Death Wish V: The Face of Death

Dir: Allan A. Goldstein

1994

****

I’m not sure anyone expected that there would be a fifth Death Wish film but somehow, seven years later, there was. The three previous films in the Death Wish series were produced by Cannon Films but in 1989 Cannon faced bankruptcy and its financial records came under investigation. Co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus also had an infamous personal falling out during the collapse of their company. Golan soon launched his own company, 21st Century Film Corporation whereby each film tended to have small budgets and performed poorly at the box office, much like Cannon. Meanwhile, the Death Wish films continued to enjoy popularity in the video and television market. Golan came up with the idea of a fifth Death Wish film to serve as a much-needed hit for the company. It was a box-office disaster. People didn’t go to the cinema to watch Death Wish films, they rented them on VHS, after all those years Golan still didn’t grasp this. Financing to start the film production was secured through a loan from the Lewis Horwitz Organization. Golan still owned an unused screenplay for a Death Wish film, submitted in the late 1980s by J. Lee Thompson and Gail Morgan Hickman but he decided against using it, since it would be too costly to produce. Instead, he hired Michael Colleary to write a new script. Colleary would go on to write Face/Off and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Golan initially reserved directorial duties for himself but his preoccupation with directing Crime and Punishment reportedly prevented him from doing so. Michael Winner was available to direct, but was never asked to do so. According to Winner, his lack of interest in directing Death Wish 4: The Crackdown may have led Golan to count him out. Golan then hired Steve Carver for the job, an experienced director in the action film genre. Carver recalled discussing with Bronson over the depiction of Paul Kersey. Bronson wanted the character to become more sympathetic and less violent. Carver and screenwriter Stephen Peters started co-operating in revising the script. Carver worked on pre-production for two months before Golan decided to replace him. His replacement was Allan A. Goldstein, who himself was surprised at the offer, since he specialized in drama films. Death Wish V was his first action film, he hadn’t seen the previous films, and when revising the script he decided that what the series needed was more humor and black comedy elements. Bronson and Golan were not on speaking terms during the filming, only communicating by using Goldstein as an intermediary. Goldstein has since said he was uncertain of the reasons behind this adversarial relationship but then Golan wasn’t around during filming, so escaped the drama that the crew of the first four films had to endure. To be absolutely clear, it’s a terrible film, but it does have certain points that I really enjoyed. Firstly, there aren’t any gratuitous rape scenes. A strange thing to say when talking about any other film outside of the Death Wish franchise. Secondly, it has a really great villain thanks to the great Michael Parks. Paul Kersey (Bronson) returns to New York City, having assumed the name Paul Stewart under the witness protection program. He is invited by girlfriend and designer Olivia Regent (Lesley-Anne Down) to a particularly 80s fashion show (in the mid-90s). Backstage, mobster Tommy O'Shea (Parks) and his goons muscle in. Tommy threatens Olivia, who is his ex-wife and mother to their daughter Chelsea (Erica Lancaster), over money he has invested in her business. Olivia later informs Paul of her ex-husband's behavior after he finds bruises on her hand. Paul confronts him, but Tommy's henchman Chicki Paconi (Kevin Lund) pulls out a revolver at Paul. The confrontation ends with the arrival of Chelsea. D.A. Brian Hoyle (Saul Rubinek – who played a thug in the first Death Wish movie) and his associate detective Lt. Hector Vasquez (Miguel Sandoval) visit Paul's home. He informs them about Tommy O'Shea. Hoyle says they have been trying to nab Tommy for years, and he wants Olivia to testify. That night at a restaurant, Paul proposes to Olivia, who accepts. Olivia excuses herself to the bathroom and is attacked by Tommy's associate, Freddie "Flakes" Garrity (Robert Joy), a supposed brilliant assassin, who is dressed as the most unconvincing women you have ever seen. He bashes her head on a mirror, supposedly disfiguring her face to the point she can’t look at herself and the doctors had to ‘fight to save her life’, even though she clearly only had a scratch above her eye. Freddie escapes but Paul gets a look at him and cleverly sees through his drag outfit. At the hospital, Paul is told that even if Olivia will get reconstructive surgery, her face will never be the same. While there, he meets Lt. Mickey King (Kenneth Welsh) and his partner Janice Omori (Lisa Inouye), who are working on the O'Shea's case. During a failed bugging mission on the mob, Janice is killed after getting struck by Freddie's car. Then at the hospital, Lt. King warns Kersey not to go back to his old ways, before saying that he has been working on the case for 16 years. Kersey remarks that is a long time to be failing. Freddie and his henchmen, pretending to be the cops sent to protect Olivia, attack Paul and Olivia. Freddie shoots Olivia in the back, killing her as the couple tries to escape. Paul jumps from the roof of his apartment, where he lands in a pile of trash bags, and is retrieved by the police. It’s rather odd that the front of their house is a house and the back of their house is a huge warehouse, but these are minor details. Tommy is cleared of involvement in Olivia's death and seeks custody of their daughter. The vigilante is back. This time he is assisted by Hoyle, who learns his department has been corrupted by Tommy. Paul poisons Chicki with cyanide in his cannoli. He then kills Freddie in the most hilariously convoluted manner by blowing him up with a remote-controlled soccer ball. Tommy finds out from an informant that Paul is the vigilante and will be going after him for killing Olivia. The informant, revealed to be Vasquez, tries to kill Paul himself, but Paul gets the upper hand and kills him. Hoyle arrives and finds out Tommy wants both him and Paul dead. Hoyle tells Paul he must never see him again, and Paul agrees. Tommy hires three hoodlums (the same criminals responsible for murdering Paul's wife and mugging his daughter twenty years earlier) to go after Paul at the dress factory, using Chelsea as bait, although she manages to escape. Paul first faces the killers and then Sal, another one of Tommy's men, by shooting him into an industrial sewing machine. Paul picks up an empty bottle, smashes it, and cuts Tommy's face in retaliation for what he did to Olivia. Lt. King then arrives, but is wounded by Tommy. Armed with a shotgun, he corners Tommy and knocks him into an acid pool, where he disintegrates. I do love it when the bad guy disintegrates at the end of a movie. Like I say, it’s utter garbage but Parks is a great villain and its got that certain magic that bad 90s action films had that make me go all nostalgic. Awful, but thoroughly entertaining.

