First released in 1970, the German documentary Chariots of the Gods tests the proposition that you can prove anything with stock footage and a narrator.
Chariots of the Gods takes viewers on a tour through some of the most visually impressive locations ever seen by human eyes. Look at the ruins of the Aztec and Inca civilizations! Behold a Mayan observatory! Marvel at Egypt’s pyramids! Trace the amazing Nazca Lines of South America! View the amazing “heads” of Easter Island! Be amazed that an ancient civilization was able to create a primitive battery! Feast your eyes upon colorful cave drawings of mythic beasts and powerful wizards! Examine this skull of a 200,000 year-old bison and think about just how long living things have inhabited this amazing planet!
And then read the ancient texts and consider how every civilization wrote of certain shared events, suggesting that the legendary cataclysms of mythology were based on things that actually happened. Read the words of men and women who lived centuries ago and consider that humans have always been trying to figure out how things work. Humans have always been curious and imaginative creatures and the fact that, from the beginning of time, they were inspired to record their stories indicates that we have an instinctual understanding of the importance of history.
It takes your breath away but, according to this documentary, it shouldn’t.
All of those things that you think humans did? According to Chariots of the Gods, it was the aliens. The aliens built the pyramids. The aliens inspired the cave drawings. All of those ancient texts are actually about spaceships landing on Earth and the aliens saying, “Hi.” The great flood that appears in both the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh? Aliens! Enoch’s journey into Heaven? Aliens! Elijah’s ascension? Aliens! The Nazca lines? An alien airport! The statues of Easter Island? Alien robots! Chariots of the Gods opens by suggesting that the human race is basically just a big cargo cult, worshipping stuff left behind by the aliens.
Seriously, what a depressing way to look at the world! Instead of marveling at the determination of ancient man, this documentary says that the whole thing was done by aliens and the humans were apparently just standing off to the side. Forget about celebrating ingenuity and imagination. The aliens did it all and all of the ancient stories and all of the cave drawings should be taken very literally because it’s not like the ancient artists could have just been really talented or creative. Instead, when the authors of the Epic of Gilgamesh wrote about Gilgamesh floating over the Earth, it was because it really happened! Imagination had nothing to do with it.
In the tradition of most pseudoscience documents, Chariots of the Gods is one of those documentaries that makes its point by basically refusing to accept that any other viable theories exist. Repeatedly, we’re flatly told that “scientists agree….,” as if every scientist has signed off on the idea of ancient aliens. The documentary’s narrator often informs us that there’s no way ancient people could have constructed and moved giant statues or monuments but he fails to mention that numerous studies that have argued and demonstrated that actually ancient people could very well have done all of that. Essentially, Chariots of the Gods is a travelogue in which we are shown stock footage of some really cool sights while the narrator says, “I bet an alien did that!”
Silly as it was, Chariots of the Gods was still a box office hit and it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature. It’s pseudoscientific legacy lives on today.
Made for television in 1991 and possessing a rather unwieldy title, Shoot First: A Cop’s Vengeance tells the story of two friends in San Antonio in the early 80s.
Farrell Tucker (Dale Midkiff) and Stephen Smith (Alex McArthur) are both cops. They entered the police academy together, they graduated as a part of the same class, and they both hope to be partners while working to keep the streets of San Antonio safe. Tucker is laid back and friendly and not one to worry too much about following all of the regulations. Stephen Smith, on the other hand, is uptight and, at first, by-the-book. He grew up in a poverty-stricken, crime-riddled neighborhood and it left a definite impression on him. He hates crime and criminals but what he really can’t stand is a justice system that seems to be more concerned with the victimizers than with the victims. Tucker and Smith enjoy spending their time together, drinking at the local cop bars and practicing their shooting on the weekends. Tucker’s not much of a shot, whereas Smith is a sharpshooter who rarely misses.
At first, no one notices or even cares that some of San Antonio’s less upstanding citizens are getting gunned down in the streets. But when Smith somehow manages to be first on the scene to a series of shootings, it gets the attention of Internal Affairs. With Sergeant Nicholas (Terry O’Quinn) investigating the possibility of a cop-turned-vigilante and Chief Hogan (G.D. Spradlin) announcing that no one is above the law, Smith starts to get a bit paranoid and Tucker is forced to consider that his friend could very well be a murderer.
