Blogorium Review: The Outlaw Josey Wales

 When you finish watching The Outlaw Josey Wales, it's common to think "damn, now that was a great movie," whether it's the first time you've seen it or the fiftieth. There's a good reason for that, and that reason is Clint Eastwood. Sure, that whole stand up routine at the RNC two years ago made some people think that "Old Clint is just senile or becoming his character from Gran Torino," and I'm not saying it wasn't a horrible idea on the part of the scheduling department - it was - but now people feel like they have a license to just forget that he made some of the best damned movies in the last fifty years, and a lot of them he did it in front of and behind the camera.

 Some people remember the cop movies, some prefer the westerns, and others like the oddball ones, like Kelly's Heroes, Any Which Way You Can, or, uh, Paint Your Wagon. I tend to prefer the westerns, if only because he's been in or made so many iconic ones that when you start listing them, it quickly balloons into a big list. Go ahead, I'll spot you Leone's "Man with No Name Trilogy" and Unforgiven. But there's also The High Plains Drifter, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, The Beguiled, Hang 'em High. Hell, some people even like Pale Rider. I don't really (it's a little too much like High Plains Drifter with a dash of Shane), but what many folks tend to agree on is that their favorite Clint Eastwood western is The Outlaw Josey Wales, and with good reason.

 (It actually starts out as a "Southern," as Quentin Tarantino called Django Unchained, picking up in Missouri and moving southwest into Texas, but we'll stick with Western.)

 Eastwood does something really interesting, possibly even precarious, with the film (and the character) Josey Wales: he makes you sympathize with a Confederate solider who refuses to admit the Civil War is over. Now, there are some good reasons that Josey Wales might not feel like his score has been settled, chief among them is why he joined up with the Southern army. Slavery doesn't come up in the film at all, as I recall, and Wales doesn't really seem to have any vested interest in which side wins the war from a philosophical standpoint*. He was just a normal man living in Missouri, working on his farm with his wife and young son, when a group of "Red Legs" came pillaging and raping through, and Wales loses his wife and child in one fell swoop, along with his house. I mean, what's the point of pillaging and raping if you don't also burn down a man's house for no reason?

 The leader of the Red Legs, Terrill (Bill McKinney) also gives Wales a nasty scar on the right side of his face by slicing him with his sword and leaving Josey for dead. After he buries his wife and child, Wales teaches himself how to shoot a pistol and silently swears revenge (Eastwood doesn't say much early in the film), and when a group of Bushwackers find the remains of his farm, he joins up with Anderson (John Russell) to chase the down the Red Legs, who happen to be raiding in the name of the Union. During the opening credits, there's a montage of their battles to give you a better idea of time passing (it's not really clear how long it takes for Josey to learn to shoot accurately before the posse arrives) and that Anderson didn't make it. Then the film proper picks up at the end of the Civil War where, at least for Josey Wales, justice has not been served.

 In fact, it's being openly mocked, in a sense, because the Union Camp they're just outside of is one being run by Senator James H. Lane (Frank Schofield) and his Red Legs are there. Not only that, but he's promoted Terrill to Captain, and is promising that any Confederate soldier who comes down and swears and oath of loyalty to the Union will be spared. Fletcher (John Vernon), a member of the crew that Wales rides with, is tired of fighting and talks the men into going down to end things. But Wales, he's a stubborn sort, and this isn't over for him. He and Fletcher part on good terms, with Fletcher warning him what's to come - that he'll be hunted all over the country - and Wales saying "I reckon so." Fletcher wishes him good luck and goes down to the camp.

 But you can't trust Lane or his Red Legs hooligans, and if it sounds too good too be true or just like it's a trap to gun down some more Confederate soldiers in cold blood, you'd better believe it is. Fletcher didn't know that he was being set up when negotiating with Senator Lane, or that Terrill was even with the camp, but when Wales rides in and wipes out the Union soldiers with one of their own Gatling guns, he becomes the Outlaw Josey Wales. He saves Jamie (Sam Bottoms), a kid who didn't want to surrender, and leaves thinking that Fletcher betrayed them all. For all his good intentions, Fletcher is consigned by Senator Lane into joining Terrill in hunting down Wales, and the great showdown is set in place.

 And that's the first thirty minutes! We haven't even met most of the really interesting characters and the stakes are already high. Jamie is, alas (SPOILER), not going to be with us for the long haul, as he took a bullet in the shoulder from Terrill, but he sticks around long enough for Josey to show a snake oil salesman (Woodrow Parfey) what a "Missouri River Ride" looks like. By the way, the salesman is only given the name Carpetbagger in the credits, and his other primary attribute is getting his suit dirty. It's the first time in the film that I really noticed that Josey Wales is always spitting tobacco, but not the last. After a run in with some would-be ransom collectors (Wales has a $5000 price on his head), Josey and Jamie head for "Indian" territory, but only one of them makes it. And the movie isn't called "The Outlaw Jamie Whose Name I Don't Know."

