Rocks and Bones

2011-11-01T23:45:00.012-04:00

Eden Log (2007)

It is Christmas time in Puerto Rico. Improbably. Halloween has been packed in and Thanksgiving skipped right over. Apparently.

Someone should inform the Occupy San Juan crowd who are chanting something or other in the courtyard below, as Frank and Coqui Esperanza idle in the old city, waiting for a stack of photocopies to be made at Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. It was too hot and tiring to watch a balding civil servant shuffle papers around the office in a red and green sweater while alternatingly finding his favorite carols on a Perry Como CD and gasping for air in front of an ancient electric fan. The old metal kind with the wide finger accepting holes. The law suit attracting kind you don’t dare see in the CONUS anymore. Silver tinsel taped to the top fluttered before it. Papers littering the man’s desk were held down with what were no doubt pre-Columbian potsherds. An Elenoid appliqué bat head appeared to be keeping some excavation permits from littering the room.

Frank and Coqui were in town doing some background research on a commercial lot in the Cañabón Ward for which the contractor would require a wetlands permit before erecting a Mofongo Express. The food at an ME wasn’t the best or healthiest but the little Styrofoam mortars the shit came in were ingenious. Besides when you are trying to dine in the Caribbean on 27-dollar a day, you couldn’t go wrong. Especially not when you blew most of your walking around money on strip clubs down by the Luis Muñoz Marín Airport strip.

In any case, when he’s shoved a flyer about Troy Davis, Frank decides its time to head back to the government offices to see if his Xeroxes are ready. They are. With empty pockets they head back to the Rio Arriba motor lodge on the outskirts of the city to pack it in for a quiet night. Expense accounts and progress reports done for the evening, Frank tucks down for a movie and several tall glasses of Don Q and mango juice. Coqui meanwhile chats up the prostitutes working a Medalla beer commercial production on the street outside.Frank chose a little number called Eden Log (2007) to watch from the pile of loose DVDs the front desk clerk keep in a shoe box under the foosball table. He’d been trying to download it at least since it was released in May 2009 by Magnolia Home Entertainment. Yes, in the economic turndown, Frank was a slave to the whims of the torrents. Oh what vicious seas they could be.

Downloading Eden Log resulted in a lot of files that were in truth rather barbaric and amusing pornos. A few times he also got Frontier(s) (Gens 2007) another French horror film. This one about a group of crazed neo-Nazis who prey on traveling youngsters. But that’s a topic for another blog. Anyway, he’d have to watch Eden Log dubbed Spanish with English subs that didn’t quite sync. But whatever, it was free. The film didn’t appear to have much dialogue anyway.

Eden Log is the 2007 freshman feature of Franck Vestiel. It came to Frank’s attention when it got slapped into a bunch of film house scenesters’ top ten lists. It wasn’t as bad as all that though. Just not too fresh. It has some redeeming qualities, though, Frank would have just assumed skipping the last five minutes.

He admits the first five minutes intrigued him. A man, Clovis Cornillac (Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles [Jeunet 2004]), regains consciousness at the in the mud at the bottom of a cave, with a dead man at his side. He doesn’t’remember anything. He has to piece together along the way, avoid some monsters, meet a chick. Blah blah. It takes him 98 minutes to find out. (Cool story, bro.). There’s some twists and turns you might understand if you cared to pay attention. But you don’t much. Frank managed to hang on until the first appearance of mutants. Ugh.

At the outset, Frank had hoped the film might do for Caves what Don’t Look Now (Roeg 1973) did for Canals. [Sic; from FT’s notes. No idea what that means-ed.]. The faux black and white filming and detailed sets are excellent but not unique. But it’s all sufficiently cramped and surreal.

And it ends with some half-baked green nonsense involving a CGI tree.

Fuck. Read the IGN Review. They hit this dead on. It’s fair and Frank couldn’t say it better. It has the feel of a video game (ala Doom [Bartkowiak 2005]) and presents a cluttered view of the future has been done to death. Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1996) leaps to mind out of numerous others. The photography has Gaspar Noé (Irreversible 2002), all over it. Add a dash of Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973) and ta-dah, you’ve got Eden Log.

The morning found them a middling pleasant hike into the Cañabón mountains where the lot in question stood. Frank had decided their rental vehicle need not risk getting bogged down in the wet, unpaved clay roads. To his dismay, there were occupiers there as well. Squatters at least, living in an abandoned community park. They had taken up residences in the pool houses and cabanas and all peered suspiciously out at them as they scoured the surface for artifacts or hacked away the jungle foliage to inspect possible evidence of old sugar cane harvesting equipment from the last two centuries.

They were cheered however by the Christmas decorations, amazed by the good Catholics hauling out boxes of garland and lights from their hovels to sting across the falling fences and crumbling changing rooms. They scratch their heads and wonder if the folks at ME knew they were going to have to boot these people out of the property. Happy early holidays.

2011-05-20T20:12:00.001-04:00

Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)

Frank and Flip-Flop are getting onto a bus in Tel-Aviv when they hear the explosion. They were on their way to a Shlomo’s rent-a-camel place anyway, so they just looked at each other in mute concern and booked, never looking back. The blast had been in the city but distant, probably 20 blocks, or on the other side of the world in Middle Eastern terms.

When they got on the road towards Ein Gedi, Frank flipped on the car radio for news and Flip translated. She said there was no news of any violence in the city. Of course, she may have just been covering up. A little embarrassed or self conscious, about the unquiet in her homeland. Not speaking an ounce of Hebrew (except, “Shalom,” “Kaki,” and “Hatoul.” All of which he got plenty of mileage out of.), for all Frank, knew the whole world may be in chaos, cities burning, army’s clashing.

So what better place to go when with WWIII raging, than the West Bank?

The Dead Sea is quite simply a trip. A head trip.

Frank had been told you could float on the Dead Sea, but he had not been told that you had to. No choice. The water at almost 10 x the salinity of the ocean literally pushes you out. Walking ankle deep is profound, with the water repelling your feet at each steep. Easily overcome but a unique feeling nonetheless. Once sufficiently submerged, the sea takes over, spitting you back unto the surface any time your guard is down, which is often as you loose balance, cutting your feet on the jagged salt crystals making up the bottom of the sea.

And oily? No one ever warned you the Dead Sea is slimy.

Hadassah says that its changed a lot, with diversion of water away from the already puny Jordan River ever increasing, and the sea dropping a meter or so annually. The water is below what once was the beach, and you have to climb down a rocky slope, and cross a field of more crystals before hitting the water.

Back up at the beach, frying in the sun like turkey bacon in a pan (but non-stick, thanks to the oily water) Frank checks his email, and is delighted that no one back at work is having a crisis. He does get a message from Angry Jamie with his must-see movie picks, many of which he’s seen, such as the over-hyped (not without reason) Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy 2011) or the perplexingly entertaining bad zombie flick, Dead Snow (Wirkola 2009), and the drab retro-styled House of the Devil (West 2009).

The one that sparks his interest, though, is an odd Japanese pastiche, entitled Funky Forest: The First Contact (Ishii, Ishimine and Miki 2005). This one is news to him, and it is soon zipping its way through his download queue. After all, the hostel they were staying in, though satisfyingly simple and offering fantastic views across the sea to Jordan also had only local Israeli TV. It was released on DVD by Viz in March 2008; but for those of you wanting a slightly more legal way to purchase, act fast, Amazon seems to have only 17 left in stock right now.

Funky Forest, to Frank and Flip curled up together on a metal cot watching Frank’s little lap top screen, did not disappoint in that it was totally disappointing. Jamie offered the selection as one some-trippy-shit-movie-to-watch-while-you’re-fucked-out-of-your-mind. Frank was comfortable after some Mogen David and vicodin (after a17-hour plane ride JFK-TLV and a tumble over a wall, his back was killing him). But apparently not in a state to really appreciate Funky Forest which requires psychedelic mushrooms and Sudafed and Thunderbird to even begin to guess at its meaning.

First and foremost, it’s long. Two and a half hours, this is really way too long to be incomprehensible. Honestly. Unless you are of course in some mind-bent stupor. Heroin or oxycontin would be best, something that would allow hours of headache free dead attention that you may or may not remember after.

The film is a conglomeration of numerous vignettes, musical and comedy numbers, animation etc. these range from droll little conversations between secretaries to extracting things from bellybuttons and televisions with rectums. The scenes in this latter are straight out of Naked Lunch (Cronenberg 1991), without the thin semblance of a plot. Funky Forest is, in short, a lot like the Dead Sea. It’s an odd thing, and it pushes you away rather than try to draw you in.

But it is oddly entertaining in that Japanese-British way of sticking average button down people into bizarre situations.

Still, if you require a plot, don’t go straying into the Funky Forest, and probably stop reading this blog, whose attempts at both story telling and movie review are tenuous at best.

Funky Forest takes a good deal of the night, followed by some restless hours on the cot as the vicodin wears off. But Frank and Hadassah were up early to se the sun rise over Jordan, before scaling Masada, which is a wonder in its own right, and subject for a blog of another day.

Shalom, kaki shel hatoul!

2011-05-15T01:23:00.002-04:00

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Francis Trautman and Hadassah Pomegranate were touring the petting zoo in the village of Kafr Al Shams in the Golan Heights when the trouble began.

Specifically Flip Flop was trying to help separate bunnies from snakes in the reptile house; while conversely Graveyard Frank had been trying to decipher which restroom, the one marked with a bunny or a gorilla was right for him. He had given up and was now explaining to a little girl by the fish pond how the Israeli catfish had little payot instead of whiskers. She was asking why the little tref were bottom feeders (and Frank was resisting telling her that they were looking for loose change) when it happened.

Frank looks away from the pool when he hears a commotion at the fence, which was backed up against the Syrian border. A crowd had gathered on the other side and was working at the links with wire cutters. Those milling in the zoo began to yell and high tail it to the exit. Frank scooped up the little girl and shoved her into the arms of a screaming couple coming toward him. I hope those were her parents, he thinks quickly then turns to look for Flip.

It was perfect addition to their trip, already cut short by the jet fuel shortage at Ben-Gurion. It had been initially blamed on the Palestinians (it you followed the tweet-scene) but turned out to be a fuck up by some contractor. By the time it was cleared up it was Shabbat. No travel, of course. But they got in in time for Yom Hazikaron; it was now a leisurely Yom Ha'atzmaut.

Frank spots flip shoving a snake back into its cage. A section of fence is down and 20 to 25 Arabs are streaming through, chanting something or other. Frank doesn’t know or care what it specifically is, it seems angry and that’s all he cares about. Then the rocks start flying. The plan is to grab Flip and get the hell out of al-Dodge before stones turn into Molotov cocktails.

Of course as in many places, there is no lack of IDF about. In the spirit of the holiday, they had no small amount of equipment laid out for demonstration, mostly for the benefit of the kids who’ll all (more or less) be picking up arms in defense of the Jewish state when they reach eighteen. Or the old folks curious to see how the gear has advanced since the Enfield rifles they had been toting in 1948 or the Kalash in 1967. Now it’s noonish and many are lazing in the grass eating kebabs and pita. They drop the grub and grab their sparkly new Tavor bullpups and advance on the scene. To their credit they fire over the heads of the intruders trying to scare them back across the border.

Frank fights against the tide to the reptile house. As more and more pour through the fence. Given the black head scarves and green, black, red and white flags some carry, tourist Frank assumes they are Palestinians though he’s not sure why they are steaming out of Syria.

The ugly bruiser that stands between him and Flip Flop wears a Code Pink T-shirt (“Arrest the War Criminals”). “Nice shirt” Frank chirps as he brushes past him, too late to notice the brick he pulls out of his satchel and bashes him over the head. Frank is aware of collapsing over a stone wall into the goat enclosure before blacking out.

While out Frank dreams he is…one of the hapless victims in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 snuff-epic, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. It’s out on blue ray October 4 so you can catch all the senseless rape and coprophagia in crystal clarity…of course the dismal, muted film stock is really kind of the point of it all but whatever. The stills available online are spectacular.

In any case, some artsy friends had invited them to an advance screening in Tel Aviv at Universitat. Seems the young, much like Pasolini himself, thought they could find some understanding of the fascist horrors of the works of deSade. If flip flop had any idea what this film was about she would have said, “No.”

Of course, guilt of not telling her (his curiosity was admittedly piqued by the event. After all, who would show and what would they think?) led to the unfortunate dream of violation and depravity.

Frank is a film buff. He get’s what Pasolini was going for. It’s so bleak its almost fitting he was killed shortly after finishing it. Anyway, if you want a bit more lighthearted adaptation of deSade, try Jan Svankmajer’s Lunacy (2007). It still has a little edge, but some whimsical animation to boot.

When he comes to, Code Pink is going through his messenger bag and looking disappointed to find a mess of post cards and a stuffed camel for his nephew. Flip has come behind, when he hears her he turns and begins to stand, but flip delivers a quick right hook. “Layla Tov.” She smirks as he splays out in the dirt. Krav maga is a wonderful-thing.

But Frank better warn her about Salo before she Krav maga’s him.

Later Frank’s head is bandaged, most of the protesters have been herded back into Syria, and a few squadrons are combing the hills for stragglers. He gives a quick sound bite to Mabat which is soon on the scene. Frank doubts you will see any of this on MSNBC.

2011-04-01T21:14:00.016-04:00

Antichrist (2009)

Ding. Dong.

“GD Kansas! Again!” scowls Frank, brushing the rain from the brim of his cap.

Ding. Dong.

Frank rings again. He can still see the old guy inside through the window. He’s sitting in an easy chair staring off into space or more likely an unseen TV in the corner.

Ding Dong.

Perhaps the man is deaf? Afraid? Dead?

Ding Dong.

Frank tries one more time, and then dashes back down the path to his ’73 Impala, still purring in the drive. He throws his soggy hat on the dash and beats the steering wheel. Annoyed. The lady from the historical society had told the house was condemned and empty. He dials the radio and looks for something that isn’t static with a sigh. It doesn’t really matter; it had been a long day and he should just find a motel. Frank had been hired to check out the basement of the beaten old house in Freemont, Kansas by the town planning committee who had recently acquired it. They planned to tear it down and replace it with low income housing. So, he’d left a sleeping Flip-Flop behind in Atlanta early, early Monday morning, and had raced 900 or so miles, stopping only for gas and egg salad sandwiches to make it to Freemont at a decent hour. He did. It was a decent enough hour that he’d figured he’d do a little reconnaissance, not expecting someone to be home.

He’d just assume get the investigation over with and race back across six states, to slide back under the sheets with Flip. Instead, he’d prolly have to drive into Lawrence for the night and tackle this thing in the morning.

The old Johnson place was a modified old cottonwood shack dating to the Bleeding Kansas years. The first homestead in this part of the county in fact, set on the uplands where it could look either down on the Kansa River to the north or across the barren prairie on every other side. That made it the perfect lookout point to watch for either parties of escaped slaves (maybe even in the company of John Brown himself) along the Lane Trail to Iowa or perhaps angry bands of slave owners from Missouri looking to recapture their lost property.

According to local legend, the Johnson’s had moved to the Kansas territory in 1858 in order to help establish the Underground Railroad in eastern Kansas. As such, the location would have been a good one, and the local historical society claimed to have documentary evidence both establishing that the Johnson’s built the place and that they were agents of John Brown, a couple of stops north on the railroad from his home base at that time in Osawatomie. That was all well and good. Prolly the house’s infrastructure was that old (Frank would know better after poking around a bit both inside and out) and Mrs. Rosegreen of the historical society had the documents to support all that.

The bigger question was whether or not the Johnson’s had an escape tunnel in the basement. Urban legends abound about all “Underground railroad” locations. The first one is always that it was quite literally underground. And don’t underestimate people’s skewed ideas of history. Frank has even heard it from quite a few old timers that the UGRR was literally a train that drove underground from Charleston to Toronto.

In this case the locals were convinced that in the space of a few months the Johnston’s dug down through their basement, through the dense clay, then one mile north to the banks of the Kansa. Just in case, some one snuck up on their cabin from across the prairie. Not bloody likely.

But local pothunters had torn up the basement floor and believed they had found it. Checking it out as a historical consultant was a quick buck anyway. Not that it was that easy. Nothing ever was, was it? Well, Frank could think of a million reasons why there probably not a tunnel in the old Johnson basement. But on the way to find an Econolodge, Frank mostly stewed about the old man on in the chair who wouldn’t answer the door.

Mrs. Rosegreen was parked in the drive when Frank returned the next morning. Frank was bitching as soon as he pulled up behind her:

“I thought you said the place was empty!” he barked at her as he climbed out of the Chevy.

“What? It is!” she stammered, and Frank suddenly felt bad, and told her of his stop here the night before. She explained that old Mr. Johnson had been stuck in a rest home in Topeka by his remaining family when the house was condemned. Earl Johnson was the great-grandson of Hank and Emma who had built the cabin. Aside from a short stint at Paris Island and Chosin Reservoir with the Marines in the 1950s, Topeka was about as far as he had ever gotten away from Freemont. The eighty something year old went quite against his will; he passed away his first night in the home.

But she is also not too surprised by Frank’s story. Seems the city crew who boarded the place was a bit freaked out as well. They heard some shuffling footsteps in the parlor, strange shadows etc.

Wonderful, Frank scowls, more ghosts. “No, they probably heard some squirrels in the attic, and I was just very tired,” he explains to Mrs. Rosegreen of the ladies historical society, “Let’s just go get this over with.”

She unlocks the door but that’s as far as she goes. But she hands Frank a flashlight and a hardhat. He goes in. It’s creepy. But not as creepy as the old cabin in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009). This cabin had at best, a grumpy old man’s spirit, some mice and possibly a tunnel. Von Trier’s cabin had self-disemboweling foxes, still-born fawns, swarms of ticks and acorns, subterranean zombie crows, and, oh, Willem Dafoe. Shudder. Creepy.

Of course, the craziest thing about Antichrist is that Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire; Merhige 2000) is not the crazy person. Oh, sure, he’s been Jesus (The Last Temptation of Christ; Scorsese 1988), but even that was controversial. No, here Dafoe is more the victim, an odd triumph in itself. Frank has been a fan of von Trier for years, ever since The Kingdom (1994, 1997) before Stephen King crapped it up for American TV. Von Trier has a knack for the gorgeous, when he wants to film it that way, but also always, always, an eye for the disturbing, albeit sometimes much more subtle or slower to the punch in films like The Five Obstructions (2003), Dancer in the Dark (2000) or Dogville (2003). And of course, the Dogme95 stuff and its ilk have been mentioned in this forum before.

Antichrist in all its unrated pseudo-pornographic glory was released on DVD by criterion on November 9, 2010. It centers around Dafoe and unnamed therapist and his wife heading off to a cabin in the woods to deal with the grief of loosing their toddler son. No more spoilers here.

The Johnson cabin is a mess. Totally looted. Cabinets opened, their contents vomited everywhere. Furniture overturned and holes, of course, torn into every wall looking secret passages or Nazi gold or something. Oh well. It was about to be torn down in a few days anyway, unless Frank found some UGRR evidence to save it. The house had already been deemed not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as it had little architectural integrity. Changes and additions by the Johnson family over the last three centuries had altered it far beyond recognizable as a 1850s farmstead; also the recent years of neglect had not been kind either. And, a typical suburban neighborhood had grown up around it. You could no longer see the river valley or the prairie from the second floor windows.

And everything creaked. No wonder people thought they heard stuff. It was pitch black, given the boarded up windows and the shut off power. Frank snaps pictures as he goes and the flash helps a bit lighting up the place. Cobwebs and loose boards everywhere. Frank finds the basement door with the help of luck and the poor flashlight beam and slowly creeps down the rickety stairs to the basement. There in the center of the concrete floor he finds the gaping hole he is looking for, he crouches and pulls back some of the broken concrete slabs. Just as he thought. Just a cistern. Concrete lined also by the look of it. Maybe five or six feet deep and about four across. Not unusual. And it was possible the Johnson’s, if they were UGRR agents, even hid a slave down there sometime. But a cistern is not a tunnel either. Footsteps on upstairs now behind him.

“Get back outside Mrs. Rosegreen! It’s no safe down here!” He yells, “The floor’s all torn up and the ceilings about to cave.” No answer. Anyway the cistern doesn’t look too deep and since he’s come all this way he might as well hop down and make sure there no tunnel leading out of it. With any luck (for the historical society, at least, not the city) they might have left some sort of evidence of a mid nineteenth century fugitive slaves in the bottom when they sealed it off. Footsteps on the stairs now.

“Goddammit, Mrs. Rosegreen!” he yells and jumps down clunking his head on a pipe running under the floor.

Frank winces and shines the beam around in the cavity. He’s getting too old for this. Hissing now. Coming from the pipe. The idiots busted a gas line digging up the floor. That should have been shut off with the other utilities. Good thing he’d used a flashlight and not his Zippo. Footsteps in the basement now. With a gas leak no wonder people are seeing ghosts. That is a reassuring thought as the footsteps reach the edge of the cistern and Frank can make out a shadowy figure above him just as he passes out unconscious.

2010-08-08T22:50:00.009-04:00

The White Ribbon (2009) Somewhere On the Path of Least Resistance… It was shaping up to be quite a period of beginnings and ends and odds and evens, for Frank, whose metaphorical fork in the road, had just come across a very literal alligator in the path. Yes, a literal one. Improbably but decidedly accurately and true to life, there was an alligator lying on the way to his room in the Lafayette Hilton. The Yankee in him would have none of it. But what was one to do? He stares dumbly at it as his full ice bucket beads and drips down his arm. Somewhere up the path ahead a warm bottle of Ron Barrelito was awaiting his return. Down the path behind him his sister’s wedding party (her second) was an unforgivingly cheery event refusing to cease. But now his escape was in doubt. Maintenance had thrown up snow fencing around the swamp to curtail just this sort of thing from occurring. Where do a lazy bunch of conasse get a pile of snow fencing in this tropic anyway one might wonder. And Frank had asked them just that but his answer not forthcoming due to the language barrier. For one thing, there was no snow down here in the bayou and thus no reason to and he didn’t have another name for the wide slatted iron mess dangling in front of the leading edge of the swamp, making a half-hearted attempt to keep its seussian creatures inside its marshy confines. And now one was in his path. And he stared at it open mouthed, lit cigarette pasted to his bottom lip by spit, dropping ash from the corner of his mouth to the front of his polo shirt. It was a big bull of a thing; a male, slime drying to grey battle-scarred armor in the sun. The unblinking reptilian eyes of this fanged speed bump are trained on Frank’s every move. Its body was 12 feet long if it were an inch. The tail another 15 feet at least. Frank and a family of four could rest comfortably in its mouth. Resting on the pink sofa of its tongue. Perhaps playing the teeth with a mallet, like a gruesome xylophone. Or with the extra hands of the children, spin china plates on every fang like the most demented vaudeville show the world had ever imagined. Instead, the thing swiped out at Frank with a turn of its enormous head and a gnashing of its huge jaws, and snapped off Frank’s left shoe, and now sat chomping it down. Frank fell over as one would expect. It was terribly inconvenient and probably would have been painful too when the adrenaline wore off. Now he lied there and fretted and waited for the thing to gnaw off his foot outright. Stacy Adams were expensive god damn shoes for one thing after all. No matter how his Sugarloaf thought. And what of her? What would Sugarloaf think of him limping home sans left foot? She was a hot mess and a joy to make love to. But she was also more than a bit of shallow thing too. She’d leave him as soon as he couldn’t manage the dance floor any more. Or when she realized he never go jogging with her in Evangeline Park again. They would never be able to at it doggie style again, him standing at the foot of the bed. Her favorite position. There were prosthetic things too of course. But creepy pink-orange rubber gadgets. Really not sexy at all. That was crazy. Sugar, was dead, of course, Frank had heard the news earlier, but hadn’t yet had a moment to process it. Spike had filled him in over vodka gimlets this morning in the hotel bar before the wedding. With the oil drilling ban on, he had little else to do than stop by and dish what had been going on whilst Frank had been in the Middle East. It seemed she had broken her neck falling off the bed while ‘making love.’ As Spike told it, she had jumped when her dearest Barry had taken the initiative to slip a couple of fingers into her anus. She had only agreed to one. Live by the sword die by the sword. And so it was now almost with relief that Frank, sprawled on the pavement saw the Louisiana sun blotted out by the upper jaw of the croc—no a gator—he ought keep those straight—and the bottom teeth gingerly slip themselves down past his ears and clamp unceremoniously down on his neck. It was a shame he had gotten his hair cut yesterday. Of course, if the alligator in the path is our current metaphor for life, it begs the million dollar question (if this can in fact still be called a movie blog after all): What film is just like an alligator in the road? What film is an unnerving, unwavering mass of teeth and scales that won’t get out of your way?: Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s Das Weisse Band: Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte aka “The White Ribbon - A History of German Children" (2009). Of course.

A film that subtly if not diabolically portrays the German, Nazi generation as children. Very naughty children at that. It seems with films like this and 2005's Cache, Haneke is coming into his own. Far from the passé shockumentary Benny’s Video (1992) from the past decade, typical of the hit me over the head shock of things like Dogme 95 or Gregg Araki, who with Mysterious Skin (2004) may also be growing up. And Frank is growing up too. Fear not, intrepid reader. Frank was not going to lie down and let an alligator gobble up is head. Not after countless close calls and a bottle of duty free rum waiting for him. Instead He wedges the remaining Stacy Adam(s?) into the gators jaws, buying him enough time to muscle through an azalea, and then hop the fence into the pool. It was there that he found the intriguing Hadassah Pomegranate in a chaise lounge attempting to tan but mostly burning. Frank dubbed the cute Israeli au pair, “Flip-flop,” given the pile of thongs she had in her suitcase “just in case,” the largest of which she offered to replace Frank’s lost Stacy’s. Flip-flop had an infectious giggle, an ample bottom, and a wealth of witty conversation. So, in the end, Frank was able to wait out the hungry reptile with a night of delightful company. Many more, it seemed would ensue.

2010-05-25T20:22:00.000-04:00

Synecdoche, New York (2008) [Fans: Seems like good news of the Graveyard Frank front. Received our first direct correspondence in some time. An unusually cheery post card at that! More to come I suppose~ the editor.]

2010-01-01T19:46:00.006-05:00

The Science of Sleep (2006) [Editor’s note: From the Graveyard Frank archives, ca. 2007. Spotted on the back of a brochure for a CDL program in the parking lot of JoJo’s Motor-tel, West Memphis, AK; Keep it coming, folks~ d.f.] Scattered today. Thoughts and footsteps. Sun Records, founded in 1950 to compete with the Chicago labels, was grown out of sheer necessity, following near- bankruptcy over a plagiarism suit. In 1953, Sam Phillips, the founder, was sued for his minor first hit, Rufus Thomas’s “Bear Cat,”—the hollerback song to Big Mama Thorton's “Hound Dog.” As luck would have it, the original tune was later covered by Elvis Presley (King Creole 1958), who was trotted out the next year. Today “Bear Cat” would be protected under Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., which protects parody as fair use; if you remember the 2 Live Crew slaughter of “Pretty Woman.” Roy Orbison was discovered by Johnny Cash and signed at Sun Records in 1956, FYI. But no one protected Frank (now hoofing down Beale Street in a breezy November to catch the Dempseys in a local bar) from being ripped off. Last night he had been. Ripped off that is. Maybe. The jury is still out in his mind. On the surface its seems, Michael Gondry’s The Science of Sleep (2006) sure seemed a rip off of Frank’s 2004 screenplay “2 Inches Taller in Sleep,” which he had sent to numerous producers in Europe, knowing no one in the US would do it. Actually, he’d hoped to get it in the hands of Jodorowsky (El Topo 1970), who seemed to be lingering for a comeback. He might be the only director dangerous enough to bite on “2 Inches.”

Anyway, at least Gondry was trying something a little new but, Frank was a little disappointed in the film; He fell asleep watching it on his laptop in a West Memphis Arkansas motel. [Free the West Memphis 3!]. It is a love story basically, but is still something of a guy film in the same way you would have a chick flick. Watch anything by Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch 1969) for a more macho display of the genre. OK. Perhaps he is overselling what is ultimately an artsy and pretentious flick.

And therefore, forget it. It’s not a rip-off of Frank’s script. Gondry has just mucked up the dream frontier before Frank got to it. In any case, Peckinpah at heart, Frank shrugs and shivers in his stiff carhart, as he enters the dark bar; a new jacket with a new, re-found maleness. Still as a vestige of his former longing self, he pulls it shut over his burgeoning belly as a bevy of girls walk in behind him. The girls here are all typical, some too young, with an awkward, naïve view of sexuality. They think that mere bare flesh will cut it as a form of seduction. It didn’t. They were just a bunch of pasty little girls without daddies. The older ones had it right, with their alluring southern charms and dusky hues slinking around the pool tables. Trouble was that they usually came with two or three kids in toe. Frank didn’t need that either. It was unseasonably cold for a campus hangout in Tennessee and Frank had no other intention then to sit with his new found self, sip his whiskey and watch the boxing match on the TV above the bar. If the right girl for him walked in, they’d both know it. Til then there was no use sitting around all antsy and ogling the local train wreck-gals. So there our hero sits stewing on Peckinpah and Jodorowsky and Gondry and Sam Phillips. Alone. In a corner listening to Jerry Lee Lewis on the juke. He smokes. He hates it. It makes him sick. But nausea is something. Some feeling against the void of non-existence. He will be this way—forever probably. Our hero has been in his “fortress of solitude” for too long. No matter. Where’s he to go? He has no friends. No concrete reason to get up and smile. It is late nite. No one dreams about our hero, but he dreams about them. All of them. Death only sits near—but not that near. Seemingly out of reach, in fact. He busies him self with some job applications. Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR, you name it. He was headed to Houston and beyond in search of the next insane high. He scrawls a NB to a potential employer: who sez not offering full-time positions helps out by giving you freedom? Yes, having an expendable crew is also useful in times of budget crises and when doling out employee benefits. Being a competent professional without job security ain’t no benefit to me, brother. Vive le roi!” But it matters not. He’ll take the job if the pay is right or at least comparable to the danger-level. Freedom, oh freedom. That’s just some people talkin’. Or perhaps, freedom is just a word that means nothing left to loose. And [spoiler] if you hated Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) at the end of the Gondry film, as Frank heard some chick—errr female reviewers say, then you didn’t get it from the man’s POV. Besides, Frank thinks he was having a stroke. Later that night, Frank finds his room is infested with ants. He kinda likes it. He kills these innocent leggy creatures constantly because he cannot kill himself or the loss of his Sugarloaf: "I hate myself. Squish! She cheated on me. Squish! Squish! It is over. There is no trying. Squish! Squish! Squish....!" He passes out and dreams he is driving through a junkyard with no brakes, he cries out for help but no one comes...

2007-11-03T22:52:00.003-04:00

The Brown Bunny (2005)

[In fulfilling F.T.'s precedent not to give completely un-redeeming films a full review here, we're publishing this postcard allegedly sent by Frank to a former flame, Sugarloaf Jones. It had been found discarded and sent in by an alert reader. Cheers, the Editors]

2007-10-14T00:02:00.000-04:00

Behind the Mask (2006)

[We are continuing to publish the film reviews of Graveyard Frank Trautman as we find them. The following, written on the back of a diner menu in Wichita, was found and sent in by one our intrepid readers who wishes to remain anonymous. Given the clues therein, we expect it was written sometime in July. Thanks for you patience, the editors.]

