The Summer of 1982 retrospective wraps up with a two-week combo installment. In a summer that began with CONAN THE BARBARIAN, it seemed only fitting that it would end with a similar effort in Don Coscarelli's THE BEASTMASTER. This was the first studio effort from PHANTASM director Coscarelli, and tells the story of Dar (Marc Singer), a barbarian prince who can telepathically communicate with animals, and his quest for revenge against an evil wizard named Maax (Rip Torn). The film was a modest hit in theaters, but became a cult classic through years of seemingly constant TBS airings, and there was also the joke that HBO stands for "Hey, BEASTMASTER's on." The film also featured John Amos (GOOD TIMES, ROOTS), and late-period CHARLIE'S ANGELS co-star Tanya Roberts. Singer seemed poised for a breakout with this and the schmaltzy Tom Sullivan biopic IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I HEAR, and the classic 1983 miniseries V and its 1984 sequel V: THE FINAL BATTLE. It didn't exactly pan out, but he did have a busy career on TV and in B-movies. He also returned for two BEASTMASTER sequels: 1991's BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME, and the 1996 TV-movie BEASTMASTER III: THE EYE OF BRAXIS (there was also a Singer-less BEASTMASTER TV series than ran for three seasons in syndication starting in 2001). Coscarelli didn't helm either BEASTMASTER sequel, and didn't make another film until 1988's PHANTASM II. He later had a major critical success with 2003's BUBBA HO-TEP. Coscarelli's most recent film is the still-unreleased horror comedy JOHN DIES AT THE END, with Paul Giamatti.
For such a monumental season in genre entertainment and pop culture, the Summer of 1982 started with a bang, roared all through the months of May, June, July, and August, and ended with the most pitiful of whimpers. We're covering HOMEWORK now, and wrapping this whole retrospective up a week early because this was the only film to open the weekend of August 27, and it's hardly deserving of its own entry. The teen comedy HOMEWORK was shot mostly in 1979 as GROWING PAINS, by first-and-thus-far-last-time director James Beshears, and was subsequently shelved by producer Max J. Rosenberg, best known for co-founding the British horror film production company Amicus in the 1960s. But between 1979 and 1982, two things happened that caused Rosenberg to take another look at GROWING PAINS and attempt to salvage something from the wreckage: the "hot older woman/teacher seduces teenage boy" sex comedy PRIVATE LESSONS became a surprise hit in 1981, and GROWING PAINS co-star Joan Collins, slumming in some dubious drive-in exploitation fare by the late '70s, was enjoying a major career resurgence as the supremely bitchy Alexis on the popular ABC series DYNASTY, which debuted in 1981. The producers of GROWING PAINS reshot a large chunk of the film and added some sex scenes with Collins' character--without the involvement of Collins, who was doubled in the new footage--but left in the three-year-old hairstyles and disco music that made it immediately dated for 1982 audiences. Short-lived, small-time exploitation outfit Jensen-Farley Pictures released PRIVATE LESSONS and clearly hoped lightning would strike twice, acquiring GROWING PAINS, retitling the film HOMEWORK, throwing together a slapdash one-sheet (see above), and passing the whole thing off as a PRIVATE LESSONS retread, prompting an unamused Collins to threaten legal action. HOMEWORK vacated theaters after a couple of weeks, and got into rotation on pay cable, where it was overshadowed by the ubiquitous (and awesome) PRIVATE LESSONS. The "hot older woman/teacher seduces teenage boy" subgenre also brought us 1983's MY TUTOR and CLASS, and 1984's THEY'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE among others (you could probably include 1983's "teacher finds out her student is a male stripper" variant A NIGHT IN HEAVEN in this brief craze), and may have inspired the Van Halen song "Hot for Teacher" from around the same time. Beshears, an editor given his sole shot at directing with HOMEWORK, went back to editing and has remained busy in that field to this day, most recently serving as a post-production supervisor on this year's MADAGASCAR 3.
Also of note: THE ROAD WARRIOR, released back in May, was relaunched on August 20 and reappeared in the top ten.
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
3. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
4. THE BEASTMASTER
5. THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
6. THE ROAD WARRIOR
7. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
8. STAR WARS (re-issue)
9. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
10. YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE
TOP TEN FILMS FOR THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 27, 1982:
1. E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
2. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
3. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
4. THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
5. THE BEASTMASTER
6. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH
7. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
8. THE ROAD WARRIOR
9. ROCKY III
10. HOMEWORK
Directed by Simon West. Written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, Yu Nan, Charisma Carpenter. (R, 102 mins)
When Sylvester Stallone's THE EXPENDABLES was released in 2010, it was hyped as a summit of action stars old and new. That was kinda sorta true, with Stallone and Dolph Lundgren teaming up with relatively younger action heroes like Jason Statham and Jet Li, and other brawny dudes like Randy Couture, Terry Crews, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. There were even unbilled cameos by Bruce Willis and then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But while it's always nice to see Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts on the big screen, they really didn't gel with the "action hero" angle, and we should still be thankful that 50 Cent had the decency to drop out shortly before filming began. THE EXPENDABLES was an enjoyable throwback to big, dumb '80s action movies, but it needed more aging icons of that decade to really accomplish its goal. Bigger and better in every way, THE EXPENDABLES 2 corrects those errors and for any fan of the aforementioned Big Dumb '80s Action, it's one of the best times you'll have at a movie this year.
