You guys know me pretty well at this point, so you can probably guess where I’d stand on the remake without even reading a word from me. It’s relatively simple. If this movie truly wanted me to love it, it would have called up the Jessica Lucas character to take on the role of “the new Ash.”
Since they didn’t, I not only need to start up a new tally for 2013, but I also had to get a little vicious.
I can’t stand repetition. I certainly don’t like to repeat myself. But I put a lot of work into my thoughts on THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, and I know that some people who follow me on Demon’s Resume might like to have alerts on when I write elsewhere, so I wanted y’all to know about my piece for Daily Grindhouse. I tried hard to make it worth your time!
On the poster above, Quentin Tarantino describes MILANO CALIBRO 9 as “Il piu grande noir italiano de tutti i tempi”, which translates roughly to “This movie is fucking incredible.” He also probably threw the N-word in there somewhere, but we try not to do that here.
The point is that Fernando DiLeo’s 1972 crime thriller MILANO CALIBRO 9, also known sometimes more simply as CALIBER 9, is a really, really cool crime flick, in a down-and-dirty and completely under-recognized way. It’s about a career tough-guy who gets out of prison and is pressured by his old gang into revealing the location of money he may or may not know about. The mob doesn’t believe him, the cops don’t believe him, even his fine-ass girlfriend (German actress Barbara Bouchet) doesn’t believe him. Things get ugly. That’s more than you need to know or care about the plot — not that the story isn’t worthwhile, but this movie has plenty else to recommend it besides its scriptwriting, I think. The camerawork by Di Leo’s regular DP Franco Villa is aggressive, visceral, even a little sloppy, which makes the whole enterprise have the feel of a punch to the face in a dive bar. The orchestral score Luis Enríquez Bacalov and the band Osanna is, most notably in the main theme, reminiscent of Morricone but with a bizarrely-awesome prog-rock twist.
It’s somewhere between documentary-style cinema-art and a brash, boistrous knuckle-dragging guy’s guy’s movie. Just check out the opening sequence, which starts on a blatant phallic symbol and progresses into a flurry of slugfests, dynamite. and the least relaxing shave ever:
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You may notice from that sequence that, no offense, but most of the guys in this movie look a lot like like apes. It has a lot to do with Di Leo’s apparent ambition with the picture, to portray crime as it probably should be portrayed – violent and animalistic and not as appealing as most movies paint it.
The lead actor, Gastone Moschin, who plays the excellently-named Ugo Piazza, is like a cross between Steve McQueen and Bruce Willis, but with a brow that weighs a ton. Outside of a role in THE GODFATHER PART 2, he hasn’t been in many movies you’d have heard of, but he’s a very striking-looking dude. Most movies wouldn’t think past casting a guy with this kind of looks (handsome but brutish) as a henchman, but it’s totally refreshing and probably necessary to have him as a protagonist. Pretty-boys have little place in badass crime films — you want a guy who looks like he can scrap.
Mario Adorf plays the gregarious but vicious and explosive Rocco Musco as a kind of proto-Billy Batts. Adorf was apparently Peckinpah’s first choice to play Mapache in THE WILD BUNCH, which tells you all you need to know about what this dude brings to the table. Rocco is loud and obnoxious but oddly charismatic and you sure won’t forget his face. Or his mustache.
Lionel Stander plays the ominous, malevolent crime boss. Stander was an American actor with a long television career, but he played his share of roles in Italian cinema — notably in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Lionel Stander, like Ernest Borgnine or Willem Dafoe, is the kind of actor who is impossible to imagine was ever a baby.
