A minor ingrate on the former dump.fm ridiculed the sidebar link here, "my amazon reviews, '98-'03" -- it was supposed to be a joke, oh well. These reviews were written in the innocent days before Jeff Bezos emerged as a totalitarian Sauron turning the American workplace into a high-tech surveillance hell.
The reviews were an experiment in attempting "pro" culturecrit in an unpaid environment and ceased when one of them had wording altered by a staffer.
Rather than continuing to link to the black evil that is am*zon, I've saved the reviews as an HTML file.
films
notes on cockfighter
I made this fake DVD cover as a thought experiment. Like Magritte's non-pipe, this object could not, and will not exist. This is one Monte Hellman film that will never get the "Criterion treatment." Some reviews of the film from internet sources (below) suggest why. A "real" DVD cover (or poster, or something, also found on the internet) is at the bottom of the post.
Frank Mansfield (Warren Oates) is one of the most respected "handlers" on the cockfighting circuit. He loses an impromptu match against his rival Burke (Harry Dean Stanton) and thus puts himself out of the running for the coveted "Cockfighter of the Year" award. He rightfully blames the incident on his big mouth and vows not to say a word until he's won the prize. Not to his family, his partner, or even his girl.
As in the earlier Two-Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman takes a long look at people competing at the fringes of society, misfit drifters trying to prove themselves -- and make a buck -- in an edgy niche. Frank and his associates are participating in a cowardly, brutal, sadistic "sport" where their only concerns are the odds and the payoff. Frank gets by quite well without his voice because he has little to say that doesn't involve negotiating the terms of a fight. He's an unusual subject for a character study, as he seems to lack much character. And yet, Oates turns in an excellent facial and physical performance that conveys Frank's thoughts, and manages to imbue him with a shred (just a shred, mind you) of something resembling humanity.
The fights are pretty visceral and the film doesn't flinch. I was prepared to be disturbed and offended, but hell, I had chicken strips for dinner last night. I couldn't work up enough hypocrisy to get too worked up by it. [Nestor] Almendros also films them with a hypnotic beauty, abstract flurries of beaks and feathers and blood.
On the whole I prefer Two-Lane Blacktop, but as a single performance, this is the best I've seen from Oates. Although you occasionally get to hear him in voiceover or flashback, for the most part he plays it silent, and does so very effectively. His gestures communicate to the other characters, and his eyes communicate to the audience. I also really enjoyed Richard Shull as Frank's partner, a fun and glib character who provides some of the film's lighter moments. As I've said before, Stanton doesn't do much for me but he's okay here.
This was a tricky movie for me. For a large part of it I had kind of a blasé "so what?" attitude about it, and then it dawned on me that I was actually enjoying it. It gradually grew on me to the point where I was really invested in seeing what this offbeat -- and largely unsympathetic -- character would get into.
Cockfighter is an extraordinary film from more than just one viewpoint. Charles Willeford‘s authentic script and Hellman‘s carefully researched preparations catapult you straight back to the gloomiest regions of the contemporary America’s deep south, where sleazy Georgia locals gather around, cheering and money-waiving, to witness two animals fight to the death. It’s basically a repulsive topic, and also one of the main reasons why the film was a tremendous box office flop at the time, but only through actually making the effort of watching Cockfighter, you will notice the film does not primarily thrive on animal cruelty and clandestine sports. Cockfighter depicts the story of one man’s obsession and how he will stop at nothing to accomplish a pre-determined goal. Frank Mansfield is a natural born cock-fighter. Throughout all of his life, he trained cocks and was considered the best in business. A couple of years earlier, he became overly haughty and lost his biggest prize fighter over a stupid and meaningless bet. Since then, Frank took a vow of complete silence and dedicates his entire existence to the training of new cocks so that he will eventually regain the medal of best cock-fighter. His obsession slowly costs him everything, including the house where his brother lives, his old friends and even the love and respect of the one woman he cares about.
monte hellman quest
Monte Hellman teaches film at Cal Arts when he's not making movies, which is often, through no fault of his own. Or perhaps it is his fault, if sticking to safe subjects is considered a virtue. From a 1988 interview:
Kris Gilpin: After Easy Rider, the industry was selling Two-Lane [Blacktop] as the second coming, what with the screenplay publication in Esquire and all. Do you think it was a case of over-hype which caused its initial “failure” at the box office?
