Mish Mash 29 (Save the Tiger, The Miracle Worker, The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), F1: The Movie)

Save the Tiger

A-day-in-the-life films (not to be confused with one-crazy-night pictures) can be a neat trick to pull off if you have the right elements strung and intertwined together.  There’s definitely a certain level of suspension of disbelief you need to adopt to get on board.  As long as you can get past the notion of “no one’s life is this crazy” it can be a fun wild ride.  And Save the Tiger works for me in that regard.

Harry Stoner (Jack Lemmon (Grumpy Old Men)) owns a mid-level fashion house in LA where they design and manufacture their own line of women’s clothing.  The company is in financial trouble though so Harry does whatever he has to in order to keep the doors open.  He sets up his biggest buyer with sex workers to grease the wheels for more orders and argues with his CFO about the best approach to secure additional funding.  But his most underhanded tactic is to arrange for one of his warehouses to go up in flames so he can collect the insurance payout.

Lemmon is fantastic as a hard-nosed, tenacious businessman.  He’s depressed about the state of his company but is still unrelenting in his drive to keep it going.  He says all he wants is one more season and he’ll damn near kill himself to get it.  Stoner’s only solace is when he reminisces about old baseball.  A slight smile will peek through as he remembers the players and the game that once gave him such joy.  But these moments are fleeting as new crises constantly emerge that he must deal with.

What makes the movie work is Stoner.  Despite his questionable (or downright deplorable) ethics you want to see him succeed.  His motivation isn’t solely personal which helps.  His business employs dozens of workers who he doesn’t want to see out of the job.  So that’s nice.  This along with not wanting to fail after years and years of building his company from the ground up is admirable.  It’s his desperation strategies that make him both troubling and fascinating to follow around for a day.  Highly recommended.

The Miracle Worker

Look, I’m not someone who’s anywhere near qualified to dive deep into the subject matter of this one but I still want to give a shoutout because of how moving it is.

The Miracle Worker deals with activist Helen Heller when she was seven and first met her teacher Anne Sullivan.  Keller lost her sight and hearing months after being born and Sullivan was brought in to help train her how to communicate.  Sullivan herself was partially blind so she took her knowledge of fingerspelling, where you spell out words into someone’s hand using various shapes similar to sign language, and taught it to Keller.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds though because Keller didn’t even know what words were.  Think about that for a second.  She could mimic Sullivan’s hand gestures but didn’t understand at all what they meant or that a particular string of gestures corresponded to objects, actions or concepts.  How in the hell do you get across the idea that everything has a word associated with it and here is the word?  It’s mind boggling.

That would be difficult enough if you had all your senses but Keller was operating without sight or sound to aid her.  With those two unavailable she was effectively mute as well.  I can only very vaguely imagine not having one sense but not having two?!  I can’t even remotely comprehend what this girl went through.

With a story this tricky to convey you need some expert performances and directing and boy did they deliver.  Anne Bancroft (G.I. Jane) as Sullivan and Patty Duke (The Patty Duke Show) as Keller are phenomenal.  Bancroft runs the gamut as she shows all levels of love, contempt, frustration, enthusiasm and relentlessness to educate her sole student.  Duke gives maybe the best child performance I’ve ever seen?  She was sixteen and definitely not seven like she’s playing but that’s easily overlooked because she kills it.  Not only did I totally buy into her disabilities (Duke is neither blind nor deaf in real life) but she portrays the immense confusion and trepidation of the seemingly insurmountable task before her with equally matched ecstasy that it’s completely immersive and captivating.  You’re with her every step of the way.  Bancroft and Duke also played their roles in the play that the movie is based on and jeez, they had to do these passionately intense performances every night for almost two years.  Unbelievable.

While this piece is certainly hard to watch at times, and just exhausting with some utterly unrelenting knock down drag out fight scenes between Sullivan and Keller over teaching something as simple as how to sit at a table and eat food with a spoon, when it’s all over it’s amazingly uplifting.

 

The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)

Real quick one here.  If you’re into epic stories of revenge, comeuppance and love that span decades then this is for you.  A sailor in early 1800’s France gets framed and wrongly imprisoned by his friend over a woman.  Many years later the dude breaks out, discovers hidden treasure, reinvents himself as an affluent Count and enacts his retribution.  That may sound straightforward but I’m leaving out a ton of details.

