Old Vs New Week: Assault on Precinct 13

Hello all and welcome to Old Vs New Week and we start off with a John Carpenter classic and its remake.  Both films have bloody intros and dive right into their stories and while both have diverse concepts the films are more or less the same thing.  So board up the windows, douse the lights and conserve your ammo.   This is Assault on Precinct 13.

Now who the hell payin' for that window?!

Officer, Detroit is a tough town...honest.

Spoilers all around us, man! There is no escaping it!

Our story opens with a sting takes out a series of gang members in a bloody gunfire. Cannot even imagine how many shots fired forms they were filling out.  The surviving gang members swear in blood oath that vengeance will happen.  Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker of Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Horror High, ‘Sheba, Baby ‘, Roots and Machete Joe) a recently promoted officer is scheduled to Precinct 13. A station being torn down, paperwork and supplies shipped to its future location.  While this is not the best gig, it is Bishop’s first assignment as a Lieutenant and he will see it through.

Meanwhile in Los Cruzes, a notorious criminal named Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston of Eraserhead, The Fog, Coast to Coast, Time Walker and Airwolf) is being transported in a bus on his way to death row by Starker (Charles Cyphers of Halloween, Halloween II, Escape from New York, The Fog and Grizzly II: The Concert)

Back at the precinct, Bishop meets the remaining staff, desk sergeant  Grumpy McStereotype, filing clerk Leigh (Laurie Zimmer of American Raspberry, A Dirty Story and Survival of Dana) and dispatch operator Julie (Nancy Kyes of Halloween, Halloween II, The Fog, Halloween III, Not in Front of the Children and Lady Boss)

One of the inmates on the bus is violently ill and the only station in route is Precinct 13, with that the bus pulls in assessing the situation and hope they can lay aid to the sick man.  Blocks away a father takes his daughter with him in order to scoop up and move her nanny (Oh Mr. Sheffield) in with them.  Driving a high end Cadillac in South Central L.A. under the influence of being a dumb white guy this could get a bit dicey.

No, don't help me find the phone book. just gaze at the girl.

A shoot out later the father makes his way to Precinct 13 to safety but the combined forces of the gang follow him with their ill-gotten gains from a heist of the National Guard Armory depot, they have enough firepower to level six maybe seven city blocks.  Equipped with silencers, the lack of neighbors in the rundown area and barely any public safety of any sorts the members of the precinct, two prisoners and the remaining transport troops have to hold off this mass army of lunatics until help arrives.  

The dialogue gives the feel of a B-movie and this is Carpenter’s second film after Dark Star in 1974. Fewer dolly tracked shots and more hand held you really had to feel for those poor cameramen breaking their backs.  Given its fairly violent nature and penchant for shock and awe, this movie does invoke fear and dread for the decent folk trying to live through the night and almost seething hatred for the gang members.  In my humble opinion a gem that gets overlooked.

I...(gasp)...hate...vanilla...

Enter our remake with its bluster opening with a drug buy conducting by Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke of Dead Poets Society, Floundering, Before Sunrise, Gattaca, Great Expectations, The Newton Boys and Training Day), an undercover cop that gets found out, his bust goes pear shaped and he loses a team member because it.  Now months later he is addicted to pain killers, a damaged knee and a crap duty to watch the transfer of a precinct to another.  He has been assigned to watch over a few scumbags on New Year’s Eve.  They will have no direct communications beyond radio frequency and offloading paperwork and evidence locker. His subordinate Sgt. Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy of First Blood, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Seven Minutes, The Last of the Finest and F/X2) are busy grumbling at the crackhead Beck (John Leguizamo of Romeo + Juliet, Spawn, Moulin Rouge!, Ice Age and Chronicles ) gang bangers Anna (Aisha Hinds of Neo Ned, Invasion, Madea Goes to Jail, Dollhouse and True Blood)  Smiley (Ja Rule of Rush Hour, Next Friday, The Fast and the Furious and Fish Tank) and the crème de crème of villainy, mastermind criminal Martin Bishop (Laurence Fishburne of Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club, The Color Purple, Cherry 2000, Boyz n the Hood, Bad Company and The Matrix) 

Get a haircut baby face!

