meant to establish the boundaries of the fourth wall, that barrier that separates fact from fiction. The characters in “Rapture” are film obsessives themselves. Jose is dissatisfied with working in the medium itself, unable to find the ecstasy in making movies himself that he's discovered when watching them. Pedro, meanwhile, is so enamored with trying to discover some sort of greater truth through filmmaking that his amateur productions bring him to tears. Film is a transcendent medium, which can bring dreams to life and make the imagination a moving illusion of physical reality. Zulueta's movie plays with the medium itself. Once or twice, the image develops a stuttering start-and-stop, much like the time-lapse movies Pedro makes. At first, I wondered if Shudder was starting to skip during these moments. Cameras, film, and screens are featured all throughout “Arrebato” and the film is very concerned with finding some deeper meaning in these ideas.
However, I do wish Zulueta's film delve into the question of what the obsessive movie fan seeks out a little more. I'm one myself. I know why I hunger for movies, to seek and uncover hidden gems and dig into the meaning of what I observe. I want to learn, to see other people's experiences. Moreover, film is an audio/visual dreamscape that wash over the viewer, overwhelming our eyes and ears and bringing the impossible to life. It means a lot to me. What does the medium mean to the characters in “Arrebato?” Much of the runtime is devoted to Pedro's final message, his memories of events that led up to his disappearance. He talks about the “rapture” he feels at the moving image. “Rapture” is typically described as an intense pleasure or joy, euphoria, bliss, elation. I've certainly experience those emotions from discovering a good movie. Yet the rapture spoken of her seems to imply some deeper meaning behind the act of recording and being recorded itself.
And what does that mean? For all “Arrebato” talks about the joy of watching and recording, we see the characters do surprisingly little watching or recording themselves. The closest we get is Ana observing a Betty Boop doll she had as a girl while in the throes of a heroin high. Does looking at this doll remind Ana of simpler times, transporting her back to her childhood? Is film making a form of time travel, revealing the past to us as it happened? As “Rapture” goes on, the implication seems to be more and more that the camera can capture something that the human eye cannot. Frustratingly, the movie never seems ready to actually comment on what these ideas mean to the characters. I kept waiting for a reveal about what Pedro discovered by recording himself sleeping, that his time lapse films accidentally exposed some cosmic truth. “Arrebato” is not the kind of movie interested in answers however. Its vagueness forces the viewer to come not only to their own conclusions about what the story implies but also what deeper topics it's commenting on.
Assuming, of course, that “Rapture” is primarily a movie about movie making. I mean, it obviously is but it's also, fairly explicitly, a movie about heroin. We see Jose dissolve the powder in a spoon, fill up a syringe, and inject the substance into his arm. Characters repeatedly spread out white lines and snort them. Jose gives Ana a taste of the drug at one point. Before the end arrives, she's hooked too. Pedro is already a junkie, which he bonds with Jose over. The characters grow paler, sweatier, and skinnier as the movie goes on. Considering Zulueta was also a drug addict while making the film, we can assume he's speaking from experience. That seems to be the primary thematic point of “Arrebato.” The characters search for a grand ecstasy in the moving image the same way they keep shooting up, looking for a subsequent high that compares to the first one. Yes, being a movie fanatic is sometimes like being a drug addict. It can take over your life. You keep searching for films in hopes of finding as transcendent an experience as the one that got you hooked. I'm not sure I've reached a point, however, where the camera and all it represents begins to direct me, the way an addict looses control of their life to their drug of choice. If “Rapture” reflects that experience for other people, so be it. That didn't speak to me though.
I've never done heroin. I think it would be a bad idea if I did. From what I've read about the effects of a heroin high, “Arrebato” seems to seek to recreate a similar feeling in the viewer. It's a slow, meandering movie. There are digressions not directly linked to the story. Such as Pedro heading out on a night on the town with a woman. Or Ana dressing up and doing a little song and dance for Jose. Despite the neutrality of these depictions, there's a sinister undercurrent throughout. When “Arrebato” finally moves towards proper horror in its last act, it is a creepy and unsettling pay-off of everything that came before. The final image is properly spooky. You are going to have to be patient to get there though.
