FILMS, FESTIVALS, FOOD, TERRORISM COMEDIES…10 days of Euro Fun, if you exclude the exchange rate.
July 19, 2010
Paris in July.
Heaven on a stick. Actually I am referring to the main course of my first night’s dinner. I was so impressed I had to photograph it. Vegans, please avert your eyes.
Wherever I go, arresting images tend to trigger scene concepts. The hanging skewer of shashlick could be the sharp handy weapon the unarmed assassin plans to be served near his victim, and so on. I know, I’m a sick puppy…
Paris Cinema Festival staged a midnight to dawn Ozploitation section, programmed by Festival director Aude Hesbert, and I was brought in to do the introductions, kicking off with DEAD END DRIVE IN presented in the original Australian patois with French subtitles.
Trivia footnote: When we sold the film to New World Pictures, they wanted to dub Aussie accents and slang into ” American” as had been done to MAD MAX. ( I saw it once. Horrible.) I believe an “American” version of DEDI was prepared, then abandoned, when we resisted so vociferously. Does it sit forgotten in a vault gathering dust? I have a little masochistic curiosity. For those interested in contrasting advertising approaches, here first is a rarely seen Australian TV spot for the film’s 1986 release.
Now, here is the New World Pictures trailer for the US release.
The theater was 4 seats short of full, the audience was patient as I mangled their language, they totally got the movie and 80% stayed for the 4 am TURKEY SHOOT. The stamina of French cinephiles is legendary.
Then, on to the Czech Republic and the Karlovy Vary Festival, where a chauffeur driven Audi speeds you to screenings down narrow streets that resemble rows of wedding cakes.
A selection of Ozploitation classics, programmed by Karel Och, and accompanied by Mark Hartley’s NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, were playing through the week.
Producer and old friend Richard Brennan (LONG WEEKEND) joined me for introductions and interviews.
On our second night, we were dinner guests of another old friend, legendary Australian critic and author David Stratton, who was on the Festival Jury. David has been a tireless supporter of the Australian film industry for 40 years. He ran the 1973 Sydney Film Festival where my first film THE STUNTMEN won Best Documentary. Richard Brennan produced over 26 movies, including exec-producing my DEATHCHEATERS. There was much discussion of the current state of Australian film. The quality and success of ANIMAL KINGDOM is certainly encouraging. Which reminds me, I ordered my first ever plate of roast goose, succulent with a guilty residue. No problem eating duck, Donald notwithstanding. Perhaps it’s Mother Goose that gives me a twinge…
I had to leave early to introduce THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, virtually unseen in the Czech Republic, now graced with Czech subtitles. So gratifying to watch 1000 young Czechs enjoying the action and getting the satire. ( The Australian DVD is the fullest version for those that don’t know the film)
Between Ozploitation duties, I had time to see a number of movies. Here’s four I particularly enjoyed:
I knew nothing about LA DOPPIA ORA ( The Double Hour) before the screening started and that’s the best way to see this Italian romantic paranormal thriller. Suffice to say, I had the rare experience of not knowing what was going to happen next from the first 10 minutes to the end. Yet at each new surprise, each Ah-Huh moment, I never felt cheated by the writer. It’s a fantastic script, directed with style and a very sure hand, that started a bidding war for English language remake rights after the star Ksenyia Rappoport won Best Actress at Venice earlier in the year. It’s a great date movie, but don’t let anyone tell you a thing before it starts. Here’s the unsubtitled Italian trailer, which manages to sell without spoiling the twists.
SOUND OF NOISE is a delightful Swedish comedy about musical terrorists.
They adore rhythm, and abhor musical instruments. Their ideology is free form drumming using everyday objects.
Their agenda is to disrupt public areas, a bank, a hospital, etc. and stage brief anarchic concerts before the police arrive. They are pursued by a tone deaf detective, who hates music, to the disappointment of his family of musical prodigies. The climax, when the musical anarchists use the city’s electrical grid as their instrument is hilarious. ( But don’t try this at home!) If the concept sounds very esoteric, it’s not. SOUND OF NOISE is easy to grasp, charming, whimsical, and frequently laugh out loud funny.
I think it deserves to be Sweden’s contender for this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar. Co-directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjarne Nilsson have a comedic flair that transcends cultural borders, judging by the response of the Czech audience, and their movie could do well in the US with the right handling. At the Q & A, Simonsson and Nilsson revealed that their inspiration was a short film they had made 6 years earlier. So here it is. ” Music For One Apartment And Six Drummers”.
Terrorism Comedy would be a pretty sparse sub-genre, you might think, but there was another example screening at the Festival after its highly successful run in British cinemas.
FOUR LIONS is probably the most confronting black comedy I have ever seen.