Stallone, who co-wrote the script with Richard Wenk (16 BLOCKS and the Statham remake of the Charles Bronson classic THE MECHANIC), just stays in front of the camera for this one, opting to leave directing chores to Simon West, who commandeered 1997's CON AIR, one of the all-time great Big Dumb Action epics. As a director, Stallone did a good job with the boxing bouts in ROCKY's II-IV, but West is much more adept at staging huge action sequences, and THE EXPENDABLES 2 opens with a truly impressive 15-minute prologue of the titular mercenary heroes on a rescue mission in Nepal. Back for action are Expendables leaders Barney Ross (Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Statham), along with Gunner (Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Crews), Toll Road (Couture), and new recruit Billy the Kid (Liam "Not his brother Chris" Hemsworth). They get a new job from shady government operative Church (Willis): retrieve a small case from the safe of a crashed airplane, and in the case are the blueprints to a secret stash of plutonium, left in a hidden mine that's been abandoned since the end of the Cold War. They're joined by Maggie (Yu Nan), who has the safe combo, and the job goes off without a hitch. That is, until they're ambushed by villain Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his army of generic Eurotrash goons. Vilain steals the blueprints, and plans to sell the plutonium to the highest bidder. The Expendables get some additional help not just from Church, but from Ross' longtime rival Trench (Schwarzenegger), and self-described "lone wolf" Booker (Chuck Norris).
Look, the story and the acting aren't going to win any awards, and the film does drag a bit in the middle when it has to focus on plot. But when West sets up the action sequences, and when Church, Trench, and Booker join in for the last third, THE EXPENDABLES 2 really starts firing on all cylinders. It's completely ridiculous and over-the-top, with totally cartoonish splatter effects and an endless supply of cheesy and/or self-deprecating one-liners and winking homages: Norris' Booker is introduced telling a Chuck Norris joke, Stallone and Schwarzenegger make constant references to their age and past quips, and after four Expendables machine gun a bad guy into a pile of raw flesh, Stallone yells "Rest in peaces!" Van Damme, who's very quietly made some better-than-average action films during his DTV years, is a solid bad guy and confirms my suspicions that he would make a formidable Bond villain if given the chance, and DTV action star Scott Adkins (UNDISPUTED II and III) has some good moments as Vilain's chief henchman. But really, the big reason this works so well is the opportunity to see some old-school ass-kicking by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Norris. The latter three don't get a lot of screen time (not as much as Stallone and Statham, and it's also worth mentioning that Li splits after the opening sequence), but it's more than mere cameos, and the film really hits its stride once they burst into action. If you're a fan of these flicks from back in the day or grew up watching these guys in endless cable and TV airings, you'd have to be a real cynic to not just sit there with a big goofy grin when they start mowing down the bad guys. I mean, really...how does this shot not put a smile on your face?
YES!
Or this!
YESSSS!!!!!
THE EXPENDABLES seems to have given rise to this sort-of nostalgia trip for aging action stars on the big screen. Sure, we've got Van Damme, Adkins, and Steven Seagal (if there's an EXPENDABLES 3, he and AMERICAN NINJA's Michael Dudikoff need to be in it) doing their thing in DTV work, but these kinds of movies rarely get wide theatrical releases anymore. In addition to this, in the coming months, we've got Stallone in Walter Hill's BULLET TO THE HEAD, Schwarzenegger in THE LAST STAND, and the two team up again in the prison thriller THE TOMB, due out in spring 2013. The torch appears to have been passed to Statham, who may indeed be the Last Action Hero, but neither Stallone nor Schwarzenegger seem to be ready to call it a career. And yeah, we can make jokes about their age and their facelifts (a lot of Stallone's close-ups here seem to be shot through ABC's Barbara Walters/Diane Sawyer lens filter), and sure, they've made their share of crappy movies, but you know what? They're damn good at what they do, they've still got it, and we're gonna miss them when they're gone. THE EXPENDABLES 2 is a blast.
