Life After College with Withnail & I

It's been three weeks since I graduated college with a degree in writing and I've done more thinking about writing than actually sitting down and writing something - anything. This is that "something."

The previous posts were requirements for a course which granted me my degree, so this will be the first post solely for my own enjoyment, free of any limitations my senior seminar class may have posed. I can finally say "what the hell" and abandon the guidelines I've established to earn a decent grade in the class, evident in the first post on this blog back in February.

But with this post, I've decided to adhere to said guidelines (this post was originally devised to compliment the batch of posts submitted for my senior project, I just never got around to composing the damned thing...).

The makings of a great writer? More like the makings of a never-ending search for a career. The next film we'll look out is Withnail and I (1986), featuring two characters whose situations mirror the experiences many college graduates entering the workforce face today.

Original Theatrical Poster

London 1969. "I" sits in a pub splurging down pint after pint of the good ole dark brown ale, taking ferocious pulls on his cigarette, his hands trembling, but not from the balanced interchange of stimulants and depressants flooding through his veins, but from the daily newspaper headlines registering in his brain.

"I," credited as Marwood in the finished screenplay, is disturbed from the articles he reads in the paper, but nothing is more disturbing than what is waiting for him back at his Camden Town flat.

Marwood shares his home with Withnail, an acerbic drunk who is the drastic opposite from his anxiety-ridden counterpart. The flat they share is an indication of the time and frame of mind the two  characters are living in. The apartment is dingy: it has no electricity, heat or running water, and the sink is full of plates caked over with week-old food, and then there's the possibility of a creature lurking in the lower depths of the sink...

Okay, the creature is a mere hallucination on behalf of Withnail and Marwood, but the sheer terror induced from the sight of the imaginary beast is a example of the crippled condition of our two characters.

Withnail and Marwood are out of work actors, twiddling the hours away by drinking, smoking and hanging around their flat. Drunk and feeling paralyzed by the events depicted in the national news, Marwood returns home to another undesirable conflict. "I have some extremely distressing news," says Withnail. "We're just run out of wine. What are we gonna do about it?"

Withnail is played by Richard E. Grant, who perfectly captures the over-the-top stupor of a languishing, drunk thespian waiting for that perfect role to land on his lap. Where Marwood schedules auditions for roles, Withnail rather search for another bottle of alcohol to wash down. Withnail comes from a wealthy background, and his sense of entitlement is the only remaining characteristic of a well-to-do chap. Withnail criticizes Marwood over his begging for a role, an action he feels challenges his pride. Frustrated with the lack of booze, Withnail states he is a trained actor before he resorts to downing a bottle of lighter fluid. As Withnail baggers Marwood, the cigarette hanging from his lip mimics the motion of his jaw and looks like a reckless child twirling a sparkler, just pleading to get burned.

With no direction in their lives, Marwood suggests the duo leave the city for a vacation in the countryside. "I think we've been here to long," he says. Marwood represents the better half of the "Withnail and I" dichotomy. Where Withnail is the fly by the seat of your pants, drink hard type of person, Marwood is the shy, soft spoken introvert - always thinking internally about his future and the world around him - but sometimes overthinking his situation to where he finally combusts; their relationship can be compared to a well-mixed drink. Sometimes I feel like each half of the "Withnail & I" friendship: always thinking about the circumstances of my future and lack of career aspirations, and medicating them with procrastination and seeping thoughts of failure. I just hope I never reach the point where burning my esophagus is the only remedy from my situation.  

Marwood entices the stubborn Withnail to ask his Uncle Monty if they can stay in his cabin. Marwood feels the need to escape his reality of having no job, the current state of the nation and his friendship with Withnail. More importantly, Withnail sees a vision of elegant portions of food and copious amounts of booze - so they promptly leave.

Withnail and Marwood arrive in the countryside greeted by pouring rain and unfriendly locals. Withnail and Marwood's unorthodox entrance leaves the locals with a sour taste in their mouths, and the two are asked to leave each establishment they enter.

This scene represents entering the "real world" to me. On the surface it is hilarious and truthful to the emotions of the characters, but under the surface the scene brings to light the ignorance of the characters' views of the world around them. I guess I think upon graduating college that finding a job will be easy, if not expected of me and everyone around me because I have a degree. That's just not the case.  It's like walking into a potential employer's office and demanding a job based off a nonexistent track record and demanding a job much in the same manner Withnail requests wine, only to be turned away. Is this what it's gonna be like from here on out? With a miniscule amount of experience as a writer, should I demand a position as a writer on a staff? I doubt that would happen, and I'm sure someone like Withnail would call me out as not be ballsy enough to go though with it. There's a scene when Withnail and Marwood are leaving the city for their country escape. Withnail sneers and snickers out of the car window at high school aged girls. "Throw yourself into the road, darling. You haven't got a chance," he says. I felt as if he was speaking to me as I try and enter a career as an unproven writer. But that's the essence of this blog and this post specifically. I hope to use Cult Current as an example of what I'm capable of offering for a future employer.

Withnail and Marwood eventually return to their grim realities. Marwood cleans himself up and lands an acting gig. As Marwood packs his bags to leave town, Withnail walks him to his bus station. It is pouring rain and the bus is parked outside a zoo. As Marwood boards the bus and departs for a career as an actor, Withnail is left on the streets, drenched in wet, soggy clothes. Withnail begins to recite Shakespeare to a pack of wolves - jobless, friendless and drunk. I just hope when all's said and done, I'm not left to the wolves.       

   

What's Your Favorite Cult Film?

Just for kicks, I thought it would be a great idea to see what our subscriber's favorite cult films are. Is there a film you feel you have a particularly close bond with? Let us know by posting a trailer or brief clip in the comment section below. I'll get us started:

House (1977)

Best way to describe this relatively unknown Japanese horror treat? Scooby Doo meets The Amityville Horror glossed over with a potent dose of lysergic acid. The makings of a cult classic.