It depicts a group of home grown Brit Muslim extremists, even less skilled with explosives than The 3 Stooges. Incendiary satirist Chris Morris ( TV’s THE THICK OF IT) walks the razor’s edge with his feature debut, but he keeps it pitch perfect throughout, with an unexpected coda of political criticism that lifts the film to another level. I would have laughed even more if guffaws from the Czech audience, aided by Czech subtitles, did not make the Bradford/Pakistani accents of the gang even harder for me to decipher. An English subtitled version is being prepared for US release, I hope. I’ll let this magazine piece from a Brit TV program fill you in on the issues. Personally, I think it’s one of the most important political films of the decade.
Another pitch perfect comedy of a different genre is TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL.
I’ve done a few horror comedies, so I know how hard it is to achieve the right tone on the short schedules these things are given. So a tip of the hat to first time director Eli Craig for grounding the satire in well developed characters, ( Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine have great chemistry as the luckless rednecks) then going on to affectionately trash every Friday The Thirteenth/Serial Killer in the Woods cliche we have known and loved over the last quarter century. But not in predictable ways. This is a very clever piece of work.
Undoubtedly Eli Craig is headed for bigger opportunities. Good luck. Here’s the trailer.
So back to Los Angeles just in time for the opening weekend of INCEPTION. Wow! Just shows you, it is possible for a high octane movie to feed the mind as well as the senses.
CZECH CINEMA, BRAVE POLITICAL SATIRE IN A TIME OF OPPRESSION, A VISIT TO THE KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL…
June 29, 2010
Between July 5th - 9th I will be a guest of the Karlovy Vary International Festival, one of the oldest festivals in the world. It will be an honor and a pleasure to spend a few days in this beautiful city.
It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370. It is famous not only for its film festival but also for its hot springs, where I intend to wallow between commitments.
The reason for my invitation: this year the festival’s line up includes a section on Ozploitation (Australian genre cinema of the 70’s and 80’s) prompted by Mark Hartley’s hugely entertaining rockumentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD.
I’ll be joined by producer Richard Brennan,who will present his LONG WEEKEND, a notable suspense mystery that has developed a strong fanbase since its release in 1977. I made the original trailer. Here it is:
In addition to hosting screenings of THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, DEAD END DRIVE IN, and TURKEY SHOOT, I plan to see as many new Czech films as possible. Czech films past and present are a gap in my education.
The first Czech movie I ever saw was Jiří Menzel’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS ( Ostře sledované vlaky ) at a small Sydney arthouse theater in 1967. Foreign language films were even scarcer in Australia of those days than England. But the Academy Award For Best Foreign Film guaranteed its release down under. It’s a masterpiece of human observation that gets better with repeat viewing.
Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, followed by post-World War Two Soviet imposed repressive government, had bottled up Czech artistic expression, but in the early sixties the cork popped, and the Czech New Wave was born.
These movies were low key, small scale stories told with wry affection about ordinary folk, like the wartime hero of TRAINS, a bumbling railway dispatcher’s apprentice desperate to lose his virginity. Predictably the 1967 US advertising campaign concentrated solely on the sex comedy aspects.
But critics did discern the subtext: that the train station was a metaphor for Czechoslovakia itself, a small pleasure loving country, often occupied and tormented by neighborhood bullies and toxic geo-politics, but a country that will bite back when pushed too far.
The Czech New Wave allowed avant-garde directors like Věra Chytilová to expand the boundaries of free form film making. She is considered one of the greatest female Czech filmmakers.
She is best known for Sedmikrásky (Daisies) which follows two young girls, both named Marie, played by Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová, who engage in bizarre pranks and acts of rebellion against the world in which they live.
Chytilová underscores this rebellion by breaking every formal rule in the film grammar lexicon, and thereby creates a surreal cinematic language of her own.
Naturally it was banned by the Czechoslovakian government of the day. Lucky not to suffer the same fate was Valerie and Her Week of Wonders ( Valerie a týden divů) directed by Jaromil Jireš in 1970, perhaps because it was based on a well regarded 1935 novel.
The then 13-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová ( later a popular actress throughout the 70’s) starred as Valerie, who is dealing with the onset of menstruation and the sexual awakening. The town of Slavonice provided the early 19th century settings. In full Gothic style Jaromil Jireš portrays the heroine as living in a disorienting dream, seduced by priests, vampires, men and women alike.
I have not seen it, but this trailer makes me want to.
The most famous Czech film director to make a career in Hollywood is Miloš Forman.
The movie that got the world’s attention was his 1967 The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko).