Frank is slumped behind the wheel gasping at the air conditioner. Its 117 with the heat index. His job? Its terrible and rotten today and this is all he has. He has been riding fences in Kansas for months now, by which he means endless miles of prairie archaeological inventory and survey; he has been directing. It was a chance at a good job for once. Actually it’s a great job, aside from being on the road a lot. It’s too bad Sugarloaf Jones, his former gal could not respect that. While the cat’s away… as the old cliché goes.

Anyway Frank now detours slightly for McPherson, Kansas to check out two roadside attractions he doesn’t want to miss. The first is the old MGM Lion, or what’s left of him anyhow. The skin of Leo is on the third floor of the McPherson Museum in a glass case in the African room. This lion is the first MGM lion from the silent-movie-era. His roaring protégée from talkies is buried in New Jersey. Leo the rug was bought around 1922 by a McPherson banker and found his way into the museum.

The second McPherson icon he’s determined to find galls him somehow, though he had hoped sight of the giant chimney sweep that he’s heard tale of will give him at least a laugh. It doesn’t.

The Happy Sweep, as he is known, is just off the side of I-135 between Wichita and McPherson Kansas. If you’ve ever eaten at one of the few Happy Chef diners dotting the Midwest, you’d recognize him, almost. Happy Chef is based in Mankato, Minnesota and known for serving breakfast all day. The first Happy Chef Restaurant opened in 1963 and still operates today. Originally all Happy Chefs had a big statue of a smiling man in a chef hat holding a spoon. These roadside icons were about 40-ft tall and would play recorded audio messages when a button was pushed. The Happy Chef told 22 jokes or dispensed 1950's style Midwestern wisdom when you pressed a button. Unfortunately, the chain has retired the Happy Chef statues. Today, only the original Mankato location still has its Happy Chef statue.

It’s sad that as a culture we’ve out-grown the wise and good natured Happy Chef. Frank has a job to do. Sugar has random guys to fuck. The country has pre-emptive wars to fight and pop stars to idolize. There’s no room for ole H. C.’s brand of folksy wisdom. [Okay, okay, Frank has no idea what this wisdom was, and promises to look into it.]

The Happy Sweep used to be one of these large bakers poised in front of a Happy Chef in McPherson or Manhattan, Kansas. When the place closed a couple of years ago he was bought by an entrepreneur and renovated. His wooden spoon was refashioned into a broom and his chef’s hat replaced by a top hat. His body repainted into a tux. They also added a whole lot of Christmas lights so you can see the old boy at night. The Happy Sweep was born.

To Frank, standing in the wet grass on the side of the highway while Angry Jamie snaps a few photos, the Happy Sweep’s big fiberglass smile bugs him. Frank guesses he’s smiling because he’s found a new job. Fired from his restaurant, he is now reborn. A new career in the lucrative fireplace maintenance industry. Frank, also alone too in that field, has a new job too…

…but at least that fat cold dead bastard smiles. Frank doesn’t.

He is cut and bruised by miles of barbed wire fences not to mention the poison ivy, ticks, mosquitoes and horseflies, coyotes and angry badgers. And if you’re out there Barry, you won’t smile much longer either, you’ve got yourself an unfaithful girl there.

It seems his darling Sugarloaf was fucking around on him while he toiled out in the Midwest dodging flash floods and tornados in order to make a living. That hurt. He can’t smile, good job or no. She was throwing up obstacles like a girl half her age because at 39 she was still afraid at being in a good relationship. She fucks around to prove she doesn’t need anyone in her life, yet can’t resist ensnaring the weak Frank who just wants to be loved. Seven months on her wasted.

She proclaims tears and despair and love to Frank when she breaks it off. Frank had spent a weekend traveling back to Atlanta, but it’s not true. Frank doesn’t believe in love that is told in terms of convenience. To her, out of sight, out of mind. The first time she needs him to shoo some punk kids from her stoop, a new man finds his way to her bed. If she loved him she would love him. Better to have loved and lost?

Green eyes, the lousy Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head 2002) song she played for him drones on the radio and he tells Jamie to switch it off.

And oh! The pimps from Behind the Mask, The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Glosserman 2006) have been bugging Frank’s Myspace page. It is a DVD now. The first 10 min are Okay. It’s kinda funny to see a “supernatural killer" as the kind of douche bag that Sugarloaf’s with now. After that its just Scream (Craven 1996) meets Man Bites Dog (Belvaux et al 1992) with out apology. It sucks.

But that giant chimney sweep, out alone in his field. At least that fat cold dead bastard smiles!

2007-10-06T23:38:00.000-04:00

Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies (1994)/ Moulin Rouge! (2001).

[Note: Frank Trautman was last seen in his ’73 Impala, hurtling down Rte 66 in the vicinity of Joplin, MO., some time last whenever, a quarter past forever, on a day ending in a Y. This blog entry is reproduced, as is, from his journals. In the coming months, we will continue to publish his notes where possible. Should the worst have happened, he is known to be survived by a pair of size 13 Frye’s left under the bed of his former love, Sugarloaf Jones. For now, Thanks for all the good wishes from his fans. Now that he’s on the road constantly, Graveyard Frank is sincerely missed. Thanks. D. Franz, Editor, Rocks and Bones Productions.]

Frank has had to learn to drive with two arms and two lips free. He misses co-pilot Sugarloaf Jones, kissing her on the straight-aways and squeezing her on the curves. (That’s not as dirty as it sounds!) More than once Frank has unconsciously caught himself about to grope the unsuspecting traveler in the passenger’s seat. Angry Jamie is an amiable enough chap, but it isn’t the same.

To make matters worse, he had caught a stomach virus on their recent side trip to see the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas, and had spent several days in a motel shivering, feverish and intensely in pain. A bemused Sugar would joke that he had caught the bug kissing Jamie, her errant, temporary replacement. But his lovely brown beauty would also send him out a care package on the road to cheer him up. It contained a stuffed Curious George doll, to replace the rubber chimp on his dashboard that creeped her out, and also a copy of Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann 2001). Angry Jamie, not to be out done, sent over a bootleg of Hated (Phillips 1994) the documentary on deceased rocker GG Allin and his band, the Murder Junkies .

After three days Frank, clutching the bedspread was finally well enough to slink down to the floor in front of his laptop to eat some saltines and watch a DVD. But which could his ailing stomach handle? A documentary on a punk rocker who eats piss and shit, or a campy musical starring Nicole Kidman? Frank figured he’d better take both in small doses.

Hated is a straight forward documentary in style, though it fails to carry much information or insight on the shocking antics on GG Allin. Moulin Rouge!, on the other hand is a frenetic blur of romance and song. It is easy to see the appeal to Sugarloaf. Also, she tells him, “Ewan MacGregor is the greatest actor of his generation.” Note also “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour; 1967) is prominent in both her favorite films, MR! and Love Actually, (Curtis 2003) and her two favorite characters (or 3 counting Frank) are writers.

There are some small irksome bits. What does Nicole Kidman not know about her own TB? Why does she live in Lucy the Elephant from the Jersey Shore? Why does poor Toulouse Lautrec portrayed as a goof with a lisp and not the tragic figure he really was. This sticks in frank’s craw a bit.

And oh, as for the ball of twine, Frank won’t mock, those kids growing up under its immense fibrous shadow have enough to live up to. Go see it yourself. Have a ball, so to speak.

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fuck.

fuck. Bemoans a newly broken Frank. This blog’s a long time in coming. And millions of unsent postcard and silent prayers are scattered between its start and its end.

For in truth Frank’s GG Allin soul fails to live up to the McGregor’s beautiful innocent writer. The writer Sugarloaf wants to love. The man, Frank, is not singing and dancing here. Halting optimism is crushed under the boots of his failure to be good enough for her. Good, yes. But not good enough.

He’s said it before: no one wants to fight for anything in this damn world. We slam on the brakes at the first pot hole. Turn around. Kisses de-evolve into friendly handshakes. Clocks tick out the moments in the darkest of night and in the morning. The cruel fanged sun scowls on a grey horizon and love is gone, tattered, wasted, ruined and all follows in its wake. The winds, more ill than fair, pick the course again. Boots are buckled as are dreams and souls. A jacket against the outside cold. The inside is icy nonetheless. The hero stumbles one shaky foot in front of the other and is away again. Beasts and demons reign again whipping around his coattails unheeded.

No one had ever chosen to be with Frank before. And Sugarloaf has signed the register as the exception to prove the rule. As the tired clichéd script dictates, she tells him how lovable he is and how she cannot love him. Not in that way, of course. She says he not a loser, just that he hasn’t won. He is everything yet nothing to her.

FUCK Moulin Rouge!

2007-05-27T23:20:00.000-04:00

Particles of Truth (2005)

No man is an island. Freud (Totem and Taboo 1913) said that. Maybe not. Simon and Garfunkel (Sounds of Silence 1966) said the opposite. At least no one can remain an island for ever lest be driven mad by loneliness and unsympathetic despair. Most men understand this at some level. The sex drive is the most primal expression of this. Women, or at least the most he’s encountered of late, Frank thinks, try to deny this as long as possible. Men and women often “settle” with a mate because of this. Love the one you’re with. Stephen Stills (Self-titled 1970) said this. Others put up wall of introspection, distractions and self- amusement.

But enough of who said what, the point is moot when sitting at the “Center of the [continental] United States" in Lebanon, Kansas. Here, with its lonely rolling prairies as far as the eye can see, 19 miles south of the Nebraska border, is by extraction, politics, religion, socio-economics, and cultural bravado possibly the center of the universe itself. It even has a USA-approved chapel and creepy wooden crucifix.

His cohort on this recent expedition across America’s vast middle, surveying for archaeological sites and hitting every tourist trap is Angry Jamie who now clambers up atop the American flag marking the spot to smoke while Frank sits at the cross-roads contemplating life and the expanse of grassland all around. He calls over his shoulder to ask Angry Jamie if they should erect a similar roadside attraction at the center of all the US, Alaska and Hawaii included. Angry Jamie believes that the spot might be in Mexico. He may be right. But whether to also include, Puerto Rico, parts of Antarctica, Iraq and the moon are another issue. Instead they agree to start up a local baseball team and call it them the Lebanon Centrists.

Angry Jamie, now scribbling away on his sketch pad, is not all that angry, just young, outspoken and away from his girl, and his home. A temporary island unto himself. Another island, filmmaker Jennifer Elster, is a prime example of the folly of self-isolation. Her film Particles of Truth (Hart Sharp Video 2005) which she wrote, directed, produced, and stars in is not only a study in isolation, but is also ironically crippled by her monopoly over it. Film-making, good film-making is a collaborative art. Particles of Truth is myopic at best. It is monolithic shite. She is no Kubrick (Lolita 1962), no Orson Welles (Citizen Kane 1941).

It is, in short, Particles of Truth is the story of a troubled artist, Lilli, who has closed herself off from other because of a rocky childhood; she meets a cute, hermit writer, Morrison. They fall in love but both must come out of their protective shells, etc. etc. Go watch As Good As It Gets (Brooks 1997). Same story, more or less, but more entertaining.

Particles of Truth knocks you over the head with blatant, elementary symbolism. Lilli is represented by a butterfly. Yes, we can see her character bust blossom out of its cocoon. Her father is stretched out on a cross-shaped bed. This was old hack when Paul Newman splays out on a table, Jesus-like after the hard-boiled egg scene in Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg 1967). Ironic graffiti and signs also abound. Oh, yes; things are “Out of Order” for the characters. Elster probably found this delicious as she blocked scenes. Frank had enough after the “Watch Your Head” sign in Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino 1992)

Elster doesn’t even seem to have given herself a continuity checker. Lilli’s joint gets longer as she puffs it. Morrison’s beard comes and goes in is thickness. Her character’s parents never even seem to age from flashbacks.

It’s a shame; the acting and photography aren’t too bad. This isn’t a case of no talent. It’s a case of a single vision, gone unchecked.

In short, it has a terrible script with all too convenient dialogue and unnatural plot points. Lilli’s father has AIDS, not cancer, etc. So what? People just don’t act like this. Morrison is an agoraphobic or a germophobe. Or maybe OCD? It is not clear, but he easily seems to pretty easily forget this when pursuing Lilli. It is an insult to the mentally ill. People with these conditions should write her a scathing letter for her casualness, if they would leave their homes to hop down to the Blockbuster in order to be insulted, that is.

Still if you like this sort of pretentious artsy tripe, go rent it. Shit, even the title is pretentious. Grab Waking Life (Linklater 2001) and Pi (Aronofsky 1998) while you’re at it. But Frank won’t join you. He’d rather be popping Deliverance (Boorman 1972) or even the Danish masterpiece of sock puppetry Reptilicus (Bang and Pink 1961) into his DVD-player.

But for now, Frank fires up a cigarette, a bad habit which is a comfort driving through endless Kansas. It is a bad habit he plans to abruptly stop when he gets back home. Frank is no island any more. His love is a jetty to the fertile mainland of Sugarloaf Jones. He can still feel this rocky crag, his arm, reaching out to the warm coastal plain, her waist, thighs, breasts. Miss you, Princess.

2007-03-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

Love Actually (2003)

On the night of April 14, 1912, 1,523 people died on the doomed first voyage of the Titanic. This has always felt an appropriate allegory to Frank for his own first dates,

—from
Violet, who was angry and disappointed that no one had told Frank she had only one leg. Truth be told, the way she danced it didn’t matter.
—to
Daisy, who was angry and disappointed that no one had told Frank she had only one ear. Truth be told, Frank wasn’t on this blind (deaf) date’s radar-screen anyhow.
—to
Rose, who was angry and disappointed that no one had told Frank she had had only one lover. Truth be told, when she bumped into her ex that night, she sobbingly said, its more romantic to cling to an asshole than let a second man in the honey pot.
—to
Iris, who was angry and disappointed that no one had told Frank she had but a one second attention span. Truth be told she went off with an oil-rig lineman who looked like Matthew McConaughey (Dazed and Confused; Linklater 1993) after 15 minutes of being with Frank.

But these faded flowers are behind Frank now as he strolls the Titanic artifact exhibit in Atlanta, Georgia, arm and arm with Señorita Georgia Pan de Azúcar a.k.a. “Sugarloaf Jones,” to those close to her. And Frank hoped to become the closest.

Sugarloaf was a research fellow (!) from the University of San Juan, a cellular biologist with expertise in necrotizing fasciitis. She was completing her dissertation on the early detection of Fournier’s syndrome through case data sets made available with the cooperation of the NCID. In short (not too short); she’s a helluva woman. Part exotic, part geek. And all warm and soft in all the right places.

Also she has an inordinate fear of monkeys.

Anyway, the exhibit retells the history of the ill-fated Titanic both through the individual tales of some of its passengers and victims, interspersed with parts and artifacts from the beast, collected during expeditions to the sunken wreckage. Some exhibits are hands on including a man-made iceberg to show how cold sea water is in the north Atlantic; and an even colder slab of the ship's hull. There are plenty of eerie remnants of life aboard the Titanic, cosmetic jars, satchels and hats, bottles and plates, many with the White Star Line logo. You can even buy replicas in the gift store. What better omen for your tea party than Titanic mugs, what better thing to instill confidence to instill in your co-workers than a Titanic neck tie.

Sugarloaf is most affected by the story of American travel writer Helen Churchill Candee. She gave her locket to courter Edward Kent, during the disaster. Thinking he was more apt to survive. Before boarding a lifeboat, Candee handed the gilt locket containing a picture of her mother to Kent, saying "Take these for me, you know we women have no pockets," The locket was later recovered from Kent’s body. It, and Candee’s 36-page retelling of the adventure, recently sold for $185,000 at auction.

Frank was interested in First Officer William McMaster Murdoch who, with lifeboats filled and launched, reportedly kept tossing deck chairs overboard for floundering passengers to cling to. Even as he himself slid into the sea. He was one of 688 crewmen to die in the icy water.

The message of the Titanic, to Frank was that if life is short, and if the seas held unseen perils ahead, one must never let anything go unsaid, undone. We only get one chance at on this crap shoot blue marble. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Sugarloaf agreed there were possible dangers ahead, but while Frank was already waving good bye to the life boats, striking up “Nearer My God to Thee” on the boat deck, she was carefully scanning the horizon from the crow’s nest. Trying to make things safe if not right.

Frank never hesitated; the poor devil would always blurt out whatever the hell was on his mind. Always. The thoughtful Sugarloaf paled at Frank’s impulsiveness. She envisioned cells merging, slowly building colonies of love and trust, her gentle phagocytes working away the barnacles on Frank’s miserable plasmalemma. Frank sees ships colliding and sinking in the night. In his mind he was already off on another misadventure, unsure if he was leaving someone behind or not.

They were both right: the hasty and anxious often fuck stuff up. The too-careful often let things pass by.

Later that night they hit the town but all the bars are closed at an unheard of 12 AM. And for once it doesn’t much matter. Frank and Sugarloaf sit and talk in the rain, under a dry awning off Kenny’s Alley. His arms around inviting hips for the first time in ages... or ever.

For the second date she would ask him to watch her favorite movie, the multi-headed chick flick Love Actually (Curtis 2003). Despite a few plot holes and schmaltz, it was OK actually. Everything was.

She holds him tightly and tells him he is good man. It means more than he can say. And he would have kissed her deeply right there but they had been debating something or other and the moment wasn’t quite right. Besides, save something for tomorrow, El Capitán. No ice bergs here.

2007-02-14T23:59:00.000-05:00

Talk to Her (Hable con Ella) (2002)

Outside Pittsburgh, PA February 14, 2007 (Valentines Day):

Exploring the rusted insides of the abandoned Ohio & Eastern plywood manufacturing plant, Frank pauses outside the loading dock supervisor’s office to collapse unto an old pile of sawdust and weep. Rats and tetanus be damned. He weeps for all the out-of-work factory employees left out in the cold when O&E abruptly closed its doors---in February of 1997 (if the remaining wall-calendars were any indication). Presumably they’d all since found work elsewhere, probably in the city-proper; there were plenty of steel mills and plants there.

Frank also weeps because with his education and experience, doing industrial research on a freelance basis was not exactly where he wanted to be at this point in his life. He wanted benefits, a 401K, a house and a picket fence, an adoring wife and 2.5 kids. The usual things.

Frank weeps because it is February 14th, Valentine’s Day, not to mention, his birthday. And for another in a 30-odd year streak he was alone.

And, alone there in that rusted out shell of a building, his wails echoing off the decaying sheet metal, he weeps because in 30-odd years he had not only never had a Valentine, but also because he had never, really affected anything, anyone. Not really.

The crazy ones had a way of forgetting you somehow once you left the room, like Frank’s cats did when he left the apartment. All the rest were what they were calling “fag hags” nowadays. They also had a way of forgetting you. Forgetting you were a straight guy at least. But eventually somehow, sometime, amid all the comforting, hand holding, they’d be reminded that you were straight---usually when getting an erection poking them in the ear when attempting to watch an Audrey Tatou (Amelie; Jeunet 2001) movie with their head in your lap. When they figured out you were a man, it was over. These types think all men are severely flawed. Therefore, when choosing between damaged goods, you might as well pick the one with the least cosmetic damage, i.e. the handsome ones.

Well, there was one girl, one of the crazy ones, he had affected but she was a Groundhog’s Day date, and things didn’t last 'til mid-month. And Frank didn’t care to remember her. It was his one true regret.

Frank had been a brash young archaeologist, swaggering, a muscular, hole-digging physique shimmied over a Baudelaire attitude, barking orders at the undergrads, one of which was Gypsy, girlfriend of the local campus bully. Tall, red-head with a body that didn’t quit, a Rubber Soul (Beatles 1965) T-shirt and a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster 1961) under her arm. She followed him home one day. Well to the speakeasy, he called home, anyhow…Frank was not completely surprised because the bully had been by the bar, called The Rusty Trowel, the day previous. He had asked Frank to give him some small “airline”-sized bottles of Dewars he had left over from the Christmas party. He was afraid he’d loose Gypsy if he didn’t get her drunk and deflower her. Frank acquiesced. The bully didn’t deserve her. But who did? Nigh on his 21st birthday, Frank already knew he was destined to be alone.

Frank also wept a bit for the characters in Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her (2002). It is included in the new boxed set “Viva Pedro - Pedro Almodovar Classics Collection” available from Sony Pictures on January 30, 2007. Frank had watched it in on his laptop in the dingy Super 8 he had stayed in the night before, somewhere near Harper’s Ferry. The collection also includes Bad Education, All About My Mother, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Live Flesh, Flower of My Secret, Matador and Law of Desire. The $87.99 Amazon.com asking price is not bad for such a pack of good films.

Talk to Her, however, is a personal favorite Almodóvar film for Frank. It centers on two men Benigno and Marco, whose loves are both in comas. Marco meets male nurse Benigno (surely not accidentally named!) when his bullfighter girlfriend is gored by a bull. Benigno has gotten work overseeing a comatose young dancer with whom he is infatuated. His advice to Marco is the title of the film.

The film is beautifully shot, particularly in Almodóvar’s attention to the beauty in the human form. The acting is also above par, especially Javier Cámara’s touching portrayal of Benigno. In a typical American/Hollywood pic, this character would have been played as an unlikable creep from the beginning, like Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins, in Psycho; Hitchcock 1960) or Crispin Glover (Ew!) (Back to the Future; Zemeckis 1985). Here, instead we are allowed to like the character, even though he is obsessed with the dancer Alicia. He is a tubby, momma’s boy who is hopelessly in love with an unattainable girl. We can all relate on some level if allowed. And we can remember this and still care for Benigno as Marco does even as things break apart. (No spoilers, here.)

Perhaps, Frank thinks, if a good enough actor plays Him maybe Frank can come out more likeable in his own bio-pic.

Perhaps, not.

…anyway, Gypsy wouldn’t drink her bully’s Dewars. But following Frank home, she does accept to split a Genny Cream Ale with him. Her first drink. A crappily satisfying beer in a semi-dirty glass. Frank, of course, made no move to deflower her, but felt an evil glee nonetheless to get the one-up on her bully BF.

But she and Frank’s whirlwind romance culminating in a romantic Groundhog’s Day in Punxsutawney didn’t withstand the drinking and she was back with bully by February 14. She and bully’s insane abusive relationship ran for some time after.

What Frank didn’t know at the time was the booze didn’t do well with her Lithium prescription. He later found out that she was not just one of the crazy ones. She was certified. And Frank had helped further her down a bad road. Reports he hears on her now and then are not promising.

So there, in the sawdust and the rats, Frank weeps for Gypsy most of all.

2007-01-07T02:48:00.000-05:00

The Bicycle Thief (1949) The feeling is like bobbing in the surf. When the next wave comes on, you feel the surge as you are tossed to the top, lifted a bit so that you can try to shout to your friends, those lifeguards on the beach, and your lovers, sunning themselves in the sand. But they either can’t or won’t look your way and you are soon crashing back into the bottom ass over head, sucking the brine in thru mouth and nose. Certainly at this point two things are true; you know who your friends are. There is a patent difference between those who care and those who have only been paying you lip-service. Friends will wade out and will carry you ashore; buoy your sinking carcass. To the rest, safely on the beach, you are a burden; you call and they look away, somehow afraid you can drag them under too. Most people fall into the latter camp. Don’t be surprised at who isn’t running out into the waves with a life preserver, slow-motion style. You’ll find very few Hasselhoffs on the beach when you need’em. The second true thing is after the first mouthful of seawater, you don’t want help that much anyway. The ocean is nothing if not full and complete and non-judgmental… Frank pauses in this diatribe, abandons his dwindling audience in the hotel lobby as a young lady of the variety that can only be described as “easy” staggers into view. She just wants some food and to be told she’s pretty and at this moment she’s the prettiest gal in the world. Her boyfriend, she says has torn off from the place drunk in his 2006 Ford Expedition. She touches Frank on the elbow, not a lot but more than anybody else in a long time. And Frank knows that if makes some cheap, sleazy move, she’d be his til boyfriend comes a-weaving on home, probably with a police escort. Its one of those times that hangs heavy and pregnant in the air, where a guy knows he just has to ask. A few minutes in the back room may be just another meaningless stab back at boyfriend for her, payback for leaving, but it may just be salvation for Frank. She asks him the necessary prerequisites; does he have a job? How much does he make? When is he planning on leaving here? He furnishes her with muffins and a cigarette and refrains from telling her that the best way to get her revenge is to give a stranger a blow job in the men’s restroom. Criterion is once again re-releasing an over-priced classic, Vittorio DeSica’s The Bicycle Thief (1949). DeSica is the king of Italian post-war realism and though Frank Trautman prefers the cinematography of Two Women (1960) and the knee-jerk pathos of Umberto D. (1952), The Bicycle Thief is an important film, and probably the one you’ve had to watch in most Cinema 101 courses. There’s plenty of pathos here, too. An out-of-work Italian family man gets a reprieve in the form of a gig putting up posters. Unfortunately, his bike gets stolen, making the job impossible to do. Well, much has been made of the film and Frank won’t attempt to replicate, not when Ford Expedition has just breezed back in and scooped up the girl. She was pudgy and had cum stains on her “USA: Love it or Leave it” T-shirt anyway. And there’s a war on and you can watch it on the TV hung over the breakfast bar. And Frank is dizzy because it’s been nothing but cigarettes and Old Crow for three days now. Long Way Home Well I stumbled in the darkness I'm lost and alone Though I said I'd go before us And show the way back home Is there a light up ahead? I can't hold on very long Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home Money's just something you throw Off the back of a train Got a handful of lightening A hat full of rain And I know that I said I'd never do it again And I love you pretty baby but I always take the long way home I put food on the table And a roof overhead But I'd trade it all tomorrow For the highway instead Watch your back if I should tell you Loves the only thing I've ever known One thing for sure pretty baby I always take the long way home You know I love you baby More than the whole wide world You are my woman I know you are my pearl Let's go out past the party lights We can finally be alone Come with me and we can take the long way home Come with me, together we can take the long way home Come with me, together we can take the long way home ~~Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 2002

2007-01-06T03:12:00.000-05:00

Der Untergang (2004) Frank is getting low now... For an intimate portrait of the last days spent by Hitler in his bunker, check out the all around exquisite but disturbing Downfall (Hirschbiegel 2004) (Sony 8/02/05).

2007-01-01T04:26:00.000-05:00

Oliver Twist (2005) New Years Morning in Hampton

The cemetery caretaker has a white VW Beetle and it is parked out under the gardenias, improbably still in bloom. Gardenias were named not because they grow in a garden, but after Scottish naturalist Alexander Garden.

A drunk teen wrecked his Dodge Stratus up on Mullberry and reported it stolen. "Stratus" is used to describe flat, featureless clouds of low altitude varying in colour from dark gray to nearly white. The Dodge Stratus additionally comes in Inferno Red and Midnight Blue Pearl.

The Liberty Tax Center mascot at the corner of Coliseum Drive and 14th collapsed dropping her signboard and torch into the morning traffic and sending her crown clattering into the sanitary sewer. Acute myocardial infarction is commonly known as a heart attack; it occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted causing an oxygen shortage that damages or kills heart tissue. It is the leading cause of death all over the world. And the prostitutes leaving Infinitys at 2 AM are able to go out back and around into the adjoining Travelers Inn to duck out of the early morning mist. They can sneak past the night auditor when he gets up for a smoke or to fold linen. They’re safe to crash on the second floor lobby til they open the breakfast bar at 7. They aren’t considered prostitutes if not paid out right for sex. Try bringing groceries. It works for your wife. As the sun comes up with its toothy unnerving snarl, the geese scatter from the broken striped parking lot of the Odd Lots. They don’t know where to land since they put up the convention center or the movie theatre or the new highway interchange or the mega stores on Power Plant. Canada Geese choose their mate at the age of two. Most couples stay together all of their lives. In the human species, material culture has damped the effects of environmental conditions on differing reproductive rates. Thus free, “cultural selection” dictates that mates are chosen based on prominent social tastes and mores. These include economic or prestige status, and current standards of beauty. Those deemed inadequate by the herd generally do not mate, except in extreme circumstances, including advanced states of intoxication, desperation and poverty. Flunitrazepam, formerly marketed under the trade name Rohypnol, is a drug which is a benzodiazepine derivative. It has powerful sedative, anxiolytic, and skeletal muscle relaxant properties. It has been wrongly used by the disaffected members of the human species to increase instances of copulation. Frank squashes a Lucky Strike and polishes off a Yuengling as the new day comes. He is off from work for a good 23 hrs. and will attempt to make the most of it. Mostly that will entail watching his kitten Junior Bonner bat at the daddy longlegs leaving his fiber in the screen mesh outside the patio door. He’ll also sew a button on his faded RedHeads. Frank is a Hanged Man. a simple man. He goes to work; just do his job and come home. Seven days a week. And after that, most nights does more work then. If he is meek all day it is for no more reason than in today’s litigious society anything you say can and will be used against you. It happens; it has happened before; it will happen again. Those who are unliked are often at risk, and it is a slippery slope. And he is at best, single and unliked. Brutish, ugly, without a woman’s refinements. Again, it is a slippery slope. Puccini speaks to him. Also Glen Fry. Puccini was a nineteenth and twentieth century composer of operas. Fry is an twentieth and twenty-first century composer of “country rock.” Frank is often busted broke. Working to pay for a car so to be able to go to work. Sunk by thousands of bucks in student loans for a $15 dollar a week cost of living increase, just enough to cover the $60 increase in monthly rent. Surely to keep things at status quo one would hope, but it is a slippery slope. And if he drinks and smokes too much, it is because of all above. He does so only when lonely and that means all the time. But a simple man, going to work, doing the job.

Frank's goal for the new year is either to shoot a new film or himself in the head. And he wishes his best to those that will help him do either.

Oliver Twist (1839) by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is a novel about a juvenile pickpocket that makes it out of poverty. It was improbably translated at least 23 times into film, the most recent and improbable of which was by Roman Polanski (1933-present), a statutory rapist. The film is beautifully done, as are all of Polanski's films. Sets, actors, music, photography, effects and costumes are all invariably excellent as is Ben Kinglsey’s (Sexy Beast; Glazer 2000) portrayal of Fagin. It’s all so perfect that it’s perfectly dull. “Three-Chopt” is a common name given to roads in Virginia. Some early colonial roads were marked by three notches in a tree, indicating that they were laid in during the reign of King George III (1860-1820). There’s a sign up on Three-Chopt Road just off West Merc that says “Dead End,” but if you brave it, press on, and ignore the damning signs, it surely takes through the suburbs and out to the Interstate. That’s just one of many ways out of this god-damn town. Take it, brother. It’s a new day. Have some more.

