You Can’t Take the Sky from Me: Serenity (2005)

Back in May I got a chance to attend a “rough cut” screening of Joss Whedon’s feature-film debut, Serenity, based on his short-lived yet beloved SF show Firefly. I was a big fan of the show and the film version does not disappoint despite some minor qualms that I had. The film opens in theaters September 30^th. Anyway, here are my notes (WARNING: CONTAINS A MINOR SPOILER) that I scribbled down immediately after the screening:

Attended an advanced showing of the “rough cut” on Thursday evening. Set six months after the end of the television program, Serenity is a non-stop ride of action, great special-effects, and the fabulous writing that we’ve come to expect from Whedon. Unfortunately, in his attempt to lure new fans to the story, writer-director Whedon has sacrificed a lot of the character-development, nuance, and emotional resonance for shock and awe melodrama. But having said that, the film is nevertheless effective and is filled with a cinematic richness that the television show could never achieve because of the limitations of the idiot box medium. The acting is wonderful throughout and we generally care about our roguish heroes as they travel through even darker reaches of space than their old lives as television characters. Perhaps I’m just a tad disappointed because I wanted even more character-development than I received, but in comparison to a lot of Hollywood films—especially genre films—I have to admit the film does contain plenty to be excited about. It’s a big cast and all of the actors do get a chance to shine. I’m just greedy, I suppose, and I want even more. Yes, it’s that good the majority of the time. I do have some problems with the pacing, though, specifically during the drawn-out fight scene between Mal and the assassin character near the end. And much of that fight scene stretches credibility. Hopefully, by the time this thing reaches the screen in late-September Whedon will have edited the sequence down a bit. Overall, despite some minor problems, I can’t wait to queue up with cash in hand and see it again. Definitely the best SF film to hit the big screen in a long time. Washes away the nasty after-burn of Lucas' soulless travesties.

Short Cuts: House of Bamboo (1955)

Excellent Sam Fuller film noir set in post-WWII Tokyo. Swift action, smoldering eroticism, and good performances by Robert Stack, Robert, Ryan, and Shirley Yamaguchi easily make this one of Fuller’s best. Fuller was always an interesting director and Bamboo is filled with plenty of his trademark psychological insights and social commentary. Highly recommended.

Short Cuts: Warlock (1959)

Read about this for years. Well, it finally made it to DVD and it's far better than most of the critics had led me to believe. Splendid "classical" western with a strong, subversive gay subtext. The lead performances by Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn (with a bad blonde dye job!), and Richard Widmark are all superb. Strangely enough the film works well as a traditional western and a re-examination of the genre. Highly recommended. Based on the cult novel by Oakley Hall.

Links of Note

Lynda Rucker has posted a new book review on her web site about the late-great Karl Edward Wagner's magnificent sword & sorcery novel, Bloodstone, featuring his anti-hero Kane the Mystic Swordsman. Yeah, yeah, I know--that particular sub-genre of fantasy is moribund and embarrassing to even contemplate reading. But seriously, you have no idea how brilliant Wagner's take on the genre was. Outside of Robert E. Howard (Conan) and Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser), Wagner's take on the genre was dark and brooding as his best horror fiction. And personally, Wagner's Kane Saga is my all-time favorite (of the genre as a whole and his own fiction). At some point down the road I'll write more about the Kane novels and stories, but until then . . . check out what Lynda has to say:

http://www.sff.net/people/lyndaerucker/books2005.html

Eat More Meat: Prime Cut (1972)

Badass mob enforcer Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) is sent from Chicago down to Kansas City to take care of a renegade criminal named Mary Ann (Gene Hackman) who owes his city-dwelling associates $500,000. Though content with living the life of a country meatpacker and fostering the illusion of a respectable businessman, Mary Ann is selling something far more choice than hot dogs and steak. “Well, cow flesh, girl flesh,” he states, when confronted by Devlin. “It’s all the same to me. What they’re buying, I’m selling.” The blue skies, sweeping wheat fields, and the wholesome afternoons spent at the county fair are unable to disguise the festering rot underneath Mary Ann’s American Dream. Devlin and his mob muscle snatch a young girl (Sissy Spacek) from one of Mary Ann’s private auctions—drugged and naked girls penned in cages like farm animals—and whisk her away to a downtown hotel where Devlin falls chastely enamored of her. But Mary Ann’s boys steal her back, forcing Devlin to mix his business with what truly matters to him.

Though the film has been largely forgotten, director Michael Ritchie (The Candidate, Smile, The Bad News Bears, The Island) and screenwriter Robert Dillon craft something bizarrely special here, easily making Prime Cut one of the best crime films from the 1970s. This caustic pulp masterpiece sticks the knife into heartland America and never offers up a reprieve, even when its vice-grip of a plot cranks too tight and borders on outright absurdity. Marvin is at his laconic supercool best, as is Gene Hackman doing what he’s always done so brilliantly—play gleeful sleeze to the hilt. The supporting cast is finely sketched as well, especially the superb Gregory Walcott as Weenie, Mary Ann’s head-cheesed brother/enforcer. Unfortunately, the ending with Marvin and company releasing the rest of the girls from their “orphanage,” comes off as silly and contrived in its everything-is-right-with-the-world morality. But it smacks of studio interference more than an artistic miscalculation. Nevertheless, this savage, exciting, and darkly humorous postmodern country noir is prime good white trash entertainment. Dig it and dig in.