It is set at the annual ball of a small town’s volunteer fire department, and the plot consists of a collection of anecdotes told within that setting. The film uses no actors - the firemen portrayed are the firemen of the small town where it is set. I’ll let this erudite young reviewer give you an evaluation:
Forman has always maintained that the film has no “hidden symbols or double meanings”. However, the Czechoslovak head of state as well as the censors of the time viewed it as a political allegory. The national fire department resigned in token protest. The Firemen’s Ball ran for three weeks during the Dubcek era, but after the 1968 Soviet invasion and crackdown, the film was “banned forever”. Now it lives forever as a deadpan comedy, and to quote critic J. Hoberman, “darkened by an unwaveringly clear-eyed view of human stupidity and deception.” Perhaps one of the unique aspects of the Czech New Wave is its sense of the absurd, a reaction to the corrupt, inept, Stalinoid bureaucracy under which Czechs lived. Here is a masterful, painfully funny sequence - the beauty contest auditions:
Forman’s subsequent Hollywood career includes ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, which won five Academy Awards including one for direction, AMADEUS, which won eight Academy Awards, and THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, for which he received a Best Director Academy Award Nomination and a Golden Globe win. But I have a particular regard for two of his less successful Hollywood films.
His first, made in 1971, was TAKING OFF. It’s a comedy of inter-generational conflict resulting in parents rediscovering their youth.
Once again Forman’s skills at human observation result in many sequences of deadpan hilarity. I defy you not to want to see the film after watching this clip.
I have seen HAIR several times, and will continue to revisit it in the company of first timers. I never cared much for the stage musical, but Forman’s vision of Late Sixties America resonates with me, recalling my 3 months of greyhound bus touring through most states of the Union in 1968.
In 1997 Miloš Forman received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. It will be an honor to show a few of my guilty pleasure movies at such a prestigious venue, and catch up with the latest Czech film makers.
FRENCH CINEMA, THE FAMOUS AND THE UNDERVALUED, A JOURNEY DOWN MEMORY LANE…
June 25, 2010
When Le Festival Paris Cinema kindly invited me to present plus Q & A some of my cult movies for their audience on this coming July 3rd, I thought back to my early experience of French movies, and the influence they might have had on me as a film maker. (Apologies to French readers: this software does not do accents or cedilla.)
At age 9, I saw a 16mm print of Jacques Tati’s MONSIEUR HULOT’S HOLIDAY, projected on a wall of my prep school library, in which Tati, as the gauche and socially inept hero, stumbles through a disaster prone August holiday in Saint Marc-sur-Mer on the Atlantic coast. Though the social satire no doubt escaped us kids, the film was largely wordless and full of sight gags that kept us laughing and still work today.
Here’s a recent trailer:
Rowan Atkinson’s character, the idiot-curmudgeon Mr. Bean, owes a lot to Tati, perhaps acknowledged in his 2007 MR. BEAN’S HOLIDAY. But Tati goes deeper. And smarter. He keeps Hulot benign, and through him holds up a gently mocking mirror to class conflict, consumerism and bourgeois pretensions. Tati had a singular vision and stuck to it throughout his career. It brought him two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Foreign Film with Mon Oncle. It also brought him bankruptcy when his big budget PLAYTIME failed. But he never gave up, never lost sight of his dream. All Hail, Jacques Tati, comedic genius.
The next French film I saw, aged 16, was LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD, screened to the Wellington College film society, who watched in respectful but perplexed silence.
Later I read that a British provincial cinema had run the movie with 2 reels out of order for most of the season, but audiences were none the wiser till a London critic stopped by for a second viewing. Many critics regard MARIENBAD as a work of genius, others agree with its listing in Michael Medved’s book The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time. This recent trailer for the DVD release does its best to chart a path for the audience in advance, but my school film society had no such help.
Despite being more mystification than mystery, MARIENBAD has influenced many film makers. It certainly left me with a taste for tracking shots and baroque angles.
In 1994, British band Blur made this wry music video homage for their song To The End.
Perhaps re-screening MARIENBAD on my laptop in an Amsterdam hash bar would provide clarity. Or perhaps not.
I saw my next French movie because it was raining… But it was the title that reeled me in. OF FLESH AND BLOOD. Two time honored movie ingredients for late adolescents. Literal translation of the French title LES GRAND CHEMINS might not have done the trick. I took my seat as a man pursued a woman home and with scarcely a word they started making passionate love.
The woman was Anouk Aimee. She exuded an earthy yet brainy sexiness, and she immediately became my goddess. In her subsequent work I always enjoyed how emotions played across her unique visage.
When I happened by sheer accident to speak to her on the phone of one of her friends in 2005, I think I reverted to 18 year old fanboy. The male lead was Robert Hossein. He projected a raw masculinity that was less present in British leading men of the early sixties. As a director, Hossein is also one of France’s undervalued auteurs, who infused standard genre vehicles like LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF, and J’AI TUE RASPUTIN, with deep themes and imaginative staging. I would love to find his spaghetti western UNE CORDE, UN COLT.
