Furious on Film 08.24.06: Issue 52
Posted by Arnold Furious on 08.24.2006
Running the gamut from pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone right through to Ingmar Bergman
The aim of this ongoing column was simple. I've been watching films for a long, long time but along the way I've somehow found myself watching some absolute crap on a regular basis. I've seen every episode of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween. Is there any real need for that? Should I have seen Green Street? Leonard Part 6? It's Pat? I'm appalled at my own decisions. So I'm now on a crusade to try and be more adult about my film watching. It's time to spread my wings and watch a wider range of films. The biggest problem I've encountered when taking on this challenge is my choices of viewing material aren't always at the level I'd hope for. There are times when I abandon my high and mighty campaign and instead watch whatever my brain decides I need. This can happen at any time but I'll still try to keep up a turnover of films that are challenging in some way. So this week Death Race 2000! Ahem.
For some reason I missed the year off American Splendor's release last week. It was 2003. Just in case you were concerned about that and couldn't be arsed to look it up. You slack fucker.
Warning – could well contain minor spoilers throughout. Films are rated on a ***** scale. This week we have…
Death Race 2000, The Business, The General, The Seventh Seal
Death Race 2000 (1975)
EXPECTATIONS – With rival studio United Artists working at the uber-violent future sports flick Rollerball, New World pictures decided to make a film to rival it. While creating a sport like Rollerball would seem like copying they figured that creating a cross country race where the drivers gained bonus points for mowing down pedestrians would be suitably original to stand alone. They hired young actor/director Paul Bartel to run the project. It's still his most famous film as a director although if his version of Cannonball (later done as the Cannonball Run) had come off he'd be a rich man right now. His only other big hit is underground smash Eating Raoul. Among the cast however are a fair few big names. David "Kill Bill" Carradine is the star. He's established himself doing the TV show Kung Fu. His rival is relatively unknown actor Sylvester Stallone. He'd done nothing of note so far in his career but was only a year away from starring in Rocky. The other star among the racers is Martin Kove who played Kreese in the Karate Kid. You know the guy. Defeat does not exist in this dojo! Damn straight.
PLOT – Frankenstein (Carradine) is a race car driver who holds many records in a nationally televised cross country car race where drivers gain extra points for running down pedestrians. After recovering from his latest serious injury that cost him an arm he recruits a new navigator Annie (Simone Griffith) and joins the other participants in an attempt to win the race one more time. But this year the race is beset by anti-race protestors keen to kill all the drivers before they get to the finish line. Four other cars line up with Frankenstein this year – Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins complete with crazy Nazi gimmick), Nero the Hero (Kove) and his arch rival Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Stallone).
OPINION – Several problems with Death Race 2000. Most obviously is a serious lack of budget (no shock that it was produced by Roger Corman). It often comes off as a cheap ass version of Rollerball. And where Rollerball challenged authority in a realistic fashion Death Race 2000 does it in a really over the top manner. While Rollerball ended in highly memorable fashion with Jonathan E skating alone around the battle zone that used to be his sport Death Race 2000 just ends in such a daft and silly fashion that it's hard to take even remotely seriously. Which is weird because Death Race 2000 seems to take itself far too seriously during the actual race. The competitors aren't joking and laughing like in Rollerball but rather at each others throats and constantly arguing. It kind of sucks the life and fun out of the film. Rollerball had moments where the team effort actually felt like it meant something and it crossed the line between violent action flick and being an actual sports movie. There's never any danger of that in Death Race 2000. Once the novelty of the hit and runs has worn off we're left with a sub plot involving the anti-race protestors and their mole in the race. No prizes for guessing who that is. Death Race 2000 has achieved a notable cult status thanks to its ridiculous premise, the stars that went on to bigger and better projects and the slightly sexy violent society the film pushes as a backdrop for the action. The cartoony nature of the racers and the action scenes in general almost makes for a surreal viewing experience. Certainly there's none of the grit of Rollerball or say Slapshot. Comparing it to those films is probably unfair though. Compared to other racing movies this isn't too bad. Say Smokey and the Bandit or the Cannonball Run. While those films were aimed at a mainstream market this was headed for cult love right out of the gate. Maybe that's why it's so laughably shallow and the plot barely registers. But Death Race 2000 is well worth a watch because the acting is so cheesy, the premise so ridiculous that it goes around from bad all the way back to good. It's preposterous and entirely over the top with several moments just making me laugh out loud. Clearly the inclusion of a Nazi racer was for cheap laughs for example and she made me laugh a few times. Most notably with my favourite moment in the film…
BEST BIT – Matilda scores Jane's mechanic while he's working on her damaged car and screams "Blitzkrieg" in the process. Even after her passing from the resulting car chase she provides the second greatest moment in the film as a tearful commentator gives her this epitaph… "She was a great, dear friend of mine and I shall remember her forever howling down that freeway in the sky, knocking over the angels". Heh.
