Anyone who’s interested in understanding how modern film culture operates need look no further than the critical reviews for Sam Peckinpah’s classic western, The Wild Bunch. These days, The Wild Bunch is widely considered to be a cinematic masterpiece, achieving an almost-perfect score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes‘ uber-popular “All-Critic” meter. Yet, drill down a smidgeon deeper and you’re likely to find the majority of those reviews were originally aggregated from the year 1995 forward (when a remastered version of The Wild Bunch initially became available via DVD). Zero in a smidgeon more, and you’re likely to find a narrow cluster of reviews that were written by senior critics old enough to have seen and reviewed the original Wild Bunch way back in the late sixties. Most of those reviews read like a veritable laundry list of mea culpas mixed in with an almost equal number of “I-told-you-so”s.

All of which raises the question: What might cause a major critic to heap praise upon a film he or she denounced as unnecessarily vulgar some 30-odd years prior? Well, that all depends upon the critic, I suppose. And yet, I’d be willing to bet that if you asked the majority of well-known elder statesmen, you’d more than likely hear some convoluted equivocation based upon the foolhardy notion that we were all living in a simpler time back then; a time when cinema and society were both considerably more demure; an ultra-prudent era during which the brutally violent nature of Peckenpah’s film seemed more than a little too ambitious, if not all-consumingly obscene.

But here’s the thing (and there really is no gentle way of putting this): Those critics? Those critics are full of shit, you see. Stinking mad as the brine, so to speak. How do I know this? Well, I know it because The Wild Bunch was initially released during July of 1969, the undisputed height of lurid culture in this country. We’re talking about the golden age of Thompson, Bukowski, and Mailer, for Christ’s sake. We’re talking about the motherfucking Summer of Love, a divisive period during which Vietnam was tearing the social fabric of this country in two. And to insist Sam Peckinpah’s homage to the American cowboy was somehow too eager or over the top is to insist that you simply could not bear to watch the evening news or open up a daily broadsheet back in those days.

I mean, I suppose it does bear mentioning that the majority of reviewers who actually got The Wild Bunch correct during its initial big-screen run also felt the unmistakable need to apologize for their advocacy. Most notably, New York Times film critic Vincent Canby, who hailed The Wild Bunch  as “the first truly interesting American-made Western in years,” while counterbalancing that statement with some weak-ass disclaimer about how the film possesses a violent intensity that “can hardly be supported by the story.”

Bullshit, Vincent Canby. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Unfortunately, Vincent Canby was far from alone in terms of that sentiment. And if you think the entire infrastructure has matured one iota in the four decades since, I’d submit that you should think again (Please see Django Unchained for more on this sad topic). The problem (or one of several problems, in fact) is that the movie industry – much like any other corporate structure – is rotten to the core with desperate yes men and cheap-ass hangers-on. Most mainstream reviewers live in constant fear … fear of scorn, fear of firing, fear of being blackballed from the next goddamned junket, for that matter. These flat-foots check their passion at the door, and – in that spirit – they respond to every kick-ass flick like The Wild Bunch or Django Unchained as if they had been tossed into an entire conference room of dullards, every one of them staring back and forth at one another in time, just waiting for someone to signal when it might be safe to laugh again.

Just how good is The Wild Bunch? The answer is, very good … but not great. The first 15 minutes alone feel like a full-length film onto itself: a band of lonesome drifters, a massive rooftop ambush, a daring robbery gone awry, the subsequent looting of corpses, all set against the metaphorical backdrop of “Shall We Gather at The River,” sung by the South Texas Temperance League as it files its way past a drum-tight circle of children, all of whom are cheering on a colony of fire ants, as it marches roughshod over a dying pair of scorpions.

From that point forward, The Wild Bunch settles into a full hour of dead air masquerading as backstory. The film does, however, recover, culminating in a batshit crazy shootout just a few miles clear of the Mexican border – a shootout which signifies the end of one era and the beginning of another; the triumphant last stand of an aging William Holden, and perhaps even the death of the American cowboy himself.