Before the evening even gets started, the precinct is under siege by a collection of corrupt cops, blocking radio signals and exits. Led by Captain Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne of Miller’s Crossing, Shipwrecked, Point of No Return, The Usual Suspects, Pirates, The Man in the Iron Mask and End of Days) demanding Bishop turned over to them.  Roenick gathers his staff and the crooks to save each other they need to fight back until help comes or they can escape.

Now the complaints of this movie are there is just too much.  Too much backstory, too many characters and dear God some are just over the top to the likes that would rival Doctor Doom in melodrama.  A lot of hand held work that cause really quick cuts and jumpy edits which could cause any photophobic to be wildly sick viewing it.  More explosions than an 80’s Schwarzenegger film and honestly it is a darker movie than the original.  To quote TV’s Frank, “I thought it had no texture.”   I think the main complaint I have is this really is the first time I get to see Fishburne as a sinister bastard and he didn’t get to do nearly enough other than the ritualistic tough guy talk and a bit of gun play.   At the end of the day while the remake wasn’t bad it just was way too much for one film.    Both films feel like a hybrid of Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead but I feel Carpenter’s has a better feel for it.

Western Week: Shane

Hi-dy doo all!  Welcome to Day 3 of Western Week and man o man I found me a classic.  One of the most talked about, fussed over and in general beloved Westerns to this very day.  So kick yer shoes off, sit a spell and hell why not take a shot at widdlin’ some.   This is Shane.

Hey, an actual watering hole!

Come back Spoilers!!!...

A fella come riding into town in buckskin (No not Navajo Joe) and a six shooter in the sparsely settled of Wyoming just a bit after the Homestead Act.   The town while unaware of this fella who goes by Shane (Alan Ladd of This Gun for Hire, The Iron Mistress, Desert Legion, The Blue Dahlia, The Black Knight, Hell on Frisco Bay and Salty O’ Rourke), a man with a past but he is clearly pegged as a gunslinger and finds himself right in the middle of a homesteader Joe Starrett (Van Heflin of The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 3:10 to Yuma and Airport) and cattle baron Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer of The Man with the Golden Arm, Paths of Glory and Sweet Smell of Success) and tries his level best to keep it civil. Ryker clearly wants the land for cheap and wants the settlers to vamoose from town so I guess he can have more grazing land i.e. more beef for the bank.  Shane is invited to supper and a bunk for the night by Joe’s wife, Marian (Jean Arthur of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can’t Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Too Many Husbands and The Devil and Miss Jones) takes a liking to these folks and signs on as a farmhand.

Whiskey anyone?!

 Joey, Joe and Marian’s boy becomes fast friends with Shane and asks him about shooting.  Shane is willing to teach both Joey (Brandon De Wilde of Jamie, Good-bye My Lady, Night Passage,  Hud and The Deserter)and Marian both, instilling that a gun is no more than a tool.  Granted it is a killing tool but only the owner can make the decision for what good or evil it will do.   Get all that NRA???    Marian is clearly not a fan of the hogleg and would rather her boy did not learn the ways of violence.   A fist fight brews in town when Joe and Shane run into some of Ryker’s men and they kicked butt.    Ryker is furious about this and hires himself one cold blooded son of a…well you get the idea *ahem* gunfighter named Jack Wilson (Jack Palance of Arrowhead, Flight to Tangier, Man in the Attic, Sign of the Pagan, The Silver Chalice, The Big Knife, Kiss of Fire, A Professional Gun, Batman and City Slickers) and brother this man is one cool customer.  He could shoot a fella as easily as order a drink of whiskey.    Yup what will the town do with this maniac on the streets? 

