BAD 'UNS, HOOLIGANS & NO-GOOD NICS

PART ONE [2-12-2010]

It's been a while since I wrote one of these things, mainly because I ran out of rubbish I could pontificate about.

I  thought it would be a good idea to write a more ambitious version of my "five baddest..." lists, then realized I didn't have the time or patience to commit to such a venture.

Instead, I've broken it up into smaller chunks, which I can realise whenever I feel like it.

For part one of this personalized rogues gallery, I've decided to pick villains from three of the biggest Hollywood action hero franchises.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE)

Ernst Stavro Blofeld has had many incarnations over the years. Armed with a vast intellect, outlandish schemes for world domination, Persian cats and an ever-present Nehru jacket, Blofeld exemplifies the popular image of the typical Bond villain, inspiring Mike Meyer’s glorious tribute/parody Dr Evil.

While Donald Pleasance’s performance in 1967’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is the most iconic, it is not the most definitive. That honor must go to Telly Savalas, who succeeded Pleasance in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969).  

In contrast to Pleasance, who played the character as a seriously disturbed megalomaniac, Savalas plays Blofeld the same way Connery played Bond, as a sophisticated thug, combining the brawn of Oddjob with the cool intellect of Ian Fleming's literary creation. 

Unlike most Bond villains, Savalas’s Blofeld is more than capable of going toe-to-toe with Bond. And unlike all the rest, he manages to survive his encounter with the secret agent, ending the film bloodied but unbowed, with the assassination of Bond’s wife Tracy as his final coupe de grace.  

Mola Ram (Amrish Puri , INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM)

Unlike Bond, Indiana Jones does not boast a comparable rogue’s gallery. On the whole, his adversaries tend to be (discounting the henchmen) a bit colorless. They lack a little panache. 

Thank Kali then for Mola Ram, the high priest of the (underrated) TEMPLE OF DOOM.

The one great villain of the series, Mola Ram is also the only one of Indy's foes who does not fall into the category of the heartless Nazi/Soviet or treacherous colleague.

Unlike the comically stereotypical Teutonic nemeses of his other adventures, Mola Ram’s is a singularly diabolical evil, who is willing to go to any lengths to dominate the world in the name of the goddess Kali. Unlike the empty symbolism of the Nazis, Ram’s ideology is based on seemingly real supernatural abilities.

Pulling the heart out of a living man then cackling with delight as it spontaneously combusts, Mola Ram epitomizes the altogether grimmer tone of this second adventure.

With a no-holds barred mentality about achieving his goals, he willingly sacrifices both his followers and the children of the surrounding villages. He also has the distinction of being the only villain to gain the upper hand over Indy and  convert him to the dark side, at least temporarily.

He gets a pretty good send-off as well, in one of the first computer graphics-assisted ‘pushed off a cliff into the hungry maws of crocodiles’ death scenes. Eat your heart out, Blanchett!

Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, DIE HARD)

DIE HARD is the greatest action movie of all time. One key factor is Bruce Willis as John McClane, an ordinary guy who has to dig deep to become a hero. But a hero is only as great as his villain, and it is an understatement to say that Hans Gruber is a great one. 

Unlike the other villains in this collection, Gruber benefits from having one of the most realistic and well-thought out schemes ever in a Hollywood film. His plan is so well-thought out, and his ability to improvise so on-point it's not a stretch to imagine someone enacting the same scheme in the real world. 

He pushes John McClane to the limit, outwitting him at every turn. Even when everything has turned to crap, Gruber doesn't break a sweat. Like a great chess player, he's already five moves ahead of his opponent, and it is only when McClane begins to think like him that the tables begin to turn. 

There are so many scenes which highlight Gruber's sheer awesomeness, but it goes without saying that the whole movie is the only real way of experiencing the monolithic appeal of this blissfully amoral bastard.  

After a good start, like so many sequels PART TWO turned out to be somewhat underwhelming...

Original Release Date:12-12-2010

Colonel Erhardt (Sig Ruman, TO BE OR NOT TO BE)

"So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt eh?"

Ernst Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOT TO BE remains an underrated gem from the era of Classic Hollywood comedy. The only comedy to directly confront World War Two and the conditions of those under German occupation, the film is a surprisingly successful black comedy.

And most of the credit must go to Sig Ruman's hilarious, and terrifying performance as the film's chief villain Gestapo Colonel 'Concentration Camp' Erhardt.

The genius of Ruman's performance (and the film) is that he is such a human monster, arrogantly preening and exalting in his position as the Gestapo's man in Poland, and secretly terrified of the enormous responsibility he has to bear in rooting out the Resistance.