It’s a fitting send-off, to be sure, ripe with all manner of cheap drinkin’, and whorin’, and homoerotic cowdudes in between. The Wild Bunch hasn’t only provided inspiration for every significant Western that’s come along in its wake, it’s also provided a huge chunk of the storyline for RockStar’s acclaimed Red Dead Redemption series. Over time, the film has come to be recognized as a revolutionary piece of cinema, much like Django Unchained might be some 40 years from now, y’know, once Quentin Tarantino’s long-gone-dead-and-buried and the industry’s discovered the financial opportunity – if not the set of balls – to rebrand his greatest films modern classics.

(The Wild Bunch is currently available for rental via YouTube and Amazon.) Continue reading →

“Things in the entire landscape of films, like what it means to be a filmmaker, are completely shifting. That’s something that I became aware of really fast. It used to be that you would hear stories about people who got out of school, they’d make a short film, they’d take it to Sundance, it’s a huge hit, and suddenly they have a three-picture deal with a studio, they’re making the movies that they want to make – only on a bigger level – and that’s the dream. And, basically, that career – the entire idea of what your film career can be – has shifted. People ask me all the time whose career I admire, and who my role models are. The amazing thing is that most of the people whose careers I admire are people I admired when I was younger, like a Woody Allen or a Noah Baumbach, or even an independent filmmaker who’s gotten to make interesting kind-of-complex character studies on the studio level. Those aren’t really careers that are possible anymore because the money isn’t rolling in the same way that it used to, and studios aren’t willing to take risks in the same way. So the work that’s getting made in Hollywood becomes more and more safe, and getting a movie made … it’s no longer you have a good idea, you make a movie. Before you even get to start making the movie, there are people crunching the numbers to determine whether it would be a hit. And people are less and less willing to take chances. And also, [regarding] all of the new technology, while there’s something really wonderful about that, which is that anybody can go out and make a movie, anybody who has $1,500 can buy a camera, and even if you don’t [have $1,500], there are still so many ways to make a movie, there are so many ways to distribute your film on the internet, there are a million different platforms. So that’s all really good for people who want to express themselves, but it also makes it a lot harder to kind of break through all of the noise and get attention and figure out how to move your career forward … So all of this new technology, while incredibly exciting for young artists, is also the same thing that is making all the role models we have for what a career as a filmmaker can be totally implausible.” 

Click through for full-size images.   Continue reading →

Roger Ebert once wrote that, “Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about,” and Steven Soderbergh’s latest film is certainly no exception to this rule. On the surface, Side Effects is a deeply satisfying psychological thriller with all the requisite earmarks of a classic. And yet, at its core, Soderbergh’s film feels more like some deep meditation on the human stain of mental illness, the compound risk of medication, and the innate greed that leads people to exploit either one.

Side Effects is master manipulation at its finest – a shape-shifting house of mirrors steeped in the grand filmmaking tradition of Hitchcock and Kubrick (perhaps even Polanski). Soderbergh doles out crucial details in highly disciplined drips and drabs here, goading the audience straight into a labyrinth that’s slowly zigzagging its way back to center. The writing is brilliant, the cinematography is bleak, and the motherfucking game is oh-so definitely afoot.

All of which brings us to the acting. And the acting in this film is absolutely superb. Channing Tatum fits the bill as an ex-con financier. Jude Law is cracking good as the mid-life academic, and Catherine Zeta-Jones will make you yearn for the days when she might’ve taken on a role like this for little more than sport.

But the real story here – the story that serves to keep the whole enchilada in one piece – is Rooney Goddamn Mara. Rooney Mara. Rooney Mara. Rooney Goddamn Fucking Mara. Y’know, there have been moments throughout these past 2-3 years – several of them, in fact – when it seems like Rooney Mara might actually be railing against the milk-white suburbanite co-ed she played in David Fincher’s Social Network. That young co-ed’s all but dead now, replaced by an ultra-powerful femme fatale who initially rose to prominence via Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, before barreling straight-on through with an Oscar-caliber turn in both this film and the next.

What it all boils down to is the fact that Side Effects is quite possibly the best thing Steven Soderbergh has ever laid hands on. And it’s proof positive that the long and frigid cinematic clime of early January has now officially run its course.