And, of course, Tucker’s right! The first scene features Tucker confronting Smith and then the majority of the film is told in flashback. Even if not for that narrative choice, one could guess at Smith’s guilt just from the title of the film. When Shoot First: A Cop’s Vengeance was released on home video, the title was changed to Vigilante Cop, which made Smith’s guilt even more obvious. Finally, some viewers will guess that Smith is guilty because the film is based on a true story. Officer Stephen Smith actually did go on a killing spree, gunning down men who he felt had escaped the law and even sending threatening letters to his chief when the latter announced that vigilante activity would not be tolerated. Officer Stephen Smith went from being a follower of the rules to someone who attempted to write his own rules. It’s an interesting story for anyone who wants to google it.
As for the film, it’s adequate without being particularly memorable. Alex McArthur and Dale Midkiff both give good performance as Tucker and Smith and the cast is full of talented people like Terry O’Quinn, G.D. Spradlin, Bruce McGill, and Lynn Lowry. Observant viewers will even notice a long-haired Jeremy Davies, showing up for a split-second. I liked the performance of Loryn Locklin, as the waitress who marries Smith and then discovers that her charming husband actually has some very serious issues. The main problem with the film is that the story moves a bit too slowly for its own good and some of the Texas accents were more than a little dodgy. If you’re looking for an action film, this won’t be for you, though the shootings are surprisingly graphic for something that was made for television. Shoot First: A Cop’s Vengeance is a rather routine telling of an interesting story.
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.
“Honorable men go with honorable men.” — Giovanni Cappa
1973’s Mean Streets is a story about Little Italy. The neighborhood may only be a small part of the sprawling metropolis of New York but, as portrayed in this film, it’s a unique society of its very own, with its own laws and traditions. It’s a place where the old ways uneasily mix with the new world. The neighborhood is governed by old-fashioned mafiosos like Giovanni Cappa (Cesare Danova), who provide “protection” in return for payment. The streets are full of men who are all looking to prove themselves, often in the most pointlessly violent way possible. When a drunk (David Carradine) is shot in the back by a teenage assassin (Robert Carradine), no one bothers to call the police or even questions why the shooting happened. Instead, they discuss how impressed they were with the drunk’s refusal to quickly go down. When a soldier (Harry Northup) is given a party to welcome him home from Vietnam, no one is particularly shocked when the solider turns violent. Violence is a part of everyday life.
Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel) is Giovanni’s nephew, a 27 year-old man who still lives at home with his mother and who still feels guilty for having “impure” thoughts. Charlie prays in church and then goes to work as a collector for Giovanni. Giovanni is grooming Charlie to take over a restaurant, not because Charlie is particularly talented at business but just because Charlie is family. Giovanni warns Charlie not to get involved with Teresa (Amy Robinson) because Teresa has epilepsy and is viewed as being cursed. And Giovanni particularly warns Charlie not to hang out with Teresa’s cousin, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). Johnny Boy may be charismatic but everyone in the neighborhood knows that he’s out-of-control. His idea of a good time is to blow up mailboxes and shoot out street lamps. Charlie, who is so obsessed with sin and absolution that he regularly holds his hand over an open flame to experience the Hellfire that awaits the unrepentant sinner, finds himself falling in love with Teresa (though it’s debatable whether Charlie truly understands what love is) and trying to save Johnny Boy.
Charlie has other friends as well. Tony (David Proval) runs the bar where everyone likes to hang out and he seems to be the most stable of the characters in Mean Streets. He’s at peace with both the neighborhood and his place in it. Meanwhile, Michael (Robert Romanus) is a loan shark who no one seems to have much respect for, though they’re still willing to spend the afternoon watching a Kung Fu movie with him. Michael knows that his career is dependent on intimidation. He can’t let anyone get away with not paying back their money, even if they are a friend. Johnny Boy owes Michael a lot of money and he hasn’t paid back a single dollar. Johnny Boy always has an excuse for why he can’t pay back Michael but it’s obvious that he just doesn’t want to. Charlie realizes that it’s not safe for Johnny Boy in Little Italy but where else can he go? Brooklyn?
Mean Streets follows Charlie and his friends as they go about their daily lives, laughing, arguing, and often fighting. All of the characters in Mean Streets enjoy a good brawl, despite the fact that none of them are as tough as their heroes. A chaotic fight in a pool hall starts after someone takes offense to the word “mook,” despite the fact that no one can precisely define what a mook is. The fights goes on for several minutes before the police show up to end it and accept a bribe. After the cops leave, the fight starts up again. What’s interesting is that the people fighting don’t really seem to be that angry with each other. Fighting is simply a part of everyday life. Everyone is aggressive. To not fight is to be seen as being weak and no one is willing to risk that.
Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese’s third film (fourth, if you count the scenes he shot before being fired from The Honeymoon Killers) but it’s the first of his movies to feel like a real Scorsese film. Scorsese’s first film, Who’s That Knocking On My Door?, has its moments and feels like a dry run for Mean Streets but it’s still obviously an expanded student film. Boxcar Bertha was a film that Scorsese made for Roger Corman and it’s a film that could have just as easily been directed by Jonathan Demme or any of the other young directors who got their start with Corman. But Mean Streets is clearly a Scorsese film, both thematically and cinematically. Scorsese’s camera moves from scene to scene with an urgent confidence and the scene where Charlie first enters Tony’s bar immediately brings to mind the classic tracking shots from Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Casino. One gets the feeling that Pete The Killer is lurking somewhere in the background. The scenes between Keitel and De Niro are riveting. Charlie attempts to keep his friend from further antagonizing Michael while Johnny Boy tells stories that are so long and complicated that he himself can’t keep up with all the details. Charlie hold everything back while Johnny Boy always seems to be on the verge of exploding. De Niro’s performance as Johnny Boy is one that has been duplicated but never quite matched by countless actors since then. He’s the original self-destructive fool, funny, charismatic, and ultimately terrifying with his self-destructive energy.
Mean Streets was Scorsese’s first box office success and it was also the film that first brought him widespread critical acclaim. However, in a year when the totally forgotten A Touch of Class was nominated for Best Picture, Mean Streets did not receive a single Oscar nomination, not even for De Niro’s performance. Fortunately, by the time Mean Streets was released, De Niro had already started work on another film about the Mafia and Little Italy, The Godfather Part II.
The Deer Hunter, which won the 1978 Oscar for Best Picture Of The Year, opens in a Pennsylvania steel mill.
Mike (Robert De Niro), Steve (John Savage), Nick (Chistopher Walken), Stan (John Cazale), and Axel (Chuck Aspegren, a real-life steel worker who was cast in this film after De Niro met him while doing research for his role) leave work and head straight to the local bar, where they are greeted by the bartender, John (George Dzundza). It’s obvious that these men have been friends for their entire lives. They’re like family. Everyone gives Stan a hard time but deep down, they love him. Axel is the prankster who keeps everyone in a good mood. Nick is the sensitive one who settles disputes. Steve is perhaps the most innocent, henpecked by his mother (Shirley Stoler) and engaged to marry the pregnant Angela (Rutanya Alda), even though Steve knows that he’s not actually the father. And Mike is their leader, a charismatic if sometimes overbearing father figure who lives his life by his own code of honor. The men are held together by their traditions. They hunt nearly every weekend. Mike says that it’s important to only use one shot to kill a deer. Nick, at one point, confesses that he doesn’t really understand why that’s important to Mike.
Steve and Angela get married at a raucous ceremony that is attended by the entire population of their small town. The community is proud that Nick, Steve, and Mike will all soon be shipping out to Vietnam. Nick asks his girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep), to marry him when he “gets back.” At the reception, Mike gets into a fight with a recently returned soldier who refuses to speak about his experiences overseas. Mike ends up running naked down a street while Nick chases him.
The Deer Hunter is a three-hour film, with the entirety of the first hour taken up with introducing us to the men and the tight-knit community that produced them. At times, that first hour can seem almost plotless. As much time is spent with those who aren’t going to Vietnam as with those who are. But, as the film progresses, we start to understand why the film’s director, Michael Cimino, spent so much time immersing the viewer in that community of steel workers. To understand who Nick, Mike, and Steve are going to become, it’s important to know where they came from. Only by spending time with that community can we understand what it’s like to lose the security of knowing where you belong.
If the first hour of the film plays out in an almost cinema verité manner, the next two hours feel like an increasingly surreal nightmare. (Indeed, there was a part of me that suspected that everything that happened after the wedding was just Michael’s drunken dream as he lay passed out in the middle of the street.) The film abruptly cuts from the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania to the violent horror of Vietnam. A Viet Cong soldier blows up a group of hiding women and children. Michael appears out of nowhere to set the man on fire with a flame thrower. An army helicopter lands and, in a coincidence that strains credibility, Nick and Steve just happen to get out. Somehow, the three friends randomly meet each other again in Vietnam. Unfortunately, they are soon captured by the VC.
They are held prisoner in submerged bamboo cages. Occasionally, they are released and forced to play Russian Roulette. Mike once again becomes the leader, telling Steve and Nick to stay strong. Eventually, the three men do manage to escape but Steve loses his leg in the process and a traumatized Nick disappears in Saigon. Only Mike returns home.
