Polyester Celluloid

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

2008-07-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

The most gangster movie I have ever seen.
One of the greatest things about film in the seventies were the actors used. Don’t sell me pretty-faced gangsters. Just character actors with faces full of character. Craggy, pock marked profiles with proud noses and receding hair lines. We have few people left in movies today that have real character. No more attention vortexes, the men who relied on their force of will to draw others to them. People like De Niro or Nicholson are an aging breed, the last of these never-beautiful leading men and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any fresh blood in Hollywood to take their place.
That’s why it is such a pleasure to return to the days when directors like Sam Peckinpaw were willing to create mood and landscape with the facial features of imperfection. The prettiest man in this film is a beer-bellied Kris Kristofferson. Cast as a rapist biker, his weathered skin and homeless tan lend credibility to his character and the film as a whole.
The leading man is a down on his luck piano player in a tourist dive in Mexico. Now-a-days we would expect Matthew McConaughey or one of the Wilsons cast in the role, but Peckinpaw used a 46 year-old Warren Oates. The man looks like an accountant on a serious bender. He is surprising material for the part of a daring bounty hunter/mercenary. That is what makes his feats of heroics and daring so much more stunning and over the top. You expect Clint Eastwood to get out of narrow scrapes, not this guy. And every role is cast perfectly. Believable people doing unbelievable things out of desperation.
The film is liberally laced with violence, but the gore is simply hinted at, forcing the viewer’s imagination to get involved. We never see the decapitated head of Alfredo Garcia. We are shown a gooey sack covered in flies and how its stench affects those around it, but never its decaying visage. The picture in my head of what is in the bag is far more terrible than anything Peckinpaw could have put on film. He, knowing that, allowed his audience to gross themselves out, rather than handing them a cheap thrill.
The most shockingly brutal moment in the movie isn’t even shown to the audience, all we have is an external shot of the Don’s compound and our ears to figure out what is happening. The gun-shot crack of The Don’s daughter’s arm breaking in the hands of his henchman, followed by her pitiful scream and her defeated utterance of the name of her forbidden lover made my blood run cold. This is the opening sequence and I’m hooked, already plotting on hitting Netflix for more Sam Peckinpaw the moment the credits roll.
The man can tell a story. He uses reality and imagination in such a way that his audience must relinquish themselves completely to his tale and focus unwaveringly on the gritty details. In those details lie the depth of individual character and breadth of human emotion that Peckinpaw builds his stories on.

Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan

2008-06-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have no life. That is probably evident already, I mean...I have a blog.

Blog = Nothing better to do than sit in the dark and type something no one else will ever read.

To further prove this "having no life" hypothesis, I present exhibit "B".

The only thing I could think of the entire time I was watching Friday the 13th Part 8 was how the hell did they take a boat from Camp Crystal Lake to New York? I mean, Crystal Lake is land locked right? and I don't remember any of the other movies having anything in the water other than a canoe and now we have a yacht pulling up to the dock. So as soon as I popped the tape out of the VCR (analog is the only way to watch eighties horror, preferably with a touch of tracking fuzz at the top of the screen) I googled Crystal Lake and found one in New Jersey. The films never say exactly which state Camp Crystal Lake is located in (so the possibility that Jason Vorhees could one day appear on your cabin doorstep applies to everyone) giving me carte blanche in deciding where to start. I thought that the closer I could get geographically to Manhattan, the more plausible my solution. There are LOTS of Crystal Lakes, but using one in say, California would require the Panama Canal and would become less of a pleasure cruise and more of a expedition. Plus everyone on board would be dead before the movie got us passed Catalina Island and then Jason would have to pilot the boat and he not so smart.
Anyhow, New Jersey. Crystal Lake is just south (about 20 miles) of Cedar Lake in Morris County, New Jersey which is the actual sight used for the lake in the film. Trust me, it's not gonna get any closer than this, I've done the research. A Crystal lake not an hours drive from the original film location. Now we're cooking. From Crystal Lake, you can access the Ramapo River, which heads South, taking us closer to our New York state of mind. Ramapo turns into the Pompton which continues South to the Passaic. Take this puppy S.E. through the remainder of New Jersey and we pop out into the beautiful Newark Bay. This connects us to New York Bay and ends our little experiment. Let us jump hand in hand from the bow of the Lazarus and desperately climb aboard a life raft to paddle our way to safety in the streets of New York, escaping for a short time the inevitable puncturing of our torsos. Now that is what I call a good use of my time.

Magnum Force

2008-06-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

Chase scene, like three quarters of the way through. Clint Eastwood is careening through the streets of San Fransisco. The cars are launching off of axle-crushing hills, plowing through trash cans and fruit stands. White men sporting Afros and ugly shoes are diving left and right, trying not to get clipped by the obese front bumper of a '72 Ford LTD. All beautiful. Then... just when you think you can't take anymore of the pea green and pumpkin orange funk slip sliding down the streets of the city...
Lombard Street.
Pre-gayification Lombard. No brick inlaid streets, no manicured hedges or blossoming wildflowers. Just cracked asphalt. Towering weeds and dead grass fighting its way through overgrown bushes that spill onto the street like chest hair from a butterfly collar. This street sings to me.
"I'm REAL!!! I'm not an extension of Mickey's Main Street USA!!! People live in these houses and park on me in giant gnarly steel beasts!!!"
This was before the People were shunted into hidden neighborhoods with little history. Before the soul of the City was sold for an unobtainable ideal. Thank Mayor Newsom for continuing the McMansioning of San Fransisco. He'll keep putting the poor on buses out of town and advertising the gentrified streets to non-breeders. Why aren't there any children in the City? Hmmmm.
I know the seventies were ugly. But they were tangible, you could smell them. There was something authentic about the City then. Now, if you want real San Fransisco, you have to subscribe to Netflix.