(Side Effects opens in theaters nationwide today.)  Continue reading →

“The financial industry had always been intended to be something of an unseen backroom support for the broader economy, helping new businesses get off the ground and mature companies adapt and expand. Yet, in the years leading up to the crisis, the finance sector itself became the front room. The goal on Wall Street became to generate fees for itself as opposed to for its clients … Meanwhile, Wall Street, [now] bent but not broken, rumbles on in search of new profits. Risk is being reintroduced into the system. Vulture investing is back in vogue again, with everyone raising money in anticipation of the collapse of commercial real estate and the once-in-a-lifetime bargains that might be available as a result. Perhaps most disturbing of all, ego is still very much a central part of the Wall Street machine. While the financial crisis destroyed careers and reputations, and left many more bruised and battered, it also left the survivors with a genuine sense of invulnerability at having made it back from the brink. Still missing in the current environment is a genuine sense of humility.”

Click through for full-size images.  Continue reading →

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is more pre-Beat than Beat. In fact, it would be completely accurate to describe Ferlinghetti as a catalyst … one of several that provided the infrastructure necessary for Beatnik culture to exist. Ferlinghetti was the first, and – at age 93 – he may very well be the last in a long and storied breed, the likes of which we won’t see again.

Keep in mind, there would be no City Lights had it not been for Lawrence Ferlinghetti. There would be no Howl, and perhaps no Allen Ginsberg. There would be no Coney Island of the Mind, no platinum-selling asshole named Bukowski, no “Sometime During Eternity“. Ferlinghetti laid the groundwork for it all. In the process, he stood up to every worthwhile form of social injustice from racism to sexism; classism to censorship. And yet, by all accounts, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a peaceful man … the prototypical Zen fool who needed to go off and fight in one war if only that he should condemn all of the others.

Ferlinghetti was a patriot of the highest order – the ribald kind that considered it not only his right, but his duty to challenge any and all forms of authority. He was that most rare and fortuitous of creatures, a man who comes along at just the right place and time to set the full machinery in order. Despite that, Ferlinghetti was never really one to make a fuss about himself. The man was – and is – a poet, above all else. And poets, well, now, poets are a largely sedentary bunch. It is for this reason that most feature-length films about the Beats (i.e., Howl, On The Road, Kill Your Darlings, etc.) tend to feel like such a disappointment.

The Beats are more given to documentary – an academic medium that lends itself to context. In that spirit, Rebirth of Wonder drills down deep to provide a comprehensive portrait of Ferlinghetti as self-made man, poet, publisher, veteran, activist, spark plug, radical, and revolutionary (just to name a few). And yet, the Catch-22 of it all: If you’re a fervent devotee of Ferlinghetti, chances are you already know most of this stuff to begin with. If you’re not, chances are, you never really cared. Either way, Rebirth of Wonder is kind of like that gifted pair of socks we all received when we were kids: There are gifts that you want, and there are gifts that you need … and – in the long-term – it’s the latter that actually provide a greater return.

(Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder opens this Friday, February 8th at the Quad Cinema in New York City.)  Continue reading →

The kid was big, but he was a kid. 

He was standing beside the drive-in window at Church’s Fried Chicken on North Broad, asking the people who came by for money.  “Do you have some change so I could get somethin’ to eat, sir?” He said it like it was memorized. 

It was early last week, the weather was catching up with the season. He had taken his arms out of his shirtsleeves and put them underneath, trying to stay warm, so when he tapped on the window I figured he had at least a machete under there. 

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said. I did that without thinking about it, the same way you check for cars before you cross the street. 

He looked at me. I looked at him. He took his hand off the car and put it back underneath his shirt. He began to shake, then he moved away. I turned on the radio to put the kid out of mind. If there is anything you have to know in a city, it’s how to put things out of mind. If you can’t do it, you better not be here. 

I have been in Philadelphia for more than six years. It took a while, but I can do that now. 

The kid moved back to the corner of the building, stared at the car. I could see him in the side mirror. He looked like he was 17 or 18, but you couldn’t tell. He looked cold in every way there is to be cold. I put him out of mind again, but every time I looked in the mirror, he was standing there, black and cold and angry, and he wouldn’t move away. 