2006-12-25T05:12:00.000-05:00

The Gingerdead Man (2005) If you are like Graveyard Frank and Cherries Gordon, you got all your Christmas shopping done by October 29th. This, of course, was the last day for the 42nd Annual Fall Rodeo and Art Show at the Angola State Prison in West Feliciana parish, LA. It is billed as the “Wildest Show in the South!” Frank has been to a rodeo or two, but while certainly not an expert, does admit that the convict-bronc busters do seem to get a bit more busted up than your average cowboy. Normally, Cherries would be upset at the treatment of the animals, but as the EMTs roar up ringside for the third time, now carting a statutory rapist with a busted collarbone off the field of battle, she has to confess some sympathy for the riders as well. She guesses, and Frank agrees, that these guys get little practice before participating. They probably just jump at a chance to get out into the fall air and semi-public. Even more heartbreaking is the Arts and crafts show. Here, you get to mingle with the prisoners themselves. They try to sell you pirogues made from matchsticks or wooden clocks featuring Fat Albert or Biggie Smalls or wind chimes made from flattened mess hall silverware. And the selling point is not the quality of the goods but the stories about the big house you get from the talking with the artisan. If you agree to buy, you take your new-found treasure and a ticket from the convict. They hit you up at the gate leaving and put the money into the proper prisoners account. If you manage to get all the way through to the end of the craft show, you come to a cul-de-sac featuring the crafts of all those cons who are too dangerous to let out to mingle. They occasionally have other, safer cons as envoys inside, but mostly they are fenced in around the cul-de-sac, yelling “You break it you buy it, be-atch!”, “I saw you lookin’, cracker!” or “Buy a clock, nigga, 35-bones!” At this point, most visitors quickly, politely make their rounds through the several tables within the cul-de-sac and head for the exit. Here, one tends to forget who is on which side of the pen, This is still not the most-exasperating part for Cherries this year; after loosing sight of her amid a flock of pelican-shaped suncatchers, Frank finds her talking to a prisoner-painter Albert Dubois. Dubois was convicted of armed robbery of a gas station in Opelousas back in 1963. He was 18 at the time. This childish mistake had netted him $56, the house-take for that evening, and 43 years in jail. He had been denied parole, as is typical in the deep south, several times. The criminal justice system here is often made up as it goes along. Frank could cite plenty of examples of this; he himself was once delivered a warrant at 4AM at gunpoint, for a broken headlamp violation he had paid weeks prior. A favorite anecdote was about his sometimes nemesis Tracy Scott (aka “Spike”), who was caught in his Tahoe in the Lafayette Zip, lazily huffing some crack cocaine sometime after midnight. The accosting officer, noting that Spike was already waiting arraignment on charges of intent to distribute a schedule 3, tossed the pipe over his shoulder, saying simply: “You’re lucky I don’t think prison is a place for white folks.” However, in the case of Millard Findlemeyer, even extreme Texas justice couldn’t keep that tough cookie down. We are talking, of course, of one of the latest Charles Band (Full Moon Pictures) atrocities entitled The Gingerdead Man, and featuring one-time academy-award nominated Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story; Rash 1978) as the evil pastry in question. This obscure little mess came out in November 2005, but on the “premium” channels in the finer West Feliciana motels, this is a first run feature, perfect for the holidays. Some movies are so bad they are good. The Gingerdead Man is so bad it has surpassed good and come right back ‘round as bad again. If this is any illustration of it, Cherries had about 50 better baking-related puns while watching than the film itself offered. The writer was obviously stuck, he went for a Pillsbury reference at least twice (Cherries, only once; she also noted a lack of a “cookie monster” gag.). Poor Gary Busey had obviously donated no more than 5 minutes of his time to the piece, he appears as Findlemeyer in the first scene, robbing and killing in a bakery (?). It is a toss up between what is harder to watch, the cheap, flat digital image, or Busey’s muddled, possibly improvised dialogue. After some impossibly long credits we are informed via some V. O. that Findelmeyer has been executed and cremated. After one of the baker’s cuts his hand over the gingerbread dough, Findlemeyer comes back to life as a cookie. Somehow the bakery crew even recognize him in cookie-form. It would be impossible or at least dreadful to do a laundry list of the flaws in both plot and technical ability in this film. Why are the close-ups of the beater different beaters on different speeds? Why is a bakery making one gingerbread man at a time? Why and how does anyone have a WALK-IN OVEN? Isn’t this dangerous, especially when you make one cookie at a time? How can those locked inside the hot oven not be burned by the door, walls, floors, etc? Why does the cookie have a revolver that shoot 15-30 times without re-loading? How does Findlemeyer get into the cookie and why doesn’t it look like the cookie put into the oven? Why does the cookie get its head bitten off and how does it reappear? Why is anyone afraid of a walking/talking cookie? Why doesn’t anyone just leave the bakery if they are? This is just a sample of a long list of questions, Frank noted upon viewing. He got tired of writing after several pages or would have many, many more. This is the tip of a sewage-y iceberg. In short, the best thing on the DVD-itself, is the ad for Charles Band’s line of Puppet Master figurines which have some kitschy appeal.

But the film does cheer Cherries up after speaking to Albert Dubois. Dubois had been in lockup for so long that he had begun mourning his forfeited life some time ago. He had instead begun to invent a family for himself, and through tireless mental workings, had breathed life into them. He could see his imagined wife in his head, and their children, two boys and a girl, they had been born, grown up and even moved on to college while he and his wife only grew older and fonder of each other in Albert’s daydreams. Dubois had taught himself to oil paint over the years and eventually began to illustrate his imagined life. And it was these he was selling at the craft show. How amazing and tragic to be able to purchase the only evidence of one’s beloved family. Frank and Cherries paid a slim $65 bucks for a painting of Dubois and his “wife” dancing arm-in-arm before a modest Christmas tree. The clothes are dated; floral prints for her and powder blue bells for him. The kids look on, the boys embarrassed of their parent’s intimacy, while Susheila, the girl, is pleased to see her father so gallant, her mom so radiant. For Dubois, the canvas is a memory of Christmas Eve for which no Polaroid or 8 mm existed. A Christmas Eve spent in his head, shivering in a cold bunk in Angola State back in 1975. Thinking back now at Christmas, Albert's family were so perfect and enviable in their way. So much untainted love, maybe the only perfect kind attainable: imaginary, that is. After all, after the holidays, Cherries would be back in Lafayette soon enough, taking the ballerina jewelry box Frank had gotten her this year back to her niche of cherished nick-knacks and baubles. Hopefully, a warm Christmas memory for her after another trying year. And Frank? Well, he’d be on the road somewhere come New Years. He had to see a man about a horse. Someplace.

(Or perhaps, Frank himself was lying, shivering somewhere this Xmas imagining Cherries Gordon into existence. Surely there was no physical evidence of someone so fetching in his real life!)

2006-12-10T02:16:00.000-05:00

Professione: Reporter (1975)

Frank has writer’s block. Well, not precisely, the story moves round and round constantly in his fevered head. It just doesn’t get anywhere. He considers, Michelangelo Antonioni’s (Blow-Up; 1966) lesser known masterpiece, Professione: Reporter (1975) (aka The Passenger) which was finally released on DVD last spring (April 26, 2006).

Surprisingly, its distribution was picked by the bigger rental houses, where undoubtedly many confused customers picked it up mistaking it for Lindsay Lohan’s classic comic farce, Just My Luck (Petrie 2006). Luckily for you, that means that by this time it’s dribbled down into previously viewed for sale bins and you can pick it up for $7.99 or 3 for $20, whatever special Hollywood Video is running this week.

The Passenger stars Jack Nicholson (The Raven; Corman 1963) as a frustrated journalist in North Africa who switches identities with a dead man in order to spice his life up a bit. He settles into the dead man’s life, finding him to be an arms dealer with all sort of shaggy monkeys on his tail.

Admittedly the tale is dense yet beautiful shot, as most Antonioni pics. And Nicholson looks a bit like the late Dr. Thompson in the film, even drives a similar convertible towards the end. But, it’s also nice to see Nicholson in one of his more “straight’ roles, showing that he doesn’t have to be about to chop somebody up with an axe in every role (The Departed; Scorsese 2006---ha! You thought I’d cite The Shining; Kubrick 1980!).

The other beauty of this film is also the biggest complaint from viewers. The ending (We’ll try to avoid spoilers) is just not all that clear. Much has been made of this. But the confusion is really the beauty of the classic Antonioni-ending. There’s a whole lot in a long panning shot. Jack’s character has certainly begun to find the gun-runner’s life as big a drag as his own. But has he been assassinated? If we watch in widescreen DVD we can make out the killer in the shadows. Or has he shot himself? If we crank the Dolby sound surely there is a gun shot. Or is it a car backfiring? Or has he shed another identity altogether? Wasn't one of the bad guys also a little thin and balding?

Of course that is the key; perhaps some stories don’t require an end?

History is Unbound (or “No Entrance”) A pathetic wistful farce (FRANK is in bed, a tomb-like berth really; ANDREA is standing above him.) ANDREA I‘d love a cigarette. Wish I could afford a pack! FRANK (To self) I’d love for you to have it, too. But, you wouldn’t accept my buying the pack. (Beat; then to ANDREA:) FRANK (Cont.) I’ll split a pack with you. ANDREA OK. What’ll you smoke? FRANK Anything. ANDREA Marlboro lights? FRANK Anything. Here’s money. (He reaches to the bedside for some cash there.) ANDREA Don’t worry. I’ll get it. Pay me later. (ANDREA starts off, but doesn’t go anywhere.) ANDREA (Cont.) I can’t buy it. I’ve no ID. They check in the lounge car. FRANK I’ll go. (He starts to get out of bed.) ANDREA That’s all right. Perhaps it’s a sign. FRANK No. A cigarette would be good after those omelets and pie. ANDREA Sounds good. But, don’t tempt me. (FRANK lies back down and reaches for his pack.) FRANK Here, have one of mine. (He produces a full pack.) ANDREA You’ve a full pack. Why’d you try to help me buy one?

FRANK I didn’t know it was a full pack. Honestly. (To self:) FRANK (Cont.) Honestly. I didn’t know it was full. I thought I had smoked most of it. Also, I was trying to be sweet. ANDREA But, I only wanted one. FRANK I was trying to be sweet. I mean nice. I thought you might want more. Especially drinking. ANDREA. That was sweet. I mean nice. FRANK I just really would do anything for the five minutes of conversation with you. (They smoke and drink quietly.) ANDREA Hey. You wanna see the move I learned in female self defense class? FRANK Sure. Anything. (She puts out cigarette.) ANDREA Come at me. FRANK Sure. (He sits up and grabs for her. She takes his outstretched arm and throws it over her shoulder. She grunts and can’t pull him from bed.) FRANK (Cont.) Sure. like judo. ANDREA Yea. (She heaves a last time and knocks herself off her footing. She lands more or less spooning him on in the bed. They lay like this quietly for several moments, FRANK smelling ANDREA’s hair. At length, he gently brings his hands to massage her neck. ANDREA (Cont.) Thanks. FRANK You like it? ANDREA (To self) I really like it. (Aloud:) ANDREA (Cont.) I like it. Really. (To Self:) ANDREA (Cont.) What’s going on? What’s taken him so long? (Aloud:) ANDREA (Cont.) What’s going on? Do we like each other? FRANK Yes. I hope. Sorry. (FRANK smiles weakly, then frowns.) FRANK (Cont.) I mean: I do like you. ANDREA Oh. FRANK (To self) Oh? (Aloud:) FRANK (Cont.) Oh? ANDREA Oh. FRANK (To self) Oh? That’s a big meatball to have rolled off the plate. I am wretched. A big greasy hog has left the pigpen of my mouth. I shall never capture it again. (Aloud. Hands drop from her neck.) Frank (Cont.) Oh. ANDREA (To self) I have bruised him. Poor baby. (She smiles back and takes him by the back of the head and pulls him so they are forehead to forehead smiling.) FRANK Oh! (After a moment.) Frank (Cont.) I thought I had to say goodbye to everything. “Forever,” I thought. And then I boarded the train. I wanted to think you might have been on there somewhere. And I thought how romantic it would be to go to you there. On a train going somewhere. Hurtling somewhere in the night. But I could not think it to be true. I just needed the damned old train to whiz me off forever to someplace. ANDREA (To self) The sentiment! Such sweetness! (Aloud:) ANDREA (Cont.) Yet here we are. FRANK Yes. Someplace. ANDREA In the night. Alone. FRANK Yes. Just whizzed off. To here. ANDREA Wherever here is. FRANK Yes. But I don’t care. (He kisses her timidly.) FRANK (Cont.) I don’t much care anymore. ANDREA So why didn’t you ever say anything? FRANK What could I say? You were perfect in everyway except your complete apathy for me. ANDREA

I wasn’t apathetic. FRANK In any case, you gave me little to go on. If you hadn’t grabbed my arm, and pulled me close, and knocked yourself over onto me— ANDREA (To self) What should I have done? (Aloud:) ANDREA (Cont.) I didn’t know what to say. FRANK Astounding. Does one never know anyone else? For so many hours we were meters apart in separate rooms. What did you do and think? I probably guessed wrong! I mean, you never did or said anything to lead me to believe— ANDREA Hush, sweet. We all live such solitary lives. In separate rooms! But we are together now, aren’t we? FRANK So it seems. Wanna dance? ANDREA Do you? FRANK Guess I really don’t. I don’t know how— ANDREA So you’re in love with me? FRANK Sorry. ANDREA Don’t apologize. It’s not attractive. FRANK Sorry. ANDREA Enough. It creeps me out a little; you look at me as though to devour me. FRANK (Head in hands) Oh Christ! Sorry. (Beat.) FRANK (Cont.) You’re just so perfect— ANDREA Nobody’s perfect. FRANK Well, no. Actually. I guess not. But, I mean: Perfect for me, of course. What I want. What all I am looking for. On all levels. I mean you can call the squirrels right to you and they eat out of your hands. ANDREA Nobody’s perfect. (She stands back up.) ANDREA (Cont.) Not me. Not you. And the world’s not made for bliss. Not anymore. We’ve stopped moving. I think the train is at the station, Frank. Goodbye. (She leaves. FRANK rolls over and sobs quietly, sleepily.) FRANK Ah, jesus. It’s over. Were I not an oaf, we would try, even if doomed to fail. (There is a knock at the door.) FRANK (Rubbing eyes) Who’s there? ANDREA Its me. FRANK Come in. What’s going on? Are we moving? ANDREA The train hasn’t left the station. Whaterya doing? FRANK (Sleepy) I’m writing a new play. ANDREA Oh. About what? FRANK About how love is not possible. About how nothing is ever perfect and no one fights for anything. About how I am in love with you and you hate it. ANDREA (Walks closer to the bed) Oh. Can I help? FRANK Dunno. Would you like a cigarette? ANDREA I‘d love a cigarette. Wish I could afford a pack! FRANK (To self) I’d love for you to have it, too. But, you wouldn’t accept my buying the pack. (Beat; then to ANDREA:) FRANK (Cont.) I’ll split a pack with you.

2006-11-19T00:50:00.000-05:00

The Wicker Man (1973), Redux

Room 307. Again. Needless to say Frank was more than relieved when he was finally able to check out of the Sebring.

His roommate in 307 had been for some time making it more than clear that he wished Frank would leave. Dr. Conner was unnerving from the beginning. Pacing up and down the halls, rapping on table tops or shaking the furniture. Frank was generally a quiet man. And this suited the doctor. He had gotten used to the telephone, the television was tolerated, the radio not so much. Frank quickly learned to stop blaring the Cure, and found Conner had a soft spot for the Arcade Fire. Did I mention that Dr. Conner had been dead for a century or so? As the summer heated up, so did Frank. Conner too. It started when the girl got pissed (as they sometimes do.) The summer was almost over and they were completely over. Dr. Conner found it appropriately amusing to tug a flower out of the vase in the hall and toss it before Frank’s feet when he passed. Frank could hear him snooping around the room while he showered. When Frank’s music got louder and sadder, Conner got angrier.

In the Florida heat, Frank kept the windows always open; one had to shove with all their might to budge the old, over-painted frames anyhow. But, at the doc’s pique the window slammed shut whenever Frank went to flick a cigarette ash out the screen. His left hand was painfully swollen in the end; the blow was much harder than a naturally sliding shut window would have caused. Indeed, the window by the little table upon which his laptop sat, never shut all summer---except when his hand was under it. That’s Frank’s tale. For a similar tale of a cold-than-hot (spoiler!) reception at a weird hotel, Frank recommends you check out The Wicker Man---Robin Hardy’s 1973 version for god’s sakes, not the 2006 Nick Cage (Vampire’s Kiss; Bierman, 1983) remake. The original stars veteran actor Edward Woodard (King David; Beresford, 1985) as the do-gooder policeman Sergeant Howie who travels to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to search for a missing girl. There he must unlock the mystery of her disappearance despite the lack of cooperation by the pagans living there, lead by Lord Summerisle, played by the great Christopher Lee (Dracula; Fisher, 1958).

Things are not quite right on Summerisle. Star Britt Ekland (The Great Wallendas; Ekland, 1978) called it the most dismal place on earth. Certainly the eeriness of the island is itself a character in the film. How they could reset it in the US in 2006 is beyond guess.

In 1973, the plot moves by degrees. Strange sexy things in the pub offend the straight-laced Howie but are attributed to the grog. Strange things afoot in the cemetery are the work of the eccentric keeper. But pagan teaching in the school house! Think of the children! Howie is slowly finding the girl’s disappearance is related to the pagan rites being practiced anew on the island. He is steadfast in his intent to find and save her. And finally... The Wicker Man’s strong point is its subtlety, an art form surely lost by most directors today. Simple elements like the residents of Summerisle prancing around in animal masks are sufficiently off putting; it is a gripping thriller despite its lack of grand special effects. Of course the other key element Hollywood has often ignored today is that you like the protagonist. Howie may be a bit of a pill. But you root for him because he is the chaste good guy. You’d hate to see him fail… but, then... Anyway, to summarize:

Good- Guy?

1973: Edward Woodward aka “The Equalizer”

2006: Nicolas Cage aka Nick Coppola

Creepy Island?

1973: Summerisle, Scotland

2006: Summerisle, US of A

Hot Chick?

1973: Brit Ekland

2006: Ellen Burstyn

Creepy-looking Ghoul?

1973: Christopher Lee

2006: Leelee Sobieski

Religious and Moral Tension?

1973: Yes

2006: No

The Real Monster?

1973: Human beings

2006: An actual “Wicker man” As you can see, there is no comparison. The compelling interest in contrasting the hero’s Christian morals vs. the island pagans is gone. It has been replaced by a simple Hollywood “boogeyman” Not only does this kill and invalidate the surprising ending, the entire ironic purpose of the character of Willow (Ekland, 1973; Kate Beahan, 2006) is ruined. Once again a slick Hollywood gloss-over has taken the teeth out of a compelling story… When Frank is running low on Gosling’s Black Seal and takes to hurling things about the room a bit to protest the girl’s leaving (after the fact, of course), Dr. Conner had had enough too. Frank leaves down the hall to get ice some time around 4 AM, sealing and locking his door as usual. He returns to find his bags wedged behind the inside of the door when he tries to open it.

Frank gets the hint.

2006-11-18T03:49:00.000-05:00

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) “Come on, ya bastard! Go for the throat already!” was what Frank wanted to yell when the rottweiler sank its teeth into his back end, but all he was able to manage was a muted “Arrrrgh!” as he was thrown to the ground. Once he was on the sidewalk the rotty decided to get a better grip, and that was when Frank was able to deliver a size-13 Frye to its head. The dog came back snapping and tearing but Frank managed to keep it at arm’s length until its owner moseyed over to take up the leash. It was the perfect finale to the worse weekend ever. Frank had taken the Greyhound from Erie, Pa to see, Andrea in Worchester, Ma. After a 25-hr ride, a passionate reunion at the bus station and 5-min jaunt back to her tiny flat, his romantic getaway officially ended. He presented her with decent Chianti, a housewarming gift, and failed to question the three glasses poured. He chalked it up to an Ecuadorian housewarming gift custom he was unaware of. It was not until they were snuggled together on the love seat watching Marty (Mann, 1955) that the Dude walked in. Andrea immediately leaped up and instantly began a round of tonsil hockey with the Dude. Frank, the Dud, could only leap up and demand: “Who the hell is this? What the hell is going on?” Andrea snarls back: “This the hell is Spike, my other boyfriend. And what the hell is going on is that: this is my way of showing you that while I don’t expect to have to choose between you two, Spike is the one I am going to fuck tonight.” “I see.” Frank is wrecked and concedes, and she is more apologetic--- “Sorry. The love seat is very comfortable.” “You think I am staying here? To listen to you to fornicate in the next room when it was supposed to be me?” “Well, we still have four days planned.” “Ha! Ha!” Frank giggles madly. He snatches a liter of Jim Beam off the counter and storms out to the street. [The cracking apart of a brief and badly paired match such as this causes a pain in the heart that can be cured with whiskey, pills and the false whispered promises of a stripper. Not that Frank recommends this. But it can be cured. But, the cracking apart of a long and badly paired match is best avoided. However, if you want a peek at it then watch Mike Nichols’ 1966 debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It will be re-released by Warner Home Video on December 5, 2006 (Yeeesh! That’s a helluva xmas present!). It is faithfully based on Edward Albee’s story of a nightcap between two faculty couples gone horribly awry.

The cast of four all turn in astounding performances, with, Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra; Mankiewicz, 1963) and Richard Burton (Cleopatra; Mankiewicz, 1963), as the infamously twisted game playing older couple, Martha and George. Of course, the two were in real life a stormy couple, twice married. George Segal (King Rat; Forbes, 1965) and Sandy Dennis (The Out of Towners; Hiller, 1970) as their newlywed prey are also admirable. All four were nominated for the academy award for the film. taylor and Dennis both won. It also won best art direction, costume design and cinematography.

Come on, admit it: you only know George Segal as the boss from “Just Shoot Me!” The film is a marathon to watch--- not long, but tiring, a psychological rollercoaster as the four pick at each other, drinking, dancing, biting, clawing, smashing and drinking some more. The running time of 131 minutes feels like spending the night in real time. It voyeuristic, uncomfortable and will leave you squirming in your seat much more than any horror pic. It feels real, and like it or not. You wish the best for these sadly broken folks.] Frank roamed the not-so-seedy underbelly of ‘Woosta’ before finding his way back to Andrea’s to sleep in the hallway of her building. He has in the meantime polished of the Beam and picked a fight with a brick wall in the process. At daybreak he is glad to find his bus ticket intact in the breast pocket of his cord jacket and is able to slink back out to find his way back to the bus depot. He is hopelessly lost by the time the rottweiler, sensing his anger and misery, breaks away from his owner at the corner of Foster and Norwich and tears Frank's last shred of humanity not to mention his favorite corduroy jacket to bits. The owner is not apologetic, since the skin on Frank’s ass is not apparently punctured. One of the horrified on-lookers stays long enough to give Frank directions to the Greyhound. His ticket cannot be changed. He has to hit two ATMs to get more cash than he is allowed to withdrawal, and makes the painful decision to return to Andrea’s for his duffle. He decided not to too be too hard on her, no reasonable person would expect him to tag along with her and Spike all weekend. She was neither the first nor last to tell Frank that she was looking for a ‘nice guy’ and then stray for the likes of the red locks and solid abs of someone like Spike. Maybe she’s vulnerable because she is/was an orphan, taken in early by a well-to-do importer in Flushing , Queens. Her adopted parents had complained of Frank’s small income. Maybe not. Maybe she’s just…. Though insisting she drive Frank back to Greyhound, Andrea must first but Spike groceries. It is not until his coach is departing its Buffalo lay-over that Frank realizes he hasn’t eaten in three days. He feels ill.

2006-10-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

The Ossuary and Other Tales (2006)

When Frank first met Jennifer Whitehead, her panties were around her ankles and her ass was in the air. She had been decaying for 8–9 months in an irrigation ditch along I-376 outside Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Aside from the panties, she was naked, wrapped in several Hefty trash bags. Her personal effects were nearby. Under the circumstances the forensics team had been called in under a homicide investigation. Frank lost a coin toss to a state trooper to open and inventory her rucksack (later at the autopsy he would win the toss to go through her wallet, discovered later, five yards further down the ditch.). However, the crime scene fit much more neatly with Ms. Whitehead’s several suicide attempts. She had been in and out of clinics. She had on two prior occasions stripped naked, and wrapped herself in trash bags in order to suffocate herself, first lubricating the wheels with Jacquin’s rum and Tylenol cold caps. Her pack was found to contain a mostly drained liter of Jacquins’s white and an empty foil sheet of cold medicine. At the time, Frank’s own girlfriend had been in and out of hospitals and had flexed her razor courage more than once. Jennifer Whitehead became Frank’s last case. There is a machinery to the universe, a clanging whimsical mess of linkages and gears. Something of a mad carousel with fevered pipe organ heart. Directors such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch and Jenuet and Caro know this. And Jan Svankmajer is most likely who taught them. A collection of his shorts, entitled The Ossuary and Other Tales became available on September 12, 2006 (Kino Video). Svankmajer has been one of the forefronts of animation, particularly stop-motion and claymation animation, since the 1960s and culminating in his first feature film Neco z Alenky (aka Alice [in Wonderland]) in 1988. He’s also had recent success with Otesánek (Little Otik, 2000) based on the old fairy tale of the cannibal log baby. (What?! Didn’t ya mama ever read you that one?). He’s also put out a lot of “tactile sculptures” over the years, particularly in the 1970s when forbidden to produce films by the Czech government. So why haven’t you heard of Svankmajer? Probably because you don’t find anything clever or relevant unless it’s coming out of Ashton Kutcher, you bastard. But seriously, if interested, you aren’t ready for Alice; it’s too long, dark and weird. The Ossuary DVD however is a reasonably-priced alternative; Frank picked it up fro $19.95 on-line (but, you can even wait a few months for the Korean bootlegs). The Ossuary is a potpourri of Svankmajer’s films ranging from the rapid-fire montage of animal pix entitled Historia Naturae, Suita (1967), to the surreal live action Zahrada (The Garden, 1968) to the impressive self-made clay man of Tma/Svetlo/Tma (Darkness/Light/Darkness;1989). And by the by, the Ossuary in question is Sedlec Ossuary, in the Czech Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary, for those of you in wiki-ality). Home of over 50,000 plague victims more or else glued together as church statuary. It is definitely the next place on Graveyard Frank’s vacation hot spots. The best part is that, like a true artist Svankmajer isn’t hitting you over the head all the time (except when he wants to.). This is fascinating, intricate stuff. Watch it with your eyes wide open! And speaking of eyes wide open…

The second time Frank met Jennifer Whitehead was on the sixth floor landing of his small Baltimore walkup. He was scuttling up with a liter of Jacquin’s, tucking in for a chilly autumn night in the Inner Harbor. He recognized her instantly from her DL photo. It was imprinted on his memory. She had kept her married name, not Whitehead. Frank had surmised much about this small fact over the years. Behind her license, she also kept two guitar picks and an emergency 50 cents for the phone. Not that she had tried to call anyone when things gotten so bad that sad day last century. She was beautiful, though she had failed to realize this in death as she had in life. She said only “I’m sorry.” And then had vanished as quickly as she had come. “I understand,” Frank sighed, and fumbled with his keys. “I’m sorry, too.” [Jacquin’s is only palatable with some hot cider and a dash of vanilla...] And when he pulled the bottle out of the paper bag, he found the paper label had be sufficiently but neatly inscribed “Jennifer Whitehead 10-31-94.”

2006-09-08T23:43:00.000-04:00

Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970) When Frank sees his first love

She is running the shark and ray petting exhibit At the Brooklyn Aquarium at Coney Island. She was unphased, swarmed With too-short kids and adults Trying to clamber over the glass walls And touch the skittish yet graceful sea creatures in the tank. But still, Louie and Gladys the yellownose skates And Jo-Jo the sand shark each swim right up to Her. This isn’t surprising to Frank. Back in school she used to be able to call the squirrels In the Quad right up to her And feed them bread crusts out of the palm of her hand. A girl with such command over mindless beasts such as squirrels, sharks (And Franks,) Must be very special indeed. And aside from a small growing set of crow’s feet from too much sun, The past fifteen years just slid off Her shoulders with her unraveling golden hair— She was as innocent and pure as always. The same young gal he had tutored in chemistry, And no wedding ring! Seeing Her was definitely a change in the endless rut that Frank had been on for only just as long as his whole life. He clung on to such small little joys like a character in a Fassbinder film. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the much disputed king of New German cinema, for those not in the know was an acerbic, homosexual and homophobic, hard drinking, hard drugging director, but prolific as all hell. He produced 44 films in the short 36 years, before his death. In 1982, He was found ODed on cocaine with an unfinished script in his hand. He was work-hard/play-hard to the very end. Aside from some better known pieces that someone might have seen such as The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), there are some seminal, lesser known pieces. One of these, Why Does Herr R Run Amok? was put on DVD by Fantoma in May 2006. As many of his films, the rhetorical Herr R. deals with issues of alienation, discontent and society. Herr R. is a frumpy, awkward draftsman. His job is a bore, his wife a bit of a nag insistent upon his next promotion and his kid is a bit of a terror in the days before Ritalin. We follow Herr R.’s buttoned down adventures for 85 minutes, squirming in our seats as his boss snubs him at a party, as his son’s teacher explains his homework problems, as teen girls in the record shop giggle as he describes the mystery song he’s trying to find on .45--- and then finally, well---Herr R. runs amok. (forgive the spoiler but it is given in the title after all). No need to spoil the film. But cheers to Kurt Raab as the long suffering R. in a complex yet subtle portrayal. Watch him closely. What’s more, Herr R. is shot in a stark, unflinching documentary style. The Dogme95 films of the last decade and the endless slew of pseudo-documentaries now all over the place, owe much to Fassbinder. Cameras are as if intruding on the Raab Family reality show, with improvised but natural dialog, joke telling, and arguments. All the while Herr R. is trapped and squirming in his bourgeoisie rut… But seeing Her made Frank want to believe in something after all these years, as if every one of his wrong turns had been for a reason. But that wasn’t true at all. Because if it was…well, if the universe were sending him through years of trials and tribulations just to bring him to this point in time and space, then surely he was being taught a lesson in patience. This didn’t seem quite the right moral. Frank Trautman admitted he had been young and fickle back in those days. He flung his affections and attentions at another girl at the first sign of hassle with Her. Since then the girls came and went. Mostly went. And they got weirder and meaner as time progressed and Frank had learned to be tender often in the hard way. Fate and tenderness had always made Frank out to be a fool. He tolerated, coddled each problem, and learned the concept of “endearing.” And with each woman, kindness was a weakness to be exploited. He had learned patience, but only to substitute immediate failure with prolonged misery. Yet, he never found patience to be a virtue. Fate had only taught him a lesson in running away. And yet again:… No wedding ring!

2006-08-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

13th Child (2002) Still more pointless correspondence....

2006-08-13T01:23:00.000-04:00

Brazil (1985)

Another postcard from nowhere...

2006-07-31T21:44:00.000-04:00

Big Bad Love (2002) Post-cards from the Road...

2006-07-25T23:24:00.000-04:00

The Dark Corner (1946) “Dames!” curses Frank, trying not to drop the c-bomb, “Babes! Broads! Chicks! Molls! Chippies! Dolls! Skirts! Frails! Dishes! Twists! Muffins! Kittens! Foxes! Tomatoes! Roundheels!” Frank was certainly glad he owned a dictionary of American slang, but was disappointed in himself. He knew she was trouble as soon as that two-bit piece of ankle shimmied into his office. She had a set of pins on her that went on til next Tuesday, and didn’t even take off for Rosh Hashanah. Her eyes were beautiful, they must have been, they couldn’t even stop looking at each other. To be sure this canary had a set of lungs that could dry-gulch a twenty-stone pug. Frank coulda seen it coming for miles. He did really. But she ribbed him up to take the fall anyway. And he still took it like glass-jawed palooka. He was such a rube.

