To Sleep with Anger: Charles Burnett

In the backyard of his comfortable home nestled in the bosom of South Central Los Angeles, Gideon throws a handful of feed into the chicken coop. Though nowadays he can most certainly afford to buy his chickens from the market, his Deep South beginnings betray him. The sun is bright and the brown ground scuffs his bare feet. In the living room, his wife Suzie leads a group of pregnant women in breathing exercises. The only sounds to be heard are her gentle voice, the exhalation of air, and the scurrying of her grandson Sunny upstairs. Next door a young boy noisily blows on a trumpet in the attic. The squawks and honks elicit the laughter and jeers of neighborhood children. For Gideon and his family, such is just another afternoon in the black middle class.

But all is not well. Sunny’s father, “Babe Brother,” the youngest of Suzie’s two sons, is unreliable and neglectful: he spoils his child, forgets about his mother’s birthday, and weasels his way out of helping Gideon fix his roof. And so, Gideon is angry with his son’s laziness and dishonesty. Junior, Suzie’s eldest, resents the “special treatment” he is convinced his parents gave Babe. And Babe is frustrated by his family’s suffocating demands. Though far from dysfunctional, the threads keeping this extended family together have begun to fray. Anger and resentment have started to creep into the recesses of their everyday lives. And elsewhere strange omens abound: Gideon’s dreams are filled with images of burning fruit and flaming feet, objects in the kitchen knock themselves over onto the floor, and their toby, a kind of protective charm passed down through the generations, goes missing.

And then comes a knock at the door.

In his pocket, a ratty address book. In his hand, a hat. On his lips, a smile brimming with honeyed affection. His name in Harry, and it’s been thirty years since last they’ve met. And though Gideon and Suzie are eager to welcome their old friend into their home, they have no way of knowing the evil that has crossed their doorway. And so the trap is sprung in Charles Burnett’s piercing meditation on African-American folklore simply titled To Sleep with Anger.

The title comes from an old saying: “Never go to bed angry.” Perhaps originating from Ephesians 4:26, the saying explains that couples should never go to sleep if they have unresolved issues or differences. To do so would only allow that anger and frustration to fester and take deeper root. Indeed, as the title would suggest, To Sleep with Anger watches as Gideon and Suzie’s family is corrupted from within by their enigmatic guest.

At first Harry is warmly amiable and friendly, though perhaps a bit rustic and superstitious. When somebody accidentally touches his feet with a broom, his goes pale and immediately throws salt over his shoulders. During a card game with Babe Brother he pulls out a knife to pick his thumbnail. He delights in showing Sunny the rabbit’s foot tied to it, explaining that it is meant to replace his toby which he “lost years ago.” He even helps Junior with his work around the house.

But ever so slowly, a more sinister side of Harry begins to seep out. He harasses and humiliates an old “blues singer” girlfriend who has converted to Christianity. His suggestion of holding a fish fry leads to the introduction of an assortment of drinkers, gamblers, and degenerates who seem to materialize onto their front porch. Eventually his poisonous words convince Babe Brother to abandon his family. Finally, the tensions borne of Harry’s presence leads to arguments, fighting...and murder.

Much of To Sleep with Anger originates from the personal experiences of director Charles Burnett. Though born in Mississippi, he was raised in Los Angeles where he managed to attend UCLA’s graduate film program. Burnett, alongside other UCLA students from the 60s to the 80s, such as Julie Dash and Haile Gerima, would help start the L.A. Rebellion, a movement of African-American filmmakers who would create a distinctly Black Cinema. Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), his Master of Fine Arts thesis, was a penetrating glance into the African-American culture present in Los Angeles’ Watts district. To this day it is viewed as one of the masterpieces of Black American cinema.

But if Killer of Sheep took a Neorealist view of urban culture, To Sleep with Anger is positioned firmly within the Gothic. The film isn’t an observation, but an indictment of a community trapped between the contemporary and the traditional. Indeed, Harry has been described by Burnett as a character archetype from rural African-American lore: “He’s a [trickster] that comes to steal your soul, and you have to out-trick him. You can bargain with him. But you have to be more clever than he is.” If Gideon and Suzie’s family personifies those black families who sought to transition into the American middle class, then Harry is their Southern roots come knocking with temptations of superstitions, blues, and corn liquor. Harry is the embodiment of the ambivalence felt by many African-Americans (including Burnett himself) towards a past that provided a rich cultural milieu at the expense of slavery, servitude, and oppression.

These struggles are repeatedly pronounced via juxtapositions within Gideon and Suzie’s household. Watch how Burnett’s direction alternates between the realistic and the fantastical. Listen to the soundtrack’s struggle between pious church music and seductive blues guitar. Observe how simple superstitions like folk remedies and the observance of omens betray outward attempts at modernization. To Sleep with Anger is a thick, multi-textured film that begs for multiple viewings. To see it only once is to merely glean over the surface of one of the richest experiences in American Black cinema.

9/10

The Phantom Carriage: Victor Sjöström

(Re-printed from Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear)

Woe to those whose lives are mired in sin! For we all must face a terrible reckoning at the twilight of our lives. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, we face one final journey, one final voyage to that eternal palace, or to that infernal pit. But to those who fear the road before them, fear not! For the road will not be a lonely one. Accompanying us on that grim passage is a guide garbed in black who has made the trip countless times. Do not mistake him for his dour master known simply as Death, for he is just a servant. Cloaked in black and carrying a sinister scythe, this chauffeur drives a decrepit carriage pulled by a tireless horse. For him, an hour on earth becomes a hundred years. What crime, what terrible deed must he have committed to be tasked with this terrible employ? Simply being a victim of the tyranny of the clock. For every New Year’s Eve, the last unfortunate soul to die before the stroke of midnight must become Death’s valet for the New Year, and the driver of the Phantom Carriage.

