This depraved pulp piece is a darkly comic neo-noir in broad daylight. An urban mob enforcer (Lee Marvin in deadpan Point Blank mode) is sent to rural Kansas to settle a debt with "Mary Ann" (a terrific Gene Hackman) an old crony who runs a thriving cattle ranch and slaughterhouse. With the assistance of his half-wit thug brother "Weenie", beef baron Mary Ann is also a dope pusher and purveyor of sex slaves groomed for years in a local "orphanage".…
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Scarecrow 1973
Jerry Schatzberg’s underseen film (a Palme d'Or winner at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival) is the Horatio Algar myth deconstructed, a delusional slacker’s American dream. This misfit buddy road movie, featuring two of the greatest actors of their generation at the height of their powers (Gene Hackman (The Conversation would follow next) and Al Pacino (coming off The Godfather and Schatzberg’s The Panic in Needle Park), is like a scruffy second cousin to Midnight Cowboy, and it’s almost as good…
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The Practice 2023
The first time our typically stoic hero of sorts (a world weary yoga instructor played by Esteban Bigliardi) offers the hint of a smile he falls into a man-hole. The message is clear - at the onset of happiness we are just a half-step from the sewer. I’m just a sucker for these deadpan semi-absurdist dry inter-connected ensemble comedies. Shares similar satiric targets as director Martín Rejtman’s The Magic Gloves (mood stabilizing meds, therapy, exercise) which I slightly prefer. It all appeals to my whole body self-help scepticism. Rejtman is the Aki Kaurismäki of the Southern Hemisphere.
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Lucky Lady 1975
Midway through this one time big budgeted critical and box office flop with a solid A-List cast set in the world of 1930s bootlegging, I thought it might have been unfairly maligned as it came across as a rather amiable and entertaining low stakes hang out film - but, soon enough, it all becomes scattershot, tonally awkward and more that a little grating. Helmed by industry vet Stanley Donen (lacking the New Hollywood credentials by being on the wrong side…
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Corvette Summer 1978
How big a Star Wars fan was I at ten years old? Let’s just say I bought the novelization of Corvette Summer.
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The Incident 1967
This post Kitty Genovese murder (1964) and pre-Bernie Goetz vigilantism (1984) take on NYC urban dread and bystander indifference is a rather stark and mean affair. The black and white, low-budget, gritty location shot elements of it all is suggestive of NY set 60s films like Blast of Silence, Something Wild, The Young Savages (all 1961), The Pawnbroker (1964), or even the British made subway car set Dutchman from the same year. One on-line commentator suggested the film is strange…
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