Slap Shot (1977)

Tomorrow is the start of the 2012-2013 NHL playoff schedule and what better way to celebrate the exhilarating, hard-hitting action of hockey than with a look at one of the best sports movies and the greatest hockey movie of all time: Slap Shot.

Slap Shot is a hockey movie through and through, with soaring scenes close to the surface of the ice, close-ups of players being bashed up against the glass and a mouth guard full of obscenities. For anyone who isn't familiar with the high-octane sport, here's a brief run-down of the basics:

Now that you have a better understanding of how hockey is played, let's breakaway to the underlying story in the film other than the sport of hockey.

Reg Dunlop (Paul Newman) is a aging player-manager of the Charlestown Chiefs, a team at the bottom of the Federal League ranks that doesn't earn the respect of the other teams, their own fans or even their own members.



Original Theatrical Poster

Dunlop is a terrible coach who can't get his team together - let alone his marriage - and hopelessly watches his team crack through the ice and sink to rock bottom. The opening credits are imposed over an American flag hanging in the rafters of the Chief's hockey rink accompanied by an organ rendition of the National Anthem. The flag rests in a flaccid position needing the support of a string to jerkily raise it up and wave above the fans, much like the Chiefs reputation in their small mining town.

Management spends its time concocting tasteless promotion tactics to bolster the team's attendance, such as holding fashion shows with players to give tickets away and signing the Hanson Brothers, a trio of violent goons desired for their brand of hard-hitting play.

Initially, Reg doesn't embrace the change in style of play, but hoping to change the outcome of another dismal season, Reg plans to use the violent tactics of the Hanson Brothers to secure more goals and win at least one game. The violent antics of the new squad brings people to see the team and is quickly embraced by members of the Chiefs except for Ned Braden, a young college-educated player who wants to play a more clean style of play.

Reg is far from a great player, let alone a good coach, but is great at getting what he wants. Needing the support of his star player, Reg flirts with Lily, the other half of Ned's failing marriage, in hopes Ned will unleash the aggressiveness within him.

The Chiefs begin to play better without the performance of Braden, rolling out win after win and advancing to the top of their division, upsetting every team in the league with their "bang 'em up" style of play. Reg can't get what he wants out of Lily, finding her to be more hopeless and depressed than the Chiefs were at the beginning of the season, so instead turns his interest to his ex-wife Francine, who wants nothing to do with him much like the fans wanted with the Chiefs earlier in the year.

Reg learns of the town planning to close the mill and resulting in the loss of 10,000 jobs, an event that would virtually cripple the attendance at Chiefs' games. Reg overhears the manager speaking about the sale of the Chiefs to another city and uses a past homosexual advance as blackmail against the team's manager to gain information about the Chiefs' owner.

The team is owned by Anita McCambridge, who took over the team after the death of her husband. Reg lays it on thick for McCambridge as he discusses his pleasure of how well the team's performing, and about how rumors of the sale of the team would be detrimental to the area. The owner appreciates Reg's optimism and informs him of a tentative, lucrative deal in place, but says she will stand to make more money if she folds the team and chalks it up as a tax write-off.

Reg becomes outraged at the disclosure and storms off to prepare his team for the Conference Championship Game. Reg holds a pre-game speech and tells his team he wants to play this game straight this time, "just like old-school pure hockey" and not like the other games that got them to this point. The only problem is the other team, the Syracuse Bulldogs, feeling slighted by the Chiefs' unabashed brand of hockey earlier in the season, have come to get their fists bloodied.

The film was directed by George Roy Hill who directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), both starring Newman. As Hill raised his trophy for Best Picture with The Sting four years earlier, Slap Shot, with its cast colorful characters on a quest to raise their own trophy, including a departure for the seasoned Newman with his rolodex of vulgar words, remains Hill's most beloved film and one of the great comedies.

Written by Nancy Dowd, she used her own experiences of her brother's career in minor-league hockey as a blueprint for the foul-mouthed locker-room debauchery, but the film has a subtle hint of women's feminism lying under the frosty surface.

Slap Shot is a character study of a man who can't get his shit together - not his team, not his career and not even the women in his life, whom he believes he has control over. But the real truth is that each woman in the film controls Reg like a puck on slippery ice.

Reg tries desperately to rekindle the relationship with his ex, forfeits the strategy with Lily (who goes back to Braden), the only women he has a relationship with in the film turns out to be a lesbian, and the owner of the Chiefs, Anita McCambridge, slashes his desperate plea to have the team remain in Charlestown, deeming the sport too violent.

There's a moment toward the end of the film when Reg receives a contract to manage the Minnesota Nighthawks of the NHL, he sees Francine driving away with all her belongings stuffed into her car. He flags her down and tells him his plan for them to move to Minnesota together.

"Jeez, we got a lot of years between us Francine. Some hard miles, you know?" Reg says as Francine bids farewell, unsure, as is the audience, if Reg truly got the job in Minnesota, or wheter it's another ploy to get what he wants.

Rejoining his teammates, Lilly asks him, "Is she coming to Minnesota?"

"Oh, for sure!" Reg's smile fades as he watches Francine's car disappear down the road like a puck going into the net.

 

5 Best (Worst?) Cult Movie Sequels (in no particular order)

What better way to feed the hordes of thirsty cult film fanatics than with a sequel to their favorite corky, off-beat  sacraments that follow the same formula as the originals, but serve up more of the gore, action, humor and overall eccentric nature of these beloved films. Sequels? Debatable. Fun and possibly superior to the originals? Definitely.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)



Original Theatrical Poster

Set in Northern California, the help of a doctor is enlisted by a young woman investigating the demise of her father, the unfortunate result believed to be linked to a Halloween mask clenched in his hand.

What unravels is a story of a strange, old mask-maker who plans to had out more than candy on Halloween night, and whose business plan is linked to an ancient Celtic ritual.