I have a few observations of this movie now if you don’t mind.  The setting of this town was based on the Johnson County War and was shot primarily on location but there was also more than a few sets via Paramount Studios backdrop.  Some of the exterior shots had a few matte paintings but damn some of these you look at you would swear is the open sky.  Similar to the Italian Eastman format this film was shot in spherical so great close ups and foreground but background looks a little hazy.   

I crap bigger than you, door.

35mm of course and sadly in Technicolor and yes I am not a fan of Technicolor.   Keep in black and white for that matter I say.  Hell how many films could be made better just dropped in black and white alone?    Moving right along, apparently Alan Ladd was not the first draft pick for Shane as the director George Stevens (A Place in the Sun, Penny Serenade and Giant) Montgomery Clift (Red River, I Confess, A Place in the Sun and From Here to Eternity) given their previous work history together.   This has it all.  Good story, likable characters and secondary characters, catchy themes and good luck getting that opening theme out of your head.  I can see why this is hailed as good cinema.

Western Week: Django

Howdy all!  Welcome back for Day 2 of Western Week and boy you know how I seem predicated to the more obscure movies.  Well an Italian director fella by the name of Sergio Corbucci (Castle of Blood, Navajo Joe, The Great Silence and Companeros) puts us in a wonder with this film with a gunslinger caught in the eye of the storm.  So mosey on out in the street, clear the women and children and get ready to slap leather.  This is Django.

Eastwood? bah this is Django baybee.

Yella belled spoiler!  Draw!

Our opening scene of this Spaghetti Western;  we see a lone man with tattered union blues walking through the desert with a saddle strapped to his back and dragging…a coffin behind him?  That’s right folks; he has a pine box behind him as he moves through the scene.  Django (Franco Nero of  The War of the Planets, Force 10 from Navarone, Goodbye Texas, Camelot, Mafia, Die Hard 2, Django Unchained) comes over a hill to see a woman lashed to a few poles and then whipped by this filth and mud ridden Mexican bandits.  Next thing you know they are all blown away by five men each wearing red scarves, Django is just about to move on when he sees the woman’s saviors are playing to host a barbeque in the lady’s honor…as she will be the charcoal.  What the hell??  Oh these good ole boys aren’t so good after all. 

Maybelline: for all your saloon girl needs.

After a rather brief chat with these fine southern gentlemen, Django drops all five of them.  Top that Eastwood!  Oh I said it.   The lady in question, Maria (Loredana Nusciak of Gladiators 7, Seven from Thebes, 10,000 Dollars for a Massacre, God Will Forgive My Pistol and Now Way Out) who has been spun from Banditos to KKK to a Yankee of all things reluctantly trusts in Django and follows him to town with a great exterior shot via dolly track we see the town is not looking so good.  One would dare say it has been pillaged and plundered me mateys!!  Arrrgghh!!!   Um yeah, sorry about that.  I was watching Pirates the other day.  

Okay where were we?   Ah yes the town holds an acrid scent and blackened buildings with no signs of life to be found. If this was a one horse town, well brother he skedaddled on out.  The saloon is about all that is standing I am thinking, “Wow, not the second place after the bank was hit?”    As Django and Maria take up residence at the saloon/ motel the owner and the saloon girls call this town neutral territory between the Mexican rebels and the remaining Confederates under the command of one Major Jackson leading his boys in the timed honored tradition of the KKK as they feud over one another they can always take shelter from the chaos here at a pretty penny.  

All the comforts of home during a bloody siege so what could anyone ask for.    The Mexicans are simply trying to rebuild after the Civil War but the South isn’t taking kind to it and both sides are composed of some of the more disturbing desperadoes putting our Yankee protagonist right smack in the middle of it all.  What can one man possibly hope to accomplish against two forces of so many driven men?  What indeed.   At 91 minutes a lot unfolds for the viewing pleasure.  Alas lady readers there are the slapping around of women, the thuggish mentality of man and in general the saloon owner is a spineless coward that will not lift a finger against so many men.  Just felt you deserved the heads up.