But to see a nice bit of tail who isn’t giving her bird the bum’s rush, check out Lucille Ball in Henry Hathaway’s noir classic, The Dark Corner (1946). Mark Stevens (The Snake Pit; Litvak, 1948) is fourth billed as the shamus in question. William Bendix (Lifeboat; Hitchcock, 1944) and Clifton Webb (Laura; Preminger, 1944) round out the cast as the bad-guys. The flick came quietly out for Christmas 2005 (12/06/05). The Dark Corner is solid, classic noir. (Best line: "I could be framed easier than Whistler's Mother!") To say much would ruin the plot. But Webb decides to resolve his love triangle by using his wife’s lover’s nemesis (Stevens as P. I. Bradford Galt) against him. (Huh?). Lucille Ball plays Galt’s dedicated secretary and is the weakest link in the story. She loves Galt and is working tirelessly to help him. The trouble is, she is totally unbelievable in the role. Ball puts no feeling behind the role. She just says she’s in love with Galt. Despite his troubled past and his current problems. There is no passion. Why should we believe her? She just goes through the motions. Frank Trautman certainly can’t believe it. He’s never met a girl who would follow him through the slightest inconvenience, let alone a murder plot. And as of late, the broads are the ones devising the plots. Throwing bunko and Frank was the butter and egg man. A patsy. Anyway, you can’t go too wrong with your basic noir movie. But if you want to see one with some better photography Frank recommends Robert Aldridge’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955) a Mickey Spillane tale starring Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer. It is a tad infamous in its making Mike Hammer into a “real” detective: he is a petty thug preying on cheating spouses in LA. Also the “great whatzit” at the center of his mystery has somehow found its way into Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). In any case, it’s only gaspers and eel juice left for our hero. Frank had swung and was croaked. Out on the roof for sure. Ready for the wooden overcoat. The real Harlem sunset.

2006-06-20T12:11:00.000-04:00

Night Watch (2004) EXT. HOTEL - MORNING [FRANK, grim-faced archaeologist, leans against a white Ford F150 and scowls at the sun where it rises low in the east as well as the hive-like cluster of bustling construction workers building a bridge nearby. He sips his coffee.]

FRANK (V.O) They say that if you get less than---let's say, five hours of sleep, it's like going to work after, oh, I don't know---two drinks or something.

[FRANK strokes his grizzled chin and sips his coffee again, then aloud:]

Dammit. My feet are on fire in theses boots! Ugh!

[He reaches into the truck and pulls a plastic container and fork. He stirs it, groans, and then pitches the contents into a bush. He easily crushes the cup in a hand and tosses into the bed of the truck.]

Anyway. Even a really bad pineapple is still pretty good.

[SPIKE, sleepy and disheveled crew chief, staggers from the hotel lobby and up to the truck, yawning and gnawing a greasy egg-bagel combo:] SPIKE Still with the G-D pineapple, chief? FRANK Simple pleasures, buddy. SPIKE Yea, right, chief. Simple pleasures for simple... [SPIKE trails off as he climbs into the passenger's seat.] FRANK Simple. A pay check and a job well done, buddy. [After climbing heavily behind the wheel, FRANK pulls his ball cap over his eyes, mumbling:] Well, a job done, anyway... [So, this is a typical day starting for archaeologist FRANK Trautman. It’s pretty freaking boring. For the pretty equally freaking boring adventures of Russian vampires. FRANK recommends you rent Nochnoy Dozor (Night Watch) (Bekmambetov 2004). It is available from Fox on June 20, 2006. The cinematography is OK, as are the effects. But the plot is either dense or missing (FRANK is not sure which). And furthermore, FRANK is tired of one more new vampire mythology to swallow. Even worse: Night Watch portends to be the first in a trilogy. Ugh!

The plot focuses on the bad vampires and the good ones that watch over them. And there’s a kid who is very powerful and ought to take a side. Actually save yourself the time and watch a few episodes of Star Wars (Lucas 1977-2005): the “Force” mumbo jumbo is overly similar. The one good thing is that the film has been made for distribution. Voiceovers are in English and the sub-titles are not your usual fare; knowing that the widely distributed film would be “read” by most audiences, the producers have jazzed them up a bit. Vampire lines are blood-red and drip off the screen. Screams tremble and trail off. Or a violent gesture wipes the subtitles off completely. It isn’t much, but it’s kinda cool. Something new. And for deaf audiences, it probably conveys much more of a sense of the action than plain text. But still, the suspension of belief is tiresome and old hat. First believe vampires exist. Now believe that there can be good ones who only drink pig’s blood…but there ARE good archaeologist and bad (mostly bad). FRANK is one of the good ones…]

EXT. ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST SITE - MORNING [The truck spins up on an archaeological test site. Backhoes and construction workers are nearby. The site will soon be destroyed. Several inept field techs, coeds from a local university scramble with buckets, shovels and large screen beds and tripods. FRANK pops out of the cab and struts towards the action, stoking his chin by way of thoughtfully surveying the ground. SPIKE follows with a tangle of blueprints and maps.]

SPIKE (Panting and pointing as he goes) We've found the foundations of the 1780s farmhouse and several secondary buildings. We'll put in a few more test units, as many as we can. We would have liked to find the outhouse--- FRANK Privy, buddy. SPIKE Privy. Shithouse. Whatever. But, the bulldozers are breathin' down our neck... FRANK (Extends hand) Just give me the earliest plat and a scale. [FRANK pauses to lay theses out on a nearby screen bed, eliciting a sigh from a coed approaching with a bucket of soil to sieve. SPIKE shrugs at the teen to sever his perceived solidarity with FRANK.] SPIKE Anyway, an out---privy---would be great. Since, we've come up with very little in the way of cultural material, aside from a refined architectural plan, this site has otherwise been a bust. FRANK (Engrossed) Give me a minute. One minute. Hmm...If I were a privy, where would I hide? Privy. Privy. Find the privy. Ah-ha! [He points at the map.] Here. SPIKE Huh? FRANK (Pointing to the map) Here. The 1810 tree-line, here. The road, there. A privy on this corner of the house would allow privacy. Other side of the trees, out of sight of the road. Plus, the house would allow for a wind break from the river, not to mention keeping the missus' ass out of sight of the passing sailors near the docks... SPIKE It sez in the Phase II report that the Stradivari's were using the river--- FRANK (Indignant) Mister and Missus Stradivari, emissaries of Pope Pius VI, did not come all the way from Rome, the height of 18th century civilization, to hang their asses out in the breeze to take a dump. Look at the other outbuildings! They built a pottery kiln and a root cellar before a toilet? SPIKE But, now... FRANK (Switching maps and fussing with the scale) Now, according to the Phase I soil borings, we got thick beds of shale coming out to here... [Reading to himself] But, Well-sorted pro-glacial sands to about here and here... SPIKE (Looking on and nodding in disbelief) Uh-huh... FRANK So... [He heads off, pacing and counting to himself. When he reaches his count he stops and looks around:] Probe! Pleeze! [A student, the only paying attention, runs to an Econoline full of excavation equipment, pulls put a tool with some difficultly and proudly heads back. FRANK shakes his head.] No, not a split-spoon. A probe. [The student looks dumbfounded and disappointed. Frustrated FRANK mimes the proper tool.] Pointy!

[The student nods and is soon handing the probe to FRANK. SPIKE has caught up, still looking dubious. FRANK spears the probe into the spoil. It slides in easily. SPIKE shakes his head, "No." FRANK tries again with the same result and another head shake from SPIKE. FRANK clears his throat and on the third try, there is the distinct, tell-tale clink of the probe hitting solid stone. SPIKE drops his arm in disgust; this will surely mean more work.] SPIKE Aw... FRANK A job well done, buddy. String up a couple test units here, please. [The crew scurry anew as he waves them off. FRANK calls after.] And send somebody on a coffee-run, eh? I could use a large black one. [Pulls out wallet.] And, oh maybe some more of that pineapple, if they still got it...

2006-06-05T23:40:00.000-04:00

Grizzly Man (2005)

Room 307. Frank is lying in bed when he hears a hand slap five times on the nightstand next to his head. He warily begins to turn to see what must clearly be the ghost of Dr. Conner, who reputedly haunts the third floor of the Sebring Hideaway in Sebring, Florida. As Frank begins to peek at the nightstand there are two more slaps. No one is there. The raps on the table were unnerving. But even half-asleep, they were more unnerving then the pacing footsteps outside of his door or the rattling of the handle in the middle of he night, both of which a peek through the spyglass suggested to have no human agent. This same doorknob twisted against Frank’s turn often when trying to enter the room at night. The small table with his laptop also jumped up (as if in fear) sometimes. But of all of it, the raps on the nightstand when Frank was uncharacteristically trying to get some sleep were most unnerving of all. If not to mention just plain downright rude! To be fair, Frank had never shared a room with any one else before. Just his cats. Never a soul else. Women came occasionally. They didn’t stay. Frank suspected he snored. There was no one to confirm this. Just a compassionless, companionless mattress and centuries of loneliness slathered over it all. Sadly, the spectral face of Dr. Connor, that well-to-do nineteenth century family physician was the only face which had ever greeted Frank in the morning. Now he swings out of bed. He’ll not even try sleep anymore. It is to be a another night driving aimlessly around Lake Okeechobee listening to Ryan Adams and George Norry and wishing there was something other to do in this otherwise sad, silent universe. To be sure, the only stranger bedfellows than Graveyard Frank and Dr. Connor were Timothy Treadwell and his grizzly bears. He was the sappy (yet savory) bear activist [nee bear shit] who is the subject of Werner Herzog’s (2005) Grizzly Man, a documentary based largely on the found recordings Treadwell took of himself before his death. It garnered several awards. It should have gotten the best documentary Oscar last year. Now some merriment has been made over how fay Treadwell appears, while proclaiming to be straight. He even has the foresight to be eaten along with his alleged gal pal. Frank won’t go there. Watch this documentary and see for yourself.

But Frank will point out the part that fascinated him: That Treadwell was filming himself at all. Treadwell’s true flaw, as is the flaw---the disease of America---was that he wanted to be famous. He started as an actor and was never a scientist. Not only did he live with the fox and bears but also filmed himself doing it, which can now see thanks to Herzog’s appropriation,. Treadwell expects to one day have an audience so he addresses a camera, often in several takes. Thanks to Herzog we the outtakes Treadwell didn’t intend for viewers. One would hope that in these bloopers we’d glimpse some of the real Tim Treadwell. However, Frank doesn’t feel you see the truth even then. Treadwell is always performing, even on the goofs and gaffs. If he has an inner dialog, we don’t see it in the tapes. We see the Tim Treadwell he wants us to see. And that’s the fascinating part. In this day of American Idol and the Apprentice, many, many suffer the life of Tim Treadwell. We posit that we are not living our real lives but are the center of our own reality series. If you think you are the next Idol or Super Nanny, that’s one thing. If you think you are the Steve Irwin of the bear world. You’re gonna get hurt. Be careful, kids. Kudos as always, Werner!

But in any case, at least Treadwell, died with his best girl at his side--- while the fate of most of us is to live and die alone. We all at least suspect this to fucking be true. Certainly Dr. Conner fucking knew it. He contracted what was probably tuberculosis from a patient in 1896. And died after a painful and prolonged sick bed stint in Room 307. And he’s still there. Looking for a friend.

2006-05-12T18:00:00.000-04:00

The Chumscrubber (2005)

Abandoned. Adrift.

She would tear Frank down, apart and ruin him with her eyes were she here. But now her flip flops remain silently askew on the beach, and a dog-eared book’s creased cover flaps in the breeze and Frank would have asked her about it, the plot, the characters, the meaning, how it made her feel, if she were here. But she is not, though her crumpled clothes (a make shift pillow) lie atop a too-small towel stolen from the hotel room. Frank’d chastise her jokingly about that were she here. An itinerant dirty sea gull feather is impaled to the sand by her brown hair clip and “Blister in the Sun” or “Gloomy Sunday” drifts still out of the Ipod drooping from her canvas purse. But she herself is gone, now reduced to a few footprints in the wet sand nearest the tumultuous incoming tide and soon these will be gone too.

But the ocean will not wipe away the image of The Chumscrubber (Posin 2005), woefully imprinted on the high definition widescreen on the back of Frank’s skull. He is truly reluctant to return to the lodge now, should the blasted thing be playing once more on his few premium channels.

For those of you not in the know, and misguided enough to be here seeking a review, The Chumscrubber is not some deranged/ deformed fishwife slashing up coeds in a remote northwest fishing village. No, that would make a better movie. The Chumscrubber is the result of a hack writer/director peddling a script that A-list actors cannot comprehend and thus assume is great. It is tired, overblown tale of the endlessly explored seamy side of suburban life. It’s Donnie Darko (Kelly 2001) without the intrigue. It’s American Beauty (Mendes 1999) without the great performances. It's Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis 1922). It's the Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck 1961). It's crap.

The film stars Billy Elliot’s (Daltry 2000) Jamie Bell as a suburban kid whose drug pusher pal commits suicide. Some other kids attempt to kidnap his brother until he gives up the dead kid’s stash. One teen (Camilla Belle) you’ll recognize as the annoyingly not killed star of When a Stranger Calls (Wall 2006), the absolutely terrible and pointless remake of the more than watchable original (Walton 1979) Meanwhile the adults, featuring Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction; Lyne 1987)and Rita Wilson (Volunteers; Meyer 1985) and the like seem to not care what is going on. Parental neglect may, in fact, be the root of much of the evil in the world. But Frank is real f-in’ tired of seeing it as a plot device. Small shining points in the film are consummate character actor, William Fitchner’s (Armageddon; Bay 1998) blundering psychiatrist and Ralph Fiennes’ (Schindler’s List; Spielberg 1993) dolphin obsessed mayor. But these performances far from sell the picture. We get it, Mr. Posin. Suburbia is bad. Parents are ignorant bunglers. Teens are too-smart-for-their-own-good little adults. You’d be better off renting Home Alone (Columbus 1990); especially since, if you look you’ll see one of those sneering Culkin clones chewing up some of the scenes. But in This World which does not exist and has been made up by Frank for his own amusement, she might just clamber up the beach and give Frank a hug. More likely she will have found another reason to avoid (not just abhor) Frank. You are never as alone as when you are about to be slapped for caring about the unattainable. (Which is to say everything.) Instead, she is awkwardly silent after the swim. And the quiet is all Frank gets. Not great but her silent stare at her own sand-festooned feet is better than anger. Much better, Frank guesses.

2006-04-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000)

Frank awakes. He had been dreaming that his beloved Miriam had been shrunken down to the size of two inches and, since that, he had finally encouraged her to requite his love, so he kept her safely in a cheese box inside his jacket. Thus he was able to love and protect her in a very sort of concrete way. And though still not able to consummate the relationship, it was no more ridiculous than his feelings for her anyhow. Frank yawns. Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys were still refusing to vacate the Scène Lafayette Stage for the Merci Solidarité Acadie-Louisiane hurricane tribute performance. No matter. For the X year in a row, He has once again had more than enough Cajun music than he could stand at the Festival International de Louisiane. So he folds the program and the copy “Confederacy of Dunces” (Toole 1980) in his lap, shoves them into the side pocket of his linen jacket and heads off to get a café-au-lait at the Mellow Joy. As he heads over to Lee Avenue to get his Impala, he has the urge to pop over to Convent Street and mediate a bit at Toole’s old 2-story apartment building from the 1960s. Of course they moved it over to Girard Park (and destroyed Toole’s place in the process) back in 2001. Of course he could always go over to St. John’s and meditate instead upon the Cathedral Oak. But that would be somewhat trite and besides at this time he’d have to squeeze his meditations in among like-minded Nova Scotian tourists. His best bet would be to go over to the UL student union and watch the screening of Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000). If you have the patience, lack of rancor, and time on your hands, Tarr’s film can be a beautiful experience. If you need a quick movie fix, don’t bother. (Much of the film is played out in “real time”—Frank has both praised and cautioned about this cinematic device prior.) Werckmeister Harmóniák is a tale about how everything goes to hell in a small Hungarian village after a circus plops a dead whale in the town square. If this is a premise seems to you to be “so crazy it just might work,” then: A. You’re just as off-kilter as Frank. (Way to go!), or B. Go out and buy it. Renting is probably out of the question. It was widely released by Facets Video February 28. The price is a bit dear at $26.99. So read a few more reviews than just Frank’s before you pick it up. Anyhoo, the film follows János (Lars Rudolph, something like a Klaus Kinski in Herzog’s Woyzeck [1979]), an agreeable courier as he tries not to become implicated In the events unfolding in town: men are marching on the hospital, his aunt wants to host a “cleansing” committee while fooling around with the sheriff, the sheriff’s kids are very bad and very loud, windows are broken, cars are on fire, etc. Don’t expect to see everything. Much is picked up through dialogue. But what you do see is disturbing enough. And at the core of all this is the mysterious whale in truck in the center of town, and his keeper of-sorts, the Prince, a shadowy rabblerousing midget.

But it’s not all dark. The eleven minute opening shot is quite beautiful in its way: here, János, upon command, sets the patrons in the local bar up in a shuffling celestial ballet as he explains the movement of the solar system. The sound track, a haunting piano is the perfect evocation of the scene. Watching it for the first time, Frank could only compare it to Fellini’s La Strada (1954), just tragically beautiful with music that tears at the heartstrings. La Strada, BTW, is about the first film Frank can think of that shares this very complete feeling evoked by scenes such as the Werckmeister intro. “Symphonic” is the best word Frank can think to describe it. Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002), also pokes the viewer in this direction however, this film relies on a whole hell of a lot of digital manipulation, effects, etc. As always there are a few flaws. The Hungarian dialog track is often very out of sync if not wrong, though most of us, intent on the subtitles will never notice this. But subtitles are a problem in several scenes too. The 1.66 aspect ratio forces the white subtitles unto the frame, rather than below. These become unreadable in scenes with white backgrounds, such as a tablecloth, under the subtitles. It’s hard to complain much, though; Tarr gets the whole shebang done in only 37-38 shots (depending on who’s counting). Accomplishing this took some positively heroic scene blocking and stedicam work. The story may not be for everyone, but the technical achievements are amazing by any standard. A great, endearing performance by Rudolph as János sweetens the deal. The booklet included with the DVD is entitled “Béla Tarr: Cinema of Patience.” That says it all. Werckmeister Harmonies is definitely worth the effort if you give it a chance. Frank is certainly going to seek out his other films, even the uncompromising surreal 7.5-hour epic Santantango (1994). But for now, Frank sighs, dodging a blue tercel that doesn’t know they streets are closed, while crossing Lee and searching for his car keys. Pawing inside his jacket he one or twice hopefully thinks he feels his magic little cheese box.

2006-04-16T00:37:00.000-04:00

Bubble (2005) A film review effort worthy of the film...

2006-03-21T22:39:00.000-05:00

Bukowski: Born Into This (2003)

Frank won’t attempt to encapsulate Charles Bukowski, anymore than any else already has. He is hard to pigeonhole somewhere between swaggering barroom brawler to meek poet. A truly polarizing figure, almost forgotten here in the U.S., yet still adulated abroad. Mickey Rourke has tried to capture him in Barfly (Schroeder 1987), Ben Gazarra in Tales of Ordinary Madness (Ferreri 1981) and even recently Matt Dillon in Factotum (Hamer 2005).

Of late documentarian John Dullaghen has tried to explain Buk in his award winning (Official Selections at Sundance and Tribeca) Bukowski: Born Into This (2003). After years of delay, and an unimpressive theatrical debut, the documentary has finally been released on DVD (Magnolia Home Entertainment March 21, 2006).

The film seems a bit scattered and badly paced, and true fans have probably seen a lot of the footage before (much from Schroeder’s Bukowski Tapes [1987]), if you’ve managed to track’em down. In short the film tries to be both biography and tribute in one hefty chunk.

However, Dullaghen manages as best to get it all in 113 minutes as possible. A valiant effort at showing all sides of the poet, good or ill. Frank finds many pagan Bukowski fans to seize upon his works for taboo’s sake alone. Milquetoast detractors pan his work for the same exact reason. Born Into This is a must-see for both of these camps. It is a look into what exactly is in the man and in his work.

Frank, his biggest skid-row disciple, won’t attempt to encapsulate Charles Bukowski, only leave you with a favorite piece:

Old Man, Dead in a Room this thing upon me is not death but it's as real and as landlords full of maggots pound for rent I eat walnuts in the sheath of my privacy and listen for more important drummers; it's as real, it's as real as the broken-boned sparrow cat-mouthed, uttering more than mere miserable argument; between my toes I stare at clouds, at seas of gaunt sepulcher. . . and scratch my back and form a vowel as all my lovely women (wives and lovers) break like engines into steam of sorrow to be blown into eclipse; bone is bone but this thing upon me as I tear the window shades and walk caged rugs, this thing upon me like a flower and a feast, believe me is not death and is not glory and like Quixote's windmills makes a foe turned by the heavens against one man; ...this thing upon me, great god, this thing upon me crawling like snake, terrifying my love of commonness, some call Art some call Poetry; it's not death but dying will solve its power and as my grey hands drop a last desperate pen in some cheap room they will find me there and never know my name my meaning nor the treasure of my escape. ~ Buk

2006-03-10T22:32:00.000-05:00

Scum (1977, 1979)

Scum (1977, 1979) has the distinction of only a few films in history to have been filmed twice by the same director, here Alan Clarke. Few other flicks given this jump instantly to min, however two notable entries, Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, 1956), and Rodriguez’ El Mariachi (1992), re-made as Desperado (1995) spring to mind. Generally these remakes offer a better budget and a learning curve and stylistically at least, are the better gamble come popcorn time.

This is not the case with the Harvey Keitel movie The Corrupt Lieutenant (Faenza 1983), which Frank has just picked up for $2.00 in a flea market in Burlington, Vermont. Frank had assumed the film was the same as Keitel’s infamous The Bad Lieutenant (Ferrara 1992). Whereas he has thought he bought a Japanese bootleg with a mistranslated title, Frank, popping it into his portable DVD player in his hotel room, was surprised to find the mystery disc actually contained the movie better known as Copkiller, probably re-named to sucker in buyers like Frank thinking they were getting the Ferrara movie at a bargain price. But, Copkiller is an okay flick too, and notably has John Lyndon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten as the title cop killer.

However, Scum 1977 and 1979 are essentially the same movie and are conveniently packaged together by Blue Underground, available February 28, 2006. The price isn’t bad either at $17.99 on Amazon.com.

Scum ’77 was made by Clarke for the BBC. It is shot on dark, gritty film stock and is fairly low budget; it is a fast unwinding tale of bad boys going badder in a British borstal—reform school, under the watch of cruel guards and wardens. And it features a young Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast, Glazer 2000). However, the BBC found it too graphically violent or perhaps truthful and squashed the film. Though the reform school is shown to be as full of racism, sexual assault and inmates brutally beating each other, as an adult prison, the real expose is of the corrupt, old fashioned system itself, as evident form the first scene to the last.

Knowing he was on to something, by 1979, Clarke had gotten up the production money and re-shot the thing for theatrical release. The result is a film not quite so dark and gritty; it’s shot on better film stock and at a slightly less claustrophobic borstal. The pace is slower too. What happens is, though the plot and 95% of the casting is identical, the film is much more open and better allows the audience to warm up to the characters and even follow the story. Simply put, a better-looking film is always much more palatable to the general audience, no matter what the subject matter is. Also, with out the TV language restrictions, the dialogue in Scum ’79 is much more realistic. After all, what is Ray Winstone without dropping a few F-bombs?

In fact the main noticeable plot difference in the theatrical release is the absence of one particular homo-erotic subplot in which Winstone, having clubbed his way to being the new “Daddy” of the borstal, propositions one of the more comely young boys. In the BBC version, this intrigue seems shoved in more or less just for shock value. In fact, Alan Parker did the same exact thing towards the end of Midnight Express (1978). It’s just a knee-jerk surprise that only distracts from the plot. Perhaps Clarke saw this in the interim and wisely cut it out?

Perhaps also, John Hurt’s character in Midnight Express, was of inspiration to?: The character of Archer, the self styled reform school Jesus, becomes a lot more serene and likeable between the two films and this is not just a reflection of this one major change in casting between the two films. Of course, once again, the overall “breathing room” in both time and space, allotted the audience in Scum ’79 is also big help in exploring Archer’s kindness amongst the rowdy, angry and desperate boys.

Anyway, luckily for Clarke, the magic happened with Scum even a second time around. That doesn’t happen much in life. “Certainly not in love,” Frank muses, “or in movies.”

“Or with vintage electronics” frank groans and kicks the used portable Teac reel-to-reel player that he had picked up at the flea market for $40. She looked like a real beaut, all right. But back in his room he found the two of three heads missing, the wiring frayed and the spindles stuck…

2006-02-28T23:55:00.000-05:00

For Your Height Only (1980)

Frank is reporting from the corner of St. Charles and Canal, waving from atop the king's and queen’s float in the Krewe des Bebette parade. He was in good with this krewe because he had been the one to introduce the king and queen, Somsak and Manila Hebert. Frank was glad for the honor, however it was not a big deal; As the only two Lao-speaking midgets he knew in Louisiana, it seemed only natural to introduce the pair.

In any case, his one matchmaking trespass didn’t turn Frank into anything of a romantic. In fact, it made him more of a pragmatist if any thing. But that was immaterial. He was just happy that Mardi Gras was even happening this year at all. The fact the pint-sized Krewe des Bebette had survived and organized a parade—that was pure lagniappe, the icing on the king cake, as it were. Frank was more than a tad shy at being on the float, especially conspicuously towering above all the midgets dressed like munchkins from the Wizard of Oz (Fleming 1939); as was often, it was this year’s theme again. Frank made sure to toss all his beads by the time they got to Lee Circle and was now sitting under the crepe rainbow, sipping a Dixie and playing a few rounds of bourre with a dwarf dressed like Nikko the winged monkey. Nikko was losing badly; he was exceedingly tipsy and mostly distracted by the naked gals on the cards. Anyway, the Oz-thing was forgivable. The film was accessible, recognizable, flashy, colorful and of course heavily laden with little people. However, when it comes to non-porn midget flix, you cannot beat Filipino small-man Weng Weng in the James Bond parody, For Your Height Only (Nicart 1980). The once-hard-to-find cult classic was re-released by Mondo Macabre November 15, 2005. The plot simply put: The mysterious Mr. Giant has kidnapped the creator of the N-Bomb, and secret agent 00(Weng) must use his entire bevy of silly gadgets (the best a remote control saw blade hat) and sexy female aides (the best, the unaccredited busty Amazonian crime reporter). The plot, after that, is somewhat of a mystery. There is a large assortment of gangland heavies, low-level bosses (the best “Baldo” whose nickname is “Tattoo?”) in gaudy, gaudy shirts and dialogue lifted from old James Cagney movies (White Heat; Walsh 1949). For example, speaking of some kind of drugs baked into bread, says da boss: “Nobody could begin to guess! There's a lot of dough in this dough,” one henchman cackles, “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Happy pushing...happy pushing. The boss says to cover every kindergarten and sandbox. We're gonna teach 'em something about pleasure!”

There are a lot of thugs. A whole-freaking-lot. This movie must have one of the largest body count of any Frank has scene. And Weng kicks the shit outta all of them, one-by-one. Gadgets aside, 00’s repertoire includes sliding across floors, punching people in the nuts, shooting people in the arm, disco dancing and punching them in the nuts. Also, he punches them in the nuts a lot. There are also a slew of continuity errors with the dead bodies constantly disappearing from frame. The movie is goofy as all-get out. Such a spoof would have to be. Especially form the American gangster dubbing of the villains to Weng’s own whiny “Oh my widdle head” voice. And the fights are silly and improbable, mostly always relying on somebody throwing Weng someplace to achieve his kung fu moves. In fact, Weng was only 2’9’’, according to the Guinness Book, making him the shortest leading man ever. He also appeared in a 1982 sequel, The Impossible Kid which isn’t currently available. Based on Internet searches (See boingboing.net). He is also have rumored to have been Baby Moses in a 3D Philippine bible-epic (Go Tell It On The Mountain), a porno or two, and MoonBoy From Another Planet, which Spielberg supposedly ripped off for E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). In short (Ha! Pun!), at least the Weng-ster was a better 00-agent then Daniel Craig. It’s all fun so long as you don’t dwell on the fact that the little guy is presumably dead now, having succumbed to progeria (rapid-aging disease). In close-ups he shows it. But smile and laugh at his antics. Weng would’ve wanted it that way.

If you like the bizarre, For Your Height Only is a must-see classic that you must find, watch and enjoy. (And then obsessively search the web for Weng Weng trivia, mp3’s, stills etc.) Your life will be unfilled til you do. “Please, god.” You will pray nightly, “Allow Mondo Macabre release the whole Weng Weng catalog on DVD. Please!”

But back in Nawlins: Nikko growls “Tete dure!” and throws in his hand. He adds something about Frank’s maman. Frank tosses in his cards too, the slides off the 3 mph float and unto Canal Street. He needed to survey the damage done to the Quarter first hand. No, not by the hurricane. Was it true they had turned the Absinthe House into a tacky daiquiri-to-go place? Ugh.

2006-02-15T02:59:00.000-05:00

Sherman’s March (1986)/ The Ross McElwee DVD Collection V-D: Part 2. 11:59 PM Frank is late for his meeting. But he makes it. And hasn’t a jacket or a change of clothes. So its cold with the wind whipping 15-20 mph across West Bay. But he makes it. And, they’ve kept his room at the Holiday Inn. So he makes that too. And by the time he showers and re-dons what 24 hours before had been his favorite check-shirt and slacks, his luggage has made it to the hotel. He didn’t think they’d make it. The front desk clerk also has a package for him. It is a book, Les Paradis Artificiels (Baudelaire 1860). It is something of a valentine from Andrea, who thinks of Frank as Baudelaire’s reincarnation; the note enclosed says: “I hope this makes it.” Furthermore, the inscription “with love,” makes Frank both giddy as a schoolboy and tired as the most ancient of men. After all, though he tends to respond to emails and is a tad too open with his schedule than he would prefer, he hasn’t seen Andrea since their heart-wrenching trip to see A Very Long Engagement (Jeunet 2004), last Valentine’s Day. Currently, she is somewhere in Mexico with Frank’s sometimes nemesis, Spike. That makes this some sort of horrible, horrible anniversary. Frank sighs and pulls out his itinerary, only now noticing that his return flight is for March 14, not February 14. (Frank fucking hates Delta airlines!) Delta, of course, believes this to be Frank’s fault and even if they did have another flight out on Valentine’s Day, it would cost an $80 surcharge plus an extra $700 for the fare. The fares are currently jacked up for Valentines, Mardi Gras or Spring break, or all three. It isn’t clear. Frank must get of Florida! There is only car rental in town that both has a car and will send it one way to Norfolk, where Frank has left his Impala. Thanks Budget! What’s more, although, such a rental is a minimum of five days, they will only charge him for the one day it will take him to get there. Frank fucking loves Budget Rent-a-Car! Fucking loves them!

