Shadows

I’m watching John Cassavetes’ first film, Shadows. In the audience there are nothing but first time viewers. The majority of them are young, eighteen to twenty five year old white males wanting to make their own films. Suddenly, I began to cringe at the abundance of technical flaws that run throughout the film. The sound track pops in and out, there are continuity errors by the truckload, and hairs keep showing up in the gate. You have to have worked in film to get that last one, but “getting” that last one is what makes so many students think they get what it means to make a film. Start by eliminating the technical flaws then worry about the rest – that’s the film school method of filmmaking.

Cassavetes was, of course, an actor first and a filmmaker second. His acting career paid for his filmmaking hobby. But, today his filmmaking is a greater contribution to cinema than his acting. It’s not surprise that Cassavetes cared so little about the technical aspects of his films in comparison to the performances in his films. That’s just how actors are, no matter what side of the camera they are on. Some actors simply put on a mask and act; other actors rip off that mask, expose their true identity and risk it all. Cassavetes is the latter, but he was never a twenty-nothing film student so hidden behind masks that he could no longer see straight.

I wondered if the students sitting around me would be able to pick up on anything other than the technical flaws of the film. Would they understand the story of three black siblings, each of a slightly lesser shade of black, so much so that the youngest one can pass for white? Will they feel their struggle to be a family and still live out their personal dreams? Can the students feel the film or do they simply just hope to understand it? Would they simply see this black and white film in terms of color? Would they just be looking at the skin or would they go deeper, go inside to see each person? Most of all I wondered if they would laugh.

When I watch Shadows I laugh. Not because the film is less polished than your average undergraduate film project, not because I think a film addressing racial issues of the late 50′s is dated, or that the characters in the film are acting the fool. I laugh because they are so real, so full of life. And, this is where I started to get worried. Others weren’t laughing at first. Was it the classroom setting? Does that automatically send a shroud of seriousness over the film? Was everyone sitting with their elbow on their knee, their hand stroking the stubble on their chin, their foreheads wrinkled from deep thoughts? What was going on?

After the film there was a discussion and from what I can tell the students appreciated the film. I wouldn’t say loved, though many may grow to love it, but definitely everyone was respecting Cassavetes for what he was doing or trying to do. It was here during the discussion that I had to remind myself that no one had seen this film prior to tonight’s screening and most were still in a state of shock. They did not know what to feel or they were feeling too much and did not know where to start. I certainly do not recall laughing the first time I saw Shadows, but ever since I find the film more and more engrossing and each time some new gesture or one little line will make me giddy with joy.

Spellbound

I have never been the biggest Hitchcock fan, this I’ll admit from the start. I appreciate his well crafted suspense thrillers, but there is a clunkiness to so many of his films that it either makes me cherish the really good ones or simply want to avoid the entire lot of them. Spellbound is one of those films that leaves me rather cold, though it is not without interest.

A story of psychology and love, but Hitchcock knows too little of either to create a plausible story and from the very beginning a decision must be made. I chose to just go with Hitchcock and see where he’d leading me. I have to excuse the fact that the ice cold Ingrid Bergman has her heart quickly melted by Gregory Peck. One moment she’s a dedicated female psychiatrist, the next she’s confused, heart-stricken mush. The cold-hearted headshrink, decides to jeopardize her entire career because twenty-four hours ago she fell head-over heels for the newest director of her mental institute – who turns out to be someone completely different than he original said he was, but what does Bergman care she’s in love!

Hitchcock continually exhibits a profound lack of understanding for humans, but the majority of his ignorance is reserved for his female characters. By today’s standards Bergman’s behavior appears dated, foolish, and contrived. I bet that even back then her impulsive actions looked stupid and degrading. I suppose that the casting of a woman in a such a scientific role might have been considered daring at that point in time. Daring maybe, but damn does it feel false. Like asking Tara Reid to play a doctor or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to play a jockey. It might be funny, but could you take it seriously?

That’s my problem with Spellbound. Bergman as a doctor, I could buy that, but not while Hitchcock is running shop. I can also forgive Hitchcock for his need to shove aside realistic human behavior in favor of a well woven tale of suspense, but Spellbound is not the most suspenseful of Hitchcock’s films. Excusing an occasional scene here and there, the danger is never that imminent. The clock is not ticking rapidly and there is no bomb. Spellbound is a lesiurely tale of amnesia, murder, and a stolen identity. The whole thing held together by a series of repeated lines on white surfaces. The site of such lines sets Peck into a tizzy and Bergman takes it upon herself to determine the cause of her new beau’s madness. If she can solve the mystery of the white lines she might be able to clear her lover’s name before the cops haul him off to jail for a murder he can’t remember committing. But, there is no need to worry because a psychatrist in love is on the case. Yes, love can conquer all, even common sense. Is Bergman right ot follow her heart? Of course, she’s right to do so.

It would probably be more interesting if she were wrong, but Bergman’s a smart cookie even if she spends half the film acting like a starry-eyed school girl confused by her emotions. Her heart leads her to the killer, but along the way there’s a brief stop in a Dali designed dreamscape full of oversized eyes and blank playing cards. Today it looks just ridiculous and at the same time it felt so much like a prequel to some episode of Twin Peaks. Perhaps, David Lynch’s dreamworlds won’t age well either, but what little of the supposed twenty minute sequence that Dali originally shot is still too much. However, it does help Bergman figure out who the real murderer is, but once she figures it out the fun slides out of the movie and out of sight. I found it hard to watch the film with much interesting having seen it so many years ago and still remembering just who pulled the trigger. Spellbound does not deserve to be called one of Hitchcock’s best, neither stylistically or narratively speaking. It most certainly is not his best work with actors. But, this rug pulling tale of suspense nicely kills a Saturday night.

Port of Angels

You could call this another exclusive for this blog. Stephen Taylor’s Port of Angels has sat in stack of videos I have been meaning to watch when I had the time. All the films in this pile were movies I had yet to experience and ones that I knew deserved my captive attention. I had no guarantee that they were are diamonds waiting to be discovered, but in the case of Port of Angels, I knew that this was the director’s first feature and I wanted to treat the film with some care. It may not be a diamond, but a diamond in the rough and I didn’t want to casually dismiss something that might have great potential were it cleaned and polished.

