Only now does it occur to me... THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... that in his paranoid cloak n' dagger thriller THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, Sydney Pollack inserts a small homage to Italian master of horror Dario Argento.

In a scene where Robert Redford's character is skulking around in black leather gloves, gaining entrance to a New York City apartment building,

Pollack has one of the names on the buzzer (while the trademark black leather gloves are in shot) listed as "Argento."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Pollack may have drawn some inspiration from our man Dario, I will also add that THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR exerted some discernible influence on another Junta Juleil fave: John Carpenter. In addition to featuring three actors who would go on to work for Carpy––Cliff Robertson (ESCAPE FROM L.A.), John Houseman (THE FOG), and Robert Phalen (HALLOWEEN, STARMAN)––the film's central dynamic, between bookish, on-the-run CIA analyst Robert Redford and his cool, formidable hostage Faye Dunaway,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

strongly resembles the tense back and forth between hapless hostage-taker Roddy Piper and his icy-calm ward Meg Foster ("If I don't see what you see, I'm going to see it anyway") from a quite similar scenario in THEY LIVE.

Coming up next: an in-depth review of an Argento flick I haven't yet tackled on this site!

Film Review: RIDING THE BULLET (2004, Mick Garris)

Stars: 1.5 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Tag-line: "The dead travel fast."

Notable Cast or Crew: Jonathan Jackson (GENERAL HOSPITAL, INSOMNIA), David Arquette (SCREAM, RAVENOUS), Barbara Hershey (THE STUNT MAN, HOOSIERS, BLACK SWAN), Chris Gauthier (FREDDY VS. JASON, INSOMNIA), Matt Frewer (MAX HEADROOM, every Mick Garris movie), Cliff Robertson (UNDERWORLD U.S.A., CHARLY, ESCAPE FROM L.A.), and Nicky Katt (THE LIMEY, DAZED AND CONFUSED). Makeup effects by Greg Nicotero, Rachel Griffin, and Howard Berger.  Written and directed by Mick Garris.

Best One-liner: "You're a ghost..." –"BOO!"

I'll try and keep this brief.  So I'm watching this movie, an adaptation of the lesser known Stephen King e-book/novella "Riding the Bullet,"  and I'm not gonna lie– I knew it was a Mick Garris flick beforehand, and I watched it anyway.
You've probably heard me talk Mick Garris/Stephen King before (DESPERATION, QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY, SLEEPWALKERS, THE STAND, etc.) and know by now that my condition is pathological.  It can't be helped.  Mick Garris is going to keep making bad Stephen King movies, King is going to keep sanctioning them, and I'm just gonna keep watching 'em.

 No exaggeration: that font might be the best thing about this movie.

So we got all the Mick Garris standbys- the Cynthia Garris appearance, the Nicolas Pike music, and the obligatory Matt Frewer role.  I've called Garris a one-man Frewer employment agency (they've worked together six times)

and his appearance here amounts to a walk-on as a groovy art teacher with a "cool" earring and a stiff turtleneck.  So yeah.
Anyway, with all these Garris-isms going on,  I started getting excited about seeing Steven Weber (ex-WINGS star and another Garris standby) put his unique acting "spin" on some role in this mess.
 
 Here he is, for instance, out-Nicholsoning Nicholson in THE SHINING '97.

I'm excited for Weber.  I'm jonesin' for Weber...  Where's my Weber?... and then I look it up on IMDb and find out that there's no Weber.  Could it be?  Could it be that there was no role for him?  No room at the inn for Weber? Then who is going to give us a Steven Weber-caliber performance?  We'll return to this pressing issue later on.

I read "Riding the Bullet" a few years ago (it's collected in EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL) and still remember it pretty clearly.  It's a fairly satisfying, melancholy ghost story centered around an agonizing moral choice, and it plays around with the trope of the "Phantom Hitchhiker" for a while before coming in for a semi-emotional, King-ian climax.  This movie has been heavily expanded from the novella in ways that I don't really care about (which is classic Garris) and this definitely would have played out better as a 25-minute piece in a CREEPSHOW-style omnibus, but I suppose it's too late for that now.