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead

Dir: Don Coscarelli

1994

***

After Phantasm II received little success with a mainstream audience, Universal Studios relaxed their pressure on Don Coscarelli to make any more and it looked as if the series was done. However, Universal did tell Coscarelli that, while they where unwilling to theatrically distribute any further, should he and his associates decide to make another (paying for it themselves) they would be prepared to distribute it straight to VHS. After a few years, and realising he’d have full creative output again, Coscarelli wrote a third installment, and offered the role of Mike to his original performer, A. Michael Baldwin, who returned to the role after almost 16 years. Phantasm III was one of the top 100 highest selling direct-to-video titles of 1994 and the hard-core fans, of which there were many, were very happy indeed. From this point on, the Phantasm films were for fans of the original only, there was no compromise, you either followed Coscarelli down the rabbit hole or you watched something entirely different. While I did follow Coscarelli down the rabbit hole (and will continue to do so), I can’t help but think his talents could be put to better use elsewhere, as Bubba Ho-Tep and John Dies At The End have since proven. However, I’m locked in, Reggie isn’t and never will be the next Ash (Evil Dead) but the Phantasm films are so unique and so odd, that I can’t help but get into them. The film starts exactly where the last film ends (even though it was finished six years before). Immediately after his apparent demise at the end of Phantasm II, a new Tall Man (still played by Angus Scrimm) emerges from a dimensional portal. At the same time, the hearse that carries Liz and Mike explodes. Reggie finds Liz dead but saves Mike from the Tall Man by threatening to kill them all with a grenade. The Tall Man retreats with Liz's head and threatens to return for Mike when he's well again. After Mike spends two years comatose in the hospital, he has a near death experience in which his dead brother Jody and the Tall Man appear. As he wakes from his coma, he is attacked by a demonic nurse but quickly subdues her. Reggie arrives as she dies, her scalp bursting open to reveal a sphere which takes off through the window after it approaches Mike. Back at home, the Tall Man arrives via dimensional fork, fights off Reggie, transforms Jody into a charred sphere, and draws Mike through the gate with him. The next morning, Reggie (with the Jody-sphere) travels to a deserted town and is captured by three looters, who lock him in the trunk of the Hemi-'Cuda. Reggie is rescued by a young boy named Tim, who kills the looters when they break into his house. After they have buried the looters in the yard, Tim tells Reggie how the Tall Man took his parents and destroyed the town. In the morning, Reggie and Tim find the three graves empty and their hearse gone. Reggie tries to leave Tim with an orphanage, but the boy hides in Reggie's car. Reggie enters a mausoleum and is confronted by a sphere, but he is subdued by two young women, Tanesha and Rocky, before he can destroy it. Reggie tries to warn them, but Tanesha is killed by the sphere. Tim appears and destroys it with his pistol. The three join forces, come upon a convoy of hearses driven by Gravers, and decide to follow them. At night, Jody appears to Reggie in a dream and takes him to the Tall Man's lair, where they rescue Mike. As Reggie wakes, Jody opens a portal and Mike emerges. The Tall Man tries to follow, but Reggie closes the portal, leaving the Tall Man's hands behind. After fighting off the Tall Man's minions, including the undead looters, they enter a large mortuary. Inside, they find a cryonics facility, and Mike remembers that the Tall Man dislikes cold. While Reggie, Rocky, and Tim are separated and attacked by the looters, Mike consults with the Jody-sphere, who explains that the Tall Man is amassing an army to conquer dimensions: brains are harvested to turn into the killer spheres, and the bodies are shrunken and turned into drones. The Tall Man senses