The story in Port of Angels is simple enough. It’s a modern Greek tragedy, a story of boy meets boy, and a strange look at teenage existence. Based off of the Narcissus of old, Port of Angeles has one young teen caught up in the image of another boy in his high school. It’s a case of the outsider wanting in, to use a bad pun, but it’s also a case of role playing with each character in the film choosing a part and confining themselves to that role. In this sense it is not always a comfortable image. All of us like to think we are unique, especially teenagers, but in Port of Angeles life is not a clear reflection of any ancient myth.

Sex and the cumming of age is Film du Jour. You can’t carry a ski pole through Park City without smacking into a young filmmaker and their hot film about young love – that often goes horribly wrong. I’d like to say that Port of Angeles escapes a lot of the trappings that ensnare those other films, but the my reasons for feeling this way are quite surprising. From the very start, with a young boy translating a Latin verse of mythology in the setting of a classroom, I felt like I might be in for a hard viewing. Classroom, ancient texts, and teens make for highly pretensions, extremely shallow storylines. Thankfully, the next few scenes take the edge off the first scene.

By glossy standards the teenage acting in this film is sub-par. They act tough when they are not. They act depressed, just for attention. They tell jokes that are as poorly delivered as they are unfunny. Their interactions with one another feel awkward, even forced at times. This is not how kids in movies act. So who’s at fault? Is it poor acting? Is it poor directing? Or is not poor at all? Is this really how kids act? Do they feed into stereotypes? Take the main character, Kevin – he is grungy, he’s an outsider, he is distant, he’s in counseling, and he’s questioning his sexuality, but he’s real. I’m not talking about the Central Casting version of this character. I’m talking about a kid that might go to your local high school. Do you have a mental image of Thor? Then, don’t be surprised when you see Port of Angels. Kevin lives up to your real world expectations, which is partly a let down.

All of the characters in Taylor’s film look their part. Their acting abilities vary immensely, with the better performances coming from odd places. If the teenagers fit their stereotypes then the parents grossly exaggerate the roles they have been asked to play. This is more fault of the filmmaker than the actors. Choosing to have Kevin’s mother be a religious fanatic and to have his father be an alcoholic seem so expected that they loose any truth that might be inherent in such characters. What makes matters worse is that Kevin’s mother and father both act as if they are acting. Neither seem comfortable in front of the camera, as if they are holding their breathe waiting for the director to call cut so they can get back to being normal. Thankfully, more natural performances come in the form of Mike, the small town jock that Kevin pines after. By no means is Mike the sort of varsity captain you come to expect in such a role. Mike would be lucky to be a towel boy on a community college football team, but for the time being he’s a big fish in a small pond and he’s able to letter in football and be the center of everyone’s attention. He’s a reflection of the stereotypes he’s been exposed to, but he’s a reflection in less than clear waters. So, Mike comes out sort of murky. It’s part his inexperience as an actor, it’s part Taylor’s newness to the directing care, but it’s also partly true to form. Teenagers are never as great in person as they are in their mind. It’s this last part, the truthful part this is all wrong in so many other films. Even when they are supposed to be uncool, they are still cool. There’s nothing that cool about the teenagers in Port of Angeles.

You won’t find teenagers and twenty something’s quoting lines from this film, just as you would never find yourself quoting most the things that your typical teenager says or does. Though they think everything they say is comic gold. In this sense, Taylor succeeds at creating a very honest look at teenagers, though it is one step removed from being great. I hate to be so particular about technical issues, but these one or two matters are so consequential to a certain feel that the weakest scenes in this film share I feel it only a service to the filmmaker to bring it up. The music in this film fluctuates between good and grating. At it’s best it sounds like an expected low-budget minimalist soundtrack…You know, guitar pickin’. At it’s worse it sounds like music from a 1980′s Canadian high school soap opera. Thankfully, the image is in better shape. Taylor overlights many of his interior scenes. This artificial lighting casts a shadow of tv/video sterility to the scenes. A more natural lighting scheme might aid the acting which is all very, very realistic, but feels performative under such bright lights. When the film goes outdoors, to natural settings like parks and lumber mills that is when Taylor’s images really shines.

Saving the best for last, the film hits its stride during a rather difficult scene, one I do not want to give away to future viewers of the film, but I can say that the directors use of restraint in a pivotal scene. Set down by a lake, Taylor saves his film from stumbling headlong into shallow waters of bad teenage soap operas or after school specials. It’s here that the mature hand of the director shows itself and if you can get to this point in the film, looking past the few flaws in the performances and the music you’ll enjoy quite a pay off. It doesn’t take long to get to this point as the film flows with a gentle pace that is neither rushed nor lagging. Also, down by the docks you will get to witness another major coup for Taylor and his film. Though minor in the grand scope of the story, there is one actress amongst a small circle of friends who steals the film with one simple facial gesture. She has a slightly longer scene, sitting on a dock with the jock ofthe movie, Mike. She further proves that her first instance on film was no fluke.
It’s too bad Taylor did not write a story to utilize this girl’s natural talent. Perhaps, his next film may do so. That is if I do not find out who she is and cast her myself.

Overall, this film is an amazing first effort. Taylor knows he has room for improvement, but he is certainly on the right road and far down it. His cinematography is great and it will only grow greater if he learns to cut some of the artificial lights. He has a wonderful sense of pacing, but he needs to rely less on his music. As a producer he has pulled together a wonderful landscape of locations that feels full, unlike many indie films that feel cramped inside one person’s apartment. Finally, Stephen Taylor is making strides as a director. He’s done some shorter works and has now launched himself into the field of features. What he needs now is a more stable stable of actors. Hopefully, some will see this film and offer to be in his next picture.

For those that want to see Port of Angels, thespian or not, you can contact Stephen Taylor at steve@faustfilms.net

SKAGAFJÖRDUR

Peter Hutton is a still photographer that puts pictures into motion or it might be more apt to say that Peter Hutton is a motion picture maker that makes them still. His films are images, presented like slides, no inherent story, no specific connection other than local proximity. His camera remains locked down, his gaze intensely fixated on a particular setting as he allows time to unwind before the lens. The moments he captures are ones of small change, but profound beauty.

