Rest in Peace, Tomas Milian

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have some sad news to report. The great Tomas Milian, an actor beloved by fans of Italian cinema everywhere, has died. He was 84.

Perhaps because of the type of films that he made, Milian was never the household name that he deserved to be. In the United States, his death is not even trending on twitter. #ThickThighTwitter, which is essentially a bunch of people bodyshaming anyone who happens to be slim, is trending. Tomas Milian is not.

And it’s a shame because Tomas Milian was one of the best. He may have been beloved by fans of Italian cinema but Milian was truly an international actor. He was born in Cuba, the son of a general who committed suicide after being jailed. Milian left Cuba after his father’s death. He moved to New York City, was a member of the Actor’s Studio, and became naturalized citizen in 1969.

Milian’s acting career took off when he started making movies in Italy. He appeared in everything from spy movies to spaghetti westerns to horror films to 1970s police dramas. Whenever I see one of the many films that Milian made in the 60s and 70s, I’m struck by his intensity. Milian was one of those power actors who often seems like he might leap off the screen at any moment. He played driven and often haunted men. Along with an undeniable charisma, Milian radiated danger.

Of the many Westerns he made, The Big Gundown may be his best known. Here’s Milian with co-star Lee Van Cleef:

My personal favorite of his spaghetti westerns? The surreal Django Kill:

For me, Tomas Milian was at his most menacing in Lucio Fulci’s underrated (and not for the faint-of-heart) Four Of The Apocalypse:

Four of the Apocalypse was not the only film on which Milian would work with Fulci. He also played the hero in Fucli’s classic giallo, Don’t Torture a Duckling:

In the 70s, Tomas Milian appeared in several Poliziotteschi, Italian cop films that were largely designed to rip off the success of gritty cop films like The French Connection and Serpico. Milian was always the ideal rebel cop, though he could play a dangerous criminal just as easily. Check him out in The Cop In Blue Jeans, perhaps parodying Al Pacino in Serpico:

The films weren’t always good but Milian always commanded the screen. It’s hard to think of any other actor who was always so much consistently better than the material he had to work with.

With the decline of the Italian film industry, Thomas Milian relocated his career to the United States. In his later years, he was a character actor who frequently appeared as corrupt military men and politicians. His best known performance from this time may be his quietly sinister turn in Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic:

Earlier today, Tomas Milian died of a stoke in Miami. Rest in peace.

A Movie A Day #75: Wanted: The Sundance Woman (1976, directed by Lee Philips)

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

This made-for-TV sequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid opens several years after the death of Butch and Sundance in Bolivia. Etta Pace (Katharine Ross, reprising her role from the original film) is now a wanted woman. Hiding out in Arizona, she does her best to keep a low profile. But when Pinkerton detective Charlie Siringo (Steve Forrest) comes to town and one of Etta’s friends (Michael Constantine) is arrested, Etta knows that she’s going to need help to survive. Crossing the border into Mexico, she teams up with revolutionary Pancho Vila (Hector Elizondo). In return for helping him get his hands on a shipment of guns, Vila agrees to protect Etta.

Wanted: The Sundance Woman was ABC’s second pilot for a possible television series about Etta Pace’s adventures at the turn of the century. The first pilot starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Etta and directly dealt with Etta’s attempts to come to terms with the death of Butch and Sundance. While Katharine Ross returned to the role for the second pilot, Wanted: The Sundance Woman does not actually have much of a connection to Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Katharine Ross could have just as easily been playing Etta Smith as Etta Pace.

Wanted: The Sundance Woman is held back by its origins as a TV movie and a rather silly romance between Etta and Pancho Vila. Hector Elizondo is hardly convincing as a fiery revolutionary and Steve Forrest is reliably dull as Siringo. It is not really surprising that this pilot didn’t lead to a weekly series. On the positive side, the film does feature an exciting train robbery and Katharine Ross is just as good in this sequel as she was in the original. Even though she was talented, beautiful, and had important roles in two of the most successful films of the 60s (The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), Hollywood never seemed to know what do with Katharine Ross. While she did have a starring role in The Stepford Wives, Katharine Ross spent most of the 70s appearing in stuff like The Swarm, They Only Kill Their Masters, and The Betsy. It’s unfortunate that Hollywood apparently did not want Katharine Ross as much Pancho Vila wanted the Sundance Woman.

Artwork of the Day: The Damned Lovely

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

By Robert Maguire

Music Video of the Day: Born To Rock by Buck Dharma (1982, dir. Richard Casey)

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I brought it up the other day, so let’s do Born To Rock by Buck Dharma, aka that guy you probably know from Blue Öyster Cult.

Oh, so YouTube comment sections exist in this music video.