 (Wales tries to qualify using Jamie's dead body to distract a cavalry campsite by saying "they'll give you a better burial than I ever could," but I have to say it's still pretty cold to use your dead buddy like that.)

 It's highly possible that the reason you forget that The Outlaw Josey Wales is about a Confederate soldier is that Eastwood and screenwriters Philip Kaufman and Sonia Chernus shift the focus to the plight of Native Americans before, during, and after the Civil War, drawing parallels between Southern and Native attitudes towards the Government. Once Wales passes through into Native Territory, he encounters a series of instances of subjugation and trickery on the part of the United States, through members of the Cherokee, Navajo, and later, Comanche tribes. Wales meets Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), a member of the "civilized" Cherokees, who tried to dress "like Lincoln" and were repaid for it by being sent down the Trail of Tears. Chief Dan George is the first indication that the film isn't going to be grim and gritty all the way through, as he's consistently funny without being the butt of the joke. It's also where we start seeing the actual structure of the film, which is more episodic in nature than the opening would lead you to believe.

 That's not actually a bad thing, because Wales doesn't talk much, so it's nice to have other characters for him to react to. Without meaning to (or really wanting to, either), he ends up creating a new family of misfits that he picks up along his trip south through Texas and into Mexico. First it's Lone Watie, then Little Moonlight (Geraldine Kearns), who he saves from unscrupulous types at a trading post. Later he rescues Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman) and her granddaughter Laura Lee (Sondra Locke) from Comanchers, and they come along too, heading for a ranch Sarah's son owned outside of Santa Rio. Well, Santa Rio turns out to be a ghost town, so they pick up a few more stragglers on the way, and it's a big, happy family of characters living in a ranch with Josey Wales keeping an eye on them. They even have a mangy dog that Wales doesn't seem to like and is constantly spitting on, which is funnier in context than it sounds.

 The episodic nature of The Outlaw Josey Wales tends to make you forget that Terrill and Fletcher are still on his tail, and you don't see a whole lot of them, but you always remember that our hero is a wanted man. Nearly everywhere they end up, Wales a) meets somebody who joins up with their traveling band of misfits, b) runs into somebody who wants to bring him in and gets gunned down, or (more often) c) both. I don't think there's anywhere that Wales stops along the way where he doesn't kill somebody, if not several somebodies, usually because he's recognized at an inopportune time. The Carpetbagger shows up again while they're picking up supplies, and in his infinite wisdom, he decides to say "It's Josey Wales!" out loud in front of four Union soldiers. Wales has to drop his purchases, taunt the boys, and eventually kills three of them (Watie gets the other one, so Josey "paid him no mind"), but it takes a while because they're clearly not sure they want to get in a gunfight with the outlaw.

 Josey Wales has a kind of mythic quality to him throughout the film; he's almost a Snake Plissken of the Reconstruction. Everybody knows who he is or has heard of him, and while that usually doesn't help him in civilized society, it really comes in handy late in the film. Josey Wales is the kind of person who could ride into the middle of a Comanche camp and negotiate with their Chief, Ten Bears (Will Sampson of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest fame) and not immediately be killed. In fact, Ten Bears already knows who Josey Wales is, the "grey rider who would not make peace with the Bluecoats", and tells him "you may go in peace" before they've even started talking business. Wales had been preparing the ranch for a Comanche raid, but decided he'd go to them first, and he offers Ten Bears the "iron of life or death." By the end of the conversation, they're in agreement as blood brothers: like Mark Renton at the end of Trainspotting, these dudes choose life.

 He's also kind of mythical to the other people traveling with him, because as best as I can remember, he never tells anybody why he's so stubborn about not giving in. Only the audience knows what happened to his family - Grandma Sarah just thought he was a bloodthirsty savage from Missouri (she really doesn't like people who aren't from Kansas), and Lone Watie never asks (there's just a mutual understanding between them). Laura Lee is kind of crazy, and she doesn't wake up after he has nightmare flashbacks, so it never comes up. As far as I know, Fletcher might be the only person in the movie who has any idea why Josey Wales refuses to submit. For everybody else, he's an enigma.

 Wales is also a mythic figure in that he never has to reload his pistol. It's something I noticed early on, when he's teaching himself how to shoot, but you realize that it doesn't matter. Josey Wales is something out of legend, and Eastwood only makes a point of showing that he's out of ammunition once. It happens late in the film, as a symbolic gesture leading up to (SPOILER) killing Terrill - Wales goes through all of his pistols, firing the empty chambers one by one, until he's right up on Terrill, and then he kills him in either the most appropriate or ironic way possible, depending on which person you are in that fight. At that moment, he doesn't need guns that never need reloading, but don't doubt for a second that he could totally go back to gunning down bounty hunters if he wanted to.