If you like the 2002 Kevin Reynolds version I think you’ll dig this one too.  The former is somewhat more action-oriented while the latter is fairly more dramatic and about incorporating more character and story elements.  Both are fantastic in my opinion.  I have no idea if this one is closer to the book but with a three hour runtime and being an actual French production based on a French novel I would think so. 

Regardless this tale is one for the ages and the filmmakers did a marvelous job.  The performances are wonderful, the production design is beautiful, the cinematography is captivating, it’s excellent all around.  I could quibble about some minor things that I wish were either left out or handled a touch differently but with such a grand focus they nailed all the big stuff.

 

F1: The Movie

To be totally honest I don’t give a rat’s ass about Formula 1 racing, or pretty much any kind of racing in general.  I’m not dismissing it, it’s just not for me.  However, what I do love are car chases and sports movies and F1 lies right in that overlap.

One of the main reasons this lit up my radar is because from the trailer the racing footage looked exhilarating and yeah, it’s goddamn cool as hell.  They strapped real (tiny) cameras to real race cars and had real actors drive the cars and shit, the results are tremendous.  POV, trailing, crowd angles, overhead, drone sweeps and all sorts of other nifty shots are mixed together to create a heart pumping montage of these cats pushing their vehicles around tight corners and down straightaways at hundreds of miles per hour.  You certainly get a real sense of the crazy speed but there are also times when you catch a car going through the right turn at the right angle that it almost looks like the thing is floating along in slow motion.  Throw in visual extras like fireworks exploding in the sky or flames/sparks shooting out the backs of the cars or rain impairing the driver’s view and it only ups the ante.  Of course the sounds of the race and score play a pivotal role in bringing the entire effect across the finish line (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

As a sports film you get the typical clash of personalities and strategies that keeps the tension high off the track as well.  Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life) plays the grizzled vet who should’ve been the next great Formula 1 driver but got derailed due to a horrific accident during a race early in his career.  Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos) is the manager type guy who brings Pitt into the fold as a last resort to help anchor/save his team.  The only other reliable driver they have is a cocky young up and comer (Damson Idris (Snowfall)) who’s talented but lacks the experience to lead on his own.  And I like that the goal isn’t to take the top spot in the standings but only to win a single race to save their jobs so they can come back next season.  This leads to sneaky, but technically legal (?), tactics employed by Pitt to get his team the W.

This one’s a stunner in the visual department and worth seeing for that aspect alone, but the whole piece is well done.  Good performances, a solid (if predictable) story, nice pacing and editing and likeable characters.  It’s a well directed spectacle and Joseph Kosinski is the other main reason why I wanted to check this out.  He did such an amazing job with Top Gun: Maverick that I had to see what he would do with race cars.  And sure, it’s essentially the same plot and not the badass barnburner that one is, but I would still definitely recommend F1.

Another Day in Paradise

Here’s a quick recommendation to flash your way.  Another Day in Paradise follows teenage couple Bobbie (Vincent Kartheiser (Alpha Dog, Mad Men)) and Rosie (Natasha Gregson Wagner (Lost Highway, Urban Legend)) who are both junkies and petty thieves.  One night Bobbie breaks into a row of vending machines to steal quarters when a security guard brutally beats the shit out of him.  Bobbie fights back by stabbing him in the gut with a screwdriver and flees.  He’s hurt real bad so his roommate calls his uncle Mel (James Woods (The Specialist)) to fix him up.  Now Mel is another low level crook (and junkie) but still several steps above Bobbie.  He decides to take the kid under his wing and use him for a job.  So the bulk of the movie is Bobbie and Rosie tagging along with Mel and his lady friend, Sid (Melanie Griffith (Something Wild)), on the road getting high and ripping folks off.

It's pretty undeniable that this is a Tarantino inspired picture despite being based on a book by Eddie Little.  The 70’s aesthetic, somewhat casual yet heightened approach to violence, memorable seedy characters and soul soundtrack all fit.  There’s some snappy dialogue too but almost all of it comes from James Woods.  Safe crackers, gun runners, addicts and other underground figures are given an ultra cool sheen while also showing how quickly shit can go sideways in their world.  For example there’s one scene where Mel and Bobbie are selling a cache of pills they stole from a doctor out of a motel room.  Guns are hidden in the couch Mel is sitting on so he can pull them if there’s trouble.  That’s the cool part.  But then the situation gets sticky and his secret guns aren’t able to save him.  These rapid circumstance shifts are handled very well that can gut punch you even if you sense things might not end well.