Have Coffin, Will Travel.

Yes I am going to give a few technical tidbits about the film now.  B.R.C. Produzione S.r.l. is a rival of Dino de Laurentiis Productions nabbed the rights first.  Sorry Dino.  The film stock is 35mm but shot via Eastman spherical lens scope giving the view less wide but almost as encompassing as Panavision with its anamorphic lens.  The difference is the foreground is better defined than anamorphic.  Personally if I were shooting a film I would love a nice hybrid of both.    My copy sadly was English dubbed and had a limited number of voice actors but telle est la vie…  Luis Bacalov (Composer of A Bullet for the General, We Still Kill the Old Way, Halleuja for Django, The Protagonists, and Assassination Tango) and countless of his pieces lifted from Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Django Unchained including the English translated opening song.   Sheesh Tarantino swipes much?     Seriously though, I want to download this soundtrack to my cell just to play as I enter a room, convenience store or restaurant because it is catchy to many levels.   This is no Fistful of Dollars but honestly I am rather glad it is not.  It is separate and on its own.  Not unlike our hero or should I say anti-hero? For you fast draw nuts, you will completely dig this flick for the awesome that is Django. 

Western Week: Navajo Joe

Get some!!!

Howdy buckaroos and welcome to the first day of Western Week.  Now having not tackled this particular field of film outside of my own entertainment this should be an interesting week.  So let’s start the week off good and proper.  With a bloody massacre, women and children butchered and a man seeking revenge to the point of utter madness.  Doesn’t that sound keen?   So saddle up your mustang, grab a Spencer rifle and aim good.  This is Navajo Joe.

Spoilers is sneaky as them injuns!!

Our film is fast paced, very little lag between scenes and frankly one of the better revenge storylines I have seen in a while.   The film opens up with a young Native American woman at the edge of a stream just washing some clothes against the rocks when a man on horseback trots up to the other side of the stream.  They share glances, albeit the girl’s a bit more shyly and then our charmer Duncan (Aldo Sambrell of The Sea Pirate, The Texican, A Bullet for the General, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hellbenders and Tex and the Lord of the Deep) draws his revolver and drops her dead.  I know, right?   This starts up this amazing score that seems to be timed when the screams of violence and gunfire kicks in. Enno Morricone (Composer of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, Red Sonja, The Untouchables, Causalities of War and Inglorious Basterds) has been the primary composer for any Dino de Laurentiis production as well as almost every Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America and My Name is Nobody) film and this score covers the various moods of the film but captures the overtone of revenge seething in Joe’s soul.  Also from a film goers’ point of view this was a complete waste of actress Nicoletta Machiavelli (The Hills Run Red, Matchless, Face to Face, Temptation, Anyone Can Play and Garter Colt) this gorgeous girl who can run lines well, give good emotion and presence with almost any male counterpart…again wasted within a matter of minutes. 

Gorgeous mountain range or Matte painting? You decide.

As the men ride off with their scalps they get that prickly feeling like they are being watched. Up in the far mountain range some 800 yards away is Joe (Burt Reynolds of Deliverance, Shamus, White Lightning, The Longest Yard, Gator, Hooper, City Heat and Boogie Nights) stalking them slowly.  Vigilant but not impatient, he waits for them to get comfortable and then will strike.    Duncan gets antsy and sends two of his boys to take him out, only to hear loads of repeater gunfire and see two horses sent back with his men slumped on their former saddles.  Duncan rides his boys back to town rouse the place and shoot up a far amount of folks in it.  Just so we are clear, these are bad hombres and I am behind Joe 100% in their deaths of which by far are quick.

An interesting film goof in my opinion, the train heist works by dumping logs on the track and yet the land they are driving the train through I didn’t see one fricking tree at all.  Sparse of trees I would think boulders rolled over the tracks would have been more feasible but hey I am not directing the flick.  My only point there is work with what you have and not what you just trucked in from a nearby town.   If you thought Reynolds got wailed on in Gunsmoke, holy hell they done threw him a whoopin’ in this.   Rest assured Act 3 has yet to happen.   