OF FLESH AND BLOOD, directed by fellow actor Christian Marquand, was described by a derisive reviewer as Dostoyevsky meets Roger Corman . Works for me. This was a dish of Gallic Noir, in vibrant color, and I liked the flavor. French films were a new world for me, clearly more daring than English language films. I was hooked.
My next French experience was AIMEZ-VOUS LES FEMMES? ( US title: A TASTE FOR WOMEN), a dark comedy set in a vegetarian restaurant about a gourmet cannibal sect that eat women in celebration of their beauty. I went in not knowing anything about it and was entranced by the wacky idea, the wit of the subtitles, and the glittering black and white Franscope photography, courtesy of Sacha Vierny, who co-incidentally shot LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD.
The director Jean Leon was also the 1st Assistant director on MARIENBAD. (Strangely, this is the only film he ever directed. A pity, based on this work.) The names of the writers held no significance for me at the time: Gerard Brach and Roman Polanski. With hindsight, I recognize a similar impish sense of humor in Polanski’s THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, OR EXCUSE ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK. All I can find is a tiny poster and a still. Where is this forgotten gem now?
Soon after, I went hitchhiking through France from Le Havre to Eze-sur-Mer and back. Whenever possible, each night I would find a cheap pension near a cinema. Being a child of World War Two, WEEKEND A ZUYDCOOTE was a must see.
This French perspective on the evacuation of Dunkirk was the first time I experienced Jean Paul Belmondo’s casual rugged charm. Here’s a TV spot.
And the staging by director Henri Verneuil was spectacular. I have admired many of his films, particularly CENT MILLE DOLLARS AU SOLEIL, GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN, THE BURGLARS (LE CASSE) also starring Belmondo, with whom he did 5 pictures. And THE SICILIAN CLAN with Alain Delon. I would eventually see Delon and Belmondo together in BORSALINO, where, rumor hath it, their respective contracts required they would get equal close up coverage in their scenes together. Verneuil was not a critics darling in France, but his work was always solidly commercial, and easily the equal of many Hollywood directors of the period. Here are 3 trailers that show he was the master of any genre cocktail.
Mafia drama:
Belmondo does his own stunts:
Buddy comedy for truckers:
In Grenoble I met up with a friend studying there, Julian Beaumont, ( funny how you can remember 45 years later where and with whom you saw a film that made an impact) and we saw LE GENTLEMAN DE COCODY (IVORY COAST ADVENTURE), starring the great Jean Marais, directed by Christian-Jaque, another undervalued genre director (pictured below).
Despite my one-in-every-five-words comprehension of rapid fire French, ( Ah, by dint of repetition, I guess la bagnole means the beat-up old vehicle) I remember being swept along by the fast paced action comedy. The audience around me clearly loved it.
COCODY became one of the 15 top grossing films of 1965 with over 2 million admissions, yet this poster is all I can find of it. Nothing on UTube. Love to get hold of a subtitled copy. Christian-Jaque made a number of handsomely staged costume dramas, which I subsequently sought out. Here’s an extract from the Italian dubbed version of MADAME SANS-GENE, in which he gives Sophia Loren’s comedic talent and abundant charm(s) full rein.
Christian-Jaque also made FANFAN LA TULIPE twice, first in 1952, then in 1964 in 70mm no less, as THE BLACK TULIP with Alain Delon playing twin brothers, for which this is the original trailer.
If there is one thing I share with Christian-Jaque it’s his fondness for viewing genre with a satirist’s eye. I’d love to see his first film L’ASSASSINAT DE PERE NOEL, made with difficulty during the Nazi occupation.
In Nice I saw L’HOMME DE RIO and immediately became a Philippe De Broca fan. His subsequent ROI DE COEUR (KING OF HEARTS) starring Alan Bates, is hard to find, but a brilliant anti-war comedy. 33 years later he showed he had not lost his touch with LE BOSSU, great romantic fun.
THE MAN FROM RIO was stunning in its day. Here’s a 6 minute extract of a masterful chase sequence, in a deserted Brazillian city under construction, with Belmondo once again doing all his own stunts. Today such a scene would be hyped with music, but I found the suspense is all the more riveting with sound effects alone.
The girl being kidnapped at the end of the clip was the enchanting Francoise Dorleac, sister of Catherine Deneuve.
.
They both had become major European stars at the time of Francoise Dorleac’s tragic death in a car accident in 1967. What better way to end my trip down memory lane, (which I hope you have been enjoying on company time) than a joyous song and dance number from the only film the sisters played in together, Jacques Demy’s homage to the great Hollywood musicals - LES DEMIMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT.
