Today’s song of the day comes from Ennio Morricone’s score for Sergio Leone’s 1971 film, Duck, You Sucker! Also known as A Fistful of Dynamite, this is probably Leone’s most underrated film and Morricone’s excellent score seems to be a bit underrated as well.
Though it may have been dismissed when originally released, many critics have recently discovered that the film actually holds up surprisingly well. So does Morricone’s score.
Considering I am not on TikTok I of course heard about that challenge to watch the first scene of Gaspar Noé’s self-important, wish-fulfillment film called Love (2015). Fortunately, I had already subjected myself to that movie back in 2015. Unfortunately, that challenge apparently started with some Polish movie I had never heard of before called 365 Days. At the time of writing this post, this is the plot summary on IMDb for it:
Massimo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia family and Laura is a sales director. She does not expect that on a trip to Sicily trying to save her relationship, Massimo will kidnap her and give her 365 days to fall in love with him.
As no one will remember, when Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015) came out I tweeted that it sounded like it was a film for kids to watch during a sleepover so they can think they saw something. It turned out to be accurate. The plot summary above for 365 Days made me think the same thing, so of course I watched it. Don’t judge me. The previous three movies I watched were DDR With Joey King (The Kissing Booth 2), Basically Lego Power Rangers (The Lego Ninjago Movie), and Late Night Cable With 90’s 3D Graphics (Virtual Girl). I already know I have bad taste. So what did I think of it?
It’s not worth your time unless you are a kid who is looking for a movie that will make you think you saw something salacious. Go figure that it’s the same thing I said about Fifty Shades Of Grey. It’s almost like I mentioned that for a reason.
To add a little depth, it’s a pale imitation of something I could see Italian director Lina Wertmüller doing back in the 70s or 80s but with some modern, stylish set design and cinematography added on to it. Specifically, I’m thinking of Wertmüller’s Swept Away (1974)
Swept Away (1974)
and Summer Night With Greek Profile, Almond Eyes And Scent Of Basil (1986).
Summer Night With Greek Profile, Almond Eyes And Scent Of Basil (1986)
And that’s me being very, very kind.
Here’s a couple screenshots that people have included on IMDb for obvious reasons. They get across what it’s like to watch this movie.
We meet again Joey King.
Summer ’03 (2018, dir. Becca Gleason)
It’s an image that is so taboo that it is quickly undercut by the poster for a coming-of-age movie with Joey King. It’s one of the many teases without any substance behind it that you’ll find in this film.
Yes, I’m aware it’s also similar to the poster for Lolita 2000 (1998). You don’t need to remind me.
You might think that he is going to tame her like that lion back there. But like almost all of the sex stuff in this movie, it’s over very quickly and/or goes nowhere like the scene pictured above. Another woman shows up on the other side of the room, she appears to be kissing his knee over and over instead of centering herself, he approaches the kidnapped lady, and then decides against doing anything.
The only scene I remember being complete was a blow job he gets on an airplane from someone else to establish that he takes what he wants. That’s why aside from kidnapping her, he doesn’t really take what he wants in this movie. He nudges her in various ways to try and convince her to give it to him. Character development? I think it was their way of pretending as if she had at least as much choice as Beauty/Belle in Beauty And The Beast, which greatly varies depending on the film version you watch.
This is one of those erotica movies that if you haven’t seen something like it, or something more interesting, then it will still wash on by you without leaving much of an impression. It looks stylish. It’s well-shot. It tries to have some sort of forbidden plot-line to entice you into watching it and others into getting worked up about it. That’s about it!
I wish I had more to say, but I don’t think I should be recommending anything more along these lines–you can find those yourself. It’s also so forgettable that I’m losing memories of it as I type. I don’t think I can even say that it’s worth taking the time to riff. Skip it.
Continuing our tribute to Ennio Morricone, today’s song of the day is the main theme from 1965’s For A Few Dollars More. If Sergio Leone’s version of the old west was as a mythological landscape, Morricone’s music was always the perfect soundtrack.
Well, we’re starting in on the final week of our tribute to Ennio Morricone so today, I want to share one of his most important compositions.
The 1970 film, Investigation Of A Citizen About Suspicion, was a dark satire about police corruption and murder in Italy. It was not only critically acclaimed but it also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (That award is now known as Best International Film.) The success of this film showed that Morricone was more than just a composer of epic Western themes and it also introduced his music to a whole new group of filmgoers.