their presence, captures Mike, and straps him onto a table. Two of the looters wheel in Tim. Mike tries to give a message to Tim, warning him that "there are thousands of them", but Mike is paralyzed by the Tall Man. Meanwhile, Rocky defeats her attacker and helps Reggie. Cut free by the Jody-sphere, Tim runs into the remaining looters, who are killed by the Jody-sphere and Reggie's 4-barrel shotgun. The trio crash into the embalming room, where the Tall Man is operating on Mike. Rocky impales the Tall Man with a spear dipped in liquid nitrogen, and they lock him in the refrigerator room. However, a golden sphere breaks out of his head and attacks them; Reggie catches it in a plunger and, with some help, manages to dump it into the nitrogen tank. Mike finds a golden sphere in his own head, and his eyes turn silver. Complaining of the cold, he leaves with Jody and warns Reggie to stay away. Reggie suggests exploring the mortuary, but Rocky declines and leaves too. Tim reports that Mike tried to warn him, but they find out too late that there are dozens of spheres left, and Reggie is pinned to the wall by them. As Tim is about to destroy the spheres by his pistol, a new Tall Man reappears, says "It's never over" and watches as Tim is pulled through a window by a creature. Dream Sequences, surrealism, abstract fantasy and A. Michael Baldwin. The franchise is back where it belongs. I don’t think its as strong as the previous films but it was nice revisiting old friends and seeing, A. Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister, Bill Thornbury and Angus Scrimm reunited once again in the same scene after fifteen years. Coscarelli has always been his own uniquely creative force but you can tell he started reading the works of Joe R. Lansdale when writing this particular script. The money the saved by re-using the same score from the previous film allowed them to use digital effects for the first time in a Phantasm – an exciting move I’m sure in 1994 but my goodness does it age the film now. Thankfully they still used some old-school special effects for some of the bloodier scenes. Ridiculous and so convoluted it’ll give even Star Trek nerds a headache but you either love it, hate it or have become so transfixed and numbed by its strangeness that you haven’t made up your mind yet but will keep watching anyway.

The Monk and the Fish

Dir: Michaël Dudok de Wit

1994

****

Michael Dudok de Wit’s Le Moine et le poisson (The Monk and the Fish), is a wonderfully playful short animation, one of the last of its kind to use classic cel animation techniques using simply a brush, Indian Ink and watercolours and no computer involvement whatsoever. Standing next to a water reservoir in a monastery enclave, our titular monk sees a fish and races off to get his net to catch it. However, the fish eludes him and the monk gets more and more agitated as he tries increasingly extreme ways of catching it. He soon gets into the pond himself and also enlists the help of other monks from the monastery. He tries candles and a bow and arrow and chases it night and day to no avail. The more the fish manages to evade him, the more obsessed the monk becomes. He follows the fish out of the pond into a canal, through different landscapes and out of the confines of the monastery. Eventually the chase gets less frantic and the monk and the fish begin to move in harmony. In the wonderfully zen finale, both monk and fish float through a symbolic doorway into a vast open space and drift off into the sky together. It’s hard to decide who comes of best in the end, the monk, the fish or the audience. It’s simple, universal and beautifully unpredictable. It’s also remarkably rewarding, for a story that doesn’t really develop until the last few seconds of the film. It was nominated for the Academy Award for best Animated Short at the 67th Oscars and set Michael Dudok de Wit on his way (he would eventually win for his 2000 short animation Father and Daughter). There is wonderfully playful edge to de Wit’s largely symbolic, serious and zen-like stories, so it is no wonder that years later Studio Ghibli came calling.

