Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to actor Malcolm McDowell.
Today’s scene that I love comes from 1971’s A Clockwork Orange, featuring McDowell as Alex. This opening scene is famous for its music and its production design but what truly makes it work is the intensity of McDowell’s stare and the seductive menace of his half-smile.
Halloween Night, 1965. While the high school holds a pep rally and the Beverly Hills Homeowners Association debate the best way to tackle the problem of juvenile delinquency, the Hollywood Knights hang out at Tubby’s Drive-In, their favorite burger joint. The Hollywood Knights are a car club and a group of fun-loving rebels, determined to have a good time and to always humiliate Officers Clark (Sandy Helberg) and Bimbeau (Gailard Sartain). In practice, this amounts to a lot of jokes about flatulence and Newcomb Turk (Robert Wuhl) mooning the cops every chance the he gets. I’m hoping a stunt butt was used for the mooning shots. If I had known watching Hollywood Knights would mean seeing Robert Wuhl’s bare ass a dozen times over 91 minutes, I wouldn’t have started the movie.
The humor is crude but the movie has a serious side, one that was cribbed from American Graffiti. Duke (Tony Danza), a senior member of the club, is upset that his girlfriend (Michelle Pfeiffer, in her film debut) is working as a car hop. He’s also sad that his buddy, Jimmy Shine (Gary Graham), is leaving in the morning for the Army. Jimmy’s not worried about being sent to Vietnam because Americans are only being sent over there as advisors. Hollywood Knights doesn’t end with a Graffiti-style epilogue but if it did, Jimmy would be the one who never came home. The serious scenes work better than the comedy, due to the performances of Gary Graham, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tony Danza. I can’t believe I just said that either. Danza, though he’s way too old to be playing a high school student, is actually really good in this movie. Pfeiffer doesn’t get to do much but, from her first scene, it’s easy to see why she became a star. The camera loves her and she brings her character to life, despite not having much screen time.
Unfortunately, the drama takes a back seat to a lot of repetitive humor. The problem isn’t that the humor is crude. One thing that has always been true is that, regardless of the year, teenage boy humor is the crudest humor imaginable. Even back in prehistorical times, teenage boys were probably drawing dirty pictures on the walls of their caves. The problem is that the humor is boring and Robert Wuhl is even more miscast as a high school student as Tony Danza was. Fran Drescher plays a high school student with whom Turk tries to hook up. Drescher, like Pfeiffer, comes across as being a future star in the making. Robert Wuhl comes across as being the future creator of Arli$$.
The Hollywood Knights has a bittersweet ending, the type that says, “It’ll never be 1965 again.” This movie made me happy that it will never be 1965 again. 1965 should have sued The Hollywood Knights for slander. Hollywood Knights tried to mix the nostalgia of American Graffiti with the raunchiness of Animal House but it didn’t have the heart or creativity of either film. At least some of the member of the cast went onto better things.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we pay tribute to a classic year in film. It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 1950 Films
Orpheus (1950, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Nicolas Hayer)
Sunset Boulevard (1950, dir by Billy Wilder, DP; John F. Seitz)
All About Eve (1950, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, DP: Milton R. Krassner)
In A Lonely Place (1950, dir by Nicholas Ray, DP: Burnett Guffey)
We live in chaotic times.
You know what the best name in dealing with chaos is?
The name is Dalton.
Today’s scene that I love comes from perhaps the greatest film ever made, 1989’s Road House!
Get ’em, Dalton!
It’s been awhile since I first saw Michael Jai White in the low budget action film, BLOOD AND BONE. One thing I do remember from that initial viewing is how badass I found the opening scene! It’s definitely NSFW, but I’m glad to be able share it with you today. Enjoy!
Michael Jai White is Bone, an ex-convict who also happens to be a badass martial artist. After getting out of prison, Bone heads to Los Angeles and rents a room from Tamara (Nona Gaye), a foster mother to three kids. Once there, he hooks up with Pinball (Dante Basco) and enters the underground street-fighting scene, quickly gaining a reputation as the best fighter around. This catches the attention of the ruthless James (Eamonn Walker) who controls the local fighting action. Bone takes a special interest in James’ woman, the beautiful Angela (Michelle Belegrin). When Bone easily dispatches James’ best fighter Hammer (Bob Sapp), James invites him into his life because he wants him to take on Pretty Boy Price (Matt Mullins). Price is the prize fighter of the wealthy and powerful Franklin McVeigh (Julian Sands), and James sees Bone as his chance to beat Price and join the big time. But Bone is much more complicated than he initially seems, and he has an agenda that involves Angela and keeping a promise he made to an old friend.