First told in 1912 by Nobel-prize winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, the story of the Phantom Carriage has been told several times in the history of cinema. But no adaptation has been as stunning, and as vital, as the 1921 version directed by and starring Victor Sjöström. A truly revolutionary film, The Phantom Carriage takes its place alongside the other great silent horror films, such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1921), and Faust (1926). Like its compatriots, The Phantom Carriage is a moody, sinisterly atmospheric film. But unlike the other films mentioned which liberally created new universes out of expressionist sets and painted shadows, The Phantom Carriage takes place in a grimly realistic world filled with broken, yet believable characters. When Sjöström thrusts the audiences into the realms of the unreal, the audience shivers, for they see a haunted reflection of the world around them.

The story centers on a drunkard named David Holm (Victor Sjöström), a once respectable family man who fell into a bottle and never crawled out. Once a proud husband and father, he has been reduced to a derelict content to drown his sorrows with his fellow miscreants. On a cold New Year’s Eve, he sits in a graveyard and tells his friends the tale of the Phantom Carriage. But once the story ends, a fight breaks out and David is struck down dead in the street. To his horror, his astral form sits up from his body and watches as an ancient carriage pulls up beside him. Its driver looms over him and pulls off his hood, revealing himself to be his old friend Georges who had died the previous New Year’s Eve.

David regards his old friend with shock and dismay for his poor fortune. But Georges has no time for pleasantries. Georges is on a mission to take David on a tour through his life and show him how he has fallen from grace. Much like Jacob Marley, he will carry his Scrooge through the halls of the past to face ancient sins and transgressions. David is forced to watch how he abandoned his dear wife Anna for drink. In one terrible scene, we watch as Anna locks him in a small room to keep him from infecting their children with tuberculosis. In a terrible rage, he chops the door down with an axe and pounces on his family.

He must watch as he is jailed for drunkenness. Even worse, he is forced to relive his friendship with a young Salvation Army girl named Edit who introduced him to Anna and later took care of him after falling out with Anna. In his delirious state, he infected her with tuberculosis and abused her. Now dying, Georges takes David to her bedside. The poor girl had always blamed herself for David’s misfortune. After all, she was the one who introduced him to Anna. But in a moment of mercy, David kisses her hands and tells her that he is okay. Relieved, Anna peacefully drifts off to her final sleep.

But David’s trip is not over. Georges takes him to his old house where they encounter Anna getting ready to kill herself and their children. David begs Georges to stop her, but he responds that he has no power over the living. In a moment of desperation, David cries out to Georges and God to have mercy on his poor soul and let him interfere. He is miraculously restored to life and humbles himself to Anna, begs for her forgiveness, and swears to be a better man. In this scene, Sjöström reveals his film to be a grim, supernatural morality tale for all poor sinners.

In watching The Phantom Carriage, it is impossible to both be unaffected by the story and unimpressed by the sheer scope of Sjöström’s craftsmanship. Filmed in only three months with a script that took only eight days to write, The Phantom Carriage was a watershed film for both narrative structuralism and the use of special effects. The film is filled with flashbacks, a technique that was revolutionary for its time. In fact, there are even scenes where there are flashbacks within flashbacks, creating three levels of narrative for the audience to follow.

But what the film is most remembered for is its eerie special effects. As mentioned before, The Phantom Carriage did not use German Expressionistic sets. Instead, when they needed to hearken the audience towards the supernatural, they would frequently use superimposition to place make figures and objects appear ghostly. Take the scene early on where the driver of the carriage collects the soul of a man who committed suicide: a transparent figure walks to the still body, pulls the man’s soul out, and escorts him back to the carriage with his body still on the floor. Or how about another ghastly scene where the carriage rides over an ocean and the driver descends to the bottom of the ocean to harvest a drowned sailor? Watching the carriage draw itself slowly over the tossed surf is as haunting an image as ever created by the German Expressionists.

Much of the credit for these effects must go to the cinematographer Julius Jaenzon and his lab assistant Eugén Hellman. The post-production of the film was a lengthy and difficult task. They would have to constantly juggle with superimpositions and double exposures. Such techniques were notorious for being challenging to pull off, since they used hand-waved cameras that needed to be operated at exactly the same speeds each time that they superimposed an image. But the end result is a convincing and unsettling effect.

The Phantom Carriage is easily one of the most important silent horror films ever made. Its influence has been felt for generations. Ingmar Bergman, one of the film’s biggest fans, claimed to watch it every year on New Year’s Eve. Its influence becomes apparent when you examine the character of Death in his seminal The Seventh Seal (1957). It has even been said that Stanley Kubrick modeled the famous scene in The Shining (1980) where Jack Nicholson chops through a wooden door with an axe after the similar scene in The Phantom Carriage. But despite its importance and influence, it has remained poorly distributed and generally unseen by most moviegoers. I will not attempt to explain why, but instead bemoan the depreciation of this classic film. It remains a silent miracle, a dark triumph, and chilling warning to all those who hear the call of the ghostly rider and the Phantom Carriage.