And so Frank is off to plow his way out of the south in a bright red 2006 Ford Focus. But he feels not so much like General Sherman, than Ross McElwee his soft-spoken documentarian (Sherman’s March 1986). Although, Sherman’s March: A Mediation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons was re-released on DVD in 2004, First Run Features has recently (November 22, 2005) released a six film, five disc collectors set of McElwee’s films. All of McElwee’s films are personal (and often tangential) in nature, beginning with Sherman’s March, which, though intended to be an exploration of the conflicted figure as McElwee traced his route through the south, instead became a chronicle of McElwee’s strained dating life as he tries to overcome the loss of his girlfriend. The film is honest and often bleak and Frank recommends it, to any woman who wants a peak inside the mind of a man. McElwee is quiet, droll and unassuming with the women he encounters, yet openly eager to consummate a—any relationship, easily falls in love and is obsessed with potential nuclear holocaust. Truly, the dating scene seems pretty wide open and he goes through a lot of women in the space of a 2.5-hour film. From a soul-singing woman who leaves for the road, an actress who leaves him to pursue Burt Reynolds (Deliverance; Boorman 1972), to a wilderness bound grad student who leaves him for the guy in the next cabin over. In short, March, shows, poignantly, all the hoops we men are willing to jump through for sex, companionship, whatever. Even us nice, quiet guys. The women often come-off badly. However, we believe McElwee cares for them all, as he insures us he does. Don’t we all care for someone for some inexplicable reason? Just like Frank cares for the enervating Andrea, who has her Spike and still guiltily pesters him. Frank decides not to think of it but fiddles with the radio and scrawls on his little Budget map song titles he ought to download as MP3’s as he hears them on the radio—such as “These Dreams’ (Heart 1985), and “Time After Time” (She’s So Unusual, Lauper 1983) both of which he for some reason knows all the words to. Grrr. It’s a quick refill on gas and Doritos at the Gator Pit three miles north of Jacksonville, when the hated V-Day finally comes to a close. But there’s still quite a drive ahead…

2006-02-14T23:10:00.000-05:00

Death Race 2000 (1975)—30th Anniversary Edition V-Day: Part 1. 12:01 AM Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. He’s tried to fly them several times and has never really gotten anywhere he wanted to go. He now sits at his laptop attempting to dial-up the Internet in an Atlanta, Georgia Comfort Inn hotel room. He is not supposed to be in an Atlanta hotel room. He is supposed to be in Panama City, Florida for a very important business meeting. So he celebrates Valentines Day, now officially after midnight on February 14th by listening to “Till Tomorrow” (McLean 1971): a pretty, sad (or pretty sad?) song, though Frank would like to change the music from the few MP3’s he has downloaded to his laptop. He’d also like to change his clothes. But his CD’s and his clothes her both in the canvas knapsack. And Delta Airlines had lost his luggage. Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. Delta had kept his 5 PM flight on the ground for three hours in Detroit, Michigan. At 8:10 Frank had asked to be re-routed. He would never make his 8:30 connection in Atlanta. The answer from the skybitch, errr, “Ramp Agent”: Frank cannot be re-routed until he has “officially” missed his connection at 8:30. The flight to Atlanta is leaving at 8:15. She gives Frank 2 options and asks him to “guess what he should do.” He can: A. Demand a re-route, in which case, it not being officially 8:30 yet, he will forfeit his entire ticket and have to buy a new one. Or, B. he can get on his proper, though delayed flight, and hope a hole opens up in the space/time continuum which allows his plane to make it Atlanta in 10 minutes—leaving him another 5 minutes to find his next gate. Unless of course a second wormhole opens up on Concourse C (one, much, much faster, then those moving sidewalks) which allows him to... So, Frank took two Valium and boards his plane to Atlanta, where he was given a 10 oz Dasani for his trouble, and flew to a connection which was not there. Surprisingly, he is told by the Customer Service manager who greets the angry passengers, his baggage should have made the connecting flight and be en route to Panama City ahead of Frank. He is also told that if he gets in a line the next available customer service rep available will re-route him and offer him some help with accommodations for the night. This is not the case. Frank hates Delta Airlines. Fucking hates them. Delta has no other flights til midmorning the next day. (Frank will miss his meeting; his boss will hate that). Delta considers weather, being the cause of the flight delay, to be an “Act of God.” Delta does not offer hotel rebates when planes are delayed by God. (Frank will now be paying for rooms in Panama City and Atlanta; his boss will hate that, too.) Frank hates God. Fucking hates him. Outside the airport, Frank flagged a taxi and got in. The driver informs him that taxis do not go to hotels. Frank went to the bus ticket window. Guess what? Buses don’t go to hotels either. Frank grabbed a 40 oz. Icehouse and waited for an airline shuttle that sounded cheap. The Comfort Inn was like a winner, and with no baggage to hand the eastern European driver with the funny William Powell mustache (The Thin Man; Van Dyke: 1934), Frank hopped right in. He nestled in the back with his Icehouse sloshing sleepily amongst the valium, and, as the shuttle driver wings perilously thru beltway traffic, Frank imagined him to be David Carradine as Frankenstein, in Death Race 2000 (Bartel 1975), a Roger Corman production currently available in a special 30th anniversary edition by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. In this film of the not too distant future, road rage is a national sport where race drivers earn points for running over pedestrians. Of course, this is a fantasy. In our civilized 2006, an athlete would never get away with harming another human being. And also, of course, commentary on America’s love of the barbaric in the media is not hard to come by (and often particularly overblown by Oliver Stone [cf. Natural Born Killers 1994]). But this movie is also a dark commentary of the road movies of the 1960s and 1970s (cf. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Kramer 1963)—not that Corman’s satire was too effective; after all, Burt Reynolds went on shortly after on make a career out of such movies (cf. Cannonball Run, Needham 1981). But, fuck all. It's just a fun, though sick, film. If you don't take the death in Death Race seriously, that is. Obviously, for many, it is hard to. You know who you are; please do not watch this 'light' film. But right then, Frank just dozed and imagined his hotel shuttle, piloted by a gentle Carradine, taking out evil Delta employees, as they leave their cushy jobs, another day of bilking customers finished. They are crossing streets, absorbed in fighting over Frank’s pressed shirts and CDs unaware that whoosh! Here comes old Frankenstein ‘round the bend and— Frank’s shuttle is taken down by six cop cars. Frank hates cops. Fucking hates them. But, They make it to the Comfort Inn before they are stopped and the driver is hauled out and cuffed and Frank is interrogated. The shuttle drivers are running some scam of charging lost airline passengers for the supposedly free service. Frank is able to forgo his $5 tip when the officers frown on his sticking it in the drivers cuffed hands. He gets a room for a few hours, attempting to dial up the internet…

2006-01-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

Eraserhead (1976)/The Short Films of David Lynch New Year’s Day. Not willing to start the year shuttling in the new, especially with a ton of paperwork to move from one end of his desk to the other. Frank dusts off a stack of LPs and selects Help! (Beatles 1965) (British Release). Frank taps his Chuck Taylor’s to the title track for 00:20 but doesn’t quite make it to the well-known double tracking timing error on “I never needed anybody's help in any way.” He instead opts to skip over to Track #3, “You've Got to Hide Your Love Away,” and returns to checking his logbooks. But he finds himself staring at some old crew photos tacked to the wall behind his monitor. When the track is over, Frank waits til the stray guitar noise on the right channel at 00:41 in Harrison’s “I Need You,” then switches back to Track #3. Frank liked the Beatles much much better down then he ever liked them up (and if he had selected the White Album he’d now be jumping between “Happiness is a Warm Gun”: on side A “I’m So Tired” on B. Besides, if Frank wanted schmaltz, he’d listen to the same titled, “I Need You” on America’s self-titled 1971 debut. Anyway, the bottom line was that Frank puts Track #3 on for a third, fourth and fifth time. It’s no record (pun?). Frank once listened to Tom Waits’ “Cold, Cold Ground”/”Train Song” (Franks Wild Years 1987) for ten hours straight while drinking Laird’s apple jack from a mason jar, and had also listened to Cool for Cats (Squeeze 1979) over and over all the way from Philadelphia to New Orleans, tapping out Gilson Lavis’ catchy drums on the dash board of his Impala, long before the Louisianan heat and had irrevocably cracked said dash, wrecking the speaker underneath. Now he strolls into the office lobby and fills a glass from the water cooler. He dons his knit cap and scarf and hangs in the doorway watching the snowfall. As Y.G.T.H.Y.L.A. climaxes for a sixth time Frank can see Andrea down the block undoubtedly headed towards Starbuck’s. Her head is down and she playfully swings an umbrella and jumps snow bank to snow bank in her little yellow rubber boots. It is perfect moment that makes Frank smile and cry at the same time and wish she was forever and always that innocent. But she wasn’t. And Frank is as much a conflicted dream state as Henry in David Lynch’s classic 1976 debut Eraserhead. It will be re-released by Subversive Cinema on January 10, 2006. Frank has no idea what extras this new disk will contain, however, it is certainly a film which cannot be appreciated on pan and scan VHS [check out a comparison of screen captures on DVD Beaver]. Even if you don’t “get it” [and to be honest, no one truly 100% gets it], there are volumes of deep textured imagery that are clinically beautiful, even if they makes you cringe. Frank won’t attempt synopsis, de-coding, interpretation, Freudian analysis, deconstruction, or anything. Eraserhead is, if ever there was, something you just have to see to believe. Its somewhere between an industrial tone poem, Gnostic parable and personal nightmare. In synopsis, Henry lives in a burnt out husk of a cityscape. He has given in to his physical urges and knocked-up Mary X causing her to prematurely give birth to---err, something.

‘Nuff said. The greatest mystery is why movie fans once flocked to midnite showing of the cult film in the same way they did for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman 1975). The film is cool, but Frank cannot figure where the group experience might come in. Now, the real disappointment is the “companion” DVD, The Short Films of David Lynch, also to be released January 10. The films, mostly early work, are far from spectacular and are not in the least an eye-opening look into the mind behind such a large body of odd work. Packaged as supplemental material on the Eraserhead DVD, where they should be, they’d be worth perhaps a single viewing by a Lynch fan. They ar,e after all, interesting singularities along the Lynchian timeline. Packaged as a separate DVD for $22–$29, it is simply a rip-off. Try as Frank might, there doesn’t seem to be that hidden Easter egg that makes the whole disk worth it. That said, the films on the DVD: Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times): Lynch’s first film, a looped animation from an art installation. Short and Gilliam-esque (Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975). The Alphabet: Live action and animation. Pretty cool. Short and Gilliam-esque (and Edward Gorey-esque, too.) The Grandmother: Live action and animation. An abused boy plants seeds in his bed to grow a grandmother. Think Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel 1929) meets Naked Lunch (Cronenberg 1991). The Amputee: Two versions. Weird static nine minutes, but is really Lynch testing video-tape for the American Film Institute. [irony pointed out by Lynch in intro.] The Cowboy and the Frenchman: Lynch invite to French TV. Comedy isn’t Lynch’s strong point as shown in this one one-gag disappointment. Really sad to see it stars Harry Dean Stanton (Cool Hand Luke; Rosenberg 1967). Lumiere: As a tribute to 100 yrs of film, Lynch invited to film 55 seconds using a model of an original Lumiere camera, and given the production restrictions of the 1890s. Possibly the best thing on the disc, although, not for any particular reason except that “brevity is the soul of wit” (Hamlet; Shakespeare 1602). Anyway, most likely Lynch had to cheat to accomplish the piece. Lynch himself, introducing each piece, is a bit sigh of relief, however. Far from the egoist, he lets the pieces stand for themselves forgoing any interpretation or explanation beyond the circumstances of their creation. Still, if you want to see early films to blow your mind and give you a new appreciation for a director, Frank recommends shelling out for the Criterion two-disc release of Polanski’s Knife in Water (1963). The films are gorgeous, thought provoking. If you are a Lynch fan (or a fan of surreal stoner flix in general) buy the Eraserhead DVD, but wait for the rest to be re-packaged again. Or borrow the disc from Frank, he wouldn’t give it a second look, even if he wasn’t stuck at work indefinitely…

2006-01-01T04:09:00.000-05:00

The Wages of Fear (1953) New Years Eve. Working over the holidays isn’t so, so bad, Frank thinks. At least he isn’t out “ringing in the new year” with a bunch of people who secretly despise each other. Vapid small talk with co-workers for 4–5 hours followed by 10 seconds of Carson Daly’s countdown. Alternatively, perhaps, then to usher in the next 100th-part of this hateful millennium with a weak, macerated, hug from the gal who never had enough time and the overtly brawny handshake of her current lover? No sir, Frank is much happier spending the evening going through the endless sheaf of papers on his desk. In particular, he is looking at the writing projects he’s been pitched, an exhaustive stack of hackneyed and re-hashed drivel that had been piling up since he’d been off in the Caribbean. Few had a proper log line, and none had even a semi-fleshed out plot. It just seemed that so very many, many people worked with a group of “wacky” and/or “A-type personalities” whose comical and yet serious or dangerous hi-jinx were sure to make Spielberg laugh, weep, then open his wallet. All Frank needed to do was cobble together a few half-good anecdotes into a compelling two-hour script and he’d be a millionaire. Simple! Bah! Whose story should he pick? The wacky hotel staff? The wacky firemen? The one that particularly annoyed him as was the one about the wacky gun-for-hire truck drivers going overseas. Their wacky, A-type personalities keep them in the hot zone and all they have to show for it is money. They get no parade when they come home. Wah! Say what you will about the politics, death and destruction (and perhaps even freedom) when it comes to the war. Debate even the implications of the quote/unquote all-volunteer army. The simple fact is that if you are an average middle-American male with a CDL there’s work lots of places not inside a war zone. Buck up, chief. You took a job carting a truckload of TP and sanitary napkins to Al-Basrah for Halliburton and all you got to show for it was some decent scratch. Hard to feel bad when there’s school buses and UPS trucks that need driven in Peoria. The bigger offense Frank takes with this one, of course, is that the movie has been done. A little thing called The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur; 1953) by Henri-Georges Clouzot. (Also re-made as Sorcerer [Friedkin; 1977] with Roy Scheider). Criterion issued a restored version of the film on October 25. Frank is tempted to send his would be truck-driving collaborator a copy. Wages centers on a group of wacky, A-type personalities who are hired to transport two trucks of nitroglycerine to a remote oil field in South America (though convincingly shot in the south of France). However, the fact that without safety gear, a mere pothole could spell death for the four outcast drivers is not enough. For their $2,000, they must also endure crumbling half-built-bridges, oil-filled bogs or boulders in the road, and of course their own mismatched personalities. Oh, the hi-jinx! While the photography, sound design and acting are not overly breathtaking, the film is a startlingly compelling piece cut down to only critical action. Over-analysis of the plot kills it for sure. Still, The 147 minutes fly by easily and mysteriously. What can be annoying about the film, to note, however, is the veiled homoeroticism of the kind that can only be present in French films from the 1950s. Our four heroes all expatriates to South America looking for work: The brash and young Frenchman Mario wanting to make the nitro-run to make money for airfare out of town, and his cowardly ‘mentor’ Jo. A jolly Italian named Luigi and his stoic partner Bimba, a German escaped from the Nazi salt mines. Though they fight amongst each other, they all have ambiguous relationships toward each other and (Europeanism, be damned!) seem all too interested in touched each other or having a group piss, etc. Mario, furthermore, has a love interest with a busty floor scrubber, Linda (played by Clouzot’s wife Vera). But, he pays very little attention to her, even smiling as she goes off to fuck the local bar owner, until his other three comrades are out of the picture. Of course, what this tale of wacky adventure for cash does have over all the other film ideas on Frank’s desk is, for lack of a better word: Motivation. Also naturalism. It is a must-see for fans of films like John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). From the opening credits, Clouzot paints a picture of poverty and squalor in which these semi-idle men languish. They are not undertaking a dangerous mission for just some extra cash any more than they are oil roughnecks flying into outer space to blow up an asteroid. They are poor men trying to survive. Yes, what this truck-driver wanted Frank to write for a measly $1,000-cut of his war time profit was the next Armageddon (Bay 1998), but it sure as hell read more like Smokey and the Bandit (Needam 1977). And sadly, this to Frank’s mind reads like a compliment, with Bandit being the better of the two named pictures. However, it is midnight and time to sneak off back to his room before the police roadblocks go up. The next ‘convoy’ masterpiece ends up in the trash next to the wacky hotel staff’s escapades…

2005-12-28T21:58:00.000-05:00

Haute Tension (2005) Christmas Eve. Crazy Pete’s Saloon, North 8th Street, Philadelphia. Stephanie the bartender shakes her new titties at the freak show on-stage, managing to knock a liter of vermouth with her left breast off a low shelf in front of her. Currently tonight’s stage act had hammered a ten-penny nail up his nose and to assure the realism of the trick, audience members are allowed to come up stage for a mere five bucks and each is allowed to try to sink the nail a little deeper into the geek’s sinus cavity. A few have even opted to rip a hole in their five-spot and hang it off the head of the nail. However, there are mostly groans from the crowd (including the distinctive grumble of Graveyard Frank Trautman, who is here ducking out from the holidays), and Stephanie is the geek’s only cheerleader. But this, unfortunately out of loyalty to her boyfriend who is part owner of the club; in someway that she doesn’t completely understand, although she does know that his parents are full owners of Wasabi, the sushi bar two blocks away which he (predictably named, Brad) manages and lives above in a spacious warehouse. Brad also has some investment in Tickles, the semi-nude strip club on South Street, where Stephanie danced until about two weeks ago. Decidedly inconsistent yet territorially, Brad had demanded she stop dancing after they hooked up, but he had also been insistent she allow him “invest” in her boob-job as a Christmas present. This is all neither here nor there. What catches Frank’s attention is not how a bemused Stephanie tries to fold her arms over her chest and re-finds her new appendages. What Frank spots is her uncanny resemblance to French actress Cécile De France (Around the World in 80 Days; Coraci 2004/L'Auberge Espagnole; Klapisch 2002). Her breakout performance in Haute Tension (Aja 2003) is now out on DVD (Lion’s Gate, 10/11/05). The film centers around De France’s and friend, Alexia’s college roadtrip to Alexia’s family’s isolated country farmhouse. No sooner are they snug in their beds when a brutal killer breaks in, slaughters the family (including the pet dog) and kidnaps Alexia. Alexia, BTW, is played by Maïwenn, Luc Besson’s gawky former girlfriend, who we all know as that weird blue opera singer in Besson’s 1997 The Fifth Element. The killer is Philippe Nahon, a veteran of the psycho role (Seul Contre Tous ; Noé 1998). Some people have claimed Aja’s “High Tension” is a benchmark in French filmmaking–-the French’s mastery of yet another American genre, the teen slasher film. The people who say that, however, are idiots. The film does not deliver. If the film has mastered anything, it has somehow mastered the 21st c American horror film’s ability to be both immediately predictable and flawed in continuity at the same time (consider Hide and Seek [Polson 2005] or Saw [Wan 2004] or The Village [Shyamalan 2004], to name a few.). Bleh. Forgive the spoiler, but the film opens with De France’s flash-forward to the plot twist at the end of the film and a series of very non-subtle hints that she is totally cuckoo and has a gay obsession with Alexia. So knowing that De France is the killer, why then is her ulterior personality the killer, Nahon, tooling around in his van and terrorizing the countryside? Why then is Nahon/De France slaughtering anybody? And how is she/he getting two vehicles around? Now, granted, Aja is adept at creating dramtic tension as De France is alternately pursued by/ and purses Nahon/ herself. The gore is on the silly side, too. But, even if one misses the twist-ending set-up on the first viewing, the twist makes the whole movie silly and pointless in retrospect. As a rule, a film that relies on a twist ending which doesn’t stand up to a second viewing is not a good film. It is a gimmick film. The film-making equivalent of a rubber chicken. Besides, a movie about pointless killing is,---well, pointless, after all. It’s no wonder that Aja’s next project is a remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 The Hills Have Eyes. Stephanie smiles at Frank and gives him a Gray Goose and soda that he didn’t order; but it’s hard to take her seriously, having already met Brad. Oh well. If you like Nahon, check out his other films, especially those of Gaspar Noé. Check out Luc Besson’s films, if you like Maïwenn (or Besson’s other love-interest, Milla Jovovich). But, If you like the sexy sexy Cécile De France, Frank recommends you check out her identical twin Stephanie (and her two new co-stars) down in So. Philly.

Merry Christmas.

2005-12-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Innocents (1961)

Frank knew he often sounded like a broken record, but sitting on the old pier in Esperanza, looking out over Puerto Real and to Cayo de Afuera and out to the vast blue Caribbean (and beyond to what? Port-of-Spain? Caracas? Maracaibo?), it didn’t seem to matter much. “Convengo, Capitán,” he agrees with Jose Ortiz Príncipe, the old hombre surveying the beach with him, “Verdad, el mundo sería perfecto, si la amabilidad era persuasiva.” “Sí. El amor es como una elección,” he claps Frank on the back, “Cada hombre deseó ser contado. Pero, deciden a los ganadores ya.” “¡Perros y perras!” At this, Jose Ortiz chuckles, then goes back to his stories of the “pequeños hombres obscuros” that he and his sons had seen while emptying their land crab traps in the mangrove fringes around Red Beach. Stories about spacemen and UFO both in the skies and coming out of the sea, are not uncommon on Vieques.

To be fair, though, UFO sightings are common in a five-mile radius of just about every US military base, and in the past, the US military controlled about 2/3 of the 20-mile long island. And here too, spaceships are most often spotted flying towards the neighborhood of Fajardo and Ceiba (where the navy’s mainland operations were held in NS Roosevelt Roads). However, on Vieques, UFO stories hold a special reverence. They go hand and hand with the hatred of the Navy presence. Spacemen, like accidental death and cancer, are just another negative consequence of the military bombing and firing ranges. But Frank was more interested his stories about island visitors from an even farther flung galaxy: Hollywood. In the past the island was the principal location for movies such Lord of the Flies (Brook 1963), Heartbreak Ridge (Eastwood 1986) (as a stand-in for Grenada), and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (Huston 1957) (as a stand-in for the WWII Pacific theater). In fact, it was in that Huston movie that, as a young Marine, Jose Ortiz stood in as an extra with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Jose Ortiz was absolutely in love with Kerr after his scene, despite the clash between the nun’s habit she wore for the part, and Jose Ortiz’ Catholic upbringing.

At this, Jose Ortiz pulls out from under his linen shirt, the scapular medal he’d worn since the Korean War. Frank frowns at it briefly; he always found the Jesus of the Scared Heart iconography a tad disturbing. Instead, he asks if he had ever seen Kerr in The Innocents, Jack Clayton’s 1961 telling of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. He hadn't. Frank recomends it. It was new on DVD (6 September 2005, 20th c. Fox) and Frank had picked it up in San Juan the last time he had flown in for supplies. As Frank had been recently thinking a lot about the Gothic films (or ‘no horror’ horror as Frank put it) of the past few decades, The Innocents is certainly one for the list. Now, the acting can be a tad “theatrical,” an artifact of 1950s Hollywood or of Truman Capote’s assist in the screenwriting, but it is also appropriate for the Victorian setting. Moreover, Kerr’s prim governess is a great foil for the creepiness of the kids Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin) whom she is taking care of following the mysterious deaths of their previous caretakers Peter Quint and Miss Jessell. Quint and Jessell have a vague sort of beyond the grave power over the children (for those of you who haven’t had to read Henry James in some High school lit class), and it the vaguery of their ghostly influence that makes the kids creepy. Miles has been expelled from school under mysterious circumstances. Kerr catches glimpses of the spirits when one else can see, supplied by snippets of gossip about Quint and Jessell’s tempestuous relations. With Kerr’s repressed Victorian manner it’s as if Quint is a distinct threat to her own virtue, no the kids. But the spirits are abstracted and remote, a figure on a tower, a face in a windowpane, a candle blown out at an opportune moment. The finale, Kerr’s exorcism of Quint, while again may be more theatrical than natural, is however, beautifully shot, and makes the whole movie. The audience gets an almost ghost’s eye-view of Quint rocketing up to heaven, his hand lifted over the scene. Visually a climatic, sudden treat, after a vastly visually calm movie. It is, for example, the same effect as the finals shots of Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). The not-subtle visual impact of suddenly being transported out of Jimmy Stewart’s apartment, which has enclosed and framed every other shot in the movie until that point. In The Innocents, we become accustomed to a slower paced phantasm, suddenly bolting form the scene. For his part, Frank wants to make it back to the Crow’s Nest for happy hour, so he’s about to bolt from this scene and leave Jose Ortiz once again alone on the pier, mulling over crabs, Korea, Kerr and the little spacemen in his mind. Hopefully making more sense out of it all than Frank has. “Adiós, Capitán,” Frank salutes. “Buena suerte, Frank” He smiles again tapping Frank on the bill of his cap and his chest, “Utilice sus herramientas: Cabeza y corazón.” “Si, Capitán.”

2005-11-29T00:31:00.000-05:00

The Bird with Crystal Plumage (1969) There are horses on the island of Vieques. Many more horses than there are fences. It is rumored that the dense equine population originated as cavalry horses, abandoned by the US military after WWI, multiplying and overtaking the beaches through the years as occasional companions, pets or nuisances to both the servicemen stationed in Camp Garcia and the inhabitants of Isabella II and Esperanza, the two villages on the island. Sailors and marines, living in tents around the slopes of Mt. Pirata could all claim a horse to get around on while stationed on the island. According to the common law of the island, one owns a horse after seven days of possession. That is, if a horse were to wander on to your property local custom would have it legal yours should you feed and stable it for a week. But, of course, that never happens. Often you may wind up taking care of your neighbor’s horse for six days or so, doing all the work, combing its mane, pitching it hay, feeding it carrots. Then on the seventh day its rightful owner will come looking for his horse.

This was more than analogous to Frank’s dating history.

Regrettably, even a hop off of Puerto Rico, seven miles to Vieques (literally the smaller greater island paradise hidden behind the first) on a rickety Cessna Grand Caravan coupled with poor cell reception are not enough to keep reality from sneaking in. Frank spots his phone whirring on the bar and relinquishes his 3-Star Barriltio and leaves Pasillo de Mufungo, his greatest regret being paying $1.90 for ice. In calling back the number, he finally gets a response as he paces the beach along Mosquito Bay and admires the profound bioluminescence.

It is an old flame from Worchester, Mass. She says that she just wanted to tell him that she got pregnant. There is silence on the line and Frank cannot tell if she wants him to be happy or sad; she has had bouts with ovarian cancer and had not been expected to be able to conceive. Frank tells her simply that he is glad for her if that was something she is trying do and that his thoughts are with her in any case. He shrugs hangs up and swipes a coconut off a nearby palm.

Two swipes with the machete and the top is off. He fills it with Apple Ginseng-Up and a bottle of cañita he’d picked up outside La Tienda Verde. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit into the cup holder in the Honda Element. Damnable rental car! And, oh. By the way, on the DVD-frontlines: Dario Argento may a few arguable classic films under his belt, such as Suspiria (1977). However, his first film L’Uccello Dalle Piume di Cristallo (The Bird with Crystal Plumage aka The Gallery Murders; 1969) is certainly not one of them. But it is out on DVD (25 October 05) on Blue Underground. Moreover, it is the first in Argento’s overdrawn oeuvre. Typical of his work, the story starts with a writer witnessing a (an attempted) murder. He decides to investigate the related series of murders himself. Paintings are important cues. The people around him start dying… To watch the same movie with slightly better casting (e.g. David Hemmings, Blow-up [Antonini 1966]), cinematography, and scares one would better seek out Argento’s 1975 effort, Profundo Rosso (Deep Red).

2005-11-09T22:26:00.000-05:00

Un Sussurro nel Buio (1976) Frank tosses three pairs of blue Dickies and several paisley handkerchiefs into his duffle; his next assignment was Vieques. Neither the concept of machete-ing his way through endless acres of jungle, nor the vision of rum punch and beaches and pretty Latin girls, stirred him very much. To him it was simply his next assignment. He was as if a cork bobbing on the vast ocean, headed wherever the currents took him. Tom Horn and Junior Bonner know they are going to be shipped off to Iris’ again for a time; they miaow nervously and make figure eights between Frank’s legs as he crosses from the bed to the bookshelf deciding what reading material to bring on the flight. He chooses a dog-eared copy of Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), which is feathered with pink post-it notes. It is 4 AM. The blankness of his thoughts had kept him sleepless the last few days, for unlike many who cleared their minds and slept soundly, the determined Frank fared much better to concentrate (or, meditate, but Frank didn’t care much for the connotations of that word), on the goal at hand. whether it was to finish writing his next chapter, to rehang the Impala’s muffler, or to strike up a conversation with the mousy little cashier at the Winn-Dixie. But with nothing of consequence on his mind save packing for his trip, Frank had been staying up watching horror films; the idea was that shock and fright, for lack of anything else, were at least things to feel. Unfortunately, the last, Un Sussurro nel Buio or A Whisper in the Dark (Aliprandi 1976) was neither shocking nor frightening. For one of “classic Italian gothic” pieces from the early 1970s, the film is really pretty poor and rife with cliché, bad dialogue and untenable plot points. It’s out on DVD in time for Halloween (27 September on NoShame Films), but don’t rush out. The film centers on a creepy little blonde (Italian?) kid, Martino, and his imaginary friend, Luca. The imaginary friend demands the attention of his whole family. When ignored Luca the Ghost Kid makes it rain or puts frogs in the bathtub or encourages little Martino to push people off window ledges. And, oh yeah. Luca might be the spirit of Martino’s stillborn brother. And Mom feels pretty guilty ‘bout that. That’s your basic movie; just throw in some kinda creepy but repetitive dollies around the family’s estate grounds and behind bookcases and staircase banisters, some gratuitous nudity and Joseph Cotton (Citizen Kane; Welles, 1941) in an extensive cameo as the Professor looking in on Martino. What the hell Cotton was thinking is a moot point. It is more than balanced out by John Phillip Law as Martino’s father—you probably know him best as the angel from Barbarella (Vadim 1968). To boot, not only is the dubbing on Whisper very poor, the subtitles are almost comically disparate from the actual dialogue. If you do watch the film, play a game and try to guess which set of dialogue is sillier. Whisper is liberally influenced by Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898) and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973). And Cotton’s arrival at the mansion is shot decidedly as a rip-off of Father Merrin’s arrival in The Exorcist (Friedkin 1973). The difference is that Roeg’s Venice-set pic is a classic piece of gothic horror, though admittedly not for everyone; it takes the concept of a scare where literally nothing happens to the nth degree. The most horrifying thing on the screen is that Donald Sutherland (MASH; Altman, 1970) and Julie Christie (Doctor Zhivago; Lean 1965) have actual intercourse in the love scene. (For those who remember life before the Internet, this kind of thing in mainstream film was pretty daring until about a year ago.) In any case, without spoiling it, Don’t Look Now is like having the camera filming on the wrong studio lot. We almost see the periphery of the story only. But again, if you need lots of action and hate anticlimax, don’t bother. A Whisper in the Dark takes non-horror horror to a tongue in cheek, cliché level. Better to check out Polanski’s “apartment trilogy”—Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), set in London, NYC and Paris, respectively. Or, for a few cool effects try Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil's Backbone (2001). Of course A Whisper in the Dark, Frank finds is just loud and annoying enough to keep him awake, packing his bags for a flight two days away. An extra pair of bootlaces, the lucky pen that homeless Jerry had given him, and a bottle of Old Spice (a bottle so old it still had the three-masted ship on the label and not the crappy yuppie sailboat) complete his packing. And Frank pauses in the medicine cabinet, eyes on the 10 oz cherry NyQuil.