After Paris, I will be hosting screenings of some of my early work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, so next I’ll share some recollections about Czech cinema.
GEORGE A. ROMERO’S LATEST MOVIE: Wry humor, social allegory, female masturbation, exploding heads…What’s not to like?
May 16, 2010
Magnolia’s bright spark Arianne Ayers invited me to the Los Angeles premiere of George Romero’s SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. George has been a horror auteur for 42 years and is still going strong. We have met a couple of times on the festival circuit, so I was eagerly awaiting his next chapter on the apocalypse. Here’s George introducing the redband trailer.
As a practitioner of tightly budgeted genre myself, I consider SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD a bang-up job. This time George gene-splices Zombieland with The Hatfields vs.The McCoys, enabling him to riff on human folly and the senselessness of war, with wry humor, social allegory, female masturbation and exploding heads…What’s not to like?
What’s more, it has one of Canada’s finest actors Kenneth Welsh ( I had the pleasure of directing him in ESCAPE CLAUSE) who channels a bunch of Sean O’Casey characters into the vengeful, manipulative, bastard-paterfamilias you can’t help liking.
George enjoys confronting his audience with uncomfortable moral quandaries when the normal has been replaced by the unthinkable. The more overt comedic tone of his approach this time may be the source of disappointment in some of the reviews I have read. In fact, I think George has actually broadened his audience by ramping up the laughs.
But he does not neglect the boo, yuk, and shiver moments, which are greatly aided by a dynamic score from Robert Carli, a Canadian composer who will, I predict, get a big Hollywood assignment, based on his work here.
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is a fun ride when experienced on the big screen with a full house that gets it, as they did at the premiere. And Great Cannibalism, George! What about when they ate the whole….well, you’ll have to see the movie.
HEY, ARIZONA, DON’T FUCK WITH THIS MEXICAN. HE’S GOT SOME CINQUO DE MAYO WORDS FOR YOU!
May 5, 2010
If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a link to Harry Knowles exclusive post of a special MACHETE trailer. Utterly amazing! Thank you, Harry.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44943
The Seventies are back, if last night’s crowded screening of TURKEY SHOOT is any indication. They totally got it. The New Beverly Cinema will also be bringing back my STUNT ROCK for a midnight show on June 11th. Mark your dance card…
KNIGHTS OF HORROR: latest director discoveries on the Film Festival circuit…
April 29, 2010
Last week, I was once again a long distance judge, this time at A NIGHT OF HORROR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. It wasn’t hard to pick the winners. Best Film was THE REVENANT. Best Australian Film was THE HORSEMAN. Both movies were the feature debut of extraordinarily talented new directors, who, in my opinion, have big careers ahead of them.
First is D. KERRY PRIOR, who wrote, produced, directed and edited THE REVENANT, a smart zombie buddy comedy. Here’s the trailer:
Kerry Prior has extensive special effects credits, having worked on THE LOST BOYS, THE ABYSS, THE BLOB, BUBBA HO-TEP, and two of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, amongst other titles. So you would expect the prosthetic work to be solid, which it was, considering the low budget. But what you might not expect is the attention that Prior paid to character and dialogue, his management of the droll tone of the piece, or his direction of the lead cast, who all have great chemistry together.
While extracting plenty of laughs from the standard problems of a zombie dealing with his condition, and his best buddy dealing with him, Prior also throws in fresh, wry asides, like the African American lady, confronted with the Undead, offering Scientology as the solution.
I love the off the wall ending, a gear change into political satire, and a springboard for sequels. Judging by the reaction of festival audiences so far, THE REVENANT is destined for a long shelf life, and could even become another RE-ANIMATOR.
THE HORSEMAN targets the other end of the horror spectrum, reality based horror. The extreme brutality of the violence gives this examination of revenge a visceral context. Here’s the trailer:
Like Kerry Prior, STEVEN KASTRISSIOS is an auteur, serving as writer, producer, director, editor, and even digital colorist of his film. He has been passionate about cinema from the age of 14, and it shows. He wrote a screenplay, made a 30 minute short from it, then used the awards it won to raise funds for the full length feature. But you can gauge how slender his budget was from the fact that his producing partner Rebecca Dakin did the catering. That’s dedication. But the short dollars don’t show. What shows is insight into the complex issues of revenge, and a skill at manipulating the audience’s loyalties, aided by a masterful performance from Peter Marshall. Kastrissios is undoubtedly the next break-out director from Australia.
If the fights had been either sloppy or stagey, the picture would not have the grip that it does. So it was great to see Chris Anderson, with whom I have worked several times, be credited with the stunt choreography.
I have never seen a tire iron better used. Good on ya, mate, fantastic work.
