Whipped Cream Difficulties

As you might have guessed, I like movies. I do not, however, go to see as many of them as perhaps I should.

There are several reasons for this. Obviously, I have to be interested in a movie before I’ll plunk down $7 to go see it. For example, I don’t do FaceBook, so The Social Network holds almost no appeal for me.

A second reason is that there’s only two places I will see movies: in a private home (my own or someone else’s) or the Alamo Drafthouse chain of cinemas in Austin and certain other areas of Texas. If I go to an Alamo Drafthouse, I know I will get the following:

• No commercials. The Alamo does show interstitial material before the movie, but the clips they show are always entertaining and relevant to the movie in some way. They do run brief house ads, and trailers for coming attractions, but I know I won’t have to put up with a Pepsi or Chevy Volt commerical.
• Food that ranges from good to excellent, a larger selection of beers than many bars in Austin, and highly efficient at your seat service.
• No disruptions. The Alamo theaters are serious about this, and make it known upfront. I have never actually seen someone evicted from an Alamo for talking or otherwise being disruptive, but I’ve also never been in one where it was actually necessary. People who go there know how to behave.

So if a movie doesn’t play the Alamo, and I don’t catch it in someone’s home, I’m not seeing it. All this is by way of saying that of the Oscar nominated films this year, I’ve seen exactly…one, so far.

I didn’t have any notions going into True Grit, beyond “Oh, look, a Coen Brothers movie.” I haven’t read the book, although I hear good things about it from many folks. (Charles Portis is a big blind spot for me, and I’d like to fix that.) I also haven’t seen the original John Wayne version. (I’d like to, but the current DVD release looks cheap; I’m hoping the success of this version will result in a better DVD release of the original. I haven’t seen the Blu-Ray version in stores yet.) Lawrence and I and some other friends finally got it together, after several false starts, to go see it, and…

…I thought it was a perfectly okay movie. I realize that’s not exactly wild praise, but I just thought the brothers took a simple story and told it very well. It didn’t have the same emotional impact on me that No Country for Old Men did, but it was a fine movie. Without being condescending, I wish my stepfather could have lived to see it on home video; I think he would have enjoyed it.

Bonus movie note: There’s a series of Japanese werewolf movies that go by the name “Kibakichi”. I watched the first one a few nights ago, and, with all due respect to our gracious hosts: don’t. The fire our host built in his fireplace was vastly more entertaining to me than Kibakichi was. Lawrence blames the dubbing, but I’m not sure better dubbing would have saved this movie. Nothing basically happens until the last 15 or so minutes of the movie, the werewolf transformation scene is unexceptional, the story is incomprehensible, the use of firearms (when is this movie supposed to be set, anyway?) is incompetent, and, at 1:37, the movie is about 1:36 too long. Perhaps other people are more fond of the Asian supernatural genre than I am, but I still say “Avoid”.

Okay, not really. But Insta had a link up to a list of “memorable movie hitmen“, and that list prompted some discussion with Lawrence.

I’d never heard of “Charley Varrick” until I read that list, and I find myself intrigued; directed by the same guy who directed “Dirty Harry“, and starring both Walter Matthau and Mitchell? This sounds like a must-see. (However, as Lawrence pointed out, this looks like a crappy transfer with a screwed-up aspect ratio.)

Anyway, that got us talking about a potential lineup for a “70s Crime Film Fest”. My rules for this were:

1. I wanted to pick somewhat less celebrated films. “The French Connection” and the two “Godfather” movies are wonderful, I’m sure, but I was looking for stuff people hadn’t seen before.
2. One film per director.

Here’s a tentative list we came up with:

• “Prime Cut“: Gene Hackman? Lee Marvin? Michael Ritchie? I’ve heard good things about this one.
• “The Friends of Eddie Coyle“: now available from the Criterion Collection, no less.
• “A New Leaf”: the availability of this on DVD seems somewhat iffy, but I’d like to see it if we could find it. Walter Matthau again, directed by Elaine “Ishtar” May, in an adaptation of a short story by the great mystery writer Jack Ritchie. (If you’ve never heard of Jack Ritchie, well, one, you’re unfortunate, and two, he was basically the Howard Waldrop of mystery writing.) I’m thinking this would be a nice, light, funny film; sort of a sorbet to clean the palate.
• “Mean Streets“: neither one of us has seen this, and the reasons for including it should be obvious.
• “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot“: Clint Eastwood! The Dude! Michael Cimino before “Heaven’s Gate“!
• “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three“: the original one, not the crappy remake. Matthau again; I’m worried this list might have too much Matthau.
• “The Laughing Policeman“: especially if I include this one, which is a bizarre adaptation of one of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Swedish police procedurals, moved to San Francisco.
• “Family Plot” or “Frenzy“: I bow to nobody in my love for Hitchcock, but I’d always heard “Family Plot” was…well…not good. Lawrence informs me, however, that Roger Ebert gave it three stars. So how bad could it really be? “Frenzy”, on the other hand, gets four stars from Roger. Plus violence and nudity! But “Family Plot” has Karen Black! Decisions, decisions…

Something I stumbled across while researching this list, and feel a need to mention here, is “Made in U.S.A.“. Wow, this is…odd. Jean-Luc Godard directing an adaptation of one of Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark’s Parker novels. And not the first one, but one from later in the series (“The Jugger“). Except the amoral thief Parker seems to have been replaced by a leftist writer named Paula. And the characters have names like “Richard Widmark”, “Donald Siegel”, “David Goodis”, and “Richard Nixon”. And apparently, Godard adapted Westlake’s novel, but didn’t feel any need to, you know, actually pay Westlake anything for the rights. So Westlake sued (Pay the writer you a–hole!) and had the film suppressed in this country until after his death.

This movie prompted me to ask the question: “What the f–k was Godard smoking?” However, as a 1966 film, it falls outside the scope of our planned 70s crime film festival.

Anyone got any other suggestions for 70s crime films I missed? Leave them in the comments. Those of you who are local and who we know personally, we’ll let you know if we pull this together as a real event.

Edited to add: Lawrence pointed out that I forgot the original “Get Carter” on our list.

Edited to add 2: I think it is required by the Internet police that any reference to Karen Black has to include a link to The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.