No Rock Music?!? This is worse than when Hell froze over in 2005 and…

One Way Ticket by The Darkness

The Darkness had to run from a metaphor for cocaine to thaw it out.

One Way Ticket by The Darkness

What’s this?

Buck Dharma. Born To Rock. Wanted Dead or Alive. Contact U.S. Marshall S. Pearlman out of Oyster Bay, NY? Harsh! Buck does one solo album, and Blue Öyster Cult manager Sandy Pearlman is fine if he is brought in dead? He was tough back then. Also yes, Buck was born on Long Island, NY where Oyster Bay is located.

There’s only one man who can possibly bring him down. I dub him Blue Öyster Max.

Even his car says he is “2BADD”.

Now we get Buck delivering himself. My best guess is that this shot…

is a reference to Buck having given up getting a degree in Chemical Engineering to go into music. Then for some reason, None Dare Call It Treason by John A. Stormer has to do with Buck’s birth.

I haven’t read the book, but the summary on Amazon makes it sound like it would have been right up Ronald Reagan and Estus Pirkle’s alley. Pirkle also being a Protestant pastor who wrote a book concerning alleged Communist infiltration of America. Except Pirkle went on to adapt his book into a religious exploitation film called If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971).

I don’t know for sure who that is a picture of in the background while his parents are getting it on. It looks like Eisenhower, but I’m not 100% sure.

There’s other interesting stuff in here that fits with the theme of the music video, but let’s not kid ourselves. You’re watching this music video for the ending showdown between Buck and Blue Öyster Max.

Buck wins, and they rush Blue Öyster Max’s guitar to the hospital. Of course it’s red.

Blue Öyster Max is way dead. Killed by Rock.

Enjoy!

A Movie A Day #74: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981, directed by Robert Gunette)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

If you have ever wanted to witness the sad fate that awaits most geniuses who challenge the system, you could not do any worse than to watch The Man Who Saw Tomorrow.

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow is a low-budget “documentary” about Nostradamus, the 16th century French alchemist who some people consider to be a prophet and others consider to be a charlatan. Nostradamus has been credited with predicting everything from the rise of Napoleon and Hitler to the 9-11 terror attacks. Others argue that the writings of Nostradamus were so obscure and prone to mistranslation that they could be interpreted in just about any way. While he did write about an evil dictator that he called “Hister,” he was also widely credited with predicting an atomic war in 1999.

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow argues that Nostradamus was indeed a prophet and it makes its case through cheap historical reenactments and a lot of stock footage. The Zapruder film is used. So is footage from A Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace, Earthquake, and Waterloo (Be sure to keep an eye out for Rod Steiger). Some of the predictions, like Edward Kennedy becoming President and World War III starting in 1986, are easy to laugh at. Others, like conflict in the Middle East leading to a nuclear war, would be frighteningly credible if the film wasn’t so obviously made on the cheap. No skepticism of Nostradamus is implicitly acknowledged but there are interviews with a few believers, including psychic Jeane Dixon (whose first name the film misspells).

And narrating it all is none other than one of the most important filmmakers of all time, Orson Welles. Sitting at a desk in front of a bookcase and occasionally puffing on a cigar, the director of Citizen Kane lends his deep and recognizable voice to the film’s narration but also adds just a touch of sarcasm to his tone. The movie may believe that Nostradamus saw the future but Welles is going to damn well make sure that everyone understands that he does not. When Welles talks about Nostradamus’s predictions for the future, he says, “But before continuing, let me warn you now that these predictions of the future are not at all comforting – and I might go on to add that these visions of the past, these warnings of the future, are not the opinions of the producers of this film. They’re certainly not my opinions.” He really emphasizes that last sentence, as if he had already grown weary of people approaching him in the streets and asking him if he thought Nostradamus had predicted Watergate.

Sadly, Welles spent a good deal of his career doing jobs like this. The films and the roles were often beneath his talent but they provided Welles with the money that he needed to pursue his own projects, many of which were never to be completed. At the time he did The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, Welles was trying to raise the money to complete post production on his final film, The Other Side of The Wind. The Other Side of The Wind would remain unfinished at the time of Welles’s death but it now appears that, 41 years after principal photography was completed, the film may finally see the light of day thanks to Netflix.

As for The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, it seems only fair to give Orson Welles the final word. When asked about the film and Nostradamus on The Merv Griffin Show, Welles replied, “”One might as well make predictions based on random passages from the phone book.”