Fantastic work too from both these new film makers. Hollywood will come a calling. Hopefully Prior and Kastrissios will be allowed to maintain their innovative ideas, and particular sensibilities, on bigger budget films.
SHE FLIES THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE,
April 14, 2010
THAT DARING YOUNG GIRL ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE…WIRE WORK, FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY, SWORD MOVIES, REIGN OF ASSASSINS - GIFTS FROM ASIA.
Did you ever have those flying dreams as a teenager? I still do, occasionally. It’s supposed to mean you want to escape from something. (I guess that’s low budgets in my case.) In my conscious life, I actually have a mild fear of flying ( In aircraft; I suppress it. ) but the one stunt I would love to add to my limited repertoire is wire work, for many years a Hong Kong technique which finally made an impact on western audiences in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. What fun it must be to swoop, soar and glide, under the control of skilled puppet masters. My friend Angeles Woo made her maiden flight on her father’s latest production REIGN OF ASSASSINS, starring Michelle Yeoh. This is Michelle aloft on the blue screen stage.
Angeles plays a rival assassin, and in a preliminary trailer and you’ll see a cloaked and hooded Angeles fly through frame in an early shot.
When not working for her father’s company in several capacities, Angeles is an actress, and writer/director of experimental shorts. I look forward to her first feature one day. I know Angeles through fencing. We have fought many a foil and epee bout.
Here she is (on the left) winning the Vango Cup for Women’s Foil in Beijing in 2006, when her father was shooting RED CLIFF. She has now taken up Mixed Martial Arts, where I don’t intend to challenge her. I’ll stick to the blade. Fencing is gymnastic chess, a combat sport I try to practice at least once a week. I do all three weapons to a standard of adequate mediocrity, and did once tie for bronze at the Southern California Veterans in a thin year.
The REIGN OF ASSASSINS promo reflects some of what I love about fencing. Look at the furious - but strategically complex - exchanges of parry and riposte in Michelle Yeoh’s fight scenes. Excellent camera placement maximizes impact.
I became hooked on Asian cinema in the early ’60’s. Initially Japanese, then when King Hu made his breakout hit A TOUCH OF ZEN, I broadened my taste to Hong Kong. Then I discovered Chang Cheh, with his sweepingly choreographed tracking shots propelling the hero through a line of adversaries, who spun their slashed bodies to the camera as it passed.
Assistant directors in HK in those days had wider responsibilities than western ADs, and Chang Cheh’s assistant for many years was John Woo. When I met Mr. Woo, I told him HARD BOILED was my favorite of his early work. He felt THE KILLER was his best. They are both great. Here’s that amazing all-in-one-shot section of the HARD BOILED hospital gun battle.
I first went to Hong Kong in ‘73 to cover the Bruce Lee phenomenon for my quarterly magazine MOVIE , sold in Australian theaters and drive-ins (also to pitch THE MAN FROM HONG KONG to Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest, but that’s another story ). I came back talking of Hollywood East, but cultural differences prevented many of my colleagues from grasping the sophistication, efficiency and pure audience-pleasing power of Hong Kong film making. So I made a documentary - WORLD OF KUNG FU, and published a 2 issue magazine to co-incide with the telecast across Australia. It rated well, and the magazine sold out. After Bruce Lee’s death I made a follow up - KUNG FU KILLERS : Grant Page, Australia’s most famous stuntman goes to Hong Kong and investigates who will succeed Bruce Lee. ( We were told to ignore Jackie Chan..he was not going to last. Right…) Here’s one of my favorite DRUNKEN MASTER fights.
I watched Asian cinema develop to its present day level of style and innovative story telling. Now Hollywood remakes Asian hits, not just the other way round. The story of Hong Kong’s film industry and the progressive development of its unique visual style is available in an excellent on-line essay Anamorphic Adventures in Hong Kong by David Bordwell, PhD, a professor of film studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and an authority on a wide variety of cinema topics. Go to: www.davidbordwell.net/essays/shaw.php
His website in general is a treasure trove of information for cineastes. This essay is meticulously researched, providing extensive background detail, and illuminating analysis of fight scene aesthetics. More importantly it reflects all the elements I found exciting when watching sword and fist movies in downtown backstreet theaters. So I look forward to REIGN OF ASSASSINS.
An epee bout with Michelle Yeoh would be fun too…
THE HURT LOCKER, FINAL CUT, MARKETING CENSORSHIP, DIRECTOR’S VISION AND RELATED ISSUES
March 2, 2010
Very few directors have final cut. It’s great that Kathryn Bigelow protected her vision by demanding and receiving the coveted I Did It My Way.