Shatner Hairpiece for Men: You're gonna love the fit.

The film of course is pretty dreary in its theme and I have seen a bit better examples of it but all in all it is a revenge story with western backdrop and I feel they did their level best.  Reynolds however feels it was a turd overall.  He describes the film as so awful it can only be shown in airplanes and prison that way the audience cannot leave. 

Sorry Burt I have to disagree.  Not too shabby.  Although those buck skins had to be getting hot running around in I wager.

Ossorio Week: Night of the Seagulls

Day 4 of Ossorio week and things may be looking up as we journey into the final installment of the Blind Dead series.  Will there be terror?  Will there be dread and chaos?  Will jiggly girls dominate the screen?  Will there be a decent plot and I and talking about a cemetery.   Strap yourselves in, make peace with your deity and hold on tight!   This is Night of the Seagulls a.k.a. La noche de las gaviotas

Pesky Mormons at the door!

Spoilers raaann… they ran so far awaaaaaaayyyyy…

We open our film with… you guessed it, a flashback sequence.  Seems to be the theme set from the second opus Return of the Blind Dead so this could mean we are in for some thrills and blood spills.   If it has a faster pace than the third film I am all in favor.    Our location is in Cataluna Spain with its various ruins and monasteries for excellent background, already a step up for a cheesy alleged 16^th century Spanish Galleon that the Scooby gang would have torched.    An aide, presumably the guard of a noblewoman scouts on ahead to see if there is any danger in the night, and yes it is shot at night with a decent lighting array.   Yay!  Budget increased!!    In travel to this little village the man is slain almost immediately by the then live Knights Templar and the lady is to be (dun dun dun) sacrificed.   Not sure if that means the fair sex is more appealing to demons and rites of that nature or if it is just blatant sexism.   Take your pick.   The tone of the movie is already set at the 8 minute mark; in that there will clearly be a coherent storyline again.   With clearly an off-screen dismemberment and some impressive body part props I think we may be in for a horror movie after all. Yay again! 

Psst.. you fart?

500 years later… back at the same quaint little fishing village, Dr. Henry Stein (Victor Petit of Topical Spanish, Hora once, La respuesta, Clara es el precio and Trampa sexual) and wife Joan (Maria Kosty of The Family, Fine, Thanks, El divorcio que viene, Las chicas del bingo and My Friend Washington) are moving in as clearly his practice will not only be necessary but welcomed.     The town acts a bit standoffish and the Steins are a bit at a loss for words.   Might have helped their case if they didn’t announce how drab the town looked and clearly the inhabitants are primitive savages.  That's a lousy bedside manner, doctor.   Henry is quick to anger and clearly when good cheer doesn’t get you your way there is always manhandling.    After finding the elder doctor’s house Henry and Joan are invited in and the elder doctor looks more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. 

We got some eerie music with a range of electric guitar and synthesizer to set the mood.   Sadly the Steins didn’t find a Crazy Ralph archetype to warn them off with mentions of a death curse or they would be spinning that Yugo outta there.   Henry sees the old doctor out via burrow and the elderly fellow tells him to not to pry into the town and never go out at night.   Abandoning the story arc created by Horror of the Zombies, Night of the Seagulls seems to bring all that was lacking in the third film such as: the shrouded horses, terrified villagers and in general well executed jump scares.  A little bit of stock footage from the first two movies is spliced and hell who can blame them when they looked as menacing as they did.