The community seems to have changed in Mike’s absence. The once boisterous town is now quiet and cold. The banner reading “Welcome Home, Mike” almost seems to be mocking the fact that Mike no longer feels at home in his old world. Stan, Axel, and John try to pretend like nothing has changed. Mike falls in love with Linda while continuing to feel guilty for having abandoned Nick in Saigon. Steve, meanwhile, struggles to come to terms with being in a wheelchair and Nick is still playing Russian Roulette in seedy nightclubs. Crowds love to watch the blank-faced Nick risk his life.
Eventually, Mike realizes that Nick is still alive. Somehow, Mike ends up back in Saigon, just as the government is falling. Oddly, we don’t learn how Mike was able to return to Saigon. He’s just suddenly there. It’s the type of dream logic that dominates The Deer Hunter but somehow, it works. Mike searches for Nick but will he be able to save his friend?
The Deer Hunter was one of the first major films to take place in Vietnam. Among the pictures that The Deer Hunter defeated for Bet Picture was Coming Home, which was also about Vietnam but which took a far more conventional approach to its story than The Deer Hunter. Indeed, while Coming Home is rather predictable in its anti-war posture, The DeerHunter largely ignores the politics of Vietnam. Mike, Nick, and Steve are all traumatized by what they see in Vietnam. Mike is destroyed emotionally, Steve is destroyed physically, and Nick is destroyed mentally. At the same time, the VC are portrayed as being so cruel and sadistic that it’s hard not to feel that the film is suggesting that, even if we did ultimately lose the war, the Americans were on the correct side and trying to do the right thing. (Many critics of The Deer Hunter have pointed out that there are no records of American POWs being forced to play Russian Roulette. That’s true. There are however records of American POWs being forced to undergo savage torture that was just as potentially life-threatening. Regardless of what one thinks of America’s involvement in Vietnam, there’s no need to idealize the VC.) Released just a few years after the Fall of Saigon, The Deer Hunter was a controversial film and winner. (Of course, in retrospect, the film is actually quite brilliant in the way it appeals to both anti-war and pro-war viewers without actually taking a firm position itself.)
In the end, though, The Deer Hunter isn’t really about the reality of the war or the politics behind it. Instead, it’s a film about discovering that the world is far more complicated that you originally believed it to be. De Niro is a bit too old to be playing such a naive character but still, he does a good job of portraying Mike’s newfound sense of alienation from his former home. In Vietnam, everything he believed in was challenged and he returns home unsure of where he stands. While John, Axel, and Stan can continue to hunt as if nothing happened, Mike finds that he can no longer buy into his own philosophical BS about the importance of only using one shot. Everything that he once believed no longer seems important.
It’s a good film and a worthy winner, even if it does sometimes feel more like a happy accident than an actual cohesive work of art. The plot is often implausible but then again, the film takes place in a world gone mad so even the plot holes feel appropriate to the story being told. Christopher Walken won an Oscar for his haunting performance as Nick and John Savage should have been nominated alongside of him. This was Meryl Streep’s first major role and she gives a surprisingly naturalistic performance. During filming, Streep was living with John Cazale and she largely did the film to be near him. Cazale was dying of lung cancer and he is noticeably frail in this film. (I cringed whenever Mike hit Stan because Cazale was obviously not well in those scenes.) Cazale, one of the great character actors of the 70s, died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale only appeared in five films and all of them were nominated for Best Picture. Three of them — The first two Godfathers and The Deer Hunter — won.
The Deer Hunter is a long, exhausting, overwhelming, and ultimately very moving film. Whatever flaws it may have, it earns its emotional finale. Though one can argue that some of the best films of 1978 were not even nominated (Days of Heaven comes to mind, as do more populist-minded films like Superman and Animal House), The Deer Hunter deserved its Oscar.
Caligula is a film with a long and storied history. In the mid-1970s, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione wanted to follow the lead of his rival, Hugh Hefner, and get into the movie business. His plan was to make an explicit adult film with high production values, one that could be sold as a mainstream feature film. He decided that the infamously decadent Roman Emperor Caligula would be the subject of his film. In order to give the project some gravitas, he accepted scripts from both Lina Wertmuller and Gore Vidal. Ultimately, he chose to go with Vidal’s script because Vidal’s name had more cultural cachet than Wertmuller’s. It certainly wasn’t because he liked Vidal’s script, which Vidal later said featured a lot of gay sex but only one scene of heterosexual coupling.
With the promise that Caligula would be a classy production that would push the boundaries of cinematic sex without actually being pornographic, Guccione was able to bring together a truly impressive cast of actors. Malcolm McDowell agreed to play Caligula. Helen Mirren was cast as Caligula’s wife, Caesonia. John Gielgud took on the role of Nerva the philosopher while Peter O’Toole was cast as the diseased Emperor Tiberius. Guccione offered directing duties to John Huston and Lina Wertmuller. In the end, no matter how much money he was willing to spend or how distinguished a cast he had assembled, Guccione could not find a prominent, mainstream director who was willing to work with him. Guccione ended up hiring a director he knew little about, an Italian arthouse filmmaker named Tinto Brass.