Due to the feature-length padding, it becomes increasingly dull and most of the filler is only tangentially-related to the original story, being largely devoted to silly roadside scares and random fake-outs and dog attacks and killer hillbillies and did-it-happen-or-didn't-it moments and dream sequences that possess equal smatterings of FINAL DESTINATION and THE SIXTH SENSE.  This brings me to the wider question, which is "were people really clamoring to have 'Riding the Bullet' made into a feature-length movie?"  I have no problem with the original story, but I can think of probably forty to sixty as-of-yet-unadapted Stephen King stories that I'd rather see turned into movies.  And everybody knows that if you want to watch a Stephen King movie with "Bullet" in the title, you go for SILVER BULLET.

So this thing is a 60s period piece with an expensive soundtrack: Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Zombies, James Brown, The Chambers Brothers, The Youngbloods.  No idea where that cash came from.  (They shoulda spent it on Steven Weber!)  You can tell it's the 60s because people are referencing Tricky Dick and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and "John 'I am the Walrus' Lennon" (yes, someone actually utters that aloud).  You can really tell it's the 60s though, because everyone has 90s haircuts and interior decoration

Pictured: The 60s.  (Shockingly similar to JAILBREAKERS' depiction of the 50s!)

 and Death smokes him some reefer, as he did in the 60s.

 This really happens, dear reader.

There's this whole terribly-thought-out narrative device whereupon our hero (Jonathan Jackson) has his internal monologue voiced by a CGI double, and it plays out in ineffective, head-scratching, and spit-take-inducing ways

That Cheech and Chong reference is a few years too early for the 1960s...  Also note: authentic beaded curtain.

that frequently plunge, headfirst, into a morass of unintentional comedy.

Would you believe that this actor came from GENERAL HOSPITAL?  WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?!

Hey, at least CHRISTINE gets a cameo:


And speaking of cameos, we have two pretty good ones, likely responsible for all 1.5 of the stars I'm awarding this film:
There's the venerable Cliff Robertson, who shows up as an off-his-rocker, crotch-grabbing yokel:

Cliff: you deserved better.

and then Nicky Katt appears, exuding an enjoyable bit of manic energy as a VW minibus-driving fake hippie, and while he does his best to make this feel like a real movie, he only has about two minutes to do so.

Nicky Katt:  improvisin' up a storm.

Also, this movie co-stars Oscar-nominee and acting legend Barbara Hershey as our protagonist's mother.  She has been given the opportunity to utter scintillating Garris dialogue such as the following:


Wow.  Garris walked into a room with Barbara Hershey and said, presumably to her face, that "Today you will be saying 'Awful Damn Crapheads,' and you will be saying it on camera."  That takes balls, I suppose.  Or cluelessness.  And I don't mean to pile on Garris, even though I usually do– the man's contributions to CRITTERS 2, THE FLY II, and FUZZBUCKET are noteworthy, and he rather seems like a warm and enthusiastic man.  But wow.  "Awful Damn Crapheads."  It happened.  It happened and there's no taking it back.

Furthermore, I believe I have pinpointed the exact moment, on film, when Barbara Hershey fully realizes that her agent talked her into a Mick Garris movie–

It's sinking in: the contracts are signed and there's no backing out.  Study it for long enough and you can even see her internal pep talk at work: "I can handle this for two weeks.  I can handle anything for two weeks..."

Anyway, the movie's almost over when you realize that the main thrust of the novella hasn't even been addressed yet– the part where our hero is picked up by an undead messenger who (metaphorically) skewers him on the horns of a (moral) dilemma.

Said (ghoulish, zany) messenger is played by David Arquette.

Now wait one gosh-gadoodlin' minute!  Somebody call the police!  Arquette stole Steven Weber's role!  The above depiction was clearly intended for Weber.  It's in his wheelhouse.  That is Weber's wheelhouse.

The maniacal facial expressions, the vacant eyes, the dopey one-liners, the pain of WINGS that rests upon his shoulders like a shroud–  could it be?  Could it be that Arquette is playing the role as a Steven Weber pastiche?

Pictured: Steven Weber pastiche.


Pictured: actual Steven Weber.

That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.  And despite my better judgment, I'm sure one day I will watch BAG OF BONES (the final Garris/King collaboration I have yet to see).  Whew.  Till that day comes...