 The final moments of the film are what really cement The Outlaw Josey Wales as a "great damn movie." Yes, we've seen Wales become a little more human at the ranch, and single-handedly talk Ten Bears out of killing everybody, but what we've really been waiting for is the moment when he and Fletcher meet face to face again. After regrouping, Wales promised Jamie they'd go "back for Fletcher," so we know that the Terrill treatment was just a taste of the vengeance to come, right?

  I've spoiled a lot of this movie, mostly because if you're reading this and you haven't seen The Outlaw Josey Wales, you'd better rectify that immediately, but I won't spoil the last part of the movie. I will say that their last encounter is every bit as appropriate as the one they have outside of the Union Camp. Two men who are tired of being what they are but aren't sure how to reconcile the past with the present, forced to cross paths one more time. It's such a great way to end the movie, so appropriate considering where both of them have been, that I'd rather let you see that for yourself. Also I might have left out another joke about the Carpetbagger's suite, and I'm opting not to tell you anything about Lone Watie and Little Moonlight. Some things you should find out for yourself.

 Maybe there needs to be a series on the Blogorium devoted to "great damn movies," but it needs a better name than that. When I think of a good one, there's one movie that deserves similar examination:

                                      The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

 * On the other hand, the author of the book the film is based on, "Forrest" Carter - actually Asa Earl Carter - was a noted segregationist, member of the KKK, and anti-Semite. Eastwood was not aware of this when he made the movie, but it explains quite a bit about the thematic content of the story.

Blogorium Review: Harry Brown

Coming into Harry Brown, I had misgivings that the film was somewhat like Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, a comparison that popped up repeatedly during the film's brief release. The truth is that Harry Brown is much more Death Wish than Gran Torino; where Eastwood's film is more about stubbornness in the face of change, writer Gary Young and director Daniel Barber's film is akin to Charles Bronson's "this place has gone to hell and somebody has to stand up!" series. A few of the deleted scenes hint at a film more like Gran Torino (particularly a conversation between Brown and a priest after Len's funeral), but Harry Brown is an efficient, well made thriller that manages to add nuance to a normally black and white narrative.

Michael Caine is Harry Brown, an elderly soon-to-be widower living in a lower class estate (i.e. housing project) besieged by hooligans. Well, hooligans sounds less threatening (thanks in part to Bill Hicks' "there's no crime in England" bit on Arizona Bay), but these young drug runners / rabble rousers / violent gang members - introduced in the film by a cell phone video of initiation by crack pipe, followed by a drive by shooting of a young mother - are a menace to everyone living in the estate, so much so that Brown would rather walk around the neighborhood than pass through the pedestrian tunnel they inhabit.

When Brown's wife Kathy passes, he's left with his friend Leonard Atwell (David Bradley) and bartender Sid Rourke (Liam Cunningham) to keep him occupied, but Len's fear of abuse by the local gang ends tragically, and Harry Brown is left with nothing left but his training in the Marines and an overwhelming urge for justice. Circling his quest for revenge are D.I. Alice Frampton (Emily Mortimer) and D.S. Terry Hickock (Charlie Creed-Miles), local police assigned to Leonard's murder.

Barber and Young find ways to deliver exposition in short, clear bursts, almost entirely with imagery: without saying a word, the film establishes that Harry and Kathy also had a daughter, that she died, and that her death coupled with Kathy's pushes Harry further into a hopeless state, one compounded by Len's ensuing death. Harry Brown is a film abut showing rather than telling, so when bits of exposition (like a story Harry tells to a dying arms dealer about war) appear, they feel organic rather than shoehorned into the plot. Harry's growing disdain for the police investigation compound his grief and bring out a man he "decided never to be again."

We meet the gang in an equally efficient series of police interviews, allowing us enough time to get some idea of who these kids are, what their place is in the gang, and hints at why they have such disdain for the authorities, all in less than ten minutes. I appreciated the fact that the kids in the estate have a good reason for not liking the ineffectual, arrogant local police: Frampton, a transfer to the homicide division, finds herself at odds with S.I. Childs (Iain Glen), a chief more concerned with good publicity and drug busts than working within his community.

When a raid late in the film turns violent, it's clear that police presence in their estate only incites the neighborhood kids to increase the hostility. At the same time, while their motive for hating authority is understandable, Barber and Young never let the central criminals - Noel (Ben Drew), Carl (Jamie Downey), and Marky (Jack O'Connell), and Dean (Lee Oakes) - off the hook for killing Leonard, even if it was in self-defense (as a cell phone video Marky shows Harry proves). Whether or not you agree with their behavior, they believe they have cause for it, creating an interesting struggle in perspective.

It's also important - and rare for this kind of film - to point out that Kathy isn't killed by the gang. Neither is their daughter, who probably died long before the criminals were born. Harry passively watches the kids break into a car and viciously beat its owner into the curb, and initially leaves out the critical detail about who the knife that killed Len belonged to, and his decision to turn violent is calculated, deliberate, and brutal following accidentally stabbing Dean after a drunken night at the pub.