Following quickly on the heels of the original Halloween (1978) and a successful sequel, Halloween II (1981), with Halloween III (the numericals are getting repetitive, I know...) producer and writer John Carpenter dropped the storyline of the first two films just as quickly, replacing popular horror icon Michael Myers for an army of slime-filled robots and a piece of, um, Stonehenge?

Fairing poorly at the box office, Halloween III upped the gore meter of the first two films considerably, with its face melting, insect-infested masks, but it took six years to bring Michael Myers back, and, ultimately, the fan base. In a way, the film should have dropped the Halloween tag and just been called Season of the Witch to avoid any confusion with the other films. But this film is a bold and daring departure from the franchise and the only entry to embrace the holiday's traditional roots.

The Road Warrior (1982)

Original Theatrical Poster

Mel Gibson returns as police patrolman Maximillion Rockatansky in the sequel to the post-apocalyptic Australian classic Mad Max (1979). Here, director George Miller plunges the viewer into a post-post-apocalyptic adventure, surpassing the original in furlongs, and becoming one of the great road movies of all time.

Max hits the road after his family is killed by an outlaw highway motorcycle gang in search of food, ammunition and petrol - commodities that have ran scarce in this dystopian wasteland - and are in high demand.

Vulnerable and lost, Max travels deeper in the outback with redemption on his mind, but instead turns into a mythic figure when he stumbles upon a colony of people being terrorized by a marauding troupe of savage outlaws out for a prized surplus of petrol.

The Road Warrior is a great sequel in an industry where the same formulas and stories can become stale and trite, but this film starves off those labels and becomes even better than the first installment, featuring more action and thrilling chase scenes - maybe even functioning better as a stand alone film.

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)

As you can see from the previous selections, the 80s was prime time for cult films and the slew of outrageously extravagant sequels that filled out the decade. Evil Dead 2 is the cult film of the decade - and for all time.

Essentially a retelling of the first Evil Dead (friends visit a cabin in the woods, they unleash demonic spirits resting in those woods, friends have to be hacked to death, etc.) the predecessor ups the ante with a much larger budget, buckets more of blood, numerous scenes of slapstick gags, and turned Ashley J. Williams into the greatest, most likeable movie character in film history.

There isn't much to say about this film that hasn't been said except for the fun, wild romp viewers will be in for once they sit down and watch this candy-colored horror/comedy hybrid. Evil Dead 2 proves you can never go too far.

Oh, and it gave us Ash's memorable bad-ass chainsaw hand.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Star Wars a cult film? You betcha. There is no bigger cult than Star Wars, especially when you have those lightsaber-wielding fathers running around Comic-Con every year.

And the best film in the franchise - and greatest science fiction movie ever - just so happens to be the middle film of the original trilogy, where the bad guys win and the audience is left hanging like Luke Skywalker from the wire cables above Cloud City.

One of the best punch you in the face moments in cinema history that also helps bring a conclusion to the darkest installment in the trilogy. On top of that, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite and we see Boba Fett for the first time (albeit a brief minute of screen time). And because this is the middle film of the trilogy, you know the good guys eventually win out. Also, Yoda makes his first appearance. 'Nough said.

What if they did never make that Muppet inundated final installment? Too late now, but damn - I wish Vader was my dad.

Escape from L.A. (1996)

Another sequel that is just a complete rehash of the first film (I can now see where the current trend of Hollywood remaking film after film stems from), but unlike Evil Dead 2, which employs the technique properly, Escape from L.A. only amps up the action - which, in this case, is a bad thing.

Escape from New York (1981) is a cult classic, introducing audiences to rouge antihero Snake Plissken and a post-apocalyptic world, where strange criminals crawl throughout the sewers and streets of a destitute Manhattan, and where Plissken is commissioned to save the President.

In the West Coast version, Snake must recover a compact disc for the President that controls a series of satellites which have the ability to wipe out all technology on the planet. All this in between scenes of Snake playing basketball in order to escape imprisonment and surfing on a tidal wave traveling through the streets of L.A.

Troll 2 (1990)

Easily the most terrible film on this list and yet another sequel that has no connection to the original, what makes this film so enjoyable and solidifies its cult reputation is the horrendous acting, shitty costumes, G-rated gore and the fact that the little monsters in the film aren't even trolls, but rather goblins!

I could show the clip floating around YouTube excerpting the best parts of the film, but it would ruin the experience of viewing this film first time through. Let me stop now before I waste my time trying to find something to say about this useless film. Just enjoy the clip.

The Warriors (1979)

New York City and Times Square have come along considerably since the 1970s. Once a place where tourists and Manhattanites could delve into episodes of debauchery, today is a place where tourists take their families for a fun vacation. That's what Bollywood star Parmita Kurada thought when she took her family into the city to have a day of family fun.

If anyone's been to Times Square of late, then you can attest to the inundation of costumed people roaming around the Crossroads of the World. There are hordes of them dressed as characters from famous Disney movies and other entertainment outlets, looking like deranged replicas of their counterparts that would give anyone who comes in contact with them an uneasy feeling.

Last week when Kurada's two-year old son posed for a picture with the Cookie Monster, the gentlemen grabbed the toddler and began feverishly shaking him and demanding for a tip. Last time I was in Times Square, I snapped a photo - with my cell phone, mind you - with Mickey Mouse and Woody (who looked like he had his face smashed in with a shovel) and the bastards were insistent on getting a tip.

For what? They didn't do shit for me.

Besides the point, but Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez, the man donning the Cookie Monster costume, said to the actress and her son, "You are a bitch, your son is a bastard and your stuff is trash." Talk about a cute, cuddleable character.

Original Theatrical Poster

What Quiroz-Lopez said to this woman and her child is unfit for Sesame Street - let alone the next film we'll look at - The Warriors, a film from 1979 and photographed right in the heart of 1970s New York City.

The Warriors is an action film. No, it's a gang film. Wait - it's a road movie. Whatever it's categorized as, it is a film that could only be produced in the "Me" decade.