10/10

Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón

If James Wan's The Conjuring (2013) was the last time I was legitimately scared in a movie theater, then Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity was the last time I legitimately felt that I was going to have a panic attack in a movie theater. Gravity is an immaculate thriller about a rookie astronaut named Dr. Ryan Stone who finds herself stranded in space after random debris destroys her space shuttle. She must brave the horrific emptiness of deep space in order to reach a friendly space station so she can get back to earth. But Murphy's law keeps thwarting her at every turn. First she runs out of oxygen, then the only other surviving member of her crew sacrifices himself so she can make it to the International Space Station, then she discovers that the astronauts stationed on it had already used one of the escape modules. The only other module has its parachute prematurely deployed, making it almost useless. But there's still one last hope: a nearby Chinese space-station. But then, of course, comes more space debris...The film's pacing is feverishly relentless, throwing Dr. Stone and the audience into inescapable dilemma after inescapable dilemma. The film is only 90 minutes long but it feels more than two hours thanks in part to Cuarón's masterful use of extended, unbroken takes. The very first shot of the film must have lasted over ten minutes before its first edit. But Gravity isn't just a mere piece of entertainment. It is a fascinating mediation on human nature and spirituality. There's a scene where Dr. Ryan thinks she is going to die, so she tries to contact Mission Control via radio. However, she ends up talking to a Greenlandic Inuit fisherman. They can't understand each other...but they form a kind of bond that is both tragic and heart-breakingly beautiful. If Gravity had ended on this scene I would have been more than satisfied.

9/10

EDIT (March 16, 2014)

I had originally given the film a 9/10 because I felt that the soundtrack was too overbearing and ruined the atmosphere of certain scenes. But after watching the film again in my home, I have come to the conclusion that the film itself was not at fault. Instead, it would seem that the sound system belonging to the theater that I originally saw it in was to blame. Therefore, I have revised my score to a 10/10.

10/10

Gallipoli: Peter Weir

Peter Weir's Gallipoli isn't so much a film about war as it is about the poor young men who are casually sacrificed every day on the battlefield. The young men have different reasons for fighting. Some, like Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee), an eighteen year old sprinter from Western Australia, feel called by a sense of honor and duty. And maybe, just perhaps, the promise of adventure beckons them as well. Others, like Archy's best friend Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), choose the army because there is nowhere left for them to go. But when Archy and Frank are deployed to ANZAC Cove on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli, their reasons for joining become irrelevant. They know they are going to die. And worse is the knowledge that their deaths will be meaningless. The genius behind Gallipoli is how Weir only depicts the film's central battle, the Battle of the Nek, a horrific engagement wherein tactical mistakes and miscommunications led to the senseless slaughter of 370+ Australian soldiers who were ordered to blindly charge well-defended Turkish lines, in the last twenty or so minutes. The rest of the film is devoted to Archy and Frank's journey from the wastes of Australia to the front lines of World War One. By the time they arrive at the battlefield, the sense of tension, fear, and apprehension is stunningly palpable. Much has been written on how Gallipoli changed around details surrounding the Battle of the Nek to make it seem like the British commanders flagrantly sent hundreds of Australians to their deaths while their own soldiers were "drinking tea on the beach." But Gallipoli isn't so much an historical reconstruction as an historical and cultural polemic. The slaughter at Gallipoli is seen by many cultural commentators as being the birthing place of Australian nationalism. Perhaps none said it better than Gibson: “Gallipoli was the birth of a nation. It was the shattering of a dream for Australia. They had banded together to fight the Hun and died by the thousands in a dirty little trench war." So Gallipoli reconstructs Australia's cultural memories of the events of August 7, 1915. And in this manner, Gallipoli is more important than a mere piece of historical fiction.

9/10

An Actor's Revenge: Kon Ichikawa

Kon Ichikawa's An Actor's Revenge is a film of staggering invention, unbridled creativity, and boundless inspiration. It is no less than the synthesis of two great art forms: the cinema and Japanese kabuki theater. A remake of a 1935 film of the same title, An Actor's Revenge was made to celebrate Kazuo Hasegawa's 300th film role as an actor (he had previously starred in the original as well). In the film, Hasegawa plays two roles. The first is Yukinojō Nakamura, an onnagata (a man trained to play female roles) who swears to gain his revenge against the three men responsible for the death of his parents. His enemies are two merchants - Kawaguchiya and Hiromiya - and a retired magistrate named Sansai. Sansai's daughter, Namiji, is a favored concubine of the shogun. Yukinojō's revenge involves seducing Namiji, thereby ruining Sansai's position and favor in the eyes of the shogun, and a fiendishly clever plot to bankrupt Kawaguchiya and Hiromiya and drive them insane. Hasegawa's second role is as Yamitarō, a dashing, Robin Hood-esque thief who observes the rest of the story and comments on it almost like a detached Greek chorus. The characters of Yukinojō and Yamitarō are derived from different kabuki traditions, allowing Hasegawa to demonstrate the full measure of his acting talents. In fact, the entire film is a meditation on kabuki theatrics, aesthetics, and traditions. Ichikawa combines these with Western cinematic techniques with a rapturous joy: real sets are interspersed with deliberately artificial ones, multitudes of shots are framed to mimic theatrical blocking, and the acting alternates between pure excess and restraint. And yet, for all of its theatrical inspirations, An Actor's Revenge is a work of pure cinema. Bask in its brilliance and be captivated by its genius!