The entire cast works wonderfully together.  Kartheiser and Wagner give natural performances as a pair of strung out aimless kids.  They’re in love but are enablers who support each other’s terrible decisions.  They both have such an innocence to them that you wanna root for them despite their actions.  And while not the brightest bulbs they’re not total idiots either.  Bobbie is psyched to get what he believes to be an invaluable criminal education from Mel yet he’s not a total lapdog.  When Mel starts getting aggressive after a botched job he begins to rethink his choice.  Rosie is more or less along for the ride but she’s in Bobbie’s corner all the way which is touching to see that kind of devotion.  Woods is, well, Woods.  He puts on his jokey schtick during the quieter scenes and overacts during the intense ones.  While the guy is an acquired taste and doesn’t work for me in most roles I kinda like him here.  His goofiness helps to lighten the tone so it’s not depressing.  Plus he does tend to exude a certain sleaziness that suits this character perfectly.  You know, a heroin shooting relatively small time thief who thinks he’s tougher than he actually is.  Griffith is the dark horse who’s so damn nice to everyone all the time in her soft spoken way.  She takes on a maternal role with Bobbie and Rosie making sure they’re being taken care of.  Don’t let that fool you though.  She’s no airhead or pushover.  If she needs to blow away a sucker with a shotgun she’ll do it without hesitation.  No one crosses her, no one.  But as long as you’re straight with her she’s your best friend.  Admittedly it’s a bit hard to see someone like Sid (intelligent, measured) hooking up with someone like Mel (hotheaded, irrational at times), but if you don’t think about it too much I think they’re convincing enough as a wild couple.

This was Larry Clark’s second feature and it has to be his best film, better than Kids and Bully anyway (and I like those movies).  I wanna say it shows a maturity that the others don’t but apparently he was a nightmare to work with and turned in a much longer and skeezier picture that had to be re-cut without his involvement.  The positive is the end result has really nice steady cam cinematography that’s never nauseating (Eric Alan Edwards (Cop Land, To Die For)), great editing that accentuates the emotions of the characters (Luis Colina (Overnight Delivery)) and a killer retro song selection that fits the mood of the scenes and film in general.

Everything about this one comes together which is something of a miracle.  Credit to James Woods who’s one of the producers and helped whip the thing into shape.  I’ve been a big fan of it ever since it came out.  Unfortunately it seems nobody saw it or cares about it.  The movie definitely has that 90’s indie film vibe if you dig that kinda thing.  Regardless, it’s an excellently made little crime piece.  Part hang out movie, part thriller, part glorification of thug life, part warning against venturing down that path.  It’s a slice of junkie life with endearing characters, a tight plot, heartfelt moments, spurts of bloody violence and a layer of swagger that sorta knows just how rad it is.  I highly recommend it.

American Flyers

There are all manner of sports movies out there with most of them showcasing the big five: basketball, baseball, hockey, football and soccer (or football).  Boxing is an interesting one that might be more popular on screen than it is in real life.  Anyway, it’s always intriguing to see a film spotlight something less popular like figure skating (The Cutting Edge), horse racing (Seabiscuit) or even arm wrestling (Over the Top).  Well, American Flyers takes on competitive cycling where a large group of riders navigate a punishing outdoor course that could include mountainous terrain and last a hundred miles.  Sounds ripe for your usual scrappy-upstart-takes-on-the-pros-and-omg-he’s-like-amazing-and-has-a-real-chance-of-winning-it-all type arc.

While the picture does deal with that business there’s another layer thrown in for dramatic flair.  David (David Marshall Grant (The Devil Wears Prada)) is a young fellow who lives at home with his mother in St. Louis and doesn’t know what to do with his life.  He tried pre-med, pre-law and is now studying eastern philosophy.  He loves to cycle though including all through the apartment.  It’s his passion.  It’s also Marcus’ passion, his older brother (Kevin Costner (Message in a Bottle)).  He’s good enough to have made the 1980 Olympic team as an alternate.  They love each other but there’s tension in the family because their father died of an incurable brain disease and Marcus blames their mother for shutting down during that moment of crisis.  Marcus split shortly after and has had tepid relations ever since.  David holds a grudge against Marcus for leaving and blaming their mother for perhaps not doing as much as she could for their father.  In other words, it’s complicated.