The Warriors are a street gang residing in Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of Manhattan. They are known as a "heavy" outfit for the fact that they are willing to rumble with the best of them. Word comes forth from a man named Cyrus, the leader of the Gramercy Riffs (the largest gang in the city), that a meeting will be held in the Bronx to unify every gang in the city to fight against the real threats - the police, the politicians - instead of bloodshed among each other.

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard that spiel before. And so has Luther, a real weasel of a character and leader of the Rouges, a gang on the low tier of the gang barometer. He has other ideas and draws a pistol, shooting Cyrus in the chest and killing him.

In a mob of a thousand people, only one person, a member of the Warriors, sees Luther shoot Cyrus. Luther shouts it out loud: "There he is! That's him! That's...the Warrior! He shot Cyrus!"

And what does a gang receive for killing the leader of the largest rival in the city? A manhunt - not just from the Gramercy Riffs - but from every gang in the city. The bad news? Not that the Warriors can't fight off each gang, because that's their specialty, but that the meeting was held in the Bronx and it's a long trek back to their turf on Coney Island.

Director Walter Hill envisioned his film as a comic book adaptation with splash panels, whereas the original script depicted a more authentic view of violence among street gangs in the city. A small budget hampered the production costs to make the comic book aesthetic come to life, so Hill instead injected themes of Greek mythology he wanted into the script.

The Warriors is based off the tale of Anabasis as told by Xenophen, where Cyrus the Younger led 10,000 Spartans into Persia to seize control of an area under his brother's rule. Cyrus is inevitably killed in the battle, and Xenophen, selected as one by the soldiers, must lead his men through deserts and mountains back to safety on the coastline of Greece. The parallels between the two stories are evident, and the thematic link may seem like a yawn, but it's the cast of characters the Warriors meet along their journey that make the movie so enjoyable.

If Hill couldn't get the technical effects he wanted, he achieved the desired campiness through the costume designs of the gangs in the film. Gangs are known for their colors, and as much as that is true in this film, for some gangs it just doesn't come off right.

The Warriors for example, our band of heroes, are shitless and dressed in brown leather vests with a logo of a skull with wings. The only thing scary about this costume is the lack of muscles of the actors posing as the "toughest" gang. Put some shirts on please...

And then there's the Baseball Furies, easily the most popular group after the Warriors. Sporting complete athletic uniforms, this gang brandishes a pair of spikes and bats and full-fledged tribal paint.

    

Intimidating? Not really. They're as threatening as the Disney characters that populate Times Square today. And if you're going to have a bat as your weapon of choice, make sure your enemy doesn't turn around and use it on you.

All kidding aside, the comic book appeal works simply because the characters believe their actions and emotions. There are over 100 gangs in the film (some aren't given screen time) and every gang has their own designs, logos and backstory. It's this attention to detail that keeps the film grounded in some sort of reality.

But the gangs aren't all that threatening or even comparable to gangs in today's society. There's only one gun in the entire movie and the Gramercy Riffs, the biggest gang, carry chains and hockey sticks. I know. There's a montage at the beginning of the film showing different gangs making their way to the meeting. One gang takes the subway and one of the members puts change into the turnstile. Any real gang would hop that shit.

One thing the movie has going for it is Hill's eye for action. He choreographs fight scenes as if they're intricate and beautiful dance numbers. Here the Warriors battle the Punks in a subway bathroom.

Was that idiot on roller skates? No wonder they got their asses handed to them. But it's clear that the film has some great action and fight scenes, bolstered by Hill's knack for staging the fights in interesting situations, and showing the Warriors aren't to be messed with. I can't believe the roller skates...

The movie hasn't aged all that well, from the costumes to the vernacular of the time (Cyrus shouting "Can you dig it" at the beginning), and that's not a bad thing. The movie acts as time capsule of what New York City was like during the 1970s. In fact, New York is the greatest character in the film. There are two films that do this best: Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and this film.

From the late 1960s through the late 1980s, New York City was in economic despair, basically on the verge of bankruptcy. When a bailout was asked of President Ford, he famously told the city to "Drop Dead." New York was a literal dump with garbage strewn everywhere - a sewer that led straight to the pits of hell. A place where crime, drugs and prostitution ran rampant and those theaters on 42nd Street that currently show critically acclaimed and award winning productions showed, well, something a little different.

The city was a frightening place to be, especially at night, and the cinematography from Andrew Laszlo heightens the effect. Laszlo employs slow moving tracking shots at low angles, and the city streets were sprayed down with a water to reflect the numerous lights supplied naturally from the city. These are effects that trick the characters and the viewer into thinking something's waiting for them, the camera angles disorient the viewer, and the glisten of the lights catch the eyes, resulting in the characters - and the viewer - into taking a double-take.

And it all adds up to a final delirious, up-all-night showdown on the beaches of Coney Island, a scene that rivals that of the greatest Western.

The Warriors performed well at the box office, even considered a hit for its time. But what doomed the film from the start was its subject matter. Even though the film depicts scenes of stylized violence, real violence plagued the theaters where the film was screened. The scenario was that gangs would go see the movie and a rival gang would also be at the screening. If The Warriors taught you anything, you know what happens next. Paramount was forced to pull advertising for the film and theaters bolstered security at showings.

And now, as the streets of New York have cleaned up considerably since 1979, the city council now has another menace out on the streets: gangs of furry characters violently begging for tips.

Repo Man (1984)

A '64 Chevy Malibu careens out of a cloud of dust and down a road dug out of a chalky desert - empty except for a motorcycle cop resting on the side of the road.

The cop pulls the Malibu over and inside a man with slicked back hair and grey, bushy sideburns sits slouched over, one lens in his shades, and the rows of teeth in his jaw grinding away at each other.

"What'd you got in the trunk?"

"Oh, you don't want to look in there."

The cop pops open the trunk and is caught in an intense, bright glow that emanates from the cargo, vaporizing the police officer down to his skeleton like a radioactive x-ray, his body part of the desert, leaving behind a pair of smoking boots.

So begins Alex Cox's 1984 off-beat comedy Repo Man, which arrives on DVD and
Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection on April 16th.