This extremely violent hitman thriller/horror film from the UK is well-made, grimly atmospheric, and occasionally effective, but it shows its cards far too quickly and suffers from a contrived ending that, in a way, brings to mind another far more graphic underground horror sensation from Serbia. Jay (Neal Maskell) is a stressed-out hired killer who's fighting with his wife (MyAnna Buring) and hasn't been able to work since an oft-referenced botched job in Kiev with his partner Gal (Michael Smiley). Gal has arranged a new job for them: a kill list with three names on it. Trouble arises when short-tempered Jay goes off-script, which apparently happened in Kiev, though we're never entirely certain, but Jay and Gal really have no idea what's actually going on or what's in store for them. Director/co-writer Ben Wheatley (DOWN TERRACE) does a good job in establishing an ominous, foreboding sense of doom, but the cat's out of the bag very early on when Gal's girlfriend (Emma Fryer) is shown using Jay's bathroom and carving a weird symbol behind the mirror and stealing some bloodied tissue from when Jay cut himself shaving that morning. Couple that with the weird blood oath that their contractor makes them take and it doesn't take long to deduce that there's more sinister things at work here than hired killers on an assignment. Wheatley was open to letting the actors improv much of their dialogue, and there's a natural feeling to a lot of it (Maskell and Buring, in particular, are very good) that gives the film an almost kitchen sink-y, "Ken Loach doing a horror film" feel, but because of all the twists being telegraphed too soon, there's no real element of surprise when they finally do occur, and for them to occur, Jay has to do some very stupid things that reek of plot convenience. Despite the film's many faults, Wheatley has a great eye for atmosphere and is definitely a filmmaker to watch, but on the writing end, KILL LIST could use some more discipline and probably at least one more draft. (Unrated, 96 mins)
HICK (US - 2012)
Miserable and frequently appalling road movie that wastes a fine cast headed by the promising Chloe Grace Moretz, who was so good in KICK-ASS, LET ME IN, and HUGO. This is Moretz's second abused white trash role in a year after the 2011 misfire TEXAS KILLING FIELDS, and one can only hope she's got it out of her system. Going back to (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, Moretz has displayed a surprising maturity for her age, and not just because she was dropping F-and-C-bombs throughout KICK-ASS. But now, 13 and growing, she seems eager to explore increasingly unpleasant films like HICK, and it would be fine if there were anything more going on than shock value. But director Derick Martini (whose LYMELIFE has developed a small cult following) and screenwriter Andrea Portes (working from her novel) can't even give this enough energy to make the shock value interesting, resulting in nothing more than Moretz's version of HOUNDDOG, aka "the Dakota Fanning rape movie." Moretz is Luli, a pop culture-obsessed 13-year-old in 1980s Nebraska, who hits the road after she's abandoned by her trashy mother (Juliette Lewis) and drunk stepfather (Anson Mount) the morning after her birthday (among the gifts: a 7-Eleven keychain and a gun). Heading to Vegas, she falls in with hobbling ex-rodeo star Eddie (Eddie Redmayne) and hard-living Glenda (Blake Lively), who introduces her to coke. Glenda goes her own way, but the relationship between Luli and Eddie drags on and eventually turns violent, with a mostly-implied but still tacky rape, followed by scenes of a scantily-clad Moretz tied to a bed. There's nothing wrong with daring, uncomfortable cinema that explores the ugly side of humanity, but what exactly is the point here? It's cliched, condescending, and an absolute chore to sit through. Barely released to theaters, HICK also features Ray McKinnon, Rory Culkin, and a sweaty Alec Baldwin. Terrible. (R, 99 mins)
Much to the chagrin of concerned parents' groups and a scaremongering media, slasher films were big business in the early 1980s, especially calendar-related slasher films. John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) is usually credited with creating the holiday slasher subgenre, and while it certainly kickstarted its wild popularity and was instrumental in establishing the formula, it was Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) that did it first. HALLOWEEN exploded, becoming (at the time) the highest-grossing indie film ever, and it led to such titles as TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, CHRISTMAS EVIL, NEW YEAR'S EVIL, and PROM NIGHT from 1980, GRADUATION DAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE from 1981. 1984 brought the controversial SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, and even as late as 1986, there were two movies--one American and one British--called APRIL FOOL'S DAY, though the British film was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH for the US.
None of these post-HALLOWEEN holiday/calendar offshoots were as popular as the FRIDAY THE 13TH series, which even inspired its own series of imitative "horny teenagers being killed in the woods/at camp" subgenre. Dismissed and practically burned at the stake by critics, Sean S. Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13TH, is an expertly-constructed, archetypal slasher film--aided significantly by the terrifying "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" Harry Manfredini's score--that only seems tame today because it's been imitated so much. The success of FRIDAY THE 13TH, and the idea of the killer's actions being some sort of payback for the transgressions of past or present camp counselors, immediately led to THE BURNING (1981), MADMAN (1982), and SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983), which itself had numerous sequels. But even the "dead kids in the woods" angle had somewhat of a precedent with Mario Bava's 1972 Italian horror film BAY OF BLOOD, which existed under a ton of alternate titles (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, and the misleading LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT PART II among them). FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2's famous scene of two lovers being impaled simultaneously during sex is an idea lifted completely from BAY OF BLOOD. The first two FRIDAY THE 13TH films did huge business and became a near-annual tradition for the rest of the 1980s. The hockey-masked killer Jason is right alongside HALLOWEEN's Michael Myers in terms of slasher horror iconography. Jason wasn't even the killer in the first FRIDAY film: he's only mentioned as the drowned son of Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), revealed to be the killer, who's seeking revenge on past camp counselors who were fooling around and not paying attention while he cried for help, struggling to stay above the waters of Crystal Lake. Jason only appears in a dream scene at the end, but takes center stage as the suddenly very much alive killer in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, seeking revenge for the killing of his mother. It was Jason who would become the focal point of the franchise from then on (except for 1985's FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING, which has a killer dressed as Jason), though starting with 1986's witty, self-mocking FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, the series would abandon any illusion of seriousness, resulting in gimmicky fare like 1988's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, and culminating in 2002's JASON X, which finds the killer awakening from a cryogenic sleep in outer space in the year 2455. By this time, the rights to the character had drifted from Paramount to New Line, who owned A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and 2003 saw the release of FREDDY VS. JASON, the last in the original series, which was rebooted in 2009 with FRIDAY THE 13TH to middling interest and thus far, appears to be stalled.