He may be made to seem comically foolish by the Polish Resistance, but Colonel Erhardt is never played as the fool. With none of the moustache-twirling deviance of contemporary World War Two films, he is a truly threatening figure who takes great satisfaction from his reputation for ruthlessness. He epitomizes Lubitsch's belief that once atrocity has been rendered routine, it's orchestrators are no longer gleeful sadists but simply professionals going about their work with the emotional investment of slightly bored bank clerks.  

PART III - Lesser Known Denizens of the Celluloid West: Bastard Edition! [16-12-2010]

Major Jackson, DJANGO, 1966

"I see you brought your own burial suit. I like that..."

This guy is the ultimate killjoy.

Not only does he enjoy hunting human game, this ex-Confederate nutjob spends his time buying off or wiping out the local Mexicans while plotting to re-ignite the Civil War with his army of die-hard adherents. 

When a nameless outlaw gets uppity and disturbs his little slice of backwater Hell, he brings out his entire army to massacre the poor sod.

Even when said sod starts wiping out his clan, Jackson doesn't blink an eyelid, using the stranger's appearance as an excuse to wipe out all his enemies in a final genocidal purge. What a bastard.

Avery, THE MARAUDERS, 1955

A little film, but an absolutely hypnotizing performance from Dan Duryea as war-obsessed Avery.

At first, Avery plays second banana to cool businessman Rutherford in his plan to muscle small-time rancher Everett out of the water hole he has just discovered in the middle of the desert.

When Everett holds them off and his boss decides to give up, Avery does a Colonel Kurtz and takes over the gang. Increasingly deranged by a lack of water and his own deluded attempts to become a 'war hero' like his ancestors, Avery ends up destroying his own gang in his attempts to crush his foe, shooting their water bottles when they attempt to escape. Clever bastard...

The entire cast, DJANGO, KILL! (IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!), 1967 

Where to start? 

The corrupt alderman with the pyromaniacal wife? The scarecrow-faced bandit leader Oaks? The psycho ranch owner Zorro and his talking parrot? The Muchachoes in their matching leather outfits? The townspeople who tear apart a (still living) outlaw for the gold bullets in his body?

Definitely a head scratcher...

PART 4 [20-12-2010]

And now, the final piece of the puzzle: 

John Carpenter's...

BAD 'UNS, HOOLIGANS & NO-GOOD NICS

Despite the iconic status of HALLOWEEN (1978) and growing reputation of his remake of THE THING (1982) John Carpenter remains a hugely underrated director. Here I present some of the lesser known antagonists who have added to the unsettling vibes of his singular filmography. 

Lo Pan, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986)

"Who are these? Friends of yours?!? You know, this really pisses me off no end!"

Both doddering old man and immortal demon, David Lo Pan (James Hong) is an unsung bad ass from the catalogue of John  Carpenter.

There is something rather lovable about Lo Pan. Despite his incredible powers, Lo Pan is basically a geek. Capable of destroying his enemies with a glance, Lo Pan is completely hopeless when it comes to wooing the woman he loves. Whether enjoying the torment of the film's heroes, or giggling with childish glee when he has to choose a bride from his nubile captives, Lo Pan is certainly the most relatable of Carpenter's villains.

Us, THEY LIVE (1988)

"What's the threat? We all sell out every day, might as well be on the winning team."

Before THEY LIVE, Carpenter's villains could be defined as essentially taken from the same cloth - as pure representatives of Evil completely consumed with death and destruction. This lack of ambiguity is not a criticism of Carpenter's vision: he villains are merely the extreme of the malevolence which exists in all his characters, from the anti-heroic Snake Plissken to the paranoid scientists of THE THING.

In THEY LIVE, Carpenter portrays a world in which there are no longer any external threats to our world, because 'they' have already won: Aliens have taken over the planet by insinuating themselves into the upper echelons of society, maintaining order via subliminal advertising and the compliant authorities.   

There are no space ships or ray guns in this brave new world, just dollar signs. Everyone has a price, and while the aliens in this film are bad enough,  it is the human characters who ultimately bring about the downfall of lone rebels Nada (Roddy Piper) and Frank (Keith David).

The Man, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

Despite being a rather entertaining hodgepodge of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, horror and action conventions, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is an incredibly nihilistic picture. One has only to look to the film's antagonists to see how disillusioning Carpenter's version of the (then) future year of 1997 truly is.

First there is Hauck (Lee Van Cleef), the brutal police chief who blackmails Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) into a last-ditch rescue mission to save the US President. He injects Plissken with the equivalent of a ticking time bomb, and only tells Snake through an underling's unwise slip of the tongue. 