Marcus, now a doctor, shows up on their doorstep some time later looking to reconnect with David and take him back to Wisconsin for a medical examination and to cycle around.  You see they fear that one or both of them might have the same brain disease that took their father so they want to run some tests.  This is also a bit of a ruse to get David to join Marcus in a big time bike competition called Hell of the West that takes place in Colorado.  It’s Marcus’ last time and he wants his brother to be by his side for it.  Naturally it’s a go so they load up and head out.

I know that’s a lot of backstory I dumped on you but it’s the first half of the film and plays heavily into the entire plot.  Now while there’s cycling throughout it’s the second half where we get to see the real action of the contest.  And it’s definitely pretty exciting.  There are loads of cool shots of riders taking fast turns, chugging up steep hills, sweating and breathing profusely, wiping out and all sorts of other events.  Not to mention the absolutely gorgeous landscape they compete in.  The race is split up into three days with each course in a different location and the most beautiful has got to be the second leg.  It takes place in Colorado National Monument Park that’s dubbed the excellent “Tour of the Moon” due to the stunning quasi alien-like scenery.

It's questionable how authentic the racing actually is though.  There are times when the athletes push, punch and grab at each other which seems illegal but then again I don’t know jack shit about this sport.  The one part where someone tries to murder David by driving him towards the edge of a cliff might be grounds for a time penalty at the very least.  Who the fuck does that?

Speaking of which, naturally there’s a rival villain who you’d think would be the brutish looking Soviet competitor but he’s relegated to a lower level antagonist.  Our main one is some joker called The Cannibal (Luca Brecovici (Dir: Ghoulies (!))).  I mean he has a real name but who cares?  This guy’s set up to be a real sonuvabitch who wants to make Marcus suffer before he ultimately beats him.  They were teammates once and Marcus’ girlfriend/pit crewmember (Rae Dawn Chong (Hideaway)) is The Cannibal’s ex-wife.  It’s never stated how he got that nickname or what the bad blood is between he and Marucs exactly but based on evidence given I suppose he wins at any cost even if that means stepping on his own teammates?  I dunno.  He’s a pretty one-dimensional anger machine for the most part.  Except there’s one scene where he explodes on a reporter out of nowhere declaring his major resentment towards America.  He was supposed to compete in the 1980 Olympics but they were held in Moscow so the US (plus many other countries) boycotted due to the Cold War (true story).  He missed his window.  Admittedly this is a fascinating angle and legitimate reason for the character to be so goddamn bitter.  This doesn’t explain why he hates Marcus so much though.  Really this character isn’t necessary.  The brain disease is the bad guy.  It messed up the family and continues to stalk them years later.

On the flip side Grant and Costner do have good chemistry and you can tell they genuinely care for each other.  There are scenes that are fun like the one where Marcus has a crazed dog chase them during a training ride to up their speed and stamina.  But there are also touching ones like when they argue if they should continue in the competition due to complications that arise (the twist is kinda obvious).  Yes, that’s a typical scene in these sorts of pictures but the backstory and lead up is richer than normal so the payoff feels more earned here.  Grant plays it with a likeable innocence combined with a hard work ethic that makes you want to root for him.  And Costner plays the older brother part to a tee where he’s concerned for David but also wants to push him outside his comfort zone and expose him to new situations while essentially being a father figure.  Both of them are making up for lost time so they make the most of the road trip/competition.

However, not everything is great.  There are a few clunky transitions and character turns that sometimes come out of nowhere.  Rae Dawn Chong in particular is awkwardly distant and serious throughout for some reason.  And the backstory isn’t laid out the clearest either.  On one hand I like that they don’t over explain but it also feels like we’re thrown into a situation that we never fully get ahold of.  Like the mother is made out to be maybe, possibly a somewhat terrible person but we’re never told why.

One thing you damn sure can’t miss is who paid for this frickin’ thing.  McDonald’s, Coors and 7-Eleven must have put up some bucks because they’re everywhere.  7-Eleven sponsors The Cannibal’s team so you see their name on their jerseys for half the movie.  And more than once David and Marcus stop at McDonald’s to catch a bite during training!  Then towards the end of the film the last leg of the race begins at the Coors plant.  Honestly this type of shit is funny to me because of how blatant it is.

Steve Tesich also wrote the cycling centric Breaking Away which is a coming of age story about a teen who’s obsessed with the sport and his parents and friends don’t quite understand.  You could argue that’s a better more endearing film, and I might even agree, but I find something like American Flyers with its mostly formulaic overcoming-the-odds-in-competition plot more entertaining.  Strangely, the characters act a bit peculiar in both so that must be a Tesich trademark.

