Tag Archives: Jefferson Mappin

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: Unforgiven (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1992 Best Picture winner, Unforgiven, begins as a story of frontier justice.

In Kansas, a young and cocky cowboy who calls himself the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) rides up to an isolated hog farm.  He’s looking for Will Munny (Clint Eastwood), a notorious outlaw with a reputation for being a ruthless killer.  Instead, he just finds a broken down, elderly widower who is trying to raise two young children and who can barely even manage to climb on a horse.  Will Munny, the murderer, has become Will Munny the farmer.  He gave up his former life when he got married.

The Schofield Kid claims to be an experienced gunfighter who has killed a countless number of men.  He explains that a group of sex workers in Wyoming have put a $1,000 bounty on two men, Quick Mike (David Mucci) and his friend, Davey Bunting (Rob Campbell).  Quick Mike cut up one of the women when she laughed at how unimpressively endowed he was.  While Davey didn’t take part in the crime, he was present when it happened and he didn’t do anything to stop it.  The local sheriff, a man named Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), had Davey give the woman’s employer several horses as compensation.  The Kid wants Munny to help him collect the bounty.

At first, Munny refuses to help the Kid.  But, when he realizes that he’s on the verge of losing his farm, Munny changes his mind.  He and his former partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), join with the Kid and the three of them head to Wyoming.  Along the way, they discover that the Kid is severely nearsighted and can hardly handle a pistol.

Meanwhile, in the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, Little Bill ruthlessly enforces the peace.  He’s a charismatic man who is building a house and bringing what many would consider to be civilization to the Old West. When we first meet Little Bill, he seems like a likable guy.  The town trusts him.  His deputies worship him.  He has a quick smile but he’s willing to stand his ground.  But it soon becomes apparent that, underneath that smile and friendly manner, Bill is a tyrant and a petty authoritarian who treats the town as his own personal kingdom.    Little Bill has a strict rule.  No one outside of law enforcement is allowed to carry a gun in his town.  When another bounty hunter, English Bob (Richard Harris), comes to town to kill the two cowboys, Little Bill humiliates him and sends him on his way but not before recruiting Bob’s traveling companion, writer W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), to write Bill’s life story.  Bill’s not that much different from the outlaws that he claims to disdain.  Like them, Bill understands that value of publicity.

Unforgiven starts as a traditional western but it soon becomes something else all together.  As the Schofield Kid discovers, there’s a big difference between talking about killing a man and actually doing it.  Piece-by-piece, Unforgiven deconstructs the legends of the old west.  Gunfights are messy.  Gunfighters are not noble.  Davey Bunting is the only man in town to feel guilty about what happened but, because he’s included in the bounty, he still dies an agonizing death.  Quick Mike is killed not in the town square during a duel but while sitting in an outhouse.  Ned and Munny struggle with the prospect of going back to their old ways, with Munny having to return to drinking before he can once again become the fearsome killer that he was in the past.  And Little Bill, the man who says that he’s all about taming the west and bringing civilization to a lawless land, turns out to be just as ruthless a killer as the rest.  A lot of people are dead by the end of Unforgiven.  Some of them were truly bad.  Some of them were good.  Most of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Everyone’s got it coming, to paraphrase Will Munny.

With its violent storyline, deliberate pacing, and its shots of the desolate yet beautiful western landscape, Clint Eastwood’s film feels like a natural continuation of the Spaghetti westerns that he made with Sergio Leone.  (Unforgiven is dedicated to both Leone and Don Seigel.)  Unforgiven was the first of Eastwood’s directorial efforts to be nominated for Best Picture and also the first to win.  It’s brutal meditation on violence and the truth behind the legends of the American frontier.  Eastwood gives one of his best and ultimately most frightening performances as Will Munny.  Gene Hackman won his second Oscar for playing Little Bill Daggett.

Unforgiven holds up well today.  Hackman’s Little Bill Dagget feels like the 19th century version of many of today’s politicians and unelected bureaucrats, authoritarians who claims that their only concern is the greater good but whose main interest is really just increasing their own power.  Unforgiven remains one Clint Eastwood’s best films and one of the best westerns ever made.  Leone would have been proud.

DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH – The end.

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Picture it…it’s 1992 or 1993 and I’m back at my local Hastings Entertainment superstore browsing through an entertainment magazine. Surprisingly, I came across a bit of entertainment news that a 71 year old Charles Bronson had accepted an offer of $5 million to reprise his Paul Kersey character for a fifth time. I couldn’t help but wonder what possible direction that they could take the series that would be interesting. I didn’t see anything else about the movie for the next year or so, and then it showed up some time in 1994 available for rent at that same Hastings Entertainment superstore. As far as I know, it never played in theaters in Arkansas, although it did play in some theaters in other parts of the country prior to going to home video. I immediately rented the film, somewhat apprehensive of what it would be….

DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH, begins with Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) back in New York. We first see him, looking quite dapper I might add, walking down the street in the garment district. He’s on his way to see his latest girlfriend, fashion designer Olivia Regent (Lesley Anne-Down), whose fashion show is currently underway. You immediately feel sorry for Ms. Regent as you know her prospects for survival are somewhere between slim and none since Kersey’s her man. It doesn’t help matters when her ex-husband, awkwardly impotent mobster Tommy O’Shea (Michael Parks) shows up and starts physically abusing her and her employees. You see, O’Shea is trying to force his ex-wife to use her fashion business to help him launder money from his various criminal activities. Kersey tries to convince Olivia to go to District Attorney Brian Hoyle (Saul Rubinek) to try to put O’Shea away. Unfortunately, there’s corruption in the D.A.’s office in the form of Hector Vasquez (Miguel Sandoval), who passes the information back to O’Shea. From this point forward, Ms. Regent’s life is in serious jeopardy and we all know Kersey’s record of keeping his women alive isn’t that great. I won’t give the details away, but let’s just say that events conspire so that the cursed Kersey will have to resume his old vigilante ways in pursuit of a justice that can never be provided to him by the law.  

I remember vividly my first ever viewing of DEATH WISH V back in 1994. I put the videotape in the VCR and watched several previews that looked crappy and didn’t give me a lot of hope for the movie. And then it started, and I have to admit I enjoyed it from the very beginning to the end. I guess my expectations were so low that it was a major relief when I realized that it was a reasonably well-made, audience satisfaction movie designed for people like me who simply enjoy seeing Bronson acting as an instrument of justice. I thought Bronson looked good for an action star over 70 years old. I really liked the movie’s sense of humor. Michael Parks overacted to the point of parody as O’Shea, and the character of Freddie Flakes (Robert Joy) was especially fun as a hitman with major dandruff problems. And there was something about Charles Bronson that was different in comparison to some of the earlier entries. Then I realized what it was, Bronson was having fun. He took out the bad guys with things like poisoned cannolis and exploding soccer balls, all with a twinkle in his eyes. In the 70’s, Bronson made several movies where his characters had that twinkle. It was nice to see it back. Bad things happened of course, but director Allan A. Goldstein kept a tone of black comedy that suited the movie and its aging star well. 

Even in 1994, watching DEATH WISH V felt like the end, not just of the DEATH WISH series, but of Bronson’s time as a movie star. As his biggest fan, that made me kind of sad. He would only make 3 more TV movies after this, those being the FAMILY OF COPS TV movies. And while there are some who don’t like DEATH WISH V and seem to go out of their way to put it down, I’m exactly the opposite. To me, DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH is a gift to Charles Bronson fans and an enjoyable end to his signature series!

Retro Television Review: T and T 3.8 “The Mysterious Mauler”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990.  The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Mr. T enters the wrestling ring and we all wonder what took so long.  Seriously, T and T, do you not realize who is starring on your show?

Episode 3.8 “The Mysterious Mauler”

(Dir by Alan Simmonds, originally aired on February 24th, 1990)

Teri and T.S. Turner are hired to investigate a series of accidents that have afflicted the wrestlers of the Galactis Wrestling Federation.  With the GWF royal championship coming up, all of the contenders are being taken out of contention before they even step into the ring!  Teri and T.S. think that a wrestler known as the Masked Mauler may be involved but the head of GWF, Mr. Barnum (Elias Zarou, chewing every available piece of scenery), refuses to reveal the Mauler’s true identity.  Instead, Mr. Barnum is more interested in putting a “hood” on T.S. Turner and sending him into the ring.

From the start, this episode confused me.  It opened with Terri excitedly telling T.S. that their money woes were over because they had been hired by an insurance company to investigate all of the accidents that have been taking place in the GWF.  Now, I could understand the company hiring Turner because he’s an established detective but this episode seems to suggest that Terri is now a private investigator as well.  But, in every previous episode, Terri has been portrayed as being an attorney who is almost as prominent and as successful as her sister Amy.  Terri suddenly working for an insurance company as an investigator doesn’t really make sense.  Aren’t the Taler sisters supposed to be crusading attorneys who have dedicated their practice to defending the little guy from heartless corporations?  But now, Terri is suddenly an enthusiastic insurance investigator.  Terri sold out!

And yet, this episode actually isn’t that bad, at least not by the usual standards of T and T.  From the minute I learned this episode was set in the world of professional wrestling, I knew that Mr. T would eventually end up in the ring while wearing a sparkly uniform and that’s exactly what happened.  Mr. T perfectly fits into the flamboyant world of pro-wrestling and he certainly does seem to be in a good mood in this episode.  From the second season on, T and T has often failed to take advantage of the fact that half of their duo was Mr. T.  This episode allows Mr. T to be himself.

As for the Mauler, his identity is eventually revealed.  He owns a pizzeria and wears a mask so that his wife won’t discover that he’s a wrestler.  The Mauler may be fearsome in the ring but, outside of it, he’s just trying to live a peaceful life and make an appetizing pizza.  Good for him!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.6 “The Great Montarro”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode of Friday the 13th is all about magic, blood, and costumes!