Pulp Fiction

Dir: Quentin Tarantino

1994

*****

Columbia Tristar turned down Pulp Fiction describing it as ‘Too demented’. It’s shocking to think that a big film production company wouldn’t at least recognise Quentin Tarantino’s now-modern classic as something a little different and exciting, but then QT is still asked about violence in his movie to this day by mind-numbingly empty-headed interviewers, and films with non-linear narratives are still only made by independent film makers. I had mixed feelings about Pulp Fiction when it first came out. I was in the glorious early years of becoming a cinephile, discovering a whole world that I did not know existed, spending most of my afternoons with Louis Malle, Yasujiro Ozu and Aki Kaurismaki. I saw QT as nothing more than a copycat, someone who had spent an awful lot of time working in a video store, who had sucked in about as much as he could and spat it all out on celluloid. In many ways this is exactly what QT is, but, what I didn’t ever appreciate back in 1994 was just how well he had put these ideas together. I remember thinking the chatty dialogue was stupid, the emperor’s new clothes and really nothing special but the truth was he brought the ordinary into the mainstream. Most modern scripts are still a couple of decades behind Pulp Fiction, the truth is, like many, I was incredibly jealous that I hadn’t had come up with the idea first. It’s simple but brilliant. The sceptic in me desperately wants to say that this was an attempt at capturing the essence of cool, but the truth is it is cool in its own right. I don’t think QT is ‘cool’ as such but he knows how to conjure it, and his cast (who are cool) generate it with ease. I think every actor that has worked with QT since Pulp Fiction has tried to emulate the characters within it – a little too much in certain cases, indeed, Pulp Fiction will always be his signature film, but after all this time I’ve grown to appreciate that, rather than be put off by it. I have always been critical of QT and of Pulp Fiction but the truth is it’s an incredibly watchable film, over twenty years later and I can still watch it and get goosebumps. Don’t tell the police, but it was the first film I saw in the cinema that I was underage for. I remember being on the edge of my seat for a good part of the movie, not only because I had no idea what to expect – knowing many of the scenes were said to be ultra-violent, but also because I was expecting to be kicked out at any minute. I wasn’t kicked out and it really wasn’t that violent. In fact, there really is hardly any violence at all, no more than your average horror or action film. It’s one of those films that has received all the wrong kinds of hype, even to this day. It’s constantly misunderstood, mis-sold and spoken of like no one has ever seen it. Serendipity has been very kind to QT but then one could say he planted the seed, he may not have known what the flower would be come, but he knew it would grow. The opening credits begins with a dictionary definition of Pulp Fiction and still people muse over what it is about, like it isn’t self-explanatory. QT’s extensive use of pastiche and homage make it something of a postmodern noir masterpiece that, for better and for worse, opened the floodgates to more creative independent filmmakers. I don’t think you can really deny the impact Pulp Fiction had on modern cinema, it was a game-changer for sure and whether you love it or hate it, it pushed boundaries that were long overdue a push. QT clearly loves other directors who left little bits of themselves in them, indeed, you know all of his films are influenced by others and are, in some cases, carbon copies of other ideas, but there is always something from the man himself. Whether it is a tie in from one of his other films or reference to something from his own ‘universe’, you know a QT film, his signature was established from the outset and you can deny him that creative brilliance just because it’s simple. Seven interweaving stories involving the same characters over the course of a few days, all very simple but all totally unpredictable. The initial concept of the film is fascinating. Roger Avery wrote the rough first draft of what Pulp Fiction would become in 1990. He and QT came up with an idea for a short that quickly turned into a trilogy. Initially, they were going to write a three-part horror anthology; QT and Avery project was named Black Mask after the popular crime fiction magazine and featured an initial idea from QT, a following one from Avery and a third collaboration would follow. QT’s idea ended up becoming Reservoir Dogs and Avery’s ‘Pandemonium Reigns’ would form the ‘Gold watch’ sequence of Pulp Fiction. Everything changed after Reservoir Dogs, QT still wanted to make a trilogy but in the end the he decided that it would be better to tell different stories within one film. In his own words; “I got the idea of doing something that novelists get a chance to do but filmmakers don’t: telling three separate stories, having characters float in and out with different weights depending on the story. Part of the trick is to take these movie characters, these genre characters and these genre situations