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Reviews
Hustle (1975)
Reynolds Eyebrows cause tsunamis!
2 out of 5 (points off for sagging and failing to connect the characters with the plot, therefore pissing me off). Initially, the striking resemblance between the young Burt Reynolds and a young Marlon Brando caused such a distraction that it was a challenge not to try to stick an orange in his mouth and make him say "Respeck me, respeck the family" .
But then Reynolds' eyebrows started acting up.
Burt's eyebrows have such an amazing screen presence of their own it becomes difficult to focus on anything else. If they aren't insured I don't know what is (see also Tom Selleck's moustache for hairy trade marks. {Incidentally my spell check offers 'Saltlick' as a substitute to Selleck
Tom Saltlick}). Watch Reynolds in this film as he winces in a desperate attempt to restrain his eyebrows; the concentration on his face is amazing. Those eyebrows seem to have the ability to go all the way up and over his head to meet his arse like some cheeky Mexicans crossing a border.
I have a theory that Reynolds had to grow his big moustache which we all know him for to counter balance the gravitational pull of his brows. Anyway
this film; almost really good. Paul Winfield (Chekov's captain in the 'Wrath of Khan') puts in a great performance as Reynolds' partner. Did I mention that Reynolds and Winfield play really rubbish cops? That's the mainstay of this film. These guys think that being a cop involves sitting in their office having a bitch about the world while drinking whisky from their filing cabinet; "What's this? The father of his dead child cares about her death? For Gods sake! What the hell does he have? Emotion? And he wants us to do what? Investigate? What a bastard." That wasn't a quote, even though it had quotation marks. My favourite quote comes from Winfield's character, who is inexplicably interrogating an albino black person for no reason. Yes. An albino black person. With an awesome white afro. For no reason. He beats the apologetic albino in question and yells "you chalky mother f*?ker!" at him, which I have appropriated as my new favourite insult. Later on we learn that he's trying to single-handedly cut down the worldwide albino population. It's good to have a hobby I suppose, although it has nothing to do with the plot (very few characters in this film do, including our protagonists and most of the antagonists).
When you can draw your eyes away from Reynolds eyebrows (something he himself tries to do constantly) you can definitely notice the Foley artist hard at work. One scene had Reynolds' hooker girlfriend brush her hair which sounds like she was tearing newspaper, or when a guy walks across a boat deck sounding like he's Mr. Tumnus tap dancing on the roof of a garden shed.
Burt's girlfriend in this film is some kind of sexual businessperson who likes to sleep with old people for money, and takes "interesting" phone calls on Burt's funky telephone (that's not a euphemism). He doesn't mind though, presumably because of the two crazy eyebrows he has to deal with, which he probably calls his 'twins'. I have to say I have never been confident on the phone, and so don't phone the 'sex lines', however if I did, and had to pay for it, then I wouldn't want the kind of indifference that this woman deals out to her clients, I get enough of that in real life. She actually ends one saucy phone encounter with "
and there you go" like she's just solved a sudoku puzzle. Sexy.
Overall this is a good film with good performances from everyone, but the script seems to be confused. The message seems to be that if you are a nobody then nobody cares. Unless you're an eyebrow.
To be honest I watched an episode of Magnum PI, incidentally starring 'Tom Saltlick', called 'Way of the Stalking Horse' (season 6) which was stylistically similar to this film. It was gritty and dark, but just plain better. And shorter.
As a geeky side note; a security guard confuses Magnum with Burt Reynolds in the season 7 episode of Magnum P.I called 'L.A'
and Tom Saltlick's eyebrows don't dance on his face like two drunk monkeys at a rave.
Ross @ www.musiconthemoon.com
Cockfighter (1974)
Chickurns are purdy
Yes! It's the curiously titled 'Cockfighter'! Fear not though, it's about blokes who enjoy watching chickens kill each other. Maybe fear a little, this isn't a Disney film.
Warren Oates seems to be continuously excellent the more of his work I get to watch, and sure enough he gets the {sports metaphor involving a net or a run or a goal which means he's great}. Here he plays a character who pretty much says nothing, using only hand gestures to display his feelings about cocks.
He pulls it off.
This film 'ain't no 'date' film; this is about strapping sharp weaponry on to small birds and then watch them kill each other. Apparently it's the manly thing to do. Viewers get to see chickens stab each other in the head, then get to watch it in slow motion. Again. And again. There is however something visually amazing about watching two chickens kill each other, which I'm sure is why people did (do??) it. Probably not.