The other figures of authority in the film are no less appealing.

The Duke (Isaac Hayes) is a certifiable nut job who rules the abandoned penal colony as a latter-day despot: Attila the Hun in pimp attire circa 1976. 

The President (Donald Pleasance) is a slimy little louse who shows little regard for those who have sacrificed themselves to rescue him.

These guys are the flip side of the same coin. Both are leaders who are willing to use any means necessary to remain in power. The only difference is that the Duke does not need to hide his corruption beneath a suit and idealistic bluster.

Street Thunder, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976) 

Michael Meyers may turn Haddonfield into an abattoir, and the Thing may have cornered the market in total facial and body re-construction, but none of Carpenter's villains have the impact of his debut.

From their first moments onscreen these dudes exude pure, undiluted evil, but it's their initial, totally unexpected act of violence which cements their status as the distilled essence of Carpenter's vision of evil.

Three Cranks

Original Date of Committal: 10-11-2010

Hollywood has a history of creating denigrating, belittling and generally insulting images of intellectuals. Here are just a few examples which will make you hope they continue to do so.

Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (1983)

"Would you read that last bit back to me? I'm afraid it might make me sound pompous to your readers."

"'My brilliant research in brain transplantation is unsurpassed, and will probably make my name live beyond eternity'."

"Oh, no, no; that's good. But take out the 'probably'. It makes me sound wishy-washy." 

A brain surgeon so brilliant that Dolly Parton wants to have his baby.

A plot so pure and simple it should be upheld as the epitome of dramatic construction: Man falls in love with Brain. Others try to keep Man and Brain apart. Man saves Brain. The End. 

It would be a gross understatement to say that nothing will prepare you for the singular charms of THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS.

A grieving widower, Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr is world famous for his cranial screwtop method of entry into the brain (exactly what it sounds like). This knowledge comes in handy when the doc runs over the beautiful Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner) and he has to perform emergency brain surgery in order to save her life. What Michael doesn't realize is that Dolores is a cold-hearted bitch who is only interested in bumping him off and stealing all his money. While this nefarious plot is underway, Michael discovers he can communicate with a brain being kept alive by his colleague Dr Alfred Necessiter (David Warner). Needless to say, he falls in love with said brain and takes it home with him, happy to finally have someone who he can appreciate for their mind rather than their body. When he discovers that his new love will die without a new body, he goes in search of the perfect chassis.

To any sane individual this film has the most idiotic plot in the history of the planet, with characters whose collective intelligence couldn't power a lightbulb. I can't recommend it enough. 

Dr Hfuhruhurr is Steve Martin's greatest creation, distilling his 'Wild and Crazy guy' persona to its wonderfully brain dead essence.  

Dr Tobias Funke ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, (2003-2006)

There are so many words which can be used to describe Tobias:

Actor. Blue Man Group stand-in. Security guard. Cleaning woman. Pirate. Analrapist. Did I leave any out?

Dr Rumack, AIRPLANE! (1980)

The Macdaddy of quacks. This guy's main gift is the ability to sound like the highly qualified professional he is not. We wouldn't have him any other way.

A look back at THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

As well as continuing the Retrograde series of old reviews, this entry is also a teaser for a future Bond-themed post. Till then, enjoy...

Original Release Date: 14-8-2010

“One tires of being executed” 

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH holds a special place for me since it was the first Bond movie I saw on the big screen. Having spent the year leading up to it watching all of the Bond movies (when you’re stuck on an island where it rains all the time and nightfall is 3 pm you do a lot of strange things), to say I was looking forward to BOND 19 would be an understatement.

After watching the film, I didn’t feel nearly so well disposed toward it. It was frankly too adult for me at the time. After all the flashy pyrotechnics of TOMORROW NEVER DIES, I guess I had been expecting too much. Grim, nihilistic, and boasting one of the most disturbed villains in the series, TWINE was not exactly what you could call fun. With a decade’s distance, however, I think the film is overdue for a re-review.

First things first, this film is not, by any stretch of the imagination, one of the best Bond movies.

Not that I think there is anything inherently wrong with the story itself. Personally, I like it. It's a brave attempt to bring Bond back to reality, as the series periodically does every couple of entries (and as we have seen in Daniel Craig's interpretation of the character).

The problem is simple: the filmmakers try to have their cake and eat it, trying to combine a more realistic dramatic narrative with the series’ typical elements of action, babes, gadgets and one-liners. Not to say that this balance can’t be struck, as the examples of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and GOLDENEYE attest. Even compared to the ‘back-to-basics’ films made with Daniel Craig, Bond 19’s problem is an inability to avoid the worst excesses of the formula. More simply put, it is the attempt to create a character study of Bond while retaining the inherent wish-fulfillment fantasy of the series which is its downfall.