One buys Harry Brown's transformation primarily because Caine straddles the line between old & frail and highly trained assassin with ease. Unlike Eastwood in Gran Torino, you don't initially believe that Harry Brown is a "guy you shouldn't fuck with"; he seems like an old man, just hanging on because he doesn't know how not to. At the same time, this is Michael Caine, and at all times one is aware that he can turn that switch and be the badass these punks can't deal with. And, of course, he does. If it helps, think of your reaction to Liam Neeson in Taken compared to watching the film unfold. Even Charles Bronson, who is supposed to be a "regular guy," still has a face chiseled out of stone in Death Wish. Credit to Michael Caine to believably shifting Harry Brown over the arc of the film.

The rest of the cast is comprised of familiar British faces from TV and cinema, including Mortimer (Elizabeth, Shutter Island, Redbelt), Creed-Miles (The Fifth Element, Nil by Mouth), Glen (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Doctor Who), Cunningham (Dog Soldiers, RKO 281), and particularly David Bradley, who most viewers will recognized as Filch, the eternally suspicious groundskeeper of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. It's actually such a shift in character type that I'd daresay that Potter fans will be impressed to see Bradley play a nuanced role.

Harry Brown stumbles a little bit at the end: in an attempt to make the crime more "institutional" outside of the estate, an otherwise minor character is elevated at the eleventh hour to "criminal mastermind" in a way that, while hinted at throughout the film, never quite gels with the revenge narrative. While it is a distraction, I hesitate to say it derails an otherwise fine film, made with care and precision to keep audiences invested throughout. Harry Brown is certainly a breath of fresh air in a genre that appeared to have lost its edge.

From the Vaults: Blogorium Review - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

editor's note: the review was initially coupled with a brief anecdote about Criss Cross and Steven Soderbergh's remake The Underneath. While that has been excised, the original text from the Thunderbolt and Lightfoot remains untouched.

On the other hand, I kind of enjoyed Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. It's not by any means a classic, but there's enough charm sprinkled throughout the far too long running time (it's almost two hours when it should have been 90 minutes tops). It falls somewhere between the Michael Cimino who made The Deer Hunter and the Michael Cimino that made Heaven's Gate. It's basically a buddy heist movie that gets a lot of mileage out of co-stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.

Eastwood is the grizzled ex-thief and a young Bridges is the carefree drifter who talks him into one last score. So you'd think you knew where this was going, but it turns out that Cimino isn't looking for a double cross twist. Instead, George Kennedy floats in and out of the first half as Eastwood's old partner, and even though he tries to kill Eastwood (twice), they somehow iron their differences out.

This is the problem for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot in the end; it can't really decide if it wants to be funny or serious, and it doesn't really work as both. After spending the first half of the movie trying to kill the main characters, Kennedy suddenly becomes a cantankerous pal who makes jokes and is along for the ride.

I suppose the ending is supposed to be bittersweet or say something about young people fighting old men's wars, but instead it's a little hollow. I get what Thundberbolt and Lightfoot was trying to do, but I don't believe it. It doesn't work. Of course, I did say it wasn't a classic by any means. It also takes a long time to figure out exactly where it's headed, so the middle is episodic and sort of pointless.

Where and when it does work comes largely from Bridges, who plays the kind of character you don't expect to see in a heist film. He keeps things interesting during the episodic parts of the film, and he plays well with Eastwood. It's a renter at best, but if you're a fan of either actor or want to see a really young Gary Busey then it's worth checking out.


2010 Thoughts: If you've read my review of Crazy Heart, then you know the Cap'n has softened a little bit on the "renter" quality of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Of the two, I'd certainly recommend the latter over the former, although nothing is particularly wrong with either one. It may be that the presence of Eastwood helps balance out Thunderbolt, but my strong fondness for Jeff Bridges certainly factors in recommending both in varying degrees.

Also, I'm slightly amazed at how many posters for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot intentionally play on the Eastwood association to Dirty Harry. Considering that the film is in no way like a Dirty Harry picture, it's a little surprising that they'd think people wouldn't walk out after realizing they'd been duped. Of course, the movie has an easygoing charm early on...

Help a Cap'n Out...

"Hey Cap'n, didn't you say that you would be writing about Inception yesterday? I can't find that entry."

I did say that, and there's no such entry to be found. The reason is twofold: 1) the Cap'n was busy most of Thursday with travel-related concerns (which should not interrupt the blogorium next week, hopefully), and 2) after a cursory glance at readings, theories, and dissections of Inception online, I decided that there was nothing to add that hasn't been covered ad nauseum to this point.

That's actually fine with me; when the Cap'n can enter the words "inception theories" and get nearly 6 million results, I think we can do without another take. I will say that I still think Mal is the weakest part of the film in part because it's an easy out when Nolan needs to create tension between Cobb and the rest of the team (if they exist) and that it falters the most when Ariadne enters Cobb's dream with the way too literal "elevator to deeper levels of the mind" memory sequence. I'd also like to add that people criticizing the film for not being "dreamlike" should refer themselves to the "con" aspect of the film, and the advice given to Ariadne that the mark shouldn't know they're dreaming.

