Paramount Summer Classic Film Series-First Blood

Sunday night was another presentation by Robert Rodriguez for the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, this time the featured film was 1982's "First Blood". This Sylvester Stallone starring vehicle,  led to numerous sequels, and created a cultural touchstone that's been with us for four decades now. Rodriguez has a friendship with Sylvester Stallone, and like most of those kids from 1982, he saw this movie and immediately fell in love with the character of John Rambo and wanted to be him.

The introduction Rodriguez provided was fine, but it was more fully supplemented this time with some video clips from his own director series that is available online. He did share some stories about Stallone that we're not part of the video presentation, for instance the fact that Stallone didn't care for an actor in the Rambo film that was set in Burma. That might be why the moment that he shoves him up against the side of the boat looks so real. Of course that's a story for us, not one that he wants to put in the series which might make Stallone look petty.

I have seen all of the Rambo films, but I don't think Amanda had. This one was new to her completely, and she enjoyed it quite well. David Caruso who appears as Mitch, one of the deputies in the small town that John Rambo encounters, was not even recognizable to her, in spite of the fact that she is watched all the episodes and all of the seasons of CSI Miami. He was so young when he did this part he looks like a baby. She also thought that Brian Dennehy aged substantially between this film and Silverado 3 years later. That's not nearly as noticeable to me, but I'm an old guy who's used to a few extra pounds here and there.

One of the things that Rodriguez pointed out was that Stallone made significant contributions to the screenplay of First Blood. Including taking John Rambo out of the role of villain and putting that label on the sheriff played by Dennehy. It's a well-known story that Kirk Douglas walked away from the part that was ultimately played by Richard Crenna, because he thought that Rambo should die at the end of the movie. That appears to have been another Stallone modification.

This film was the start of a string of 1980s successes for Stallone in the action genre. Rodriguez also pointed out how Sylvester Stallone and his success created a competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger that would not start to even out until Stallone's 1990s films started to flag, while Schwarzenegger became increasingly marketable. The character of John Rambo however, continued to be a vein that Stallone could tap into. At one point when Rodriguez pointed out to his friend that Stallone hadn't directed a film for a dozen years, Sly was taken by aback. Just a couple of years later he picked up the character again for the brutal 2008 "Rambo", once again establishing is bona fides as an action director as well as star.

The original "First Blood" continues to be the best in my mind because it is the least cliched and the one that is most tied into reality. Many of the complaints made by Rambo at the climax of the film when he has his breakdown we're true. Veterans of the Vietnam War were disrespected, many of them suffered from exposure to dangerous chemicals during the war, and as exemplified by John Rambo himself, many of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the flashback scenes in this movie give us a sense of why Rambo reacts the way he does to the abuse from the local fascists in the police department in this small Washington town.

What most people remember from the movie however, are the clever ways that Rambo gets the best of the local law enforcement agencies and National Guard. The training that he received as a behind enemy lines commando, certainly exceeds that of a local law enforcement agency. When Richard Crenna shows up and explains that he's not there to save Rambo from them but rather to save them from Rambo, we know how badass this is going to be. John crawls through caves filled with rats, jumps into trees off of cliffs in order to escape being shot, and disguises himself in a half dozen different ways to get the better of his pursuers.

The fact that John Rambo doesn't have an exit strategy for his temper tantrum is a little problematic to the story. But that's why Colonel Troutman has shown up in the guise of Richard Crenna. We can have some exposition, and ultimately a peaceful resolution that makes some sense. Of course not before we've had enough explosions, bullets, and knife injuries to fill three other movies. That's the kind of sugar Rambo likes.

KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: Death Race 2000

 Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy

Death Race 2000 

In a way, this film itself was a race. The premise is amazingly similar to that of the previously discussed "Rollerball", and it turns out there is a reason for that. The innovative low budget producer Roger Corman had heard about the upcoming film featuring a futuristic society, sated by the bread and circuses of a violent game, and he created his own version of that storyline. The production was rushed to take advantage of the heat that was being generated from advance publicity for "Rollerball", and it beat that film to the marketplace by a couple of months.

We quickly learn that a fascist style bipartisan government has taken over the nation after an economic collapse, and uses an annual cross country road race as a distraction from the totalitarian rule and an appeal to nationalism. Corman wrote the original treatment for the film, but it went through several other hands, as the tone became more often comic in nature. Probably a good choice considering the absurdity of the idea. Five teams of racers dash across the country, from location to location, choosing their own paths and scoring points by running over and killing pedestrians. 

The movie inspired a video game that became quite controversial in the late 1970s, and it is one of the few arcade games I ever played. 

 

I enjoyed the grave markers whenever the players successfully ran over a pedestrian in this game. 