This is another solid effort from director John Badham of Saturday Night Fever fame.  He knows how to deliver the thrills like in War Games and Drop Zone but also the tenderness like in Short Circuit.  And he knows how to deliver one helluva Christopher Walken performance in Nick of Time.

While this isn’t amazing or anything it’s certainly an enjoyable sports drama.  Whether it does a good job of introducing the world of road cycling I can’t say but I was into it.  Ride on down if this sounds like your cup of Schwinn.

Random Hearts

Right off the top, this is a weird one.  You could maybe call this sexy thriller adjacent.  It’s about a DC internal affairs cop named Dutch (Harrison Ford (The Mosquito Coast)) who loses his wife, Peyton (Susanna Thompson (Little Giants)), in a plane crash only to discover afterward that she was cheating on him.  She was meeting up with her lover, Cullen (Peter Coyote (Sphere)), on that flight so he also got killed.  Dutch makes contact with the guy’s wife, Kay (Kristin Scott Thomas (Under the Cherry Moon)), to let her know what was going on.  She badly wants to turn a blind eye to the entire situation but starts to become as intrigued as Dutch about the history of their spouses’ relationship.  After some probing, resistance and conflicting emotions the widows eventually fall in love.

So where does the thriller part come in?  Well the B plot involves Dutch trying to nail a thieving murdering cop but he’s short on evidence.  Not to mention his only witness gets slayed and tossed in a dumpster.  Dutch starts losing his mind resorting to unethical abuse of power type shit to make his case which ultimately gets him suspended.  The contrast between the two main threads is jarring to say the least.

Honestly, I wouldn’t say this is a very good movie.  Too many things about it don’t work.  One of the biggest and strangest is that the dirty cop story overshadows the love story, at least for me.  It’s just so much more exciting than exploring two couples’ infidelities.  Now this is based on a book so the vastly different tones could possibly mesh better in that format.  I wonder what the pitch meeting for the film was like though.  Was the studio like

Studio: “Are you sure you want the unconventional love plot the main narrative of the picture?  Wouldn’t you rather have the killer cop investigation be the focus?” 

Filmmakers: “No, no.  The love story’s the A plot for sure!”

Studio: “I mean I guess we trust you.  It just seems kinda flipped around.”

Filmmakers: “Don’t worry boss, the romantic tension between Dutch and Kay is gonna ooze off that screen so hard.  And we’ll make the bad guy cop extra evil to balance everything out.”

Studio: “Ok!”

I think you get my point.

Another major issue are the characters.  We’re supposed to like Dutch and Kay not only because they recently lost their spouses, who in addition were incidentally carrying out affairs behind their backs, but also because they’re presented as people of integrity.  I don’t buy it though.  Dutch is meant to be a good hard working cop who makes sure his brethren walk the line.  However, he’s a bit of a hothead who ends up doing illegal shit in pursuit of his suspect.  Furthermore he’s obsessed with Peyton’s clandestine tryst so he borderline harasses her friends, family and co-workers about it.  His existence becomes detrimentally defined by it.  We don’t see him grieve over his wife’s death so I guess this is how he’s processing shit.  Unfortunately he turns into this sad and, frankly, annoying figure.  Kay, meanwhile, is running for Congress so she’s very busy focusing on that.  Her whole thing is yea, she’s a politician, but she’s an honest one.  At the same time she can’t be forthright with her own teenage daughter about her cheating father.  And, of course, Kay is constantly concerned with her image and how recent events will affect her chances of winning the race.  So again, like Dutch she doesn’t come off nearly as likeable as intended.

It doesn’t help that Ford and Thomas don’t have any chemistry either.  They bicker in the beginning with Dutch desperately wanting to talk to Kay about the affair and Kay wanting to pretend like it never happened and move on.  They pull that cheesy move where the leads are fighting with each other and then suddenly embracing and kissing passionately.  Part of this relationship stems from finding solace in the wake of tragedy.  That would be fine if it were played in more of a transactional way.  Instead it comes across much more contrived like these two get together because they’re supposed to.  Ford and Thomas don’t shoot out sparks of love or a ton of warmth even.  Their approaches are too detached.