RATING - ***. While on a conventional scale Death Race 2000 wouldn't score well at all it was so suitably silly that I felt it was worth three snowflakes.
The Business (2005)
EXPECTATIONS – Nick Love made a bit of a name for himself in England when he directed the Football Factory, probably England's most accurate film with regards to football hooliganism, and subsequently got the chance to make a film where there were actual expectations of success. In the English film industry. It made a little over a million at the UK box office but unlike the Football Factory hasn't found a niche market on DVD. Yet. The star here is Danny Dyer, one of Britain's most promising up and coming actors. In particular I felt he made the Football Factory a success story with a strong leading performance. Obviously he wanted to team up with Nick Love on another project and The Business seemed to be the right one. Also returning from the previous collaboration are Tamer Hassan and Roland Manookian.
PLOT – Young Frankie (Dyer) gets into a spot of bother and has to go and lie low for a while. He heads out so sunny Spain where he starts working as a driver for local high roller and club owner Charlie (Hassan). After a run in with some Dutch drug runners they team up with Charlie's partner Sammy (Geoff Bell – who also starred in a football movie when he was in Green Street as Tommy Hatcher) in order to take over the drug business in the area. At first they just sell marijuana but get greedy and up to cocaine against the wishes of the local mayor.
OPINION – The advertising for The Business didn't quite get it right. Instead of focusing on the gritty reality of the piece they instead decided to claim it had "more drugs than Scarface" etc and try and sell as being a better film than several classics (which is bad because it steals from those films and you don't want to bring attention to it yourself). Quite blatant bullshit and everyone could smell it. So thanks to the marketing people ("if you work in advertising or marketing, kill yourself" – thank you, Bill Hicks) the film never had a chance. Hell, I didn't particularly want to watch it because the trailers made me think it'd be Danny Dyer acting like a spoilt little prick. He does but that's only for about 5 minutes of the 97 minute run time. The rest of the time he segues between scared boy and struggling addict. Two personalities I was quite happy to watch him play. The spoilt prick is only at the very height of the drug running success. Somehow they thought that'd make people want to see the film. As it turns out I'm glad I spent the time watching The Business. The characters are reasonable. Charlie & Sammy are friendly and in control when everything is going right but when things start to go wrong they self destruct and blame each other. Both characters end up being developed strongly as well as the central character of Frankie who finds himself torn between an allegiance to his friend Charlie and an attraction to Sammy's girlfriend Carly (Georgina Chapman – who is fucking awful but let's try and be positive). The constant work on all three characters as the film progresses helps lead to the films conclusion where only one of them is likely to become a success again. And yet it doesn't slow the action up. Comparisons are inevitable with similar films that The Business borrows strongly from. In particular I'm thinking about my favourite film ever, Goodfellas. The Business is very much like a low rent version of the same film. Less gloss, smaller and more clichéd performances. Danny Dyer does a good job at imitating Ray Liotta even in his willingness to look like crap for the last 20 minutes of the film like Liotta does in Goodfellas to show the effects of coming down from a great high. Much like the script does a reasonable attempt at stealing from Goodfellas with Charlie as Robert DeNiro's character and Sammy as Joe Pesci's. The similarities don't end there and the drugs link is rather blatant too. But then if you're going to steal you might as well steal from my favourite film. The 80's setting provides it with a nice vibe. Both in fashion and with the music but apart from that it's not terribly original and the feeling is that it borrows it's vibe from Grand Theft Auto's popular Vice City game. Incidentally Dyer provided the voice of Kent Paul in the GTA games.
