Film Review: PRIVATE PARTS (1972, Paul Bartel)

Stars: 4 of 5. Running Time: 87 minutes. Notable Cast or Crew: Paul Bartel, Andrew Davis, Laurie Main (WINNIE THE POOH narrator), Lucille Benson (DUEL, HALLOWEEN II), Ayn Ruymen (some guest spots on 70's and 80's TV like QUINCY and HAWAII 5-0). Tag-line: "A most bizarre voyage into the psycho sexual!" Best one-liner: "Cheryl dear, when you're older, you'll realize that the body is a prison that traps and bends the natural spirit to its will. It makes us weak or sick or ugly, it makes us into men or women or whatever it likes, whether we like it or not." PRIVATE PARTS is cult legend Paul Bartel's feature film debut, and he manages, even at this early stage, to provide the perfect blend of black comedic timing, jaw-dropping shock, and art house flavor- it's a work that remains as fresh today as I'm sure it was back in 1972. In form and aesthetics, the film owes a great deal to the works of Alfred Hitchcock (VERTIGO, PSYCHO), Mario Bava (BLOOD AND BLACK LACE), and Michelangelo Antonioni (BLOW-UP), but that is not to say that Bartel didn't leave his own peculiar artistic stamp on the proceedings.

 

  

I picture this as Paul Bartel's ALICE IN WONDERLAND: our heroine Cheryl (or, as everyone says, "Chair-yl") chases her innocence 'through the peep-hole,' so to speak, and she meets all variety of colorful characters, leather-daddy priests, wackos, and pervs (look for a Bartel cameo as 'Man in the Park at Night').

 

   

The labyrinthine, mod-Gothic visuals are photographed by future director Andrew Davis (UNDER SIEGE, THE FUGITIVE), with each space captured as a distinct, painstakingly-crafted diorama, not unlike the colored rooms in Corman and Roeg's MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

 

  

 

There are moments of genuine terror: everything involving the psychosexual trauma of the freakish, watery blow-up doll is handled expertly: it's strange, outrageous, unsettling, and provides one of the most eerie images ever committed to celluloid. Other elements, like a photograph of a nipple in the photographer's apartment blown up to grotesque proportions, provide an excellent visual metaphor for the delicate balance between taboo and normalcy. But this movie is also hilarious, and it ends, like most Bartel films (from DEATH RACE 2000 to EATING RAOUL) on a barrage of perfectly set-up zingers. 

 

 

Four stars, and a fitting start to a career that frequently toed the fine line between the monstrous and the inane, and managed to celebrate human eccentricity and nonconformity in forms both delightful and chilling.

Film Review: UNDER SIEGE (1992, Andrew Davis)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 103 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Director Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE, CODE OF SILENCE, ABOVE THE LAW), Gary Busey, Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones.
Tag-lines: "It's not a job...It's an Adventure! "
Best one-liner: "This little piggy went to market... This little piggy stayed home... And this little piggy... oh, mama... oh, mama... went wee, wee, wee, WEEEEEEEEE...! ALL THE WAY HOME!" [Tommy Lee Jones air-guitars to "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the missile takes off]

As I've said before, the 90's were all about remaking movies and putting them on a boat. Why? Because boats appeal to our vapid 90s sense of fun. Or tragedy. Cause if you need to wipe the slate clean, you can always sink the boat, and that's always high drama. So WHAT ABOUT BOB? becomes CAPTAIN RON, SPEED becomes SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL, LOVE STORY becomes TITANIC, THE ROAD WARRIOR becomes WATERWORLD, and DIE HARD becomes... UNDER SIEGE. And UNDER SIEGE would just be another low caliber DIE HARD rip-off were it not for two key elements: Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey.


More on them in a minute. Now, I'm not opposed to Steven Seagal as a rule, but he just hasn't won me over in the way that, say, Chuck Norris or Carl Weathers have. Maybe that's a character flaw on my part, but it's something we're all just going to have to live with.

Seagal's bland. He may be an asskicker, but he's got the charisma of a dead fish (which I guess is the appeal). Toss Busey and Jones into the mix and it's another story entirely.

Tommy Lee Jones is wearing a studded leather jacket and acting only slightly more restrained than he is as "Two-Face" in BATMAN FOREVER. He calls himself 'the Roadrunner' and says "Mee-meep." Gary Busey is in drag, dancing, and smoking a cigar.

I guarantee you that he personally requested to be in drag. (The pilot episode of I'M WITH BUSEY sheds some light on this.)

He says things like "OutstAInding," "Do I look like I need a psychological evaluation?" and spits in Seagal's soup. This is still not a riveting movie, per se, but Busey and Jones push it over the edge into definite likability. Three and a half stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: BEAT STREET (1984, Stan Lathan)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 105 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Rae Dawn Chong, written by Andrew Davis (the director of action favorites such as UNDER SIEGE, CODE OF SILENCE, and THE FUGITIVE, and cinematographer of Paul Bartel's directorial debut, PRIVATE PARTS).
Tag-lines: "The music and break-dance explosion of the summer!"
Best one-liners: "You better eat your eggs before I break your legs."

BEAT STREET is a completely sincere, loving appreciation and depiction of early 80's outsider art in New York. There are some fantastic fashions, wrap-around sunglasses, neon colors, a subway breakin' battle, and spit-take inducing virtuosic dance moves, but this is an art film.

Comparing it to BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO or BODY ROCK (as awesome as those movies are) is like comparing THE SEVENTH SEAL to BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY. This is about creating underground art, and our characters include a graffiti artist, a DJ (back when that could be still be categorized as art), a composer/choreographer (played by a young, vibrant Rae Dawn Chong), and a breakdance crew.

The story unfolds with the simplicity of Altman or Renoir, passing from scene to scene, from character to character with complete fluidity and naturalism.

Conflict arises in a variety of forms: police who mistake dancing for fighting, the sleazy business end of art, and a Nihilistic tagger named "Spit." The character of Spit, only briefly glimpsed, becomes a malevolent presence in the film, not unlike the red-coated figure in DON'T LOOK NOW. A talentless tagger who defaces the beautiful murals of our protagonist, Spit is as inscrutable as he is detestable. Not only do our outsider artists have to deal with "The Man," but also the frustrating concept of an unskilled vandal, masquerading as one of them. And thus is the plight of marginalized self-expression. Four stars. Only prevented from a fifth by some very questionable choices made by (hopefully) non-actors.

-Sean Gill