There are a few other quirks that are worth noting.  Kay finds out (minor spoilers in the rest of this paragraph) her husband was actually having multiple affairs during their marriage.  Amazingly Peyton might’ve been doing the same thing!  Dutch confronts one of her male co-workers about it but gets the I-won’t-even-dignify-that-with-a-response rebuff instead of a straight up “no”.  So inconclusive there.  I don’t totally get the point of piling on the betrayal here.  Why make these characters out to be even bigger assholes than they’re already set up to be?  Next, Cullen and Peyton worked overtime on their cheating.  For one thing they kept a secret apartment together near where they lived.  However, if that wasn’t bad enough they also flew all the way to other states under the guise of business trips to bump uglies.  Sheesh, that’s expensive and a lot of work.  And finally, the audience knows what’s going on from the start with the affair so when we follow Dutch around investigating what Peyton’s been up to it ends up being kinda boring.  Ideally we should be discovering the truth along with Dutch but admittedly the payoff of basically an ordinary affair just isn’t all that gripping so the filmmakers were sorta stuck.

Who got excited about this project?  This was a major studio film so several folks had to be pumped to see this story turned into a star studded blockbuster.  It had been kicking around Hollywood for over a decade to boot.  Look, you can turn anything, anything, into a compelling picture but the results of this one are bizarre.  I know I keep coming back to this but the much more enticing dirty cop B plot is way too robust for what was required.  Fine, we need to establish Dutch is distracted by his wife’s death and adultery so his job performance suffers, but they could’ve scaled it back a touch from him failing to capture a psychotic murderer.  Plus the romance between Dutch and Kay is forced and built on extremely odd circumstances.  And the main characters are irritating in their own ways.

With all of that said you might randomly get a kick out of Random Hearts if you enjoy peculiar beasts.

Harefooted Halloween: The Seventh Curse

My usual format won’t work for this one because it’s too rat shit crazy and strange to dissect neatly.  The Seventh Curse is about a Hong Kong doctor/adventurer named Yuan Chen-Hsieh (Siu-Ho Chin (Fist of Legend)) who travels to the jungles of Thailand looking for an herbal treatment for AIDS only to stumble upon a human sacrifice ceremony by a local tribe.  Their leader/God is a rotting skeleton creature that eats the people thrown to it.  The doc decides to save the pretty woman on the chopping block but as a consequence starts a massive battle between his group of explorers and the tribe.  Yuan is captured, made to swallow his own bullets and the things start to fire from inside of him.  Fortunately he’s saved by the woman he rescued from the ceremony through some magic boob shenanigans (you read that right).  He recovers but a year later the bullets start to pop from his insides once again.  So he must travel back to Thailand to find a cure for his curse.

As you can see the story involves a lot of supernatural shit so you kind of just have to go with the flow.  And that goes for all aspects of this thing.  Shit will take a sudden left turn and either you’re on board or you’re not.  For example, Chow Yun-Fat (Once a Thief) makes an appearance as Yuan’s professorial pipe smoking friend/mentor.  You think he’s there simply for support and some guidance but then he abruptly shows up towards the end with a bazooka ready to blow away some demons.  Or the villain transforms from a skeleton into a bizzarro KISS costume version of a xenomorph.  There’s another nod to Alien with a small-ish chest-burster-like monster that munches its way into your throat and then erupts out of your chest.  Shit gets weird.

I’ve seen folks refer to this as an Indiana Jones-esque picture and in a sense I can see that, especially if we’re talking about Temple of Doom.  You have a doctor (MD in this case, not PHD) venturing to an exotic location for one purpose but unexpectedly gets caught up in a local human sacrifice ceremony and becomes cursed.  Yuan is smugger and more serious than Jones though.  He’s also even more casual about murdering people.  This obnoxious reporter (Maggie Cheung (Hero)) tags along and ultimately gets captured who would be a stand in for damsel-in-distress Willie Scott, except, well, she shows up with a huge arsenal of weapons and isn’t afraid to use them.  You have dark creepy caves, ancient ruins, a horde of followers willing to kill for their master, booby traps, exaggerated lighting, etc.  But really this is its own demented mashup of ideas from different sources which I’m sure include Chinese myths and legends.

Truth be told this is more of an action film than horror.  There are certainly horror elements and scenes but most of the time it’s martial arts fighting.  Don’t get me wrong though, it’s great.  And of course, there’s crossover like when our heroes go hand to hand with the xenomorph creature at the finale.

This is also an effects heavy movie that leans to the gorier side.  For example, a scout is walking through the jungle when he sets off a booby trap.  A rope wraps around each one of his legs throwing him into the air and tearing him right in half.  Ouch.  Plus there’s gross out stuff like one explorer gets some mysterious goo poured on him and his face starts to bubble.  He tears off his flesh to reveal hundreds of worms pouring out of him.  Nasty.  The effects are kinda cheap but goddamn charming as hell.  I mean the evil skeleton lord is obviously a large marionette puppet with multiple people pulling on strings to animate him but man do they sell the shit out of it.