The film is a predecessor to the punk-rock movement in Southern California in the mid-1980s, the beginning of the film kick starts with the countdown of drumsticks clicking together. The opening theme music, composed by The Stooges front man Iggy Pop, creates a driving rhythm over the image of a computer rendered image of downtown Los Angeles, similar to the design of the home video cover.

Otto, played by a young Emilio Estevez, stocks shelves at a small grocery store. The products are contained in bland white and blue designs, where a can of coffee is labeled "coffee" and drinks are labeled "drinks," placing the viewer in an ordinary world like yours and mine but signaling that something is just slightly off.

Otto is part of the underground punk scene, getting fired from his job and joining in with his mohawk-wearing and skinhead friends in violent mosh gatherings and listening to brain rattling music. And when he finds his girlfriend in bed with his best friend, he quits the scene and hopes his parents can help him out financially. But his parents blew his inheritance on a television televangelist, paying to ship bibles to impoverished nations.

Without a girl, friends, a job, or a future, Otto meets Bud, portrayed by veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton, who gets Otto to drive his wife's car out of a seedy section of Los Angeles. Only problem is the car doesn't belong to Bud or his wife but to some dude who doesn't speak a lick of English and feels the best form of negotiation is to grip his fingers around Otto's neck.

Otto is introduced into the world of repo men (a job Emilio Estevez is probably working currently), taking cars from people who haven't paid their bills. The office is a little commercial trailer set-up in the middle of the desert. Bud looks like a used car salesman wearing a dress shirt and tie, his sleeves giving himself a blood pressure reading and drinking such large quantities of coffee that he should just be drinking from the pot. But Bud sees his image another way: "a detective, a square, because they think you're packing. They don't fuck with you as much."

Let Miller impart some wisdom on you - the smartest man in the repo business.

Otto learns the ins-and-outs of the business of repossession and gets a lesson in the code of a repo man: "only an asshole gets killed for a car." And under the bluish, purple haze of a smog drenched L.A., the mundane life of a repo man is turned upside down when the job of a lifetime comes over the wire: a '64 Chevy Malibu, the prize: $20,000.

During one of his jobs, Otto picks up a girl walking down the street who shows him a picture of four dead aliens that are riding around in the back of a Chevy Malibu. She says a scientist smuggled the corpses of a military base, and now the cops, government agents, including a woman with a metal hand, and the rival Mexican Rodriguez Brothers are after the prize.

Repo Man is a deliberate, hilarious take on President Regan's domestic and foreign policies, where problems of unemployment and illegal "aliens" are brought to the forefront.

"And in the end," says one of Otto's friends who gets gunned down trying to rob a convince store, "I blame society. Society made me what I am."

"That's bullshit," says Otto. "You're a white suburban punk just like me."

Featuring numerous memorable quotes and a killer soundtrack of L.A. hardcore and punk musicians, such as Iggy Pop, Black Flag and the Suicidal Tendencies, Repo Man is a defining cult film of 1980s America.

The Texas Chainsaw Manufactured

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's original 1974 television spot started by saying, "What happened, was true." What followed was a close-up of a chainsaw violently coming to life, engulfed in smoke, followed by scenes from some of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The spot ends with, "Once you stop screaming, you'll start talking about it."

And so begins one of the great fabrications in the annals of American film history.

I've recently been reading Seth Godin's All Marketers Tell Stories, which discusses how products and services are marketed to the public. The book looks at the process and steps businesses and companies take to ensure their product is noticed among the thousands on the market. While the original title refers to marketers as liars, there is a strike through the "Are Liars" in the title, instead replaced with "Tell Stories." This is what people in their business do: create stories that target the individual's frames and worldviews, even if these stories are false, to resonate more profoundly with the consumer.

Which got me to thinking about certain instances in film where this theory was implemented and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre immediately buzzed to mind.

The film is about five youths, particularly Sally Hardesty, as they travel along the back roads of Texas on a hot, sweltering August day in search of her grandfather's old house and property. Let's just say the young adults get more than they bargained for when they stumble across paths with a family whose idea of having fun is playing with chainsaws, and whose ideal summer picnic features a spread of human flesh.

As already discussed, the film was passed off as true and inspired by actual events. But the key word is "inspired" and significantly - and creatively - much different than "based" on a true story.

Sally and her friends come to the backwoods of a middle-of-nowhere Texas town to investigate reports of vandalized grave sites to see if her grandfather's burial spot was desecrated. The town is barely on the map, where the only stop on the road is a small barbecue joint attached to a filling station - and that's the last stop for hundreds of miles. The locals tell the kids they're better off going back where they came from, as one gentlemen says that some people won't take to them poking around out here, and against better judgment, Sally and her friends continue on.

Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker standing in the middle of a field. The man is strange looking, and even though picking up a hitchhiker was a common occurrence in the 1970s, but even 40 years ago, anyone would pass this man by. But Sally and her friends bring him on board, where he tells them about his family and how the town was once prosperous from a bubbling slaughterhouse industry, only to have the slaughterhouse shut down. The man starts talking weird shit, even for a person of his appearance, and pulls out a knife, slitting a deep gash in his hand as blood flows everywhere. The kids boot the creepy bastard out of the van and speed away - last smart decision they'll make for the rest of the movie.

The gang reaches their destination, find the house in disrepair and notice strange markings on the walls and deranged pieces of art constructed out of animal bones. After a few unfortunate staples of horror films (car won't start, Sally's brother's confined to a wheelchair and gets stuck in thick brush, each member slowly begins to vanish), Sally gets chased through the woods by a masked lunatic wielding a chainsaw, comes upon a house even deeper into the woods and finds a familiar face waiting for - one of the cooks from the barbecue stand. The bad news is that the cook, the masked lunatic (whose name we learn is Leatherface) and the hitchhiker, are part of the same clan, and tonight they're having a dinner party - and Sally's on the menu!