Skagafjördur is Hutton’s latest work. Filmed in black and white and color, this thirty-three silent film captures the panoramic splendor of Iceland’s desolate landscapes. Hutton’s camera records atmospheric changes – mist, wind, the breaking of light through clouds, the simple things that have helped define and shape the land. With a playful sense of scale he shows a houses in the shadow of an impossibly huge mountain. He shows the land lost in a sea of shimmering water. Most images are devoid of humans, a strong contrast to Hutton’s earlier work in New York city. Iceland sits alone nearly untouched by human hands. Small instances of human interaction – a telephone pole here, a lamppost there, and the curious presence of a photographer disturbs the disquieting beauty and meditative quality of the film and the land it documents.

If film is to survive the next century, if all is not lost to digital image making, it will be due to artists such as Peter Hutton. This is not to say that Hutton’s work could not be adapted to the ever improving field of digital cinema, but it is in his form and his aesthetic that I can see a defense for film’s existence. The early portion of Skagafjördur – the part shot in black and white – possesses a look that can only be found in works shot on film. It has a timeless appearance, full of depth, texture, contrast and grain. It’s the look of history. When he gets to the color portion of his film Hutton loses the wonder of the timeless image. The blue skies overshadow the earthtoned landscapes. These are images as fresh as yesterday. Instances of brilliance abound in the latter half of the film, but it becomes harder to argue that Hutton’s work must be made with film.

In 2004 Peter Hutton is a still photographer/filmmaker still making films. For himself and a few others working well outside the mainstream of narrative filmaking a forgiveness can be granted. Hutton’s work lends itself to the hypnotic mechanisms of a film projector. It’s no wonder so many young students nodded off during the screening. Lulled or bored to sleep by each passing frame or the dull sounds of the projector, clicking away at the back of the room, Hutton’s work demanded too much attention from an audience who equates cinema with television, not painting, or drawing, or ballet, or anything else you might see in hushed environment and not a smoky bar. Hutton’s latest film is not only important because of what he is documenting, but because he is utilizing film in the same way an artist might use paints or charcoals to capture reality – that is to say outdated. Perhaps film will go the way of portrait painting, a practice long since abandoned as a way of documenting the image of a person. Perhaps it will be resigned to special theaters, college classrooms, and art museums – is that so bad? As we have stopped picking up a paintbrush to recreate reality and as we have grown to see photographs in black and white as being more “artistic”, we may find that it is no longer necessary to shoot all our movies on film. We may soon reach a point where we can leave film in the hands of the artists, and not the entertainers.

Don’t Look Now

How Donald Sutherland ever became a leading man remains quite a mystery to me. Perhaps his allure is part of Hollywood’s reliance upon willing suspension of disbelief. Not exactly handsome, not at all ugly, Sutherland’s look is one that is politely defined as unique. Not peculiar enough to resign him to a career of character acting, Sutherland’s doleful face lends itself to scholarly characters. More meek and mentally active than dashing and physically driven towards action film, Sutherland fits comfortably in tweed jackets or loose scarves – not black tuxedos and leather jackets. Yet, some how he gets the chicks.

Don’t Look Back pairs Donald Sutherland with Julie Kristie. Sutherland is working to restore a Catholic church. Kristie is tagging along, trying to forget the painful loss of their daughter. In the opening moments of film, Sutherland receives a painful psychic vision of his daughter’s death, but when he runs out side to check on her it is too late. While in Venice a set of elderly sisters befriends Kristie. The blind sister informs Kristie that she is psychic and that she can see Kristie and Sutherland’s daughter and that she is safe and happy. Whether true or pure malarky the blind woman’s news cheers up Kristie. Sutherland is less convinced, but that doesn’t stop him from taking pleasure in Kristie’s renewed good spirits. Once again, the Sutherland charm mystifies in a rather elongated and erotic loving making scene.

Seeing Kristie naked is not the only thing Sutherland keeps seeing. He also sees his young daughter, still dressed in the same raincoat she drowned in. Around the canals and down the back alleys of Venice, Sutherland chases this ghost. Still refusing to belief that his daughter is anything but dead, Sutherland can’t shake a series of strange visions that come to, each a prediction of danger or death. When Kristie leaves Venice to tend to her and Sutherland’s son, who has an accident while at boarding school, Sutherland begins to have frightful visions of Kristie on a funeral gondola. Rushing about Venice, trying to locate his wife, the two psychic sisters, and the raincoat wearing ghost of his daughter, Sutherland puts his own life in danger as he tries to make sense of that he sees both physically and psychically.

Directed by Nicholas Roeg, Don’t Look Now doesn’t bother tying together loose ends. He’s a cinematographer at heart and he never fails to provide his films with a provocative images. The images may not all add up, an attribute that can madden those wanting a simple solution, but by the end of Roeg’s film the experience has a whole makes sense, no matter how demented that sense may seem. Any viewer confusion can easily be seen as a glimpse into the mind of Sutherland’s character, but the ending – that’s just plain out there. Neither the viewer or Sutherland can see that one coming. Forgetting the weirdness of the ending, which is shot it a chilling manner, rivaling any horror film out there, the payoff to all the suspense is slightly undercut with the sort of confusion that leaves me scratching my head, but not exactly angry. No matter what happens in the film I can’t fault Roeg for whisking me along, shaking up my head, and keeping me guessing. Even if there is no easy answer to what Roeg shows me, I can at least say I enjoyed his screwing with my mind for a little while.

