Only now does it occur to me... that Dennis Hopper slides a nice little homage to his friend and collaborator David Lynch in his "THE LAST DETAIL-reimagined-as-a-90s-comedy" road movie, CHASERS. The homage in question is an extended shot of a logging truck, just like in TWIN PEAKS.
That's not all: this thing is packed with Lynch collaborators, including BLUE VELVET and DUNE's Dean Stockwell as a car dealership owner: "Here's to your fuck, Frank!"
WILD AT HEART's Crispin Glover as a put-upon sailor who's been pushed around for too long: "I'm making my lunch!"
and LOST HIGHWAY's Gary Busey as a marine who clearly is improvising all of his dialogue:
Hopper himself appears as a lingerie salesman with a fake-Karl Malden nose, for some reason: "Heineken? Fuck that shit!"
Anyway, what we have here is an episodic, charmingly rambling, critically maligned road movie that is better than I expected it to be. Tom Berenger, doing kind of a whisky-ravaged Tom Waits/BEETLEJUICE voice is a hardboiled career member of Shore Patrol, transporting Navy prisoners across the country.
William McNamara (a likable man-génue who deserved a better career––you may have seen him in SURVIVING THE GAME, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM, EXTREME JUSTICE, or Argento's OPERA) plays a young sailor on his last day before discharge.
He's enlisted to help Berenger out with a prisoner transport––though due to a clerical mix-up, the prisoner is unexpectedly a woman.
Played by Erica Eleniak (former BAYWATCH cast member, UNDER SIEGE cake-jumper, and co-star of BETRAYAL and BORDELLO OF BLOOD), she actually brings pathos and humor to a role that could have easily been a caricature. As the unlikely trio crosses the country and bonds with one another (again, THE LAST DETAIL is the point of origin/departure), we meet the whole host of character actors I have already detailed, as well as zany waitress Marilu Henner (TAXI, PERFECT):
and creepy-ass trucker Frederic Forrest (APOCALYPSE NOW, FALLING DOWN):
Born to play a creepy trucker
In the end, CHASERS was Dennis Hopper's final feature as a director, and it's a weird, pleasant relic of the "EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS" era, worth a look for character actor and Americana aficionados. I can probably sum it up best in guessing that Wim Wenders probably loves the shit out of this movie.
Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 101 minutes.
Tag-line: "Something dangerous is in the air."
Notable Cast or Crew: Wesley Snipes (DEMOLITION MAN, BLADE), Gary Busey (SURVIVING THE GAME, LETHAL WEAPON), Yancy Butler (HARD TARGET, THE EX), Michael Jeter (THE FISHER KING, JURASSIC PARK III), Malcolm-Jamal Warner (THE COSBY SHOW, SONS OF ANARCHY), Grace Zabriskie (TWIN PEAKS, WILD AT HEART), Corin Nemec (TV's THE STAND, PARKER LEWIS CAN'T LOSE), Mickey Jones (TOTAL RECALL, EXTREME PREJUDICE), Kimberly Scott (THE ABYSS, BATMAN & ROBIN). Music by Hans Zimmer (THE ROCK, BROKEN ARROW). Directed by John Badham (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, WARGAMES, THE HARD WAY, SHORT CIRCUIT, BLUE THUNDER).
Best One-liner: "God bless America!" [said by a lunatic Gary Busey––it's all in the enunciation]
DROP ZONE tells the tale of a risk-taking lawman who infiltrates a gang of sky-diving adrenaline junkies and thieves in order to bring them to justice. You may recognize this as the plot of 1991's POINT BREAK, also co-starring Gary Busey. Don't hold that against it. DROP ZONE is simply a mediocre 90s action movie trying to make it's way in the world, but like so many of its misfit and forgotten brethren, when it hits its stride, it really hits its stride. Here are a dozen of DROP ZONE's such "stride-hitting" moments.
#1. Gary Busey as a Poindexter.
He's the head of a corrupt ex-DEA sky-diving ring who robs government buildings, hijacks planes, and the like. For this particular criminal maneuvering, he has adopted the costume and persona of a "Poindexter"-style nerd (with undertones of Buddy Holly!), who even draws attention to himself, pre-hijack, by explaining to the flight attendants how he's afraid of flying. Nicely done, Mr. Busey.