Brass proceeded to rewrite Vidal’s script. Brass’s version of the film featured more sex and less politics. Guccione was happy about that until he discovered that Brass’s plan was to direct the sex scenes to be grotesque and disturbing. To his horror, Guccione discovered that Brass was essentially parodying the type of film that Guccione wanted him to direct. Even when Guccione insisted that the latest “Penthouse pets” be cast in the film, Brass tried to keep them in the background. As Guccione’s demands grew, Brass responded by refusing to emphasize the ornate and very expensive sets that Guccione had paid to have created. A working ship was built but Brass reportedly chose to put it in a small warehouse so that there would never be room to get a full shot of it. Guccione responded by taking the film away in post-production and inserting several hardcore sex scenes, which upset the members of the cast who did not sign on to appear in a pornographic film.
As for the film itself, it must be said that Caligula is probably one of the most historically accurate portrayals of ancient Rome. The city was said to be a mix of dirty streets and ornate palaces and Caligula certainly captured the mix of beauty and sordid decadence that was the Roman Empire. The film’s plot actually sticks very closely to what was written about Caligula by Roman historians like Suetonius. Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell both give strong performances, even if McDowell later claimed the film ruined his career by typecasting him as a perverse villain. Peter O’Toole is memorably grotesque as Tiberius. Exploitation vets John Steiner and Teresa Ann Savoy also make an impression in their roles and one gets the feeling that they both understood what type of film they were appearing in, even if the bigger names in the cast did not. There are moments of shocking grandeur and visual beauty to be found in Caligula and also moments of such total ugliness that they are difficult to watch. In many ways, Caligula is what Guccione wanted. It’s a big, expensive film that tests boundaries and features explicit sex.
But, Good God, is it ever boring! Seriously, the scene where Caligula visits Tiberius in Capri goes on forever. Despite McDowell’s strong performance, Caligula is not a particularly compelling character. He becomes emperor and then he goes mad. For over two hours, Caligula does one terrible thing after another and there’s only so long that you can watch it before you just want someone to hurry up and kill him. The film suggests that Caligula was rebelling against the Roman establishment but, in the end, who cares? He kills his friends. He has sex with his sister. In the film’s most disturbing scene, he rapes a bride and then fists the groom. It just goes on and on and it gets old pretty quickly.
Still, there’s always been a lot of debate over whether or not it would be possible to make Caligula into a good film. Bob Guccione claimed that he saved the film. Tinto Brass disagreed and his director’s cut, which takes out Guccione’s hardcore inserts, is considerably better-paced than the Guccione version but the nonstop ugliness still gets rather boring.
That brings us to the latest version of Caligula, the Ultimate Cut. Assembled without the input of Tinto Brass or the deceased Bob Guccione, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut played at Cannes in 2023 and was given a limited release by Drafthouse Films in 2024. It was largely assembled out of unused footage and alternate takes. I’ve read that not a single fame from the original version of Caligula is in The Ultimate Cut but I don’t think that’s quite true. (The scene with the giant beheading machine appears to be the same footage that appeared in the original version.) Caligula: The Ultimate Cut removes all of Guccione’s hardcore footage but it also downplays a lot of Brass’s directorial flourishes as well. Instead, The Ultimate Cut is said to much more closely follow Gore Vidal’s vision of the film.
Is the Ultimate Cut any good? It definitely looks better than the previous version of Caligula. The restoration makes Rome into a very colorful city. There’s a bit more humor to McDowell’s performance in the Ultimate Cut. While his version of Caligula still becomes a monster (and the wedding rape is still included in the film), he starts out as a clown whose mission is to humiliate the Roman establishment in much the same way that Tiberius used to humiliate him. In The Ultimate Cut, Caligula is much more of an anarchist. At the same time, the Ultimate Cut features a bit less of John Steiner as the duplicitous Longinus and that’s a shame because Steiner’s performance was one of the best in the original version. As well, Helen Mirren’s performance is stronger in the original version than in The Ultimate Cut. The alternate takes that were used in The Ultimate Cut often seem to favor McDowell over Mirren.
That said, The Ultimate Cut is still a bit of an endurance test. Caligula’s meeting with Tiberius still goes on forever and the nonstop evil of his reign still gets a bit dull after a while. It turns out that Caligula the Anarchist is no more compelling than Caligula the Madman. Brass and even Guccione may have had a point with the original version of Caligula. Caligula is a film that requires a truly sordid and shameless sensibility to be interesting.