The cops in this crime flick, the detectives on Ugo’s case, are given almost equal screen time to the cons, although they hardly get to leave the station. They’re still compelling, played as they are by a couple of terrific journeymen actors who are well-remembered by fans of Italian cinema from the era. Luigi Pistilli is probably best known as Tuco’s brother the priest in THE GOOD, THE BAD &THE UGLY, but he also played against Lee Van Cleef in DEATH RIDES A HORSE, had a key role in the unforgettable spaghetti THE GREAT SILENCE, and also starred in the great Enzo Castellari’s EAGLES OVER LONDON. Meanwhile, Frank Wolff was an American who worked with Corman and Hellman before moving to Italy. Like Pistilli, he worked with Sergio Leone (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) and Sergio Corbucci (THE GREAT SILENCE), in the latter movie providing some much-needed sardonic comic relief as he does also in CALIBER 9.
It’s a great cast, and a rambunctious, energetic movie overall. The ending in particular strikes like a loud howl and a gut-shot. Quite honestly my comfort zone is Italian westerns and not Italian crime films (outside of VIOLENT CITY, STREET LAW, and REVOLVER, all fantastic), but this one, widely-regarded as a high-water mark of the genre, has compelled me to get my homework done.
MILANO CALIBRO 9 has been screening all month at the Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn.
This beautiful portrait was taken by @SethKushner.
Hollywood legend Ernest Borgnine passed away Sunday, July 8th, 2012. He was 95, which is not young. But anyone who suggests that his age makes the loss much easier would be mistaken. There are people who are irreplaceable, and this was most certainly one. Ernest Borgnine, or Ernie to his fans, had more than sixty years in the movie business — just think of how many stories he must have had left to relay. Though he gave plenty of great interviews over the years, that probably was only a fraction. With Ernest Borgnine goes a unique and eternally ingratiating talent, and a pivotal bridge that spans Old Hollywood, New Hollywood, and the modern age we’re currently living in. For this post I’ve collected a ton of pictures and posters of the many movies I’ve seen Ernest Borgnine in. I will touch on most of these movies (and maybe more) in the longer appreciative piece I am working on, but in the meantime, please enjoy these movie memories of a true original.
Film Forum’s phenomenal “Spaghetti” Westerns series comes to a close tonight. It’s been an amazing month of well-known and adored consensus-classics, seldom-screened rarities, and near-forgotten oddities. As expected, I didn’t have nearly enough time to get downtown — as you may have noticed, I haven’t even had much time this month to write about movies, let alone see them. Here are my expanded notes on A Fistful Of Dollars and Django, and please be on the lookout for my upcoming piece on Sergio Sollima’s vastly-underseen 1966 classic, The Big Gundown, to which I am trying to pay the kind of tribute it deserves.
Tonight the festival ended with a quadruple-header of Duck, You Sucker!, Death Rides A Horse, Django, and my personal favorite anything, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. I’ve written about this big, beautiful, belligerent odyssey before, and if you haven’t read that yet, please take a minute to do so…
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What can you say about your favorite movie? This one is mine.
There is literally nothing I can write about The Good The Bad & The Ugly that hasn’t already been written, and by more famous names. It’s not exactly an underrated movie. It’s certainly the most straight-ahead entertaining Great Movie that regularly makes the greatest-ever lists. (It clocked in prominently on my own all-time top-50.)
Watching it again last Monday, I was struck by the fact that it’s not a movie with much of an agenda beyond pure storytelling. It’s not a grand statement on humanity or history. It’s a story. As the poster’s tagline (one of the best ever written), “For three men, the Civil War wasn’t hell. It was PRACTICE!” Sure, for some characters in this demented picaresque, war is hell, but for the three leads, those monosyllabic archetypes in the title, war is just an appropriately chaotic backdrop for their self-involved quest. The whole thing is about three guys looking for buried treasure!
Good, Bad, Ugly: Does it really matter? They all have the same damn goal.