The film feels extremely authentic and real. If it were filmed and released today, it would be lumped together with the "found footage" categories of horror films that are currently popular. The camera work makes the film feel as if the footage on screen is from some crazy person's home video library, and the saturated, grainy film stock adds a sense of realism.

The best element is the characters of the hitchhiker and Leatherface. The actors who portray these monsters feel as if they aren't acting, but actually live the life of these characters. The performances come off natural and lend authenticity to the film where the viewer thinks, "Yeah, these fuckers really are crazy." Especially Leatherface, who gets his name from a mask he wears of stitched pieces of human flesh. Gunnar Hanson played the character as if he suffered from some form of mental retardation, uttering sounds instead of words, banging his head with his hands and licking his lips. The physical appearance of Hanson, with his portly build and thick, hairy arms, lends nicely to a character that carves animals - and humans - for a living.

Again, this film was advertised as true, but that's far from the actual truth.

The inspiration for the film was from crimes that took place in Plainfield, Wisconsin in the 1950s. Ed Gein was a local resident who exhumed and robbed fresh graves in nearby cemeteries, taking keepsakes with him. Gein confessed to the murders of two women who were missing, and when police searched his home, they found unimaginable horrors. Collections of body parts, including noses, bones, skulls, human nipples, pairs of lips and masks crafted from human skin were scattered throughout Gein's house of horrors, among many other atrocities. Gein wasn't only the inspiration for Leatherface, but also for Norman Bates in Psycho and the novel The Silence of the Lambs.

But, sadly, speaking in horror movie terms, there was no massacre - and definitely no chainsaw.

Director Tobe Hooper thought of the chainsaw idea when shopping in a department store during the holidays. Hooper was stuck in those never-ending, slow-moving cash register lines when he noticed a display of chainsaws and thought how great it would be to carve and slash his way through all the people to the front of the line.

With the pieces in place, it is still unclear as to why the film was passed off as true. It has basis in reality, but why would the producers and production company vagrantly lie about the premise of the film?

Godin describes a similar process in his book as the difference between fibs and frauds. Godin classifies fibs as truth because they enhance a story and make them better. If a producer passes their offering off as something enjoyable, people won't mind if it's a lie or a fib. A fraud on the other hand, is only for personal gain and has no connection to a story and little to do with anything. Once people discover the fraud, people are outraged.

But what Hooper has done with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is create a cinematic fib, one that exaggerates the truth to create a truly terrifying, visceral experience.

Why did people believe The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really happened? There never where any news related articles about such horrifying crimes like the ones depicted in the film.

Horror writer Stephen King referred to the film in 1981 as, "a sort of pleasure that doesn't want to score political points but to scare the hell out of us by crossing certain taboo lines."

When people go see horror films they want to be scared shitless, and when they go see movies in general, they want to escape from the realities of everyday life because sometimes reality can be even more grim then the events in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And people weren't ready for a film that dealt with flesh consumption and being ripped to shreds by a chainsaw.

Hooper smartly employs an effective technique towards the beginning of the film. After the opening narration (the opening scroll deeming the story accurate) a radio recording is heard over the image of a grisly corpse mounted to a gravestone. The radio recording details a series of grave robbings, one the viewer is witnessing first-hand, putting the crime into some sort of realistic context.

The horrors witnessed by the characters and the viewer matched the worldview of many Americans during and after the Nixon presidency and in the concluding months of the Vietnam War in 1974. Film critic Robin Wood states, "presentations of violence appeared to claim direct cultural relevance for a generation of viewers that wanted their anxieties about the Vietnam War, civil rights riot, the breakdown of the nuclear family and traditional role models, and the uncertainties caused by the economic crisis, addressed in uncompromising terms."

It's funny the reaction audiences had following a screening of the film. Audiences were throwing up in the aisles and even fleeing from the theaters. And you think a film with "Chainsaw" and "Massacre" in the title would have excess amounts of blood and buckets of limbs, but that's not the case with this film. In fact, there's little amounts of blood on screen.

See? No blood. It's a scene that merely suggests the idea of violence without actually showing too much. Here's a another scene, not as suggestive, but one that had quite an effect on audiences' prior knowledge of how the human body reacts to trauma.

Sorry, sweetie, but he's not coming back. The body shaking as a result to severe trauma to the head was little known among ordinary people and was more than audiences could handle 40 years ago.

The late 60s and early 70s were difficult times for Americans, with a series of corrupt presidencies, an economic crisis and gas shortage, and the atrocities of the Vietnam War being telecast into every person's living room in vibrant, living color, audiences wanted a movie that validated and expressed their feelings of the times they lived in.

As Godin puts it, costumers want something, whether it's a product such as movie that appeals to their needs and wants - their biases - and they only notice things based on how the story is told.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a story about 1970s America and its inhabitants. What happened was true.

Burned By Love

Earlier this month, Dallas Weins, first male recipient of a successful face transplant after a work accident left his face horribly disfigured, has married a woman he met in a burn victims support group. Dallas' new wife, Jamie Nash, who was severely burned in a car accident while texting, in light of their marriage wrote on the TXT L8R Foundation's website, " I would truly feel lost without him by my side. Our love is deep and strong, and together we will achieve greatness."

Their story is one of extreme sadness and heartache, yet through intense physical pain, numerous surgeries and enduring years of loss, both survivors  have found true love and can now look towards a life together with a happier ending.

The next story you will be presented with is a little different.

DVD Cover

Eyes Without a Face (Les yuex sans visage) is an exquisitely crafted, haunting and beautiful poetic French masterwork directed by Georges Franju.

Set in the secluded French countryside, an obsessive surgeon meticulously noodles
away in his lab trying to restore the beauty of his daughter's disfigured face, injuries suffered in an automobile accident - of which he was the driver.

Dr. Genessier is guilt-ridden, covering up the accident by faking his daughter's death. Along with the help of his assistant, Louise, the duo kidnap young women who share similar features to that of his daughter, bringing them back to his house and performing radical and gruesome face transplant procedures.