Well said, Orson. Well said.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Fight Valley (dir by Rob Hawk)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I wish I knew how to fight. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a pacifist. I’m not the type who would ever actually go out looking for a fight but we live in a dangerous world and I’d like to know how to fight for much the same reason that I like to carry a pink, Hello Kitty derringer in my garter. Self-defense is important.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I know how to pull hair. In fact, back in the day, I was told that I was a very good hair puller. And I keep my nails healthy and strong so I probably could scratch someone’s eyes out if I had to. But, with all that in mind, I’d still probably be totally lost if I ever got into a real fight. I have no idea how to throw a punch for instance. I recently tried to show off my technique to a friend of mine who spent two years serving in the IDF. She started laughing as soon as I made a fist. Apparently, you’re not supposed to tuck in your thumb. I had no idea.

I found myself thinking about this last night. I’m in the process of cleaning out my DVR and, before going to bed, I decided to watch the 2016 film Fight Valley. I recorded Fight Valley off of TMC on March 10th. I’m not sure why I recorded it. Maybe I liked the title. Who knows?

Anyway, Fight Valley is a film about fighting. In many ways, it’s a how-to video for girls who want to learn how to kick ass. Watching Fight Valley, I learned that the most important thing about fighting is to stand around and glare at the person who you want to fight. Judging from the film, it’s also important to say stuff like, “This is our hood,” and “You need to take your skinny ass home, white girl.” Apparently, when walking past someone who you want to fight, it’s very important to make sure that you bump into their shoulder. Basically, it goes: Glare, Talk, Shoulder Bump.

Fight Valley takes place in Camden, New Jersey, where it appears your only two options are either joining the Mafia or getting involved with the underground fighting circuit. Tori Colo (Chelsea Durkalec) is this kickass fighter who needs to make some money. She asks her rich older sister, Windsor (Susie Celek), for the money but Windsor is all like, “Why don’t you get a real job and stop bumping into people’s shoulders?” One night, a skeezy guy tells Tori that she can make some extra cash by going to Fight Valley. The next morning, Tori’s dead body is discovered in the woods!

Well, needless to say, Windsor feels guilty. So, she does what any rich girl who doesn’t know how to fight would do. She starts wandering around Camden and randomly asking people, “Hey, can you give me a ride to Fight Valley?” Well, that doesn’t work. She gets told to go home. Tori’s squad tells her that she either needs to learn how to fight or give up. Fortunately, the harsh and enigmatic Jabs (Miesha Tate) is willing to teach her how to fight. Even more luckily, it only takes four weeks to learn.

(Don’t worry, there’s a twist! Jabs has her own reason for teaching Windsor how to fight. I won’t spoil it here, largely because it’s kind of stupid.)

The good thing about Fight Valley is that a good deal of the cast is made up of actual fighters. Along with Miesha Tate, the cast includes Holly Holm and Cris Cyborg. While I have to admit that I don’t know much about ultimate fighting, I do know that if any of these three gave me the fight glare, I would immediately go hide under a table. Whenever they’re punching, kicking, and putting each other into chokeholds, they are totally believable and there are hints of what the film could have been. Unfortunately, the fight scenes themselves are somewhat haphazardly shot and confusingly edited. As a general rule, when you’ve got actual athletes doing their thing, you don’t need a lot of jump cuts and flashbacks.

The big problem was the acting. For a film where the main attraction was obviously meant to be the fight scenes, Fight Valley was a surprisingly talk movie. Most of the film’s cast had an authenticity to them that disappeared as soon as they opened their mouths and started to recite the script’s overwritten dialogue in the most stilted style possible. It just doesn’t work.

The same can be said of Fight Valley in general. As much as I’d love to know how to throw a punch, Fight Valley left me feeling like maybe I should just stick to hair pulling.

Artwork of the Day: The Lost and the Damned

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Charles Copeland

Music Video of the Day: One Man, One Woman by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I think Hallström might be Swedish. It’s so hard to tell with this music video.

This one looks like they combined a little footage from a TV performance with shots of their faces. They either fade from one to another or pull a Persona (1966) by dividing the face into two halves made up of two members of the group. It’s a nice and simple video. You’d really have to try hard to convince me that Hallström didn’t have Bergman’s film in mind when he made this video.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Guilty Pleasure No. 33: In the Mix (dir by Ron Underwood)

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in January, I had to get a new cable box. Sadly, when the boxes were switched, I lost everything that I had saved on the DVR. Over a hundred movies and TV shows were wiped away! However, I did not let this get me down. Instead, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I now had a lot more free space by literally recording anything that looked the least bit interesting.

Well, the day of reckoning has finally arrived. It is now March 21st and the DVR is nearly full. So, for the next few weeks, I am going to clean out my DVR and review what I watch! Now, I can’t say how long this is going to take. In the past, I’ve always given myself unrealistic deadlines. So, this time, I’m not giving myself a time limit. Instead, I’m just going to start watching what I’ve got recorded and hope that I’m done by 2018. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I started things off by watching the 2005 mafia romance film, In the Mix.