The Good The Bad & The Ugly is a callback to the previous Leone classic, For A Few Dollars More, in that it stars the blond/brunet tandem of Clint Eastwood (The Good) and Lee Van Cleef (The Bad), although it escalates the setting and the scale (and the running time) to an operatic degree. What’s really fascinating to me about this movie the more I watch it is that Eli Wallach (The Ugly) is truly the star of the movie. The movie begins and ends with him, and he seems to have the most screen time by a wide margin. After the first introductory scenes of The Good and The Bad, I don’t think either of them have a scene that doesn’t also include The Ugly. He not only has a first and last name, but a ton of middle names (Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez) AND an alias (a.k.a. The Rat), and he is the only one with the backstory (a life of crime begun to aid sick parents, which has now alienated him from his brother the priest). Meanwhile, Clint’s character has a name but probably one that Tuco gave him – “Blondie” – and Van Cleef is referred to as “Angel-Eyes” – which is hilarious if it was also given him by Tuco, but either way is still an alias. The Good The Bad & The Ugly is really Tuco’s movie.
Again, the underrated scriptwriting of Leone and his staff and the accurately-praised career-highlight score of Morricone, along with the cinematography of Tonino Delli Colli, have everything to do with the perfection of The Good The Bad & The Ugly, but the importance of the casting of Eli Wallach to the tone of the movie should not be underestimated. He brings a wealth of serious training to the role, but also a go-for-broke sense of humor. There’s a real mischievous sparkle in Tuco’s eye – he’s a quintessential survivor and a classic rogue. Wallach really commits to this role – you couldn’t call him handsome in this movie, and his accent is as solid as any gringo has ever pulled off. And he’s funny. God DAMN. Holy shit. This movie is so damn funny, without ever losing its mythic grandeur.
It’s weird though – for a movie that defines its three main characters in such rigid terms, “good,” “bad,” and “ugly,” the morality (or faltering degree of such) isn’t remotely as rigid. Clint’s character doesn’t do much good for anyone outside of offering and lighting a couple of cigars, and even Angel-Eyes, as unrelentingly violent as he can be, clearly operates under a certain code of behavior. Tuco doesn’t seem to have any rules or boundaries or philosophy – just greed, gluttony, and self-preservation – but at least we have a faint suggestion of how he became that way, so even he isn’t strictly “Ugly.” So it’s not a morality play. It’s just a story. It’s just a story, but it’s the one I’d watch all the way through, any time of night or day, right now if I could.
Predator was released 25 years ago, on July 12th, 1987. The movie was written by Jim and John Thomas (with possible on-set contributions from Lethal Weapon’s Shane Black, who also played the Sgt. Rock comic-loving Hawkins) and it was directed by John McTiernan (whose very next film was Die Hard) . It’s one of my favorite movies, so I watched it last night to mark the occasion.
The following is what happens when you deprive me of sleep for a couple weeks and then mix me and an internet connection with a movie I’ve been known to say I love like a brother.
Mac’s moonlight soliloquy. And then the surprise pig attack. #PREDATOR
The razor snapping off against Mac’s cheek. (Mac is kind of the most watchable character for me on this go-round.) #PREDATOR
Carl Weathers’ disembodied arm refusing to lay down and die. #PREDATOR
That splash in the lake the very moment after Arnold collapses in the mud. #PREDATOR
Food for thought: #PREDATOR shows a friendship in irrevocable decline (Dutch & Dillon) against one that will never die (Mac & Blaine).
Or maybe the fact that Dutch tosses Dillon the gun when they split up means there’s [briefly] hope for their friendship after all. #PREDATOR
Dutch tells Anna “he didn’t kill you because you weren’t armed”, yet when Dillon is disarmed (literally) the Predator axes him anyway. #notfair#badpun
The Predator is a total dick, for the record. The won’t-shoot-if-you-don’t-have-a-weapon thing does not at all level the playing field WHEN YOU CAN TURN INVISIBLE.
They love because they are so alike.
It’s worth noting that #PREDATOR is structured a whole lot like a slasher film, with Arnold in the Jamie Lee Curtis role. #genderstudies
I’d love to get Dick Cheney’s take, considering that the Predator is a recreational hunter who royally screws over the American military.