9/10

I expanded on this review over here:

theretroset.com/an-actors-revenge/

Strange Days: Kathryn Bigelow

It's never a good sign when you find yourself wondering "just how much longer is this damn movie anyhow?" And it's an even worse sign when the answer is "at least another hour." Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days is a punishingly long film that squanders some fantastic ideas concerning the nature of reality and the human experience. Here's the idea: there are machines known as SQUID's, or "Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices," that can literally record a person's experiences, their emotions, their physical sensations, etc, etc. These recordings can then be played back like virtual reality DVD's, allowing an average joe on the street to experience things like being a different gender, running a marathon...or raping and killing somebody. Here's the plot: a former LAPD officer named Lenny Nero who markets illegal SQUID recordings comes into possession of a "blackjack," or a snuff recording. Even worse, the woman being attacked was a friend of his. So Nero gets pulled into a world of deadly intrigue that includes powerful music producers, corrupt cops, and the murder of an infamous black rapper named Jeriko One. And, yes, the film's production values are staggering. The SQUID scenes are done via POV tracking shots that must have required herculean efforts to block, rehearse, and properly execute. The streets of Los Angeles are effectively transformed into anarchic nightmares where armored policemen and tanks patrol even the safest neighborhoods. And the final scenes that involve a city-wide rave-turned-riot are magnificent to behold. But the film has two major problems. First, the screenplay is a mess. Blunt force exposition is spewed at the drop of a hat. My "favorite" example is near the end when Nero almost literally asks the antagonist to explain his master plan while being held at gunpoint. And the antagonist agrees! After all, and I quote, he "won't tell anybody." What is this, a Silver Age comic book? But the worst piece of writing in the entire film takes place in an early love scene where Lenny's girlfriend Faith loving stares at him in post-coital bliss. She says, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, "I love your eyes. I love how they see things." George Lucas would have demanded a re-write of that scene. The second problem in the film is that the characters are either stupid, annoying, or so badly characterized that they break the flow of the film. Take Faith, for example. Played by Juliette Lewis, Faith has two modes of expressing herself: shrill, over-dramatic shrieking and lifeless deadpan. She also alternatively helps and betrays Nero throughout the film. However, her heel turns are so abrupt and illogical that they make it seem like her scenes were edited into the final cut in the wrong order. Strange Days is an intriguing failure of a film that doesn't deserve its fantastic concepts.

5/10

Hey Good Lookin’: Ralph Bakshi

I've given Ralph Bakshi the benefit of the doubt every time I've watched one of his movies, but I have to say that there is no excuse for Hey Good Lookin'. I know that the original cut of the film is locked away in a Warner Bros. vault somewhere. I know that the film underwent major revisions due to studio demands. But Hey Good Lookin' is an animated travesty. It's an ugly, uncomfortable, and generally unpleasant experience. But whereas such qualities aided films like Coonskin (1975) because the entire works were racial and social commentaries, in Hey Good Lookin' they add nothing and leave the audience feeling queasy and empty. The story is a meandering mess about two 1950s greasers, Vinnie Genzianna and Crazy Shapiro. One of them is a Fonzie-esque playboy and the other is clinically, violently insane. Try and guess which is which. Through a series of muddled, confusing, and cluttered events, they find themselves drawn into a "rumble" with a black gang known as the Chaplains. One of the film's biggest failures involves its animation. Everything, with the exception of a few shots of rotoscoped dancing, is animated in the overtly cartoon-ish manner of Wizards (1977). But whereas that film at least had a few moments of relative restraint, I can't remember a single moment of Hey Good Lookin' where the characters weren't constantly flailing about like Tex Avery fever dreams while screaming incoherently. The racial and economic commentary that was so essential to Bakshi's other films is either phoned in or unceremoniously dropped. Sorry, Mr. Bakshi. But you can't win every time.

3/10

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown plays almost like one of the great screwball comedies of yesteryear. The plot features several characters who, for different reasons, are at wit's end. And even worse, they all have the misfortune of colliding into each other at the same time. Pepa Marcos is a TV actress who for some reason is desperate to contact her smooth-talking colleague Iván. Her friend Candela arrives at her apartment and announces that the man she had been sleeping with revealed himself to be a Shiite terrorist planning on hijacking a flight to Stockholm later that day. And wouldn't you know it, while they are talking, Iván's son, Carlos, arrives with his fiancée, Marisa. Why?  Because they are considering buying their apartment, of course! Just when things couldn't possibly get any worse, two policemen seeking information about the Shiite terrorists and Carlos' mother, the mentally unstable Lucía, knock on their door. Much of the delight in watching Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown comes from Almodóvar's skill in juggling so many sub-plots and characters as they race towards their inevitably mad-capped and violent conclusion. But despite the film's technical skill, there are a few lingering problems that I have with it. For example, the female characters in this film are defined by their relationships with men: Pepa with Iván, Marisa with her fiancée Carlos, Candela with her Shiite lover, and Lucía also with Iván. And don't even get me started about how offensively Lucía's mental illness is portrayed. And there's also a rather major plot hole near the end: the characters forget about the Shiite terrorists! Are we meant to believe that they weren't stopped and that they managed to hijack the airplane? That's a pretty giant plot oversight. If it was accidental, then it indicates poor screenwriting. If it was intentional, then the characters (and Almodóvar) are clearly sociopathic. But in many circles it is impossible to argue these flaws because Almodóvar is one of those directors whose fans are willing to dismiss such mistakes as irrelevant to the kind of stories that he wants to tell. And, yes, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is visually stunning, complexly plotted without becoming convoluted and confusing, and mesmerizing to behold. But these things are hurt by an insidious undercurrent of misogyny.

8/10

Quadrophenia: Franc Roddam

One of the big problems that I have with a lot of "teen rebellion" films is that most of their protagonists try to come off as tortured and misunderstood when really they're just assholes. The only protagonists from such films that I emphasize with are characters like Jim Stark who clearly have something loose in their heads. Jimmy Cooper from Franc Roddam's Quadrophenia, a film based on the rock opera of the same name by legendary rock band The Who, is another such lost soul. And since there is a plausible explanation for his behavior that doesn't involve being spoiled or being a douche, I found myself actually caring for his predicament. The film follows Jimmy's disillusionment with his careless parents, his boring job, and the truth behind his fellow Mods. The film is an earnest portrait of a scared, confused, and ultimately ill young man being pulled in a million different directions at once. And, of course, the soundtrack by The Who doesn't hurt things, either.