The need to have a clearly explained story is nothing of a recent trend. Movies have often tried to make sense of the world at large. Properly putting pieces into place, the movies are all about setting up events with known pay-offs and filling actors’ mouths with life-affirming dialog. Sometimes movies can be too neat. Especially for me. It has been my experience that most mainstream movies unrealistic events, but what’s even more unrealistic than the events of the film is the striving towards perfect structure, each element of the film needing to be just right in order for me to see the larger picture. In this way, most conventional films feel like jigsaw puzzles, with the director making me watching as they construct the big picture. I too help to put the puzzle together, but its a backseat sort of puzzle construction – input doing nothing to alter the outcome. There is a simple pleasure in watching hundreds or thousands of tiny pieces come together to make a larger image. It makes you wish thing would come together so easily in life. Of course, they don’t. Perhaps, this is why films like Don’t Look Now do not always sit well with broad film audiences. As Roeg is laying out his puzzle pieces I assume that he is working towards a completed big picture, something to step back from an smile because you never would have guess that all the pieces would add up to create such an image. However, just as you think you have figured out the big picture, Roeg looks like he’s about to deliver the film piece to the puzzle, only shake up the table and scatter all the pieces. An act like this breaks the illusion that films provide, the illusion of structure and order in a world of chaos. Sometimes, that shake up is refreshing.

Cremaster 3

Watching Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle is an experience. Less film than art exhibition projected, the Cremaster Cycle evokes strong feelings in those who see it, but sadly most do not get to see the film in its entirety. Broken into five pieces, each filmed at a different point in time, none of them made chronologically, The whole Cremaster Cycle is an experience that can only be had in a theater, most likely in a bigger city, or at a museum. With the laserdisc set of the entire production carrying a price tag of $500,000 only the most avid and affluent fans of Barney’s work are going to find themselves adding this work to their video collection.

What can be seen of the Cremaster Cycle is a thirty minute portion of the third Cremaster film, a piece titled – The Order. Set in the Guggenheim museum with its famous spiral stairway, Barney’s portrays a character known as the Entered Apprentice. With graphics out of a video game and levels each containing an opponent, the garishly costumed Barney – dressed like a foppish Scotsman in a frilly pink Beefeater hat and a pastel kilt – scales the walls of the museum, reaching each floor to be faced by a new opponent. From paraplegic athlete Amiee Mullins to artist Richard Serra to a line of kicking Rockettes the Apprentices challenges are strange to say the least. Oddest of all – or possibly most popular – is the second degree where the Apprentice must two bands – Murphy’s Law and Agnostic Front. Their presence in the Guggenheim, with their energetic fans, is an odd site, but no less odd than anything else you’ll see in a Cremaster film.

The oddness of The Order leaves its impact open to great debate. Is there an underlying message? Is everything in the film a symbol? Is Barney just being weird for the sake of art? Such questions and the inability to easily codify any of the Cremaster films have reduced many opinions to gushing praise or grand words of hatred. As the film polarizes its audience into two camps there comes a desire to fall in line, with one of the two factions. Alas, I cannot. Having seen the entire cycle, and not just this one DVD, I can see why many people who bother to type in their aplomb reviews on Internet forums and comment boards are left feeling incapable of defining or digesting what they have just experienced. They thusly write it off as a failure. It’s a hasty judgment and one that cannot be easily validated.

There are surely a large number of messages and motifs that run throughout the duration of the entire Cremaster Cycle and were one willing enough to expend the effort or to hound the artist himself, it could be quite possible to crack the code, understand each symbol and solve the mystery of the Cremaster. I’m not that interested in knowing why Barney must unearth masionic tools from the floor of the Guggenheimg whilst two hardcore bands must sonically assault one another or why Amiee Mullins is transformed into a cheetah, to know these things would almost cheapen my experience, even if it gave me a greater understanding of the film itself. The understanding would undercut the experience. There is a sense of blissfulness in such ignorance.

Haing seen the whole Cremaster Cycle I can say that it honestly does not help to explain any of the questions that The Order may bring up. However, viewing each film does create an experience, with recurring characters, themes, and images – nothing that serves so much as clues, but more as a weird form of deja vu. Barney’s entire Cremaster Cycle works like a dream, a long elaborate dream. After watching the whole series of films I felt as if I awoke, uncertain of what I had just experienced and I uncertain if I could draw parallels to your own life, to reality, even though underneath the elaborate sets and stylized costumes parallels seemed to abound.

Sadly, this same vivid experience is not possible when you watch the only portion of the cycle now available on home video. Perhaps it was the setting, perhaps it was the time of evening, bust most definitely it was the format – this time around, viewing the film on a decent sized television screen, the experience was not nearly as impacting. First off, the scale is reduced. Unless you have one of those whopping Plasma widesceen HD televisions the lavish design of Barney’s films is shrunk to a dismal size. Secondly, watching The Order is like falling into the first level of dreaming – a brief nap, if you will. To truly partake in the full Cremaster experience you have to find away to see all five portions of the film, but this will take you much longer than the mere half-hour it takes to watch The Order. You’ll probably need a whole night’s worth of sleep to make it through the total running time of the full Cremaster Cycle, but it’s surely something you won’t forget. Whether or not you love or hate the film really depends on your need to understand the film. For all the talk of the magic of movies, I’m continually surprised to see so many people begging to have the magic dispelled. The Cremaster Cycle may want to be explained, but only so much as a dream wants to be explained. It is more the desire of the person undergoing the experience that leads to a need for an explanation. It is far easier to try and understand a film like Cremaster than to submerging oneself into the work. Once it is analyzed and understood it can be explained and the danger and mystery vanish. What The Order provides is a brief glimpse into a deeper experience.

House of Flying Daggers

Sometime ago I wondered what low-wage workers in China must think as they sew together chintzy stuffed animals – the kind you spend ten dollars trying to win at a local carnival, though you know the toy itself cost less than two dollars to make. Do these workers dream of America as a wondrous place where you can have a decent paying job and share your bed with an oversized Sponge Bob Squarepants doll? Do they even know who Sponge Bob is?

Here in the states your average worker idea what the Tang Dynasty was or when it existed. Even the question of where might draw a blank stare or smart-assed comment about Tang being the drink of astronauts. The sheer lack of knowledge about Chinese history gives a film like House of Flying Daggers a blank slate. Knowing little myself, I cannot confirm or deny Yimou Zhang’s ability to accurately recreate the dying end of the Tang Dynasty. But, I am certain that it never looked as radiant as it does House of the Flying Daggers.

