Max Baer, Jr. co-wrote, co-produced and co-starred in this southern fried thriller about a couple of good ‘ole boys (brothers Alan & Jesse Vint) who break down in the wrong county. The sheriff (Baer), who’s somewhat suspicious of the boys, goes after them with fierce vengeance when his wife is murdered.
I’m a big fan of this classic drive-in film. For one, I think it’s cool that Max Baer Jr., so well known as Jethro Bodine in the classic sitcom THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, took on this role of the somewhat racist sheriff who goes mad with rage in this movie. I enjoyed his performance very much. I also like these ‘70’s drive-in films. You get exactly what you expect in this tale, and it’s very entertaining. Finally, I like the Vint Brothers. Alan had an important role a year after this film was made in the Charles Bronson film BREAKOUT. And what can I say about Jesse. Over the last few years, he’s actually become a friend in real life. He’s such a great guy, and he’s very proud of this movie. He told me one day that Tarantino had said it was one of “the best stories in cinema!” In the first season of his Video Archives podcast, I’ve personally heard Tarantino really brag on Jesse’s performance in the movie THE FORBIDDEN WORLD. I love it when good things happen to good people.
There are certain movies I like that I don’t ever hear anyone else talk about. PURE COUNTRY, starring country music legend George Strait, is such a movie. As you might imagine, it has a great soundtrack. I remember singing one of its songs, “I Cross My Heart,” at a co-worker’s wedding in the summer of 1993. I butchered the hell out of it. It does make me wonder if they’re still married. I haven’t seen that person in close to 30 years, so I’d say it’s a 50/50 proposition. I also remember really liking a song called “Heartland,” another called “When Did You Stop Loving Me,” and another called “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
I’m a sucker for romance movies, and one of my favorite types of romance movies is where a famous person falls in love with a regular person. In PURE COUNTRY, George Strait is Dusty, a huge country music star who’s tired of the loud music and the big special effects that have come to define his shows. He longs to get back to his roots and just grab his guitar and sing. Unfortunately, his longtime friend and manager Lula (Lesley Ann Warren) isn’t ready to scale down the show since they’re playing to 20,000 fans at every concert. So, after a show one night, Dusty heads out for a walk and doesn’t stop. He does stop by a barber shop where they cut his Steven Seagal ponytail and shave his scruffy beard. Then he heads to an old honkytonk he used to play at when he was in college and reminisces on the good old days. After having a few too many adult beverages, he starts smiling at the lovely Harley Tucker (Isabel Glasser) who doesn’t recognize him as the superstar Dusty. One thing leads to another and he ends up trying to defend her honor from this big obnoxious guy who won’t take no for an answer. A drunk Dusty is no match for the big jerk, and he ends up getting the crap beaten out of him. Thankful that he tried to defend her honor and that he’s cute, Harley takes him to her house to try to mend his wounds. Dusty’s not ready to resume his life as a megastar so he gives Harley his middle name, which is Wyatt. I really like Harley’s family. Her brothers are a couple of dorks, but they love their sister. Her grandpa is played by Rory Calhoun!!! I love Rory Calhoun going back to his westerns in the 40’s and 50’s. And thus begins a fun romance movie where he’s a huge star, and she thinks he’s a regular guy. Of course there will be complications along the way, and the truth will eventually be exposed, but the fun is seeing how it all plays out.
What about George Strait’s acting you might ask? Well, Strait isn’t a very good actor, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying the film. I do like the way he tells the arrogant Buddy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), “Get your ass outta here!” in one of the scenes. He even repeats it just as well! It’s an important scene and he rises to the occasion. All in all, Strait’s good enough and he’s got the fact that he’s George Strait going in his favor. If you read this and like PURE COUNTRY, please take the time to leave me a comment. I’m looking for other fans. It gets lonely out here!
Over the next 5 days, I will discuss Charles Bronson’s DEATH WISH series in chronological order. This series has brought me countless hours of entertainment over the last 40 years, so enjoy and let me know your thoughts!
“Don’t ever make a death wish, because a death wish always comes true!” – I’ve always thought this was kind of a corny saying on the original DEATH WISH trailer, but as one of the world’s biggest Charles Bronson fans, I still hold the original DEATH WISH (1974) in extremely high regard. This is the 70’s revenge classic that made Bronson a box office superstar in his home country, while simultaneously influencing the way vengeance was depicted on screen for decades to come. DEATH WISH is one of the most underrated and influential films from a decade that was full of great films.