And that's probably enough. It's been covered more eruditely and more scholarly elsewhere, so I'll leave it to those wiser and with more free time than the Cap'n.

---

In other news, I've been trying to come up with something interesting to fill the oft-neglected "Critical Essays" tag. I've been reading other blogs, many from people I know or had classes with, and I can't decide whether some of the negative reactions I've been having are due to disagreeing with some of the assertions made, a reliance on "academic friendly" terminology, or just that I feel like my writing has been slipping since leaving school.

To put it another way, at least twice a day people from all around the world seem to find the blogorium based on doing Google or Blogspot searches related to the Coen Brothers (and specifically the series of essays from the final or the sequence analysis of No Country for Old Men). I think it's great that people find that useful, and I certainly hope that the .edu addresses are citing those essays. The difficulty is that I don't feel myself writing anything like that anymore, or even feeling compelled to write them.

This troubles me, since I haven't been especially happy with the last few reviews (Dinner for Schmucks or The Informant!), but at the same time can't quite find topics that are very exciting to devote some serious time to. I also don't want to bore people with hoity toity analysis or drop five dollar words because that's how one is taken "seriously," and yet that's exactly the field I'm still looking into joining in graduate school.

In short, there's a tricky balance in trying to be insightful and entertaining. I don't want to bore you because it bores me too, but anybody can go to the newspaper and find something like that Dinner for Schmucks review. Rather than challenging myself with non-traditional fare, the Cap'n has taken time out to watch TV shows that readers have been on him about for years (or new stuff like FX's excellent Louie).

I could have seen Cyrus shortly after moving here, but instead saw Predators again*. Earlier tonight, I could have watched any number of the Criterion Blu-Rays in house (which include, but are not limited to The Red Shoes, Close Up, Everlasting Memories, Black Narcissus, The Leopard, Mystery Train, and Red Desert), but instead put on Dirty Harry. Not that there's anything wrong with Dirty Harry, but I'm not exactly going to be turning you folks on to something new when that and Fistful of Dollars get a juxtaposition down the line.

As the Cap'n, I feel like I can be doing better. Right now it seems like I'm coasting, and I'm open to suggestions how to adjust that.




* I didn't review it again because the only thing I really felt like adding is that on second viewing I was free to follow Royce (Adrien Brody)'s strategy more carefully from beginning to end, which does actually make him a little more impressive than Arnold's Dutch.

I Tawt I Twaw a Twaiwer Sunday! I did! I did!

The Last Unicorn


The Sound of Music


The Mouse that Roared


Lone Wolf and Cub - White Heaven in Hell


976-Evil 2


Kelly's Heroes


Lola Montes


Kiss of the Spider Woman

Hey, it's possible!

Greetings folks! The Cap'n is back after doing some more crazy homework related junk with another journey into the supernatural Blogorium.

I thought you might find this image taken at a local Best Buy amusing. What you're looking at is the Super Rare, Hard to Find, One of a Kind Double Priced Special Edition of Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. What's so special about it, you ask? Does it come with four extra discs with bonus content and a cd of Eastwood growling through the title song?

Perhaps the Blu-Ray disc was dipped in pure platinum, which renders it unplayable but sure looks cool, or maybe Eastwood personally pressed the disc. That has to be it, right?

Nope. The $29.99 price of Gran Torino was magically doubled by Gremlins living inside of the Best Buy pricing gun. That, or what's inside is actually the super secret Blu-Ray of THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE. I'll leave it up to you to decide what that movie is, but the correct answer is Blood Car. For $60 dollars you can have Blood Car on Blu-Ray, disguised as Gran Torino! Fool your friends and confound your enemies!



I'm such a mean prankster...

True to my word...

I was not kidding. Here are (at least) 100 movies I expected to see remastered in High Definition before Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions*.

note: this is not a "better than" or "movies that should be", it merely reflects movies I expected to see announced for Blu Ray or showing in High Definition somewhere before they got around to Lord of Illusions.


Touch of Evil
Fantasia
Citizen Kane
The African Queen
Dracula
Vertigo
Seven Samurai
Frankenstein
Psycho
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Ten Commandments
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Metropolis
La Strada
Rashomon
The Virgin Spring
The Empire Strikes Back
High Noon
Taxi Driver
Point Blank
O Brother Where Art Thou
Sullivan's Travels
The Gold Rush
Duck Soup
The City of Lost Children
The Virgin Spring
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Lolita
The Thing from Another World
Apocalypse Now
On the Waterfront
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Sunset Boulevard
Alice in Wonderland
Eraserhead
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Lawrence of Arabia
E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial
Soylent Green
Back to the Future
Ed Wood
Bringing Up Baby
Trainspotting
Jaws
Dead Man
A Hard Days Night
The Trial
Network
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Pulp Fiction
Blue Velvet
Insomnia
Toy Story
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Star Wars
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Some Like It Hot
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Tron
Rear Window
The Apartment
Spartacus
Modern Times
The Incredibles
A Fistful of Dollars
The Sound of Music
Escape from New York
The Maltese Falcon
Annie Hall
Ben-Hur
La Dolce Vita
Yojimbo
THX 1138
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Mary Poppins
Paths of Glory
M
Days of Heaven
Jules and Jim
The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
Amelie
The Man Who Wasn't There
City Lights
8 1/2
Ran
Double Indemnity
Nosferatu
Schindler's List
Leon: The Professional
To Kill a Mockingbird
All About Eve
Singin' in the Rain
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Scarface
The Hustler
In Bruges
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Philadelphia Story
The Conversation