 It seems the Knights Templar now called roughly the Knights of the sea, and yet they escape their tombs riding out every seven years for seven nights to demand a sacrifice of a young maiden.   The kicker is the village seems to be perfectly fine with this notion that the lot of them garbed in black as some sort of cult straight out of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  So fine with it that the villagers themselves with a dark chapter of the lottery here, the Steins and Teddy (Jose Antonio Calvo of El mercenario II, Evilio, Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella and Torrente 4) the village punching bag/idiot finds out that one of the girls slated for sacrifice is Lucy (Sandra Mozarowsky of The Book of Good love 2, Beatriz, Hitler’s Last Train and Mortal Sin), a maid of all trades that frankly I really don’t know what her job title is.   Nevertheless her countless…um days of compassion and assistance must not be wasted.  On to save young Lucy!  

Fellas, we eat tonight!

The filmstock looks immaculate.  Not the hopeless grainy of the third film but a good solid print and of course the option of English voice dubbed or subtitles is presented.  Highly recommend the subtitles.  You get a better inflection in the tone of emotional states and hey you may learn a little Spanish.   No guarantees.   For some reason due to the windy cliffs our cult masses begin around 5 in the afternoon and are edited with late night shots.   Lighting may have been a bit of a hassle.  Getting a far amount of generators to run that many lights plus anchoring them down somehow.    Not quite as impressive as the first two but definitely a decent capper from the 3^rd.    Maybe we can just view Horror of the Zombies as the Highlander 2 of the Blind Dead.

Before They Were Stars: Darkman

Hey all! We travel further into Before They Were Stars week and let us focus on a fellow who started as he called it a bit actor in some impressive films such as Excalibur, Krull and The Bounty.  So I thought we would reflect on his first lead role.    So get your popcorn and soda, enjoy your comfy chair.  This is Darkman.

Spoilers operate from the shadows…

Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, The Quick and the Dead, For Love of the Game, The Gift and Spider-Man) gathers a team of writers such as: Chuck Pfarrer (The Jackal, Red Planet and Virus), Ivan Raimi (Easy Wheels, Army of Darkness, Spy Game and Spiderman 3) Daniel Goldin (Out on a Limb and Stephen King’s Dead Zone) and Joshua Goldin (Out on a Limb, Wonderful World and Outlaw Country) collaborate to create a good, decent man and break him slowly.    With the haunting composure of Danny Elfman (Batman, Beetlejuice, The Flash, Batman Returns, Army of Darkness, Batman: The Animated Series, Tales from the Crypt and Mars Attacks) a gang war is spreading over the territories and land is being snatched up left and right no matter what the cost.   To what end you may ask?   We then shoot over to Doctor Peyton Westlake’s (Liam Neeson of Excalibur, Rob Roy, Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York, Love Actually, Batman Begins and Taken) laboratory as he and his assistant Yakitito (Nelson Mashita of Rising Sun, Independence Day, Drive and NYPD Blue) are attempting to create an artificial skin that would replace skin graphs and deep tissue burns, the catch is they cannot seem to get it to last beyond 100 minutes of exposure to light.   

So close to this discovery that would benefit humanity he discusses the experiment with lawyer girlfriend Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand of Raising Arizona, Mississippi Burning, Hidden Agenda, Fargo, Primal Fear, Wonder Boys and Almost Famous) whose pesky need for the truth may have uncovered some unsavory acts in zoning laws for the newest construction by Louis Strack (Colin Friels of Water Rats, Dark City,The Book of Revelation, BlackJack: Dead Memory, BlackJack: At the Gates and BlackJack:Ghosts) would appear to not only Strack Industries is accountable for bribes but in league with a nefarious criminal Robert G Durant (Larry Drake of L.A. Law, Dr. Giggles, Prey, Darkman II: The Return of Durant and The Beast) on this lucrative land grab scheme to net millions.  

Durant and his boys hit Westlake’s lab, pummeling and disfiguring him as well as killing Yakitito blowing up Westlake’s lab sending him in a fireball out to sea.   He awakes in the hospital but the explosion has altered him.  40% of his body is covered in burns and to cease him from having pain the doctor( Jenny Agutter of Logan’s Run, The Man in the Iron Mask, Equus, Dominique, An American Werewolf in London and MI-5) does a procedure to block the nerve endings are greatly damaged in the fact he can hardly feel anything.   With this in mind, he feels as though he is going through sensory deprivation and is easily angered causing a huge surge of adrenaline within him giving him uncharted amounts of strength.  Little point of observation, I swear one of the visiting doctors looks like John Landis (director of Animal House, An American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers and Coming to America).   