“Rapture” is definitely a very interesting experience. However, for a movie as much about being a movie watcher, it seems strangely simplistic in its understanding of what movies are. Maybe you'll get more out of it if you're also a drug addict. There's a sleaziness to its horse-cooked imagery that is effective. This is the kind of movie that makes you feel a little scummy, for putting you so totally into its underworld. However, I don't think the parallels between being a film junkie and a literal junkie are that deep. Zulueta's own career was derailed by his drug problem, the man nearly self-destructing like his character do. Perhaps if he saw more movies and got high less I would relate to this one a bit more. “Arrebato” is ultimately one I admire more than I can actually praise. [7/10]
The legend of Quentin Tarantino – loud-mouthed asshole, belligerent cokehead, full-time Zionist, Polanski defender, maybe the greatest American director of his generation – is that he went from working in a video store in Manhattan Beach, California to writing and directing "Reservoir Dogs" overnight. This is not true, of course. He worked on two uncompleted student films, was a lowly production assistant on Dolph Lundgren's workout tape, and played the undignified role of an Elvis impersonator in an episode of "The Golden Girls." His first job as a professional Hollywood screenwriter was a little-seen thriller called "Past Midnight." The film is not mentioned in his main Wikipedia article but it is his earliest industry credit on IMDb. How Tarantino became involved with the production, I don't know. What we do know is that he rewrote much of the script. Supposedly, star Rutger Hauer disliked the changes and refused to perform any of Tarantino's dialogue while original screenwriter, Frank Norwood, declined to share credit. The future "Pulp Fiction" auteur was given an Associate Producer role as a compromise and that was that. The movie ended up going straight to the USA Network before being dumped on video, rarely mentioned since. However, surely the technical debut of a film nerd God starring a cult face like Hauer is worth a second look? Let's find out.
Fifteen years ago, Ben Jordan came home drunk and violently stabbed his pregnant wife to death. This is what the evidence, including a home movie showing the murder, would seem to suggest. Proclaiming that he had no memory of the crime the whole time, Jordan was sent away to prison. Now, he has been released on good behavior with Laura Matthews assigned as his social worker. She is charmed by the quiet, passionate Ben. The two fall on love and she begins to question the narrative that he is guilty. Laura rents a cabin in his home town and starts to dig into what happened that night. Her asking questions about the killing arouses suspicion among the locals and pisses off her coworker Lee, who has a crush on her. Soon, Laura is being stalked and threatened by an unseen assailant. Oh yeah, she's pregnant too, Ben is acting more and more erratic, and other people around begin to die.
"Past Midnight" attempts to derive tension from the question at the center of the narrative: Well, did he do it? The system deemed Ben guilty. The opening shows him emerging from his home, covered with blood, and clearly panicked. The home movie shows someone stabbing his wife to death, the killer's face unrevealed, but there's no evidence anyone else was in the house that night. Ben proclaims his innocence, has no interest in digging up the past, and simply wants to move on with his life. Laura encounters multiple suspicious people as she investigates what happened. Such as the victim's blustery father who might have had an inappropriate relationship with his daughter. The town simpleton, Larry Canipe, seems awfully guilty about something and follows Laura in one scene. Once the violent harassment starts, you begin to wonder if Lee has gone insane with jealousy over Laura's relationship with Ben. Throughout it all, Ben doesn't exactly act innocent either. He breaks into her cabin, stands over her bed as she sleeps, grows wild-eyed and sweaty at various points. The narrative would seem to demand that Ben is the victim of an elaborate frame-up but he sure seems crazy. The film effectively generates a proper amount of uncertainty over whether Ben slashed his wife to death or not. If Laura was right to trust him and if that willingness to forgive has only put her in more danger.
The film also points, perhaps unintentionally, towards another idea. Laura is truly the only female character of any importance in “Past Midnight.” There's the dead wife, a friend in all of one scene, a lady client at the start, and an awfully curious nurse at the doctor's office. Otherwise, the protagonist is alone as the sole woman in this world. And she is surrounded on all sides by shitty dudes. Lee is a friend, a co-worker, and possibly a former lover. He definitely doesn't seem to respect Laura's boundaries though, constantly pushing for more of a relationship. When he shows up to intimate Ben at his job, it reads less like concern over his friend now dating a convicted murderer and more like petty jealousy. Not that Ben is much better either. He also clearly doesn't respect Laura's privacy much, coming and going from her cabin whenever he pleases. Every man in the film is a shifty, hard-to-trust weirdo who thinks a woman is little more than a man's property. You also see this in how the victim's father seems more indignant that something that belonged to him was destroyed than specifically the loss of his child. Or in the way a police detective describes the footage of the murder as nastier than “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” hardly the serious manner you'd want a recording of someone actually dying to be handled with.
It's hard to say if “Past Midnight” was intentionally making a feminist point or not. Tarantino's later work would become famous for freely mixing elements together from multiple subgenres. “Past Midnight” is heavily noir influenced, with its story of a protagonist getting in over their heads as they navigate a world where no one can be trusted. There's a little of the erotic thriller style present, especially in the extended sex scene between Laura and Ben. (Lots of hair pulling there.) Once the murders begin, the film starts to resemble a trashier horror flick. There's a dismembered arm left behind, threatening messages scrawled in blood. It only gets schlockier as after the killer is revealed. With little prompting, the knife wielding maniac reveals his modus operandi and his Freudian excuse for the killings. The finale is set during a deluge, features lots of shattering glass, slow-motion, and a rifle going off like an explosion. Good stuff, in other words, if you enjoy trash like this.