Drawing inspiration more from Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and less from his film Hero Yimou Zhang’s hangs most of House of Flying Daggers on a rather simple love story. The subject matter only feels complicated due to abrupt changes in direction and willful deceit, barring his constant need to pull the rug out from beneath you, Zhang’s story centers itself around two axes. First there is the broader issue of the government’s attempts to uncover and snuff out an organization of Robin Hood’s known as the House of Flying Daggers. On a more intimate level, but dominating the film’s emotional breadth is the relationship between the two police officers (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau) and a blind girl (Ziyi Zhang) with connections to the House of Flying Daggers. Using the girl as a trap hope to avoid her beauty and charm and use her as bait to help flush out the newest leader of this faction of dissidents.

Visually arresting, the films only technical fault is a crushing sound mix. Written off as a technique utilized to let the audience share in the blind heroine’s acute sense of hearing, this excuse does little to explain why the soundtrack sounded so much like a Chinese version of Stomp. I should say that the continual eruptions of gratuitous sound were further stressed by the theater’s need to blare everything they project. The bombastic volume levels of the film aside, this souffle of a story nearly falls under the grandiose mixture of dazzling decor and physics defying martial arts. Combining the fluff of a romance novel with the hard-hitting action sequences comic book, House of the Flying Daggers comes not as a framed masterpiece on a gallery wall, but is delivered like an exotic dessert cart. A sweet collection of goodies with offerings for both male and female, everything in House of Flying Daggers is too delectable to pass up. Yet, the empty calories and the heavy frosting leave you with a bit of a stomach ache. For those looking for something to do after dinner watching this film is the second best thing you and a date can do in the dark. However, if you are alone, with your brain and no hope of a good night kiss – or more – House of the Flying Daggers can be dangerous.

Most Americans will have no problem turning off their brains for a full two hours and gorging themselves on this well-crafted treat. I, on the other hand, had to continually re-engage my willing suspension of disbelief. Feeling as if I were being “Ambushed From Ten Directions” – the literal translation of the title – I left the theater with my head dizzy from over-stimulated from with a sensory sugar rush. What I had just seen was not an accurate representation of China, then or now. Just as a cheap stuffed animal does little to represent America, but with House of Flying Daggers being sent out as China’s choice for a 2004 Academy Award I suspect that what House of Flying Daggers really represents Yimou Zhang’s attempt to make a product for American consumption.

When You Coming Back Red Ryder?

In a matter of two days I managed to watch two films, each sporting a question mark in the title. Is it redundant to use a question for a title? What are movies if not formulated questions based upon answers we want to hear? Movies remind us of profound things we already knew, but willingly forgot just to happily be reminded of it once again. Does the little guy ever win out? Is good truly better greater than evil? Can love conquer all? How about, Where’s Poppa? – that was yesterday’s question. Today, I was asked When You Coming Back, Red Ryder?

Whether or not Red Ryder is coming back is unquestionable. Of course he’s coming back, why else would the title be asking such a question? Does he win or lose? How does he come back? Just who the hell is Red Ryder? Why should I care if he comes back? Those were the real questions. But they are just the surface questions. These are the questions everyone ask. I tend to ask those questions and then some.

I wonder what a nice young evangelist like Marjoe Gortner is doing in a black-hearted film such as When You Coming Back, Red Ryder?. Furthermore, why is a good Christian boy producing this movie?

Once a novelty act on the tent revival circuit four year old Marjoe (his name a combination of Mary and Joseph) dazzled audiences with his memorized sermons of hellfire and brimstone. In his teens Marjoe turned his back on the ministry. Then, in 1972 Marjoe returned. A reunion tour of sorts, cashing in on former fame, Marjoe was preaching to the choir, while confessing to a documentary crew that evangelistic preaching was a racket. Of course, this didn’t stop Marjoe from collecting a few dollars along the way. Were those offered dollars gone by the time 1979 rolled around? Was the cash of bible thumpers used to make a film they’d surely damn to hell?

Ask yourself these question and When You Coming Back, Red Ryder? takes on new, deep, psychological dimensions.

Played to full-tilt craziness, Marjoe delights in the demonic role of Teddy – a drug smuggling, Vietnam Vet, carrying a huge chip on his shoulder. When Teddy’s van breaks down in a one-stop, New Mexico town he and his tag-along girl hold the patrons of a small dinner hostage. While he waits for the service station owner to fix his vehicle, Teddy entertains himself by berating the diner’s clientele.

Though I have never read Mark Medoff’s play, from which this film takes its narrative, I suspect that in the playhouse version of the story Teddy is to act like a grievous angel. Teddy is himself a wounded soul and his abuse, more psychological than physical, is meant to shock some form of self-realization into each patron. In the film version director Milton Katselas (Butterflies Are Free) uses the events of a prior night to clue the audience into the character faults that Teddy shall help to reveal. This notion of normal people having faults and the need for a “bad boy” to come along and expose these faults is so juvenile and insipid that it certainly makes for pretensions twaddle; were it played that way. Thankfully, the film version has Marjoe. Taking a layered character and making him two-dimensional Marjoe makes each of his hostages seem more dimensional than their parts allow for them to be. This is not a sign of Marjoe’s genius as much as it is a sign of his acting limitations. Nothing Teddy reveals can redeem his sadistic persona. He is a deranged man spouting threats to his congregation, while proclaiming the clarity to see right through them, down to their deepest sin. Teddy acts as if he knows-it-all, when in fact he knows nothing and is scared by this hidden truth. He’s not that different than your most flamboyant pulpit pounding preachers.

Marjoe embraces his chance to slip out of the choir robe and into a pair of devil’s horns. With a producer credit on the film, there’s no denying that Marjoe had his choice of material and roles. When You Coming Back, Red Ryder? is just the sort of anathema he was taught to condemn. And there’s no missing the blatant marks of Marjoe’s past strewn across the film. Besides casting himself in the lead he also opts to put his more known and more talented wife, Candy Clark, in the role of Teddy’s girl. Marjoe is kind enough to share full-frontal images of his wife bathing in a stream – how Christian of him. Mark modify makes a cameo as a faith healer and Leon Russell’s voice is heard preaching on the radio. The entire episode takes place on a Sunday while the rest of the town is at Church. While others are praising the lord, the sheer lack of an intervening savior is felt throughout the diner. Yet, one’s sense of hope is not lost. Not because their is a God in this world, but because the film is a construct of Hollywood. Grim as the film is When You Coming Back Red Ryder? does deliver a sense of justice, but by then the damage has been done.

