Dabney Coleman Merges With The Infinite

Texas-bred actor, Dabney Coleman, has passed at the age of 92.  

Fellow Gen-X'ers will remember Coleman from myriad roles, not least of which included films 9-to-5, WarGames, Tootsie, Cloak & Dagger and plenty of other favorites from back in the day.  

Coleman worked consistently from the early 1960's til just a few years ago, appearing on Yellowstone in 2019.  

Even More Swashbuckle Watch: The Four Musketeers - Milady's Revenge (1974)

Watched:  05/16/2024

Format:  BFI trial on Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Lester

The Four Musketeers (1974 or 1975, depending where you look) is basically just Part II of the prior year's Three Musketeers, which we just watched.  For a bit more on this, I'd start with that post.  

sigh

So, yeah.  This movie was a slog for an hour and change of the 1:48 runtime.  It's got all kinds of pacing issues, is kind of plot-heavy, decides to pack in some characterization the first film sorely needed, and then, after 3 hours of movie insisting this is all slap-stick goofiness, wants for you to take this stuff all super seriously, and to be a drama which matches the events of the novel.  

With most action-comedies, that's not a problem.  We've seen The Guardians of the Galaxy pull it together into a tear-jerking sequence that feels like a fulfillment of the prior parts of the movie, and we're all in when the action hits and character threads are resolved.  But with this movie, the pacing is so deadly, the motivations of characters so wishy-washy (I have no idea if that's a book or movie problem) and kookily disproportionate to the actual matters-of-state at hand...  I really was having a hard time knowing why anyone was doing what they were doing for the last 70 minutes of runtime. 

I'll not quibble with a nearly 200-year-old novel that remains popular, at least in the zeitgeist.  

What I will say is that this is a directing and editing problem.  And likely a problem conjured by the Salkinds' desire to have two box-office returns for the price of one.  

I'm not even sure if the acting in this movie is good or bad.  I mean, it's *good*.  Oliver Reed turns in some great sequences in this movie, and Heston reminds you he's got swagger to spare.  But it's so hampered by everything around it.  Faye Dunaway is likely good, but Milady is an exposition machine.  And the sequence in which she murders Constance is barely motivated, overly contrived (how did Constance not recognize Milady?  they were face-to-face in the prior movie for several minutes) and in the framework of this movie, feels pettily unmotivated.  

And how we're supposed to feel other than "okay, I guess all that happened" at the end of the film seems completely broken.  Constance was the driver for the entire second movie's A-plot, and her death is treated as a "well, that sucks" moment.  And then we're treated to a montage about all the good times from the past two movies.  It is super, super weird.  

I mostly just felt like these two movies should have been one movie.

I'm mostly glad I watched it insofar as I now feel like I've got a grip on what's in the novel, to an extent - I literally can't remember the Disney movie anymore.  And cultural literacy can be helpful!

But, yeah, once again, I can see how these movies have kind of gotten lost over the years, especially as new versions keep coming out.  Apparently there's another two-movie series that's got a second installment coming or arrives, is in French and stars Eva Green (!).  And I recall a sort of steampunk version was out in 2011 or so.

Kurosawa Watch: Sanjuro (1962)

Watched:  05/16/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Akira Kurosawa

Well, I watched Kurosawa's follow up to Yojimbo.  Sanjuro (1962).  

The movie sees the return of Toshiro Mifumbe as the nameless ronin - who takes on the name "Sanjuro" so folks aren't calling him "my guy".  

He's stumbled this time upon a group of nine samurai who have found corruption within the clan, but targeted the wrong guy as the source of the problem, ratting him out to the actual source of the problem.  They're about to get killed by said bad-guy when "Sanjuro" steps in, saves their skins, and joins their cause.

Look, Yojimbo was lightning in a bottle.  It felt like a western in its way, introduced the nameless ronin, and - structurally - lays the groundwork for a lot of what's to come.  Following up with a sequel by rejiggering a movie in pre-production to include the lead from the last movie was always going to be a little dodgy.  

So, it's not that Sanjuro isn't a good movie - it clearly is.  It's just not Yojimbo.  It's the difference between how an A+ feels versus a B+.  You don't get many A+'s.

Kurosawa Watch: Yojimbo (1961)

Watched: 05/14/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Akira Kurosawa

So, I've decided to finally watch (a) some Kurosawa and (b) some samurai movies.  

I'm always a little embarrassed by certain gaps in my film-watching, and this is certainly one of them.  I've only seen, I think, three Kurosawa movies, and none of them in this millennium.  It's been a while.   And I just never get around to any samurai movies in my every day life.  Which is bananas.  Samurai movies have more or less paved the way for a huge portion of modern pop culture, in dozens of ways - from Star Wars and the warrior priest Jedi to anime to the various codes even our antiheroes live by (see:  Le Samourai).  Heck, even Samurai Jack was clearly supposed to be a particular flavor of movie samurai dumped into the future.  I have thoughts of whether all of Cowboy Bebop exists because for some reason this Japanese Western has a jazz score.  

They're socially acceptable action movies amongst film snobs, which... I will have comment upon.  