Monte Hellman: No, it was a case of a different philosophy. I think Easy Rider was a film which was not offensive to the status quo because what it put down was a part of the status quo that everybody condemned. It wasn’t critical of the way studio executives live their lives; it was critical of Southern bigots, so everybody could get behind that. Two-Lane Blacktop was critical of middle-class morality – for want of a better term – it was critical of the way the average person lived his life, and the studio executives were offended by it, and they killed the film. It didn’t die a natural death, it was murder.
Anti-bourgeois themes, socially unacceptable subject matter (e.g., cockfighting), willingness to sign onto crap projects to "keep working" (while at the same time struggling for authorial control), inspires a corpus that's both intriguing and tragic, a de facto avant garde variation of a "directorial career" in a hugely dysfunctional system.
Hellman is known principally for Two Lane Blacktop and, even after it was "murdered" by the suits, it was slow to be recognized in the VHS/DVD era because the copyrights to certain songs kept it out of circulation. Other projects have bubbled to the fore from various rights and production hells (hmm, "Hell-man"), so that a picture emerges of an auteur who didn't deserve his fate, regardless of whatever "attitude" he may have had, especially when a total hack such as Steven Spielberg gets to indulge every crappy cinematic whim. Below is the Wikipedians' raggedy compilation of Hellman's work, with one consumer's viewings (mine) being updated in bold.
Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)
Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) [uncredited post-production footage; for some reason the Wikipedians omitted this film while including other second-unit-type work by Hellman --tm]
The Terror (1963) (uncredited; with Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Hill, and Jack Nicholson) [Hellman says: "I made the last version of the movie; there’d been several versions before but I made the one that finally got released." --tm]
Back Door to Hell (1964)
Flight to Fury (1964)
The Shooting (1966)
Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) [some thoughts on Shooting and Ride are here --tm]
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Cockfighter (1974)
The Greatest (1977) [uncredited; post-production "doctoring" after director Tom Gries died --tm]
China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)
Inside the Coppola Personality (1981) (short)
RoboCop (1987) (uncredited second unit director) He directed several action scenes.
Iguana (1988)
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989)
Reservoir Dogs (1992) (executive producer only)
Trapped Ashes (2006) (segment "Stanley's Girlfriend")
Road to Nowhere (2010)
Road to Nowhere joins the films-about-films canon that includes Irma Vep, Mulholland Drive, Living in Oblivion, and Shadow of the Vampire, with its own brand of angst stemming from Hellman's fifty years' personal experience with snafus, compromises, and unfinished projects. The somewhat lame actor who plays the "inner" film's director is of a piece with Hellman's checkered career; in fact, almost any flaw could be said to be intentional, feeding back into the continuum of low budget reality that Hellman massages into fine art. Shot when Hellman was 78 years of age, Road makes an excellent career bookend to his first film, Beast from Haunted Cave, a horror cheapie where the characters wax philosophical on themes of compromise and life-accomodation (the costs and benefits of gangster molldom, urban rapacity vs. the self-employed life in a South Dakota cabin) while being stalked across the Badlands by a giant hairy cobweb creature.
Update: Am*zon has a terrible print of Cockfighter that appears to have been rendered from an old VHS tape. This fits the subject matter, a Southern almost-mockumentary depicting an activity that is currently a felony in 33 states. Hellman names it the least favorite of his films, not because of the bloodsport but because Roger Corman didn't give him enough time to rework the script completely.
Update 2: More bookends: The Terror and Stanley's Girlfriend each feature a supernatural femme fatale and a pair of men attracted to her against their better judgment.
Update 3: Another sexual triangle occurs in China 9, Liberty 37. The numbers refer to mileages on a directional road sign in the old (Spaghetti) west, not a sports score. Handsome gunfighter Fabio Testi vies with grizzled homesteader Warren Oates for the affections of Jenny (Logan's Run) Agutter. Very engaging story and moving (pun intended) ending. Music by frequent de Palma collaborator Pino Donaggio. Seeing a good print is a crapshoot but for some reason Am*zon streaming has one at the moment. As noted by commenter M. Britton:
Its UNCUT and anamorphic widescreen!!! Been looking for this version for years!!!! Great film from Monte Hellman.