Jason's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 "sackhead" look, very reminiscent
of the killer in the 1977 cult classic THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
The iconic hockey mask look that started with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, which became the second film of the summer to knock E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL out of the top spot at the box office, is also an important film for the franchise in that it's the first time Jason (played here by Richard Brooker) wears his trademark hockey mask. He had the one-eyed "sackhead" look in PART 2, and he acquires the hockey mask after killing the hapless, buffoonish Shelley (Larry Zerner), who was wearing it at the time. Jason sports the mask for the rest of the film, and the look stuck in subsequent sequels. His first appearance with the hockey mask occurs exactly one hour into PART III and it's one of the series' best moments.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III also worked in another short-lived early '80s craze: the return of 3-D, which hadn't been widely used since its initial 1953-1954 explosion. Numerous 3-D films were made from 1981-83 before the trend flamed out again: COMIN' AT YA (1981), PARASITE (1982) and several from 1983: TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and JAWS 3-D.
Also, from a point of personal interest from growing up in Toledo, OH, one of the film's co-stars, Ann Arbor, MI-native Tracie Savage, quit acting after this film to pursue a career in journalism. While watching PART 3 on cable a year or so after seeing in theaters, I recognized her as a reporter for Toledo's then-NBC affiliate WTVG. At the time, being 10 or 11, I couldn't figure out how she managed to go from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III to being a reporter in my hometown, and that was coupled with the strange feeling of having a seen a well-known local news reporter naked in a horror movie. She was on Los Angeles TV for several years and now handles news radio in the L.A. area, and was even called to the stand to testify during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.
Tracie Savage, soon to leave acting for a career in TV news.
FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH was based on a book by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe, who went undercover as a student and chronicled his experiences. Crowe also scripted the film, which featured a large ensemble cast of future stars, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Nicolas Cage (in his first film, and billed as Nicolas Coppola). But it was Sean Penn's star-making performance as stoner icon Jeff Spicoli that got all the attention, and deservedly so. Whether he's having pizza delivered to Mr. Hand's (Ray Walston) history class or wrecking the star football player's car ("My old man is a television repairman! He's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix this!"), Spicoli is one of the great movie characters of the 1980s. As funny as Penn is, he largely functions as the comic relief in a film that's not as slapsticky as its ad campaign indicated. Also featuring Tom Petty's "American Girl," Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby," The Cars' "Moving in Stereo," and the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," plus several girls "who've cultivated the Pat Benatar look." 1984 saw the release of the disappointing semi-sequel THE WILD LIFE, also written by Crowe, which followed a group of friends over the summer after graduation. Stoltz returns, but as a different character, and Penn's younger brother Chris stars as the resident party animal of the group, which seems to exist in the same Ridgemont High universe even though no FAST TIMES characters are carried over. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH also spawned a short-lived 1986 TV series titled FAST TIMES, with Dean Cameron (Chainsaw from 1987's SUMMER SCHOOL) as Spicoli, but it was cancelled after just seven episodes.
PINK FLOYD THE WALL opened in limited release this weekend, and would go wide a month later. Based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album conceived by bassist Roger Waters, THE WALL would become a mainstream success but went on to a long life as a midnight movie. Working with Waters, who wrote the screenplay, and animator Gerald Scarfe, director Alan Parker brought his unique sense of visual style and his keen ability for melding music and imagery (the Giorgio Moroder-propelled chase in 1978's MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, plus films like 1976's BUGSY MALONE, 1980's FAME, 1991's THE COMMITMENTS, and 1996's EVITA) and helped create a truly nightmarish big-screen vision of Waters' bleak, disturbing magnum opus. The film opened to generally positive reviews but it was far from smooth sailing getting it to the screen. Waters planned on starring as Pink, but the role ended up going to Boomtown Rats frontman and future Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, while Waters and Parker clashed throughout filming. Despite the behind-the-scenes troubles, the film has aged quite well and as far as cinematic rock operas go, it's arguably the best of its kind, with many haunting, unforgettable images throughout.
Also opening on this busy Friday was the very Reagan-era political action thriller THE SOLDIER, directed by James Glickenhaus, who had a huge sleeper hit with 1980's vigilante cult classic THE EXTERMINATOR. Ken Wahl (later of TV's WISEGUY) stars as a US government operative who tangles with an evil KGB agent (Klaus Kinski!) while dealing with a Soviet plot to detonate nukes in a Saudi oil field and contaminate the world's oil supply unless the US President (William Prince) starts a war with Israel. Glickenhaus, who left filmmaking years ago and became a major NYC investment broker and race car collector, was a tremendously underrated action craftsman with films like this, THE EXTERMINATOR, and 1988's SHAKEDOWN. He doesn't run from his B-movie past however, contributing audio commentaries to Synapse Films' recent Blu-ray release of THE EXTERMINATOR and their planned release of his 1991 Christopher Walken actioner MCBAIN. THE SOLDIER is probably best known for its memorable ski chase. And yes, that music is Tangerine Dream.
Lastly, this weekend also saw the re-release of STAR WARS, accompanied by a brief teaser for the next summer's final installment of the trilogy, then titled REVENGE OF THE JEDI before George Lucas changed it to RETURN OF THE JEDI.