The low budget of the film is hardly a hindrance, since the design of the cars and the outlandish nature of the drivers and navigators is really where the fun is. I was actually impressed that they took shots of an actual race at Ontario Speedway and integrated it into the opening of the film. The futuristic background matte paintings may but be perfect, but they served their purpose in trying to set the world of this film, twenty-five years into the future. Most of the racing that takes place is in open spaces (largely in the SoCal Foothills), only occasionally making it into urban settings where a chance for scoring would be a lot higher. 

The least convincing part of the film is the rebel group trying to either kidnap or kill the favorite driver, Frankenstein, in order to negotiate with the tyrannical "Mr. President". They dress like a bunch of sanitation workers and set up booby traps across the country in order to achieve their ends. They are led by an old woman who is a descendant of Thomas Paine, and she is just not convincing at all. The traps themselves however are some time amusing, for instance, they use a trick right out of Wile Coyote's playbook, a detour through a painting of a tunnel. 

From a logical point of view, the twist with Frankenstein and the rebel group does not make much sense, but as drama it will do. The real goal of the movie is to get the drive in audiences who would eat this kind of stuff up, to show up and buy a ticket. To that end, there are several gruesome deaths featured and a bucketload of gratuitous  nudity. I'm not sure why a massage room is provided for all of the drivers and their navigators, but it does help get them into nothing but a towel, and that will come off for a catfight or a love making session pretty easily.

David Carradine is the lead actor in the film, and he is most effective behind the wheel of the car he is driving. The mask he wears disguises the fact that he is not as mangled as he appears to be to the world, and when driving with his new partner, he takes off the mask frequently and smirks at her naivete or the plodding efforts of the rebels. Sylvester Stallone made this film right before "Rocky" and he was allowed to shout and chew up the scenery as Frankenstein's main rival, Machine Gun Joe Viterbo. Apparently he was allowed to write some of his own lines, and he wisely is not given credit for doing so, because the character is a one note petulant idiot. 

The cars that were used were not actual racing vehicles but kit cars that were modified to look ominous, and it seems that at times they did not run properly and required a push start to get going. The racing footage is very good in the sense that we can see the whole picture, and the close up and fast cut style that is so prominent nowadays is missing. Instead we get to see the cars jockeying for position, spinning out on the road, crashing into pedestrians and generally looking like the mayhem they are supposed to be. I was impressed by the shots of the road from under the front carriage of the cars, which makes the race look faster and comes closer to putting us in the race than if it was all shot from the driver's perspective. 

Paul Bartel was the director of the film, he was a genre veteran actor who did several low budget films over the years, his most well known film he directed being "Eating Raoul".  He was dissatisfied with the interference of Roger Corman, who seems to have cut several comic moments from the film, to emphasize the violence instead. Still there are great comedy moments in the film, as when Frankenstein options for lower points by going after the Doctors and Nurses setting up Euthanasia day, rather than the easy bonus points of elderly people in wheelchairs. My favorite joke however has to be the "hand grenade" that gets revealed near the end of the film. It is both a pun and a visual joke and I laughed hard at it. 

I know I saw this film when it came out, but I don't think it was at a drive in, rather it was in a theater on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, I just can't say which one it was. This would have been a summer second billed film since the L.A. release was at a bad time for me, and I would have had to catch it in a second run theater. 

In an earlier post I mentioned Siskel and Ebert, and both of them gave this film terrible reviews, this was before they were appearing together on TV. I seem to remember that Kevin Thomas of the L.A. Times gave it a pretty solid review, at least for the kind of film it was, and Thomas was always one of my favorite reviewers for the Times.

This movie is complexly ridiculous but also a lot of fun, if you can overlook those things that are the usual points of contention in exploitation fare, you know, the objectification of women, the excessive violence, and the glorification of anti-heroes. It is of it's time, but then again, so am I.   

Creed

This is a movie that was getting a high amount of positive buzz in the last two weeks. I had it on my radar since last summer when the trailer first came across my eyes and I was looking forward to it even before the publicity hounds started to work their magic. I am happy to report that this is not a case of professional hype managing to sucker in a few journalists and cinema fans, this is a very solid movie with two great performances. It does not do anything too different from it's predecessors, except that it is as serious and well played as the original film was.

Basically, this is the seventh film in the "Rocky" series, but it is the first to feature a fighter other than the "Italian Stallion" himself. It was a bit of a stretch nine years ago when Rocky came out of retirement and fought an opponent nearly half his age. There is no way that this film could have sold us on Rocky as the protagonist despite the fact that Sylvester Stallone is in fantastic physical shape and probably could outlast someone a third of his age. He probably spent any credibility in that regard two years ago when he cashed in on the Rocky legacy in "Grudge Match" with Robert DeNiro.