Episode 1.6 “The Great Montarro”

(Dir by Richard Friedman, originally aired on November 2nd, 1987)

This week’s episode opens with a magician named Fahteem (August Schellenberg) performing his signature trick.  He steps into the Cabinet of Doom and, once he’s sealed inside, several sword blades are driven through the cabinet.  Somehow, Fahteem always survives without a scratch and the audience is always amazed.  What the audience doesn’t know is that the Cabinet is a cursed antique.  Before each performance, Fahteem drugs a woman and locks her in another cabinet.  The blades kills whoever is in that cabinet while leaving Fahteem untouched.  Of course, if no one is in the other cabinet than the blades will kill whoever is in the Cabinet of Doom.  That is something that Fahteem discovers when an unknown perpetrator decides to take the cabinet away from him.

After Fahteem is murdered, Jack, a former musician who was an unfriendly acquaintance of Fahteem, discovers that the Cabinet of Doom was actually purchased from the antique store.  Jack decides to return to the world of magic and magicians so that he can track down the cabinet.  Helping him, and getting to wear a cute assistant’s uniform, is Micki.  Ryan also helps but he doesn’t get anything cute to wear.

It turns out that the cabinet is now in the possession of the Great Montarro (Graeme Campbell) and his wife, Lylah (Lesleh Donaldson).  Realizing that Jack is trying to take away the cabinet, Montarro and Lylah are soon targeting him and trying to make his signature trick into a fatal one.  Seeing as how that trick involves Jack being tied up in a sack that is then set on fire, that might be an easier task than it sounds.

This is the bloodiest episode of the show yet, with the camera focusing on the gory results of every failed trick.  Blood drips from cabinets.  Blood spreads across stages.  Watching the show, you really do find yourself watching why there’s so many spikes and blades just lying around.  Apparently, audiences for magic shows are not satisfied unless there’s a chance that they might see someone die in a terrible fashion.  In the role of Jack, Chris Wiggins appears to be having a ball performing magic tricks and, as a result, both Micki and Ryan spend most of the show standing off to the side.  Fortunately, Wiggins is a lot of fun to watch in this episode.  The joy that he takes from pulling off the perfect trick is contagious.  The overall episode is a bit too slowly paced but at least almost everyone gets to wear a nice costume.

Next week, Jack, Ryan, and Micki try to recover a cursed scalpel!

Bronson One Last Time: Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994, directed by Allen Goldstein)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

To quote Geoffrey Chaucer, “All good things must come to an end.”

Death Wish V: The Face of Death marked the end of the original Death Wish franchise, concluding the violent saga of Paul Kersey 20 years after it began.  It probably should have ended sooner.

After the box office failure of Death Wish IV and the subsequent bankruptcy of Cannon Films, future plans for the Death Wish franchise were put on hold.  After the collapse of Cannon, Menahem Golan started a new production company, 21st Century Film Corporation.  In 1993, needing a hit and seeing that the previous Death Wish films were still popular on video, Golan announced that Paul Kersey would finally return in Death Wish V: The Face of Death.  Charles Bronson also returned, though he was now 72 years old and in poor health.  Death Wish V would also mark the end of Bronson’s feature film career.  He would make appearances in a few television movies before subsequently retiring from acting.

Death Wish V finds Paul in the witness protection program.  His latest girlfriend, Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down), just happens to be the ex-wife of a psychotic mobster named Tommy O’Shea (Michael Parks).  Throughout the entire franchise, the Death Wish films argued that crime is so out of control that no one was safe and that Paul had no choice but to pick up a gun and shoot muggers.  But, judging from Death Wish V, Paul just seems to have incredibly bad luck.  What are the odds that a mild-mannered architect would lose his wife, his maid, his daughter, his best friend from the war, his next two girlfriends, and then end up dating the ex-wife of New York City’s craziest gangster?

The district attorney’s office wants Olivia to testify against her ex-husband so Tommy gets his henchman, the dandruff-prone Freddie Flakes (Robert Joy), to kill her.  Looks like it’s time for New York’s favorite vigilante to launch a one-man war against the Mafia!

The only problem is that New York’s favorite vigilante is too old to chase people down dark alleys and shoot them.  He has to get creative, which means using everything from poisoned cannoli to a vat of acid to take out his targets.  One gangster is killed by an exploding soccer ball!

With both Bronson and Lesley-Anne Down giving an indifferent performances, it is up to the supporting cast to keep the movie interesting.  Appearing here after his bravura turn as Jean Renault in Twin Peaks but before Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino introduced him to a whole new generation of filmgoers, Michael Parks is flamboyantly evil as Tommy O’Shea and injects the movie with what little life that it has.  Speaking of Twin Peaks alumni, Kenneth Welsh (who played Windom Earle in the last few episodes of season 2) plays this installment’s understanding police detective.  Saul Rubinek plays the district attorney who is willing to look the other way when it comes to killing gangsters.

Dull and cheap-looking, Death Wish V was a box office bomb and it brought the original franchise to a definite end.  Will the Eli Roth/Bruce Willis reboot of Death Wish also lead to a reboot of the franchise?  Time will tell!