In the end, it’s hard not to feel that all of this could have been avoided if Gemellus had been named emperor.
If you study the history of the International Left in the years immediately following the death of Lenin, it quickly becomes apparent that the era was defined by the rivalry between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky.
Trotsky, the self-styled intellectual who was credited with forming the Red Army and who many felt was Lenin’s favorite, believed that he should succeed Lenin as the leader of Communist Russia. Stalin, the ruthless nationalist who made up in brutality what he lacked in intelligence, disagreed. Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky, succeeding Lenin as the leader of the USSR and eventually kicking Trotsky out of the country. Trotsky would spend the rests of his life in exile, a hero to some and a pariah to others. While Stalin starved his people and signed non-aggression pacts with Hitler, Trotsky called for worldwide revolution. To Stalin, Trotsky was a nuisance whose continued existence ran the risk of making Stalin look weak. When Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico in 1940, there was little doubt who had given the order. After Totsky’s death, the American Communist Party, which had already been weakened by the signing of the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, was further divided into Stalinist and Trotskyite factions.
Ideologically, was there a huge difference between Stalin and Trotsky? Many historians have suggested that Trotsky probably would have taken many of the same actions that Stalin took had Trotsky succeeded Lenin. Indeed, the idea that Trotsky was somehow a force of benevolence has more to do with the circumstances of his assassination than anything that Trotsky either said or did. In the end, the main difference between Stalin and Trotsky seemed to be Trotsky was a good deal more charismatic than Stalin. Unlike Trotsky, Stalin couldn’t tell a joke. However, Stalin could order his enemies killed whenever he felt like it and some people definitely found that type of power to be appealing. Trotsky could write essays. Stalin could kill Trotsky.
First released in 1972, The Assassination of Trotsky is a cinematic recreation of the events leading to the death of Leon Trotsky in Mexico. French actor Alain Delon plays Frank Jacson, the Spanish communist who was tasked with infiltrating Trotsky’s inner circle and assassinating him with a pickaxe. Welsh actor Richard Burton plays the Russian Trotsky, giving long-winded monologues about world revolution. Italian Valentina Cortese also plays a Russian, in this case Trotsky’s wife, Natalia. And finally, French actress Romy Schneider plays Gita Samuels, who is based on Jacson’s American girlfriend. This international cast was directed by Joseph Losey, an American director who joined the Communist Party in 1946 and who moved to Europe during the McCarthy era.
Losey was an interesting director. Though his first American feature film was the anti-war The Boy With Green Hair, the majority of his American films were on the pulpy side. Not surprisingly, his European films were far more open in their politics. Losey directed his share of undeniable masterpieces, like The Servant, Accident, and The Go-Between. At the same time, he also directed his share of misfires, the majority of which were bad in the way that only a bad film directed by a good director can be. The same director who gave the world The Go-Between was also responsible for Boom!
And then there’s The Assassination of Trotsky. It’s a bit of an odd and rather uneven film. Alain Delon’s performance as the neurotic assassin holds up well and some of his scenes of Romy Schneider have a true erotic charge to them. The scenes of Delon wandering around Mexico with his eyes hidden behind his dark glasses may not add up too much but they do serve as a reminder that Delon was an actor who could make almost any scene feel stylish.
But then we have Richard Burton, looking like Colonel Sanders and not even bothering to disguise his Welsh accent while playing one of the most prominent Russians of the early 20th Century. The film features many lengthy monologues from Trotsky, all of which Burton delivers in a style that is very theatrical but also devoid of any real meaning. As played by Burton, Trotsky comes across as being a pompous phony, a man who loudly calls for world revolution while hiding out in his secure Mexican villa. Now, for all I know, Trotsky could have been a pompous phony. He certainly would not have been the first or last communist to demand the proletariat fight while he remained secure in a gated community. The problem is that the film wants us to admire Trotsky and to feel that the world was robbed of a great man when Jacson drove that pickaxe into his head. That’s not the impression that one gets from watching Burton’s performance. If anything, Burton’s overacting during the assassination scene will likely inspire more laughs than tears.
The Assassination of Trotsky is one of those films that regularly appears on lists of the worst ever made. I feel that’s a bit extreme. The film doesn’t work but Alain Delon was always an intriguing screen presence. (Interestingly enough, Delon himself was very much not a supporter of communism or the Left in general.) The film fails as a tribute to Trotsky but it does make one appreciate Alain Delon.