BEST BIT – Frankie sets his mate Sonny (Manookian) up to get nailed by the homosexual major in an attempt to sweeten him and let them bring cocaine in. But Sonny doesn't find the idea too appealing and stabs the major in the arse with a fork.
RATING - **1/2. While I've generally praised The Business during the write up there's this inescapable feeling that what you're watching is nothing more than a cheap Goodfellas knock off. While it's not a bad Goodfellas knock off that doesn't stop the lack of originality in the plot. Also in British gangster film terms it's well down the pecking order from another sun soaked character driven film Sexy Beast (**** - FoF #48) but unlike Sexy Beast it just doesn't have the calibre of actors or the originality of that film. While The Business certainly isn't a total disaster because I quite enjoyed watching it Nick Love will have to come up with something considerably better if he's to stay at the forefront of British film making. Next up for him is a modern day vigilante tale called Outlaw. It has Sean Bean in it and Bob Hoskins. I'm hopeful that Outlaw could well be the film where Love realises his potential. If it's not then he could be headed to the back of the queue and the Football Factory could be a fluke. Better luck next time Nick.
The General (1927)
EXPECTATIONS – For some weird and bizarre reason I've never seen a Buster Keaton movie. At least not one I remember. Considering Keaton appeared in 146 films over the course of his 50 year acting career that's quite a shock. I think my preference for Charlie Chaplin movies was down to the emotional edge they always seemed to have over Keaton's stoic almost listless performances. Like I said earlier I don't remember seeing a Buster Keaton film…all the way through. There's just something about him that I've never found entertaining. Not in the same way as Chaplin. He was the original psychical comedian on the big screen debuting at theatres three years before Keaton made his own debut as Fatty Arbuckle's sidekick. Keaton himself wasn't a big success until a string of winners in the early 20's when Chaplin was already well established as the biggest star in Hollywood. It's strange that Keaton made his best work at the height of his career while Chaplin gave his finest performances as his career was starting to wind down. City Lights, Modern Times and the Great Dictator were followed by only four post war movies. Odd how Chaplin, the bigger star, made 87 films while Keaton went on to be so prodigious into his old age. Although a lot of that was down to Chaplin's supposed links to Communism.
PLOT – Johnny Gray (Keaton) is on the side of the Confederacy during the American Civil War but when he tries to join the army they refuse because he's too valuable as a train engineer. This upsets his beloved Annabelle (Marion Mack) whose family have joined the army and she refuses to see him until he's wearing the colours of the Southern army. She then boards his train while he's driving along with a load of Union spies masquerading as common Southern folk. The Union spies steal Gray's train named "The General". Gray promptly gives chase into enemy territory to get back his train and his girl. This is based on something that actually happened.