If you’re reading this review, I’d be about 99% positive that you know the basic story of the film. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, a conscientious objector whose wife is killed and whose daughter is raped by a group of criminal thugs in New York City. When the police are incapable of providing justice, Kersey turns into a sidewalk vigilante and stalks the streets and subways of New York, luring thugs to mug him so he can shoot them with his 32-caliber Colt Police Positive pistol. Vincent Gardenia plays detective Frank Ochoa, who’s put in charge of finding the vigilante and putting an end to his one-man mission of justice.
It’s been 50 years since DEATH WISH was released into theaters and it’s hard to fathom just how controversial the film was in its time, especially since I wasn’t even 1 year old when it was released. The graphic rape scene that kicks off the events of the film, combined with the vigilante subject matter, turned off so many big stars, including Jack Lemmon, Henry Fonda and George C. Scott. This opened up the door for Charles Bronson who didn’t have any such misgivings. They just didn’t understand what a nerve the film would touch with the filmgoing public, who were tired of their cities being overrun by violent criminals. The movie became an audience participation movie unlike any others of the time with cheering in the seats every time Kersey offed another criminal. The controversial film became one of the top box office hits of the year and the biggest of Bronson’s career.
DEATH WISH was the fourth of six films directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson. In typical Winner fashion, the film has some strange touches, but the director is extremely effective in building the motivation for vigilante justice that was required for the film to thrive. He handles the action sequences well, and his cast is outstanding. Bronson & Gardenia are perfect in the lead roles, and the lovely Hope Lange has the brief, infamous role as Kersey’s brutalized wife. Stuart Margolin is especially memorable as the Arizona businessman who gives Kersey his gun. There are also a number of actors in small roles who were not well known when the movie was made who would go on to successful film careers. The biggest is Jeff Goldblum who has the most memorable role of the three muggers who attack Kersey’s wife and daughter at the beginning of the film. It’s a brief, but no holds barred performance for sure. Oscar winning actress Olympia Dukakis has a small role as a cop who expresses her frustration about the amount of leg work expected of her by Detective Ochoa. And finally, Christopher Guest has one scene as a young cop who finds the wounded vigilante and recovers his gun.
On a personal note, this film holds a special place in my heart as the first Charles Bronson film I ever saw. It was probably in 1984 or ‘85, and I stayed up with my dad to watch the late movie on our local TV station. The movie happened to be DEATH WISH. As bad things were happening to Kersey’s family at the beginning of the film, my dad told me not to worry, that “Charles would get them.” That intrigued me and let me know that Bronson had a reputation that preceded him. From that point forward, I wanted to rent a Charles Bronson film every time we went to the video store. And the rest, as they say, is history!
BONUS: The definitive book about the DEATH WISH film series was written by my friend, author and film historian Paul Talbot. The name of the book is BRONSON’S LOOSE: THE MAKING OF THE DEATH WISH FILMS. If you have any interest in Charles Bronson, the DEATH WISH series or Cannon Films, I can’t recommend Paul’s books more highly.
HOOSIERS is based on the true story of a small high school winning the Indiana state basketball championship in 1954. Gene Hackman plays Coach Norman Dale, the once successful college coach who gets a second chance when he’s hired to coach high school basketball in the tiny town of Hickory, Indiana. It takes some time for Coach Dale to whip the talented, but undisciplined young men into a team, and it also takes a little time for local legend Jimmy Chitwood to decide that he will play basketball again. Chitwood had stopped playing prior to the arrival of Coach Dale, but after watching the way the coach goes about his business, he decides he’ll give it another go. After a rough start, the team starts playing good basketball and starts piling up wins as they make their way towards a potential state championship.
HOOSIERS was released when I was 13 years old, and it has been one of my favorite movies for almost 40 years. Why, you might ask? I’ll start by giving you a little Bradley Crain family history. First, basketball was my life growing up. My dad was a teacher and high school basketball coach. From the earliest days I can remember, my dad was teaching me how to play basketball. He taught me the proper techniques for shooting, and through lots of practice I became very good at it. I’m one of those people who could be referred to as a “gym rat.” The only things I wanted to do growing up were play basketball and go fishing. I have a brother who is one year and 5 days older than me, and he loved basketball too. The competition between the two of us made it difficult at times at home, but it also pushed us to get better. Second, I grew up in a small rural community in Arkansas known as Toad Suck, and I went to school in the small town of Bigelow, Arkansas. Bigelow was classified as a “Class B” school for sports purposes. This was the smallest classification that you could be in, and my class consisted of approximately 40 students. Finally, when HOOSIERS came out I was in junior high and my dream was to win a high school state basketball championship. Our teams were good, and I was still young and naïve enough to believe anything was possible. We even won the district championship my 9th grade year, which was the year after HOOSIERS was released. Alas, the chips didn’t fall our way, and even though we won a lot of basketball games over the next few years, there were no state championships. Now back to the movie!