I underline these problems as follows:

a) Casting. When you want to be taken seriously (as a film, as an artist, or as the despotic ruler of one of the less friendly former Soviet republics) you do not hire Denise Richards to headline the show. Especially as a nuclear physicist. And especially when she spends the film dressed like this...

2) Humour. If there is one big problem I have with TWINE, it is the constant stream of crap double entendres. Some of them are good, but why do they have to be in every single, frickin' scene? What makes it worse is that even Brosnan seems to be embarrassed by them. John Cleese is a genius, but, like Richards, is completely inappropriate to the more sombre mood the filmmakers are attempting to create. Which brings me to the film's final problem, this man.

As the film's director, Michael Apted is the man most responsible for what I like and dislike about this film.

The main problem is miscasting. Apted is known for more introspective, performance-based dramas such as COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER (1980), GORILLAS IN THE MIST (1988) and AMAZING GRACE (2006), not the sturm-und-drang of an action adventure film. This results in a film stuck between being a serious, complex thriller and an escapist action film The schism between these twin urges has the unfortunate effect of dissipating the impact of the film as a whole. As neither a thriller or an action spectacle does TWINE feel secure. 

As a filmmaker, Apted simply lacks the panache and style that a Bond film requires. This is a problem which has plagued the series since the Eighties, with only Martin Campbell (GOLDENEYE and CASINO ROYALE) managing the difficult task of combining spectacle with a more dramatic subtext.

However, while Apted is responsible for TWINE's mixed tone, he is also responsible for many of its chief pleasures.

a) The villains

Apted's films are well known for their strong female characters, and he broke new ground by providing the Bond series with its first female Big Bad.

Electra King is one nasty piece of work, seducing an international terrorist, blowing up her dad and attempting to secure a monopoly on Central Asia's oil deposits by nuking Istanbul. And then there's that weird thing she has with ice. Sophie Marceau's performance is excellent, making Electra both a mature, sensual woman and a damaged adolescent with serious Daddy issues. The only (minor) problem with the revelation of her true nature is the way in which it pushes aside Robert Carlyle's grinning nihilist Renard.

Together they are an interesting Macbeth-style double act, with both of them unable to really trust or care for each other. Frankly, Renard and King are the series' last truly great villains, both more complex and interesting than the recent trend of anonymous power brokers which have plagued Britain's Finest.

b) Plot twists

Bond films are not known for their subtlety, and it's not exactly required (though FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE makes a strong argument) and one of the nice things about watching TWINE (I am not typing that title again!) for the first time is some interesting story developments (MI6 is under attack! M is kidnapped! Renard isn't the baddie? Or is he?). 

The filmmakers obviously tried to do something different, and generally speaking, the plot is TWINE's saving grace.

c) The past

This may be lost to most movie goers, but the film's title comes from the book/film of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Producer Barbara Broccoli also highlighted the parallel between the two films: "With Elektra, Bond thinks he has found Tracy [his wife] but he's really found Blofeld."

The use of such a reference only adds to TWINE's sense of melancholy and hidden wounds. While it is never clear whether Brosnan's Bond is the same character who lost his wife at the close that picture, the sense of a painful past that TWINE hints at is a theme common to the Brosnan era (check out the confrontation with 006 in GOLDENEYE), and one which the film doggedly pursues to the bitter end (the scene where Bond has to decide whether to kill Electra).

d) Bond himself

While his interpretation has lost some of its lustre in light of the series' recent direction, Pierce Brosnan remains one of the series best Bonds, and his third film remains, arguably, his best performance as the iconic spy.

I always saw Brosnan as the natural evolution of Dalton's Bond, and in TWINE he excels. Not as dour as the Welshman, nor as flippant as Moore, Brosnan had the right combination of suave sophistication and acting chops to give the character a unique spin. 

While he may never have reached Dalton's intensity, and he didn't have the brutish machismo of Connery or Craig, Brosnan remained his own man as Bond, delivering a more humane version of the character which gelled with audiences in the late Nineties. While the material he worked with was not as strong as it could have been (a fact highlighted in his final turn), Brosnan never hit a false note.

TWINE is probably Brosnan's best performance as Bond. More reflective and less teflon coated than his performances in GOLDENEYE and TOMORROW NEVER DIES, BOND 19 sees Brosnan reveal more vulnerability, tenderness (check out the work he does with Marceau and Judi Dench) and rage (the opening sequence where he wipes the smirk off an arrogant Swiss banker) than had been seen since Dalton's woefully brief term in the role. 