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line I got tired of victims in groups – women, blacks, Puerto Ricans, gay, and all the self-promotional bull that went with it. Then I got tired of victims in person. I didn’t want to see the mother and father nodded out on heroin at the Fox Theater Sunday afternoon while their four-year-old kid tried to wake them up anymore. I didn’t want to see old people that had been mugged, or 14-year old alcoholics or abused children. 

So, as much as you can in the city, I quit looking. At least I tried to only look once. There is too much of it to carry around with you. 

And to do that, you have to forget that you have been hungry too. 

The kid moved again, slowly across the parking lot to the garbage bin. He began going through it a piece at a time. 

I was a couple of years older than this kid, but I went about a week once without anything to eat. In Minneapolis, in the coldest winter, I was hungry enough to go through garbage, but in the morning it had passed, and what replaced it was just an empty, weak feeling, and later on a dizziness when I stood up. And much later, something inside that kept saying I was getting myself in serious trouble. 

I wondered if the kid had heard that too. If he knew what it meant. I turned around and watched him a minute. He held the garbage close to his face, then put it back in the bin. A piece of paper stuck to his hand, and suddenly he was throwing things. Picking up cans and bags out of the bin and throwing them back, over and over. A beat-up gray cat with milk in her nipples jumped out of the other end of the bin. 

He stopped and sat down, exhausted. He put his face in his hands, I said it out loud, so I could hear how it sounded. “Get the fuck out of here.” 

I ordered two chicken dinners and drove back around the lot to where the kid was sitting. I don’t think he recognized me because he got up, tapped on the window and asked for a quarter to buy something to eat. There was garbage stuck to his chin. I gave him one of the chicken dinners and said I was sorry. “I didn’t see you were hungry,” I said. The kid was looking at a two-dollar box of chicken with something close to love. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much, thank you … “

“I’ve been in the city too long.”

He studied me a minute. “Me too,” he said. Then he took the chicken and walked over to his spot near the garbage and sat down to eat it.

The cat came out of the weeds toward him, a step at a time. The kid looked up and saw her. He tore a piece of meat off the breast and stroked her coat while she ate.

How influential was Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo? Well, for starters, it was influential enough that the opening sequence alone has been mimicked by every director from Scorsese to James Mangold. What’s more, Vertigo is currently ranked #1 on Sight & Sound‘s list of the 50 Greatest Films of All-Time.

Vertigo is an ultra-seductive, all-but-hypnotic holdover from the slow-burning demise of the studio era. Hitchcock’s location shoots alone are worth the price of admission -The Redwood Forest, The Legion of Honor, San Juan Bautista, and McKittrick Hotel, all set against the rolling hills of San Francisco, its streets shot sloping downward to reinforce a sense of helplessness. Combine that with some psychedelic lighting, a dream sequence that’s just as brilliant as it is absurd, and a revolutionary dolly technique so iconic it has since become known as “The Vertigo Effect,” and you’ve got yourself one hell of a motion picture.

For years, Vertigo appeared to be the victim of short shrift, perhaps the cumulative effect of its poor box office, mediocre reception, and the fact it would soon be overshadowed by the one-two punch of North By Northwest and Hitchcock’s Psycho. And yet, much like any work of genius, Vertigo has since fought its way back into our subconscious. In fact, most critics would argue Hitchcock’s film is worlds more relevant today than it would have been at any other point since its release. Vertigo was the first mainstream movie to explore the real-world consequences of anxiety, the first to present love as a metaphor for possession, the first to make audiences resent the buxom bombshell, while cheering on the four-eyed bookworm (a character whose platonic relationship with Jimmy Stewart’s “Scottie” was highly indicative of Hitchcock’s own relationship to Alma Reville).

The bottom line: Despite the fact certain aspects of this film almost challenge modern audiences to suspend their disbelief, Vertigo is still very much one for the ages … an ever-enduring masterpiece that just continues to get better with age.  Continue reading →

Click through for full-size images.  Continue reading →