The disfigured girl, Christiane, is left to roam the spacious halls of her family's gothic mansion, every mirror in the house covered with black material as in an attempt to keep her horrifying reflection from frightening the young woman. But what's more frightening is the blank, white mask Christiane is forced to wear.

Georges Franju is mainly known for this stunning and chilling piece of lyrical horror aBlood of the Beasts, about a Paris slaughterhouse, that acted as a prelude to the horrors witnessed in Eyes Without a Face, his first feature length film.

nd one look at his filmography will show the trajectory towards this point in his career. Franju began making documentaries commissioned by the French government, covering such subjects as the Nazi Occupation of France during the second World War and films about the industrialization of France as a nation. But it was his first documentary,

Franju was interested in the fantastique, a genre that lent literary and cinematic influences to horror and science fiction films. Films from this area blend together elements of the supernatural with mundane events. Franju said of his early films, "I'm led to give my documentary realism the appearance of fiction." It's by no accident that Franju chose to intercut scenes of animals being butchered with scenes of children playing on the streets.  But based on the news bullet at the beginning of this piece, are the events in Eyes Without a Face all that fantastic, or merely just an area of horrific events and science yet to be realized?

Dr. Genessier works as a physician in a clinic by day and a mad scientist by night, the medical lab in the lower half of his house a substitute for the Paris slaughterhouses in Blood of the Beasts. Genessier is heartbroken over his mistake that absconded his daughter's beauty. But like any good father, he aims to make it up to her by reconstructing her face back to her original condition. And if it means stealing the face of another, then so be it.

Any lesser horror film would write Genessier off as a monster by his actions, but this film gives the doctor a more human side, thanks to the writing talent of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narceja, who were coming off the successes of another French chiller, Henri-Georges Clouzet's Diabolique, and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Genessier is no monster; there is a scene where Genessier gently cares for a child in his clinic, and, in fact, it is this scene along with his devotion to Christiane that forces the viewer to identify with him on some level. But in that love for his daughter, what's sacrificed more than just the innocent lives of women, is the relationship between he and Christiane.

The doctor performs what is known as the heterograft, connecting the skin back onto the face of his daughter. We learn that his assistant, Louise, was his only successful face transplant procedure and now with the operation on his daughter, he has many reserves as to whether this surgery was a success. Christiane is disappointed as her body begins to slowly reject the graft.

Christiane is forced to spend the rest of her days in her room, locked away like the caged dogs her father keeps in the back part of the house. Before her terrible accident, Christiane was to marry Jacques, a young doctor who works with Dr. Genessier at the clinic. After her mock funeral (where one of the faceless victims was the stand-in body), Christiane has strict orders from her father not to have any contact with the outside world - especially with her fiance.

Even with the chilling surgery scenes, Eyes Without a Face is different than many horror films of the time. The movie is more sad than scary, pulling at the heartstrings - and maybe even a little tissue fiber - and it the loss of love within Christiane than the loss of her face that the audience identifies with.

There is a scene where Christine calls Jacques at the clinic. He answers, and, for a moment, Christiane quietly listens to his voice over the phone before hanging up. She calls back again another day, same scenario, but this time Christiane whispers Jacques' name into the phone, and he hears her. He recognizes the voice and says her name before hearing the click of the telephone.


It is the performance of Edith Scob as Christiane that carries the emotional weight. Franju said of Scob: "She is a magic person. She gives the unreal reality." The actress' face is never seen throughout the film, and it is the shiny white mask, like a porcelain doll, that offers a blank slate for the viewer to project any emotion they feel onto it. But it is Scob, with her slight head turns and the way she places her arms by her side in her satin nightgown, that make her seem as if she is an apparition floating up and down the stairs in the house. But it is in her eyes, the eyes of the title, that express more than any face could.

Eyes Without a Face was controversial when it was released in 1959 for its graphic scenes of gore and a subject matter audiences weren't quite familiar with at the time. French critics were appalled that a film like this could be considered a French horror film, and English audiences fainted during the heterograft scene, in which Franju responded, "Now  I know why Scotsmen wear skirts." The film was released in America the following year under the title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus on a double-bill with another low-budget horror movie, essentially diminishing any poetic or artistic reverence.

With her father completely consumed in his work, Christiane is left alone again to wait on the third floor in her room. Christiane wanders through the house, down to the basement and into her father's lab where she sees a woman strapped to bed that resembles herself before the accident. She becomes aware of her father's intentions and walks out of the house and vanishes into a darkened forest. And the audience is left to wonder if she'll wander the Earth alone forever.

Putney Swope (1969)

Original Theatrical Poster

Quiz time. Here are two scenarios:

1) Putney Swope is a black man struggling to deal with the perils of a segregated 1960s America.

2) Putney Swope is a black man who is the new chairman of the board at one of the top advertising agencies in Manhattan  

Which one seems more plausible?

If you answered number two, well, then you know where this is going...

As Don Draper and Co. is about to reinvent the airwaves with their sixth season on AMC's widely popular MadMen this Sunday, with Putney Swope, Robert Downy Sr. (yes, the father of Robert Downey Jr.) infuses biting satire and scathing social commentary to create a humorous and absurd take on the advertising industry, dissecting themes of race and politics in what is one of the most popular midnight movie sensations.

Swope is the token black guy on the board of directors at a Madison Avenue firm. When the board of directors keels over from a heart attack, the remaining members must cast a vote for the successor. Each member wants a shot at the top spot, but unable to vote for themselves, they instead each select Swope as their nominee believing he won't stand a chance. And so begins the reign of the first black man in charge of a predominately white industry.

Downey Sr. (referred to as "a prince" in the opening credits) used his experiences from working briefly in the advertising industry writing and directing television commercials to write this film. Downey had creative freedom while writing these commercials (such as the ad for Preparation H), most of which never aired for their subject matter. The idea for Putney Swope came to him when he realized a black men was making considerably less money than he was for doing the same job.