NOTE: THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE AMAZON INSTANT VIDEO STREAMED VERSION (there are a few so make sure you choose the correct one). This is the uncut longer version (not the shortened 93 minute version) us fans have been looking for!! It is anamorphic widescreen 2.35 and looks pretty good (compared to copies and dupes of the pan and scan version) but could look better with a proper restoration from the likes of Criterion (who love Monte Hellman films). This is a cult classic starring the wonderful Warren Oates, Fabio Testi and Jenny Agutter (her scenes are back in!) and has some great cinematography. Just wished Amazon offered this version to purchase instead of renting. I have been waiting a LONG time to finally see the uncut version of this great western and would kill to have this in my video library! This is the only version you should seek out and not the others (since there seems to be no legit widescreen DVD of this cut).
belter history
The cable channel formerly known as the Science Fiction Channel has a new series, The Expanse, which is pretty adroitly done, despite overuse of the trope of "blowing people away" (via pistol, railgun, or airlock), which occurs with as much regularity and emotional impact as a Moe/Curly face slap. The series adapts books by two sf late colonizers writing under the name James S.A. Corey. When it's time to borrow, borrow from the best, and the Coreys owe a large debt to earlier writers for their conception of "the Belt" (as in, asteroids) and Belters.
Larry Niven used "Belter" in the '60s, mostly in short stories in his "Known Space" series. Wikipedia's summation:
The Sol Belt possesses an abundance of valuable ores, which are easily accessible due to the low to negligible gravity of the rocks containing them. Originally a harsh frontier under U.N. control,[citation needed] the Belt declared independence after creating Confinement Asteroid, a habitat with spin gravity that permitted safe gestation of children, and Farmer's Asteroid, the Belt's primary food source. Almost immediately a lively competition began between the fiercely independent "Belters" and the technology police of the U.N. Several years of tension and economic conflicts followed, but soon settled into a relatively peaceful trade relationship as the Belt has so many resources that the UN and the Earth need.
C.J. Cherryh also had gritty Belters in her books Heavy Time (1991) and Hellburner (1992). Wikipedia, again:
[The novels] are set in the Sol system at the beginning of the "Company Wars" period in the 24th century. Heavy Time introduces ASTEX, a division of the Sol Station Corporation, ... engaged in asteroid mining for minerals to support the Earth's economy and the war effort. Disputes over mining rights, corporate corruption and economic exploitation are key plot elements in the first novel.
Both Niven and Cherryh depict Belters as scrappy, independent operators, comfortable in tight spaces and hard vacuum suits, mining the rocks and constantly struggling with more sedentary Earth bureaucracies. The whole concept is basically bunk since radiation exposure and bone density loss make it impossible for humans to live in space for long periods, but as long as romantic conceptions are dying hard, might as well acknowledge the early dreamers.
alex on film -- three reviews
Alex on Film addicts the casual websurfer film fan with incisive analysis of plot holes, behind-the-scenes connections, and other lesser-considered aspects of movies.
His beat encompasses classics as well as genre trash you'd never watch (e.g., the Predator series).
Lately he hit three films I'd seen in the last six months, so the jackpot is... a blog post.
The Lineup (1958). Lesser-known rough gem from the great Don Siegel (see Alex on Film's screenshot above).
Le Samouraï (1967). Agree this is style over substance, and one might add, the ending makes no sense. The police procedural aspects and Inspector Javert-like cop add spice to the tale of a loner who would eventually be better-incarnated as Jim Jarmusch's and Forest Whitaker's Ghost Dog. Lastly, Jean-Pierre Melville isn't really new wave, more like proto-new wave, although this film came at the height of that era.
The Witch (2015). Spoiler: The witch did it.
Also, in a review of Coma, an appreciation of the under-appreciated Geneviève Bujold (who I celebrity-spotted in a NYC bookstore once -- the clerk who was helping her obviously had no idea he was assisting royalty):
Geneviève Bujold . . . well, she could have been a star. As David Thomson puts it, she “is so remarkable in [Coma] that she makes one conscious of how a steady career has neglected her real virtues.” Or per Pauline Kael: “There’s no way to sanitize this actress. She’s like a soft furry animal and she’s irreducibly curious; she snuggles deep inside the shallow material.”
She was in fact a star, Hollywood-career-arc-wise, from King of Hearts through Anne of a Thousand Days through Tightrope, roughly, but let's also recall the auteur types she worked with: Brian De Palma (Obsession), Alan Rudolph (Choose Me), and David Cronenberg (Dead Ringers).