I woke up to the sad news that Max von Sydow, one of the greatest actors of all time, died yesterday. He was 90 years old and he leaves behind a truly amazing filmography. He played saints, sinners, assassins, exorcists, generals, poets, doctors, and even ordinary men who were just trying to make it day-to-day. That he was nominated for only two Academy Awards over a career that lasted 71 years was a major oversight on the Academy’s part. He was an actor who was as capable in arthouse films as he was in the latest installment of a legendary sci-fi franchise.
It’s hard to take a career as long and productive as von Sydow’s and narrow it down to just four shots from four films so I’m not going to try. The shots are below are some of my favorite von Sydow performances but they’re hardly definitive. Max von Sydow gave so many good and memorable performances that it’s hard to know where to start. Below are 4 shots from 4 films from a truly remarkable career.
Max von Sydow, R.I.P.
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Virgin Spring (1960, directed by Ingmar Bergman)
Flash Gordon (1980, directed by Mike Hodges)
Needful Things (1993, directed by Fraser C. Heston)
Shutter Island (2010, directed by Martin Scorsese)
Before I really get started on this review, I think I should make clear two things:
First off, this film can be found, for free, on Amazon Prime under the title 7 Deadly Sins. That’s also the title under which it’s listed on the imdb. However, all of the poster art that I’ve found for this film indicates that this film was originally entitled Charlie Charlie. It makes sense, as the whole point of the film is that 7 idiots play a game called “Charlie Charlie,” where the point is to talk to some dead guy who never went to church and was therefore never cleansed of his sins. Apparently, playing Charlie Charlie gets you killed. Who would have guessed contacting an evil spirit would have such dire consequences.
Secondly, I tend to be forgiving of low budget horror films. Some of my favorite films are low-budget horror films. I respect any director who can create a frightening scene or maintain an ominous atmosphere on a low budget. If you can make the paranormal seem real even when you can’t afford CGI, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your filmmaking skills. My point is that when I tell you that this is not a good film and that it’s actually one of the worst horror films that I’ve seen in while, I’m not just saying that because of the low budget. I’m saying it because the movie freaking sucks.
7 Deadly Sins takes place at a Spring Break house party being thrown by the least likable teenagers on the planet. Most of them are celebrating because it’s their last Spring Break before college. Jamal (Steph Santana), on the other hand, is celebrating because it’s his last weekend before he starts a five year prison sentence. At the start of Spring Break, Jamal was pulled over by a cop who discovered a huge amount of weed in the trunk of his car. Apparently, in the world of 7 Deadly Sins, the justice system moves a lot quicker than it does in the real world because it only takes Jamal a few days to be found guilty and sentenced to prison.
Jamal’s girlfriend, Kim (Tori Vild), was in the car as well. However, because she’s rich and she’s white, she’s only sentenced to a few months of house arrest. She has to wear an ankle bracelet and listen to her racist mom and her pervy stepfather complain about her boyfriend. Kim swears to Jamal that she’ll wait for him to get out of prison. Jamal suggests a threesome to help him prepare for life behind bars. Kim kicks him out of her room. It’s that type of party.
Sara (Gladys Bautista) has been hired, by Kim’s stepfather, to keep an eye on Kim for the weekend. Kim is upset because Sara is Mexican and they’re both the same age. Sara is upset because everyone screwed up the Charlie Charlie game. “You have to play the game,” she repeats, “You have to repent your sins.”
“Shit’s fucked up,” Jamal says at one point and he’s probably right.
Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is one of those films that tries to be both a horror film and a comedy but it doesn’t work as either, largely because the characters aren’t sympathetic enough to care about and none of the actors are particularly comedic. You don’t care when they die and it’s hard to be amused when someone says that Sara should be selling oranges along the freeway.
7 Deadly Sins does feature two semi-celebrity cameos. Tom Sizemore plays a dude in an mental hospital while Eric Roberts plays the judge who sentences Jamal and Kim. Eric Roberts has a lot of fun with his role, railing about how much he hates drug dealers and marijuana. Unfortunately, Roberts only gets one scene and then he’s out of the film.
Anyway, 7 Deadly Sins is pretty dumb. It takes forever to get to the “Charlie Charlie” game and it doesn’t do anything particularly creative with any of the sins. (At one point, we see written in blood: “Envy is a sin.” Well, no shit.) As far as Spring Break horror films go, you could just go down to Galveston and shoot your own and the end results would probably be superior to this one.
Despite having received pardons from the Missouri legislature in recognition of their military service to the Confederacy, Jesse James (Robert Duvall) and Cole Younger (Cliff Robertson) simply cannot stop robbing banks. The James-Younger Gang has set their sights on the bank in Northfield, Minnesota, which is said to be the biggest bank west of the Mississippi. Cole arrives in Northfield before the rest of the gang and scouts the location. What he discovers is that most of the town’s citizens aren’t putting their money in the bank because they all assume that it will eventually be robbed. With Jesse determined to pull off the crime of the century, Cole and Jesse have to figure out not only how to escape after the robbery but also how to get the people to deposit their money in the bank’s vault in the first place.
Philip Kaufman is a director who made a career out of reinterpreting history (his best known film is The Right Stuff) and, when it was first released in 1972, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid was a revisionist western that mixed moments of comedy with moments of brutal violence. Today, of course, presenting Jesse James and Cole Younger as being ruthless outlaws is no longer that daring of a narrative choice. In The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, Robert Duvall plays Jesse as being the western equivalent of a corrupt businessman, sending others to do his dirty work and not accepting any of the consequences for his own bad decisions. Robertson plays Cole as being more a free spirit, an outlaw who is determined to enjoy himself. Both of them give interesting performances but they also seem to be too contemporary for the characters that they’re playing.