#2. This particular measure of Busey-related violence leads to the death of Wesley Snipes' in-movie brother, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
He's around for about five minutes, and has "dead man walking" written all over him; he might as well be the cop who's got two days till retirement. His death is spectacular––it involves Busey blasting open the side of an airplane, whereupon the air pressure sucks Malcolm-Jamal to the precipice, and despite Wesley Snipes' best efforts to melodramatically cling to his hand, he is sucked into the void while Wesley shouts "NOOOOOOOOO!" Then the film, having threatened to turn into PASSENGER 57, returns to Earth and...
#3. Let's talk about Wesley Snipes as "Nessip." The quest for Malcolm-Jamal-related vengeance leads Mr. Snipes to infiltrate the sky-diving circuit so he can personally hunt down Gary Busey.
Because his role is more of the straight man, square-jawed hero, this leads to an uncharacteristically understated performance. Don't expect DEMOLITION MAN or NEW JACK CITY levels of flamboyance here––you can tell he's a little frustrated with his role. Perhaps because of this, the character is named "Nessip," which is an anagram of "Snipes." Did Wesley request this personally? Did having his own scrambled name in the mix somehow placate his ego?
#4. Gary Busey Teeth Domination. The aforementioned hijacking took place so that Busey could kidnap a hacker (played by talented character actor Michael Jeter) held in federal custody. To assert dominance, Busey bites off his finger with his ginormous teeth, an event which leads to the following, brilliant exchange:
#5. Poor man's Linda Hamilton. You may recognize Yancy Butler and her intense eyebrows from JCVD's HARD TARGET.
Here, she plays Snipes' sidekick, a daredevil with a heart of gold. She skydives and looks sad a lot.
#6. Hey, look, it's Mickey Jones! Real-life best friend of Michael Ironside, former drummer for Bob Dylan, and go-to "hick" supporting player,
Mickey Jones plays a member of (fellow Texan) Busey's gang, which only seems natural.
#7. A rockin' Hans Zimmer soundtrack. This is from the era when he really went "full-guitar" and accompanied his pounding action with mournful, Ry Cooder-style riffs. See also: BROKEN ARROW.
#8. Grace Zabriskie as a two-fisted, Floridian flygirl and parachute jockey.
When you're watching her here, the idea that she is also "Sarah Palmer" from TWIN PEAKS is veritably mind-blowing. I swear, she can pull off anything she sets her mind to––truly, she's one of the greats. Plus, we finally get to see her with Wesley Snipes as a scene partner.
And this is the second time they've worked together! See also: THE WATERDANCE (1992).
#9. Gary Busey parachuting in zebra-print pajama pants.
I feel confident in stating this is worth the price of admission.
#10. MIAMI VICE. About halfway through, when I realized it was not going to deviate from its Florida locale, I began to discover that this is really kind of a big-budget MIAMI VICE episode, but with no Crockett, and with Busey perfectly encapsulating a vivid, "criminal of the week" guest star.
That's fine by me.
#11. Gary Busey Teeth Domination, Volume 2. Busey challenges Yancey Butler to a tooth domination competition.
He wins, obviously.
#12. Busey's death––a.k.a. Gary Busey Teeth Domination, Volume 3. Technically, I wouldn't call this a spoiler, since in every action movie from the 1980s and 1990s in which he played a villain, Busey dies. Here, Wesley Snipes flings him out of a skyscraper without a parachute, and he goes to meet his maker in typical Busey fashion, teeth bared.
He swan-dives directly into the windshield of a truck being driven by Mickey Jones, and explodes.
In his final moments, he attempted to tooth dominate Death Itself. Who are we to say that he did not succeed?
Only now does it occur to me... that Gary Busey and Clu Gulager have ever fused together their particular demented aesthetics and artistic manias in the form of something as accessible as a "film scene."
Yes, the opening scene of PIRANHA 3DD (directed by Clu's son, John) affords us such an opportunity, as two hapless backwater folk (Busey and Gulager) wade into ominous marshland to examine a flatulent, piranha-infested cow-corpse. Needless to say, they don't last for long, but Clu (still wonderful, at 84 years-young) gets to growl out some "God damns" and "What the hells"
and Busey gets to (improvise?) some peculiar dialogue:
so it certainly maintains a kind of integrity.
(And for those of you new to the Gulager "scene," I advise checking out my review of THE KILLERS, which spells it out more thoughtfully.)