I found a wonderful correlation between Marjoe’s preaching past and his psychopathic portrayal of Teddy. Both swoop into town, deliver their own versions of hell, and then they asking for money, leave town, and leave behind a shellshocked audience. Whether or not Marjoe saw this connection is questionable. Though he does bring all the sweat and enthusiasm of a faith-healer to his performance. The bigger question might be just what purpose this film served? Was it psychotherapy for Marjoe? A little role playing game to help expunge some buried demons? Was it just a self-stamped calling card to Hollywood, begging people to forget his Goody Two-shoes past?

When You Coming Back Red Ryder? is certainly not about Red Ryder – the nickname of one of Teddy’s hostages. No, this film isn’t even about Teddy. It’s about Marjoe. Just like the patrons of the coffee shop, I felt stuck with this grinning madman. The only thing is I know he’s not that crazy – though he goes to great lengths to convince us. For instance, Teddy freely admitting to customs guards that he’s got cocaine and his wanting to have a full cavity search while crossing the Mexican border, I am sure is not graphically represented in the play – if it’s in there at all. Here, in the film, it is only presented to help solidify the insanity of Teddy’s character. Watching Marjoe get a rectal exam might be an image of what other charlatan preachers have waiting for them in Hell, but it’s one I could do without. Surely, this scene is meant as (1) a diversion tactic (2)an act of defiance or (3) a way for Teddy to humiliate his girlfriend, who must also undergo a full examination. Though we aren’t shown her exam, there is no mistaking the weirdness of Teddy’s smiling while he watches his girlfriend cry because he just put her through hell. Where as Teddy’s expression during the exam is one of painful joy. As the man sticks it to him, he feels he has stuck it to the man.

In When You Coming Home Red Ryder? I didn’t see the face of a lunatic, I saw the face of a child actor hamming it up. Marjoe is a good boy acting bad – with a bad accent to boot. By the end of the film, we have endured about as much pain as Teddy’s captive audience has endured. Yet, we are one step removed. We can wonder about the little preacher boy as he chews through scenery like a group of mutant termites. The rest of the cast is just caught in a whirlwind named Marjoe. Stephanie Faracy is introduced as Angel, a plump coffee counter girl who’s naivete lives up to her name. She works the morning shift at the dinner and if it weren’t for her interaction with the graveyard chef, Stephen, you’d suspect she’d never converse with a boy her age. Stephen “Red” Ryder, decently played by Peter Firth, is still very much a boy. With a greaser hairdo and a tattoo that says “Born Dead” he receives the brunt of Teddy’s ire. Too young, and inexperienced to no real pain and Teddy looks to humiliate Stephen most of all. Teddy, taking on the role of demented director, entertains himself by making Stephen gallop about the room. Finally, Teddy tells Stephen to cut that undeserved tattoo from his arm. But these two pups aren’t the only subjects of Teddy’s malevolence. It’s no easier for an out of town couple, who are out of love with one another. Preying upon the Etheridge’s for being both upper-crust and not loving one another, Teddy threatens to smash their possessions and sexually humiliate the both of them. Lee Grant, a filmmaker and actress of some distinction, plays Clarisse Etheridge. As much as I sympathize with her character, my greater sympathy goes to Ms. Grant. I really don’t think her expressed dismay or hatred for Teddy/Marjoe is acting. Finally, there is Richard Etheridge a rather spineless man played by Hal Linden – TV’s Barney Miller. Richard tries too little to save him and her, drawing further disgust from his wife. I was personally mad and disgusted at Linden who tries to hard, as if he’s going to get to share the stage with Marjoe. Who does he think he is? Obviously, Linden didn’t know who was calling the shots and this is why his character gets shot.

The direction of the film is adequate. Even after taking the time to develop a prelude to the diner scene the entire production feels a bit stagey, but this is a showcase piece after all. Because of this, I attribute most of this blame not to the director, but to Marjoe – the actor/producer. Each camera angle seems to best serve Marjoe’s performance and when given room, he pushes all other cast members to the edge of the frame. In the diner, the camera remains tight with each cramped image set to explode with violence. Unobtrusively, the soundtrack contains some wonderful background music. Jack Nitzsche composed the original music for the film and songs by Hank Snow, Tammy Wynette, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and even The Doors get spun. Sadly, we don’t get to hear anything from Marjoe. I would have loved a song or two from Marjoe’s early 70′s rock ‘n’ roll album, fittingly called “Bad, but not Evil”.

Marjoe’s days of singing are far gone and I doubt Marjoe would ever be welcomed back by evangelists. He is more likely to find an audience with director Milton Katselas who went on to teach at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and became a strong believer in Scientology. I found no word of Marjoe taking up this religion of the stars, but then again it might not hurt his new job of producing celebrity sports invitational events. A Celebrity Sports Invitational event is the sort of thing were celebrities and athletes square off in various competitions, the winnings going to different charities. If the public ever gets to witness any of this action it’s late at night on ESPN 2 and usually something like fishing or golf. Whether he’s hosting charity events or serving as a fundraising auctioneer Marjoe still manages to find an audience. But, his days in Hollywood are pretty much over. He hasn’t been in a film in over ten year. Try as he did, Marjoe never broke through, not even after he produced When You Coming Back, Red Ryder?, his own little vanity project. He popped up in some wonderfully awful films (Star Crash, Viva! Knievel)and even on the small screen you could spot Marjoe in Laugh-In and on Circus of the Stars.