 –Sean Gill

Cliff Robertson, RIP

I'm unhappy to report the passing of the legendary Cliff Robertson. I first took notice of the man in middle school, when my Language Arts class screened his Oscar-winning turn in CHARLY as part of a unit that involved reading FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. There was a great sincerity there, a sad and terrible but extremely rewarding connectedness to the material; a man's journey toward electrifying intellectual heights– and the degeneration which followed. It was a demanding role, and Cliff Robertson nailed it– he inhabited Charly, and Charly inhabited him. Then I became a TWILIGHT ZONE junky, and the two episodes which starred Cliff ("The Dummy" and "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim") became two of my favorites. Then there's his ferocious performance in Sam Fuller's (proto-GANGS OF NEW YORK but so much better) UNDERWORLD U.S.A.; his grandfatherly sleazemeistin' portrayal of Hugh Hefner in STAR 80; his ridiculous "cowboy of crime, monstrous maverick of malfeasance" Adam West-BATMAN villain, "Shame;" his tortured lead role in one of my favorite De Palmas, OBSESSION; and his rancorous, 'moral majority' crypto-fascist President of the United States in ESCAPE FROM L.A. Clearly, I could go on. Rest in peace, Cliff– you were one of the greats.

Film Review: OBSESSION (1976, Brian De Palma)

Stars: 3.8 of 5.
Running Time: 98 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Cliff Robertson (THE TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Dummy"), Genevieve Bujold (DEAD RINGERS), John Lithgow. Music by Bernard Herrmann. Screenplay by Paul Schrader. Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Tag-line: "The love story that will scare the life out of you!"
Best one-liner: Not really that kind of movie.

I guess I'll just go ahead and make this 'Hitchcock pastiche (and rip-off)' week. We'll continue with De Palma's OBSESSION.

You can call De Palma a second-rate Hitchcock who hits his mark maybe 50% of the time. Touché. A little harsh...but, touché. You can call this a masturbatory VERTIGO rip-off. Okay. Thats your prerogative, I guess. But it's a VERTIGO rip-off scripted by Paul Schrader (TAXI DRIVER, MISHIMA), shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (THE DEER HUNTER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS), featuring a smarmy Southern Fried John Lithgow, and scored by Bernard Herrmann himself, so it's gonna be pretty watchable. And it is. And before I concede that it's a VERTIGO rip-off, there is plenty of DONT LOOK NOW rumbling around in here too, and that's a good thing.

The visuals are immaculate. OBSESSION has that lovingly creepy fetishization of ancient, drearily beautiful European architecture.

The ever-present tracking shots are disorientingly classy- a 450-degree or so pan around a dead woman's bedroom is a standout, as is the final, ridiculous perversion of the classic 'entwined lovers' wraparound shot. The music is perfect. Herrmann's had a long time (10 years since his cancelled TORN CURTAIN score and the Hitchcock falling-out) to reflect on his collaborations with Hitch, and he hammers out a score that pays homage to his older ones, yet develops some of his familiar themes in an even grander context. It's spellbinding, dizzying, and vintage Herrmann.

The script is full of that patented, wild-eyed Schrader intensity: after the 1959 deaths of his wife and daughter, a New Orleans businessman (Cliff Robertson of STAR 80 and CHARLY) just might get the chance to do things over again when, in 1976, he spots a woman  (Genevieve Bujold of DEAD RINGERS and ANNE OF THE 1,000 DAYS) who's the spitting image of his dearly departed missus.

Robertson's eponymous 'obsession,' which at times borders on Travis Bickle-style madness (see also: HARDCORE and MISHIMA), is really the centerpiece here, and it's so forcefully matter-of-fact that it lends itself to extremely uncomfortable comedy- occasionally the look on Robertson's face is so ludicrously psychotic that you laugh––but you laugh not because it's funny, you laugh because you know he's for real (almost in a Lon Chaney, silent film sense).

We ultimately get to a point where everything depends on the payoff being 'worth it' or not, and I'm happy to report that it's bold, bizarre, and... unexpectedly powerful? Nearly four stars.