Watching “Past Midnight” evolve from a slightly silly but mostly played straight neo-noir into a goofier, over overheated film is very entertaining. This divide is reflected in the cast too. Natasha Richardson stars as Laura and she gives a minor-key, likable performance. It's the kind of acting, lived-in and fleshed-out without devoting much screen time to backstory, that suggests a serious actor doing their job. Clancy Brown is far more understated than usual as Lee, making him seem as much like a normal guy as possible. In his screen debut, Paul Giametti has the embarrassing job of playing a Faulknerian man-child. His visible gulping and big, sad eyes make the character a little more than a cliché. Sticking out among all this fairly understated acting is Rutger Hauer, doing the things you pay Rutger Hauer to do. In other words, those steely blue eyes bulge with intensity, Hauer bringing a sense of desperation to the character that suggests he could fly off the angle at any second. That actually adds to the suspense in the film, as it makes Ben seem more believable as a possible killer.
You can hear Tarantino's voice in “Past Midnight” too. The dialogue is peppered with the occasional pop culture reference. Moreover, there's a conversational element to the discussion, that feel a lot less route than what you'd normally hear in a movie like this and more like stuff people would actually say in real life. Director Jan Eliasberg has worked almost exclusively in television besides this. He does not display much of a visual eye, though a scene of Lee fishing outside Laura's cabin while she makes a disturbing discovery is cut together fairly well. That “Past Midnight” wind up debuting on the USA Network is fitting, as the entire film feels a bit like a weirder, sexier, bloodier episode of “Silk Stalkings.” Exactly the kind of thing that prospers from low expectations. I'm not saying this is a hidden gem, exactly, but it's a sturdy, fun little thriller worth seeking out for fans of anyone involved. [7/10]
I tend to think of “Unsolved Mysteries” as an entity of the late eighties and early nineties. However, the series' original run lasted until 2002, with seventeen seasons across three different networks. By season nine, the show had a slightly creepier opening sequence and a notably less creepy theme song, However, the general format remained the same. Robert Stack would gravely presents true – or at least “true” – mysteries from the shadows, while dramatic re-enactments played out. The fourteenth episode of that season is a good example of how your average “Unsolved Mysteries” varied unpredictably between normal television, the lamest shit possible and high-octane nightmare fuel. Presented alongside a story of a man being reunited with the woman who saved his life, a lady looking for the half-sister she never knew, and a basic rundown of the facts in the case of Tupac Shakur are a bracing recreation of a brutal home invasion/robbery and a segment showing how spontaneous human combustion can strike at any point.
I watched this specific episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” because a list of the show's scariest moments high-lighted the one about spontaneous human combustion. The re-enactments here dryly combine the mundane and the hyper-dramatic. A woman's recounting of how her shirt started spouting smoke one morning is difficult to take too seriously. Later sequences, of grisly discoveries of bodies having burned to ash at super high temperatures while leaving the near-by area unaffected, are more concerning. “Spontaneous human combustion” is one of those supposed paranormal phenomena that exist only because people discard the obvious evidence in front of them. Joe Nickell of Skeptical Inquirer is here to point out that the first case was of a bed-bound smoker with a highly combustible oxygen supply near by. The second was of an infirm old man known to dropped his lit pipe on his fabric robe while carrying matches in his pocket. The believer rebuttal is from some goofy guy named Larry E. Arnold, who eventually claims SHC is a result of people's inner electric impulse magically going berserk. Despite that, the images of a blackened crater in a bed and a near-by melted TV, or a hole seared right through the floor with body parts around it, are freaky as hell.