and for good measure, three I wasn't really expecting but would have surprised me less than Lord of Illusions:

The Toxic Avenger
Freaks
Plan 9 from Outer Space


* Nothing personal, Lord of Illusions.

Recycling or Remaking?

Sigh. That's really all I can say to this whole "Rob Zombie remaking The Blob, but without a blob" chatter. It's not a sigh that another movie is being remade, or even about the removal of said blob from said film. I won't even bemoan the fact that Zombie is remaking something else instead of making Tyrannosaurus Rex or something new-ish.

What I will say is that if someone wants to "remake" a movie and then take away the most identifiable component of it, do yourself a favor and don't call it a remake. At this point in time, where cinema is shamelessly cannibalizing itself, it would be nice to go back to the day of making a movie and pretending it was something other than just a retread.

Okay, perfect example: Evolution. I don't know how many of you remember Evolution, but it was an Ivan Reitman film starring David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Sean William Scott, Orlando Jones, and Dan Aykroyd. It's about aliens landing and invading a small desert town, and then becoming a giant monster that the heroes have to spray with shampoo to kill.

I bring Evolution up because the film is, for all intents and purposes, Ghostbusters. Same director, same ensemble cast structure, same beats and plot points. Substitute aliens for ghosts, and now it's a different movie. (Evolution, by the way, may end up being the better Ghostbusters 3 than the actual Ghostbusters 3 we'll get next year-ish.)

Perhaps it seems disingenuous to pretend you're making another movie that is essentially the same film, but I find that the practice is more like the ways that stories repeat themselves through history. They have roughly the same archetypes, similar storylines, and easily identifiable genre "types". The variation on a theme is fun, and a really clever filmmaker or writer can take those familiar tropes and make something new-ish out of old stories.

On the other hand, if you're going to admit that "yes, I'm lifting directly from this source. This one source that all of you know and can go to directly for reference", where's the fun in that? You're immediately inviting comparisons where there don't need to be any before people have seen it. Moon is clearly borrowing from the 2001 / Silent Running / Dark Star / Alien model, but it's not a remake of any of them, nor does it profess to be. Moon is its own film, one that draws comparisons, but not in such a direct manner.

The Blob, with or without a blob, does.

I don't mean to just pick on Rob Zombie. Truthfully, there's the potential for a really sick, really twisted movie there, but you don't need to call it The Blob. Shit, The Stuff is in many ways The Blob, but it's not trying to BE The Blob, as the other Blob remake did and mostly failed at. It's okay to pretend your slasher movie isn't a Friday the 13th film and still have some dude killing people in the woods. One of the reasons I think it's so silly to remake Outland is because Outland is High Noon in space. Just make your own High Noon in space; you don't even need to call it Outland.

My final point, and then I'll put it to rest:

Yojimbo. A Fist Full of Dollars. Last Man Standing. All three the same movie and yet all unique in their own ways. Three expressions of one story, all of which are recognizable as related but don't have to be linked as "remakes", or to share a name.

Alas, another rant about Remakes.

At this point, I wish I could be surprised or even angered to hear someone finds James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein lacking enough that they can do it better, but we're so far down the rabbit hole of "remake this" and "remake that" I find nothing shocking.

Okay, if Takeshi Miike decided to remake Harvey, that would be a surprise*.

I understand the conventional (albeit trite) argument that "nothing new is left to be discovered, so why are you so upset with Hollywood cannibalizing itself?"; it has its place, even if I find it to be a pretty relativistic argument. Nothing's original anyway, so who gives a shit about anything? Oh boy, that makes enjoying the arts fun. The best part is that this hyper-relativistic argument actually curves all the way around itself so that you can either be a snob who only likes the "classics" in order to escape the "nothing's new" position.

And I'm not saying there isn't something to appreciating the nuance of repetition in art because - yes - it's true that we're building off of existing riffs. The difference is - especially right now - is how transparently lazy Hollywood is about ripping itself off. It used to be that a BIG NAME REMAKE wasn't the norm or half of the movies released in one year. Sure, the other movies that were essentially ripoffs or variations of a theme jockeyed for position, but they did so under the auspices that they were trying to be their own film. These remakes aren't even bothering.