and actually apply them to some of real life’s rules and see how they unravel.” Two scenes in Pulp Fiction were written by Avery for the True Romance screenplay but were left out of the film. QT knew who he wanted to cast and pretty much got his way. He launched and relaunched the careers of many actors and put together and satisfyingly eclectic cast. John Travolta was a surprise choice for everyone. The producers wanted Daniel Day-Lewis, other names put forward included Alec Baldwin, Gary Oldman, Sean Penn, Dennis Quaid and just about every other bankable leading actor popular that year. It was written with Michael Madsen in mind and was offered to him but he turned it down to star in Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp – a decision he has expressed regret over ever since. It turned out to be the character of his career (Saturday Night Fever fans may disagree) and it is now impossible to see anyone else in the role. He was very neatly suggested as the brother of Madsen’s character from Reservoir Dogs and a film starring both was touted but alas, it never was. Likewise, the character Jules was very nearly Michael Beach – who was said to be very good, but it is impossible to think of anyone other than Samuel L. Jackson in the role. Johnny Depp or Christian Slater nearly played Pumpkin instead of Tim Roth and they could have played opposite either Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Jason Leigh or Marisa Tomei as Honey Bunny instead of Amanda Plummer. I like them all but in all honesty having Clarence and Alabama from True Romance starring opposite each other as different characters probably wouldn’t have worked as well as one might think. Depp was also considered for the character Butch along with Matt Dillon and Nicolas Cage. The mind boggles as to how either of those would have worked out. Harvey Keitel was always Winston Wolf but there was talk of Al Pacino and Michael Parks taking on the role should he become unavailable. QT himself was thinking of playing Lance instead of Jimmy but decided he’s be better off behind the camera for the overdose scene, and while John Cusack and Bill Paxton were considered (as well as Depp, Cage and Slater), Eric Stoltz rightly got the part. Mia Wallace was the part everyone wanted, I’ll be honest and say that Marisa Tomei, Patricia Arquette, Pam Grier, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright and Meg Tilly would have all been great – Uma Thurman made the role her own, but it’s not a performance that I’ve always loved. According to QC, Jennfer Aniston came very close to getting the part but I find that hard to imagine. I love Carl Weathers, Sid Haig, Jim Brown and Charles S. Dutton but Ving Rhames is Marcellus Wallace, just as Christopher Walken was Captain Koons over Robert De Niro, Michael Parks and Tommy Lee Jones. As much as I love him, Bruce Campbell would have been completely wrong for Maynard. Courtney Love once said that QT approached her late husband Kurt Cobain to play Lance but he denied it, saying he never once met or spoke to Cobain before his death in 93. QT has said that friend and fellow Reservoir Dog Steve Buscemi was due to star as one of the main characters but ended up with a cameo due to time conflicts with another movie. What his role would have been remains a mystery. Pulp Fiction could have ended up as a very different type of film, I think they mostly got it right but I also think they got lucky. So much of the film is mused over, it has become something beyond cult and beyond mainstream. It is clear that the briefcase is full of ‘treasure’, whether it be money, drugs or gold, it doesn’t really matter, and yet nerds and cinephiles still argue about what it could mean. This is the side of Pulp Fiction that has always put me off. It’s a very simple exercise in symbolism, it’s relatively unimportant, quite a nice touch visually, but unimportant all the same. Uma Thurman draws a square on the screen for goodness sake, and besides, it’s actually copied from 1955’s Kiss Me Deadly. Cinephiles will see the influences, and it is something of a sport to try and spot them all, but when the average viewer thinks it’s 100% original, well, that’s when I hate QT films. However, I still consider him something of a genius. He has been described as a cinematic kleptomaniac, and I’ll go along with that. He’s picked the fruit from other people’s trees, he didn’t grow his own tomatoes but he’s one hell of a chief. You can wax lyrical about the contents of his films all day long and there are more fan theories to Pulp Fiction than any other non-science fiction film. These theories range from profound to utterly ridiculous – personally, I just like how QT suggests just how terrible things can become from taking overlong toilet breaks – but the others also make for fine reading and great film-based drunken chit-chat. The snappy script, the colourful characters, the non-linear narrative and the awesome cinematography all go towards making Pulp Fiction a bona fide cult classic and a masterwork in its own right. The fact that people still talk and reference it today confirms that, and it still feels fresh. I’m not sure that anyone involved has made a better film since.