It’s too bad his best work sits hidden like Dead Sea scrolls. But it is not because the work is that bad or off the mark. This same scenario with other scene stealers such as Jack Nicholson or Kevin Spacey would be hugely popular and continually quoted, but Marjoe an hold his own even against these masters of overacting. Without muhc starpower, “When You Coming Back, Red Ryder?” delivers exactly what so many people flock to the movie theaters to see. It is an interrobang, a little known punctuation mark that combines the question mark with the exclamation point. Never seen in the real world, this punctuation mark perfectly defines cinema’s need to ask exciting questions. The question I am asking is, “When you coming back Marjoe?” In a day and age when hundreds of unworthy films are being re-released on DVD it seems an act of divine proclamation that Marjoe does not have his best work on DVD. Most certainly it is that wonderful soundtrack and all the music rights that are holding back When You Coming Home, Red Ryder? from ever getting released on video. Should someone ever pony up the cash to clear those rights – that’s what praying to God for – I hope they have the good sense to release it along with Marjoe – that 1972 documentary that shows Marjoe exposing evangelism as a sham. In order to fully appreciate the about-face performance, from good to bad, that Marjoe delivers in When You Coming Back, Red Ryder? is only achieved once you have seen sweet little Marjoe singing and preaching his little heart out. From charming choir boy to criminal lunatic – isn’t that how it always is with those childhood stars?

Don’t expect this title to come out on video anytime soon. If you want a copy I’d suggest checking out Shocking Video.

Clue

I don’t go to dinner theaters, but were I to go I imagine I would find a film much like Clue? Based on the Parker Brother’s board game the notion of a film drawing its inspiration from a known success represents an uninspired Hollywood that grows increasingly more dependent upon borrowing ideas. In 1985 when I first saw Clue I was to young to know the shallow depths for Hollywood’s creative well or to have predication towards whodunit dinner theater productions. Watching Clue today, I wondered if my youthful admiration for the film would have lessen over the past twenty years. Would Clue now stand as a prime example of all that I abhor?

Just as in the board game a murder must be solved. Clue – The Movie starts with six guest, the classic characters from the game: Col. Mustard (Martin Mull), Mrs. Peacock (Elieen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madelinne Kahn), Prof. Plum (Christopher Llyod), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren) being invited to dinner by Mr. Boddy. For years Mr. Boddy has been blackmailing each guest. Everyone has a reason to kill him, and someone does. Servants and unannounced guests start dropping like flies. With the cops on their way, the guests and Mr Boddy’s butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) have to find the killer to clear their names. Trying to figure out whodunit becomes impossible as the guests point fingers and hysterically run about the mansion – itself a mock-up of the famous board upon which the game Clue is played.

It is to the credit of the screenwriters and comedic timing of the cast that Clue rises above the damning evidence that should convict it to a death sentence. Less curious about whodunit and more focused on each individual performance, each line of barbed dialog, and each bad pun the true joy of watching Clue is not solving the mystery, but in playing along. When it originally played in the theaters Clue had three separate endings, here on video I can witness all three without having to travel out of the tri-county area. I leave the running to Tim Curry’s frantic summation – not content to verbally explain each murder he runs from room-to-room re-enacting each – of the night’s events which is far more pleasing than any one ending. By the time the credits roll I could careless about who killed whom and how – each explanation seems highly implausible and the motives are too many to comprehend. Instead of worrying about guilty parties I could only think of all the great lines I must have missed.

Today, were someone to tell me that a studio was developing a motion picture based on The Game of Life or Hungry, Hungry Hippos I would surely sneer. Without a doubt Clue is a fluke, a marvelous fluke that does not deserve high critical praise, but does deserve a second look. With its setting in a spooky mansion, on a dark and stormy night, and its use of Tim Curry as a central figure Clue feels much like The Rocky Horror Picture show, minus the singing, dancing, and transexuals. Even with musician cameos from Fear’s Lee Ving and The Go-Go’s Wiedlen and an endless parade of in-jokes, I don’t expect Clue to gain such a cult following. There’s a lot more to be said for singing, dancing, and transexuals than their is a film based on a board game.

Gums

A pornographic parody of Jaws, this twisted comedy mixes satire and sex with some stunning results. If you are looking for something to get you hot and wet, throw back this film. However, if you are fishing for something different hunt down Gums. It’s a keeper.

We all laughed when Jaws 4 came out and it had a tagline that read, “This time…It’s personal.” Did anyone care? We needed Jaws 4 as much as we needed a pornographic parody of shark attack film. Still Gums exists. Most people have no reason to watch Gums? But for me…It’s personal. First off, there is the guilty pleasure that comes in watching a crude porn film made by one of my former college professors. Then there is my personal obsession with the dark comic brilliance of Brother Theodore. I’ll admit that I go to strange lengths and put up with some awful films just to see one whacked out performance. Thankfully, Gums is worth the trouble.

Made before the age of VCR’s and home computers, equipped with high-speed Internet access, Gums comes from an era of grungy, sticky floor theaters. Gums probably played in the small theaters that made 42nd Street an infamous hang-out for the lower dregs of society. Today, the adult bookstores and grindhouse theaters of Times Square have been replaced by Giuliani’s wholesale beautification program. Disney now owns the Deuce and films like Gums have been replaced with video and digital porn. Kids today forget that back in 1976 most folks had to put on their trenchcoat and venture out to the theater to get they jollies. Everything wasn’t always a click away.

Many 1970′s porno films are insufferable. We all know the stigmas. Bad music, murky camera work, piss-poor acting, and puerile narratives used to string together a series of seemingly unrelated carnal escapades. While the 70′s might have been a banner year for X-rated films. The arthouse and the grinhouse started to blend together. Last Tango in Paris gave us Brando getting intimate with butter and curious couples came out to see Linda Lovelace’s (Deep Throat) special talents. All the hullabaloo about porn going mainstream did little to stop most 70′s porn from looking like home movies shot by money hungry producers with connections to cash-strapped strippers.

Technically speaking, Gums is no exception. However, Gums might be the first porn film to try and parody a blockbuster film. Later the porn industry would make parodies a tradition with titles like Forrest Hump and Schindler’s Lust and Lord of the G-Strings hitting adult video store shelves soon after the release of the films that inspired these little nuggets of stupidity. Trying to strike while the iron is hot, it still remains a mystery just who rents these cheap knock-offs. The films hold little or no resemblance to the mainstream movies they mock. Gums is an not only ground-breaking, it is an exception to the rule.

Just like Jaws, this burlesque send-up starts in the ocean. Instead of a blood-thirsty shark we have a cock-hungry mermaid who sucks the life out of her victims. When the private parts of the latest victim wash up on the public beach, the Sheriff (Paul Styles) closes down the beach. With tourist season about to begin and the Mayor of Greathead demands that the Sheriff re-open the beach. Calling upon his old friend Dr. Sy Smega (Richard Bolla), the world’s leading fellatiologist and with the help of Captain. Carl Clitoris (Brother Theodore), the commander of the S.S. Cunnilingus, the Sheriff sets out to capture his sex-crazed sea monkey.