I should mention that this was one of my first formative film experiences. I’m not sure how old I was at the time, but I remember being taken to the drive-in theater, all snug in my one-piece pajamas and blanket, and waking up during several of the film’s more grotesque sequences, much to my wide-eyed horror. Talk about parental guidance! And the scene where Marvin and Spacek are chased in a wheat field by a combine machine left an indelible tattoo upon my soft, impressionable brain. Am I scarred because of it? Hell no! I thank my parents for being so reckless (I also have fond memories of being taken to the drive-in and waking up during The Wild Bunch at some point, probably in some sort of re-release. They also took me to see The Jungle Book at the drive-in, so there is evidence that my parents had some sensitivity of what was appropriate for my age; they were just inconsistent is all. Subsequently, my mother took me, aged ten, to see Apocalypse Now during its first theatrical run at the Joy Theater in Tigard, complete with the soon-to-be discarded destruction of Kurtz’s compound credit sequence. Man, talk about formative experiences!) and clueless. Despite what the parental do-gooders and naysayers would have you think, I’ve grown up eh . . . okay, I think. At the very least, I’ve got a wide-ranging love of film. So thanks, mom.

Prime Cut is available on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Short Cuts: Joint Security Area (2000)

First feature-film from Korean director Park Chan-wook's (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy). Set on the border between South and North Korea, J.S.A. is a wonderful, smart, emotional, action-packed film that never betrays the intimacy of story and the depth of character at the expense of its slickness and assured flashiness. It also proves that Park was the real deal from the get-go. Can't wait to see Sympathy for Lady Vengeance which was just released in Asia at the end of July.

Short Cuts: Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)

This is an IFC documentary focusing on the turbulent life of indie-cable television programmer Jerry Harvey, who made his name as one of the most passionate and knowledgeble champions of the hard-to-find, must-see films of the classic era as well as the contemporary. Harvey worked out of L.A. in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when the big cable channels (e.g. HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel, ON, etc.) were unaware that the market place (i.e. US!) was interested or would support a channel that showcased the finest in film, be it arthouse fare like the latest Visconti or Kurosawa or genre delights like Peckinpah or Argento. Eventually, HBO and their ilk figured out that people were interested, so the fat cats moved in and tried to extinguish Harvey from the market place. Z Channel also explores the rather dark side of Harvey's personality (he was prone to severe bouts of depression and suffered from alcoholism) and most certainly doesn't shy away from the last chapter of Harvey's life (it all ends in murder/suicide). But don't get me wrong, Z Channel is not a ghoulish look at this troubled man's life. It's a celebration of film, obsession, and the way the moving image has a way of transforming us into something that exists only within the flicker of shadow and light. And it's achingly inspiring. A magnificent documentary indeed. If for no other reason, the Cinematic God will bestow great gifts upon Mr. Harvey's soul for championing Michael Cimino's much-reviled flop Heaven's Gate (one of the great political Westerns ever made!) when no other critic had the balls to do so. Amen.

Short Cuts: Ossessione (1942)

Visconti's take on James M. Cain's sultry noir masterpiece, The Postman Always Rings Twice, is gritty, moving, and erotic in that classic Italian neo-realist style. Nothing says reality like the camera lens. A masterpiece of world cinema if there ever was one. Skip the Lana Turner/John Garfield version and hit this baby instead.

Short Cuts: Dogville (2003)

Ambitious, and almost successful allegory of American tyranny and cultural subjugation as seen through the eyes of young Grace (Nicole Kidman), a wide-eyed innocent who seeks refuge in the small town of Dogville from a gang of ruthless mobsters. Captivating in so many ways (the acting, the sets, the music, the emotional of power of some scenes), director Lars von Trier (Zentropa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark) ultimately fumbles Grace's story under the weight of too much symbolism, too much contrivance, and way too much finger pointing at us Americans and our inability to deal with the sins of our past and . . . present. Point taken, but what did your grandfather do in World War Two? And, of course, there's that whole European slave trade thing . . . .

Short Cuts

Because I'll be saving my longer reviews for the print zine, I thought I'd start posting some of my short, short ruminations about film here. So look forward to more of these "reviews" over the next few weeks, months, blah, blah, blah.

Ran (1985)

Akira Kurosawa's splendid adaptation of King Lear was the perfect balm to soothe my troubled mind after I made the mistake of re-watching George Lucas' soulless piece of shit Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in preparation for Sith. Well, I never made it through the re-watch and ultimately never made it to the theaters to observe the masses fumbling over themselves to see the latest craptacular "entertainment" from Mr. Lucas. Ran, on the other hand, is one of the greatest films ever made and one of the coolest, most spectacular and emotionally devastating samurai-science fiction creations ever made. Don't believe me that it's SF? Watch the armies of samurai/aliens/insects battle across the blasted-earth at the base of Mount Fuji and try to deny the feeling that you've left this earth for good. If you can deny it, go back to your fucking Star Wars abominations and rot in your own mediocrity.

And Speaking of blogs . . .

This one has been out of commission for awhile. But hey, it happens. I should, though, be updating it with a bunch of new reviews and stuff within the next couple of days. So be prepared!

And the next hardcopy issue of Nightmare Town (issue two, #1) should be hitting the streets within the next couple of weeks. I do have a few issues of the "Preview Issue" still available, so if anyone wants one they can email me with their contact information. The new issue will have a great feature-length piece on Catholic horror films, a duel review (one pro, one con) of Kevin Costner's western Open Range, a fabulous parody/homage to H.P. Lovecraft and Hollywood, and much, much more as "they" say. For those of you who enjoyed the first issue, I'm sure you'll like this one as well.

Wherever the River is Going

My partner in crime, Lynda Rucker, has her new blog up and running. She's already posted some great pieces about "the beautiful game" and how it's currently consuming our lives, the latest from Italian horror director Dario Argento, and our plans on venturing down south to see the Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone exhibit currently going on in Los Angeles.

Check out Lynda's blog at: lyndaerucker.blogspot.com