Look, I know you’ve seen this trailer twenty times on twenty different sites already. I’m not trying to be a Jonny-come-lately. (Depending on who you ask, I don’t have to try too hard to be that.) I just wanted to have a place on my own site, where I could watch it twenty times with that much more ease.
A lot of friends have asked me what I think of this Django Unchained thing so far, knowing what an insane aficionado of “spaghetti” Westerns I am. And sure, I could quibble. You really want me to quibble? Okay. Well, I initially took mock-umbrage at the fact, despite obviously recognizing that it’s meant as an in-joke, that Franco Nero is the one to whom Jamie Foxx instructs, “The D is silent.” Franco Nero knows, motherfucker! That’s the man himself.
But poring over details half a year before the movie opens is not at all my style, and besides, I wouldn’t want anyone getting the impression there’s any other movie I’m more interested in seeing this year. Even when I’m not 100% in sync with Quentin Tarantino’s stuff (which I wasn’t, not 100%, with the Kill Bills or Inglourious Basterds), I adore the way the guy shakes things up, and it’s thoroughly apparent that we have pretty damn similar taste in movies. For example, Quentin has called The Good The Bad & The Ugly “the best-directed movie ever made.” It’s my favorite movie so I suppose I agree. Also, the rise to fame of celebrity fans like QT is largely what has created the current abundance and availability of restored cult films and “spaghetti” Westerns on home video, which is to be appreciated. I wouldn’t have half my DVD collection if it weren’t for guys like Quentin, and the attention he’s brought to forgotten films and stars and directors. Then there’s what he’s contributed to the repertory circuit. That, in addition to the movies he’s made, is a major legacy. Quentin Tarantino is a friend to “spaghetti” Westerns, so he’s a friend to me.
So to see Quentin’s own take on that genre? Yeah, you could surely say I’m curious.
Notorious cult classic Battle Royale has been making a rare repertory appearance on an American screen all week at New York’s own IFC Center. Despite what you may (or may not) have heard, Battle Royale has never exactly been banned in the United States. It’s an incredibly controversial work, enough to give the normally hardy and unflappable movie maniac (like yours truly) some hesitation at recommending it to just anyone. But it’s never been impossible to track down a copy of Battle Royale in America. It hasn’t always been easy, but there’s always been some form of import DVD floating around. What is true for sure is that, as Time Out New York noted, Battle Royale “never received a proper theatrical release in the U.S.”, so this is quite literally a unique opportunity to see one of the most elite of cult films.
The film’s director, Kinji Fukusaku, had a prolific career in Japan, spanning forty years. Battle Royale was his last film. It was based on a novel by Koushun Takami, which has been compared to both Lord Of The Flies and A Clockwork Orange, and contains several references to Springsteen’s “Born To Run” (!!!). The story focuses on a speculative Japan of the near future, where social and economic conditions have gotten so dire that the government establishes a yearly competition wherein high school students are selected and flown to a remote island to compete in a literal fight to the death. This epic fracas is televised as a cultural event which all Japanese rally behind, and in so doing, forgetting their own problems.
If you read that previous paragraph and started thinking of The Hunger Games, trust me, Battle Royale will ruin you for Hunger Games. As captivating as Suzanne Collins’ young-adult series (first book published in 2008, allegedly with no foreknowledge of Battle Royale) has been to many Americans – I’ve read and enjoyed the first book myself – it’s hard to imagine that Collins’ more mainstream sensibility could ever have more visceral impact than Takami’s novel (published in 1999) or Fukusaku’s movie (released in 2000).
These Japanese schoolkids, quite frankly, do not fuck around. Fitted with electronic collars that can and will explode at the whims of their captors, most of these kids go fully medieval, using AK-47s, sniper rifles, shotguns, revolvers, boomerangs, crossbows, machetes, nunchaku, baseball bats, poison, and hammers in their desperate struggle to survive the competition. As per human/animal nature, some of the kids find they enjoy perpetrating the carnage. Others fit a more tragic profile.