Afraid, ruined and broken, Westlake attempts to continue his research if not to be reunited with Julie but to take revenge on Durant and his cronies.   With all his equipment and synthetic skin at his abandoned factory (must be New York, the heroes and villains always find an abandoned factory) the ready he plots and schemes how to best destroy the men that took his life. 

You get the feel of a hybrid of a 1940’s radio show based on the villains’ dialogue but the seamy underbelly of a 1980’s graphic novel all jumbled together.  With influences like the Looney Tunes, Three Stooges and Marvel Comics is it any wonder this film is as insane as it is well constructed.  We get old favorite POV views as well as; Gunsight POV, Ram-o Cam and Shaky Cam as well.   Raimi of course keeps to his favorites to work with and we do get an appearance of Bruce Campbell, his brother Ted Raimi and Dan Hicks; you just gotta keep them eyes peeled. Over the top villains, a tormented hero and of course, the dame with the gams it’s a fun and bizarre ride.

Before They Were Stars: Ruthless People

Hey there boys and girls!  Back again with another series of films to bash or bask in and one film truly come to mind in 1986.  With all the Brat Pack associated, touchy feely films of this time showing us teenage to mid 20’s angst, a movie by Airplanes’ Jim Abrahams stood out.  With an amazing collective cast, wild story arcs and in general bizarre looks into the varied human psyche; this would also be Bill Pullman’s first feature length movie.   So drop your tuckus in that chair, have some bon bons and maybe a refreshing New Coke.   This is Ruthless People.

Spoilers strike without provocation….

Director Jim Abrahams (Police Squad, Airplane, Top Secret, Hot Shots and Jane Austen’s Mafia) and writer Dale Launer (Blind Date, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, My Cousin Vinny and Love Potion No. 9) team up to modernize short story novelist’s O’ Henry’s “The Ransom of the Red Chief” into a warped, fun romantic comedy drama.  

The story is thus: Sam Stone (Danny DeVito of Taxi, Romancing the Stone, Head Office, Batman Returns, Tin Men, Other People’s Money and L.A. Confidential) is a ruthless slimeball clothing manufacturer whose business is afloat in a soft market of clothing design is hell bent to do in his heiress wife Barbara (Bette Midler of The Thorn, Divine Madness, Bette Midler: Art or Bust, Outrageous Fortune, Beaches, Stella, For The Boys, Get Shorty, The First Wives Club and What Women Want) and claim the wealth entitled to his wife as the grieving husband.   Sam schemes, plots and preps for the event all the while he relays his plans to his buxom mistress Carol (Anita Morris of Maria’s Lovers, A Masterpiece of Murder, Blue City, 18 Again! and Bloodhounds of Broadway) fooling around with her in her bed.   Unbeknownst to Sam, Carol and her bumbling, inept boyfriend Earl (Bill Pullman of Spaceballs, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Accidental Tourist, Going Under, Independence Day, Lake Placid) plan to tape the murder and blackmail Sam and then it is off to Haiti.   Tahiti Carol corrects.  Oh..I knew that.  

Fate plays as strange hand as neither party gets what they want when Sam gets a call from a unanimous person who claims to have kidnapped Barbara and for the sum of 500,000 US he can have her back.  No cops’ involvement, he has a deadline and if all demands are not met Sam will find his wife in the morgue.   