Anyway, the incredible mixture of the two volatile substances that are Busey and Gulager had me wondering if this was the first time it had ever happened. Some IMDb-ing revealed that in 1991, they both appeared in MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS, a rodeo drama which co-stars Scott Glenn, Kate Capshaw, Ben Johnson, and Clarence Williams III, among others. While I've been unable to discern whether or not Busey and Gulager shared any scenes together, I have been able to discern that it is a film that must be seen!
Greeting and salutations! GIANT OSCAR MESS (best described HERE) was performed and projected last night at the Bowery Poetry Club, and it was fairly redunkulous, as I had hoped. Life imitated art, also, as Jillaine's performance as Sean Young found resolution in an actual headline from this morning. In any event, for those of you who couldn't make it, I decided to post the nominee videos that were projected last night, one at at time. This one's for BEST MONOLOGUE.
I'm the first to admit that, like BAD LIEUTENANT, CRASH, and any number of movies on this list, FAT GIRL is not for everyone. But I will also say that it's probably the truest, most important film about adolescence to come out in years, and its final, 400 BLOWS-mirroring freeze frame conveys an intent to shatter the complacency of watered-down "youth in turmoil" movies, just as Truffaut's film did back in '59. Catherine Breillat is a provocateur, to be sure, but she's neither a dime-store shock-peddler nor an obnoxious feminist. Her films attempt to glean meaning from the ever-shifting dynamics of sex and power which govern human interaction, and she doesn't shy away from asking the tough questions or handing out the tough answers. This is her masterpiece.
69. THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982, Jim Henson & Frank Oz) I've said this before, but here it goes again: True creativity, for me, is and has always been the ability to build something out of nothing- with your hands. THE DARK CRYSTAL is the apex of Jim Henson and designer Brian Froud's interminable artistry (they also collaborated on LABYRINTH), and here, they've built a timeless universe of breathtaking spectacle, exotic unfamiliarity, fanciful magic, ancient mysticism, exacting detail, and uncompromising depth. They are so confident (and deservedly so!) in their vision, that they've chosen to dispense with humans altogether, relegating them to puppeteering and vocal duties. There's no CGI here, no poorly rendered computer animations fabricated by some lazy skeeze at his PC. Everything's been rigorously fashioned and laboriously crafted from the ground up. While it's been designed for children to grasp, this is by no means merely a children's film. Using the familiar framework of the "quest" mythos, there's still philosophical complexity, palpable trauma, and visceral evil. Certain images possess a real potency, and stand out from the others: the dying Skeksis Emperor literally crumbling away in mid-screech as his vile, potential successors circle like vultures; the charming, faithful, lovable Fizzgig and his impossibly gaping maw; the genius matte paintings and meticulously sculpted forests that spare no detail from the tiniest of insects to the largest of trees to creatures I cannot even begin to describe. There is a certain REALness to the entirety of the proceedings because the screen is full of objects, animals, and characters that ARE real- someone could hold and manipulate them by hand or by string or by lever, and this is what gives them the breath of life. And with that breath, this film exhales upon the viewer the vivacity, exuberance, and sincerity that were poured into it by its creators. So eff you, CGI. You can toss my motherlovin' salad.
68. PULP FICTION (1994, Quentin Tarantino) It was difficult to pick a favorite Tarantino. In general, he's something of a polarizing figure– in turns he's pompous, restrained, and occasionally misunderstood by slavering fanboys and disapproving critics alike. RESERVOIR DOGS has the tautness and intensity of a capital-G Great stage play, JACKIE BROWN features Tarantino at the height of his powers as an actor's director, KILL BILL is a helluva lot of well-orchestrated kung fu-spaghetti western fun, DEATH PROOF features perhaps the greatest car chase ever filmed and Kurt Russell's sleaziest, most ridiculous performance since BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS forces us to question how each of us (consciously or subconsciously) constructs narratives out of history. In fact, I might have even picked BASTERDS for this list, but I think I need to sit on it for about ten years first. Regardless, PULP FICTION is perhaps the most lovingly-constructed paean to American cinema ever to be sung from the rooftops; it's KISS ME DEADLY and PSYCHO and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and RIO BRAVO and CHARLEY VARRICK and SHAFT and ZARDOZ and THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK rolled into one, razor-sharp, fast-paced indie crime-fest that got Travolta dancing again, Keitel into a tuxedo, Eric Stoltz eating Fruit Brute, Uma looking like Anna Karina, and Amanda Plummer shivering and shuddering with the force of her own insanity! ...I could go on. A damn good movie, and my only complaint is that Dick Miller got left on the cutting room floor!