This material arguably suggests a more sensitive subject to those bred in the United States, considering some of the dramatic flare-ups of violence that have made national news over the past decade. We can only project how director Gary Ross will approach his upcoming adaptation of The Hunger Games. It’s well-cast, but is it possible that the finished film will be anything harder than a PG-13? [NOTE: I first posted this piece in 2011 and my prediction wasn't far off the mark.]
This much is clear: As a fimly-established veteran filmmaker in Japan, Fukusaku clearly felt little trepidation towards going all-in on this premise. Battle Royale as a movie capitalizes and underlines the “ultra” in ULTRA-violence. It’s stylized and cartoonish, yet also believable and momentous. The body count in Battle Royale is uncompromising, and unrelenting, yet the film’s presentation treats most of the losses as weighty and hardly comical. The sweeping orchestral score and intense emotionality of the majority of the performances certainly see to that. Takeshi Kitano, legend of the modern Japanese cinema, anchors the film with a somewhat arch but generally sober performance as the teacher-turned-gamesmaster who is as close to a mentor as these kids get.
Battle Royale takes a pulpy, unfilmable premise, and turns it into a surprising, surprisingly well-written, ferociously entertaining piece of cinema. It’s not a thing that anyone who sees it can exactly forget. It was a massive success in Japan and its cult following here in America is formidable. I certainly recommend that you try to make the screening tonight, but that theater only seats so many people. You may have to fight it out for a seat. Bring the fine familynunchucks.
So the publicity for The Expendables 2 is ramping up. I’ve been seeing a new mini-trailer in front of movies at the theater recently, which we should talk about. For one thing, am I the only person who thinks it looks like they majorly skimped on the cinematography budget? Seriously, dude.
Expendables 2 was shot by Shelly Johnson, who made pretty pictures for movies like The Wolfman and Captain America (regardless of what you thought of those movies, I liked the look of them), so the ugliness of these frames is clearly not his fault. Did some less-talented second unit take over for the trailer scene? These are some rapidly-aging screen queens — you have to light them up pretty like you’d do Julia Roberts or Meryl Streep.
Of course, we’ve got bigger problems. For one thing, as my friends at Daily Grindhouse have reported, Expendables 2 will be rated PG-13. Which strikes me as wrong on a few different fronts, but since creative and moral concerns aren’t foremost with this particular franchise, maybe good old American bloodthirst will do? Expect to see as much gore and viscera in this supposedly manly flick as in an average episode of True Blood. And with fewer pairs of titties.
What’s wrong with going full-bore after your core audience? Tyler Perry does it, to great success. So do the people who put together the Darling Companion ad campaign. Better to please your base than to spread your appeal too thin. Expendables movies are supposed to be for guys. It’s not a four-quadrant kind of a deal. That’s why, when you watch the Expendables 2 trailer above, you hear a chorus of male voices asking “Who?” after the name “Hemsworth” comes up. “Hemsworth” is Liam Hemsworth, and nothing against him, but he’s here to bring in the ‘tweens off his role in the Hunger Games franchise. If any guy knows the name Hemsworth, it’s because his brother Chris played Thor (I know of Liam because he was in a very good horror movie called Triangle, but I’m always in the minority). And hey, if you really want girls and women to come to the movie, why not cast an actress anyone’s ever heard of in a prominent role, or even — revolution! — let her join the team? Where’s Charisma Carpenter, from the first movie? How about an Angelina Jolie cameo? Personally, I suggest borrowing Gabrielle Union away from the Tyler Perry juggernaut — she could probably do a cool Pam Grier riff that this franchise badly needs — but again, no one listens to me.
It’s enough to demand a referendum on the varying coolness quotients of the stars of Expendables 2 in anticipation and dread of the new movie, which I did here when I looked at the poster, and have since expanded upon for the sake of this article. So anyway, let’s have a look at the poster again, then take that bitch apart.