OPINION – Charlie Chaplin tends to use his own psychical skills and then just dumps himself into a different background before letting his creativity loose. Keaton spends the majority of The General on board a train driving it forwards. His comedy comes from a variety of different set up's along the way. It's a road movie only on a train. Some of the gags he spends nearly five minutes setting up with a trickle of laughter to follow. Like the cannon he tows behind the train only to mess up the trajectory and nearly blow himself up. The series of gags there include him not being able to aim right, not being able to control the train and the cannon at the same time, struggling to get from one to the other, getting tied up the cable that's towing the cannon etc. It's a terrific series of minor gags all setting up for the big one where all these little minor irritations suddenly become the abject horror of him nearly blowing himself and the train clean off the rails. But because the set up is so well built and subtle that it's funny and worrying at the same time. Which is a really hard thing to achieve. It's mostly down to Keaton's lack of expression. While Chaplin or another psychical actor have done a huge double take or at least given off a wacky facial expression Keaton just stares at the cannon. It's a more realistic reaction perhaps and the situation that's funny rather than the acting. One thing that Keaton does give you is a lot of prat falls, which were hugely popular at the time, and he's even named after one. His name is Joseph Keaton but he gained the nickname Buster, slang for taking a big fall, because that's what he did. Rumour has it he was named as such by Harry Houdini who was a friend of the family who were into the whole vaudeville scene. The thing that most surprised me about the General was that it wasn't a straight up comedy like practically all of Chaplin's films. It was more like watching a romantic action comedy. Keaton is given a lot of credit for his innovation and he certainly had his eye on mixing genres here. Not to mention nearly killing himself in the process by riding the cattle catcher on a real life moving train. His stunt work is amazingly dangerous. The only real modern comparison would be Jackie Chan. The problem with The General is that it's been bettered many times over by film makers since. Yeah, it's nice to see a truly original piece of work that spawned so many imitations but I don't think this has aged quite as well as say City Lights, which is still a timeless love story. The love story here is a little shallow and more of a backdrop for the terrific action sequences. That said for the 20's it's a remarkable feat and feels a lot more modern. Although some of Keaton's running around seems a touch speeded up for comedic effect. It's worth turning up for the dramatic train chase scenes alone.
BEST BIT – Either the cannon sequence or the Union train that tries to cross a burning bridge at the command of a general who orders them on there. He seems to think its fine and will easily take the weight of the engine. Then the entire bridge collapses taking the train with it. That, incidentally, was the most expensive single shot of the silent era and the train "The Texas" remained in the river until World War II where it ended up getting used for much needed scrap iron.
RATING - ****. Entertaining film with solid action sequences even for modern times. Also it has one of the most epic chase sequences ever committed to celluloid. It's SUCH an important chase scene it takes up 90% of the movie. Next time out I'll be looking at Charlie Chaplin's "Great Dictator" to make a comparison.
The Seventh Seal (1957)
EXPECTATIONS – There are a lot of preconceptions about Ingmar Bergman and his movies. That they're overly intellectual with little sense of humour. Hell even Bergman has said that he can't watch his own films because he finds them depressing. There seems to be little or no motivation to watch anything Bergman has done. Yes, he's been an inspiration to some film makers including Woody Allen but I know plenty of people who flat out hate Woody Allen movies. The only reasoning I could find to even sit down and sit through a film of Bergman's is that I don't think I can consider myself any kind of film buff without watching at least one of his films and the Seventh Seal is the most famous by some distance. I've probably seen a dozen parodies of the film over the years thanks to a memorable theme of a man playing Death for his life. Off the top of my head Woody Allen did in Love and Death, Monty Python did it (twice) and Bill & Ted even parodied the Seventh Seal when they also battled Death…at Battleships. And Twister. And table football. And Cluedo. And now I'm showing how much I love Bill & Ted movies while I'm supposed to be writing about Ingmar Bergman. I'm a low brow idiot aren't I? To the back of the class Furious. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.
PLOT – Antonius Block (a very young Max Von Sydow) challenges Death (Bengt Ekerot) to a game of chess to determine his fate and also that of his travelling companions, which includes his squire Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), an actor called Jof (Nils Poppe) who has visions and his wife Mia (Bibi Andersson). Block is determined to learn if there is a God before dying. He specifically wants details on the afterlife he's about to become a part of. So his game with Death gives him time to try and find some answers. From Death or from where ever he can find information.