Rod Steiger won an Oscar for playing Chief Gillipsie in In The Heat of the Night but his co-star, Sidney Poitier, wasn’t even nominated. Despite the fact that Poitier delivered the line that everyone remembers — “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” — the Academy saw fit not nominate him alongside his co-star.
Timothy Hutton won an Oscar for his wonderful performance in Ordinary People but Donald Sutherland, cast against type as his conservative father and giving a heartfelt and heart-breaking performance, was not nominated.
In 1949, Walter Huston won a deserved Oscar for his performance in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre but, somehow, Humphrey Bogart was left out of the nominations.
Martin Landau was honored for playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood but Johnny Depp, playing the film’s title character, was ignored.
It’s something that has been happening since the announcement of the very first Academy Award nominations. Someone will win an Oscar and usually, they very much deserve it. Often, they’re a very popular winner because they’ve either overcome adversity or they’ve been nominated several times in the past without winning. But, in all the excitement over their victory, their equally worthy co-stars are overlooked.
John DiLeo’s Not Even Nominated takes a look at forty overlooked co-stars of Oscar-winning performers. Along with those that I mentioned at the start of this review, DiLeo also writes about performances from everyone from Charles Farrell in Seven Heaven to Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story to Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love and Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained. Some of DiLeo’s picks are familiar to film lovers. The fact that Poitier wasn’t even nominated in 1968 despite starring in three popular and acclaimed films is something that has been discussed in many books and cultural histories. But DiLeo also gives some time to some equally strong performances that aren’t always cited, like Ryan O’Neal’s performance in Paper Moon and Dirk Bogarde’s turn in Darling and Stephen Boyd’s brilliant (and rather brave) work in Ben-Hur.
It makes for interesting reading. (It helps the DiLeo has an opinionated but enjoyable writing style.) For Oscar obsessives like you and me, it’s a must-have.
In 1990’s Days of Thunder, Tom Cruise plays Cole Trickle, a talented but headstrong racecar driver who is recruited by businessman Tim Daland (Randy Quaid) to become a NASCAR champion and to also provide some publicity for Daland’s Chevrolet dealership. Tim convinces Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) to come out of retirement and serve as Cole’s crew chief. Harry builds cars in his barn and then he talks to them, whispering sweet nothings into their side mirrors. (This happens quite a bit.) Both Cole and Harry have something to prove. Cole has to prove that he’s the best. Harry has to prove, to himself, that an accident that killed one of his driver was not his fault. Harry also has to prove that he’s not insane. That’s not an easy thing to do when you’re always in the barn, talking to a car.
At first, Cole’s rival is Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker) but, after Rowdy is seriously injured in a crash and told that he will never race again, Rowdy becomes Cole’s closest friend and supporter. With Rowdy off the circuit, Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes) becomes Cole’s main rival. We know that Russ is a bad guy because he never has a hair out of place and he’s played by Cary Elwes, who for some reason was always cast as the smug bad guy in films like this despite having a rather charming screen presence.
Cole’s love interest is Dr. Claire Lewicki (Nicole Kidman), who is there to help Cole deal with his anger issues and who is surprisingly forgiving of all the times that Cole acts like a complete and total jerk. That happens quite a bit. Cole is a bit of brat but eventually, with the help of everyone around him, he learns how to be a great driver.
The first time I ever saw Days of Thunder, I was pretty dismissive of it. The film was producer and directed by the same people who were behind Top Gun and it pretty much tells the same story, except the jets are replaced with cars and the stakes are a bit less than saving democracy. Like Top Gun, it was a film where Tom Cruise played a character who wants to be the best but who has to learn how to set aside his own ego and take control of his impulsive nature. The first time I saw the film, I shrugged and said that, while Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise had a lot more chemistry than Cruise and Kelly McGillis, it was still nothing that I hadn’t seen before.
But I have to admit that, since then, I’ve rewatched the film a few times. It’s one of those movies that I never specifically seek out but if I see it playing somewhere on cable, I’ll usually watch a bit of it. Some of it is because the race scenes actually are exciting, even if they do get a bit repetitive after a while. Tony Scott was a director who knew how to film action. The other major reason why I often find myself watching Days of Thunder is for the totally over-the-top performances of Robert Duvall and Randy Quaid.
“We looked like a monkey fucking a football out there!” Quaid exclaims, not once but twice. It’s a phrase that doesn’t make the least bit of sense and it’s one of those lines of dialogue that reminds us that Days of Thunder went into production with a script that was being written and rewritten on a daily basis. But Randy Quaid’s delivery is so emphatic that line works despite being totally stupid.