One of my favorite things about HOOSIERS is the cast of young men hired to play the members of the team. So often in movies, the actors that are supposed to be good at basketball are clearly not. That’s not the case in HOOSIERS. These guys can act and are talented basketball players as well. And what can I say about the cast that includes a marvelous Gene Hackman as the coach, and Dennis Hopper as the friendly, but alcoholic dad of one of the players who “knows everything there is to know about the greatest game ever invented.” Hopper is phenomenal, and his work was recognized with an Oscar nomination. Finally, as the team is making its way towards the championship, each player is given a moment to shine and do their part to help the team. I liked that. It all makes for an exciting and heartwarming true story that pretty much anyone can enjoy. I still love the movie now just thinking about it!
Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. I decided early on that I would only program movies that have meant something to me over the years. Tonight, Monday November 18th, we’re watching THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS starring Chow Yun-fat, Mira Sorvino and Michael Rooker.
So why does THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS mean something to me, you might ask?! The main reason is a matter of timing and its star, Chow Yun-fat. I personally discovered Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat in the late spring of 1997 and was in full obsession mode when I read that he was making his American film debut with THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS in early 1998. To say I was pumped about this movie would be quite the understatement, and I was at a theater in Conway, Arkansas the very day of its wide release on February 6, 1998. Director Antoine Fuqua, making his directorial debut, tried to make a stylish film that would appeal to fans of John Woo, who served as Executive Producer on THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS. It worked on me, and over the next few years I purchased the movie in every format imaginable. I’ve owned it on bootleg VHS, regular VHS, DVD, and special edition blu ray. Looking back on the film now, I realize that it’s an exercise in style over substance, but that’s certainly okay. It doesn’t take away the fact that it came out at a time in my life when I was primed for maximum movie impact. You can never go back and replicate those times in your life, but you can celebrate them. Sierra and I will be doing just that tonight on #MondayMuggers at 9:00 CST. THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS is available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Join us if you’d like!
Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I’m introducing #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review about a movie I’ve recently watched.
In BLIND FURY, Rutger Hauer does his best Zatoichi impersonation in a loose remake of a 1967 Japanese film called ZATOICHI CHALLENGED. The movie’s strongest quality is its ability to be both a kickass action film and a comic action film. That’s a fine line to walk and BLIND FURY does it exceedingly well.
Fast Facts:
Star Rutger Hauer is probably the greatest Dutch actor of all time where he often starred in the films of director Paul Verhoeven. My favorite of Hauer’s foreign movies is SOLDIER OF ORANGE.
ZATOICHI CHALLENGED, the inspiration for BLIND FURY, stars legendary Japanese actor Shintaro Katsu as a blind masseuse named Zatoichi. Katsu would play this amazing character in 26 films and 100 TV episodes between 1962 and 1989. You owe it to yourself to search out these films.
Former heavyweight boxer Randall “Tex” Cobb plays a heavy in BLIND FURY. In his time, he beat Leon Spinx and went the distance with Larry Holmes.
Australian director Phillip Noyce directed BLIND FURY. He’s an underrated director whose other credits include DEAD CALM, PATRIOT GAMES, and THE BONE COLLECTOR.
This weekend our family has been celebrating my Mom’s birthday together at our family cabin. One thing about hanging out with Mom in November is you know you’re going to be watching Christmas movies. It may be on the Hallmark channel or it may be one of her countless DVD’s or Blu rays of Christmas classics, but you’re going to be getting in the Christmas spirit. Last night we watched HOME ALONE.
The story is well known. A family is going on a Christmas vacation in Paris. In all the craziness created by a fluke power outage, 8 year old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is accidentally left home alone while the rest of the family gets on a plane to France. Meanwhile, a pair of house robbers (Joe Pesci & Daniel Stern) plan on hitting homes in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve. Kevin not only survives with his parents gone, he thrives, and he makes the robbers wish they’d never stumbled into his neighborhood. With that said, he does learn some valuable lessons along the way, and he realizes that he does love and miss his family.