Here is Morricone’s Main Theme From Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion:
The 1975 film Autopsy is a great giallo, one that definitely deserves to be better known than it is. Another thing that deserves to be better known is Ennio Morricone’s wonderful score for this film. Hence, today’s song of the day: Ennio Morricone’s Main Theme From Autopsy!
I mean, I’ve often been tempted to get one, even though I pretty much know all about my family history. My maternal grandmother was born in Spain while my grandfather’s parents came to this country from Italy. On my father’s side of the family, everyone is pretty much Irish with a little bit of German and French mixed in. Despite the fact that I know all of this, it’s still tempting to do the whole DNA thing because then I’d have percentages to go along with my family history. Percentages make every story better, or so I’ve heard.
Of course, there’s a lot of other people who get DNA tests because they’re hoping that they’ll turn out to have a really badass ancestor or that they’ll find some evidence that they’re actually more interesting than they appear to be. Remember when Elizabeth Warren got that DNA test that proved she had less Native American ancestry than the average American? That’s not a story that you’ll see repeated in a 23andMe commercial but it’s one that I found fascinating as an example of the importance that people put on having interesting ancestors. I mean, technically, what’s wrong with saying, “Yes, my family’s boring but I’m not?” Instead, we all want to say, “I’m interesting and so is everyone who has ever shared my DNA!”
That said, I’ll still probably never get a DNA test. People always assume that DNA tests and ancestry research are going to bring them good news (“and then I discovered that I’m descended from the first person to ever open up a fast food restaurant in the state of Wyoming and it just changed everything….”) but it seems to me like they’re just asking for trouble. Sure, you might be descended from a great and respected historical figure. Then again, you also might discover that the people you thought were your parents stole you from the hospital. You might discover that your father was actually the Goatman or something. (It could happen.) I mean, seriously, why take the risk when you can just take your grandmother’s word that, just because some your ancestors fought with Franco in the Spanish Civil War, that doesn’t mean that they necessarily agreed with him about everything.
In Adopted in Danger, Candace (Allison Paige) actually does have a fairly good reason for wanting to get a DNA test. She’s adopted and she has no idea who her birth parents are. At the very least, she would like to know where she came from just so she can have a complete medical history before she and her husband try to start a family. That certainly seems reasonable but, unfortunately, it turns out to be a lot more trouble than its worth. Candace’s DNA indicates that she’s the daughter of real estate developer Tom Mason (Jason Brooks). However, when Candace goes to see Tom and tells her that he’s her father, Tom refuses to consider the idea. Tom, in fact, accuses her of just being after money and kicks her out of his office.
Why is Tom so adamant that he’s not Candace’s father? That’s something that Candace and her friends investigate, in between drinking a lot of wine. And I do mean a lot of wine. I think this film may have set a record as far as scenes involving friends drinking wine and discussing DNA might be concerned. However, all of that wine cannot stop the murderous schemes of a powerful family with a secret to hold and soon, Candace finds herself and everyone she knows being targeted.
The main problem with Adopted in Danger is that it’s fairly predictable. I kept waiting for a big twist that would reveal that there had been a mix-up with the DNA or that Tom Mason was some sort of imposter or something that would have taken me by surprise but nope. There’s no mix-up with the DNA. Tom Mason is Tom Mason. It’s just he comes from a terrible family and they don’t want anyone to know that Candace is his daughter. Everything plays out the way you would expect it to play out.
That said, if you’re going to solve a mystery, you might as well do it while hanging out with your two BFFs. DNA, in Adopted in Danger, may show where you’re from but but your friendships and your lovers show who you are and that’s not a bad message at all.
The film is 1968’s Danger Diabolik! The music is courtesy of Morricone. The direction is courtesy of Mario Bava. Does the scene make any sense? Does it have to? This film is all about pure style and it’s hard to think of any place as stylish (by 1968 standards) as Valmont’s Nightclub.
Today, as we continue to honor the memory of Ennio Morricone and celebrate the birthday of Mario Bava, this just seems like the perfect scene to share.
For those of you who were wondering if the worst film of 2019 was going to have a sequel …. well, here’s your answer!
Joseph Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are back as the two most boring young lovers alive. This trailer certainly makes it look steamy but I’ll be surprised if the actual film lives up to the promise of the preview. That’s one reason why I love trailers. Trailers are often more interesting than the film itself.