If you watched this shit as a kid, I could see how it would upset you. You'd be left with the disturbing information that all of us are walking human candles, simply waiting to ignite, through means either explainable or mysterious. Watching as an adult, I honestly found the opening re-enactment of the robbery more disturbing. The dramatic footage is shot through a frenzied, shaky filter that conveys the victim's shocked mind. The actual woman's recounting of what happened shows how clearly traumatized she was by the incident. The first robber wears a Dracula mask and waves a guy around, pointing it right at the screen. The version of the episode on streaming now concludes with an update, that the assholes who did this – co-workers of the woman's son – were apprehended, tried, convicted, served their time, and are now out on the street. Doesn't make you feel much better does it? When combined with Stack's hyper-dramatic narration, sometimes presented alongside plumes of fire, it's the stuff of nightmares. Not those Lost Love segments though... [7/10]
“The Addams Family” was never a massive ratings success, despite its cult following and positive critical reception. Ratings declined throughout the 1966 season, perhaps because of competition from “Batman.” Filmways was prepared to film a third season in color, the cast ready to return, but ABC canceled the show without warning in April. This left the series ending unceremoniously on an Ophelia centric episode. “Ophelia's Career” sees Morticia's judo-tossing twin sister, once again, abandoned by her latest beau. Gomez suggests that she uses Uncle Fester's chemistry set to whip up a new man for herself. When this fails to produce any results, it is suggested that Ophelia leave romance behind and focus on finding a satisfying career. A spontaneous incident with an accordion sees her attempting to pursue a job as an opera singer. Though she initially annoys her vocal coach, Ophelia reveals talent in time. Unfortunately, the family's eccentric ways – and the caustic vocal spray Fester cooks up – leads to disaster when an opera director arrives to hear Ophelia sing.
Charles Addams himself always had little involvement with the TV show based on his cartoons, as he disliked how the series made his family “less evil.” (It also led the New Yorker refusing to publish more of his comics, as they didn't want to be associated with a low-class medium like television.) That's a fair assessment of the campy sitcom. However, the last episode does feature some slightly edgier jokes than most. The opening gag has Fester moving towards an enormous saw blade, the family delighted to see what will happen next. The music teacher hired to train Ophelia is so disgusted by what he hears, that he threatens to beat the woman. Later in the episode, the same man considers ending his own life after the Addams destroy his career. Perhaps not behavior that would classify as “evil” exactly but still a bit more mischievous and morbid than the Addams' cheerier moments in the sixties.
There are a couple of inspired gags like that in this one. Cousin Itt's glib reaction to asking to teach Ophelia sees the mound of hair producing a laugh with simply a tilt of his head. The result of this training is also nicely absurd. I also like the bits where Gomez asks Lurch to refill a barrel full of petty cash and Fester swallows a whistle. As another example of this married couple being far hornier than their contemporaries, “Ophelia's Career” also sees the wife suggesting they retreat to the play room to sing some more before Gomez suggest they “play” instead. That was surely a fairly racy quip for the time but it's actually a double subversion. The next scene sees the married couple preparing to play ice hockey minus the ice. Otherwise, this is another season two “Addams Family” installment that's a bit too heavy on the running gags. Sharp as Carolyn Jones and John Astin's delivery might be, I can only see her toss him across the room so many time. The episode also reuses an earlier gag about the gong that summons Lurch being out-of-order. While not the best episode to take the series out on, it does end up resolving Ophelia's character arc. The final scene sees her musical career working out, despite her continued habit of scaring off men. That's nice. [6/10]
As with America's other light-hearted family of gothic horrors, the abruptly canceled “The Addams Family” would have a fruitful afterlife in reruns. The characters' cultural legacy has proven far greater. A guest spot on “The New Scooby-Doo Movies” in 1972 led to a short-lived animated adaptation the next year. The 1991 big screen adaptation and its beloved sequel would also beget a Saturday morning cartoon tie-in. Those two films received a terrible direct-to-video sequel of sorts, which operated as a quasi-pilot for a short-lived revival series that I've never seen a single soul express any fondness for. There was a successful Broadway musical, two animated features of forgettablequality, multiple video games, the best selling pinball machine of all time, and lots of merch. Through it all, the Addams remain pop culture icons, perennial Halloween costume favorites, and a massive influence on goth fashion. The sardonic film version of Gomez and Morticia's daughter becoming an inspirational figure for a whole generation of dry-witted young women and guys who want a pale, dark-haired girlfriend led to Wednesday more recently getting her own streaming series. That has been very successful, meaning the Addams – or Wednesday at least – are more popular now than ever.