What can you say about Macaulay Culkin in HOME ALONE?!! He owns the movie. It’s one of the great child performances in the movies. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are funny as the robbers, with young Kevin putting them through hell. I still cringe in pain at times as the two step on ornaments, get burned and are physically assaulted, all thanks to Kevin’s assorted collection of tricks & booby traps. There’s also a plot line with Kevin’s scary neighbor that leads to a touching conclusion. And finally, as we celebrate Mom’s birthday, I can’t help but be touched by the reunion at the end between Kevin and his mom (Catherine O’Hara). No matter how much they can get on each other’s nerves, the truth is that they both love each other with all of their hearts. It’s a special feeling when you have a mom who loves you. That’s one thing Kevin and I have in common. And we love them back.
It was 1997 and I was in an outlet mall in Branson, MO. Being a film buff, I found myself looking for entertainment related books and noticed a book with Jackie Chan on the cover called “Hong Kong Babylon.” Jackie was enjoying some popularity in the United States at the time due to the financial success of RUMBLE IN THE BRONX. I opened up the book and started browsing through the various chapters. I saw blurbs about a bunch of movies I had never heard of and blurbs about a bunch of people I had never heard of. Jackie Chan was the only person I knew anything about. I put the book down because I saw another book about Hong Kong movies. This one was called “Sex & Zen and A Bullet in the Head.” I opened it up and saw some of the same people and movies mentioned in the other book. I liked this book better because it had more pictures. I remember this second book opening with a chapter called “10 that Rip.” It was their listing of 10 movies that would determine if you were a potential Hong Kong movie fan or not. Watching these movies would either open up that part of your mind that got excited about Hong Kong movies, or you would be hopelessly lost and not a candidate for Hong Kong movie fandom. As I looked closer, I noticed this same man in both books. He was usually holding a gun and looking extremely cool. That man’s name was Chow Yun-fat, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I remembered seeing him years earlier on a VHS box at our local Hastings Entertainment Superstore. Not really being a fan of foreign movies at the time of the Hastings notice, I didn’t pay much attention, but now I really took notice. Chow caught my attention, but I also found it interesting that there were so many other movies that I’d never heard of, and I thought I knew a lot about movies. I bought both books and took them home with me. It’s no exaggeration to say that these books changed my life, and I was soon lost in a world of Hong Kong films.
No film exemplified my newfound love for Hong Kong movies more than THE KILLER, which was directed by John Woo and starred my new obsession, Chow Yun-fat. I was happy to find that it was readily available on VHS. I watched it on repeat. I had not seen anything that I thought was so awesome. The story is simple. It’s about a hitman, the killer of the title (Chow Yun-fat), accidentally blinding a nightclub singer (Sally Yeh) when he’s performing a job. Feeling devastated that he hurt this beautiful woman, he spends the next few months hanging around the nightclub hoping to have a chance to help her. He finally gets a chance one night when a group of young hooligans attack her on her way home. Chow steps in and beats the crap out of the guys and sends them on their way. This starts a beautiful relationship and the two fall in love. The killer has to perform one more job to get the money needed for a surgery that will hopefully restore her eyesight. When performing that last job, a tough cop (Danny Lee) finds himself on the trail of the killer and will do anything to get his man. John Woo has somehow crafted a story where Chow Yun-fat is an honorable “killer” on a noble mission to protect this young woman, and who is now the target of the Chinese triads trying to eliminate him. While trying to bring down the killer, the tough cop finds himself caught in the crossfire between the killer and the triads. When Chow goes out of his way to take a hurt young girl to the hospital, our tough cop realizes the hitman isn’t that bad after all, and the two men begin to have a respect for each other. There’s no time to rest though, as they find themselves having to team up to take on an army of triad soldiers armed to the teeth and out for blood.
I had never seen anything like THE KILLER up to that point in my life. The action had a style and flare that aroused everything I love about movies. I soon learned it fit into a subgenre of Hong Kong films labelled “heroic bloodshed,” a genre that I would go deep, deep, deep, into! The opening action sequence features the impossibly charismatic Chow Yun-fat dressed impeccably, taking on an underworld boss and his henchman, with two guns blazing in stylish slow motion. John Woo’s work has been endlessly copied by this point, but that does not take away how I felt watching this movie for the first time. I also loved the shameless sentimentality in the film, first between the killer and the singer, and then later between the killer and the cop. For a movie that’s balls to walls action, it has a huge heart. I was hooked.