There’s a lot going on here. We’re gonna have to go through it all, element by element:
1. Sylvester Stallone:
Again with the beret. I think the beret is Stallone’s way of saying: “I’m taking it back to the glory days, and by that I do not mean First Blood Part 2, but instead Demolition Man.” (Personally I happen to like Demolition Man, but I am not what you would call a highbrow critic.)
Letter Grade: C.
2. Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Nice Gozer The Gozerian hairdo there, bud. Seriously, what’s up with Arnold’s hair? Is the male pattern baldness getting so threatening that the only direction to go was up? This is not a respectful hairstyle befitting the star of Predator. You need to treat the star of Predator with more respect, even if you ARE the star of Predator.
Letter Grade: D.
3. Bruce Willis:
He’s got that look that says, “Not that long ago, I was in real movies. Ah, hell. Fuck it anyways.”
Letter Grade: C+.
4. Jason Statham:
He’s got a beret on too. It’s like he’s got a junior Stallone thing going. He’s the teacher’s pet. The thing about Statham is, even his fans have to agree that he bypassed the Rocky phase entirely for his Demolition Man period. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you.
Letter Grade: C-.
5. Chuck Norris:
I’m sorry, but I still find it impossible to believe that this country ever had a red-bearded action hero. This is a man whose entire fan base is ironic. All this craziness going on around him, and Chuck Norris is still the one who stands out as a cartoon character.
Letter Grade: F.
6. The girl:
Unless that’s Jet Li in drag, no one even bothered to put a name for her on the poster. Let’s be real: These movies aren’t interested in women. Not even as sex objects! We can only imagine that her death prompts one or more of these dudes to seek revenge. And then she is never mentioned again.
Letter Grade: C+.
7. Dolph Lundgren:
Not sure what’s up with the Tilda Swinton haircut, but his presence here is a triumph. He died in the first movie, didn’t he? It’s time to re-assess Dolph Lundgren. He’s too tough to die, in real life and in sub-par movies, he was the best thing about the first Expendables, and he’s arguably our best hope of elevating the sequel.
Letter Grade: A-.
8. Van Damme:
He’s got an expression on his face that’s like, “Yeah, I’m wearing a fur scarf and carrying the skinniest gun on the poster. It’s all right. I’m gonna put this gun down in a second and then you’re gonna get to see me kick some motherfuckers in the ear.”
Letter Grade: B+.
9. Terry Crews:
I just need to point out that the ex-NFL player is, technically speaking, the most interesting and inspired actor in this entire cast. (The only one you could even argue comes close to Crews is Willis, and I would win that argument.)
Letter Grade: A.
In conclusion:
I couldn’t wait to see the first Expendables movie.
Regardless, as a masochist, even after all I’ve expressed here, I still absolutely plan to see the second Expendables movie.
This poster is the perfect representation of all my hopes for it and of all my reservations about it. The new trailer falls more on the latter side of that statement. I’m the masochistic kind of optimist, I guess.
Via one of my very favorite sites, IMP Awards, Here are the new character posters for The Expendables 2, which I believe only serve to confirm my prior rulings. Check them out and see if you agree (and let me know if you don’t):
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STALLONE (Beret Sr.)
SCHWARZENEGGER (The Gozerian)
WILLIS (Mr. Apathy)
STATHAM (Beret Jr.)
LI (Exempt From Judgment)
COUTURE (Means “Women’s Clothing” In French)
HEMSWORTH (Most Likely To Get Buggered By One Of These Guys)
YU (Minimum Daily Recommended Amount Of Female)
NORRIS (The Worst One)
CREWS (The Best One)
VAN
LUNDGREN (The Tilda Swinton One)
VAN DAMME (Increased In Awesomeness Due To This Poster)
ADKINS!!! (If You’re Not Completely Thrilled To See Him Here, You Need To Watch More Action Movies)