"Creed" takes a different and much smarter direction. Rocky becomes the reluctant trainer of a new fighter, the illegitimate son of his old foe and close friend Apollo Creed. Donnie (Adonis) Johnson is an orphan with an attitude when he is taken in by Apollo's widow eight years after his death. We sort of have to bend the rules of time and space to allow the events to play out as they do, because it is just twelve years later that he is trying to break into the boxing game himself. The set up of the story line ignores the real ages of the legacy characters, so that the young fighter is indeed barely an adult and still seething with anger and self doubt. Michael B. Jordan (who will probably use his middle initial for the rest of his career for obvious reasons) is a talented young actor,who is a veteran of several excellent television programs and had a breakout role in "Fruitvale Station" a couple of years ago. He manages to reach us through his hard headed demeanor and uncertain station in life. The physical gifts required to be a fighter are demonstrated pretty well, but there is an effective romantic angle in the film also. It is his scenes with Rocky though that make the performance resonate so well.

Jordan is matched in his performance by the man who created the character, the series and the trope of "Rocky", Sylvester Stallone. Sly has not always gotten the credit he deserves as an actor. The Rocky series was dominated after the first original story, with plot lines that demanded less and less of him. The same thing was true of his other franchise character, John Rambo. The films made a lot of money, but the artistry was sometimes lacking. I thought his performance in "Rocky Balboa" would be his swan song with the character and he was excellent in that film. His work in this film however far surpasses that. He is more subtle here than anything he has appeared in in ages. Rocky is a little bit subdued by age and cognizant that time is not on his side. He puts on the role of Mickey, the Burgess Meridith character from the first three films, but plays the character as Rocky, the good hearted and loyal former Champion. There is an admittedly soap opera storyline in the plot but it plays out so honestly and with real emotions that a guy like Rocky might have, it is easy to accept it.

The movie is a boxing film with the Rocky heritage behind it, so it needs to be rousing and inspiring as well as dramatically satisfying. The director Ryan Coogler manages to make the old bits of Rocky films feel fresh, even when they are directly aping them. This is his second feature film and he moves the story forward with assurance and creativity. The first major fight in the film is staged in a marvelous fashion, as if it were shot in a continuous take. The climactic fight, even though it follows very familiar paths from previous films, still manages to arouse our spirit and build tension. Donnie's story feels authentic because of the way he interacts with the world and the language and behavior of those characters he encounters. When he crosses over into the cinematic world of Rocky, the director manages to bring the credibility of the character to the formula of the fight film. This is one of the better films I've seen this year and I expect I will be seeing it again down the road in the annual "Best Picture Showcase." Yeah, it could do that.

Expendables 3

Two reactions are typical when talking about an "Expendables" movie; "Damn is that awesome" or "Damn is that Pathetic". I happen to fall into the former category, so if you fit into the later, you can pretty much skip this, it is not going to fit your world view. Aging action stars plus plenty of shootouts plus bad jokes equals two hours of fun in August as far as I've gone with these flicks. There is not any real artistry, the plots are boiler plate and the outcome is inevitable. These are comfort food for people who miss Bob's Big Boy and Hair Metal. Sometimes there is a nice new element to make the movie interesting and to keep us coming back. This movie has three or four of those elements.

I rarely spend more than a sentence or two describing plot in any of my reviews, I don't like spoilers. With a movie like this, it is even simpler because the plot is so direct. The team must take down a rogue former member who has turned evil arms dealer. That's it. Sure more happens and there are some justifications for jumping into a new set of recruits and bringing the old crew back, but it is straight get the bad guy stuff. What does help is that the bad guy this time is Mel Gibson. With all the baggage he has accumulated in the last few years, he has not been a regular screen presence. That's too bad because he is quite good and charismatic on screen, whether playing a hero or the baddie. The three Expendable movies have been slowly creeping up in the quality of the antagonist. Eric Roberts in the first film was fine but did not get much development. Jean- Claude Van Damme was more successful because his showdown with Stallone is the epic climax of the movie. Gibson gives the movie a sense of credibility it would not otherwise deserve and his dialogues with the team contain the right kind of ominous threat to keep our expectations high.

Also joining the cast and classing up the franchise is Harrison Ford.  In the 80s, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were the brawn of action movies. They were the guys who kicked butt. Gibson and Ford were the brains of action movies. Their films had plot twists and sophistication and did not rely on brute strength to get the mission accomplished. Ford shows up as the replacement for Bruce Willis's character in the movie. He treats the script with more seriousness than anyone would think is possible and raises the bar on the believability scale. In the long run it may be a futile effort, but it doesn't end up like it is just stunt casting, even though there is an amusing line about what became of Agent Church.