While I'm sure others can come up with other reasons to like/bash BOND 19, it remains an interesting anomaly within the canon (yes, I used that word), sharing the same middle ground between disaster and originality as previous attempts to push Bond and his milieu into a more interesting direction. That being said, previous "noble failures" such as OHMSS (1969) and LICENCE TO KILL (1989) have undergone a critical re-evaluation in the years since their release, and hopefully the same fate awaits THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. As the saying goes, while it may fail more than most, its failings are greater than most (Bond) films' successes (invisible car! Space marines! Q's pineapple-print t shirt!)

SPECIAL NOTE: Thank you to Rowan French for reminding me that David Arnold's score is another good reason to listen to, as well as watch, BOND 19.

Combining Nineties dance beats with classical orchestration and synthesizers, Arnold manages an effective balance between the timelessness of the original theme with more contemporary textures. Fantastic stuff.

Sergio Corbucci and the Italian West

Original Air Date: 14-8-2010

"Wherever he goes, the silence of death follows..." 

When people think of Spaghetti Westerns, two names come to mind: Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood.

According to most critics, there's not much else to recommend this genre. They'd be right. Most Spaghetti Westerns are, admittedly, pretty shite. But, Leone aside, there were a few filmmakers around who felt it worthwhile to spend months getting sunburned in the deserts of Spain. Ironically the most successful of Leone's rivals was another Sergio, Corbucci, who took the genre into new weird and grotesque directions.

Blackly comic, violent and gruesome, Corbucci created a cinematic universe every bit as memorable as Leone's, though considerably less friendly. While Leone was content to place Clint Eastwood against various desert landscapes, Corbucci was not so restrained, throwing his heroes into the least accommodating environments imaginable. From a deserted frontier town sinking into a muddy quagmire (DJANGO) to a snow-covered wasteland (THE GREAT SILENCE) and an eerie Indian burial ground (NAVAJO JOE), Corbucci's films could easily be mistaken for Spaghetti versions of the Seven Circles of Hell.

And the characters who were forced to trudge through these picturesque settings were as far from the Man with No Name as could possibly be, and were Corbucci's most innovative contribution to the genre: The wounded hero. Most of his heroes don't start out that way. Like most movie gunslingers they are always the best shootists, blasting away cocky opponents with aplomb. However, since this is Corbucci's universe, this does not remain the norm for very long. In DJANGO (1966) the hero is captured and has his hands crushed by a stampede of horses, while in THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), the titular hero had his vocal chords cut as a child. Damaged both psychologically and physically, Corbucci's anti-heroes are amoral bounty hunters and gunfighters who are only marginally less callous than the villains. Which is generally the main reason why they end up losing.

Over time Corbucci's endings became more nihilistic: In DJANGO, the hero beats the villains but he loses the use of his hands, the girl and the gold. In NAVAJO JOE (1966) the hero kills the villain but is himself killed at the same time. By the time he made THE GREAT SILENCE (regarded as his best film), all bets were off: Silence and the woman he is trying to protect are murdered by the bounty hunter villains who then depart to spread more death and misery.

But if this all sounds a bit depressing, don't worry. Corbucci, whether he admitted it or not, was a born entertainer and shares more in common with modern day filmmakers than you may realize, especially in the one area he can be said to top Leone: action. While Leone turned his gun fights into highly stylized Mexican stand-offs, putting the brakes on visceral excitement in favor of mounting tension, Corbucci preferred to go off with all guns (and all barrels) blazing. Long before the ADD-afflicted editing styles of Bay, Scott and their ilk took over the Hollywood blockbuster, Corbucci was slicing and dicing his action sequences into high-speed, high impact montages of pure mayhem.

In another precursor to later action stars, Corbucci refused to arm his heroes with standard six-shooters and repeating rifles, preferring to upgrade their equipment with only scant regard for historical accuracy.

Hence Django (Franco Nero) utilizes a machine gun (hidden in a coffin) to wipe out small armies (three of them!), Navajo Joe (Burt Reynolds) utilizes the guerrilla tactics and improvised weapons of his tribe, and Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant) utilizes a fancy German pistol in his failed vendetta against his foes. But as I stated earlier, superior weapons and skills are of little real aid to Corbucci's anti-heroes. There is always a double cross, a crippling injury which sends events out of their control, spiraling toward disaster. In the case of DJANGO and THE HELLBENDERS (1967) the protagonists are brought down by their own greed and amorality.