67. LOST HIGHWAY (1997, David Lynch)
A spider climbs the wall. Gary Busey whimpers. Robert Blake points a camcorder at you. David Bowie croons "Funny how secrets travel..." You careen down a highway into blackness, the only illumination coming from your flickering headlamps... LOST HIGHWAY is truly an experience. And it makes plenty of sense if you think about it long enough, so don't tell me that "it's needlessly confusing"– it just demands a certain, brooding sort of viewer who'll allow themselves to be lured into the veritable labyrinth that Lynch has constructed. Plus, Robert Loggia's livid, red-faced rant about tailgating is surely worth the price of admission alone. And one of my favorite facets of Lynch's oeuvre is the fact that his movies often linger, long after you've finished watching them; hanging dangerously at the periphery as you continue your day. I first saw LOST HIGHWAY on a VHS with my sister during an overcast, Midwestern afternoon in late summer. Afterward, we went out to dinner with the rest of my family, as it was a special occasion. As afternoon turned to evening, the sense of mystery and uncertainty remained. As I walked into the restaurant, I took a fleeting, sidelong glance into a dimly-lit room adjoining the kitchen. I saw an older woman chopping something, quite robotically, and with a hint of menace. She turned toward me, our eyes locked, and in one forceful movement, she shut the door. The entire exchange couldn't have lasted more than four or five seconds, but it carried with it a frighteningly palpable sense of dread. The only reason I repeat this story is to illustrate that Lynch's power is such that his films don't just invade your dreams (as many have already posited), they invade your waking hours! The best ones are potent enough to put you in a genuine state, whereupon you see the hidden menace in everything. Obviously, it's not a state you ought to be in all the time, but it's a darkly magical one that I deeply appreciate. Brace yourselves for more Lynch as this list continues.
66. THE UNKNOWN (1927, Tod Browning)
Almost everything I could say about this film carries with it the potential of sullying your maiden viewing by way of 'knowing too much.' So I'll tell you this: It stars Lon Chaney, whose virtues I have extolled HERE; co-stars Joan Crawford, whose acting talents and frightening eyebrows I have praised HERE; and was directed by Tod Browning, whose penchant for nightmarish silent and early sound cinema has been raved about HERE. All I'll say is that it deals with ill-advised obsessions, the blossoming of twisted love, and the madness that dances around a man's eyes when he discovers the senselessness of it all. Oh yeah, and it takes place at A CIRCUS. It's bold, it's brutal, and Lon Chaney (near the finale) delivers what has to be the finest reaction shot in all of cinema. One of the greatest films from the silent era (or any other, for that matter).
Coming up next... Philip Glass, my second-favorite ghost story, and Ed Harris fights the dragon!
Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Tag-line: "Jack Mason knows he's going to die someday. But today he's not in the mood."
Notable Cast or Crew: Ice-T, Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey, F. Murray Abraham (AMADEUS), John C. McGinley (THE ROCK, SCRUBS), Charles S. Dutton (SE7EN, MENACE II SOCIETY, CAT'S EYE), William McNamara (OPERA, EXTREME JUSTICE, GLAM). Music by Stewart Copeland (Drummer for The Police, DEAD LIKE ME, WALL STREET). Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson (JUICE, the MASTERS OF HORROR episode THE V WORD with Michael Ironside). Written by Eric Bernt (ROMEO MUST DIE, HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME, THE HITCHER remake).
Best one-liner: "I like my meat RARE!" –"Try WELL-DONE, bitch!"
From THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to HARD TARGET, there has been a majestic, rugged American tradition of making awesome movies about 'dudes hunting dudes.' Well, I'm here to tell you that SURVIVINGTHEGAME is one of the best- it's unrelenting, unhinged, unabashed, balls-out entertainment. Rutger Hauer in a doo-rag hunting bandana... CAN YA BEAT THAT?
Former Spike Lee cinematographer and JUICE director Ernest R. Dickerson is at the helm, and the first act is a tale of inner-city desperation starring a heart-string-tugging Ice T (and his gargantuan homeless dreads) set to jazzy, oddly upbeat tunes by Stewart Copeland.