As for Robert Duvall, his performance here is a perfect example of how much fun it can be to watch a legitimately great actor overact. There’s nothing subtle about his performance and I doubt Days of Thunder will ever be a film that shows up when people are talking about the highlights of his legendary career. But when Duvall talks to his car, you believe every minute of it. It’s such a silly scene but Duvall pulls it off like the pro that he is.
Finally, if you’re going to watch a movie about two cocky race car drivers who are constantly taunting each other, wouldn’t you want them to look like Tom Cruise and Cary Elwes? Good lookin’ guys in fast cars, drivin’ around Southern racetracks, what’s not to love?
I swear, the crap that I watch just because it features Eric Roberts….
2016’s Enemy Within takes place in Los Angeles. A drug war is being fought on the streets and the local news is full of stories about violence, immigration, and the presidential election. Born in Italy, Concetta Masconi (Romina Di Lella) has come to Los Angeles to be a dancer and has ended up working as a stripper at a club owned by Jack (Eric Roberts).
When Concetta is attacked by an axe-wielding maniac, she is nearly raped until the sound of an approaching siren scares her attacker away. With Detective Solano (William McNamara) investigating the case and another detective named Nick (Damian Chapa) looking out for her, Concetta continues to date Max (Paulo Benedeti), despite the fact that Max has a history of abusing women and he’s the number one suspect in her own attack. Solano yells that Concetta is not taking any of this seriously. Little does he know that Concetta has been suffering from slow motion, black-and-white flashbacks.
When Concetta is attacked for a second time, she goes into hiding with a group of Latino gangsters. But can even they protect her from her attacker?
So, this is a pretty bad movie. It was obviously meant to be a showcase for Romina Di Lella but whatever hope she may have had of giving a good performance is pretty much sabotaged by a script that is full of confusing motivations and truly risible dialogue. Along with being poorly paced (certain scenes just go on forever!), the film itself is just truly unpleasant to watch. The rapes scenes were filmed to titillate and the inclusion of some light S&M feels less daring and more like an attempt to trick the 50 Shades crowd into watching. I’ve seen a lot of bad films in my quest to see every movie that Eric Roberts has made. This is one of the worst.
As for Roberts’s performance, he gets a few more scenes than usual and he does a good enough job with his one-dimensional role but his character still turns out to be a red herring. Roberts brings a few moments of intentional comedy to the film but otherwise, it’s a role that almost anyone could have played. In his autobiography, Eric Roberts wrote that he largely appears in films like this for the money. Hopefully, he got paid for this one.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
Godzilla gets a brand new backstory in 2002’s Godzilla against Mechagodzilla!
That’s not a surprise. At the start of the 21st century, when Toho was still trying to figure out how their biggest star would function in a new world, nearly every Godzilla film was a reboot that pretty much ignored all of the films that came before it, with the exception of the original Gojira. Godzilla against Mechagodzilla opens with Japan being attacked by Godzilla but it’s not the same Godzilla from the original film. That Godzilla actually did die as a result of the Oxygen destroyer. However, its relatives are still out there and occasionally, one will pop up and attack Japan. Japan has gotten a reputation for being cursed.
However, a discovery has been made that could change everything. The skeleton of the original Godzilla has been discovered and it has been used to create a cyborg Godzilla. The cyborg Godzilla is called Kiryu but, in appearance, it’s pretty much just Mechagodzilla all over again. Kiryu is able to defeat the new Godzilla but the battle triggers memories of its former life and soon, it’s going on a rampage of its own. Eventually, being a cyborg, it runs out of power but it’s obvious that Kiryu will need the guiding hand of a human. How about Lt. Akane Yushiro (Yukimo Shaku), who is undeniably talented but whose previous battle against the latest version of Godzilla has left her haunted by guilt and also caused others to doubt her abilities? Can she pilot Kiryu and save Japan from future Godzilla attacks?
Fortunately, Godzilla against Mechagodzilla know what its mission is. It understands that the majority of its audience is watching because they want to see Godzilla use his radioactive breath to destroy things and they want to see Mechagodzilla shoot lasers beams out of his eyes. The movie delivers both of those things, often in spectacular fashion. The special effects are certainly better than the special effects from Godzilla’s earlier Toho films but they still look primitive enough to retain the franchise’s B-movie charm. The film’s battle scenes are truly impressive and live up to the Godzilla name. As for the “human” story, Yumiko Shaku gives a strong performance and is likable as Akane and you actually do want her to get her chance to prove herself. While this film isn’t quite as enjoyably weird as some of the other entries, it’s still an above-average Godzilla film and a worthy chapter in the series. In fact, Godzilla against Mechagodzilla worked so well that the next entry in the series was not a reboot but a direct sequel! We’ll check that out next week.
Through the Shattered Lens 