I’m a fan of B-movie star and martial artist Michael Jai White. I remember buying the DVD of BLOOD AND BONE a decade or more ago and thinking it was a good movie. I decided to revisit the film today and my opinion remains the same. It has a memorable opening scene where mixed martial artist Kimbo Slice and his crew confront White’s character Bone in the bathroom of an unnamed prison. Slice runs his mouth, and we soon learn that Bone is the biggest badass around. It’s a simple, awesome scene that proves to be a perfect introduction to our hero. From this point forward, BLOOD AND BONE seems to follow a similar storyline to my favorite Charles Bronson film HARD TIMES (1975). In HARD TIMES, Bronson is a badass fighter who rolls into town, hooks up with the fast talking James Coburn, dominates the local street fighting competition, and then heads back out of town. In BLOOD AND BONE, Michael Jai White rolls into town, hooks up with the fast talking Dante Basco, and dominates the local street fighting competition. However, in this film we find out that White is doing all of this to keep a jailhouse promise to a friend before heading out of town. I like White as an actor, martial artist, and charismatic screen presence, so I was all in as the action and the story played out.
Aside from Michael Jai White’s basic badass character, I also like the relationship that develops between his Bone and Nona Gaye’s character, Tamara. She has a world weariness and bullshit detector, but she also realizes that his character has more depth than it may initially appear. They have some good moments sprinkled throughout the film that seem more grounded in reality than your typical B action movie relationships. Eamonn Walker is appropriately evil as the ruthless James, a man who has zero redeeming qualities. His character may not be set in the real world, but a movie like this needs someone to really dislike and Walker fits the bill. Dante Basco is fine as the fast-talking Pinball who helps break Bone into the underground fighting scene, but I didn’t find his character especially memorable. Julian Sands is prominently billed, but his part is quite small. He shows up at the beginning and the end, and delivers an outrageous monologue to Eamonn Walker about how he and his rich, white buddies are entertained by African Americans, but they don’t really want to hang out with them. It’s a pretty uncomfortable scene to be honest with you even though it’s being delivered to a completely despicable character.
Overall, I like BLOOD AND BONE as a badass action and martial arts film with some heart. It’s not always easy to watch as it’s pretty violent, with multiple arms broken and shoulders dislocated to graphic effect. It also throws around some inappropriate slurs, which is somewhat typical of B movies made fifteen to twenty years ago, but they still stand out in this day and time. However, thanks to Michael Jai White’s badass performance, BLOOD AND BONE delivers the goods for anyone looking for an entertaining, bone-crunching action film. In that context, I definitely recommend it. See the trailer below:
The South American drug cartels have been getting too aggressive so the American government decides to take them out with Apache helicopters. Missions leaders Tommy Lee Jones and Dale Dye know that these helicopters are the ultimate weapons of death and that things could go terribly wrong if they recruit the wrong pilots.
So, of course, they get Nicholas Cage and Sean Young to fly them.
Fire Birds was an attempt to redo Top Gun with helicopters. It does actually improve on Top Gun in that it gives the pilots an actual villain to fight. The drug cartels and the German mercenary (Bert Rhine) that they hire are good B-movie villains and an improvement on the faceless and apparently nationless bad guys who showed up at the end of Top Gun. What Fire Birds cannot improve on are the flying sequences because fighter planes are just more exciting than to watch than helicopters.
The best thing about the movie is that it brought Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones together and their acting styles mesh far better than I think anyone would expect. Sean Young is about as believable as a helicopter pilot as you would expect her to be, which is to say not at all. There’s a reason why Young’s best performance was as a robot.
“I. Am. The. Greatest!” Nicolas Cage says in the movie and he sounds convinced. Fire Birds makes the case that Cage is the greatest when it comes to making something bad watchable. This movie would be thoroughly forgettable if not for his presence and the same can be said about a lot of other movies as well. But, Tommy Lee Jones can lay claim to the “Greatest” title as well. Five years after Fire Birds, Tommy Lee Jones would tell Jim Carrey, “I cannot sanction your buffoonery,” and the passage of time has shown that Jones knew what he was talking about. Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones should make more movies together.
Composer Carmine Coppola, the father of Francis Ford Coppola, was born 115 years ago today.
Coppola composed music for almost all of his son’s films. To me, his best work was the menacing and dream-like score that he and Francis put together for 1979’s Apocalypse Now. Some of that score can be heard in today’s scene of the day, as Willard (Martin Sheen) and the boat approach a bridge that is built every day and destroyed every night.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we wish a happy birthday to Canadian filmmaker, Paul Lynch! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Paul Lynch Films
Prom Night (1980, dir by Paul Lynch, DP: Robert C. New)
No Contest (1995, dir by Paul Lynch, DP: Curtis Petersen)
No Contest II (1996, dir by Paul Lynch, DP: Barry Gravelle)
The Keeper (2004, dir by Paul Lynch, DP: Curtis Petersen)
This is an interesting interview that Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin did together when they were promoting their movie DEATH HUNT. The interviewer is Bobbie Wygant, a film critic and talk show host who worked in Fort Worth, TX, at television station KXAS-TV for over 70 years. She was especially known for the multitude of celebrity interviews that she completed over the years. She passed away just last year at 97 years of age. Here, Bronson and Marvin begin discussing their current film, DEATH HUNT, and then they move on to discuss their early films and other actors they worked with like Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy. It’s fascinating stuff, and both actors come across as perceptive and insightful. If you like to know the men behind the famous faces, this is a fun little interview to watch.
Through the Shattered Lens 