But what about the old TV show? As someone who grew up with the edgier Barry Sonnefield films, I believe I do prefer my Addamses to be a little more evil than the goof-ball sixties sitcom. The show relied on the same set of running gags more often than would probably be preferable. It got downright repetitive by the end of the second season. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the television program a lot. John Astin and Carolyn Jones remained delightful presences throughout with red hot chemistry. The entire cast become quite lovable by the end, despite certain family members never being utilized as much as they could. The episodes focused solely on the family, rather than contrasting them with squeamish “normal” folks or involved them in convoluted sitcom shenanigans, were the best. I think “The Munsters” is still my preference, as it was a funnier show on the overall. Still, I loved chilling with the Addams
“House of Dark Shadows” did alright at the box office, well enough for MGM to green-light a sequel. The soap opera it had spun off from, meanwhile, experienced a steep decline in popularity shortly after the film's release. Some attribute this to an unpopular story line, that saw Barnabas Collins falling under the sway of off-screen elder gods called the Leviathans. Others blame the movie's success for the show falling off. The idea being that parents took their kids to see the “Dark Shadows” movie, were scandalized by the bloody content, and then forbid their children from watching the show. Whatever the reason, “Dark Shadows” would air its final episode on April 2nd of 1971, the series abruptly wrapping up all its lingering story lines with a hastily recorded voice-over narration. This did not stop production on a follow-up to “House of Dark Shadows.” Dan Curtis originally wanted to do a direct sequel but Jonathan Frid, fearful of typecasting, decided he wasn't going to play Barnabas any more. The decision was made to center the sequel, then entitled “Curse of Dark Shadows,” around the show's other male lead, the young and handsome Quentin Collins. The result was a film that did mediocre business and seemed to disappoint fans, who got a largely stand-alone story with loose connections to the series. But, hey, I watched the first one so might as well give “Night of Dark Shadows” a shot too.
Modernist painter Quentin Collins and his wife, Tracy, arrive at his stately family manor, Collinswood. The sprawling mansion, which Quentin has recently inherited, is oddly empty. Save for eerie housekeeper Carlotta and stuttering groundskeeper Gerald. Quentin and Tracy's friends, Alex and Claire, move onto the grounds and inform them of the residence's long history of haunting. In the tower room, Quentin discovers a portrait of a blonde woman from a hundred years prior. It was painted by his ancestor, Charles Collins, and is of his mistress, Angelique. (His brother's wife.) After the infidelity was discovered, Angelique was convicted of witchcraft and hanged from a tree before the mansion, her body left to rot. Charles, meanwhile, was entombed alive. It's not long afterwards that Quentin begins to act strangely, isolating himself in the tower and becoming aggressive towards Tracy. The couple soon realize they are the victims of ghosts, witchcraft, and a century old conspiracy of reincarnation.
How much “Night of the Dark Shadows” connects to the series is a question I can't truly answer. However, the film does have more than a few things in common with “Burnt Offerings,” the haunted house movie Dan Curtis would direct four years later. In both, an unassuming married couple move into an aged, isolated mansion. In both, the spirit of a prior inhabitant begins to possess and effect the behavior of the current residents. Both movies also feature scenes where the male lead attempts to drown someone he loves in a swimming pool. “Night of Dark Shadows” doesn't have an old woman hiding in an upstairs bedroom but an elevated location, the tower studio in this case, is also the source of the haunting here. The parallels are probably coincidental, as “Burnt Offerings” was based on a novel that wasn't published until 1973. However, it is intriguing that Curtis would be attracted to these themes again. The connection between the two films can probably best be explained by Curtis obviously being a fan of New England set ghost stories and creepy, sprawling manors.
A primary idea in both “Night of Dark Shadows” and “Burnt Offerings” is the question of how well we know – or are capable of knowing – the people we love. David Selby and Kate Jackson, as Quentin and Tracy, have an easy-going chemistry that seems genuine. Their romance is establish with scenes of gentle flirting and happy co-existing. When Quentin suddenly turns violent, it's a shock to his wife. In an earlier scene, the husband is happy to cuddle in bed. After his personality shift, he demands sex from her and nearly assaults her. She makes excuse for his suddenly violent behavior at first but eventually she has to flee to a friend's house. It reads a lot like a woman realizing the man she thought she could trust is actually an abusive piece of shit. It's a powerful idea to root a horror story in. Though a supernatural cause is behind this abrupt change in the movie, in real life, people lie and manipulate and slowly reveal their true colors only after some time has passed.
Like all ghost stories, “Night of Dark Shadows” is also a tale about how the past is much more alive than it seems. Quentin's ancestor was a cad, an adulterer with no honor for his family who dabbled in witchcraft. His descendant is a laid-back, modern man. However, the sexism of the past is not that far gone. (Though the main antagonistic ghost being a sexually vivacious woman certainly muddles any attempts at a gender theory-informed reading.) In “Night of Dark Shadows,” the history of the location is heavily whispered about. Carlotta, the housekeeper, is always talking about the backstory of the family. Literal ghosts linger around, reminding the living of the tragic events that happened here. The ghosts taking possession of Quentin and others is the most literal form of the mistakes of the recent past echoing into our present lives. A logical story to tell when your location is an old house, Lyndhurst Mansion in the Hudson River Valley providing both the exteriors and interiors of Collinswood this time.