7/10

La Cérémonie: Claude Chabrol

Sophie Bonhomme and Jeanne are two women with very, very important secrets. Sophie, a maid for the well-to-do Lelièvre family, may have killed her father. And Jeanne? Her young daughter. When the two inevitably meet, they form a friendship that plummets towards tragedy...and the deaths of five people. Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie is based on two sources: the real-life murder case of Christine and Lea Papin, two French maids who killed their employer's wife and daughter, and the 1947 Jean Genet play also inspired by the Papin case entitled The Maids. Curiously, while Genet and his fellow French intellectuals saw the Papin case as symbolic of class struggle, Chabrol seems to sympathize with the wealthy Lelièvre family. Sure, they might be stuffy and occasionally pompous, but they frequently offer Sophie help and go out of their way to be kind to her. Of course, much like the real life case, Sophie was largely dominated by her counterpart in crime. Jeanne is a venomous influence whose charisma is so infectious that the audience can't help but feel drawn to her at the beginning of the film in the same way that Sophie was. The film's strength comes in its insidious subtlety. A shocking revelation about Sophie occurs around thirty minutes into the film that leaves us shaking our heads wondering how we could have possibly missed the very obvious signals and hints dropped earlier. And then there is the almost casual manner in which Sophie and Jeanne first confront each other about their respective "secrets." La Cérémonie is an absorbing experience and a late career triumph for Chabrol.

8/10

Jubal: Delmer Daves

Why haven't more works by Shakespeare been adapted into the American Old West? After watching Delmer Daves' Jubal, a loose retelling of Othello, I cannot help but wish that more of the Bard's works would get the cowboy treatment. Before I go into the plot, I need to point out that Jubal may be one of the most ravishingly beautiful Westerns ever filmed. It easily ranks up there with Johnny Guitar (1954) and The Searchers (1956) in terms of achingly gorgeous cinematography. Charles Lawton Jr. manages to transform Wyoming's countryside into a living painting that is at once ethereal and personally intimate. Now that I have that out of my system, let's get to the plot. A ragged, dying man named Jubal Troop (a.k.a. Michael Cassio) is discovered by a group of cowboys working for a cattleman named Shep Horgan (a.k.a. Othello) played by Ernest Borgnine in one of his more affable Western roles. In return for saving his life, Jubal enters Shep's employ and soon becomes his right-hand man. But in doing so, he makes two powerful enemies. The first is Shep's wife, Mae, a young woman who secretly loathes her husband and not-so-secretly lusts after the ranch's newest arrival. But his second enemy is Pinky (a.k.a. Iago), a mean, spoiled brute who sports an intense hatred for authority figures. Since it is a retelling of Othello, explaining the rest of the plot seems unnecessary. But let's just say that Daves does Shakespeare's story justice...both figuratively and literally.

9/10

Wizards: Ralph Bakshi

Here is a film that boasts some of the freshest ideas concerning the fantasy genre that I have ever encountered. Here's the set-up: millions of years after the world had been destroyed by nuclear weapons, mankind had evolved into two groups, grotesque mutants and beautiful creatures like fairies and elves. The mutants use technology salvaged from the ruins of the old world. The fairy-like creatures have developed magic. One day an evil wizard named Blackwolf created an army to take over the world. In order to motivate his troops he showed them Nazi propaganda. After being worked into a brain-washed frenzy, his forces began a reign of terror against all other living creatures. To stop him, another wizard named Avatar (who happens to also be Blackwolf's brother) must team up with a half-fairy named Elinore, a reformed assassin named Peace, and an elvish spy known as Weehawk. In hindsight, the plot of Ralph Bakshi's Wizards closely resembles the central story of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (which is apt considering that Bakshi would later go on to adapt that story to film): a rag-tag team of heroes must sneak behind enemy lines and defeat an evil foe hellbent on world domination. But despite its creativity and inventiveness, Wizards fails as a film. The film's tone is maddeningly uneven: one shot will consist of light-hearted comedy, the next of disturbingly graphic war carnage, the next of political commentary, and the next of Looney Tunes-esque pratfalls. The film stalls and lurches from one plot point to the next with all of the subtlety of an A-bomb. In some of Bakshi's other films like Heavy Traffic (1973) and Coonskin (1975), his atonal, erratic pacing and plotting accentuated the story. Why? Because the plots dealt with urban and racial decay and how people from different walks of life perceive the world. But I have yet to see such an avant-garde approach to storytelling work within the context of high fantasy. It certainly doesn't work here in Wizards.

5/10

Last House on Dead End Street: Roger Watkins

In all of my years as a film critic, I have seen many of the goriest films ever made. I have seen cinematic carnage the likes of which most people cannot imagine. It has gotten to the point where onscreen violence doesn't bother me anymore. Or at least I thought so. Roger Watkins' Last House on Dead End Street disturbed me. It reached deep down inside my soul and sand-blasted my calloused sensibilities. The story of an amateur pornographer who decides to make snuff films, Last House on Dead End Street is dirty, sloppily edited, frequently incoherent, and thoroughly misanthropic. The last third of the film is simply comprised of extended torture sequences. And yet, all of the film's flaws come together to create something greater and more horrifically magnificent than anyone involved in the production could have imagined. If Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945) was the accidental masterpiece of film noir, then Last House on Dead End Street is the accidental masterpiece of 70s exploitation. The flaws and technical mistakes give it a surreal, dream-like quality that puts anything created by Dario Argento to shame. There were moments where I had to remind myself that I was actually watching a movie and not re-living some of my more fevered nightmares. The violence is abhorrent and brutally graphic. I could easily name a handful of other films from the same year that were more graphic, but the violence here is given a raw feeling of authenticity that makes it more convincing and potent. I did not enjoy Last House on Dead End Street. But I believe that audiences were never supposed to "enjoy" it. The film is a perfect distillation of human cruelty. All I can do is marvel at it in awe and pray that I never have to watch it again.