Directed by Tony Gilroy. Written by Tony Gilroy & Dan Gilroy. Cast: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach, Joan Allen, Albert Finney, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac, Zeljko Ivanek, Dennis Boutsikaris, Corey Stoll, Donna Murphy, Elizabeth Marvel, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Paddy Considine. (PG-13, 133 mins)
The films in the Matt Damon-starring BOURNE trilogy are arguably the most highly-regarded action films of the last decade. As entertaining as 2002's THE BOURNE IDENTITY was, it wasn't until 2004's THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, which found director Paul Greengrass taking over for IDENTITY's Doug Liman, that the series really hit its stride. The sense of handheld immediacy that Greengrass brought to his breakthrough film BLOODY SUNDAY (2002) translated beautifully to complex chase sequences that, for better or worse, changed the way action films were constructed and clearly influenced how the makers of 2006's CASINO ROYALE approached reinventing James Bond. That said, Greengrass' techniques aren't easy to imitate effectively, and a lot of action films that have followed in the wake of SUPREMACY and 2007's THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM fell--and continue to fall--victim to hyper-edited, overly-frenetic shaky-cam that renders a lot of the action incomprehensible and headache-inducing. A lot of people cite Greengrass as the culprit for the action shaky-cam phenomenon, but that's like blaming Quentin Tarantino for all the RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION ripoffs that flooded video stores in the 1990s. It's not Greengrass' fault that he's great at what he does and other filmmakers aren't.
Which brings us to the hybrid reboot/parallel story THE BOURNE LEGACY, which takes its title from a post-Robert Ludlum Bourne novel by Eric Van Lustbader, but doesn't use Lustbader's novel as a source. Greengrass and Damon are out, and in their stead are Tony Gilroy and compulsive franchise-joiner Jeremy Renner (following his work in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL and THE AVENGERS). Taking place at the same time as THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, LEGACY deals with the effects of that film's Treadstone and Blackbriar debacles on Outcome, a top-secret NSA project run by Col. Byer (Edward Norton) and Adm. Turso (Stacy Keach). When the Jason Bourne story is leaked by the British reporter (Paddy Considine) killed in ULTIMATUM, and a YouTube video surfaces showing Treadstone head Dr. Hirsch (Albert Finney) toasting a top Outcome doc at a birthday dinner, Byer and Turso panic and decide to terminate their Outcome agents to erase any connections between them and the CIA, Treadstone, or Blackbriar. They believe they've gotten rid of all their agents, but one--Aaron Cross (Renner)--is in the Alaskan wilderness and manages to fool them into thinking he's dead. Cross is hooked on blue and green pills--provided by Outcome doctors--that enhance his intelligence and combat skills. He's dangerously low on both and without consistent dosage, those vital skills nosedive. Outcome's goal was to genetically alter average agents and turn them into espionage supermen. Making his way back to D.C., Cross eventually joins forces with Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), who's also being targeted by Outcome for knowing too much about the terminated operation.
Gilroy wrote or co-wrote the three previous BOURNE outings, and on paper, promoting him to director seemed like a win-win. He knows the franchise and in the meantime, got an Oscar nomination for his directorial debut with 2007's MICHAEL CLAYTON. But neither MICHAEL CLAYTON nor Gilroy's follow-up, the romantic spy comedy DUPLICITY, were big on intense action, and Gilroy is a writer first. As a result, THE BOURNE LEGACY has a lot of exposition that borders on incoherence, and there's entirely too much chronic overexplaining where the more people talk, the less sense things make. What happens in a lot of THE BOURNE LEGACY is that Gilroy the director couldn't part with anything Gilroy the writer had on the page. There's several instances of deflated tension when characters just talk and talk and talk. That works in character-driven pieces like MICHAEL CLAYTON, but in something like a BOURNE film, it's a momentum killer. Renner and Weisz are fine in the leads, and AMERICAN HISTORY X stars Norton and Keach (it's nice to see him on the big screen again) make formidable villains until Gilroy gives them nothing more to do but pace around in their "crisis suite," staring at monitors, gritting their teeth, and barking into speakerphones where their dialogue is essentially reduced to "Where the hell is he?!", "That's him/her!", "We need to contain this!" and "Find Aaron Cross!" The only thing that's missing is a scene where Norton stands at his office window overlooking D.C., and scans the horizon before gravely intoning "Where are you?"
Too much of THE BOURNE LEGACY just feels like a bland retread, right down to the climactic motorcycle/car chase through the streets of Manila. Gilroy really drops the ball here, shooting the extended chase as more or less a series of close-ups of the actors. It's a maddeningly incoherent blur of an action sequence that ends up being another unsatisfying attempt at mimicking Greengrass' techniques. Cross and Marta are being chased on a motorcycle by a crazed, nameless killing machine (Louis Ozawa Changchien) dispatched by Outcome, and the big payoff is executed with a terrible, video-gamey CGI effect that induced chuckles instead of "Whoa!"'s from the audience. Bourne faced some memorably lethal assassins in earlier films--The Professor (Clive Owen) in IDENTITY, Kirill (Karl Urban) in SUPREMACY, and Paz (Edgar Ramirez) in ULTIMATUM, but Gilroy can't even be bothered to give Changchien a name, dialogue, or character traits, instead opting to just drop him into the film 110 minutes in, just so there's someone to pursue them for the by now obligatory big chase.
THE BOURNE LEGACY has one of the best casts of the year, but you wouldn't know it by how badly Gilroy wastes most of it. Past BOURNE co-stars appear in blink-and-you'll-miss-them walk-ons that aren't even enough to be called cameos: Finney's entire role consists a blurry YouTube clip lasting 15 seconds tops and he appears in a photo later. David Strathairn has two brief scenes, and one of them is lifted from ULTIMATUM; Scott Glenn as CIA head Ezra Kramer has a short conversation with Keach at the beginning and is gone by the five-minute mark; Joan Allen, so terrific in SUPREMACY and ULTIMATUM, returns as CIA deputy director/scapegoat Pam Landy, appearing just past the 120-minute mark and shown exiting a courthouse and getting into a car, with one line of dialogue. And an uncredited Considine's two brief shots appear to be from ULTIMATUM. I realize these characters are here to establish a bridge between ULTIMATUM and LEGACY and to illustrate that they're taking place simultaneously, but why assemble that accomplished a cast and give them absolutely nothing to do? It's so rare to see the great Albert Finney these days that one can't help but be a little disappointed to find him promimently-billed and getting less screen time than the actual Bela Lugosi in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.