When left to his own devices, as in DJANGO, Corbucci's pessimism and penchant for the grotesque could overwhelm his films (and scare off producers, who often attempted to prevent this via co-directors), but, as he matured, led to films as unique and compelling as THE GREAT SILENCE and THE HELLBENDERS, the suspenseful tale of an ex-Confederate's (Joseph Cotten) attempts to re-ignite the US Civil War via a gold stash hidden in a hearse.

Taken as a whole, his work as a Western director may be both bleaker (unless you don't mind downer endings) and more accessible (the imagination and proficiency he displays in shooting action should serve as a lesson to any modern filmmaker looking to let off some squibs) than the far smaller back catalogue of Sergio Leone. And since Corbucci worked at a far faster pace than Leone, he left us over ten (I'm not sure exactly how many) westerns within the space of around eight years, meaning there is a greater variety of stories (not all of his Westerns are action films) available to the discerning viewer. While not all of his Western work is memorable or even very good, you can find most of his best films (DJANGO, NAVAJO JOE and THE GREAT SILENCE) readily available in new restored editions.

Today almost forgotten under the shadow of his more illustrious colleague Leone, the work of Sergio Corbucci acts as a fine introduction to the breadth and depth of work within the Italian Spaghetti Western, and the films of other directors such as Damiano Damiani, Sergio Sollima, Guilio Petroni and Gianfranco Parolini.

GUARANTEED TO THRILL: A review of Seijun Suzuki's BRANDED TO KILL

[7-8-2010]

BRANDED TO KILL is the only movie you'll ever find where a steaming rice cooker will scare the crap out of you.

This 1967 action movie from Nikkatsu Studios is nominally the product of writer Hachiro Guryu, but refracted through the viewfinder of director Seijun Suzuki, it becomes a terrifying, perverse, erotic and hilarious side step into madness.

Hitman Hanada (Joe Shishido) is the third ranked hired killer in the Yakuza, a fact which is related to the viewer with such persistence that you just know we're eventually going to run into Ichi and Ni along the way.

Hanada is an absolutely mad bastard who requires the smell of cooking rice in order to get aroused enough to have kinky sex with his equally crazy wife. And, since they are such a loving couple, at some point, they get to shoot each other. At this point you're probably wondering what the hell is going on.

But then things get really, REALLY cool.

After a series of assassinations that are both incredibly surreal and ridiculously inspired (and which I won't spoil here - just remember the words "hot air balloon"), Hanada is hired by mystery woman Misako to kill a foreigner.

Which is where things get REALLY weird...

You'll have to see the film to find out what's what(?!?) but of all the cool insane, inane stuff that happens in this amazing flick, it's the scenes with Misako that really stand out.

Actress Annu Mari has the benefit of looking like Sixties horror icon Barbara Steele and possesses the creepy talent to hood her eyes like a hawk. That stare, combined with her unnerving ability to avoid the rules of cinematic continuity make Misako one of the most otherworldly, sexy and scary femmes fatales I've ever seen.

Her most memorable sequence comes early, when she picks up Hanada on the side of a rain-drenched road in the middle of the night. The fact that she is driving a sports car with no roof is the first sign of trouble, since it's raining. Heavily. Then there's the fact that she immediately states that she "hates men." And the fact that she never blinks as the rain runs into and over her eyes. Not to mention the dead bird with a needle through its heart that hangs from the rearview mirror. One good point in her favor is that she obeys the rules of the road, never taking her eyes off her driving while continuing to mutter ominous sounding non-sequiturs.

The combination of Maru and rain is not lost on director Suzuki, who continues to repeat the same composition of Misako staring straight into the camera with a heavy downpour behind her.

Of course it makes no sense when she's talking to Hanada in his apartment, but it's so effective it doesn't really matter.

You may have noticed an ongoing trend with this review... 

...this film is absolutely bonkers.

In fact it's so visually and technically 'interesting' that you could be forgiven for thinking you'd fallen asleep halfway through the movie.

Critics and audiences didn't bother to fall asleep - they stayed away in droves. In fact the financial and critical failure of BRANDED TO KILL was so complete Suzuki's contract with Nikkatsu was broken and he wasn't able to make another film for the next ten years.

Today, as is so often the case with old genre oddities, BRANDED TO KILL is regarded as a masterpiece of absurdist cinema, numbering Chan-wook Park, Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch among its admirers.

Suzuki has always claimed the reason the film is so unique is the fact that he was bored with constantly making yakuza movies and decided to have a little fun. Indeed.

As well as it's incredible weirdness BRANDED TO KILL still (kinda) works as a yakuza movie, and remains a hugely entertaining thrill ride, with some very unique takes on traditional action movie shoot outs and car chases.