Whether “Night of Dark Shadows” can assemble these potent ideas and bitchin' location into a satisfying motion picture is a matter of opinion. The film has a sleepy, relaxed pace that is further emphasized by a melodic but sparse piano score. Lots of the story is composed of folks simply talking to each other and hanging out in the house. The backstory of Angelique's death is explained via an extended expository monologue and some not exactly natural seeming voice-over. The predictable but otherwise effective ending crashes into on-screen text, which is an awkward device. The role the housekeeper and groundskeeper play in what happens feels a little like a narrative ass-pull. There's also some pretty cheesy special effects, during an attempt nocturnal visitation from Angelique's ghost. However, for all its flaws, “Night of Dark Shadows” does have some brooding gothic atmosphere that attracts me immediately, its slowly evolving story pulling me in.
The weird short-cuts in the plotting and narrative gaps are easily explained. Curtis' original cut of the movie was over two hours long. The studio asked him to cut the runtime down to a little over ninety minutes, supposedly giving Curits all of 24 hours to complete the task. The missing footage has been located but a restoration of the director's intended vision has yet to emerge. Maybe that version would've been better received in 1971. With the show canceled and the second movie considered a disappointment, the “Dark Shadows” franchise was more-or-less over. A rebooted version of the show, with an entirely new cast, started in 1991. Fans liked it but it was often pre-empted because of news coverage of the Gulf War, ultimately being canceled after only twelve episodes. A pilot for another remake was produced in 2004 but never went to series. Of course, there was the Tim Burton movie in 2012, which was not well liked by anyone. The hardcore “Dark Shadows” devotees – a shrinking but still very much alive community – has had to rely on audio dramas, dramatic readings, novels, and comics to see the original story continued. Which I guess is more than a lot of other cult classics get. While those hoping for more vampire action are sure to be disappointed, and it's nowhere near as scary as “Burnt Offerings,” “Night of Dark Shadows” is a decent haunted house story if you can get on its groove. [7/10]
Here in America, we take a lot of shit for granted. When “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” came out in the nineties, it didn't only launch Quentin Tarantino into Hollywood's stratosphere. It also made his particular approach – stylized dialogue, non-linear narratives, neo-noir gangland plotting, extensive references and influence from seventies exploitation films – an immediately imitative style. Tarantino wannabes were still popping up in the new millennium, though the wave had mostly burnt itself out by then. However, clearly, the “Kill Bill” scribe's influence is still being felt. Not only in Hollywood either. In 2018, Ugandan filmmaker Loukman Ali would shoot a low-budget project that fused the crime thriller, gory horror, dialogue-driven mystery, and some extremely evident influence from Tarantino. While most Uganda films don't receive much attention abroad, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” wound up on Netflix and has won some international notice.
An off-duty officer named Patrick is driving an old man, hand-cuffed in his back seat, to the nearest police station many miles away. Patrick is investigating the Cigarette Butt Killer, a serial murderer who has been slaughtering whole families, putting a cigarette out on their bodies, and always leaving one witness alive. Patrick believes the old man to be such a witness. While driving down an isolated road, he spots a man hitchhiking. He wears a yellow hoodie, has a bandaged right hand, and seems disheveled. He introduces himself as Jim. After some conversation, Patrick goads Jim into telling him his story. He says he's a newspaper cartoonist who was kidnapped by two women in yellow hoodies, extremist Christians who took offense to a cartoon he published. They tortured him, cut off several of his fingers, and attempted to bury him alive. Jim managed to escape, killing one assailant and damaging the others' car. This is what the man tells the cop anyway. The bloody truth will be revealed soon enough.
More than once, I've heard aspiring filmmakers say the ideal premise for a first feature is two guys, sitting in a room, talking. Movies are hard to make, taking a lot of money, people, and time. A set-up that limits the numbers of warm bodies and locations necessary makes a project more achievable, in theory anyway. “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” obeys this rule, for a while. Most of its runtime is devoted to two guys, sitting in a car, talking. The hard part is making such a microscopic premise interesting. Loukman Ali and his team succeed by following another rule, inherent in the noir genre: Nobody can be trusted. From the minute “Jim” appears, you wonder what his story is. His injured hand and visibly shaken state implies something happened to him. The story he tells is elaborate and hard to believe. At the same time, the man who picked him up seems kind of shifty too. For a supposed police officer, he has a busted up phone and a shitty car. He seems weirdly unaware of current pop culture, not knowing who Jim Carry or Bobi Wine are but throwing out references to “Diff'rent Strokes” and Brenda Fassie. That's odd, right? And what is up with the old guy in the back seat, who never speaks, never has his story explained, and is prone to coughing fits? How does this connect with the serial killer mentioned in the first scene? Does it? In other words, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” makes up for a lack of resources by being intriguing. The viewer has questions immediately and is willing to stick around to see if they are answered.