It's an interesting and engaging character study, despite the 'shock' factor of chicken-death -for fun. Everyone turns out great performances; The Oates seems to blend into the chicken scene expertly. Ed Bagley Jr. appears as a guy who loves his chicken a little too much and wears ridiculous clothing. He is a treat to behold. James Earl Jones' dad even pops up, which in retrospect I feel to be quite an honour, for some reason I can't quite fathom, a bit like people who feel 'lucky' to witness an animal give birth when in reality it's quite disgusting. The guy that plays the polish chicken-fetishist type guy (at one point he says something like "I'm well into cocks"
or something) is strangely creepy in his zeal for the 'sport'; watch all the close ups of him and tell me you don't feel awkward
like you've just watched him lick a child's face and he's turned to you and started a conversation about hammocks like nothing has happened. Harry Dean Stanton cuts a fine figure as a rival cock fighter who wears suits and fancy shoes. He all the way classy..uhuh. There is even a guy who sticks a c
chickens head into his mouth, licks its gentlemanly parts, then sticks his finger up it's hows-your-father, which apparently is illegal in the noble world of cock fighting. Who'd a thunk? Personally, I detest animal cruelty, and when it's for entertainment I'm raging. However I really enjoyed this film, which puts me in a weird place, like I've travelled to the future and got into a fist fight with my future-self. I'm not entirely sure whether it's pro-cock fighting or anti-cock fighting (although I suspect the film doesn't care). It's just about a guy who has found his calling doing something that most find morally reprehensible, but it's who he is and what he's good at. It's quite scary because it shows what people got up too to fill their time before game boys were invented.
Think of 'Rocky' but with chickens. Yes 'Rocky' fans
there is a montage of chicken training action. Fear not. Chicken on a treadmill.
According to IMDb.com this film has been banned from being released in the UK ever because the chicken fighting contravenes some film makers law, which is fine, but it is a good film, which is annoying.
Ross @ www.musiconthemoon.com
Re-Animator (1985)
The Re-Animator trilogy; one of my many unexplained fun-holes
Unavailable for quite a while over here, 'Bride' has finally spurted out of whatever artery it was stuck in and landed onto a cheap DVD. Herbert West is back! And this time he's not as dead as he was at the end of the first Re-Animator (which was a lot of dead). Yay! I don't even care that the film has no explanation as to his or Dan's survival, I'm just glad to see them again and yes, they are still perverting the course of nature with bright green stuff, those crazy goofs.
The film begins bizarrely by telling us that rather than die as it appeared in the original, our 'heroes' instead volunteered to be doctors in some random South American revolution. Fair enough, it's what I would have done. Now we know that volunteering for such revolutions looks a lot like dieing. That's a nice thing to tell a child whose rabbit's just died; "fluffy volunteered for the Peruvian guerrillas." Anyway, they are continuing their EVYIL EXPERYMENTS on the wounded until a pretty woman runs in to the tent with a gun and tells them that "they are coming". Soon, "they" arrive
all three of them. These prophesized hairy men open fire and things get exciting as West and Dan have to make a run for it. Do they get away? A short scene change later and we find that yes
yes they did get away. Not only did they get away, but they seem to have gotten jobs in the very same hospital that they caused a massacre of undead proportions in the last time. Not so good staff vetting procedures at this hospital I feel.
Soon a policeman sniffs around. I hate him. You see, on the DVD I have the sound quality's not that good. This big fat policeman talks so quietly I had to constantly adjust the volume to hear what he was saying, not that it really mattered
plot is no-ones priority here. One of the reasons I enjoy the Re-animator films so much has solely to do with Jeffery Combs' amazing turn as Herbert West. That and the comedy gore. Let me put it this way; at one point Dr. Hill (the disembodied head from the first film) returns and, wait to you hear how awesome this is
he gets bat wings installed into the sides of his head so that he can fly. Yes. Fly. I think I clapped.
The ending of this film makes everything worthwhile. Cheeky Herbert has been combining parts and re-animating them; a foot with a hand, two half people stuck together and all manner of other freaky funny stuff appears, all while Hill's flying head flaps around cackling. Also earlier in the film there was a cool spider-like thing he made using some fingers and an eyeball, which was hideously underused. It should have got a spin off.
It should be known that bat-head Hill looks like one time presidential candidate horse face. I mean John Kerry.
Did I mention the flying head? Ross @ www.musiconthemoon.com