I immediately began searching out all of John Woo’s films including A BETTER TOMORROW, BULLET IN THE HEAD and HARD-BOILED. After I watched those movies, I started trying to find every Chow Yun-fat film I could. I’ll never forget how I felt when I saw GOD OF GAMBLERS for the first time. I realized that Chow could do anything, not just cool heroic bloodshed films. I will tell anyone who’ll listen that Chow Yun-fat is my favorite living actor. After being a fan for 27 years, I still search the internet for any news I can find about a movie he may be working on.
And it all started at an outlet mall in Branson, MO, and when I first got my hands on THE KILLER.
HARD TIMES is probably the best movie that features Charles Bronson in the lead, and it’s my personal favorite movie of all time as of the date of this review. I reserve the right to change this opinion at any time!
Charles Bronson is Chaney, a drifter who’s riding the rails in the south during the great depression. Soon after getting off the train in some unnamed southern town, Chaney comes across an underground “fight” where we first meet Speed, played by the great James Coburn. It seems Speed is the money man for this big lug of a fighter who gets his butt kicked in front of God, the local underground fighting world, a man with horrible teeth, and Chaney. After witnessing this fiasco, Chaney follows Speed to a local restaurant where he apparently waits in the shadows until Speed goes up to the counter to get a refill of oysters and a couple of lemons. I say this because when Speed turns from the counter with his newly filled tray, Chaney is sitting at Speed’s table. I’m surprised that Speed even talks to him because the first thing Chaney does is help himself to an oyster, WITHOUT EVEN ASKING! Even with this breach of etiquette, Speed discusses the fight from earlier in the evening with Chaney, who offers his fighting services to Speed since the “big lug” is clearly not a good investment into the future and who is probably in a hospital overnight dealing with a concussion. Speed is hesitant to accept this offer since Chaney appears to be fairly old (Bronson was 53 when he made the film), but he changes his mind when Chaney offers his last $6 bucks to Speed to bet on him. Cut to Chaney getting his chance to fight. This is a fun scene because his opponent is the same fighter from earlier who kicked the big lug’s butt. The guy even taunts Chaney for being too old. The fight starts and it consists of two hits, Chaney hits the smartass, the smartass hits the ground. Somewhat amazed, Speed takes Chaney to New Orleans, and the two embark on an odyssey together to win fights and make thick wads of cash. The remainder of the film documents that odyssey, although it does take time out for a few “in-betweens.”
HARD TIMES is one of Bronson’s best films, and one of the main reasons why is that it provides a boatload of audience satisfaction. There are many examples of this. First is the scene mentioned above where Chaney takes out the smirking, dismissive fighter who sees our hero as too old. Too old my ass! In another scene, a bunch of unrefined Cajuns out in the boondocks refuse to pay up after Chaney kicks their fighter’s butt. Rather than pay up, the slimy Cajuns pull out a gun and dare Speed and Chaney to come take the money. Our heroes leave at that time, but Chaney convinces them to hang around out in the country for awhile so they can surprise the Cajuns under the cover of darkness at the local honkytonk, which happens to be owned by the head slimy Cajun. Chaney takes the gun, takes the money, and then shoots up the place with the gun, grinning as he saves the last bullet to shoot a mirror he’s looking directly into. It’s a fun scene that ends with Chaney, Speed and the gang speeding off into the night laughing like hyenas! In another scene, Chaney takes on the big, bald-headed, unbeatable fighter Jim Henry (Robert Tessier) in an awesome cage match. Let’s just say Jim Henry thought he was unbeatable and leave it at that. And finally, a competing New Orleans money man (Jim Henry’s guy) just can’t stand that he no longer has the top fighter in town, so he brings in a fighter from Chicago to take on Chaney. I won’t tell you what happens, but it’s some really fun stuff!
The cast of HARD TIMES also elevates the film to top tier status. I’ve already discussed Bronson and Coburn, but Strother Martin and Jill Ireland also add to the joy. Martin plays Poe, Chaney’s drug addict cut man, who dresses up like he could grow up to be Colonel Sanders in his older age. It’s a fun performance that adds a lot to the film. Jill Ireland plays Chaney’s love interest. She’s quite beautiful, but she seems to always be giving Chaney a hard time about what he does for a living. His response is usually to simply leave when she starts that BS. I thinks that’s kind of fun too.
And finally, this was the directorial debut of Walter Hill, the man behind THE WARRIORS, THE DRIVER, THE LONG RIDERS, SOUTHERN COMFORT, 48 HOURS, and RED HEAT. His movie is lean and mean, without a wasted moment that isn’t moving the film along. Hill has crafted a fun movie, filled with great performances. I think it’s one of the most underrated films of the 1970’s!
Through the Shattered Lens 