For example: High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider are, for all intents and purposes, the same movie. However, they at least pretend to be different. Even if the basic plot is the same (and, if you want to get picky, the same as many westerns) - stranger protects the locals against evil force - Pale Rider is not trying to BE High Plains Drifter. It's not trying to capitalize on the name or the fact that people liked Drifter; Pale Rider is trying to exist on its own terms, not to usurp the popularity of its antecedent.

Friday the 13th is. The Last House on the Left is. Hell, a movie I liked: The Hills Have Eyes is trying to push the original out of the picture and at the same time capitalizing on the fact that you know the title. Star Trek was so clearly trying to do this that is marketed itself as better than "your father's Star Trek" but at the same time it drew in as it pushed away. I've intentionally been trying not to pay attention to The Wolf Man, and the silence surrounding it doesn't fill me with glee.

Yes, we always have the "old" one. I get that argument too, although I fail to see the usefulness of it. The point isn't merely that two copies of a film with the same title exist on the shelf, but also that the way these films are discussed now change. Now the original film has to fight for its place against a younger, hipper version that only seems to be there because people are too damned lazy to watching something "old." Discourse about cinema is rapidly becoming the discussion of replacements and "improving" outdated films. Homages aren't enough anymore; now if a Blade Runner wants to have any kind of impact, it needs to cut the bullshit and call itself Metropolis so the film can go head-to-head with the "inferior" original.

We've actually reached the point where Peter Jackson's three hour "homage" to King Kong seems quaint because it failed to really take on the original. That's how hard the studios are fighting against themselves to prove that all you need is the youngest stars, the flashiest directors, and the craziest editing to make a "dated" film better. It's funny because in this new wave of "slasher" films, instead of just ripping off the basic structure of the films - like every studio or dude with a camera did from 1978-1986 - they'll just take the whole movie and do it again. Like Funny Games.

So yeah, the remake thing has gone beyond aggravating. At this point I'm more interested in the arguments about remaking than the remakes themselves. Eventually we'll get around to more "original" films that aren't trying to be something you know but better. I can go back to pretending, for example, that Joyride isn't basically Duel and try to enjoy something without being reminded that "you know this movie but this time it's better!" My Yojimbos and my Fistful of Dollars can peacefully coexist as intertextual discursive partners and still be better than Last Man Standing. They all get their relative merits, at least until someone explicitly remakes one.





* And, if by some unholy miracle it does happen, I call creative consultant's credit.

Blogorium Review: Gran Torino

editor's note warning: this post repeats a number of potentially offensive terms that may be offensive to readers. you have been warned.

After debating the relative merits of each last night, your Cap'n chose to go with "grouchy racist old man angry at the world" and watch Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. I don't regret it one bit.

Let's get the limited negatives out of the way: 1. the acting, Eastwood aside, can be a little lacking. It's not such a big deal that it's going to drive you crazy, but the young priest is particularly awkward. Thankfully, he only pops up sporadically during the film. 2. The story has some contrivances to it, as most "grouchy old dude learns to appreciate yadda yadda" movies do. However, Gran Torino makes up for all of them in a way I'll get to shortly. 3. While it didn't really work on me, I think that Eastwood and the screenwriters are trying to trick you into sympathizing with the way a unrepentantly racist dude sees the world for the first half of the movie. I could see how some people might want to cheer for Clint saying badass, if totally inappropriate, things including a joke I'll just go ahead and repeat here:

"A Spic, a Jew, and a Black guy walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says 'Get the fuck out of here.'"

I'll admit I laughed, but incredulously. As with most of the things that come out of Walt Kowalski's mouth, I was more surprised at how far they were willing to take this "racist" side than you'd expect. You don't hear much of "punk" in this movie. Instead, Clint growls the following (and many other) insults / epithets:

Wop, Spade, Spook, Dipshit, Mick, Swamp Rat, Chink, Peckerhead, Gook, Shithead, Barbarian, Fish-Eye, and Faggot*.

The frequency that Walt hurls them, both muttered and flagrantly, is a little surprising. I think the movie that comes closest to Gran Torino in its unapologetic use of "offensive" language is Bad Santa, and I like both of them for the same reason. Their protagonists never give up on being assholes.

Both stories about guys who've had it with life. Everything turned to shit and Walt and Willie are angry at the world and take it out in every direction. Walt's wife just died, and his useless children and even more worthless grandchildren go through the motions, right down to suggesting he go to a retirement home. Walt's neighborhood has slowly gone to hell and he's the only non-Asian person still living there, so he's pissed off about that too. Then one of the neighborhood kids tries to steal his 1972 Gran Torino as a gang initiation, so you know he's going to be mad about that. Of course, this being a movie about old guys being grouchy and learning to appreciate life, there has to be some calming down. I mean, even Willie met stupid Thurman and the lady with a Santa fetish, right?