Filled with oblique set pieces, discontinuous editing, some gorgeous chiaroscuro photography and an absolutely kickass jazz score, BRANDED TO KILL is guaranteed to deliver on whatever level you like.

If you're a fan of film noir, action movies, David Lynch AND Japanese genre movies, give this gem a go!

THE THREE BADDEST FILM FATALES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF

[5-8-2010]

Diane Jessup, ANGEL FACE (1952)

Jean Simmons is an actress who was always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Though decent supporting roles in films by Lean, Kubrick and Powell (and Pressburger) came early, Simmons never quite achieved the success her talents demanded.

It is these talents which are most definitely on show in Otto Perminger's underrated 1952 noir, in which she plays the deeply disturbed child-woman Diane.

Both alluring and immature, the barely-legal heiress quickly ensnares Robert Mitchum's incredibly unprincipled ambulance driver into a plot to do away with her wealthy stepmother.

Unique among classic screen femmes, she actually loves Mitchum. However, it is the infatuation of a teenage girl, and as anyone with a member of that unique tribe in their family knows, they can be pretty unpredictable (I'm not talking to you Zoe, my lovely, lovely sister. Please don't kill me!). Too bad since it appears Bob's character is an only child.

When he decides to turn himself in, he foolishly agrees to let Diane drive him to the bus station. Uh oh. And you'd think he would have learned about taking a drive with an evil, crazy woman after his experience with Jane Greer in OUT OF THE PAST. Ah well...

Space Girl, LIFEFORCE (1985)

"She's totally alien to our life form. And totally dangerous..." Anyone who has met me since the beginning of this year will be well aware of my recent obsession with Tobe Hooper's gloriously demented space vampire/zombie erotic scifi thrill ride, and much of the credit must go to Miss Mathilda May as the film's Big Bad.

There are a lot of things completely, hilariously wrong with LIFEFORCE, but May's Space Girl is not one of them.

The personification of male lust, May is the hottest, baddest femme fatale never to grace a pulp detective book cover. Like some kind of sexed-up Terminator she comes to Earth and proceeds to suck the titular energy out of any man or woman that strikes her fancy. The fact that her victims are transformed into soul-sucking zombies and proceed to overrun the city of London is just the topping on a very funky pudding.

Oh, and did I mention she's naked? The ENTIRE MOVIE! It's a jaw-dropping gambit that actually works (thanks to the obligatory shadows and image-obscuring props) as both the (male) characters and the (probably male) viewers are constantly reminded that she is merely a projection of their own basest desires, a fact highlighted when she transforms into a giant alien bat thingy halfway through the movie.

Z-Man AKA Superwoman, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)

"Prepare to taste the black sperm of my vengeance!" Yeah, Z-Man is safely the most... idiosyncratic broad on this list. Played by John LaZar at full throttle intensity the man/woman also known as "Superwoman" is the scariest denzien to emerge from the Age of Aquarius.

With the clipped diction of Laurence Olivier’s Richard III, Mick Jagger's sideburns and renegade nazi Martin Bormann for a butler, Z-Man is the mephistopholian figure behind the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of super-girl band the Carrie Nations.

Whether spewing pseudo-Shakespearean verse, professing his/her love to a chained stud wearing Tarzan's loin cloth, or strutting around his outre mansion in a form-fitting purple body suit complete with crown, cape and sword, Z-Man is ready for any and all occasions.

Unbelievably, this ridiculously disturbing apparition came from the revered pen of everyone's favorite thumb-er, film critic Roger Ebert. Originally a mean-spirited take-off on uber-music producer Phil Spector, Z-Man now seems strangely prescient in light of Spector's recent fall from grace.

Expect Cillian Murphy to take the role in the remake.

TOP FIVE UNDERRATED MOVIE PSYCHOS

In the middle of 2010, I decided to put the time I spent on Facebook to a semi-good use and began using the Note app to create reviews and lists of Pop Culture related fluff. Some was good, some was bad, some was composed at 3 in the morning.

And so to commemorate the shift to this new blog, over the next few days/weeks/whatever, I'll be making up for my lack of posts with some of the goodies from the old days (okay a year and a half ago).

First up, here's my stunning debut from August 4th, 2010:

Harry Sledge, SUPERVIXENS

"That's what you get for bein' sassy!" 

In a film filled with nymphomaniacal amazonians, it takes something special to stand out - especially when the film is from the demented brain of a certain Russell Albion Meyer.

Played by Meyer’s favorite heavy Charles Napier, at first glance there is little to differentiate Harry from the proud tradition of sneering rednecks that seemed to be on the verge of overwhelming American action movies in the early Seventies.