2005-11-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

Lifeboat (1944)

The lesbians sway to an Al Greene groove as Frank puffs another unfiltered cigarette in Chunky Monkeys, a gay bar and seemingly the only place open on a Sunday night in Durango, Colorado. Spike frowns at a candle on the bar and talks about his mouth-harp, though like many of the roughnecks in town, he’s thinking about crystal meth. Life on an oil rig, land or sea, was rife with drug tests, and unfortunately, that led to a man in need of a toke towards wickeder drugs that could be pissed out of your system quicker. Lights flash on the black and white tile and Frank only wishes that the price of drinks was cheaper (an unheard-of four bucks a pop for a juke-joint in the middle of nowhere) and maybe that some of the cuter girls are interested in men. Alas, he also wonders why they are watching a Steven Seagal movie silently flashing on a TV set above the bar. The gay men for the most part sit in a corner wearing white Stetsons and boots (insert euphemism, here.) and holding hands. Frank thinks perhaps he should have changed his western-cut shirt tonight and straw hat. The bar’s creed hangs nearby: “A Wise Monkey Never Monkeys With Another Monkey’s Monkey.” Kitschy. This suits the place. A fun time but mind your own bidness.

Another cigarette and Frank waits for the next desperate whiskey. but the bartender, as is most everyone, looking like the poor-man’s Tallulah Bankhead, is watching the folk singer, who is about to butcher a Frey/Henley tune. Frank is left hopelessly adrift on his stool. “Freedom? Oh, freedom,” he thinks, “Is just some people talkin’.” Spike shifts in his seat weakly too. His beast calls. Frank is embarrassed to be miserably lowing over Lunette again, whom he blames for chasing him into this directional drilling gig; he thinks instead of Tallulah, wondering why she isn’t the gay paragon that she deserves to be. Probably because today’s generation doesn’t know her; she was always primarily a star on stage over celluloid. And yesterday’s generation know her mostly as the Black Widow in the campy old Batman series, shortly before her death. Well, Dahlings, Frank always remembered her from the Hitchcock masterpiece, Lifeboat (1944), currently re-packaged on DVD (18 October 2005) by Fox Home Entertainment. Tallulah plays a bullish WWII reporter, whose torpedoed transport ship has left her adrift in a lifeboat with a mishmash of nine passengers and merchant seamen with one mysterious, rescued German. The cast is well rounded out, from William Bendix’s (The Babe Ruth Story; Del Ruth 1948) sympathetic portrayal of a dance-happy sailor with a gangrenous leg, to John Hodiak’s (Desert Fury; Allen 1947) devil–may-care machinist to Hume Cronyn (Cocoon; Howard 1985) as a starry-eyed radio-operator. Notably also is Canada Lee (Cry, the Beloved Country; Korda 1951), as “Joe” the black steward, he recites the Lord’s Prayer over one lost soul. He sounds, unlike any other actor Frank has ever heard, like he really understands it.

The story was written by John Steinbeck, so as one can expect, the dialogue is rich, naturalistic and presents a variety of deft social commentary in its little microcosm. When Willy, the German sailor, crawls aboard the lifeboat, for example, the American seamen want to toss him back. Not only are they the guys fighting the war, but also, presumably having been through the Depression and poverty, they have a better idea of the realism of food and rations. It is Connie Porter (Bankhead) and wealthy poker-playing industrialist Ritt, played by Henry Hull (Great Expectations; Walker 1934), who are against the barbaric act as unchristian. Morality, it seems is a hobby for the leisure class.

For Alfred Hitchcock, the second powerhouse behind this film, this is the first of some of his experimental, often claustrophobic films, such as the his two-hour “one-take film” Rope (1948) or Rear Window (1954) shot largely from Jimmy Stewart’s wheel-chair bound POV. Lifeboat has elements of both. There is by necessity one claustrophobic set, the boat itself. The opening shot under the credits begins with the sunken freighter’s stacks sliding under the waves, leaving only Connie in the lifeboat, looking for survivors. But instead of the duologue of Stewart and Grace Kelly, we have a whole choir of voices lyricized by the great Steinbeck. And note you won’t get the spoiler to Hitchcock’s trademark cameo here, but watch for it. It’s damned clever. Tallulah, who came down with pneumonia, played the sopping wet role without underwear, much to the distress of the cast and crew. Frank has no idea if the DVD contains any enhanced detail of Tallulah Bankhead’s snatch. But, Frank is broken in his reverie as the bartender finally notices his plight. He rows back up to the bar. The bartender is eager for repeat customers, so comps his and Spike’s drinks and also invites them to an after-party with the girls. Cool. Vodka and dildos at 2 am. You gotta love the personal touch.

2005-10-18T00:08:00.000-04:00

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) “Corn, corn, everywhere, nor any a drop to drink” Frank curses and tosses the empty bottle of Turkey Mountain into the field. Frank was stuck somewhere between Kampsville and Mozier on Route 96. The alternator in the Impala had been weak for some time and he should have known better than to leave the wipers, radio and AC on while he pulled over to check the roadmap. The rain clouds had passed and swept across the prairie, and Frank (having the benefit of spreading the tri-state map over the hood of the car) was now completely sure of his position. However, unless someone passed to give him a jumpstart, he wasn’t going anywhere. A couple of teen girls in a Fiero with MacMurray College stickers had slowed down long enough to giggle at him but that was over an hour ago and it would be getting dark soon. You can’t underestimate either the loneliness or stabbing autumn chills of the mid-west. Cell phone reception was out of the question. Hard to believe there’s still stretches between St. Louis and Chicago where you could see for miles and not spot any houses. Of course there must be one out there somewhere, and if another car didn’t pass in five minutes Frank was just going to have to try to hoof it to the nearest farmhouse. Frank shivers and swipes his jersey gloves out of his rucksack in the trunk. And wishes he hadn’t cut the fingers out of them. If he ever wanted someone to stop and help him, the Impala seemed a poor and suspicious choice at the moment. It was the car of a transient killer and rapist roaming the back roads. Like the Impala driven by Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (McNaughton 1986), which was currently out (27 September 2005) in a 20th anniversary edition by Mpi Media Group. Michael Rooker, star of this semi-factual account of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, probably has never gotten his due as an actor, and the roles he had garnered in the 1980s were the result mostly to the unrated and underground copies of Henry: P.O. A. S. K circulated around LA. You’ve seen him, he’s one of Wyatt Earp’s boys in Tombstone (Cosmatos 1993), he’s the police captain in the Bone Collector (Noyce 1999), he’s Sheriff Pangborn in the Dark Half (Romero 1993). But he hasn’t been given much chance to carry a picture, as he does admirably in H: P O A S K. From the opening pan and zooms over corpses while Henry, a charmer in a Carhart, flirts with a greasy spoon waitresses, the film is decidedly gritty. Shot in a series of bad Chicago ‘hoods, the film is a tribute to all those people and places you kinda know and would rather not admit to, from the white trash young mother shampooing your hair to that seedy ex-con spraying your apartment for roaches, to that scruffy guy whose lack of teeth suggest him to be unqualified to pump your gas and make change. The performances of all the principle characters are excellent, from Rooker’s Henry, to Tracy Arnold as Becky, the young love interest, and especially Tom Towles, as Otis, Henry’s partner in crime. The dialog, considering the theme, is naturalistic and frighteningly somehow rings true: Becky: I don't want to talk about Leroy! Otis: Okay, we don't have to talk about him! You hungry? Becky: Yeah. Otis: Good, I'm hungry too. I wonder if Leroy's hungry. No? Not doing it for you? You have to trust that when maniacs make small talk and little jokes, its something like that. But anyway, as is the fate of all low budget masterpieces, the performances of the non-key players are stilted and poor. Though Frank has heard that one of the actresses playing a victim was so traumatized by the filming that she went into shock. Cool. Please forgive. But, cool. Some of the other cool parts you will probably wonder (if you are as analytical as Frank) as to their intentionality. When Becky tells Henry at length about being raped by her father, we cut to Henry answering: “So you didn’t git along wi’ yo daddy?” The anticlimax is delicious. But is it just poor editing or weak script? Who cares? Or after Henry and Otis kill a couple whores, they grab some fast food. The two drink coffee in sync. Way creepy. But coincidence? Or subtle in-road by the director. Again. Who cares? Once more, the selling point of the picture is Rooker’s likable boy-next-store killer. The quiet cool makes him, convicted murderer or not, seem to be like perfect catch for Becky in that run-down Chicago neighborhood. It’s the burgeoning love affair between Henry and Becky that brings cohesiveness to the story. Of course, this has been more than slightly sanitized for audience. The real Becky was a spry 15 when Henry Lee Lucas got his eye on her (“eye”-singular, Lucas had lost and eye as a child, a result of his mother’s refusal to let him see a doctor after a knife accident). Becky followed Lucas on his misadventures for some time before he stabbed and dismembered her. In Henry, she is spared this fall by being fairly promptly dispatched. The story of the real Henry, in fact, is quite fascinating, and the fast and looseness of H: P O A S K’s use of the life of Lucas is the film’s failing. To be fair, police were still piecing together Lucas’ misdoings when the film was made, so one forgets how much more topical the pic was in the mid-eighties. Also attention to detail is very, very often the death of the bio-pic (consider, despite all due praise to Charlize Theron, the aimlessness of Monster [Jenkins 2003].). Conversely, looseness with the facts has also whitewashed a pic or two (Consider The Aviator [Scorcese 2004]). Real accounts of Lucas paint him somewhat of a braggart and a storyteller. And not the seductive killer as Rooker plays him. Oh, well. Frank isn’t 20 yards from the Impala when the MacMurray co-eds are back. And while they don’t have any jumper cables, they do know of a kegger in Jacksonville…

2005-10-10T21:59:00.000-04:00

The Red Tent (1971)/ Red Cockroaches (2005) Frank’s red pen deftly hunts across the page. Not that it mattered; the actors had already taken their last rewrites and for the moment spelling didn’t count. Frank could at least take pride that his little off off off off off Broadway (any farther off and the actor would be swiming in the East River!) piece of schlock was at least better than the last two additions to his DVD collection: Red Cockroaches (Coyula 2005). The Red Tent (aka Krasnaya Palatka; Kalatozishvili 1971). Red C. is available 27 September from Ryko Distribution. Red T. came out 23 August on Paramount. Frank was so bored to tears by last Saturday night’s selections he vowed to never buy movies alphabetically again—or possibly just avoid the word “red”—he’d already been burned by Red Dragon (Ratner 2002); Red Dawn (Milius 1984), Red Planet (Hoffman 2000), Red Sonia (Fleischer 1985), and Red Heat (Hill 1988), just to name a few… Yes, Frank’s Scrapmetal Jesus did have a few things to be proud of. Unlike Red Tent, the story of a failed blimp trip to the north pole in 1928, Frank’s play was not a drawn out morality tale. SJ got right into the muck and was morally ambiguous. Frank’s play also didn’t require long panoramic shots of the North Pole, a cute doggie or a throwaway love story as filler material. Unlike the Red Tent, Frank also didn’t need a top-billed start like Sean Connery to come in at the end, whose anticipated entrance keeps an audience from walking away. Franks play had no G-rating. And its lip-sync was perfect. Frank's characters are weakened by the world, while Kalatozishvili’s are robust, even after weeks in the artic. Of course, to be fair, considering Peter Finch’s kinda cool dirigible crash, both the Red Tent and Scrapmetal do contain people drinking when they ought be paying attention. Unlike Red Cockroaches, the story of brother-sister sex intrigue set in a near future NYC, the acting in Scrapmetal Jesus was excellent and the dialogue far from stilted. Frank didn’t need sexual taboos. To hell with the film considered the best low-budget film(---er, video) of the last few years. Frank certainly didn’t need childish film school tricks: he didn’t use worm’s eye POV in every other shot, smash-cut after smash cut, or dime store sexual symbolism such as a finger in a flower. He didn’t need special effect either, sticking flying CGI cars into every shot. Scrapmetal Jesus was more goofy than its due. That’s true. But at least, Frank muses, it was born of the streets. Not pieced together on an Apple G4 like Red Cockroaches. Having itemized these reasons for hoisting his own play, above his panned DVDs, Frank is more at ease. He orders a Wild Turkey as they begin his play: Scrap-Metal Jesus INT—EMPTY WAREHOUSE—NIGHT [Explosion. Police sirens rattle room. FRANK TRAUTMAN scrambles through a window and tumbles to the floor. TRACY HITLER hurries through the door, slams it, and then lays against it, panting.] TRACY Fucking cops! [He looks at Frank rising off floor and extends a hand.] Hey! Tracy Hitler. Nice ta meet ya. FRANK Frank Trautman—Jeezus! Tracy Hitler?! TRACY Yeah. I know. Tracy’s a girl’s name… FRANK No. I mean, uh—Hitler? You know— [He mimics Nazi salute and mustache.] Hitler? TRACY [Apologetic] Oh! I’m not related to that one. FRANK Well. I know that. Or hoped so, anyway. But, I mean…ya haven’t thought about changing it? TRACY [Becoming indignant] The Hitlers have proudly carried this moniker since the 15th century— FRANK Yeah. Yeah. But don’t you think that, you know—he—someone—kinda spoiled it—? TRACY What? Throw away a perfectly proud family tradition just because, unfortunately, one bad egg had the coincidence of sharing the same surname? FRANK [Waving him off in disgusted disbelief] Bad egg?… [Returning] Okay. So what, your ancestors just went about Austria writing bank checks and repaying student loans for the last sixty years constantly, if not smugly, reassuring everyone, [In faux high-class demure] “Oh no, no. Heavens forbid. We’re not those Hitlers.”

TRACY I should say not! We’re Belgian. FRANK Sorry. Sorry. My mistake. You’re of the Belgian Hitlers. TRACY Brussels. FRANK Brussels. TRACY Oh, yea. We’re dairi-ers— Diari-ists? Dairi-ites? Dairi— FRANKEh? TRACY Hitler’s Fine Cheeses since 1783. FRANK Uh-huh. I see. TRACY [Nods] Diari—ians FRANK [Waves hands] Okay. Fine. Cheese… No. Not fine…In any case, why then, do you have to burst into here and announce that you are in fact a Hitler?

TRACY I don’t get you. FRANK Okay. Okay. Now, watch. I’m you and you’re me. Let’s come in again. [They exit, Frank via the window, Tracy, the door. After a few seconds, they scramble through again as before, places switched.] Fucking cops! [Tracy gets off the floor and extends a hand.] TRACY Hi. I’m Frank Tra— FRANK [Interrupting] Hi. I’m Tracy. TRACY I don’t get it. FRANK Tracy. I’m Tracy. Just call me Tracy. Period. TRACY But now I sound like a have a girl’s name. FRANK So? Better to have a girl’s name than a genocidal maniac’s name. I can, after all, see that you are not a girl— TRACY Yeah, but— FRANK What I can’t tell, nor do I now wonder about is whether, oh I don’t know…. Whether maybe your dad killed five million Jews or something. TRACY Six million. Besides, we’re Belgian. FRANK Yeah, I know. Brussels. Cheese— TRACY Fine cheeses. FRANK Fine cheeses…But I’m talking about first impressions— TRACY Also. He wouldn’t be my father anyway. I’m not that old. More like my grandfather, great grandfather, more likely. FRANK And, of course, your grandfather was too busy making cheese— TRACY Fine cheeses. FRANK Fine cheeses…since 1783—? TRACY Yes. Well, not him personally— FRANK [Continuing] And was thus completely ignorant of the entire World War II slash Holocaust-thing? TRACY No, of course not. But it’s just a name after all. [Tracy sits and considers philosophically] Besides, suppose I that I am Hitler’s son. So what? I should atone for the sins of my father. As if I could help it? Come one, dude. Do you owe all the Negroes forty acres and a mule because of slavery? FRANK Either way. The Trautmans didn’t come to the US until— TRACY What’s that? What’s your name? FRANK Trautman. TRACY Like in Trautman & Trautman Attorneys? FRANK Yeah, so? My fath— TRACY Fascist. [Tracy growls and rolls over to sleep. Frank drops his arms, tired of debate, and looks around the room. The sirens return anew.] FRANK Fucking cops! [Frank pulls a fifth of whiskey out of his jacket and drinks.] Fucking cops… TRACY [Jumping up at the sirens, then noticing Frank, nods] Always time for the ole hammer-juice, eh? FRANK Fuck you, Hitler. [Frank drinks and turns. Meanwhile, Tracy pulls out a few capsules and sets about grinding and snorting them up. Frank turns back to see.] And what, pray tell, are you doing? TRACY [Almost proud] I’m fixin’ on crushin’ up these Ritalin and snortin’em. [He begins.] FRANK Ritalin? TRACY [Inspecting powder] Well, maybe they’re Percocets. [Snorts.] Or Loritabs. [Snorts again.] In any case, unlike you, I thought I should make myself more…eh, aware. Under the circumstances, that is. [Frank grunts, and swigs the bottle. A siren passes, lighting the room. Tracy jumps up.] See? Ready for anything. FRANK [Thumbs nose] Check the sink, Hitler. TRACY [Wiping powder from nose] That’s Mr. Hitler to— [Then, realizing how stupid the rebuttal is,] Jackass. [Sirens] Fucking cops. [Frank pats him on the back, then thrusts his hands in his pockets.] FRANK Well, we agree on that, anyway…. [Frank mills around then peeks out window looking for the cops.] Well. A-hem So as to play devil’s advocate, why, pray tell, are the blues after you, man? TRACY Bullshit, man. FRANK Yeah? What bullshit? TRACY I’ve just been killin’ babies is all. FRANK Killing babies!? TRACY No, no. It’s not all like that. They don’t go to hell, ya see? FRANK Oh? TRACY Babies are too young to sin… FRANK Sooooo…..? TRACY So I am sending them to heaven. FOR-ever! FRANK By killing’em? [TRACY nods] Babies? TRACY Yeah, well. I won’t kill a man. FRANK No? TRACY Jeezus! If I murdered some innocent, unsuspecting guy, what hell, would I be putting him through? Unprepared to die? No-way. St. Peter, Yahweh, Christ, Vishnu, Job, Jehovah, whatever! Those dudes know all about this victim’s soul. More than I could. Think of the afterlife. FRANK But…. by killing babies…Whoosh! Straight to the good hereafter. TRACY [Smiles] EX-act-ly FRANK I see: Only the young die good. OK, Brain-boy. Howabout you, I don’t know, just kill nobody? TRACY [Frowns and slumps] Do nothing? You just don’t get it, doya? Drunkie! FRANK [Sneers back] Guess not, Baby-killer! [Drinks] Guess not. [Frank walks off, then returns angrily] Ok, again, How-a-bout, Don’t kill NO-body!? TRACY You are so friggin’ naïve. [Tracy smiles and pulls out some more pills and a water bottle to slurp them down] FRANK [Stumped] Well, naïve backward is Evian! Hah! TRACY [Rising and dusting from of pants] Well, its simple 1. It’s good for the babies to never know anything but the glory of heaven, and B. [Quiet] I am trying to make my place. FRANK Your place? TRACY Yeah. My place in history. FRANK OK. TRACY You’ve already pointed out my handicap! FRANK Handicap? TRACY The OTHER Hitler? Come on! You think I don’t have that looming over me all the time? FRANK Didn’t think of it. I guess ALL Hitlers must strive for some sick notoriety, if they ever want to be THE Hitler… TRACY Like FDR. FRANK [Nods as if this tidbit will solve everything] Like FDR…? TRACY He had to take on the Depression AND the Nazis to be THE Roosevelt. FRANK [Under breath, walking away, not wanting to argue politics too] So who is THE Bush? Better to finish or start a war? [Then aloud, returning] And so to be The Hitler, you will kill, oh, over 5 million TRACY 6 million FRANK 6 million babies to be THE Hitler. TRACY [Matter-of-factly] With babies, public outcry oughtta be bigger. I figger it won’t take quite that many. Maybe…. [Thinks] A sixth. Yea. About 1/6 the Holocaust should do’er up nicely. FRANK Sounds about right, I guess. Well, let’s hope so, anyway. For the babies sake. TRACY NO. FRANK No? [Thinks] Ohhhh, right. They’re going to heaven…. TRACY But lets hope not for the parent’s sake. FRANK Oh? TRACY I am sending their babies away. [Tranquil] To heaven. FRANK Yes, right. Lucky dead babies. [Frank makes himself comfortable on the ground away from Tracy, backstage. Than rolls over anew:] But, I’ve just gotta ask, how many have you—? TRACY How many have I— [Draws finger across throat; Frank nods.] 9,999 FRANK [Blasé] Oh. Great. So, one more? TRACY [Smiles] One more. [Tracy pulls out a hunting knife, darts over and stabs Frank in the stomach, then runs off.]

2005-10-05T13:15:00.000-04:00

Street Trash (1987)

T. Scott, or “Spike” as he was called, stabs at a guava spear and scowls at a rather suggestive piece of text. He and Frank are eating at a small PR place on the 1900 block of Lexington. Spike chews and shakes his head suspiciously, but Frank is unsure whether he disapproves of his new play or the mofongo. “No. No. No!” Spike mutters. (Frank looks up from the paper placemat where he has been taking notes about Spike on a cartoonish map of Puerto Rico somewhere, as far as he could tell, between Fajardo and the island of Vieques.) “I don’t talk like this, bitch!" Frank takes this down word-for-word, underlining “bitch!" It was all very unnecessary. The actors at Carlitos Café y Galeriá, a good four or five blocks away, already had the script and were set to give a semi-impromptu performance of it. It was not an earth-shattering ordeal, but a great chance to try workshop a piece before a small audience. Frank, now impatiently sipping sangria, had been to this sort of affair before and his greatest dread were the twenty-something girls, potential groupies seeking to cling to a dreamy rising star. They would, of course, twist their mouth disapprovingly at Frank’s world-worn face and accusingly clarify: “You're the author?” (Frank notes this too, underlining the first word for em-pha-sis) Frank’s mistake, however, was mentioning the affair to Andrea, who in turn mentioned it to Spike who got on a small prop plane at Quetzalcoatl International Airport, both outraged and curious that he appeared as a character in one of Frank’s scripts. Jumping on a plane in Nuevo Laredo wasn’t a heroic effort by any standard. Spike’s schedule was his own—having left a lucrative job as a lineman on a gulf coast rig to be the personal assistant to a meth cook. Spike considered this to be a lateral career move. Now, as Spike insists on script changes— (He had a particular seething hatred of fully justified Courier New text) — Frank just wishes he was back in the hotel room he had secured in the Indian section of Jersey City. Jim Muro had been a sought after stedicam operator for years, and was now a cinematographer in his own right, having DPed recent films like Open Range (Costner 2003) and Crash (Haggis 2004). However, these films, Frank guessed were the usual Hollywood tripe. Still, before taking the subway up to Harlem, Frank had noticed his hotel had a variety of DVDs available for rent in your room—and at a place available by the hour, to be sure, most were pornos. But Frank had also spied Muro’s directorial debut, Street Trash (1987), now available (30 August 2005) from Synapse Films. Hanging out in Spanish Harlem had given him the itch to watch it for the first time in 15 years. Not that the film is good. It’s particularly reprehensible and kind of icky for no particular reason. The plot revolves around a NYC liquor storeowner who finds an old case of booze called “Tenafly Viper” (after the lovely Jersey burg) while cleaning his cellar. He opts to sell the hammer juice for a dollar a bottle, making it a tempting treat for the local homeless crowd. Viper ingested causes the ingestee to melt in a series of non-realistic primary colors three seconds after drinking.

And that’s your basic plot—except for a crazed Vietnam vet named Bronson, who’s mobilized a gang of hobos in a large auto wrecking yard. He terrorizes the locals with a knife made from a VC femur strapped to his leg. A couple other subplots ensue to add additional gore and nudity, but Bronson’s terrorizing of the neighborhood seems to be the main plot mover. In fact, you’ll soon be asking yourself: “Wasn’t this movie supposed to be about bums melting?” It is. In a remote sort of way… Muro’s cinematographic expertise, however, is evident from the opening credit, containing ambitious stedicam shots, his specialty. From the get-go Muro tries desperately to get us root for his fun loving bums, Fred, a lovable scamp, and his brother Kevin (think Ralph Macchio meets John Tuturro) —and wait a second! Rewind! The car that crashes to avoid hitting Fred has no driver! Until the next shot, that is… But hey! When Bronson’s minions kill a dork wandering into the neighborhood, again revel in Muro’s talented camerawork, filmed in nerd-o-vision, through the victim’s POV. But please turn the flick off when Bronson cuts off one of his gang's penises for a game of gory keep-away. The film is not getting any better… The real redeeming thing about the new release is the “Tenafly Viper” stickers included with the DVD. This would be more “classic” if the movie had more of a cult following. Which it doesn’t. Frank glances at the clock on the wall above a Corona ad. It’s near seven o’clock. Perhaps he should forget both Street Trash and Spike. Ditch’em both. The problem was that both T. Scott and Andrea were appearing as characters in his next reading in Carlitos, so he’d better keep his mouth shut or he’d undoubtedly have twice the fun next time.

2005-09-27T21:16:00.000-04:00

Zodiac Killer (2004) Graveyard Frank leaves Tower Records and heads down Broadway. He shoves the DVD into a suit pocket. Ulli Lommel’s Zodiac Killer (2004), for a small picture, is widely available. Lion’s Gate Entertainment had sailed it through to DVD on 19 July 2005. Zodiac is long on words and short on budget and looked it. But whaddayagonna do? The production team was a plucky bunch, committed to shoot several more flicks through LGE. And Frank, having pitched some scripts to them, thought he’d oughta bone up on some of their source material. But that wasn’t why he was back in the Big Apple again. A small venue up in Spanish Harlem was to perform Scrapmetal Jesus, a one-act Frank wrote while sitting in “The Loose Caboose” (Home of the 50¢ Draft) on the Lafayette, Louisiana Strip. Frank wipes the unseasonable late September sweat from his brow, pulls the flyer from the breast pocket of his tweedy professorial blazer and reads it one final time:

"SHOTS IN THE NIGHT" A Theatre & Film Fusion Night At Carlito's Cafe 1701 Lexington Avenue (Between 106 and 107) 7:30pm-10pm Host: Ed Malin and Kristina Leath

Location: Carlito's Cafe1701 Lexington, New York, NY

When: Sunday, October 2, 7:00 pmPhone: 212-348-7044 Hop the 6 train to the 103rd street stop and enjoy an exciting evening of short films and theatre pieces by emerging artists. Presented in mixed order, the evening hopes to promote a change of artistic pace, a mingling of people and art forms as well as collective creative ideas! ABOUT The Venue Carlito's Cafe is a multi-cultural art space/cafe/bar founded by “ART FOR CHANGE” to promote budding Multi-cultural artistes in New YorkLocated at 1701 Lexington Ave., Carlito's is on the Upper East Side and in the heart of “El Barrio” welcoming a wide array of artists ranging from painters to musicians to dancers to actors to film makers and beyond.

About the Hosts Ed Malin is a playwright whose work is being featured in the 2005 NYC Fringe Festival and has on-going projects with Manhattan Theatre Source. For more info: www.Temeritytheatre.com Kristina Leath is a screenwriter who has completed three shorts films one of which was submitted to the Cannes International Film Festival. For more info: www.geocities.com/boonie214/KristinasWorld.html So, come and enjoy a night of great live performances, films and networking that’s far from commercial and all about the fusion of ART! $5 suggested donation. The 1st & 3rd Sunday Nights each month, 7:30 pm @ Carlito’s Café. Frank crumples the flyer and hooks it into a wastebasket. He hopes they got someone handsome to play himself. It was fiction after all.

2005-09-26T23:43:00.000-04:00

Blood Freak (1972)

Frank was waiting for a six-inch turkey club at a Cracker Barrel convenience store on the Strip in Lafayette, Louisiana, and thinking of Albert Fish… Albert Fish of Washington DC had a head injury from a fall off a cherry tree in 1877. By the age of twenty he began to travel across 23 US states involved in house-painting, masochistic-homosexual relationships, raping children, cannibalism and bible study. He also liked inserting needles into his body near the genitals; acts of pain sexually excited him. Albert Fish, the ‘Brooklyn Vampire’ committed hundreds of sexual assaults and 16 or more murders before being sentenced to death by electrocution at Sing Sing in 1936. He called it ‘the supreme thrill of my life.’ The first electrical charge failed; it was short circuited by all the needles Fish had inserted between his testicles and anus over the years. It took a second massive current to finish the blackened Fish off. Frank concentrated this true ‘blood freak’ because the thought of turkey reminded him of the movie of that same name. And, if he thought of Grinter and Hawkes’ infamously bad Blood Freak (1972) while he idled in the chip aisle, he would burst out into uncontrollable laughter (and gobbles) and probably over topple over the rack of pickled pig snouts, gator jerky and pork rinds. For those not in the know, the pro-Christian/anti-drug Blood Freak (re-released on DVD by Image Entertainment on 9 September 2005) is one of the few films that can be recommended solely for their sheer absurdity. Blood Freak stars Hawkes (A former Eastern bloc bodybuilder, former Mr. Canada, former Tarzan, current inept exotic animal keeper) as Herschel, an unlikely biker-slash-‘Nam vet torn between a swinging sex kitten and her ultra Christian sister. Meantime, their daddy gets Hersch a job eating experimental turkey on his poultry farm. Obviously, a combination of tampered turkey and some wicked-ass pot (truly, Hersch gets the DTs after a single joint) turns our hero into bloodthirsty gobbling turkey monster. Didn’t his mom tell him that if he ate that much turkey he’d start to look like one? He looks like the not-so nice cousin of the San Diego Chicken, trying to shove bloody limbs into a papier-mâché beak. Only clean living and prayer can save Herschel now! “Perhaps Hersch needs to go cold turkey?” Frank snorts and knocks a stack of Penthouse Letters off the magazine stand. Details are too bizarre to expand upon. To be honest, despite Hawke's spastic transformation into a turkey, the camera effects are kinda cool, although are probably just a result of poor lighting. The second half of the film is very dark and often hard to follow. Hersch also cuts the leg off a drug dealer with a power saw. A real amputee is used so there is no “hidden limb” in the effect. However, a prosthetic spurting red paint doesn’t look much real either. Hersch’s war wounds are more convincing: in reality, Hawkes was badly burned on the set of one of his Tarzan flicks thus fating our side-burned, muscle-bound hero to not rise above the B-classics. “Oh come on,” the nay-sayers whine. “Certainly lack of talent first-doomed Hawkes career!” But, need Frank remind anyone of another ex-Eastern European body builder (with less cool ‘chops’) who festers in Hollywood blockbusters (and—ulp!—politics)? Truly, though, what makes the film for Frank, if not all this aforementioned silliness, is co-director Brad Grinter as the narrator. He looks like a sad Vincent Price (House of Wax; De Toth 1953) with uncombed hair and sagging faux wood paneling. He chain-smokes and reads off a script (one reviewer calls him coy for looking away—he’s reading the lines, idiot!). At the film’s climax he ironically breaks out into an uncontrollable smoker’s hack while lecturing on the evil of recreational drug use. Any other directors would have filmed a second take. Any other take. But Hawke’s and Grinter are not any other directors!