Yojimbo, in particular, was of interest as I was well aware it was Leone's inspiration for For a Fistful of Dollars, released just three years later.  And I've loved me some Spaghetti Westerns since at least college (when Jamie and I started dating, I had a Man With No Name poster on my apartment wall).  But, of course, the similarities between Yojimbo and, at minimum, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, are impossible to ignore.  There may be some Glass Key in there as well.  Which - go watch Miller's Crossing sometime and come back to me for your "compare and contrast" writing prompt.

It should be noted that learned people have disputed the Red Harvest claim, focusing on The Glass Key, to which I say "you're clearly wrong, my guy."

But credit where it's due:  Hammett may have created the (frankly, very good, very readable) books upon which Yojimbo is based, but I think Kurosawa was the one who wound up influencing film and made the concept part of the zeitgeist.

Let's just be super clear up front:  I loved this movie.  

I'm mad I put it off for so long.  I think I've watched every Godzilla movie at least once, and most of them twice, so subtitles and Toho are not a problem for me.  There is just not a good goddamn reason I put this off for so long, and now I'm going to drive everyone nuts by just watching samurai movies for a while, and you can all deal.

Sometimes you just come to a movie, and you say "every choice here is exactly right.  This is the way this story should be told.  This is the perfect way to shoot this.  The dialog is great.  The beats are dead on.  The score is nuts and *perfect*.  And the lead is the most charismatic SOB I've ever seen."  

By the way, for some reason in high school, I rented Kurosawa's Dreams even though I had no idea what it was, what it was about, who Akira Kurosawa was, etc...  It was in, and I judged a book by its cover.  I really need to see that again.  But what I recall is that the movie's visuals were almost overwhelming.  And I can't say enough for the work here.  Young film-makers go watch this.  Take note.  Watch how Kurosawa frames shots, uses levels, deploys the wind, shoots through obstacles.  How he doesn't linger on violence for violence's sake - when it happens its sudden, and brutal and - from our lead - lightning fast.  And then compare that to the first face-off we see between the rival factions.  

Ie:  Try to appreciate visual storytelling in film.

So what do you say about a movie that's more or less already universally loved?  

I dunno.  I'm kind of glad Jamie didn't watch it or I'd be competing with Toshiro Mifune now, and I am not winning that battle.  

Go watch this movie.  

Next up:  Sanjuro

Happy Birthday, David Byrne

I very much remember the first time I heard or saw Talking Heads - because the two happened at the same time.  I would assume it was sometime in 1983 that the video dropped for Burning Down the House on MTV.  This would have made me about 9 years old, and it didn't take much to sell me on a video or song, but the band appearing in white tuxedos in what looked like a ballroom in a shoebox, and absolutely kicking ass - while also being replaced in some shots by folks who were *not them* in white tuxedos, did not need any literal translation.  It just made sense.

At the front of the band was a wild eyed man who looked like no other front-man in rock and roll.  He was thin, almost gaunt, with slicked dark hair and committed to the bit.  And in a landscape of Europop, American rock like Journey and Springsteen, and even the hints of punk that made its way to MTV, it was like seeing your awkward high school chemistry teacher strap on a guitar.

Radio play and MTV were enough for me.  I was into them, but I was also a kid happy with whatever form I was getting music.   I was aware from 4th grade that Talking Heads were not in step with the pop music scene, were not fitting neatly into any categories, but did their own thing.

Swashbuckle Watch: The Three Musketeers (1973)

we're literally missing a whole Musketeer here - D'artagnan isn't a Musketeer

Watched:  05/11/2024

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Lester

Huh.

So, I'm kind of surprised this movie isn't more of a thing here in the US.  Or hasn't had a longer shelf life.  But I have thoughts on that.  

I've not ever read Dumas' The Three Musketeers, and my knowledge of the material comes primarily from having seen the 1993 Disney version with Oliver Platt, Keifer Sutherland, (checks notes) Charlie Sheen (?) and Chris O'Donnell looking incredibly out of place.  If a 31 year old memory serves, that movie was not at all about the same things as this movie.

If that movie were a star-studded affair, it barely holds a candle to the cast of this film.  Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Frank Finlay, Michael York, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Charlton Heston, Geraldine Chaplin, Roy Kinnear, Simon Ward - and, apparently, Sybil Danning?

Roger Corman Merges With The Infinite

I'm going to say something, and y'all stick with me:  Roger Corman is the most important person in the history of American film, which may make him the most important on the planet.  

Sure, some French guys made up the first camera and projector (or Edison had his own thing).  And we can all agree that this actor or that is great.  And we can name early film directors or great directors.  Or even studio heads or producers.  

But for *most* of the existence of cinema, we've had Roger Corman.  

Corman was producing movies by the mid-1950's, and as the decade ended, got into distribution, too.  He's behind innumerable actually pretty good movies, and a vast sea of very cheap, very bad movies.  Often genre pictures or near-exploitation pictures.  He worked on films with luminaries like Vincent Price on movies based on Edgar Allen Poe and he hired Martin Scorsese for his first work on Unholy Rollers, a roller derby movie.  