The unique part of this film is the recruitment of a younger generation of Expendables whose loss  Barney will not feel as much. The selection process involves another old friend, Kelsey Grammer. Channeling a rougher version of Frasier Crane, Grammer gets in some funny lines and a little bit of pop psychology to go with all the nonsense. Stealing the show by playing the dangerous buffoon is Antonio Banderas. Having watched "Desperado" just a day ago, I can say his action bonafides are in order. His comedy chops from "Puss in Boots" appear to be in good working shape as well. Four other young actors are tossed in, it would seem with the intention of carrying on the series when it will look too odd to have grandad diving through a window with a Howitzer under his arm. Wesley Snipes is introduced as another former colleague who has been away from the action scene for a while. The main justification for his presence is the joke about what he was doing prison time for in the third world country the team breaks him out of.

I understand that someone might say they were tired of the same old, same old. If you seek creativity and innovation in your action film, move along, there is nothing for you here. Those of us who do not mind a lot of the familiar and enjoy a big chunk of cheese with our weekend fix of adrenaline, will appreciate the continuing adventures of the old timers. Yeah they look a little long in the tooth, but they also look like they could take most of us out in twenty seconds or less. Until they reach my level of physical prowess, I'm still willing to go along for the ride.

Grudge Match

I know, I know, this movie looks like recycled crap. It is some pablum designed to milk a few bucks from undiscerning movie goers who are just looking for a way to kill a couple of hours over the holidays. I can't really disagree with that too much. It does at times feel lazy, the comedy aspects are weak and the delivery timing on the jokes is bad, really bad. So having accepted the premise that most of you started off with, let me give just a couple of reasons that you should refrain from being so harsh. Those two reasons are in fact the two stars; Robert DeNiro and Sylvester Stallone.

Are they cashing in on old success, yes. The "Rocky" references are everywhere in this film. "Raging Bull" hangs over DeNiro's performance like a gargoyle, leering at what he has become. Even with all that baggage, both actors suit up and are game for the fight.  In the second half of the movie they start to become characters rather than caricatures. The script does not always give them enough ammunition to pull off an effective dramatic story, it does come up with a few honest moments and enough of what made us love the performers in the past to give them a pass on the flaws of this and enjoy what there is. "Grudge Match" in not a modern classic and it probably isn't worth your time in a theater, but it is not the travesty that some think it looks like and it overcomes a weak first hour comedy set up to become a mid-level adult drama, not a great drama, but one that does not embarrass us too much by watching.

The tone of the movie is all over the place. Ninety percent of the Kevin Hart sequences look like outtakes from that movie with Ice Cube that he has coming out next month. He cracks wise, makes asides out of the corner of his mouth  and contorts his face into so many clown like expressions that you worry his face might freeze like that, you know, like your Mom always warned you about. Alan Arkin almost always makes a movie better, this film is the one reason that I can think of for saying "almost". Arkin's part is underwritten and we are simply expected to use the Burgess Meridith allusion to give it the heart that it needs. His character is supposed to be so infirm at one point that he can't bath himself and then later he spends time training Stallone's character. The fact that he uses an electric wheeled cart is not enough to span the chasm between these two views.  Kim Basinger turns out to be a more important character in the story, but she is also not given enough to work with.

So the things that succeed are the stars. DeNiro manages to go back and forth between goofy aging lug and bitter resentful egotist without seeming to be schizophrenic. He does mug for the camera at times but he also plays some scenes with a nice degree of sincerity. The lost family angle is a little hokey, but DeNiro manages to sell the idea of an irresponsible self centered bastard, and the pitiful old guy in funny underwear in the very next scene. The young man who plays his son is fine but is stuck in a pretty cliche role. The little kid who turns out to be his grandchild is "TV kid" precocious, but he also is cute as hell and easy to forgive because of that. Stallone is trapped a bit in the opening sections as the introverted former boxer, that gets financially pushed into making the deal that sets up the fight rematch. We have seen this sullen, silent type in a lot of other films. Once his character reconnects with old flame Basinger, the performance feels a lot more natural even if the script does not. The idea of two men at or nearing seventy, being able to perform in the ring as they do here is far fetched but if you can get past that thought, they sell it as well as anyone could.

This poster is better than the movie.

This movie reminded me of another DeNiro misfire from 25 years ago, "we're No Angels". A comedy match with Sean Penn that does not work as a comedy and struggles to work as a redemption story. It's heart is in the right place but something along the way just did not work. "Grudge Match" actually does have a grain of a good idea in it, but the stunt casting and awkwardness of the set up undermines the more believable although cliched parts of the story. If you see it and enjoy it, good for you, just don't tell anyone because they already have preconceptions about the movie and then they will start having those same ideas about you.