Film Review: STAR 80 (1983, Bob Fosse)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 103 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Eric Roberts, Mariel Hemingway, Cliff Robertson, David Clennon (Palmer in THE THING),- Keenan Ivory Wayans cameo as a stand-up comic.
Best one-liner: "You won't forget Paul Snider."

STAR 80 is another in a series of brilliant Fosse-directed biopics (LENNY, ALL THAT JAZZ). This time it's about slain Playboy playmate and burgeoning actress, Dorothy Stratten, and her jealous, unhinged husband, Paul Snider. His last film, and his follow-up to ALL THAT JAZZ, Fosse makes it almost another AUTO-biopic, accentuating similarities between Snider and himself (as portrayed by Roy Scheider in ATJ). This is the story of Paul Snider, but it's also an alternate history of Bob Fosse; the 'what might have been,' had he been just a little bit sleazier and a lot less talented.

As Snider, Eric Roberts is an absolute powerhouse. Over the top, but, by all accounts, true to life, Roberts transforms the self-obsessed Snider not quite into a character that we pity, but a character whose distressing machinations we can at least understand.

Mariel Hemingway is sweetly, depressingly naive as Dorothy (filmed in the very apartment where the real Stratten was murdered), who becomes almost a ghost in the film, frozen in time by Fosse's snapshots and white-outs.

Stylistic decisions such as these give the film an extra sense of urgency, combining documentary-style staged interviews, ample cross-cutting, and overlapping audio to again (as in ALL THAT JAZZ) present reality from a godly point-of-view, the wreckage of a life endlessly piled atop itself, all happening at once.

As a personal achievement, it would be impossible to eclipse ALL THAT JAZZ, but STAR 80 is a powerful companion piece, both as an artistic document of Stratten and Snider's tragic tale and as a rumination on the horrific life that could-have-been for Fosse. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996, John Carpenter)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 101 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Kurt Russell (who not only stars, but got his sole screenplay credit for this film), Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach, Cliff Robertson (here, as the President, previously as the Oscar-winning "Charley," Hugh Hefner in STAR 80, and the unlucky ventriloquist in THE TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Dummy"), Peter Jason, Bruce Campbell.
Tag-lines: "Plan your escape!" AND "Snake is back."
Best one-liner: "Welcome to the human race."

So basically this is a remake of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. And that's not a problem. As long as John Carpenter is doing the remaking, that's totally cool. I wish he'd do more. Almost every element from the first installment is reprised here: Kurt is still Snake. There's a con perpetrated by the establishment to get Snake to work for the man. He has to go into a major American city that's been separated from the populace for moral reasons to accomplish a goal.

(And early in the '08 primary season, when Mike Huckabee was doing well, I could have sworn that the events of this film were going to come true.

Eh, they probably still will.) He's put up to it by a hardass (Stacy Keach here almost succeeding in the impossible task of filling Lee Van Cleef's Herculean shoes).

He meets a wacky guy who will help (Buscemi here kind of replacing Borgnine AND Harry Dean Stanton). There's an expendable female (A.J. Langer is no Barbeau). A sporting contest (a deadly basketball game replacing the ball-bat cage match), the titular escaping, and a finale where Snake turns the tables on those D-bags who put him up to this. Oh, wait, I left out one detail. Georges Corraface, as the Che Guevera-esque villain, is no Isaac Hayes.

Let me say that again. GEORGES CORRAFACE IS NO ISAAC HAYES. And I'm a little sick of the whole 'villain you thought was a revolutionary is really just a common thief' plot point that it feels like has been in every single action movie since Alan Rickman did it in DIE HARD. Alright, now that we got that out of the way, this is a damn fun movie. A lot of the shortcomings are nullified by the fact that Pam Grier plays a badass post-op (?) trans woman.

Like most Carpenters, it's got an awesome, mostly self-composed soundtrack, and an existential ending that sure has got balls. It's a bold ending, and I think that we'd all be better off if Snake actually were to do what he does in the film, which I shan't reveal here. "Welcome to the human race," indeed. Damn.

Alright, Snake, here are four stars to wedge and ram into various orifices of "the Man." John and Kurt, let's get it together and ESCAPE FROM EARTH.

-Sean Gill