If not completely confused by the fractured Hawkes-Grinter vision, stay around for the featurettes included on the DVD. These include the 1969 skin-noir featurette The Walls Have Eyes, Brad Grinter, Nudist, and Narcotics, Pit of Despair. Pit easily rivals Reefer Madness (Gasnier 1936) in dated health class drug paranoia. Classic line: “Man, get with the countdown. Shake off this Square World and blast off to Kicks-ville.” Walls has a simple formula: find a way to link an anti-drug message with full frontal nudity, and then find a reason to play all that footage a second time. Nudist is truly just disturbing. You just have to watch to appreciate all this bad-goodness--or good-badness?.

Listing all the bad things which are so so damned entertaining about Blood Freak is impossible and so many other reviewers have described, speculated about, and interpreted the film to death. Just wonder what Christian money was backing drive-in horror movies in the early 1970s?! There’s just something about a film with no redeeming value which will make you smile and groan when you are enjoying a turkey sandwhich light years away. Blood Freak is simply a total tryptophan-trip!

2005-09-13T23:04:00.000-04:00

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974)

Frank’s cell phone is generally an annoying little device that plays “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)” (He preferred to imagine it was the Keely Smith version, as opposed to Sinatra) whenever the rare person was trying to reach him. Over the last few days it had been ringing seemingly constantly to him, though probably no better than 4 or 5 times. Mostly it was girl friends (No, never girlfriends or even girl-friends) wondering if he had made it out of the city before the storm—and relieved that he had, to remind him that they still had no future together. Frank was, in fact, on his way to the beach when the hurricane hit, and for no other reason than to see pretty ladies in bathing suits. He was, after all, despite what a slew of g. f.’s wanted to think, a man. A normal man with all the usual proclivities. And, in a second turn of luck he had stayed on I-10 past his usual spot in Biloxi to instead seek out Virginia Beach. It wasn’t a place he had been to before, but he had just heard the name somewhere and liked the sound of it. But, of course every bar on the Virginia Beach strip was tuned into suffering and destruction back home. And Frank hopped joint to joint hoping to escape the misery of the 24-hr coverage. And he couldn’t, until he happened on a little out of the way emo place that had their tube turned to the classic Hammer film, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (Clemens 1974) Now for those you who own or wish to own the DVD copy there are two initial caveats. 1. The grizzled man of the cover is not in fact Captain Kronos, but his friend, Dr. Marcus. Kronos is more the blonde bimbo type. Indeed, C. K. was Buffy long before Buffy was Buffy. 2. The DVD release date is generally given as 9 August 2005, although the title has been widely available prior, if you check the $4.88 bins at your local Wal-Mart. It is unclear whether this is simply a re-issue or not. The “new” DVD case gives a copyright of 2003. Captain Kronos is mostly known for what it was not: a new franchise to save the dwindling box office returns for Hammer Studios. It failed to pay off and no other installments were produced. In the previous decades the studio had enjoyed great success putting a new spins on horror staples such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opera, very, very often featuring Peter Cushing (Star Wars: Lucas 1977) and Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings: Jackson 2003) as well as original cult classics such as Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (Baker 1974) and the Quartermas Xperiment (Guest 1955). However, after Kronos soon fell into decline and pickings have been slim for the past 30 years.

Captain Kronos is a simple tale of a swashbuckling swordsman who fights vampires with help of his hunchback sidekick. The story moves as fast as C. K. pounding across the meadows on his horse followed by his hunchbacked assistant, Prof. Hieronymos Grost, close behind in his cart. They quickly find themselves in a village where vampires are sucking the youth out of young girls. Kronos and Grost are soon on the case using a mixture of old-timey wisdom and more conventional cutlasses and crosses. Even better, they pick up a hot chick for the captain along the way. C. K. V. H. isn’t bad, and it isn’t shot all that poorly either. Although the picture looks pretty good, the trained eye noticed some flaws, perhaps most obvious is that the film really contains no night exteriors, pretty uncharacteristic for a vampire flick, but also very cost effective for a studio. Here, the vampires simply cover themselves with a black hooded robe. Still the film has a slick, mod feel (Clemens went on to direct the New Avengers series) It also contains many memorable lines and scenes, Frank’s favorite being the exclamation as to the belief in the existence of vampires: “Come now! What could be more improbable than God?” When Dr. Marcus gets bit, one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at C. K. and Grost’s antics trying to find a way to dispose of him. After all, H. G.: There are as many forms of vampire as there are beasts of prey!

C. K.: As are the methods of their destruction! The gawking, on looking villagers don’t seem to know how to react either. But, all and all, this oddly discernable humor propels the film. In fact, some consider it to be Hammer’s answer to Polanski’s monster comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1966). In the end, the wry humor is the selling point of the movie, taking it from being a not so scary or gory movie, to an amusing entry to the vast vampire genre (off hand Kronos, is possibly one of the least scary captains of the 1970s, somewhere after Captain and Tennille and Captain Fantastic)—certainly a must see for fans. Its more entertaining than recent “hammer (and stake)” films like Blade (Norrington 1998) or Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000 (Lussier 2000). Anyway, if nothing else Frank finds it to be adequate escapism from viewing the tragedy and loss of life in the B. E. he could only hope that Iris and Jerry had gotten out too. When the credits roll, Frank leaves the emo club, hits the ABC state liquor store for some Christian Bros. and then to a gaudy, pastel-painted hotel to set up his laptop. He’d have to get comfortable. It seemed like it’d be awhile before he could get back into the 9th without a pirogue.

2005-08-30T22:28:00.000-04:00

Week End (1967)

Iris leans over the bar, stretching and twisting her arms seductively and pulling him forward with a beckoning finger. She bats her eyes at him and purrs: “Tell me a story about the war, Jerry.”

Jerry shakes his head, “No. No.”

“Howabout one about your first love.”

“No.”

Frank leans in: “Tell us how you got so fucked up.” Iris slaps Frank on the shoulder, but Jerry nods, looking very serious.

“Howabout I tell you a story about all three?: "In the blinking of the traffic lights and on-coming cars, I could make out Misty in her pink, spaghetti-strap dress, wobbling drunkenly through a dangerous Y-intersection in the downtown square. I run to her and take her arm and lead her across the street. She tries to fight me all the way, but, by reaching the other side, she mostly acquiesced. I guide her pathetic march home. She never calls. I am too young and pig-headed to seek her out. Instead, I get shipped to the front lines.

On one ill-fated, air-raid (The details too horrible to say), we are shot from the sky. I drop from the sky in the parachute all too quickly for my liking, (though very lucky to get out at all!) and land in a muddy field. The co-pilot lands nearby yelling: “Land-mines!”

We stand stock-still and survey the field: It is so torn up, mines could be anywhere. But, there are footprints, and logically, I think, it maybe safe to retrace the steps of another. Until they bring me to an exploded crater, anyway. A truck pulls up on the near-by road. It is one of our own minefields, and one of the culprits who created it can lead us out. Map in hand, he makes his way gingerly to the co-pilot, who is wounded and needs carried out. I’m OK, and can follow him back on my own.

Back at the truck, we are flagged my some stranded motorists and agree to give them a lift back into town. As the nomadic bunch sidles up (there were a lot of them roaming the countryside at the time, protesting the war), I realize that Misty, now in a white sundress, atypical of the tomboy she had morphed into in my mind, is among them. I scuffle to the back seat–achingly, I am somewhat worse for wear in this war. Misty scoots up next to me. She hugs me and I ask her why she never called, and she replies, “Because you thought you loved me.” She sighs and embraces me sadly as the truck bumps along the dirt road. I take her hand. She sighs: “Gerald, I miss you. But in these times, I can’t trust in love. I want you near. I can’t offer more.” “Yes. Just, keep an open mind for me. I will be here.” We embrace. And I do not want to let go. Despite her anxiety, she doesn’t seem to want to let go either.

Soon, I am back on the street and then back to the little off-base apartment I had. As I settle down, with a new drink, to see what the radio had to offer at this late hour, I sense someone at the door. I go to open it. Pulling it open, I find Misty, staring blankly, still in her white dress. As I smile, happy that she has sought me out, she begins to sway forward. I jump to grab her and support her head. But, something is wrong. We both crash to the floor: Her head rolls to my feet! Some fiend had cut it off and propped her up outside my door.

Tragic, I roam the city.

Rounding a corner for the nth time, I hasten my pace, as I spot a seedy group of noncoms for the nth time. But, passing an alley I am accosted by the group at grenade-point. I reach for my wallet with nothing to lose, and I am told it is not a matter of money, but one of territory. As I sigh, an MP rolls up and accosts the gang. But, more grenades appear, many thrown, and the cops drive off. Later, I awake in a hospital bed, but the persistent gang was in the hospital with me. When I escaped they were in my apartment. Then they were in the barracks. Behind me on the plane as I re-loaded the machine gun. They were everywhere. Always were. They are here now. I cannot escape them. You see what, I have become…” At this, Jerry starts weeping again. Frank scoffs bewildered, “I haven’t heard of a tale that disjointed since New Yorker Video put Godard’S Weekend (1967) on DVD in the Summer of aught-five.”

Iris pats Jerry on the back, “You take him back to your place, Frank. And don’t give him any of your shit. Just a beer and to bed.”

2005-08-28T23:33:00.000-04:00

Gates of Heaven (1978) Frank has been for several weeks now, holed up in a dingy room above a take-out Chinese place in north Hollywood, squinting and sweating over a Pentium I Compaq laptop. His cats, Tom Horn and Junior Bonner run about the place crazily tearing at the floor and baseboards trying to find the source of the strange noises and smells coming from downstairs. And for this Frank is glad because Bonner’s otherwise favorite pastime is sitting on his keyboard and swatting (ironically) at the mouse as it tacked across the screen. It seems Frank’s generally good-for-nothing agent, Ayleen, had sold a yet-to-be written screenplay to Skull and Bones productions. Skull and Bones had in turn signed a deal for twelve straight to DVD B-movies to be distributed by Tiger Paw Entertainment. All that meant Frank had to get busy cranking out horror scripts with plenty of gore and full frontal female nudity. The only breaks he allowed himself were: 1. A trip across the street for a liter of Philadelphia Blended and a pack of Lucky’s (Both of which greatly eased the writing process), 2. Downstairs for a pint of cashew chicken for himself and some Chinese noodles for Tom Horn (Junior Bonner just liked to chase the paper fortunes across the hardwood floor.) 3. To the Errol Morris film retrospective playing a small theatre two blocks away. Thankfully, they played Gates of Heaven (1978) in conjunction with Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe (Blank 1980), something MGM didn’t think to include on the DVD release (July 28, 2005). Quirky director Herzog (Fitzcarraldo 1982), had made a bet with his then student Morris, that if he got his documentary Gates of Heaven, a tale of two pet cemeteries in California, made, he would in fact (and did, on camera) eat his shoe. Since then Morris’s The Thin Blue Line (1988) was named best documentary of the year by the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. His film about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, The Fog of War (2003) more recently won the best documentary feature Oscar in 2004. Gates focuses first on handicapped and emotional Floyd McClure and his failed attempt to open and run a pet cemetery. The job of our little friends he says is “to love and to be loved.” When McClure’s fails, the deceased are dug up and moved to the Harbert’s pet cemetery. The second part deals with the Harberts and the training of their two sons to take over the family business. Gates of Heaven is emotional and at times funny. Also it is both at the same time. With a lack of exposition and by extrapolation, didacticism, interpretation is up to the viewer. McClure’s colleagues seem self-aware of their fledgling industry and are careful to sound business-like, while McClure is openly emotionally talking of his deceased collie and his hatred of the rendering plant, or “glue factory,” previously the only other option for disposing of deceased animals. At the Harberts’ Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park, sons Dan and Phil are like a picture of society-to-be at the end of the nineteen-seventies, one a walking self-improvement seminar, and the other, a fading hippie jamming on his guitar amongst the pet tombstones. Thus, in its way, it is not a documentary about pet cemeteries; it is about religion, family, dreams, life death, etc. In short, it is a documentary about people. Morris’ lens is without judgment and his subjects are vulnerable and honest. It is humanity at its most touching and screwiest. Gates of Heaven is proof of what Frank has been saying all along: there is art and beauty in the everyday. The entertainment drawn from the human condition can be drawn from anywhere. Most importantly Gates of Heaven is a god-send for Frank’s unfilled script-hole, and he practically skipped back to his room and began to pound away at the keyboard. Two days later he is squashing out a Lucky Strike into a half-eaten pint of rice and ripping a floppy out of the drive. He is on his way down to Kinkos to print out the first draft of “Nine Lives,” a gory tale of a bunch of cats who get the taste of human blood when their elderly caretaker dies in her kitchen. Unlike the beloved pets in the Morris film, you never could be too sure of cats, after all. They say they’d eat your face off while you slept if you neglected their food bowl for too long…

2005-07-25T23:03:00.000-04:00

Never So Few (1959) Frank scribbles notes, some good and some bad, in his marble –ruled book. He is trying to pretend that he is not at this seminar, but perhaps at ladies’ garden club meeting in New Jersey, listening to a speech on hydrangeas. Or perhaps, watching another Sinatra film… John Sturges’ Never So Few (1959, available June 2005, Warner Bros.) pits the Chairman of the Board and a small band of OSS operatives in Burma, WWII. Rat pack buddy Peter Lawford is along for the ride, as is The Great Escape (1963)/ The Magnificent Seven (1960) (both Sturges films) tagteam of Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. Also notable is Richard Johnson as Sinatra’s never-say-die (until he dies) sidekick. Their mission is to protect and train the local Kachins against the "nips, japs, gooks, and yellows" (namely the Chinese and Japanese) on either side. Of course we all know that turning an unarmed native population into an effective fighting force is easily done, right? The weakness of the film is perhaps its token love story. Sinatra’s tangential love interest in Carla (Gina Lollobrigida), a snooty gold-digger that he wants to change is very often goofy in its surreal 1950s way. After she gives Sinatra’s Tom Reynolds the brush on several occasions, even going so far as to torture him by calling him in on her bath, Tom as classic old time leading man goes ahead and grabs and kisses her. Aha! “I kissed you and you kissed back!” he exclaims and she is suddenly ready to move to the States and drop a few babies. Frank thinks it is safe to say that this technique doesn’t work with most women. He raises a hand and asks host of the sexual harassment seminar he’s stuck in at conference room in a Mt. Sinai hotel. “Not unless you’re Tom Cruise! (Legend R. Scott 1985) He’ll never harass anyone!” she giggles prompting several other DJ’s to raise hands and ask if that was a patently shallow response. “I ‘m sorry if cuteness is a factor,” she frighteningly answers, “Harassment is based on one woman’s opinion at any one moment. And we admittedly see the cute as more harmless than the ugly." Frank groans and slinks behind his little desk. When she causally mentions that sexual harassment charges can also be brought about by a third party independent of the accused harasser and harassee (?). She says that it is only to help in situations when women are too frightened to act for them selves. Jack Hansen, the evening jazz jock to Frank’s left, raises a well-manicured hand and asks if such a clause could lead to slander. “Oh!” she gasps, “That would never happen! I’m sure all women and managers take this topic far too seriously! Silence is most likely fear, not absence of incident.” Now everyone groans. Because it does happen. It had happened. Truth was, despite 25 years both at the console a $45- thou- a year pro was more cheaply replaced by a $20-thou cub like Frank and maybe a minimum wage college kid for weekends. “Allegations,” Frank underlines, on his seminar pamphlet, “Stay on record until proven.” What?! So says Old Man, Sinatra’s Kachin assistant: “America. Very funny place.” A hand goes up. Jack again. “Why is this seminar about sexual harassment and not, oh, religious or racial harassment?” Answer: “Sexual harassment creates a hostile environment.” This time, the black host of the Sunday ‘s gospel hour groans. Sinatra would never have taken this! But then again, Never So Few, does end the way that any good war film doesn’t: with Tom Reynolds' court martial for invading China all by himself. Thematically, this static venue serves to reunite him with Carla, more than to resolve the war story. It has been resolved. Sinatra and McQueen won! Yea. In something like The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenhiemer 1962) Sinatra’s love interest is worked in as key to the plot. Don’t we think quirky Janet Leigh is working for the other side for much of her time in the film? Frankly, with a small bunch of colorful soldiers with a lot of booze protecting a jungle form the reds, there is enough endearing content to get along without the bipolar Carla. Dropping her might make this a more manageable war film. Truth is, here as elsewhere, factual war stories and narrative don’t always blend together well in a Hollywood film. To see love and war mixed well, check out McQueen and Robert Wagner in The War Lover (Leacock 1962). According to this seminar, love didn’t mix well with work, either. No one should be harassed. Still, though, how do these politically-correct enclaves, devoid of proper checks and balances exist? “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Frank curses, "Please keep all women safe and protected.”

2005-07-20T23:42:00.000-04:00

Scarecrow (1973) Stafford, Va. Frank slinks around Barnes and Noble clutching the new translation of Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (Cortazar 1962). His dread at the world, often unending, is now unbearable as several husky women in pointy wizard hats thrust copies of the latest Harry Potter at him. Of course, based on what he’d read in the local history section, Stafford has had a history of annoying folks. It was even founded by a true colonial jackass. In 1647, Giles Brent with his Piscataway Indian wife had established a plantation on the Widewater peninsula along Aquia Creek and the Potomac River. Brent had left Maryland after POing his cousin, Lord Baltimore, as well as the whole Piscataway tribe, when he laid claim to half of the colony on behalf of his wife, the daughter an “Indian Emperor.” Peace, Brents’ farm, became the first Catholic establishment in the colony, and the “last stop” for pioneers moving up into the wilderness of the Northern Neck. Baltimore, learning of Brent’s location, began issuing land patents in the adjacent colony to upset Brent’s land claims. Giles Brent died in 1672 on a second farmstead that he named Retirement. Nonetheless, the family remained infamous. Margaret Brent, Giles’s sister, was a prominent advocate for women’s suffrage and referred to as “Gentleman” when addressing the Assembly. Giles Brent II took an active part in the Indian wars, but was arrested in 1677 as a part of Bacon’s Rebellion and the burning of Jamestown. The Brent family continued to aggravate their Protestant neighbors, with hostilities reaching a peak when they received a land grant of 30,000 acres from James II in 1687. The new patent gave the Brents all the land bound by the Potomac, Aquia, Tappahannock, and Rappahannock creeks, or one heck of a chunk of land. This prompted an anti-Catholic crusade led out of the Aquia Episcopal Church, based on rumor that the Brents were to incite an Indian massacre. Apparently, the Episcopals cared for the Brents as much as Frank cared for the members of Hogwarts Academy that were now packing the store. He decides to slip into the movie section where the register line should be much shorter. But to his surprise he finds that by some wizard’s magic, the forgotten Hackman/Pacino epic, Scarecrow (1973), was now out on DVD. At the time both stars were both at the top of their games, with Hackman having just done The French Connection (Friedkin 1971) and Pacino, The Godfather (Coppola 1972). Basically the film concerns the redemption of Max (Hackman), a hard drinkin’ and fightin’ ex-con hoboing his way to Pittsburgh to open a car wash. Along his way he meets up with wisecracking Lion (Pacino), an ex-sailor going to Detroit to see his son. The isolated Max lets Lion in on his plans after some camaraderie over the sharing of his last match and Lion decides along the way he tries to teach Max how to get along with a laugh and not a punch. But they’ll have some super rough times to try to joke their way through along the way. In short Scarecrow is Alice’s Restaurant (Penn 1969) without the hippies stirred around with Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger 1969) without the boots. Now, not to be mistaken, the film does have a lot of heart, but what it doesn’t have is an ending. The dialogue between Lion and Max is staccato and often funny and touching as Lion breaks down Max’s gruff angry, particularly symbolic and amusing in the use of Max’s ten layer’s of clothing to keep warm. But, the film just unsatisfactorily ends. It just ends. Right in the middle of the scene. Like they ran out of celluloid right there and the director said. “Eh, fuck it. We already got their popcorn money.” A few movies have successfully and cleverly, but abruptly just ended. Blow-Up (Antonini 1966) and Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944) spring to mind. Of course, look at the story credit of these to films, the aforementioned Julio Cortazar and John Steinbeck, respectively. Back in Scarecrow, the arc of Max ‘s softening has been pretty much resolved probably 20 minutes before the end of the film, and new story conflicts have arisen and are left in the air. The film has taken 112 minutes to make us like Max and Lion, we have seen them with friends and family, through tragedy and good times, but it will not give us another five to let us know what happens to them. The end result, despite excellent performances by both stars, is a rambling narrative with no pay-off. Plus, the real tragedy is Max and Lion are hitching and jumping trains, when apparently it only costs $27.95 for round trip airfare from Detroit to Pittsburgh. Frank’s hardships are also on-going; the movie/music counter at Barnes is manned by two accusatory teens, recommending the new Black Eyed Peas single. They could not understand the shear dread of up-to-the-minute pop culture. Frank shoves his Cortazar and Scarecrow into a bin of VeggieTales discs and shoots out of the store. He is walking as fast as he can now. Hoping that maybe a greasy snack will make him feel better. But this is no food court, and the sign doesn’t offer “chicken wings” but “chic wigs.” Suddenly a plan B begins to form in Frank’s addled brain…

2005-07-12T22:12:00.000-04:00

Point Blank (1967) As Frank drives, winding endlessly along Route 330 towards Arrowhead Lake, Iris stretches her pasty, taut and muscular gams and rests them on rest on Impala’s cracked green dashboard. She fishes in the cooler and selects a cherry Little Hug and gnaws at the foil top with her tiny mousy teeth. Whatever happened next, didn’t matter. It was over, of course. That’s just tricks. The relationship was just a spinning scrambled flashback of parties, showers, movies, quiet nights, etc. they all swirled around in Frank’s head as he tried to concentrate on the dashed yellow line. The wins and losses came to him like they did to Lee Marvin as Walker, bleeding and betrayed and near death in an empty Alcatraz cell block. Maybe Frank should have taken a cue from Walker, double-crossed by his wife and her lover, Mal Reese in Point Blank (available July 5, 2005 Warner Home Video). Escaping both death and the Rock, Walker vows to get his 93 grand back, no matter who gets in the way. His wife and Reese are both soon enough bumped off, though (she ODs, he wings naked out of a window in an awful primitive screen effect), Walker finds a long way to go before he gets his money back. They say Lee Marvin, getting into his role, hit John Vernon (playing Reese, his rival) so hard during rehearsal for the fight scene, that the man cried. But, Lee Marvin, of course, is known for his emotional, though stoic, additions to a part; consider his visible rage at Toshirô Mifune, in another Boorman film, Hell in the Pacific (1968) a year later (both actors were WWII vets—on opposite sides). The film positively seethes. Two years later he'd be singing in Paint Your Wagon (Logan 1969). So, nobody's perfect. Point Blank, however, offers a grand slathering of Hollywood noir with a touch of French New Wave, as epitomized by Walkers psychedelic dreams while his wife dies in the next room. As such, it is much closer to something like Pierrot Le Fou (Godard 1969) than a film like Coogan’s Bluff (Seigel 1968), which more directy tries to insert classic tough guys into 1960s counter culture. Plus, it offers great wide shots of Alacatraz and other California locales. These shots alone make the pan and scan TV version simply un-watchable in retrospect. And speaking of late 60s tough guy movies, could “the Organization” Marvin is up against, be the same “the Organization” McQueen is up against (Bullitt 1968)? Maybe not… And in the best scene, as has been said before, Angie Dickinson, tires herself out slapping around Walker. He merely goes for the TV remote. Très elegant! Carroll O’Connor (All in the Family 1971-1979) makes a somewhat disappointing appearance towards the end of the film as Brewster, one of the organization’s headmen. To many, O’Connor is possibly the greatest actor to grace the small screen, particularly in his ability to pull off the complex character of Archie Bunker through the TV series' infamous warm close-ups. How sad to see him as a cartoonish businessman who stays so unnaturally distant from the camera. But Frank and Iris have found a secluded picnic spot near the lake and Frank pulls out a matchbook on which to note his last impressions of the outing: iris steps forward and frowns at the safety on her 9mm. she enters a patch of light streaking through thick tree branches, her freckled skin lights like a planetarium show i digest a freckle on her right bicep my favorite of the set it is over for us her china thighs are rock-solid and also freckled like the cinnamon sprinkled over the whipped cream in that morning’s lattes her hair, a fake, sexy red i imagine what she felt like smooth and cool but, i wouldn’t know —frank

2005-07-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

The Green Butchers (2004) Sometimes when you took I-25 thru El Paso after 3 Am, you caught the border at a time when the few patrollers were out taking a smoke or a piss in the desert (or maybe even out taking pot shots at hapless Mexicans with their otherwise un-used service revolvers). That’s a good thing, if you, like Graveyard Frank Trautman, have left your wallet in the back pocket of gray pair of Farrah slacks, currently on a dead man in a shallow grave in East St. Louis. (Long Story). But, reaching Chihuahua to find Miriam accompanied and the tequila watered down, Frank took a decided U-turn and was now, ID-less, and on a sling-shot back thru the eye of the gringo needle. Just before El Kilo, exhausted, and determined to finish the case of Negra Modelo on his passenger seat the hard way, Frank pulls the Impala over as far as he dares to get it off the road. He kills the engine and checks the ample trunk. He isn’t looking for more for supplies: a late model Chevy such as his easily had its boot popped and stuffed with the loser of last night’s cock, dog or gang fight when left unattended. Thankfully, the trunk was clear of all, save a portable DVD player which he had only a vague idea of acquiring in Slidell, Louisiana. And a copy of the Danish film, “De Gronne Slagtere” (The Green Butchers, available Spring 2005 on Columbia Tri-Star), which he didn’t remember acquiring at all. After much attention, director Anders Thomas Jensen, had previously won an Academy Award for the short, Valgaften (1998), a dark comedy about Danish politics. The Green Butchers, of course, is darker still. The title, though, is a ruse; “Sweaty” Svend and Bjarne aren’t new to meat at all. They a butcher’s assistants, ready to start on their own shop. Svend mortgages his house to do it; Bjarne decides to take his brain-dead twin brother (to which he is beneficiary) off life support. While Bjarne picks up a girl in the cemetery (think Camus, L’etranger), the electrician goes missing and, panicky “never been loved” Svend makes a slight adjustment to his marinade recipe. Suddenly, Svend finds the finds the audience he’s been looking for. The wit of the Green Butchers is constant, efficient, and dry and deadpan: Says Holger the Butcher about fate and the ironic sausage: “You get killed and then stuck up your own ass.” Or later, Svend; “I do not want to see any people!” Bjarne: “Then don’t go in the meat locker!” The film is not only genuinely, offbeat funny, but much more “thought-out” than anything similar (cf. Little Shop of Horrors, Corman 1960?). With a reflective back-story abutting outrageous turns of events, the film is exactly right between Marty (Mann, 1955) and Eating Raoul (Bartel, 1982). Everything is too-well photographed for its due; much better photographed than most else in the dark-cannibal-comedy genre. Even the corpses are exquisite, though mostly just-out-off-frame. Even better, Bjarne’s sub-plot leaves us to question cannibalism as an “why the hell not?”-issue. With a brother headed for organ harvesting, the film suggest practicality in Svend’s gory “Chickie Wickies.” Bottom line: unlike thousands of Hollywood flicks, you actually care about Sven and Bjarne. But you probably don’t care about Frank, who is flipping the DVD player shut as the sun ekes back out in the west and various lizards and birds chirp with the burning out moon. He takes an long piss behind what he thinks is a petrified tree, but is really the bucket seat to a 60s Corvette, then he is back on the road toward el monstruo del norte. Gordon Lightfoot, (Sundown) inhabits the radio. He just needs to fill a percoset prescription and then make his way across the Rio Grande with no identification. He may or may not find some locals squatting in the hills to join in or proffer advice. As long as they were there to contribute, like his green butchers, Frank tended not to question folks. Frank had been around a bit and whether huddled on the border or floating in the marinade, all he saw were people. And friends, family or society, Frank was happy with anyone not adding to complacent jackassery back up in Cally…

2005-06-22T23:12:00.000-04:00

Distant (2002) Frank’s black Impala, a ‘73 with opera windows, cruises across the surface of the moon, way out on the cold, dark side.Actually he’s skittering his monstrous auto across both lanes of Interstate 64, about eight miles out of Taos. He’s kicking up red dust and narrowly avoiding various species of cacti and the Sangre de Christos are visible to his right and the sun hangs low low on the horizon to his left and he is trying to balance Paris Spleen on his knee and wondering why there is so much unrequited love in the world when hatred is given away en masse and he must soon make the decision if he is going to continue on up to El Prado where he knew a good pemmican and whiskey joint by the name of the Dirty Sanchez, or just hooking a left south down on 25 til he got to Chihuahua where he knew a gal named Miriam in San Pablo who was often friendly and sometimes even unaccompanied. Either way, he was in for a long night… This was one thing film (and the media at large) routinely tricked us about: Time-frame. How unbearably long were wars and tortures, really? How short were loves and lives? Few films have wanted or tried to tell. Jim Jarmusch does it a lot (watch John Lurie and Tom Waits staring at each other in a prison cell in 1986’s Down by Law). Another such film is Turkish director’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2002 feature, Uzak (Distant), now available on DVD by New Yorker Films.To the untrained eye, Ceylan’s film is simply just tedious, and not because of the subtitles which are definitely not unwieldy (or perhaps just wieldy?). The story centers on Mahmut, a commercial photographer in Istanbul pining over an ex-wife. He lives working, watching porno, and even eating by rote, until a distant relative named Yusuf moves in from the country as he looks for work, messing up Mahmut’s self-absorbed routine.