When I found out afterward that this is from Ngai Choi Lam, the same director as Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and The Cat, everything quickly made sense.  He has a dark sense of humor and insane way of crafting a story.  I love how much energy he brings to the production and this film is no exception.  The fights, effects, cinematography, it’s so excitingly executed that it sucks you into a world you didn’t even know you wanted to be sucked into.

Now, admittedly I was sorta lost half the time because they throw so much at you without much explanation.  The general plot I get but the details I have no idea.  This includes the title.  I think it relates to the number of bullets inside of Yuan and the seventh and final one is the deathblow that will eventually kill him?  Not sure but hey, the thing is it’s ok.  I had a blast anyway.  Let it take you for a ride.  If you’re looking for something different then you’ve found it.  This…film…is…fucking…wild.

Harefooted Halloween: Graveyard Shift

What I Liked: I really dig the nasty ass production design (Gary Wissner (Last Man Standing, I Know What You Did Last Summer)) and set decoration (George R. Nelson (Apocalypse Now, Big Trouble in Little China)).  Even though they did a bunch of filming in a real textile mill from the early 1800’s they amped up almost every environment on screen to be filthy as fuck.  Not only is there grime, cobwebs and trash strewn about but there are also puddles of muddy gross water, moisture dripping from the ceilings and pools of blood red water.   As if that wasn’t enough this takes place during the summer so it’s like a hundred degrees in the mill.  All the workers are sweating profusely, have greasy hair and sooty faces.  Lastly, the fantastic decrepit graveyard next door continues the theme by being waterlogged and overgrown with weeds.  A layer of fog in most locations pushes the sinister haunted house vibes over the top.  This is one of the most surface level disgusting goddamn films I’ve ever set eyes on.

Most of the acting isn’t anything to write home about except for two performances.  One is the rat exterminator played by Brad Dourif (Child’s Play 2) who gets pleasure out of his work.  Dourif is always excellent and he brings his usual intensity with a particularly strange scene where he delivers a lengthy monologue about the Viet Cong torturing prisoners of war with live hungry rats.  The other standout is the mill foreman, Warwick, played by Stephen Macht (The Monster Squad).  He’s a mean sonuvabitch who doesn’t give a shit about his workers or the conditions they toil in.  He’ll fire someone on the spot over nothing with a cold delivery.  Naturally he’s a creep as well who tries to get in the pants of the women who work at the mill.  And his Maine accent, man, that accent.  It’s the same exaggerated one that Fred Gwynne sports in Pet Sematary that pop culture loved to make fun of in the 90’s.  I can’t really describe it but it’s unique, instantly recognizable, pretty funny sounding and pretty distracting.  Anyway, Warwick doesn’t totally make sense as a character.  If he were simply a rough boss that would be one thing but when people start dying he just doesn’t care.  It’s beyond being self-centered because towards the end he completely loses his mind and fights off others who try to help him when he gets injured.  Maybe he had a mental break.  I dunno, even though Warwick feels nonsensical Macht chews that scenery right up making him by far the most entertaining character in the piece.

When we finally get to see the creature that’s been lurking in the basement of the mill it looks damn nice.  I don’t think this is much of a spoiler that it’s a massive ten foot long rat/bat thing.  The puppet/animatronic they built is like if a rat survived a nuclear war with its white eyes, gnarly grotesque skin, barbed hair and enormous claws.  With all the quick cutting we never get a great look at it though which is a shame because I would’ve loved to have soaked this beast in more.  Perhaps the thing didn’t look as good as I think it does so the filmmakers decided to cut around it.  Or it could’ve been they only got a small amount of usable footage and had to make the most of it.  Either way I like this guy.

Kickass title.  And I appreciate that some of the mill workers do in fact work the graveyard shift.  Now, the graveyard situated next door is pure coincidence as far as I can tell, however, what’s underneath it does add an extra layer of meaning.