Ultimately, the way that Gran Torino (like Bad Santa) overcomes its story limitations is that while Walt Kowalski softens up a bit towards his Hmong neighbors, he's still an asshole and doesn't know / care that he's doing it all the way to the end. There's a scene where Walt, on his birthday, throws out his kids because they want him to move to a retirement home. One of his neighbors comes over and invites him to a barbecue and he decides "what the hell" and goes over, and promptly makes an ass of himself.

Most movies would be happy to end the scene right there and move to the next sequence of Walt learning his lessons, but Gran Torino keeps him over there. After insulting the Hmong people three different ways, Walt gets to stick around, try some food, and make "nice" with the Fish-Eyes. And it sorta, kinda happens. They're certainly polite to him and he seems pretty pleased to have company. He even fixes their dryer just because he notices it's wobbly. Then, because he's learning his lesson and all, he berates Thao (the would-be car thief) for not picking up on a girl's signals and telling him he "has no balls."

I guess that's what I like about this movie; it's not trying to turn Walt all the way around in a way that never really happens. He calms down a little bit, but most of his simmering rage is still intact and, in some cases, totally justified. It works because Clint Eastwood takes his grizzled bad-ass and let's him change in organic ways. Nothing feels forced about Kowalski, even if some of the other characters (the priest in particular) seem to be plot devices more than characters. You want Walt to cool down a little bit, even if you can understand why he's so angry. I mean, his kids are pretty good-for-nothing, and that gang is full of idiots.

Before I go, I want to mention one other tiny subplot that made me laugh every time: Walt's neighbors include three generations of Hmong, but the one that stands out is the grandmother, who is every bit as old and grouchy as he is. In what's probably my favorite scene, both are sitting on the porch, muttering about how much they hate the other one (in their respective languages), and then Clint spits out some tobacco. The old lady stares at him, then spits out an even bigger wad of tobacco, and Clint just looks at her and says "huh."

Gran Torino may have some built in flaws and shaky supporting actors, but it overcomes both problems (and the potential of being pro-racist) because of how good Clint Eastwood is at playing the tough guy. He's been doing this for years, and something about the grizzled features and that growl of a voice say "do not fuck with me." When he says "Get off my lawn", and the dude tells him to go back inside, you're not worried about the old guy. That punk kid needs to get the hell off of Clint's lawn, and he does. I'll be bummed if Gran Torino is, in fact, Eastwood's last role as an actor (as it has been suggested), but he went out on a high note.



* Yes, I too notice a word conspicuously absent from that list. Instead, Eastwood says spook or spade, but never the "N" bomb.

Seriously, Stay off the Man's Lawn!

I really cannot decide if I want to watch Wise Blood or Gran Torino tonight. On the one hand, we have John Huston directing Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty in a story based on Flannery O'Connor. On the other, we have Clint Eastwood doing what he does best: playing a grouchy loner that hates everyone, except this time he overtly racist to boot.

Honestly, that sounds like I'm stacking the deck in Wise Blood's favore, if only because on paper Gran Torino doesn't sound as interesting. On the other hand, if I'm going to watch a Clint Eastwood movie, I want Clint to be in it and not just directing it (*coughChangelingcough*), and regardless of all the Daniel Craigs and Vin Diesels and the Jason Stathams, nobody does BAD ASS like Clint does. Clint Eastwood is a dude you do not fuck with, and if he says "you damn kids get off my yard" and you expect to live another day, you do it.

So yeah, Gran Torino doesn't read as interesting, but the movie has that intangible quality that is the Eastwood swagger. You could even just put that dude in Space and I'd watch*. It doesn't hurt that Torino is certainly more well regarded than Changeling, which was all right but definitely the "Flags of Our Fathers" of the 2008 two-fer. I watched Changeling mostly because it was something Clint-related while I waited for Gran Torino, although I also watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Blu-Ray too, but that's just logical.

Now, on the flipside, I didn't know a) Wise Blood even existed or b) the degree of talent involved in the movie even after Criterion announced it. Normally, John Huston alone is enough to grab my attention, but for some reason I never looked carefully at the cast or watched the trailer. Bad call on the Cap'n's part. Once I saw who was in it and, more importantly, that this was a comedy about evangelism, I was sold. To be honest, it's been on "Very Long Wait" for so long on Netflix that I honestly never thought it would get here, but it did.

Or I could watch Valkyrie, which is more of a courtesy to Bryan Singer, who did after all make The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil and X2. He also made X-Men and Superman Returns which, it turns out, don't have a lot of staying power. Even though pretty much nobody saw Valkyrie because of Tom Cruise, and - more alarmingly - some people didn't know how it ended**, I feel like I should at least give it a try. The general consensus is "meh", but that's what I get for moving new releases to the top of my queue and not paying close attention to them.


* even if it wouldn't end on time. And yes, I watched Space Cowboys.
** seriously. there are people so stupid that not only did they not know that Harvey Milk died, they also weren't sure if Hitler was assassinated by his own men. le sigh.