I recorded In The Mix off of Starz on March 16th. I did this despite the fact that I’ve actually seen In The Mix quite a few times. In The Mix, which is technically a beyond terrible movie, is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s a bit like From Justin To Kelly or On The Line. Even though all my instincts as a movie snob tell me not to do it, I can’t help but watch it.

In the Mix stars Usher as Darrell, the hottest DJ in New York. Every woman wants him and every man wants to be him. However, all Usher wants to do is hang out with the family of the local mob boss. It turns out that Don Frank (Chazz Palminteri) was friends with Darrell’s father and Darrell is now friends with Frank’s son, Frankie Jr. (Anthony Fazio). Frank hires Darrell to DJ his daughter’s birthday party.

(Frankie, Jr. is a white kid who wants to be black. Personally, I think there’s probably an interesting story in the idea of the son of an old-fashioned Italian mafia don who idolizes — or appropriates, depending on how you look at it — black culture but Frankie, Jr.’s characterization pretty much starts and ends with him saying, “Yo.”)

At the party, Darrell quickly falls in love with Frank’s daughter, Dolly (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Dolly likes him too. Especially after he takes a bullet that was intended for her father. While Darrell is recuperating at the mansion, Frank tells Dolly that she can’t go outside unless she has a bodyguard. Dolly says that’s fine as long as the bodyguard is Darrell.

And you know what that means! It’s time for a makeover montage as Darrell gets a whole new wardrobe! Yay!

Anyway, the plot is about as predictable as the casting of Kevin Hart as Usher’s comedic sidekick and Robert Davi as a sinister gangster. Dolly and Darrell fall in love but you already knew that was going to happen. You also probably already guessed that Dolly already has a boring boyfriend named Chad (Geoff Stults) and that Darrell has a crazy ex-girlfriend named Cherise (K.D. Aubert). And, of course, Frank is not initially happy with the idea of Dolly leaving her rich lawyer boyfriend so that she can be with Darrell. However, Darrell eventually gets a chance to prove himself by rescuing Dolly from some rival gangsters and he’s welcomed into the crime family. Of course, he gets shot a second time. “If the ghetto’s so dangerous,” he says as he lies on the ground, “how come I keep getting shot by white people?” Everyone has a good laugh as they wait for the ambulance. That’s the type of movie that In The Mix is.

As I watched In The Mix, I realized that it was actually a lot worse than I remembered and yet, I still enjoyed it. Why? To be honest, it all comes down to Usher and Emmauelle Chriqui, both of whom look really, really good and who have enough chemistry that they can overcome an amazingly clunky script. You reallydo believe that the two of them actually are into each other and you hope that things will work out for them because they’re such a ludicrously attractive couple. In The Mix is an incredibly shallow and silly movie but the stars both look good when they kiss and, ultimately, that’s what a movie like this is all about.

That said, in the future, I probably won’t bother to set the DVR for it again.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

A Movie A Day #73: Bitter Harvest (1993, directed by Duane Clark)

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Travis Graham (Stephen Baldwin, before he found God) is a doofus who owns a farm. His late father sent all of the family’s money to a crooked televangelist but he did leave Travis a valuable coin collection. But then two blondes enter his life. Kelly Ann (Jennifer Rubin) is a penniless hitchhiker who needs a place to stay and a bed to sleep in. Jolene (Patsy Kensit) is a British realtor who says she wants to help Travis sell his farm. Faster than you can say “I don’t know the exact pronunciation but I believe it’s ménage à trois,” that’s exactly what happens. Travis can’t believe his luck but it turns out that Kelly Ann and Jolene have plans of their own. Then, in a strangely unrelated subplot, a banker robber who shot the local sheriff (M. Emmett Walsh) shows up at the farm. Travis kills the bank robber but then Kelly Ann and Jolene start pressuring him to use the robber’s plan to rob a bank himself.

This is one of the many strange movies from the increasingly strange career of Stephen Baldwin. Now that he’s best known for evangelizing and appearing in celebrity-themed reality shows (including, most infamously, two seasons of The Celebrity Apprentice), it is easy to forget that Stephen Baldwin was once a good character actor who, with the exception of The Usual Suspects, apparently could not pick a good script if his life depended upon it. His performance as the socially backward Travis is often strange (at times, he seems to be channeling Lenny from Of Mice and Men) but always interesting. Fans of 90s neo-noir will also be happy to see Delusion’s Jennifer Rubin, playing yet another mysterious and dangerous temptress. Unfortunately, Bitter Harvest falls apart because of an implausible script and too many loose ends but, until it does, the sultry combination of Jennifer Rubin and Patsky Kensit keeps things watchable.

One final note: The sheriff’s son is played by Adam Baldwin. Even though the two are not actually related, everyone in the 90s assumed that they were and this makes Bitter Harvest a double Baldwin film.