THE HURT LOCKER tensely depicts the heroism of a bomb squad and through it reveals our adrenaline fueled addiction to war. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s film must surely joins the ranks of Best Modern Combat Movies of all time. The first to set a standard was ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was a ground-breaking addition, which should have won Best Picture. And contending at this year’s Oscars is INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, Quentin Tarantino’s extraordinary alternative universe homage to World War Two movies. (See…Cinema can end wars.)
However for each of the iconic titles there would be a dozen others that never got the attention they deserved. Feisty B movies that were taut, hard hitting, with a big look despite slender resources. Like THE SECRET INVASION, Roger Corman’s low budget GUNS OF NAVARONE/DIRTY DOZEN precursor shot in Yugoslavia. Or George Montgomery’s WARKILL shot in the Philippines, directed by Ferde Grofe Jr. No poster is available which makes me worry that the film may be lost. George Montgomery made several WW2 movies in the PI during the sixties. A lesser one was THE STEEL CLAW. We all have our lists of neglected gems. Of the 5 war themed movies I have made, my personal favorite is THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA. Doesn’t hold a candle to HURT LOCKER, but I’m fond of it for the adventure of its shoot, the scale of it for $1.6M, and the things it has to say.
Namely: wars are fought by brave, well intentioned people on both sides. Politicians always betray soldiers. But the principle theme of the picture - war and reconciliation - was subjected to marketing department censorship. My director’s cut - in the version currently available - was in fact a flashback between two bookends - set 15 years later. We see desperate boat people sighting land at last, one older man in particular. We hear R. Lee Ermey commence the story’s narration: “They won the war, but they sure as hell lost the peace…” We discover Lee, the now retired Sgt. Major Haffner, working at the UN Refugee Processing Centre at the Manila docks. We learn from his voice over as he surveys the latest group to arrive, that he could not handle life back in the US as a civilian. Asia was the only place he felt real. Haffner spots a face in the crowd that he dimly recognizes. His expression clouds as memories flood back. The movie you see carries on from there. Where the film currently ends, I cut back to the Refugee Processing Centre. Haffner walks through the crowd towards the man we now know led the Viet Cong forces against his firebase during the 1968 Tet Offensive, a battle in which Haffner lost his closest friend.
We also know that the two men recognize each other. Will Haffner give in to anger? No, he says “welcome” in Vietnamese, and extends his hand. The final image was of the handshake, one forearm bronzed, the other displaying a marine tattoo. OK. Subtlety is not my strong point. But somehow, in context, the moment worked emotionally. It was cathartic for the audience after the relentless slaughter to feel a glimmer of hope. But the marketing department decided that there was too much emphasis on ” the gooks”, reconciliation and forgiveness were not patriotic, the American audience just wanted to see the heroism and sacrifice of the Americans. They were very happy with the rest of the film but they demanded the bookends be cut. This was a blow. But, as I was in LA doing the extensive looping when the axe fell, I was able to expand Lee Ermey’s voice over with additional material like “I guess we’d do the same if Charlie invaded South Carolina.”
These additions to the soundtrack, after the picture was locked, went some way towards supporting the concept of reconciliation. My changes were discovered too late to be removed. Ha! Nice to get the last word. FIREBASE has amassed some fans, particularly among veterans, since its original token 1989 theatrical release - in LA, as the bottom half of a drive in double with RED SCORPION. LA Times critic Michael Wilmington said it should have been the top of the bill. It has never been released on DVD, except as grainy bootlegs from the VHS, without subtitles for the Vietnamese dialogue. Horrible. Perhaps the eventual inheritors of the MGM library will see the profit potential of releasing a DVD with cast interviews and commentary from Lee Ermey and myself. Every marine would buy a copy.
However, in the interim for fans in the US, a beautifully remastered SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA is available streaming from NETFLIX. FIREBASE is not perfect - HURT LOCKER is perfect - but remains 22 years later an interesting genre cocktail. My inspirations were BEACH RED, THE ALAMO, and ZULU. There’s an earlier blog of reminiscences in the archives.
The stills for this blog were all taken by Mark Neely, who played Murphy. Still an excellent actor, Mark remains my friend despite my having him bayoneted to death in FIREBASE, and having his severed head grouch at Christine Taylor from a toilet bowl in NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2. The things we do for art…How many Oscars THE HURT LOCKER will receive remains to be seen. But would a marketing department-controlled film have been so insightfull and garnered so many nominations and awards?
Vietcong on a lunch break
STUNT ROCK - 32 YEARS ON - STILL MAKES THEM LAUGH AND GASP…
December 11, 2009
A good crowd showed up for the Midnight show, a few more than the July screening. Show of hands indicated about 75% of the audience had not seen it before, and came because of the recommendation of friends or internet reviewers. They got all the jokes, they gasped at the stunts (catapult, high wire, human torch, leopard smack - in particular), and I saw toes tapping to Sorcery’s driving rhythms. The majority were kind enough to stay for the Q&A, with myself and Dick Blackburn (the oily agent), moderated by Grindhouse Releasing’s Brian Quinn.