Like most revisionist westerns of the early 70s, the film is full of hints that the old west and the time of the outlaws is coming to an end. There’s a steam engine sitting outside of the bank and Kaufman spends almost as much time focusing on people reacting to that as he does on the planning and execution of the robbery. When the robbery does finally occur, it’s not an easy robbery like you might find a 1940s western. Instead, it’s a violent comedy of errors that leaves much of the film’s characters dead or wounded in the streets of Northfield. The contrast between the quirky comedy of the first part of the film and the violence of the robbery is occasionally interesting but it often feels forced. Sometimes, Kaufman seems like he’s trying too hard to be Sam Peckinpah. In the end, Kaufman often doesn’t seem to be sure what he’s trying to say with this film. He seems to be suggesting that Jesse and Cole are soon to be relics of a bygone era but why then cast Duvall and Robertson in the roles and have them play the roles like two mid-level hoodlums in 20th Century New York?
It’s an interesting but muddled film that never quite works. For the definitive film about the James/Younger Gang, check out Walter Hill’s The Long Riders.
I’ll be the first to admit that most weeks these Round-Up columns are just my way of keeping up with what’s happening in the comics mainstream, and truth be told my “pull list” is so small compared to that of many of my readers that I often have a difficult time finding four books that I even feel like talking about. This week was a glorious exception, however — one of those weeks where yeah, I maybe spent a little too much, but I was reminded of why I even stick with the ritual of heading down to my LCS on Wednesdays in the first place. Yeah, we all know that small-press comics are cool, but ya know what? The “Big Two” and the major indies still put out some damn good stuff too, and this week they hit us with four first issues that are well worth anyone’s time…
Spenser Confidential, which is currently streaming on Netflix, is the latest Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg collaboration.
It’s a crime film and it’s set in Boston and it will probably remind you every other Boston-set crime film that you’ve ever seen. It’s got all the usual ingredients. People sing Sweet Caroline. A fat gangster wears a tracksuit. We get a long overhead shot of the streets of Southie and there’s a scene set in an Irish bar. One of the film’s big scenes takes place at what appears to be a deserted racing track. (I’ve never been to Boston but, just from the movies, I know that the city is basically made up of Harvard, Southie, and hundreds of deserted race tracks.) The Red Sox get a shout-out. And, of course, the movie stars Mr. Boston himself, Mark Wahlberg. Seriously, if your Boston movie doesn’t feature Mark Wahlberg or an Affleck brother, it might as well just be a St. Louis movie.
In this one, Mark Wahlberg plays Spenser. Spenser was a cop until a gangster in a tracksuit murdered someone from the neighborhood and the head of homicide tried to bury the case. This led to an angry Spenser beating the man up in front of his own house. Spenser was sent to prison, where he served five years as an ex-cop in the general population. That’s right! He wasn’t even put in protective custody but somehow, he survived. Right before Spenser is released from prison, he’s attacked by a Neo-Nazi who is played by Post Malone. It’s not really that relevant to the overall plot but it does give viewers a chance to say, “Wait a minute …. is that Post Malone?”
Anyway, once he gets out of prison, Spenser moves in with his mentor and former boxing coach, Henry Cimoli (Alan Arkin). He also gets a new roommate, an aspiring MMA fighter named Hawk (Winston Duke). After Captain Boylan, the head of homicide — yes, the same guy that Spenser beat up five years ago, is decapitated by 20 sword-carrying assailants, Spenser is the number one suspect. Fortunately, for Spenser, another cop commits suicide and it’s quickly announced that the cop who killed himself also killed Boylan. It’s a murder/suicide! So, Spenser’s off the hook and I guess the movie’s over, right?
Nope, it doesn’t work like that. It turns out that Spenser has his doubts about the whole story and he wants to investigate because he has “a strong moral code.” Unfortunately, as a convicted felon, Spenser is not allowed to become a private investigator. So, Spenser and Hawk conduct an unofficial investigation, which largely amounts to talking to Spenser’s former partner, Driscoll (Bokeem Woodbine) and getting into a brawl while Sweet Caroline plays in the background.
It’s a Boston thing.
The mystery are the heart of the film pretty much leads exactly where you think it’s going to lead. For a 2-hour crime thriller, there aren’t exactly a lot of twists and turns to be found in Spenser Confidential, which is a problem. The mystery’s solution is so obvious that it’s hard not to resent the fact that Spenser is apparently too stupid to figure it out on his own. There’s an extended scene where he gets attacked by a dog and you know what? That would have never happened to any other movie detective because every other detective would have figured out who the murderer was long before getting attacked by that dog.
On the plus side, Peter Berg knows how to stage a fight scene and he also knows how to make the best use of Wahlberg’s mix of sensitivity and working class arrogance. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is let down by a script that doesn’t give them much to do. Winston Duke is physically imposing as Hawk but he spends too much of the film standing around and waiting for Spenser to take the lead. Alan Arkin appears to be having fun in the role of Henry but again, his character is underwritten. About the only person, other than Wahlberg, who gets to make much of an impression is Iliza Shlesinger, who is cast as Spenser’s ex-girlfriend. Shlesinger may be playing a stereotype (she’s loud, crude, and has a thick Boston accent) but she fully embraces the character and makes her seem like the only person in the film who actually has a life beyond what’s happening onscreen at any given moment.
Anyway, Spenser Confidential isn’t terrible as much as it’s just forgettable. It’s a generic Boston crime film and you can probably safely watch it if you’re not looking for something to which you would actually have to pay attention. Some of the action scenes are well-shot. If you liked Mark Wahlberg in other films, you’ll probably like him in this. Whether you enjoy it or not, you’ll probably forget about this film about an hour after watching it.
Through the Shattered Lens 