What I Didn’t Like: Not the best script.  There’s very little story which amounts to a drifter blowing into a small town to work at a textile mill only to discover his boss is a psycho and something’s killing the workers.  Everyone is fairly one dimensional including the protagonist (David Andrews (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)) who’s incredibly bland and has maybe two pages of dialogue total in the entire movie.  There are head scratching parts too like the scene where Warwick asks the exterminator to set rat traps in the graveyard for some reason (does the mill own the graveyard?).  Through sheer dumb luck the exterminator gets killed totally by accident but it’s setup like Warwick knew this was going to happen somehow?  Some of these shortcomings could be chalked up to this being based on a short story (by Stephen King) so they didn’t have a ton to work with.  At the same time the picture isn’t remarkably well written in general.

Similar to the above the editing is clumsy at times.  A couple of scenes end awkwardly and there are occasional fades to black that make it seem like a TV movie.

Overall Impressions: While this isn’t anything amazing there’s definitely a fun time to be had here.  As long as you don’t expect too much and are down with a giant creature munching on some dudes this can deliver a few gasps and chuckles, especially if you don’t like rats.  Personally, I don’t have that fear (although I wouldn’t love to encounter a thousand of them…or one very large one for that matter), but I do fucking hate spiders (and bugs in general) so in that sense this one is in the same vein as Arachnophobia.  You know, a film that puts a common phobia of a specific animal or insect into overdrive.  And you get a kick out of it because it’s the fear juice that excites.  It might be worth your time if that sounds up your alley.

Harefooted Halloween: Dead & Buried

What I Liked: Really nice atmosphere.  The small coastal New England town of Potter’s Bluff always seems to be overcast with fog around, the buildings are kinda shabby and old and the residents are slightly quirky.  This isn’t a place that appears normal on the surface but if you zoom in there’s a dark side hiding beneath.  The eeriness is on top here and it sets a great mood where you’re thrown a bit from the start.

Solid performances all around.  Jack Albertson (The Poseidon Adventure) plays one of the leads as Dobbs, a confident slightly arrogant mortician.  He loves fixing up corpses to make them look beautiful for their funeral and burial.  He has a penchant for getting absorbed in his work and playing tunes from the 30’s and 40’s.  He aids the town sheriff, Dan (James Farentino (Bulletproof)), in trying to determine why dead bodies keep turning up.  Dan is our protagonist who definitely has a Chief Brody from Jaws thing going on.  He’s a very affable everyman type, wants to do the right thing, is friendly with the townsfolk, not above asking for help, is not a rookie cop but perhaps new the current post and thrown into an impossible situation when strange occurrences and murders start happening.  I dig Farentino’s genuine shock and confusion over everything.  He plays it more grounded than you would normally see in a horror movie.

One thing this film is semi-famous for (in that the film itself is semi-famous) are the Stan Winston effects and yea, they look fantastic.  The two big ones are a needle gets jammed through an eye (totally squirm worthy) and a scene where Dobbs entirely reconstructs a deceased woman’s face.  We start with a mutilated visage and over many dissolves we see him remove the destroyed flesh and build the entire thing back up from skeleton to muscle to skin.  It’s impressive as hell and a touch unsettling because it looks real.  Unfortunately there’s one effect that was added in post-production to punch up the violence where acid is injected into someone’s nose.  Winston was not around so someone else did it and it looks crappy.

Cool score by Joe Renzetti (The Buddy Holly Story, Child’s Play).  The opening uses this melodic lilting piano led track with strings that sounds beautiful.  There’s an undercurrent of sadness to it that fits the picture.  Later we get more of your usual string drones and stabs to build good tension.  Scenes tend to linger maybe a little longer than they need to but the soundtrack almost single handedly keeps the suspense flowing in a couple of spots.

What I Didn’t Like: While the plot is neat it does get sorta muddy.  I won’t go into spoilers but you need to connect your own dots to a degree.  The information they provide doesn’t explain everything so if you take the movie as is it doesn’t exactly make sense.  You might get a kick out of this if you like coming up with theories to fill in plot holes.  I’ll admit I was doing this afterward to try to fit everything together and I think you can make it work.

Overall Impressions: This is a unique and unusual take on a zombie picture.  It’s a very Tales From the Crypt type concept that also invokes another film that I won’t name because that’ll give too much away.  I like how subtly creepy the town and inhabitants are.  You know they’re doing terrible shit but you can’t put your finger on why.  Sheriff Dan’s pursuit of the truth drives the mystery and he seems like such a good guy you wanna see him succeed even though you know nothing good will come of it.  He knows his town is venturing down a dark ass path but he can’t stop it.  The whole thing ends up being more tragic than anything else.  Don’t leave this one in the ground.  Dig it up and check it out.