9/10

The Quick and the Dead: Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead is a film that embraces time-honored Western cliches with the same zeal and affection that elevates Quentin Tarantino's films from mere homages to original artistic creations. The Quick and the Dead is informed primarily by Spaghetti Westerns, particularly those of Sergio Leone. It follows a mysterious female shootist known as "The Lady" who one day enters the corrupt town of Redemption in order to get her revenge on John Herod, a ruthless outlaw responsible for the death of her father. To do so, she enters a quick-draw contest along with a menagerie of Western archetypes. These include a boastful trick shot performer, a Native American hungry for the blood of white men, an outlaw-turned-priest who is coerced by Herod into participating, a slick young buck of a gunslinger known as "the Kid," and a whole assortment of violent degenerates. Sharon Stone's performance as the Lady is serviceable and only truly becomes great during the moments when her character faces seemingly insurmountable fear and doubt over the prospect of killing the man responsible for destroying her life. Gene Hackman steals the entire film as John Herod. Herod's character is a villainous masterpiece: he is equal parts sympathetic, unsympathetic, charismatic, repulsive, and infuriating. It is impossible to watch Hackman in The Quick and the Dead without remembering his performance as Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). But if Little Bill is misunderstood and misinterpreted (both by audiences and by the other characters in the film), there is no gray area surrounding Herod. Herod is a monster. And believe me when I say that Hackman knew this and loved every minute that he played him onscreen.

8/10

Vice Squad: Gary Sherman

I've heard that Gary Sherman's Vice Squad was ground-breaking in its intimate, realistic portrayal of the Los Angeles underbelly and the cops who try and keep the peace between the druggies, the pimps, the prostitutes, and all other forms of social degenerates. Vice Squad was apparently so significant that Martin Scorsese came out in support of it, even arguing to studio executive Dawn Steel that it should have been nominated for Best Film. But with all due respect to Mr. Scorsese, I have to disagree. I found Vice Squad to be a competently made but ultimately predictable film. The depictions of the seedier side of the Strip are admittedly fascinating. But they serve little more than a decorative purpose. Here's the set-up: a prostitute nicknamed "Princess" helps the police set-up a sadistic, murderous pimp named Ramrod. Of course, he swears vengeance. And, of course, he escapes while being driven to the police station. So now the police, led by vice squad detective Tom Walsh, must find either Ramrod or Princess before they meet again on the streets. Much of the film's charm comes from juxtaposing the intense manhunt for Princess with scenes of her having to indulge an increasingly bizarre series of fetishes for her customers. One sequence involving a bridal gown, a coffin, and a very odd old man is particularly memorable. But in the last third of the film, Princess' characterization as a tough, street-smart prostitute is abandoned and she becomes little more than a damsel in distress who must be saved by her knight in shining armor (a.k.a. Walsh). The film claims to be based on true stories, but I have a hard time accepting that a woman who worked the Strip for 5 years would become so useless in a crisis. And that's another thing that bothers me: Ramrod has the indestructibility and mobility of Michael Meyers. He isn't a pimp, he's a slasher villain! Maybe if he was high on Angel Dust I could believe him pulling off half of the nonsense he gets away with in this film. It's never a good thing when you find yourself getting angry with characters because they make stupid decisions in difficult situations. If Sherman was trying to make some kind of statement with Ramrod concerning the plight of women and prostitutes, it wasn't executed properly. Vice Squad isn't a bad film. In fact, it has moments of brilliance. But Best Picture material? I think not.

6/10

The Wild Women of Wongo: James L. Wolcott

James L. Wolcott's The Wild Women of Wongo feels like it was genetically engineered to be the most non-politically correct film ever made. The fact that it doesn't have a minstrel show routine or an army of buck-toothed chinamen can only be attributed to its measly budget and brief run-time. Here's the set-up: there are two "tribes" of "islanders." The first tribe, the Wongo, has beautiful women and ugly men. The Goona, on the other hand, have beautiful men and ugly women. Of course, the "ugly" men are all physically-chiseled and are identified as "ugly" because they appear to have flour in their hair. And the "ugly" women are all stereotyped as either obese, lanky, or emotionally shrill. The "plot" concerns the two tribes coming together to fight off the advances of a race of murderous ape men. But the Wongo women accidentally insult their tribal "god," a plastic model of a crocodile, and so undergo a lengthy ordeal where they must sacrifice one of their number to the gods. This sub-plot dominates much of the film and provides many of its most unintentionally hilarious scenes. Which was your favorite? Mine was the Wongo woman wrestling a plastic crocodile in a swimming pool. Ed Wood would be so proud. Honestly, the reason why I'm not giving The Wild Women of Wongo a lower score is because despite its complete incompetence, it is a genuinely fun movie to watch. It is so stupid, so blatantly offensive, and so utterly ridiculous that it is impossible not to watch with a smile on your face. If they ever revive Mystery Science Theater 3000, this needs to be the film they feature on the first episode.