Anyway, After We Collided will be released on October 2nd so don’t worry! In only a few more months, you will once again have a chance to watch two people with almost zero romantic and sexual chemistry take a shower together.
On June 4th, 2004, the small town of Granby, Colorado was briefly the center of the nation’s attention.
On that day, an armor-plated bulldozer rumbled down the streets of Granby. The driver of the bulldozer was a local business owner named Marvin Heemeyer. Heemeyer, who had previously been at the center of a zoning controversy, spent two hours driving the bulldozer through various buildings in Granby. He destroyed the muffler shop that he had once owned. He destroyed a nearby concrete plant. He drove through the Granby City Hall. He smashed the bulldozer through the offices of the local newspaper. He demolished the home of a family who he felt had conspired against him. He took out a hardware store. For two hours, the police chased him, firing their weapons at the bulldozer and discovering that nothing could slow him down. In fact, it wasn’t until one of the bulldozers’ treads dropped into the hardware store’s basement that the rampage stopped, Unable to free the tread, Marvin Heemeyer committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Before he went on his rampage, Heemeyer recorded himself talking about why he was going to do what he did. He mailed those tapes to his brother in South Dakota a few hours before getting in the bulldozer. His brother later turned those tapes over to the FBI. In the tapes, Heemeyer discussed what he felt was years of harassment by the Granby town council and the zoning board. He described himself as being an “American patriot” and he even went so far as to say that he felt his rampage was predestined. He also went on to express amazement that he was able to spend two years openly modifying the bulldozer and turning it into a tank without anyone asking him what was going on. He also made clear that when he entered the bulldozer for the last time, he knew that he was never going to leave it. He truly was going on a suicide mission.
Those tapes are at the center of Tread, a documentary about Marvin Heemeyer and his 2004 rampage. The film alternates between people discussing their memories of Marvin and that day and the taped voice of Marvin himself attempting to explain his motivations. Almost everyone who is interviewed talks about what a friendly and genuinely nice person Marvin seemed to be. Even though Marvin spent two years planning his rampage, no one — not even his girlfriend — appeared to suspect a thing. Even in the weeks directly before his rampage, Marvin was making plans for the summer. One friend of Marvin’s does speculate that Marvin spent “too much time alone.”
As many people interviewed point out, Marvin was, by most measures, a successful businessman. He had a reputation for being the best welder in the county and he opened up a muffler shop in a building that he bought for $44,000. He later sold that building for $400,000. However, as the tapes reveal, Marvin didn’t view selling his shop for a profit as being a success. Instead, he viewed as something that he was forced to do by the town council and their refusal to side with him in a zoning dispute that he had with the manufacturers of a concrete plant. Marvin felt that the town was ruled by one family and that family was conspiring against him and singling him out for harassment.
I’m about as anti-government as they come so my natural instinct, when Tread began, was to be sympathetic to Marvin’s anger, if not his solution. And, having now watched the documentary, I still have no doubt that Marvin probably was, to an extent, targeted by the zoning board and the town council. The fact of the matter is that it’s rare that people don’t let the least amount of power go to their head. That’s especially true when it comes to small towns. There seems to be a natural pettiness that comes along with having power. That’s true regardless of whether you’re the mayor of a small town in Colorado or the governor of a state like …. oh, I don’t know, let’s just say Michigan and New Jersey. At the same time, when you listen to Marvin’s voice on tapes, it’s obvious that there was more going on in Marvin’s head than just anger over the zoning dispute. When Marvin talks about how God obviously wanted him to modify the bulldozer and use it to destroy the town, you realize that, if it hadn’t been the zoning dispute, it probably would have been something else. Marvin comes across as time bomb while the town leaders come across as being the people who unknowingly lit the fuse.
I have to admit that, until I watched this documentary, I had never heard of him but a simple Google search revealed that, in the years following his death, Marvin Heemeyer has gone on to become a hero to certain anti-government activists. Though it’s been 16 years since he unleashed his bulldozer on the town of Granby, his story still feels relevant today. There’s still a lot of angry people out there and, if anything, the people in power have gotten even more heavy-handed and arbitrary in their behavior today than they were in 2004. That said, if you’re looking for a film that either vilifies or blindly celebrates Marvin Heemeyer, Tread is not that film. Overall, Tread portrays Marvin Heemeyer as being a complicated man who, in the town of Granby, found the perfect reason (or, depending on how much sympathy you may or may not have for him, excuse) to strike out.
Through the Shattered Lens 