It was great to watch today’s audience revel in the gear-grinding segues and the in-your-face juxtapositions, and put a post modern eye on a late seventies/foreign indie/Hollywood time capsule/death defying Acts/rockumentary/mockumentary … ( I was once asked for a short definition of STUNT ROCK’s continuing appeal. That was the best I could do).
Among the audience were director Kurando Mitsutake and producer Chiaki Yanagimoto, whose SAMURAI AVENGER, THE BLIND WOLF is a festival hit and selling well across the world.
To those who have bought DVDs, I recommend STUNT ROCK as a group experience. Get a bunch of friends together for a STUNT ROCK PARTY. Serve Chinese take-out, Sorcery’s after-show meal. (Peking Duck, perhaps?) Encourage hot chicks to dance during the concert sequences. A good night will be had by all…
Click here for the Sorcery website. I’d like to turn STUNT ROCK into a Vegas show. Any deep pockets out there?
For fans of Grant Page, I recommend all Stunt Rockers, particularly those in Australia, pick up a copy of Grant’s memoirs MAN ON FIRE, A Stunt Of A Life, published this holiday season. Full of photographs and amusing anecdotes - I wrote the foreword - it’s a great read. Grant’s recollections also capture the spirit that fueled the pioneering days of the Australian film industry renaissance.
My message to Mankind this holiday season: If you’ve only seen INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS once, catch it again while it is still on the big screen. It’s richer the second time round, particularly the oscar worthy performance of Christoph Waltz as the evil Landa.
I anticipate nominations for original screenplay, best actor, best cinematography, best director. There should be a special category for best World War Two Ending Ever.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS & BEST WISHES FOR 2010!!
CREATIVE VISION REWARDED - PAST AND PRESENT: PLUS STUNT ROCK SCREENS THIS FRIDAY MIDNIGHT @ NEW BEVERLY CINEMA
November 30, 2009
For a filmmaker, a Hollywood Happy Ending is when your last film gets you the next one. Here’s the face of a happy man.
He is Kurando Mitsutake, writer/producer/director/star of SAMURAI AVENGER - THE BLIND WOLF, which won Best Film and Best Special Effects at the recent Fantastic Planet Sydney Science Fiction Fantasy Film Festival for which I was one of the judges. This satirical genre homage is a clever piece of work and dserved the accolades. I was told later that Kurando was a fan of my early work and bought some of my DVDs released by Madman in Australia, while he was there. He was kind enough to send me this happy snap. As a result of the great response to his film, he is off to Japan next month to direct a series of Yakuza movies. It’s great when a passionate filmmaker gets recognized and rewarded.
One of the DVDs in his hand is STUNT ROCK, released in the US by Code Red. And by coincidence, STUNT ROCK will play its second Midnight Show on Friday December 4th at the New Beverly Cinema, Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. It’s my wry love letter to stuntmen and late seventies metal glitter rock, 90 minutes of laughs and gasps and OMG. In particular it’s a showcase for Australia’s king of the stuntmen, Grant Page, who is still setting fire to his pants in his seventieth year. Click on the artwork for a little taste.
STUNT ROCK was shot in 15 days in 1978, going from 6 page treatment to stereo answer print in 5 months. Grant Page and Monique Van Der Ven starred. I was Grant’s manager at the time and created this vehicle to launch him into the international arena. We could not afford a SAG cast, so I chose a number of actors from The Groundlings, including the young Phil Hartman (What a tragic loss his murder was). Also a splendid turn from future director Dick Blackburn as an oily agent. I was lucky to have Marty Fink as a very supportive producer who connected me with a gallery of below the line talent at the start of their careers, lensers Bob Primes and Rene Villalobos, production experts Chis Pearce and Ann Strasburg, editors Robert Leighton, Earl Watson, Chis Lebenzon, to name but a few: names you might recognize from the credits of subsequent big studio pictures. Costume designer Margaret Rose who has designed for many Vegas topliners, did an amazing job with a loose change budget. Thanks, guys and girls. it was a great introduction to Hollywood.
STUNT ROCK was a somewhat eccentric hybrid for its day; part concert film, part documentary, part mockumentary (I like genre cocktails. Both shaken and stirred.) Response from the late night screenings so far indicate the movie’s sense of humor has finally found its audience. I shall start booking it round the country next year.
So post modern genre geeks of Los Angeles, make a date: Midnight at the New Beverly, Friday December 4th.
P.S. For DEAD END DRIVE-IN fans, here’s a link to to a reviewer who gets it.
Recognition 25 years later. I’m getting a warm glow…