2/10

Planet of the Apes 5: Battle for the Planet of the Apes: J. Lee Thompson

Many of my friends were surprised to learn that I enjoyed J. Lee Thompson's Battle for the Planet of the Apes more than the third entry in the series, Don Taylor's Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). The main reason is that I have little interest in pre-Ape human society. Battle for the Planet of the Apes delivered everything that I wanted in a Planet of the Apes movie: weighty ethical dilemmas, phenomenal special effects and make-up work, and an examination of the tenuous relationship between post-uprising mankind and the newly empowered apes. After visiting the Forbidden City, the radioactive remains of a city devastated during the Ape Rebellion, the chimpanzee Caesar has to contend with two threats to his rule as leader of both the liberated apes and the few surviving humans. The first is the power-hungry gorilla general Aldo, a hulking brute who wishes to usurp power and annihilate the remaining humans. The second is a band of mutated humans living in the Forbidden City led by Governor Kolp. They mistook Caesar's expedition to their home as an act of aggression (in reality Caesar was searching for video evidence of his parents that might have contained clues about the future of the planet). Everything leads to an extended battle sequence where Governor Kolp invades Caesar's settlement with a ragtag assortment of soldiers and weaponry (including a school-bus used as an armored troop transport). The battle scenes are excellently shot and riveting. But Battle for the Planet of the Apes doesn't just boast a great action climax. It also gives audiences a fascinating exploration into the psyche of Caesar. Here is a leader torn between his loyalties to his ape brethren, his desires to keep the peace, and his longing to have a normal family. I also enjoyed the world-building demonstrated, such as how the different apes and humans have developed their own cultures, habits, and taboos. When it was first released, Battle for the Planet of the Apes was widely panned. But I disagree. I think it is a fitting conclusion to a great series.

7/10

Dirty Harry 5: The Dead Pool: Buddy Van Horn

Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool is a thoroughly entertaining film that sees Dirty Harry Callahan return to rid the streets of San Francisco of a serial killer picking off local celebrities as part of a twisted contest referred to as a "dead pool." The film has inventive action scenes (the best being a Bullitt-style car chase between Callahan and a toy car packed with C4), memorable characters (including Callahan's new Asian-American partner who miraculously survives the film), and some clever lines. And yet, I have to be a stick in the mud again: The Dead Pool isn't really a Dirty Harry film. Instead, it's a regular cop film that just so happens to star Dirty Harry. Subplots concerning Harry's new-found celebrity status are underdeveloped and there is very little moral ambiguity surrounding the villains, their motives, and the methods Callahan uses to stop them. The closest The Dead Pool comes to an ethical gray area concerns another sub-plot involving Callahan's new girlfriend, a reporter who struggles with her personal principles versus her desire to get a hot story no matter what it takes. But even this sub-plot is abandoned in the third act. So, ultimately, The Dead Pool may not be a Dirty Harry movie. But it still manages to be enjoyable.

7/10

Planet of the Apes 4: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: J. Lee Thompson

Never let it be said that CGI is superior to good, old fashioned special effects and make-up. The final scene of J. Lee Thompson's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is some of the best proof of this dearly held belief of mine. As the city around them burns, Caesar, the intelligent chimpanzee who orchestrated the ape rebellion against their human (slave) masters, addresses his new army of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans: "Where there is fire, there is smoke. And in that smoke, from this day forward, my people will crouch, and conspire, and plot, and plan for the inevitable day of Man's downfall." Despite the pounds of make-up and plastic that cover his face, Roddy McDowall's speech as Caesar is one of the most riveting moments of early 70s science-fiction. The film tells the story of how Caesar, the child of Cornelius and Zira, the two intelligent chimps from earth's future who came to the modern day in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), starts a rebellion against mankind. See, after a terrible plague wiped out all dogs and cats, humans turned to apes for pets. However, they soon realized that apes could be trained to do menial labor. And so, through a painful process involving torture and brutal physical conditioning, apes became mankind's slaves. The film does an excellent job depicting the oppressive, nightmarish world that Caesar and his fellow apes are forced to live in. And the last 20-30 minutes of the film leave you breathless. And then, of course, there is McDowall. He elevates Conquest of the Planet of the Apes from a good movie to a great movie.

8/10

Dirty Harry 4: Sudden Impact: Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood's Sudden Impact injected fire back into the belly of one of the cinema's most iconic franchises. Though it didn't necessarily betray the character of Dirty Harry Callahan, The Enforcer (1976) presented a much more sanitized version of San Francisco's finest. Gone was the hand of screenwriter John Milius who had filled the first two films with snarling conservative ethics that were borderline fascist. Of course, contrary to many real-life accusations, Callahan was never a fascist character. But the pleasure in watching Callahan in the first two films came from observing him skirt those lines in the name of Justice. His appeal was that despite the brutality of his methods, Callahan was a man who truly, sincerely believed in the forces of justice. The Enforcer never really put Callahan in a situation where there was questionable moral ground (the sub-plot concerning his female partner doesn't count). But Sudden Impact throws Callahan back into a world of murky, uncertain ethics with an audible thunk. Here's the set-up: a rape victim is systematically hunting down and murdering her attackers. With one brilliant exception, all of the perpetrators are clearly depicted as unrepentant monsters. We, as the audience, identify with the young woman. We want her to kill them, just as we wanted Harry to torture Scorpio for the whereabouts of the kidnapped girl in Dirty Harry (1971). As a police officer, Harry is supposed to stop her. But will he? If given the opportunity to stop her, could he? Here is the heart and soul of the Dirty Harry franchise: how far over the law is too far? In this manner, Sudden Impact is not just another cop film. It also helps that the film is delightfully entertaining. A chase scene involving a bus full of enthusiastic retirees is among the most delightful in the franchise. And the scene near the end of the film where Harry's silhouette suddenly materializes in an abandoned amusement park may be my favorite Dirty Harry moment. But was the pissing, farting bulldog really necessary? I know that Warner Bros. made a killing pairing Eastwood with an orangutan in James Fargo's Every Which Way but Loose (1978), but this was just ridiculous.