Swope's first order of business: "I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it." Swope immediately fires all the white people on the staff, keeping only one token white guy around, and hiring a battalion of black revolutionaries and militants to continue the day-to-day operations. The film was produced right at a time when the Black Panther movement was beginning to take hold. The agency is renamed "Truth & Soul, Inc." and points in the direction the company will move itself and its ads.

The impacts under Swope's new direction are felt even before the ink is dry. Besides changing the company name, Swope stands by his principles that his company will no longer advertise tobacco and alcohol products - where most advertisers make their money - or by selling toy guns to children, a direct reference to the conflict in Vietnam. Swope only accepts cash for payment, and his policy on security (even if the wrong person uses the wrong elevator) is the policy of a handgun in the face.

But Putney Swope is a genius - in the makeup of an advertiser that is. When a man visits him with a window cleaner product, which doesn't smell good but tastes delicious, Swope says there is no way to market the product the way it exists. His solution: "Add soybeans and market it as a soft drink to the ghettos." Brilliant. 

And what's an advertising agency good for if it can't produce great ads? 

And that's what Swope does best, keeping it real by bringing the truth out of the product and eliciting the right emotion from the target audience.

Putney Swope is one "big fuck" you to the establishment and a realized campaign in bad taste, where the all black staff shoots darts at a picture of Abraham Lincoln, and the commercials are filled with nothing but sexuality. One commercial shows three women of different races bouncing up and down in an airplane, wearing skimpy underwear and see-through blouses. After a solid minute of slow-motion bouncing, a man is pushed through the door and ravaged by the half-naked women. The title at the end says Lucky Airlines. I mean, who wouldn't want to fly that airline? And the ad for pimple remover? Robert Downey is pulling a page out his own book:

The film is presented in black and white (except the commercials) and it serves an important purpose. Firstly, black and white film stock is cheaper, and Putney Swope is one of the seminal independent underground movies (along with the films John Cassavetes was producing) produced during a time when funds were limited and distribution was never guaranteed for small films.

But Swope deals with problems that are not so cut and dry, black or white. The film eludes to the power of corruption, no matter what the race. Even though Swope changes the company's mission statement, deregulating what they will sell and not sell and piecing together the proper components to run the establishment, Swope continues to run the company with an iron fist.

When the government comes to "Truth & Soul, Inc." with their pitch for the Borman 6, a new car that proves to be a death trap (and the government knows it), Swope refuses to market the tin can. But being an ad man is not as powerful as being the President of the United States, who quickly declares Swope a threat to the security of the nation. The viewer can see the transformation of Putney Swope throughout the film: from a man trying to establish himself in the business, to a provocateur wearing military garb, and eventually someone who succumbs to the powers that be. Swope begins his tenure as an anarchic hero but slowly turns into just another suit and tie corporate sellout, and a classic study of the sympathetic figure.

There is a sign on the wall in the office hallway that reads "Things Are Changing," but really we begin to realize that the more things change, the more they're apt to stay the same. Swope's top copywriter, feeling like he hasn't received his piece of the pie, says, "The man says I get nothing, than I get nothing." Obviously in the case of Putney Swope, the racial roles are reversed, but whether it be white or black, there will always be the "man" trying to bring you down.

Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

Roger Ebert (1942-2013) salutes his famous thumbs-up

Roger Ebert, notable film critic and first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, has died, reported the Chicago Sun-Times. He was 70.

The news comes a day after Ebert announced his leave of absence because of a fractured leg bone that affected his ability to walk was a result of cancer. Ongoing radiation treatments have reduced Ebert's attendance to review movies and the ability to continue writing reviews. This is the second time cancer has affected the film critic; his first bout with thyroid cancer six years ago left him unable to eat, drink or speak.

Ebert has a made a career of watching movies, spending almost 50 years reviewing movies for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he watched more than 500 films a year. It wasn't until 1982 when a pairing with cross-town Chicago Tribune film critic and rival Gene Siskel for the popular television program At the Movies, that audiences became acquainted with his "thumbs up" style of review.

It was this type of review, where the simple twist of the wrist, would determine if a movie would be successful at the theaters. But it was also Ebert's writing about movies: witty, intelligent, and slightly sarcastic - but always truthful and accurate, which made him the premier critic of his generation, and made the career of writing about movies vaguely cool and exciting.

In 1969, Ebert took some time off from writing for the Chicago Sun-Times to write the screenplay to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a film which has garnered a considerable cult following since its release. The film was quite controversial upon release, as Ebert described the film as "a satire of Hollywood conventions, genres, situations, dialogue, characters and success formulas, heavily overlaid with such shocking violence that some critics didn't know whether the movie 'knew' it was a comedy." The film originally received an "X" rating for its depictions of violence and nudity, which sparked a lifelong battle with the MPAA and its inadequate rating system. "The MPAA rates this PG-13," said Ebert generally about the rating systems. "It is too vulgar for anyone under 13, and too dumb for anyone over 13."

The news of Ebert's death plays out like a sad ending to one of the most important writers in the evolution of film criticism. Ebert's legacy as a writer and critic is one that is important and vast , and will last as long as their are people interested in learning how viewing films is not just about watching movies and more about the feeling and understanding of how these films fit into our lives.

Personally, I always looked towards Ebert's reviews first before even considering another film critic. It was his unique blend of creativity and newspaper journalism that always made his column and reviews seem  to carry more weight or importance, sometimes even more memorable than the film itself. He was not afraid to pick a side, yet his reviews have some semblance of balance. His list of "Great Films" is required viewing for any student of film, offering a list of the best movies from around the world, and he even gave more attention than deserved to terrible films. "No good film is too long," said Ebert, "and no bad movie is short enough."

He was asked once which movie he thought would be shown on an endless loop in heaven and which snack would be healthy.

"Citizen Kane and vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream," Ebert replied. I guess there will always be a place for a film critic to review movies.

Here's a segment from a 1982 episode of At the Movies, where Ebert and his sidekick Gene Siskel discuss the cult classic The Evil Dead.