And why not just recast the Bourne role if Damon wanted to move on? Why create "Aaron Cross" in the first place? Have Renner play Bourne and base it one of Lustbader's novels instead of creating some hokey new plot about pharmaceutically-enhanced spies. There was an element of drama and suspense to the amnesia-stricken Jason Bourne. Aaron Cross is just after some pills. Are Gilroy and Universal thinking a few films ahead? Are they anticipating Damon returning to the series? Or will Bourne return and team up with Cross at some point? Or better yet, two films from now, will it be revealed that Cross and Bourne are the same person? With the BOURNE alumni walk-ons and the creation of a new character, there were times in THE BOURNE LEGACY where it started to resemble Blake Edwards trying to keep the PINK PANTHER series going without Peter Sellers. And there you have it: THE BOURNE LEGACY is to the BOURNE franchise what CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER was to that series. That's not a knock on Jeremy Renner, but rather, on the questionable decisions made by the filmmakers. Passably entertaining at times, lots of returning faces to establish familiarity and sell us on this new model, but it's a decidedly inferior product that pales in comparison to its predecessors. In trying to continue the BOURNE series, the filmmakers have ended up making what amounts to an uninspired imitation.
Warner Archive recently released six MGM-distributed Italian sword-and-sandal epics from the early 1960s. Inspired in equal parts by Hollywood epics like Cecil B. DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) and Stanley Kubrick's SPARTACUS (1960), but even more so by their homegrown blockbuster HERCULES (1957), the sword & sandal peplum scene exploded in Italy from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, providing a lot of work for American and Italian bodybuilders, stunning international beauties, and aging Hollywood actors and directors looking for working vacations in Europe. Bad dubbing and decades of beat-up, horribly cropped, and pan-and-scanned TV airings served to perpetuate the myth that these were cheap, shoddy, low-budget affairs and while some certainly were, a good number of them were lavish, big-budget spectacles with gorgeous widescreen cinematography, high-end production values, incredible sets and locations, and thousands of extras. Many of these films that have been presented on DVD thus far have been in those $10, 50-film public domain sets that use the same beat-to-hell TV prints that have misrepresented this genre for so long. Hopefully, these six releases from Warner Archive can accomplish something in the way of reconsidering many of these films, most of which are not lost classics by any means, but were ambitiously made by talented and creative craftsmen (with a lot of future famous Italian directors on the crews) and were often richly entertaining and in their day, quite popular.
THE SLAVE (Italy - 1962)
American bodybuilder Steve Reeves was crowned Mr. Universe in 1950, but had a difficult time getting his acting career off the ground--one of his early films was Ed Wood's JAIL BAIT (1954)--until he went to Italy and became an overnight sensation with 1957s HERCULES, with stardom following back home after the film's 1959 US release. The huge international success of HERCULES immediately led to countless similar muscleman epics pouring out of Italy. THE SLAVE is a SPARTACUS knockoff that reunited Reeves with two of his HERCULES co-stars (Ivo Garrani and Gianna Maria Canale) for the story of Randus (Reeves), a respected centurion in the army of Julius Caesar (Garrani). Caesar gets word of a potential coup by the nefarious, gold-hoarding Crassus (Claudio Gora) and dispatches Randus and his loyal sidekick Verus (Franco Balducci) to visit Crassus and keep an eye on him. In the course of his journey, Randus witnesses the cruel and unfair treatment of slaves by Crassus and his soldiers, and eventually discovers that he's the lost son of the legendary slave Spartacus, crucified 25 years earlier by Crassus. Torn between his allegiance to Rome and his desire to free the slaves and follow in the footsteps of his father, Randus goes full Zorro and starts disguising himself under a helmet and launching raids to free slaves and start a revolt against Crassus, always leaving his "S" mark behind.