The film opens with a long long static shot of Yusuf trekking across the snow into town, and then settles in to document Mahmut’s little solitary life. Aside from an answering machine recording, there is no dialog for well over ten minutes. This is certainly not a film for those unnerved by the silent outset of Kubrick’s 2001 (1968). Note the primary colors as Yusuf arrives at Mahmut’s, yellow walls, a red bucket. This continues throughout the film and is quite striking with red, yellow and blue highlighting almost every shot and particularly breathtaking as Yusuf surveys a sunken freighter in the harbor. Often these highlights, such as distant minarets, look so placed and artificial that the American consumer assumes they are digitally created. Can a director still be in such dark ages that he is still scouting and framing each shot?! But other photographic imperfections are evident. Watch the color changes shot to shot in some scenes. And be amused at Mahmut’s exclamation about TV: “This thing has 50 channels but there’s only shit. What a rip –off!” (Alas, poor Turkey! Don’t worry in the USA we have 500+ channels and only shit!). And enjoy a scenic shot of Mahmut on the waterfront (also the DVD cover photo) and wonder whether the puff of smoke is from his cigarette or a chimney in the distance. Or see Mahmut in a hospital corridor and be reminded of death and afterlife. Also check out Mahmut’s silly east European wedge-car. And wonder what the hell is that thing on Yusuf’s temple (Sadly actor Mehmet Emin Toprak was killed in an auto wreck shortly after filming). But always look for the red, yellow and blue. And on the extra features, don’t be disappointed that the film Cocoon is not the one that features Steve Guttenberg (1985). Uzak is a film about urban anomie and the pacing is reflective of this. Warning, its appropriate and clever, but half-way through, you’re going to be sick of it. It’s a film to see also if you want to know what the rest of the world in putting out in the cinema; at that, check out Abdykalykov’s "The Adopted Son": (Beshkempir, 1998) to see what (those crazy monkeys out in Kyrgyzstan are up to or even rent Fernando León de Aranoa‘s, "Mondays in the Sun" (Los Lunes al Sol, 2002) to see the plight of the worker in modern Europe. And at the end, try not to think of the derivativeness to Fellini’s La Strada (1954). And Frank has decided on Mexico (and Miriam) and hops the pavement to get unto 585 West. The car drags heavily into the eastbound lanes as Frank reaches under the bench seat. If he can get to the packet of Captain’s Wafers that he is sure is there, he won’t have to pull over til that beast of a gas tank finally empties.

2005-06-14T23:07:00.000-04:00

Tarnation (2004) For lack of anything better to do, Frank fell in love with the girl. It was easy. After all, he was drunk every night and prowling the Quarter for stray oxycontin to trim down the much of the rest of the time. With its tricky time-release, many dumb kids were ODing on the stuff down on Bourbon and Canal streets—in touristy places like the House of Blues and the Absinthe Hotel (now refurbished into a daiquiri-to-go place) or the Hog’s Breath. They ODed because they’d think they’d gotten ripped off for a couple of Advil or Correctol when they didn’t feel any effects right away. Then they’d go and buy some Xtacy or a bunch of shots of jaegermeister and when both the liquor and oxy got into their system together: Bam! They were worm-food. The solution was to eliminate the time release. Most of the young guys found the best way was crushing it up and snorting it. But, a few had been cooking it down and shooting it up. For one local gay couple, though, this had proven deadly—a lethal injection, in fact, considered a homicide, because one of the two was a little skittish around a needle and needed help from his pal. Now it was up to 12 from OP to decide whether the accident was more of a death by misadventure or even an assisted suicide… Of course, Frank had been recently annoyed by such soap-opera plights since renting Tarnation, the debut documentary by Jonathan Caouette (Available May 17, on Wellspring Media), about his odd upbringing in a family rife with abuse and insanity. Frank is reminded of the Dogme95 films of the last decade, especially those of Harmony Korine (Gummo 1997)—lots of raw footage spliced together MTV style, leaving one with more impression than plot. Think Atomic Café (1982); stock footage documentary has been done to death. Though tired of the shock value of domestic gay men (pillow talk is passé no matter whose doing it), one can still be intrigued by the honest grief as Caouette learns of and deals with his mother’s lithium overdose. And be downright fascinated by the child Caouette taping himself dressing up and acting the roles of an abused woman and other impromptu (?) characters. But always, there is a caveat: A lack of production values is not the easiest road to great film. Often as here, it looks simply like that: a lack of production values. Understandably, the film encompasses 20+ years of Caouette's home videos. But that topped with some digitally toned or cascaded shots doesn’t make a film any more watchable. It is an hour and a half of throwaway effects and “just-so” titles reminiscent of Barbara Kruger. And, inconsistent text size is annoying and looks more sloppy than artsy. If you like to watch families bent by drugs, alternative lifestyles and poor mental health, turn in to Dateline or 60 Minutes, or Maury, Jerry, Montel or Jenny Jones (;or better yet, consult your own home movies, while listening to Marianne Faithful or “Wichita County Lineman.”) Frank on the other hand was sick to death of “poor wittle me”-style documentary (and thinks a less-kind reviewer would wonder how much push-button emotion is fallen from the exposition of pure documentary and turned into simply a promotional tool for Caouette's acting career.) This assumption is supported by the conclusion which is decidedly nothing-but too played-out for the camera. After all, we’ve all got crap to bear; the TV dinner of life comes with a lot of gristly chicken and only a tiny, flaccid brownie. So Frank was going to continue to use the oxy to smooth out the end of the night (when he was out of money or decent bars to hit) and its transition into a sleepless-hung-over day at the station. With a blissful waking coma as the whiskey seeped out of your pores in the sultry tropical humidity, you could do without food and sleep (really, sex too!) much longer than those dumb crank-cases did on the crystal, Frank thought. It didn’t just keep you up; it mellowed you out for a longer haul. Meth kept you up but did little to help you tolerate the horribleness of daily existence. Anyhoo, Frank didn’t give a rat’s ass about ODing. Since Iris or Jeanne had passed, he’d come to enjoy mixing his vices. She/They’d found his general lack of vice to be a weakness when they were seeing each other. So he now piled them on in stacks.

2005-05-31T22:59:00.000-04:00

Young Törless (1966) Frank and Andrea Van der Snatch survey a small hallway, somewhere near the back of her tiny villa. The walls are decorated with framed media and glamour shots of them as teenagers, newspaper clippings from Hollywood Exposé and the occasional lobby card. Many of the old shots feature Frank and Andrea beaming, at some long forgotten cameraman. These shots make Frank shiver. He fishes the cherry out of his manhattan and frowns at the promotional poster for Monkey Trouble, their first feature together at Uni-Globe studios. Meanwhile, Andrea coos at a hand-toned 8x10 of them cheek-to-cheek. “Look at us back then! To think, that I used to go with Graveyard Frank Trautman!” The coldness that photo hid! Dead eyes in stiff eveningwear! Frank tosses his drink down:“Yes,” he reminisces, “You miss me a lot now that I’m a hot commodity!” What a fool he had been those years ago! But he had forgiven himself long ago. Kids are dumb. At least that was what years of European film had taught Frank. Thanks to the Criterion Collection, Frank could watch years of film school classics in crystal-clear fashion, free of the pops, hisses and scratches rife in your basic art-house videocassette. But if you’ve already shelled out criterion-size prices for the 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959) and Amarcord (Fellini, 1974) and still want to see some of the “bad boys” of classic cinema, you’ll probably want to check out the new release of Volker Schlöndorff’s haunting masterpiece, Young Törless (1966). Törless is your typical confused, but well to do euro-trash kid, sent off to boarding school at the turn of the century, where he’s more apt to get off on the white flesh of a butchered hog, than the local gals soaping their laundry. But more dammning is his laissez-faire ponderance over the wacky hi-jinx of his classmates, namely the torture and abuse of a Jewish classmate, Basini (who looks and acts much like a pint sized Peter Lorre in M (Fritz Lang, 1931---also on Criterion, but widely available in more affordable formats). It's all philosophical, of course. While Törless crunches candies and debates imaginary numbers with the math prof, the latently homosexual torture-kinder announce that “to rise above the world one must kill off everything that enslaves you to it. Feeling for example…” Törless remains the paralyzed scientific observer, rising only to kill a symbolically tortured mouse and run-off in a pure Antoine Doinel-esque move (400 Blows). What makes Young Törless stand out, however, is its sound design and lighting. Along with a relentless violin score, endless, hollow sfx spotlight poor Törless’ alien boredom with the school around him, from the ticking of the clocking, whining of the trains, ringing of bells---it’s not surprising that a dark excitement in watching the besieged Basini, surpasses any desire to see the punishment stopped. In addition, dramatic lighting further twists the audience’s feelings towards Törless and crew: as Törless debates joining a prostitute, changes in key lighting switches her from slinky voluptuous to hag-like as shadows cross her face and piercing eyes. The crying of a baby completes the scene. Overall, the film is what it portends to be, the forerunner of new German cinema of then 1960s, and one could nitpick the allusions to the Jewish holocaust (namely Basini’s ostracism and its relative acceptance about the school). Schlöndorff, of course, is more famous for his other adaptation, The Tin Drum (1979), also another distressing film, rife with midgets and raw fish. What is a shame is Criterion’s need to place its snobbish price on important films. The Criterion label makes a DVD and easy $30, while Frank’s discount-bin editions of The 39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935), Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971) and Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962) are all quite serviceable without the extra features. Törless, though, is tough to find elsewhere. Still, for a similar Törless-cum-Donnie Darko (Kelly, 1991) feel, check out the Icelandic Nói Albínói (Dagur Kári, 2003), available in most rental stores. In any case, Frank and Andrea’s films are all out of print now. When not playing for the cameras, Andrea used to berate Frank mercilessly. To her lead, he always played the milquetoast friend never geting the girl; she bounced in and out of the trailer of every handsome co-star. But that’s all in the past.Frank soon left Uni-Globe for a three-picture deal as El Huracán, the Latin crime fighter née masked wrestler. He went on to develop a distinguished career, playing kings and heroes on million-dollar budgets. But a pretty face and vapid smile could not sustain Andrea’s fame. Fortune gone, Andrea found a second career in hair and make-up, living vicariously through the gossip of her infamous clientele, and of course, the little shrine to her teenage stardom that kept in the back. “Perhaps,” Frank sneers, “You should have spent some more time appreciating how good I was, dragging you along all the way. And less time fornicating with every other guy on the set.”

2005-05-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

"Bullitt" (1968) Frank grits his teeth and waves off his last chance to not get the busty green mermaid inked unto his right forearm. Instead, he wonders, why he’d ever gotten himself into this particular racket. That damned so-n’-so of a recruiter! Frank had enjoyed spinning vinyl in the clubs. An art form few truly understood. Riding the gains, skipping over the muds. Deftly, maneuvering a cross-fade with a snappy outro timed to not step over the vocals. And of course, the US Military kept its own radio stations, and the bigger the ship commission, the more non-coms it needed that at least knew their way around an audio console and a mic. But now, as the rains came down in huge dollops watering down soup cans full of ink and teacups full of gin on a back street in the Wan Chai district, he knew the real reason he had signed up for the Navy and headed off for the East: Steve McQueen in the Sand Pebbles (1966). Of course, McQueen himself was a tank driver in the Marine Corps, and died horribly in the movie, (shot by the Chinese), and in life (lung cancer at age 50, 1980). But in his tragically short career he packed in a whole lot of cool. Sheer, unadulterated cool, from his Italian driving shoes to his Rolex to his Jaguar XK-SS. He was “The Essence of Cool,” as proclaims the documentary contained on the new double-disc release of Bullitt (1968), which Frank had picked up on bootleg on Arsenal Street this morning along with some hand-stitched silk shirts of the kind you can’t get state-side. Of course, our law-abiding, upright readers will have to wait until June 7th for the Warner Bros. re-release. Bullitt stands out not only as McQueen’s debut as a good guy---a cop, here, later a fireman in The Towering Inferno (1974), but often a bank robber or thief on the run---but also as the first film in a genre movement toward gritty police “reality-based” films later epitomized by Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry (1971). The dialogue is as curt, terse and occasionally stoic, as would befit real police officers following Mafia hit men in San Francisco. Not to mention an unprecedented use of the word “bullshit.” And there is some realistic commitment to procedural matters ranging from the tedium of McQueen and partner searching suitcases, to intense ER scenes following the hit on Bullitt’s star mafia witness. And plenty of action goes down, too, including a runway foot chase at San Francisco International and, of course, the infamous Mustang/ Charger car, which became the standard for all future cop movies. The French Connection (1971), note, offers a viable alternative, but cannot compete, to the simple ballet of Ford vs. Dodge (vs. Green Beetle. One cannot deny the scene, shot at multiple angles, contains the same VW and tire skid marks a distracting amount of times as the chase, seems to progress through the city.) The cast is rounded by Jacqueline Bissett (The Deep; 1977) as a weepy, disapproving girl friend and Robert Vaughn (also with McQueen in The Magnificent Seven; 1960), as a sleazy politician.But the true treat of the film is in McQueen himself. It’s in shotguns vs. his Colt in its quick-draw holster. It's in black turtlenecks and Tod’s boots. It’s in a GT Mustang Fastback vs. a Magnum Dodge Charger. After all, what other actor managed the covers of both Harper’s Bazaar and Sports Illustrated? Could read the Bible and suck down the Milwaukee’s Beast? Or rode horses flew planes with equal ease? Frank, meanwhile, feels racked with aches and fever, somewhere between the tattoo parlor and the dance club. But still his own, clunky boots (Frye’s Engineers, not up to McQ’s standards!) wearily drag him through the Hong Kong rain as he decides between liquor store and returning to his bunk for the night. He sighs, remembering her as the savviest, coolest, bitchin’-est chick he had ever known. But she was no Bissett, and he no McQueen, and so, whoosh ---she had run out between his fingers like sand through a goose---no, that wasn’t right.

2005-05-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Hearing the yelling, Frank recaps the fifth of Seagram’s and stashes it in the shadow of a dumpster before entering the alley. He first sees Iris wringing her hands, slumped against the tattooed brick wall. Her red hair merciless. Woodrow paces in front of her, bellowing:“How dare you, you fucking bitch!” To which she could only mew back, “Woodrow—I!” before he is in her face yelling again. You’re with me. Get it?” Iris lifts a hand to placate him but he merely repeats even louder than before, “Get it!?” Frank, meanwhile, fights to leave them to their own train wreck love. She chose the bastard, after all. Leaving the ugly Frank all alone in this ugly town. But, fuck. Frank loved her. There was never any secret about that, was there? “Woodrow?” Frank is already at a loss for words as his animal rival turns and scowls. Frank must think: “I don’t like the way you’re treating her.” With this, a surprised Frank is able to edge past Woodrow. Woodrow is equally surprised that he, himself hasn’t hurt anyone yet. “Iris,” Frank pats a creamy shoulder, “You want to go?” Iris tears and makes a move to embrace him. Woodrow moves closer to Frank, “She doesn’t want to go with you.” “Well, you know what they say,” Frank buys time, hoping Iris will sneak away, “Two’s company, three’s a crowd, and four and five are nine.”Iris does not move, Frank continues “Its like this, Woodrow. Its like dropping your toothbrush on the floor. You could rinse and rinse it out, but it still looks unclean. Worse still, you know that if you put it back on the sink, you’ll stick the thing in your mouth tomorrow, completely forgetting it was on the floor today. Such is the fleeting nature of one moment of reality.” Woodrow, incensed, grabs Frank by the shoulder and whips him around away from Iris.Frank then feels the buck-knife slide into his lower abdomen—“Spleen territory,” Frank muses, “Too bad. A little to the right would be preferable. The liver was already fucked up anyway.” The blade jerks up slicing and tearing god knows what on Frank’s insides. Frank stares at the deer antler handle now poking out of his stomach, as Woodrow lets go of it. But, Woodrow is soon taking him by the neck and slamming him into the bricks. Frank crumples at Iris’s feet. He eyes her red Chuck Taylor’s an inch from his head and misses her dearly. Failing to notice it sticking out of Frank, Woodrow, at this point in the proceedings, cannot find his knife. He opts to pull a small .22 from the waistband of his jeans. “Let’s go,” he grunts leveling the revolver alternately between Iris’ chest and Frank’s fallen form. “The fuck you do,” mutters Frank as what begins as a comic struggle to his feet, ends with a desperate lunge at Woodrow. Two shots ring out and Woodrow and Frank tumble into some trashcans, and, Iris unscathed, both slugs were surely now lodged in Frank. Hitting the ground, however, Frank smiles. As the metal cans dive out of the way, he realizes that the sickly squish of head on cement emanates from Woodrow, not himself. Woodrow’s unconscious tongue is lolling out of his mouth. Frank breathes heavily. He begins to drag himself toward Iris’s red sneakers, which are, still, all he can see. She is soon by his side, and he is left to lie still and stare up at the night sky while Iris quickly ministers to him. He is finally alone with her, but drifts away in doubt, catching her quick glance back at her fallen lover. She debates whether or not to pull the buck out of Frank’s abdomen. He sighs and turns heavily on the ground, away from Iris and back towards the fifth—which he can spy, intact under the dumpster at the open end of the alley. Frank feels something like—exactly like— Warren Oates, in Peckinpah’s classic, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), available on DVD Spring 2005, by MGM. A great film, but there is no time for that now— “It’s OK,” Frank burbles, “I scream into the void, but even cocking an ear an listening, I do not hear the slightest echo in return!”

2005-05-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

A Face in the Crowd (1957) Pouring Rain. Frank stumbles down the street in the driving rain.The hurricane meant little to him. On a regular basis, he had begun to contemplate shooting himself; however, three-day waiting period notwithstanding, he simply dreaded the mere act of going to the gun shop. Damn it, he mused, if only the liquor store sold razor blades he’d be in business. So, when the TV urged the parish to prepare to evacuate, he had merely stocked up enough booze to hold him until the crisis was over. TV tends to have that power over one… Frank laughs. A big, hearty guffaw. Just like the spiky-haired meth cook his ex was seeing——or, more importantly, just like Andy Griffith in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957), available on DVD May 10 on Warner Home Video. Griffith plays “Lonesome” Larry Rhodes, a “drunk with a gee-tar,” discovered in an Arkansas jail by Patricia Neal (The Day the Earth Stood Still), a radio producer who believes that only true American music “comes from the bottom up.” With a couple pints of the ol’ snake medicine for good measure, Neal launches Lonesome’s soon skyrocketing career, in which he pushes everything in his will Rodgers-esque manner from Vitajex kidney pills to political candidates. Like Rhodes, Frank now felt the comfort of an always-handy bottle. And right now, he smiles again, knowing a case sitting in his bedroom with a full eleven fifths (the twelfth in his current possession) of Old Crow bourbon. He’d be safe for a couple of days, anyway. Other than that, his stomach had long since turned at the thought of food, as it was usually weakened by the alcohol.For his part, Rhodes’ trip to national acclaim is over-the-top quick (in one montage, they even name a mountain and a ship after him), and the dialogue is trying too hard to be clever all the time (“A job?” exclaims Rhodes, “That sounds too much like work.”). This leaves a long melodramatic plot slump in which in the middle of the film in which Rhodes dabbles in presidential politics and dumps the gawky Neal for Lee Remick (The Omen), a young southern belle and majorette in a scene, for the less backward-thinking, reminiscent of Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari in American Beauty. Still Griffith remains charming in the part and has great chemistry with Neal, who clutches the top of her blouse shut coyly, even though the NYC backdrops show visible seams between the panels. And Remick’s presence doesn’t help one not think of Baby, the Rain Must Fall (with Steve McQueen) or Your Cheatin’ Heart with George Hamilton), but to be fair, these movies didn’t come out til the mid-1960s.But, despite the movie's flaws, what stands out is its early commentary on television and media and its effects on social mores and politics; it is very on-target with its talk of TV product, punditry and profitability. However, after the initial fun romp with Griffith’s Rhodes, the movie is slow-paced social commentary at best. It’s far from as powerful as the better-known Kazan-Brando vehicles (A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, On the Waterfront). It is as if Kazan, like Lonesome Rhodes, gets out of his element, when moving the story out of the backwoods and populist climes to the big city society. It is still a notable performance by Andy Griffith, known to most only as Sheriff Andy Taylor—or Matlock. And now, with the city empty of all but essential personnel, Frank staggers through downtown, drenched and damning the curfew, but needing to get out of his dark little apartment for a minute. He hates to be wet but the wind and a good film is invigorating nonetheless. The breeze whips through his jacket and he immediately reaches to assure that the 1st of his 12 soldiers remained safe in his pocket. It is. So he pulls it out, uncaps it and takes a substantial hit...

2005-05-04T22:23:00.000-04:00

Santo y Blue Demon contra Dracula y el Hombre Lobo Frank sits on the observation deck of the Connecticut-bound ferry. His 1973 Chevy Impala is stowed (he hopes) safely in the berth below. He sips a lukewarm black coffee from the snack bar and wishes that either A. It wasn’t $1.63 a pop or he’d shell out for another shot, or B. The warm apple pie Portuguese girl shivering next to him would notice his plight and offer him some from her own black and red plaid thermos. Still, he had already disturbed her for a sheet of ruled notebook paper to jot his thoughts down about the shipboard movie: Santo y Blue Demon contra Dracula y el Hombre Lobo (1973). Thankfully, the El Santo series (ca. 1961-1982) featuring the crime-fighting Mexican wrestler and his friends are now available, (along with some new features; the original El Santo passed in 1984) from Rise Above Entertainment. Meanwhile, the Portuguese-girl reads and her tiny little foot in mountain boots occasionally rubs up against his leg like a lost kitten and Frank loves this very much. Santo and Blue Demon, for their parts prefer black beatle boots and colorful sweaters while not in the ring. While Dracula dresses in his familiar perma-eveningware but with kickass sideburns, Rufus the Wolf-man (El Hombre Lobo!) arises from his 400-year slumber ready to do the Hustle in an open-chested gold number with braided leather belt. But! Somebody has broken into a silver Bronco and soon the boat ride will come to an end and Frank isn’t going anywhere except to get out of the city for a moment and Jennifer was in a girl’s home-slash-sanatorium in Nassau County and Iris had hooked up with an acting troupe and peyote ritual circle in Austin and Frank was plugging away at a six hour shift spinning adult contemporary on a low-wattage station in Queens and supplementing his income at the Belmont and in various dog-tracks and Indian casinos. Of course this wasn’t a huge feat. Santo was indebted to maintain his undefeated wrestling career against the likes of Angel Blanco and Renato the Hippie, defend his girlfriend’s (Nubia Marti is lovely despite small pox inoculation scar) family from Dracula and the Wolf-man and still have time to take tag-team partner, Blue Demon, in a no-holds-barrded game round of masked chess. Note, here, that some have complained of the non-seamless insertion of the wrestling bouts into the film, but while clumsy, they are a metaphor (i.e. While Angel/Dracula, Hippie/Wolf-man) for the action of the film.Over-stimulated, Frank is glad when the coffee bean-eyed Portuguese girl puts down her childhood development textbook (Pshaw! Poor Frank! She cannot be but all of 19 or 20.) And totters over to the ladies room to pee. Frank takes a break from both Santo and the various burnouts and gamblers and retirees and WASPy tourists to check out the racing form. There is a chocolate-colored 3-year-old named “Carnivale Season” and this seemed to Frank to be an omen for the first race. Surely he would lose. His heart was breaking already and he chose a firebrand named “Davy Jones’ Locker” in the second race.The Santo Collection, however, is a pure win. Santo y Blue Demon is delightful romp for the hardcore kitsch fan; remember its not only camp, but Mexican camp! Special effects are often silly or poor (watch Dracula appear several feet away from where the rubber bat hangs before the jump cut) and plot points are whimsical (With Santo armed with a magic dagger, Dracula send his henchman after him, for it has no power over mortals---but, dude! Its still a DAGGER!), and the sfx are the same for every hit (kicks sound like wood blocks dropping). Also Santo and Demon sport two-way wrist radios ala Dick Tracy, though they seem to be just regular watches with the wrestlers desperately twisting the winding knobs for use. However, the dialogue is immediately priceless and worth he cost of admission:· Dracula: “Santo is a retrograde man: He still believes in good and justice.”· Blue to Santo: “When you say more than ten words together, I know you are worried.”· Eric the henchman, stabbed by magic dagger: “I’ve committed so many crimes, I’ve ceased to be human!” But, it is good to see the good-guys win after a brave bout with evil. That sure don’t happen in life so much, thinks Frank; the Portuguese girl has returned and he sighs longingly at her now-dozing form and circles “Whiskey Bottle” in the final race.

2005-05-01T22:11:00.000-04:00

Suicide Club (English Release Title); directed by Sion Sono, 2002 Frank greedily slips his next selection into the DVD tray in hopes of bolstering his latent maleness on some asian school girls…The packaging of Sion Sono’s Suicide Club makes it clear that despite a series of festival presentations (most notably resulting in a jury prize at the Fantasia Festival?), this film is difficult to pin down in genre. Is it mystery, horror, black comedy? This not surprising. Despite self-proclaimed what is a “wicked social critique,” on the DVD summary, a film that hinges on illogical plot points and silly gore effects that would make John Waters weep is decidedly unclassifiable. That is not necessarily a good thing, though some directors have made gore-horror-humor-satire work. Check out Bruce Robinson’s 1989 How to Get Ahead in Advertising, or Belvaux et al.’s 1992 Man Bites Dog (English release title). But, an overall muddling of plot and blood in Sono’s film is more than a bit distracting. The film opens a group of Japanese schoolgirls throwing themselves from a train platform in a mass suicide. This sequence is cut against an all-girl pop music video, and then against a couple of nurses listening to the afore-mentioned pop video. Frank doesn’t think it takes an Einstein (or even an Eisenstein) to guess that one of the nurses would be the next to do herself in. So, at five minutes in we already know that the evil, self-promotional, money-grubbing pop industry is somehow involved with leading young girls to their death. Sit back for 85 more minutes in developing this theme.Down at the police station, bad dialogue ensues. “A suicide cult? Ridiculous.” The cops, except your token non-conformists, are not suspicious about the incident. It is just an accident. An accident? What the hell? And note that after the film goes out of its way to show how atomized a group of schoolgirls falling under a subway car gets, forensics has miraculously already pinned an exact death toll at 54. By leap of faith, a mysterious Internet miner soon turns up a web site which predicts the deaths with red and white circles. Now Frank has been told that as an American blockhead, he simply just doesn’t “get” Japanese film. But, the entire line of police involvement and investigation, is far from naturalistic. It cannot be said to be formulaic, either, as that would imply an obvious narrative course. Still, there’s three words that kept Frank from flicking off this DVD at this point in favor of some more entertaining gore, such as Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter. And those words are: Wheel-O-Skin. Frank watched the movie until the end just to find out how a bunch of giant toilet paper rolls of sewn-together human flesh are appearing at the scenes of the mass suicides. The distractingly too-silly answer (forgive the spoiler): Wood Planer.Two highlights in the film include Det. Kuroda’s melancholic ride on the subway—A poignant look at how alone everyone can be in a crowd—and a second intriguing scene that shows some teen one-upmanship atop a school building. Discussing the suicide club scandal, a group of students find themselves on the roof of the school. Of course, this plays out in another silly bloodbath featuring a flap of skin and an ear stuck to a window ledge. The scene portends a false lead that should stir up the middle of the mystery. Was it another strike by the suicide club, or just a bizarre and unfortunate accident? Sadly, a bunch of gross-out gags again muddy up the intrigue. Finally, a note on production values. A film that so overwhelmingly relies on shots of computer monitors, should give a thought to temporal aliasing. The flickering scan lines throughout the film are more then a bit annoying. A tip: Either shell out for film and a light meter or move on to DV. Also, jump cuts to things like a character’s tattoo are played out. Of course we know from such forced details, that we will soon see that same tattoo hanging off the skin-wheel a few scenes later. Suicide Club, in this ignorant gaijin’s POV, offers a lot of gory black humor mocked-up as scathing social commentary. In any culture, this is the earmark of a cult film, but not a cult classic. In short, this film proves one thing; it isn’t easy, but there is one way to make Japanese school girls less then attractive to the normally-oriented male: show them being sliced up with a wood planer, or turn them into exploding bags of blood. And, if that’s your trip, dude, then viva, Suicide Club! “Ugh!” quoth the Frank “Eject and fire up the whiskey and cigarettes.”

2005-04-30T22:01:00.000-04:00

A Very Long Engagement, (English Release Title); 2004, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet “Boy-O-Boyfriend!” Frank mumbles. His heart thump-thump thumps down out of his chest, squeezes past his belt and by-and-by slides down the inside of his pants leg to lodge itself in his left shoe. His train hurtles mercilessly towards Penn Station on a beleaguered trip to 34th Street to see the new Jeunet Film, Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles, (DVD July 12, distributed by Warner Bros). A ticket-taker shuffles slowly, painfully past and Andrea, his traveling companion for the day has just casually dropped a line about her nascent boyfriend, in the way that young gals always impart such important information as trains inexorably leave stations. Frank scribbles thoughts on the index cards he had brought in reservation for notes on the show. “Why don’t you go into the Village much?” She had asked, looking for a companion. “It’s a lonely place. The Village.” Frank responded, and could have said the same about Midtown, Downtown, Wall Street, Harlem, etc. The confab resulted in this misguided Valentine’s Day dinner and a movie. Eventually, though, Frank is in a darkened theatre in the East Village, minus thirty bucks: The film opens with five French soldiers in the WWI trenches of the Somme. All are charged with self-inflicted wounds in order to escape the madness and massacre. And as Frank considers gnawing off his own arm pinned closely to Andrea, the soldiers are marched into no-man’s land to take their chances in the crossfire. Meanwhile Audrey Tautou is Mathilde, the plucky, polio-stricken fiancée of the youngest of the condemned. Mathilde suspects that her betrothed, Manech, has survived. The story follows her attempts to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the execution-by-proxy of the condemned soldiers in a relentless attempt to locate Manech. The plot details are dense and one struggles to keep track of a lot of frenchies with mustaches, but Andrea does alternately laugh and cry throughout the whole three-hour show, and occasionally looks about the theatre, Frank suspects, for her own lost beau to make an appearance. But in the end, the endearing, often comic manner that is pure, classic Jeunet, schools Frank and Andrea in the arbitrariness of fate pitted against passion and determination. But make no mistake; the film is primarily a love story. A tearjerker. Not the kind of story Frank wants to take someone else’s gal to. Note here, though, that Jeunet’s art has “matured” in someway in his latest films, since the loss of collaborator Marco Caro (c.f. Delicatessen, 1991 and The City of Lost Children, 1995). Engagement and Amelie, both starring the Über-lovely Tautou, opposite Gaspard Ulliel and Mathieu Kassovitz, respectively, while retaining the often-dark whimsy of earlier Jeunet and Caro films, harkens to a distinct “mainstreaming” of beauty; whereas one once looked to their movies for a barrage of interesting yet loveable faces, the actors are now young and lovely, though still not as wooden-faced as typical Hollywood stars. Not to be too nay-saying: Jeunet’s usual troupe of actors do make their appearances, but with the great Dominique Pinon, continuing his slide from the lovable clown-hero of Delicatessen, now relegated to a senior role as Mathilde’s uncle. What stands out in Engagement, however, is the epic photography of the piece. Jeunet cannot be said to have ever squandered in terms of mise-en-scene (The City of Lost Children had the highest budget of any French film to that date). The camerawork is a brilliant juxtaposition of the harsh yellow-mud of the trenches and the warm sepias of Mathilde’s provincial world. On the whole the color processing has given the image a yellowed feel with dodged edges to evoke the idea of an old photo album. So, A Very Long Engagement is a must-see if you want need a weepy heart-on-sleeve romance. A must-see if you want photography of the utmost caliber. A must-see if you want to see computer film processing done to properly achieve dramatic effect. Definitely a must-see if you want a glimpse of Audrey Tautou’s derriere. (But don’t see it with a sister or platonic acquaintance.)However, The idea is that all art is subjective in meaning to its the audience and Frank is in a bad way, very resistant to happy ending. But great art is transcendent. For thee hours Frank was lifted from this bad place in a dank NYC theatre and sucked in to Mathilde’s lovelorn, exquisitely filmed plight. Rapt in beautiful images, artful tragedy, and the occasional off-handed chuckle—And then plopped right back into his train-wreck evening as the lights came up.