Another element that keeps you hooked is that the conversations these two guys have are interesting. Both men are prone to going on digressions. Patrick tells an anecdote about an old woman, a band of robberies, and a thunderstorm. This presents the idea that someone innocent looking can be dangerous. That increases the tension in the car, as you wonder who is the scorpion and who is the frog here. I bring that fable up because a television broadcast, early in the film, mentions it to during his own meandering conversation. The most obvious ode to Tarantino comes during “Girl in the Yellow Jumper's” most colorful moments. That would be when a passing mention of the Ugandan version of the playground game people my age unfortunately called Chinese jump rope segues into an animated presentation on the rules. Later, another animated interlude explains why being shot in the kneecaps is especially painful. These moments are presented by an man in a lab coat with a deep voice, making them feel like official proclamations. Oh, did I mention that “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” claims to be based on a true story? Which it reminds us of during an outrageous moment? It all captures the feeling of a talk between two friends, full of asides and digressions. The film has that same peppy energy and rhythmic flow to it.
Which is to say that “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” is easy and fun to watch, drawing the viewer in quickly and making us wonder where all of this is going. Sometimes, films like this can grab your attention before fumbling the reveals. Luckily, Ali has some tricks up his sleeve to make this game of misdirection worth it. The last third kicks off with a hell of twist, cleverly revealed, that flips what we thought was true before on its head. This precedes more narrative swerves before the end. Now, some of these surprises work better than others. The bloody climax is probably the most easily predictable event in the film, the film unable to ultimately catch all the balls it throws up in the air. However, Ali's script does a good job on paying off on many of the small, specific details set-up earlier. The position of a bag, a phone access code mentioned, a door that doesn't open right away: All of these are seemingly trivial details that end up being important lately. I enjoy a film that rewards you for paying attention like that.
What holds the film together is a strong cast and a confident visual style. Michael Wawuyo Jr. as Jim and Maurice Kirya as Patrick are watchable leads, who deliver their dialogue with specificity and realistic vigor. The cinematography, from Naizi Nasser, makes great use of the warm, earthy colors of the Ugandan countryside. Orange sunlight and grimy, industrial settings creates a particular feeling. The opening, in which Jim is abducted by the title character, is stylishly shot and cut, building to a proper climax. When Jim describes the torture he endured, the resulting sequence feels like one of the better “Saw” rip-offs I've seen. It's tense, draws attention to the physical pain the character is in, but also doesn't annoy or repel the viewer. The editing, also from Ali, is tight and fast-paced. This comes in handy when the film bends towards being an action movie at times. Peppered in there are memorable moments of stillness, such as an owl roosting on a branch or a comical billboard. Truthfully, only some crappy looking digital squibs and muzzle flashes point to the limited money the filmmakers had. “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” looks pretty damn good.
The film is good enough that I can overlook its biggest mistake: A jumper refers to a style of garment, usually cut in a dress shape, that is without sleeves or a collar and is held up over the shoulders by two straps. In England and other parts of the world, the word refers to what we Yanks call a sweater. The young lady central to this motion picture's plot wears neither a jumper nor a sweater. Instead, she has a hoodie on, a noticeably sleeved and collared top with an adjustable hood and large pockets. It is yellow though, I can't complain about that. Seriously though, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” is a fun, thrilling, tight flick that captures your attention and keeps it throughout. The script keeps you guessing and is smart enough not to reveal everything either. The cast is strong. The visuals are great. Loukman Ali has continued to work with Netflix, on an anthology series retelling African folktales. I'll have to check that out. He's clearly got the stuff, his influences evident but not beholden to them and delivered with a proper jolt of adrenaline. [7/10]
HBO had been around since 1972 and had been broadcasting original programming since 1974. However, 1983 is when the premium network would truly start to invest in scripted programs. That year, they debuted "Philip Marlow, Private Eye," "Not Necessarily the News," "Fraggle Rock," and "The Hitchhiker." The latter most series is the one that really focused on how this wasn't TV, it was HBO. A typical example is "Face to Face," from the second season. It concerns Dr. Christopher Hamilton, an L.A. plastic surgeon so renowned that he's had multiple write-ups in People Magazine. He is well aware of his status, using it to sleep with any woman he desires. His skills attract the attention of Nina, a trans-woman eager to undergo plastic surgery to soften her harsh facial features. Dr. Hamilton spends the night before the surgery having cocaine-fueled sex with a movie star, being thoroughly hungover the next day. This leads to him horribly botching Nina's surgery, leaving her deformed. Presumably to avoid any malpractice demands, the doctor decides to flee to Paris shortly afterwards.... When a comely flight stewardess catches his eye.