Recruited by the affably intense real-life manslaughterer Charles S. Dutton, Ice T quickly finds himself wrapped up in an illicit ring of blue-blooded, hobo-huntin' madmen.
Said madmen include a troubled, lunatic John C. McGinley (who's losing his shit before the hunt even begins!); a nefariously paternal F. Murray Abraham (I never thought I'd see Salieri head-butting Ice T:
his pansy son William McNamara (Argento's OPERA, GLAM); a fringe-jacketed, knife-slingin' Gary Busey ("Experience the animal within yourself!"); and douchey, goatee'd ringleader Rutger Hauer (he's the kind of guy who's clipping his nails and has got a bird on his shoulder while he's interviewing you). Rutger Hauer carefully oversaw his character's grooming and coiffure- and made sure that it was accentuated for maximum douchiness.
As such, SURVIVING THE GAME becomes a masters course in acting. Watch the following scene, for example:
I'm blown away. Even Ice-T, who's not exactly a titan among thespians, becomes fully connected to the material when he's surrounded by this veritable phalanx of genius performers. Each moment, word, line, and gesture fascinates. Watch Busey's unwavering stare. Or Hauer's vague sense of morality in the way he expresses the sentiment that we should cherish each moment- it's his roundabout way of telling Ice-T that this meal is his last.
To Hauer's character, this is a kindness. It's the way that he does things- the imparting of a fleeting, final gift; a few of life's finer things before the deluge. Busey is less interested in the 'etiquette' of murder, but he's being honest in his own way, as well- "When you're eating the flesh from the pig... look into his little beady eyes. That way, you will be devouring his soul.”
Now, you don’t have to be a Busey scholar to realize that he made that shit up on the spot, but Busey's character is merely sharing his perspective on the nature of the hunt and each member's place in the world. As far as he is concerned, he was christened 'the predator' on his thirteenth birthday (more on that in a minute) and Ice-T has been christened as 'the prey,' perhaps merely by virtue of his homelessness. Each character has a chance to dip into their subconscious and speak in a kind of veiled candor, or a reptilian honesty, if there is such a thing. It is at once a confession and a deception. The hunt is separate from their life, yet the hunt is their life. Only now does F. Murray Abraham's character reveal his true nature to his son. In sharing this moment with him, they're closer to Ice-T than they are with their wives or children- he's a sacred object- a confessor- just as he is an object of hatred- the hunted. But note that in either implication, he remains an object, an instrument. Something less than human that still manages to flirt with the divine. "Doc, sometimes you even scare me." –"Good." In another movie, this could've been a throwaway scene, quickly hammered out by its makers so that we could get straight to the ACTION, ACTION, ACTION! But instead, it's paced more like a film from an earlier era: character development is not a chore to be hustled along on its way like a necessary evil, it begets suspense. It increases the intensity of the higher stakes which are yet to come. Watch THE WAGES OF FEAR, Kobayashi's HARA-KIRI, any and every film which Hawks made. They're full of scenes like this– intense characters putting out their feelers, discovering the nature of the enemy, determining who exactly they're up against. Fanatical men exuding control, careful to reveal some (but not the full extent) of their hand. Ultimately, if scenes of this nature are executed with honesty, concentration, and a sprinkling of élan, they can be equally as satisfying as the eventual payoffs.
As if it wasn't exceedingly clear already, Busey is out of his mind in this picture. I mean, he always is, but here the muzzle is OFF. Busey later delivers an utterly mind-blowing monologue about the day he killed his boyhood dog with his bare hands and became a man.
I'm astounded. In a different film, this could have won him an Oscar. I’m serious. Busey has tapped into some primitive, subterranean chamber of the soul where few dare to venture, and he has emerged with something both captivating and repulsive, muted and visceral, improvised and premeditated, brutish and calculating - and it's quite possibly the best staging of a monologue I've ever witnessed.
In fact, for a typical actioner, there are a LOT of monologues. And they’re good ones, too. Then things get loco- McGinley ends up infusing his character with pathos:
Ice T gets to make one of those ‘leaps of faith’ like in every survival movie, shreddin’ guitar solos accompany myriad beat-downs, Rutger Hauer gets to show off that Russian priest outfit he stole from the set of WEDLOCK:
and a shot of PHILADELPHIA appears with the subtitle “Seattle.”
Guess they thought no one’d notice? Wow.
Still, based on the caliber of performer and the well-paced, intricately unfolded narrative: five stars and my highest recommendation.