He made super cheap, trashy films, and he produced some slightly less cheap and slightly less trashy films.  Fun fact - through his New World Pictures, he acquired Marvel Comics in 1986.  Yeah, I know!  F'ing crazy.  Battle Beyond the Stars?  he made that.  He distributed Fitzcarraldo.  I mean, he's done kind of everything.

Corman famously knew how to be frugal, how to make things work, how to get the most bang for your buck, and - most impressively - how to raise money.  Year over year, for hundreds of pictures.

And that dude gave untold thousands of people a shot in one capacity or another, from those first or early starts (Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson) to giving people a second wind in their career.  Heck, he let actor John Ireland direct for the first time on his second movie, ever.  And I'm not even going to bother with all the names he worked with, because there's going to be a pile of articles that do it for me. 

The key thing is - he gave people chances.  Good people.  Not everyone made it, but he gave them work and taught them you don't need $250 million to do a picture.  And some went on with those lessons, and some maybe circled the drain in Hollywood.  But someone had to be a grip on Supergator or whatever.  

So, yeah, it's more of a ripple-effect I'm thinking of when I say "most important".  But I find the guy hugely inspirational.

Corman passed on the 9th of May, 2024.  He has 491 movies listed under his IMDB producer credit, with two on the way.  He was 98.

So, with your passing, Mr. Corman, we salute you.  A scan of your filmography reminds us we watched many, many of your movies and are weirder for it.

Jarmusch Watch: Night on Earth (1991)

Watched:  05/09/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jim Jarmusch

This is one I remember seeing advertised via trailers on VHS tapes of indie movies you'd rent in the early 90's.  But somehow I never got to it back then, and I think, having had now seen the movie, that's okay.  I think I would have gotten the vibe back then, but as a suburban kid from Texas, I would have missed the experience of riding in cabs, which I had not really done back then, and wouldn't do until the end of college.  

Generally, I'm not sure how much I support "auteur" as a concept.  Film is a collaborative medium, full stop.  But I do get it a bit more when you look at a writer/ director like Jim Jarmusch.  Small, talky indie movies that rely almost entirely on actors handling the scripts Jarmusch puts in their hands.  And the rest is the vibe he creates around those actors.  

Night on Earth (1991) is an interesting but of what became the explosion of indie film that carried the decade (not that we didn't have huge blockbusters, too).  Essentially five, unrelated stories, but all with the similar points of taking place in a cab, between sunset and sunrise, somewhere on the planet (LA, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki).  It's short vignettes, in rough real-time as cabs pick up a client and the interaction that ensues.  

Geology Watch: Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Watched:  05/08/2024

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Eric Brevig

So, this movie feels like an experiment, and given the year of release, 2008, Journey to the Center of the Earth might well have been Hollywood floating all the latest toys and the concept of "movie as amusement park ride" more than they were trying to make an actual movie.  But they also still wanted to be Hollywood, so, while it does feel almost like a Cliff's Notes version of a movie, it does have a legit star in Brendan Fraser.   

First - it's clearly intended to be seen in 3D.  And like other 3D features - from Creature to the Black Lagoon or Friday the 13th 3D, there are clear set-pieces intended for the experience that just look weird on my regular ol' flat TV.  Things are basically hurled at the viewer from time to time.  You get it.

Second - I checked, the movie was also an early entry for use in 4DX or whatever they call it.  This was when some theaters decided to add fancy-assed chairs that rumbled and maybe moved, and sprayed water in your face (no thanks).  And there are multiple places that the movie feels like it should be part of a ride at Universal Studios or something.

I'll editorialize and say:  I think this is a perfectly fine avenue for Hollywood to pursue.  It would be weird for many-a-movie, but I think there's a market for thrilling movies that are a bit of an interactive experience.  I would come up with a new name for the experience to differentiate it, but I would strap in for a Star Wars movie about X-Wing pilots zipping about.  Or car chase movies.  Or running around Tokyo whilst Godzilla strolls around.  But I don't think they'll work like a normal movie, and we just don't know what that would be, yet.

Stunt Performer Jeannie Epper Merges With The Infinite

On her social media, Lynda Carter recently took a moment to make note of the passing of stunt performer, Jeannie Epper.  

Epper doubled for Carter for the three seasons of Wonder Woman, and was usually the woman in the red boots that you'd see as Diana leaped from great heights, climbed the side of a building, and any number of - honestly - pretty terrific super feats you'd see every single episode of the show.  You simply do not have Wonder Woman without the contributions of Epper.  

I'd read about her maybe twenty years ago, and learned she was part of the vanguard of the first women hired for stunt work.  Before that, they'd throw a wig on one of the guys and hope they shot it to not show off the mustache, I guess.  But you weren't going to be able to do that with Wonder Woman.  

One funny thing that has happened since the 1970's has been the rise of HDTV, and as we've great increased resolution in comparison to 70's CRT's, now you can see Epper's face, clear as day, in some Wonder Woman footage.  Or at least tell "I don't think that's Lynda Carter" - including in the opening sequence.  So, yeah, we kind of really do have two women playing Diana.

More about Epper here.