An early effort by director Sergio Corbucci, who would go on to helm numerous classic spaghetti westerns like DJANGO (1966) and THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), THE SLAVE shows embryonic signs of the savage violence and dark nihilism that Corbucci would utilize to a greater extent in those westerns. In addition, Corbucci handles the huge production very well, with excellently-staged action sequences and swordplay, a lot of which is shot on location in Egypt. A beardless Reeves, looking like a really beefed-up Jason Patric, is a commanding hero, and even with the hammy line deliveries and the silly conclusion (you just know it'll riff on "I am Spartacus!"), THE SLAVE is on the high-end of the sword-and-sandal genre. Notable future Italian directors on the crew include cinematographer Enzo Barboni, camera operator Stelvio Massi, and second unit director Franco Giraldi. The 2.40:1 anamorphic transfer is in mostly good shape but there is some noticeable print damage and wear & tear in some scenes. Overall, a fine presentation of a very good example of this type of film. (Unrated, 102 mins)
SANDOKAN THE GREAT (France/Italy/Spain - 1964)
Reeves also stars in SANDOKAN THE GREAT, the first of four 1964 SANDOKAN films in two simultaneous franchises, one with Reeves and the other with American actor/director Ray Danton. Released in the US in 1965 by MGM, SANDOKAN THE GREAT gets off to a clunky start and is relentlessly talky for a long time before it starts to pick up. There's a lot of solid action sequences throughout, but there's also a lot of padding and it could stand to be at least 20 minutes shorter. Reeves' Sandokan is the son of a Malaysian sultan who's been imprisoned by nefarious British colonials led by the sneering Lord Guillonk (Leo Anchoriz). To gain leverage, Sandokan and his band of rebels kidnap Guillonk's niece Mary Ann (Genevieve Grad), with the British in hot pursuit through the treacherous jungles, which gives director Umberto Lenzi a chance to frequently cut to stock footage of wild animals. And of course, Mary Ann sees her uncle's evil ways as she and Sandokan fall in love. Sandokan and his rebels face an angry tiger, a traitor from within, stampeding elephants, poisonous snakes, a monsoon, and a native tribe sporting some of the most cringe-inducing blackface ever seen on screen. You can actually see it rubbing off during some action scenes. There's some rousing excitement in the machine gun-and-dynamite-filled climax after Sandokan & Co. get some help from a newly-acquired wacky chimp sidekick, but the pace is just too draggy and the film too long. Some tightening would've made it much more enjoyable.
Lenzi, now 81 and retired from filmmaking since 1992, was a career journeyman who went wherever cinematic trends took him, starting in adventures like SANDOKAN, going to post-DIRTY DOZEN "macaroni combat" films in the late '60s and a few gialli in the early '70s, and then really making his mark with cop thrillers in the mid-to-late '70s and finally with cannibal jungle gorefests in the early '80s. It's interesting to see, from the copious nature stock footage to the journey through the jungle to Mary Ann being abducted by a tribe of headhunters, just how much SANDOKAN THE GREAT plays like one of Lenzi's later cannibal thrillers like EATEN ALIVE and CANNIBAL FEROX (aka MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY), minus the extreme gore, the graphic nudity, and the reprehensible onscreen animal killings (SANDOKAN does have one brief shot of a slaughtered pig that doesn't look faked). Also with Andrea Bosic, Rik Battaglia, Maurice Poli, Enzo Fiermonte, and eagle-eyed Eurocultists will also spot an uncredited Dakar (ZOMBIE, ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST, ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE) as one of Sandokan's followers. The very nice 2.40 anamorphic transfer looks to be in better overall condition than THE SLAVE, but THE SLAVE is the better film by far. (Unrated, 110 mins).
HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES (Italy - 1964)
Despite his association with Hercules, Reeves only played the character twice: in the first film and its sequel HERCULES UNCHAINED, both directed by Pietro Francisci. Numerous other actors stepped into the role over the next several years, sometimes officially and unofficially. Kirk Morris (real name Adriano Bellini) starred as Maciste, another mythical muscleman, in a series of HERCULES knockoffs that often became HERCULES movies through the wonders of English dubbing or false advertising. Morris finally got to legitimately portray Hercules in Francisci's 1964 muscle mash-up HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES. Here, Hercules, Ulysses (Enzo Cerusico), and others are sent by King Laertes (Andrea Fantasia) to find and kill a giant sea monster (which just looks like a seal shot in extreme close-up, with dubbed-in roars). After completing that task, they get lost at sea and end up in Judea, where Samson (Iranian muscleman Iloosh Khoshabe, using the name "Richard Lloyd"--he also did several films under the awesome moniker "Rod Flash") is hiding because of a bounty placed on his head by evil Philistine King Seren (Aldo Giuffre, best known as the booze-soaked Union captain in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY). Samson hatches a plan to confuse King Seren into mistaking Hercules for Samson, which prompts Seren to hold all of Hercules' companions hostage and he gives him three days to find Samson, with Seren's queen Delilah (Liana Orfei) in tow. Hercules finds Samson, and the two duke it out before deciding to join forces and take on King Seren. HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES is dumb, brainless fun, full of melodramatic dubbing, styrofoam bricks and boulders, and arrows that make a sci-fi laser sound when fired. It takes Hercules and Samson an hour to meet up, and the titular trio only come together in the closing minutes. An underused Ulysses is held hostage for much of the film, but it's he who discovers that Hercules and Samson are about to walk into a Philistine ambush. Hercules and Samson taking out the Philistine army by lifting a gigantic stone temple and tipping it on them is hysterically funny, as is the sight of a bunch of Greeks struggling to row a ship under Hercules' supervision, when Hercules could probably row the thing on his own. Despite some obviously cheap effects, this looks very good in this remastered 1.78 anamorphic transfer, with its massive sets and beautiful locations. (Unrated, 86 mins)
Other Italian sword & sandal epics in this Warner Archive batch include THE TARTARS (1961) with Orson Welles and Victor Mature; GOLD FOR THE CAESARS (1963) with Jeffrey Hunter and Ron Randell, and DAMON AND PYTHIAS (1962) with Guy Williams and Don Burnett.
THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN aka SNAPSHOT, aka ONE MORE MINUTE (Australia - 1979)
One of the more egregious examples of misleading advertising from the grindhouse glory days, THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN was the 1980 US retitling of the 1979 Australian import SNAPSHOT, complete with poster art that didn't make any overt claims, but arguably implied that it was somehow connected to John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978). I'm sure audiences became openly hostile by the 20-minute mark, as it obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with HALLOWEEN or Halloween, but taken on its own terms (or, as SNAPSHOT, which is the actual title on both versions on Scorpion Releasing's new DVD--more on that in a bit), it's a compellingly odd character piece that's light on thrills and chills, but does a good job of establishing a palpable sense of unease throughout. It also has a believable performance by Sigrid Thornton (THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER) as young, naive hairdresser Angela. Stuck in a dead-end job with a domineering mother (Julia Blake), a bratty little sister (Jacqui Gordon), and ex-boyfriend Daryl (Vincent Gil) who follows her around in an ice cream truck, Angela is whisked away from her dreary life by bitch-on-wheels cover girl Madeline (Chantal Contouri), who gets her a modeling job. Now with money and independence, Angela is meeting all sorts of new people and finding her way through a new world. And that ice cream truck is still following her.
YouTube fan montage featuring the film's theme song "Angela," by Sherbet!
Co-written by Australia-based American expat Everett De Roche (LONG WEEKEND, PATRICK, ROAD GAMES) and directed by Simon Wincer (later to helm projects as varied as LONESOME DOVE, QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN, and FREE WILLY), SNAPSHOT is a strange little film that drops its heroine in an unrelentingly cruel world where she's used, abused, and manipulated by everyone (even her mother drops by her new place and steals some money out of her dresser drawer), and yet, she's curiously unfazed by a lot of it (she finds a pig's head in her bed at one point, and goes on about her day, assuming Daryl put it there). This film is often lumped in with the Ozploitation scene (primarily because of producer Antony I. Ginnane), but there's not much here in the way of exploitative elements. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what Wincer and the writers really wanted to accomplish here, but it's consistently engrossing and you're never quite certain where it's headed. Coupled with an ending that might leave more questions than answers, the only thing one can say with 100% certainty is that whatever title it's going by, it's not a slasher film. Scorpion's DVD is really a thing of beauty: the 2.35 anamorphic presentation of the 92-minute US cut is quite impressive and a major improvement on the blurry, washed-out print that aired on Turner Classic Movies a couple of years ago. I think that faded print is the transfer used for the second version on the DVD: the 101-minute Australian cut that's presented in a vastly inferior 1.78 anamorphic transfer, and most of the additional footage seems to consist of Angela having a much longer confrontation with her mother, a scene of her roommates watching the Ginnane-produced PATRICK on TV, Madeline and Angela walking in on a couple having sex, and more screen time for a shamelessly mugging nightclub performer who should've been cut altogether. It's this longer version that has a commentary track with Ginnane and Scorpion horror hostess Katarina Leigh Waters. Ginnane is personable enough, and covers most of the bases, but Waters really doesn't do a great job of keeping the discussion going (though to her credit, she is improving on her earlier commentary moderation efforts), usually chiming with an "Mmm hmm," to keep Ginnane talking, which I suppose is fine. It's not the best commentary you'll ever hear (and it takes a full hour for either of them to inevitably mention that Quentin Tarantino is a fan of the film), but Ozploitation devotees will find it interesting. The nine extra minutes are superfluous and the film not only looks better in its shorter version, but it's paced better as well. Also of note for trash fans: nearly every female cast member except for Controuri spent time on the Australian women-in-prison cult TV series PRISONER: CELL BLOCK H. (R, 92 mins/101 mins)
WAVES OF LUST (Italy - 1975)
Raro USA brings us the first official US home video release of this early erotic thriller from future CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST director Ruggero Deodato. Ostensibly inspired by Roman Polanski's 1962 breakthrough KNIFE IN THE WATER, WAVES OF LUST is one of Deodato's dullest films, and despite the director's claims that it's a thriller above all, there's not much in the way of suspense or drama. If you didn't think it was possible that constant sex and nudity could be boring as hell, then let WAVES OF LUST show you how it's done. Irem (Al Cliver) and Barbara (Silvio Dionisio, Deodato's wife at the time) meet George (John Steiner) and Silvia (Elizabeth Turner), and are invited for a cruise on George's yacht. They do this despite thinking George may have murdered a business associate with whom they'd earlier seen him arguing. Of course, it doesn't take long for George to reveal himself as a psychotic, controlling, alcoholic douchebag who routinely physically and psychologically abuses Silvia. This prompts her to seek sexual solace with both Irem and Barbara, while Barbara finds herself turned on by George, who does little aside from ruin everyone's vacation, smack Silvia around, and brag about how rich and powerful he is. Only in the last 15 minutes does Deodato decide to make this a "thriller," and it's as unsatisfying as the plentiful but profoundly unerotic sex scenes, the nadir of which has Cliver doing a head stand (a recurring motif that, like the rest of the film, goes nowhere) while the almost constantly nude Turner stands and passionately kisses his ankle and calf, as Deodato provides us with some gratuitous Al Cliver back acne. Joe D'Amato probably could've done wonders with this, but Deodato's made much better films, starting with his next, 1976's awesome LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN. Written by Gianlorenzo Battaglia and Lamberto Bava. Deodato, Bava, and Cliver appear in a 17-minute documentary on the DVD, and there's also some deleted scenes that show some additional shots in a few of the sex scenes. Raro's DVD offers both Italian-language and English-dubbed audio, and is 1.85 anamorphic and looks generally acceptable. WAVES OF LUST is worth a watch for Deodato fans and Italian exploitation obsessives, but even they won't get much out of this catatonic, sleep-inducing softcore porn travelogue. (Unrated, 88 mins)