"Face to Face" is mostly a standard morality tale, of an asshole getting his just desserts for his hubris and selfish behavior. Dr. Hamilton melodramatically introduces himself as a "sculptor of the flesh," comparing himself to both an artist and God in short order. He looks at every face and sees something to improve, deeming himself the arbiter of all beauty. Naturally, pride cometh before the fall and the story bends towards a properly ironic punishment for his ego and womanizing. Like many stories of this type, "Face to Face" criticizes these hedonistic habits while happily showcasing the villain protagonist's bad behavior. He sleeps with a pretty blonde assistant surgeon and later snorts some lines off Sybil Danning's boobs. With a soundtrack mostly composed of sultry saxophones, "Face to Face" is happy to play up the lurid details. The slow-motion close-ups of Danning in red lingerie thoroughly moves this into the "erotic thriller" subgenre. It is a bit of a surprise that Dr. Hamilton is played by an aging Robert Vaughn. Not exactly a sex symbol by 1984, which is probably part of the point but the script doesn't truly comment on it. It is surprising to see an actor of Vaughn's relative standing engage in such sleazy antics. Perhaps a chance to nuzzle the lauded bosoms of the August 1983 Playboy cover girl was too much to resist even for the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Inside this otherwise standard tale of flesh and blood is a shockingly sympathetic portrayal of a trans-woman. Now, "Face to Face" is not that ahead of its time. Nina is played by a cis actress, "Videodrome's" Sonja Smits. The camera lingers on her feminine features before depicting people being visibly repulsed by her rugged face. This societal monsterdom is taken further after the disfiguring surgery. While Nina is the avenging angel in the last act, the script still plays into the destructive stereotype of trans-women as deceptive figures out to “trick” hetero men. Despite hardly being inclusive, the script does give Nina a moving monologue halfway through. In it, she describes having lived her life knowing that her body didn't match her soul. How her parents and friends rejected her after she came out, how fetishists pursue her, how society at large rejects her, how eager she is to finally look in the mirror and see herself. Terms like gender dysphoria or gender-affirming care were as far away from the mainstream as possible in 1984 but this episode still reflects them fairly accurately. If nothing else, Nina is ultimately depicted as the story's hero, a queer figure striking back at the sexist, ragingly masculine authority figures that tell people like her how to live her life. That makes “Face to Face” both a pretty sleazy, silly, and disposable half-hour and also way more thoughtful than you'd expect. A strange dynamic but a welcomed one. [7/10]
The matriarch of the Addams Family adds to her growing list of professions with “Morticia, the Decorator.” The sight of Fester polishing his head prompts her interest in the National Beautification Program. She decides to take up interior design as a passion. Gomez asks their next door neighbor, insurance agent Joe Digby, to insure their art collection. The outrageous offer of a million dollars gets Joe's attention. His wife, however, is terrified of the Addams. Through a series of misunderstandings, involving the trading back and forth of a stuffed vulture and a Sheraton sideboard, the Digbys end up getting volunteered to be the showcase home for Morticia's new passion. Of course, the vanilla Digbys find this whole situation quite traumatic. More shenanigans ensue as they attempt to wiggle out of the agreement without offending the Addams' sensibilities.
As far as my recollection goes, the Digbys are at least the third next door neighbors the Addams have gone through over the course of the series. “Morticia, the Decorator” does provide an explanation that is, in retrospect, rather obvious: Gomez and the gang have a bad habit of literally scaring them off. The Digbys have only been around for three weeks, according to their conversation here. This presents a rather amusing visual, of the Addams' desolate yard and gothic mansion being smack-dab in the middle of an otherwise typical suburb. That contrast does lead to some amusing gags here. Such as Morticia transforming the Digby's garden into a literal desert, which is revealed through a good ol' fashion Gilligan Flip.
However, the show returning once again to the worn-out set-up of the normies getting freaked out by the Addams means this is mostly a fairly standard episode. Eddie Quillan, making his fourth appearance on “The Addams Family” as his fourth character, gets a funny reaction when Gomez drops that million dollar offer. The oddly named Jeff Donnell – who you probably don't remember as Aunt May from the misbegotten seventies live-action “Spider-Man” series – has much more expected reactions as his wife. Having said that, there are a few decent gags here. Morticia busting out a vulture imitation without warning got me to chuckle, as did her reaction to what she finds in the vulture cage. Gomez' art collection and his wife's suggestions for the color scheme of the Digbys' home got me to chuckle too. Otherwise, about as middle of the road of an episode of “The Addams Family” as you could find. [5/10]