7/10

Dirty Harry 3: The Enforcer: James Fargo

(Spoilers Ahead)

I like to think that the pitch meeting for James Fargo's The Enforcer went something like this:

Producer: How about a third Dirty Harry film?
Studio Executive: I dunno...
Producer: But this time...he has a female partner!
Studio Executive: SOLD!!

I joke, but the fact that Dirty Harry Callahan is paired with a female partner is honestly the most memorable thing about The Enforcer. Whereas the first two Dirty Harry films were searing indictments of violence in American society, The Enforcer plays like a much more standard cop drama. When a group of revolutionaries fighting for a vague, unclear cause (obviously modeled after the Symbionese Liberation Army) begin a reign of terrorism in San Fransisco, Harry Callahan must get to the bottom of their illegal activities and stop them from fulfilling their ultimate objective: the kidnapping of San Francisco's mayor. But he is also given a new partner: an inexperienced rookie named Kate Moore. Her whole story arc can be summed up as such: she has to earn the respect of her partner and her department in spite of her gender. And to be honest, Tyne Daly does a fantastic job as Moore. But the film's attempts at feminism are spoiled somewhat by her dramatic death in the final act. I know that much of Callahan's pathos comes from the fact that all of his partners end up either dead or disabled. But Moore's death devalues her accomplishments as a female cop by suggesting that the only guaranteed method by which females can prove their worth as police officers is martyrdom. But suspect gender politics aside, The Enforcer simply isn't as memorable as the other films in the Dirty Harry franchise. The villains are forgettable, there are no instantly memorable action set pieces, and Clint Eastwood's performance as Callahan seems tired and phoned in. There is, after all, an important distinction between stoicism and boredom.

6/10

Dirty Harry 2: Magnum Force: Ted Post

When a number of criminals start getting killed by vigilantes suspected to be impersonating SFPD motorcycle cops, Inspector Harry Callahan must track them down before they strike again. Of course, it doesn't help that one of his superior officers, SFPD Homicide Lt. Neil Briggs, seems determined to keep him muzzled and off the case. Even worse, a quartet of rookie traffic cops with military backgrounds keep seeming to pop up whenever there is a shooting. If Dirty Harry (1971) saw Callahan fight back against a system that seemed designed to stymie justice, Ted Post's Magnum Force sees him battle against those who use the system itself to achieve justice by going above and beyond the law. Herein lies the central contradiction of Harry Callahan which raises him from trigger-happy madman to complex character: he believes in justice so much that he is willing to alternatively break the law and defend the law as he sees fit. This dilemma is perfectly captured in a single line of dialogue from the film: "I hate the goddamn system! But until someone comes along with changes that make sense, I'll stick with it." See, Callahan will torture Scorpio if it means saving the life of a young girl. But he will not suffer vigilante justice. It's a fascinating dichotomy that makes Harry Callahan one of the most intriguing cinematic characters to ever carry a badge. Magnum Force is a fascinating meditation on the nature of violence and justice. The screenplay by John Milius and Michael Cimino crackles with the same kind of unforgettable dialogue and creative scenarios that helped make the first film such a classic. However, the third act was too long and padded. The aircraft carrier duel overstays its welcome and merely serves to prolong a conclusion that the audience already knew was inevitable. But still, Magnum Force manages to enhance the character of Harry Callahan from the first film instead of merely repeating it.

7/10

Attack of the Giant Leeches: Bernard L. Kowalski

As if you didn't need another reason to not go creeping through the Florida Everglades at night, Bernard L. Kowalski's Attack of the Giant Leeches assures us that if the snakes or alligators don't get you, man-sized monstrous leeches will. In the film, a pair of these terrible beasts start to terrorize nearby inhabitants of the Everglades, kidnapping them, draining them of blood, and storing their corpses in subterranean caves. For such a short film (62 minutes) it is surprisingly padded. One sub-plot about a local woman who is caught by her husband while cheating on him with another man in the swamp is particularly bloated. Although, to be fair, the scene where the cuckolded husband forces the two lovers into the swamp to scare them straight is rather tense. But the rest of the movie is forgettable. The film is competently shot and John M. Nickolaus, Jr.'s cinematography is occasionally moody. But Attack of the Giant Leeches is tedious and uneventful. And it commits one of the worst monster movie sins of all: it only features the monsters in it for a few shots!

3/10

The Unearthly: Boris Petroff

Boris Petroff's The Unearthly may be the most unironically decent film that Ed Wood Jr. ever worked on. It's an admittedly cheesy mad scientist film about a doctor who runs a psychiatric institute and uses his patients as guinea pigs in his experiments to unlock the secret of immortality through gland transplants. The film is carried by John Carradine's convincing, if somewhat odd (even by John Carradine standards) performance as the sinister Dr. Charles Conway. When some of his patients begin to suspect that the good doctor may be up to something suspicious, he does an excellent job manipulating them against each other. Tor Johnson also stars as Lobo, Dr. Conway's lumbering oaf of an assistant/lackey. And somehow, I'm not entirely sure how, Johnson manages to come across as a genuinely sympathetic figure instead of as another one of the inept monstrosities that dominated his acting career. But that could just be me. It also helps that the film keeps the special effects to a bare minimum, relying on only brief shots of fake glands and full-body costumes. The ending revelation about the status of Dr. Conway's past experiments was also satisfyingly macabre. So in the end, the best compliment I can give The Unearthly is that at the very least it doesn't do anything glaringly wrong. In fact, some parts aren't half bad.

5/10