Joy and rapture fills Sam’s heart that soon his wife will be out of the picture and his hands will be clean of it all.  Barbara’s evil abductors are two middle class people struggling to make ends meet after Sam had screwed them on a deal prior.  Ken Kesseler (Judge Reinhold of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop II, Zandalee, and Baby on Board) is a stereo salesman and his wife Sandy (Helen Slater of Supergirl, The Secret of My Succe$s, City Slickers, The Steal, and No Way Back) is a gifted designer whose creations Sam nicked given they had no proper license to them and is using them as his own.  These are the type of people that cannot cheat on their taxes, have to pay a parking ticket and simply could not conceive the notion of wrong doing and yet arrive at this slippery slope.

Here are a few quick notes on the film.  The style of cinematography is phenomenal as it is director Jan de Bont (Die Hard, Black Rain, Lethal Weapon 3,  The Hunt for Red October) for car chase scenes and fight scenes, the lighting is exquisite and double entendre is the name of the dialogue.  The humor can be a bit low brow but it is displayed well in the disgust of the cops, the endless griping of Sam and the easy corruption of innocence.  To this day I cannot say who had the best lines.  Between DeVito’s rants, Midler’s foul comments and Reinhold just being decent, it is a gem I would highly recommend.  Pullman is an absolute doofus/gigolo and his scenes are to die for.

John Carpenter Week: The Thing

You hear every sound as the tick of the clock allows for another minute to pass by.  You feel the sweat on your brow lightly trickling down and you know in your heart of hearts the person next to you may not be what he or she appears to be.  This is The Thing.

Lordy, how could spoilers survive in 0 degree weather?

In 1982, John Carpenter remade Howard Hawks 1951’s science fiction film The Thing from another World into simply The Thing; an alien entity that has the ability to change its molecular structure and DNA into something or someone else through assimilation.    On an Antarctic research station deep in the snow and ice lurks something man has never seen, 12 men will be pushed to the breaking point of sanity and paranoia will seep in.   OoOo got carried away there.  

Based on the original story, “Who Goes There?” by Science-Fiction writer John W. Campbell Jr., the screenplay for the 1982 version was written by Bill Lancaster (The Thing, The Bad News Bears film and TV series) and helmed by director John Carpenter (Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, and Vampires) unfolds a story of 12 men encountering a malamute being shot at from a helicopter by a Norwegian research team when the copter explodes and kills the pilot and co-pilot.  The rifleman still trying to kill the dog is shot by the station commander Garry (Donald Moffat of The Thing, When the Time Comes, Clear and Present Danger).  

 Helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russel of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Escape From New York, The Mean Season, Soldier and Deathproof) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart of Being There, L.A. Law, The Thing and Spawn the Animated Series) discover a camp completely ruined and torched. A few deaths consistent with suicide and outside in the snow is a body with two heads burnt to almost lack of recognition.  The body is wrapped and research documents are taken back to the station.  Through an autopsy Doctor Blair (Wilford Brimley of The Waltons, The China Syndrome, Brubaker, Roughnecks and Borderline) the two faced creature is perfectly normal.  The malamute starts attacking all the other sled dogs and is toasted with a flamethrower wielded by Chiles (Keith David of The Thing, Platoon, They Live, Clockers, Gargoyles, and Spawn the Animated Series) then brought to Blair to do I guess a necropsy on it.  Blair finds cells in it that are not animal DNA and proceeds to comb the Norwegians’ records.  He discovers that an alien life form that was said to have came to Earth in a flying saucer and they speculate millions of years ago trapped under sheets of ice as far back as the first Ice Age. 

Finding this research everyone becomes skittish around one another, locking their doors and arming themselves.  Who is who?  Am I next?  FX wizard Rob Bottin (Maniac, The Howling and Robocop) is responsible for ¾ of the creature creations and prosthetics.  The dog creature was crafted by none other than the late Stan Winston (Dracula’s Dog, Parasite, The Terminator, Aliens, Predator 1 and 2).  35mm film with a Panavision anamorphic lens shot at a slower speed of 2.35.  Tight shots, a soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, The Untouchables, Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America) rather than Carpenter.    In conclusion, if you don’t mind feeling a bit twitchy and love a good scare then this flick still stands the test of time but never watch it alone…