OPINION – Firstly Seventh Seal isn't as bleak as I expected. Secondly there's no reason to fear sitting through this film or probably any other by Bergman. Quite why I had such a strong mental image of what to expect being so dull and inaccessible I don't know. Probably because I own both Bill & Ted movies. And while we're on the subject I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Airplane II, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Let's face facts. I'm not a classy guy. Well, not all the time anyway. So I was pleasantly surprised when I didn't recoil in terror at any moment while watching the Seventh Seal. More promisingly I was extremely tired when I sat down to watch it and didn't nod off at any point. I found myself actually interested in the concepts and the somewhat abstract designs I was faced with. Antonius Block's chess game with Death is a metaphor for life. Set in the 14th Century it features Block as a Knight returning from the Crusades. He's clearly world weary and having seen such horrors as took place during the Crusades his previously strong belief in the presence of a supreme being has been rattled. He's now reached the point where he feels he's unsure and you'd call him agnostic if he were alive today. His squire Jons is even further gone. He resents the church for sending them away in the first place and no longer believes in God. He's a full on atheist and has a firm grip on that. His perception and that of his master are entirely different and Block seems to be having more trouble with his lack of belief. So he tries to find answers before his game with Death is over and with it his life. He even asks a witch who is about to be burned at the stake whether he could possibly have a quick word with the Devil to try and confirm any kind of presence in the afterlife. She's not terribly cooperative and Block leaves thinking he's gained nothing and there is nothing after Death. When the game of chess ends, there's nothing. With this idea in place he decides to cheat Death by disrupting the game. Fucking with Death doesn't seem like the best of ideas but he seems genuinely scared that if he dies he becomes worm food and nothing more. There's a great deal of questions being posed by Bergman but he doesn't want to straight up drop answers into the viewers lap just provide them with a lot of different things to think about. For someone who dreaded sitting through it I really got a lot out of the Seventh Seal. It makes you think and although it is bleak it's not without its humour.
BEST BIT – Death corners an actor up a tree and chops it down with his scythe. For a director who's not supposed to be funny it sure made me chuckle.
RATING - *****. A mixture of startling imagery and powerful sentiment Bergman has created a real masterpiece here. The only real complaint is that some of the supporting cast aren't particularly good but I don't see that as a reason to mark it down. If anything it's too SHORT. I could have sat and watched for at least another 30 minutes while the characters were further explored. In particular I'd taken a liking to Jons. Don't be scared kids; it's not as hard to endure as you might think.
ELSEWHERE –
George Sirhois tackles Factotum precisely one week before me. Dangit. Everyone else just reviewed Snakes on a Plane. Who can blame them? The lowest score our FOUR reviewers gave it was an 8.0. Yes folks, Snakes on a Plane is actually good.
Meanwhile there are no Snakes on a Plane for Leonard Hayhurst and Ask 411 Movies. But if you hover over the Google link for Snakes on a Plane that we have knocking around here it plays the trailer. Oh yes. Hey Leonard, I don't like Renee Zellwegger either. Maybe we should start a club.
Forgotten Films and Tony Farinella has Grand Canyon this week. Any chance of a look at Short Cuts? Or is that too well known?
Scotty Flamingo takes a pot shot at female football commentators or though that could easily apply to any women sports commentators. Yes, even tennis. They're all rubbish.
My potential tag team partner Steve Viscious takes a look at Series 6 of the Simpsons. Everyone knows series 3-6 of any show are usually where the best episodes are. The characters are developed and everyone can almost see the gags coming. Same with the Simpsons although I think Series 7 was also very solid. Not as good as Series 6 or anything but there ya go.
Chad Webb has the Big Screen Bulletin. Roadhouse 2? See, I just would have stayed well away. I only watched Roadhouse because Terry Funk was in it.
NEXT – As I mentioned earlier Charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator, my second movie (after Pink Panther, eep) of 2006 Factotum (about an alcoholic writer – no relation), Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire and Charlize Theron acting up a storm in Monster. See you in seven.