Though it’s a silly hardcore porno flick, Gums stays true to the basic plot of Jaws and even goes so far as to create characters that mirror their blockbuster counterparts. Styles takes over the Roy Schneider role of obsessive police chief turned shark hunter. Veteran porn actor Richard Bolla is bearded and bespectacled making him a perfect match for Richard Dreyfuss’ role of scientist Matt Hooper. Then there is underground comic, Brother Theodore filling in for Robert Shaw’s grizzled boat captain, Quint. Of course, the nymphomaniac Mermaid (Terri Hall) looks nothing like her mechanical Great White doppleganger, but the way she devours innocent swimmers is no different…Okay, it’s slightly different and a lot more graphic.

Compared to today’s modern porno parodies that are connected to their source material only in name, Gums follows the narrative of its inspiration with its team of heroes setting out for an epic battle between man and beast, or in the case of Gums, beauty. Besides impersonating Jaws, director Robert L. Kaplan and producer, Paul E. Cohen, decide to take porno to strange new places. Rather than pad their narrative with tension inducing drama, the guys behind Gums load their story with daft humor, wholly unexpected in even the cheesiest of porno flicks. It would take Robert Downey (Pound, Putney Swope) to come up with anything similar to what Paul E. Cohen and Robert J. Kaplan have put to film.

Since it was filmmed others have ventured into waters similar to Gums, but most do it with a more clear-minded goal of producing laughs. Gums feels like porno first and a comedy second, but there are many moments when lines get crossed and intentions get blurred. I am not well versed in porn, but I can bet you that few other porno films have a naked mermaid coming out of the ocean to do an interpretive dance before she pleasures well endowed handpuppets. You may want to read that again. Watching a real female satisfy a crude puppets that just happens to have very real looking appendages makes for some very unsex, nightmare imagery. But, if that’s the strangest thing you ever envisioned you may want to then consider this. At one point in the film the Mayor of Greathead allows the Sheriff’s secretary to give him a debriefing. For inexplicable reasons the town’s very white Mayor has black genitalia. Is this the biggest continuity error ever or a miss directed joke? You make the call.

While not all of the humor in Gums hits it target and much of the humor can be rather juvenile, the inclusion of Brother Theodore in a porn film is insanely genius. Perhaps the only sit-down comic in the world Brother Theodore’s grim, pessimistic look at life somehow invoked laughter in his audience. From his chair he used to rant and rave about the mysteries of life and death. A survivor of Dachau, Theodore faced horror from a young age. Reaching America he worked dead-end jobs in California and started putting on one-man performances. Catching the eye of Merv Griffin he became a regular on Griffin’s show. Theodore’s dour dress style gave Griffin the inspiration to start calling his guest “Brother” Theodore. The name stuck, but it wasn’t until he moved to New York that Brother Theodore found a fitting audience in Bohemian bars of the lower East Side. A staple of the underground theater scene, his midnight shows packed them in as he spat forth his sour views. Later in his life, Brother Theodore would find a newer, younger audience on the David Letterman show, but he got his biggest taste of the mainstream in the Tom Hank’s comedy The ‘Burbs. Eventually, finding peace at the turn of the century Brother Theodore passed on from this world with few people still knowing of his comic genius. Sadly, his most insane performance sits buried on a low-budget porno flick.

Dressed in full Nazi regalia Brother Theodore’s Captain Carl Clitoris steals the picture. Except for its ties in with Spielberg’s Jaws, Gums would be all but forgotten – to some extent it is forgotten. With less than known porno stars and set-up that is more comedic than erotic, Gums relies on Brother Theodore’s performance to make this film a comic pearl waiting to be discovered. Goosestomping his way into the Greathead town meeting the Captain tells the Sheriff and all the townfolk that he’ll go out to sea and capture their over-sexed mermaid. “Let me rip apart her entertainment center,” screams the Captain as an astonished audience sits slack-jawed. When asked his price, the Captain replies, “No American dollars. That’s for sure. Oil, that’s my currency.” No description can aptly explain the lunacy of every scene that Brother Theodore graces. His grumpy face lighting up as he barks at his fellow shark hunters, “Where they were during the war?” The Captain’s riding crop is constantly cracking away as he sneers at the world and the Great White Man-Eater he sets out to slay. It’s piss and vinegar in a porn film and it’s like nothing you’ll ever see, X-rated or not.

There is no getting around the hardcore elements of Gums. I’ve heard of an ‘R’ Rated version of the film that covers up the most graphic details with large comical words, much like the action sequences in the old Batman television program. It’s unclear whether or not some of the more absurd pornographic moments, such as the Sheriff getting is pistol dunked in coffee, a scene where Dr. Smegma shares his inflattable girlfriend with the Sheriff, or a loop of two canines going at it, are included on the ‘R’ rated version of the film. Surely designed to arouse laughter (not hormones) these scenes make Gums lean more towards comedy than porn. I happened to watch the full ‘X’ rated version. Belive me, it was not out of some perverse desire to see Gums in all its pornographic glory. Hardly anyone could find the sex in Gums that attractive, especially when you compare it to the products of today’s multi-million dollar porn industry. Jaws is probably sexier than Gums and scenes in Gums are more graphic and horrifying than most of Jaws. I was just lucky (or is it unlucky?) enough to get a gray market VHS tape of the ‘X’-rated version. This version probably isn’t for everyone, but remember my reasons for seeing this film were personal. I wanted to see if the rumors were true, that one of my college professor had been a one time porn producer and he got Brother Theodore to be in a porn film, but I also found out that Gums is quite the sunken treasure. For those who can take the raunchy bits and for those who like their humor harebrained this movie is well worth the dive.

I never asked Cohen how he ever convinced Brother Theodore to be in this low-budget porno and to play a former Nazi. Paul, didn’t like to talk about Gums. Porn is not the sort of thing a college instructor brags about or puts on their resume.