Harry’s claim to fame comes early when he gleefully stomps a woman to death in a bathtub. Our impressions of Harry are totally blown: Rather than simply being an over-compensating corrupt psycho cop, Sledge is an IMPOTENT over-compensating corrupt psycho cop. Leapin' lizards!

Nabbing all the best lines, and permanently nashing on a suggestive stogie, Harry’s is such an overpowering presence that when he disappears a quarter in, the movie loses most of its unique shot-out-of-a-blunderbuss intensity. And in a film populated by six of the most abundantly buxom strippers-turned-thespians ever to grace the silver screen, that’s saying something. And he wears a BERET.

Red Grant, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE 

"You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees." 

The archetype for all the tall, blonde Germanic hardasses Her Majesty’s finest has had to contend with over the years, Red Grant, played by the late, great Robert Shaw (JAWS’s Quint), is inarguably the best of the bunch.

From the opening “Holy Shit, Bond is dead!-oh wait it’s an impostor” stalking sequence to the still ridiculously visceral train fight, Grant is established as Bond’s equal, if not his superior, beating, shooting, stabbing and strangling the hell out of whoever is unfortunate enough to cross his path.

Stripped of the metal teeth/claw/hat fetishism that has come to encapsulate the Bond henchman, Grant is memorable for simply being very good at what he does, and giving viewers more chills than a pool of sharks with laser beams attached to their frickin' heads. And in a film starring Sean Connery at his badass prime, we should have expected no less. 

Bennett, COMMANDO

"I don’t need the gun, John ..." 

Okay, I’ll be honest. This spot was a tossup between Vernon Wells’s madder-than-a-sack-of-monkeys-with-sledgehammers ex-super soldier and Eric Foreman’s dad as drug kingpin Clarence Boddicker in ROBOCOP. But as any true action fan knows, when it’s a choice between prescription specs and a chain mail vest, Wells comes out on top. 

Uncle Charlie, SHADOW OF A DOUBT

"He said people like us don’t know what the world is really like..." 


Years before Norman Bates, Alfred Hitchcock made a small, unassuming slice of suburban suspense called SHADOW OF A DOUBT. His first film set in America, Hitch’s film revolves around the figure of charming Uncle Charlie (the woefully under-appreciated Joseph Cotten), a handsome bachelor who may just be the infamous ‘Merry Widow’ murderer.

Pursued by imposing men in official looking suits (Police? IRS? Jehovah’s Witnesses?), Charlie decides to make an unexpected visit to his sister’s family in the charming (boring) town of Santa Rosa.

A more subtle evocation of the psychosis with which Hitchcock would soon be identified, the cat-and-mouse struggle between Charlie and his favorite niece is played out as a series of underhanded mind games, with Charlie attempting to re-assure and then silence his niece. A fresh conceit compared with the typical blood and viscera of most contemporary psycho thrillers.

Cotten’s performance is first-rate, lending Charlie a sense of charm which masks the calculating killer just beneath the surface. And his murder-turned-suicide at the climax is a great, ironic coda to the masterfully understated menace of the film’s final act.


Harry Roat Jr, WAIT UNTIL DARK

"Now all the little children have gone to bed..." 

From his first moments onscreen, Roat is one cold fish. He doesn’t do ANYTHING for the first two acts. No bathtub stomps or wrist watch-garroting for this one. Instead, he manipulates and cajoles everyone else into his scheme to steal a child’s doll (filled with heroin) in the unknowing possession of blind woman Suzy Hendricks (Audrey Hepburn).

It's a testament to Harry's sheer, nasty vibe that even when Miss Hepburn fights back, her survival is always in question. For anyone who is familiar with this film, the climax of WAIT UNTIL DARK ranks with the great horror film set pieces. Our fair lady (sorry, had to drop it in) smashes every light bulb in the house, plunging her opponent (and for the last eight minutes, the viewer) into total darkness.

What elevates this sequence is Harry. He's this film's uncontrollable variable and it should come as no surprise that at this moment of potential victory, he is there to snatch it away - revealing the one light source Suzy forgot to unplug...

Unlike most of the psychos on this list, Harry benefits from having a scheme that actually makes sense, and the way in which he manages to fool both his quarry and cohorts only adds to his diabolical credentials.

I never rated Alan Arkin as a great actor. Now I sit in fear, waiting for him to bust down my door and shove his little friend Geraldine repeatedly into my back.

Quite simply, Arkin's performance as Harry Roat Jr from Scarsdale (“Scarsdale?”) is utterly terrifying. And if there were any justice in this world it would be placed in the inner most circle of the pantheon of great cinematic knavery.