Cemetery Man (AKA Dellamorte Dellamore)
Dir: Michele Soavi
1994
****
Based on Tiziano Sclavi’s 1991 novel, Dellamorte Dellamore (AKA Cemetery Man) has become something of a cult favourite. Dellamorte Dellamore is Italian word play, as della morte (speeded as two separate words) means ‘of death’ and dell’amore (again spelled seperatly) means ‘of love’. So the title is translated as ‘On the death of love’ or ‘About death, about love’. Also, the film’s protagonist is called Francesco Dellamorte and his mother’s maiden name was Dellamore. It’s probably no surprise that the American distributor changed the title, although I don’t think Cemetery Man quite suits the film. Fans of Sclavi’s comic Dylan Dog will see a lot of it in the film, although it isn’t an adaption, it does carry over many elements. The character Dylan Dog was based on Rupert Everett, after Sclavi saw him in Marek Kanievska’s 1984 film Another Country. I have no idea whether Everett was aware that his likeness had been used but he was approached to star in Dellamorte Dellamore, even though he clearly isn’t Italian, and agreed. Sclavi and director Michele Soavi clearly wanted Everett, so much so that they gave up the opportunity to make the film in America, their country of choice, because the American studios were only interested if Matt Dillon was attached to the main part. Dellamore is a cemetery caretaker in the small Italian town of Buffalora. He lives in a dilapidated house on the premises with only his mentally handicapped assistant Gnaghi (played by François Hadji-Lazaro) for company. The pair look after the grounds, keep it tidy and kill zombies, as newer residents of the grounds tend to rise from their graves after the seventh day of being buried. Dellamore refers to them as ‘returners’ and sees his job as a chosen vocation, something he’d like to be rid of but was somehow chosen to do. The town’s youth constantly mock him and suggest he is impotent, something that may or may not be true. Dellamore is lonely, desperate for love, his days are spent reading outdated telephone directories, in which he crosses out the names of the deceased, and trying to assemble a puzzle shaped like a human skull. Gnaghi on the other hand spends his time eating spaghetti and watching television, with the word "Gna" being the only one in his vocabulary. Dellamorte’s life takes a bizarre turn when he falls in love with a young widow (played by Anna Falchi and only referred to as ‘Her’ in the film) of an elderly but wealthy business man. She falls in love him too, and the pair get amorous in his hidden ossuary until they are disturbed by her undead husband and she is bitten. A heart-broken Dellamorte waits until she returns and kills her like he does with the others, although the temptation to let her live scares him. Things are then never the same, Dellamorte sees his love everywhere and can’t get her out of his mind and descends into madness. Murder, castration, prostitution, suicide, necrophilia and the marriage of a taking severed head stuffed into the shell of an old television set are then explored but life itself is questioned. It’s a dizzying trip of chaos and darkness, with a wonderful sense of poetry about it. The film’s uneven tone would be the death of most movies but somehow it works with Dellamorte Dellamore. It’s almost a combination of three or four stories, each one more absurd than the next but each containing plenty of depth and symbolism. The imagery is influenced by everything from Rene Magritte to Sam Raimi and much of the plot and quotes are a metaphor for fascism, Sclavi keeping the anti-fascist movement alive and well in the world of Italian art and film – it’s no Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom but at least you can watch it more than once. It’s filmed beautifully, like a romantic Giallo with hints of H.P. Lovecraft. It is consistent only in its high entertainment value, Rupert Everett is brilliant and gives the performance his all and I absolutely love the story’s conclusion. Easily one of the best cult films of the 90s that deserves far more credit than it has received. Everett supposedly approached Soavi about producing an American remake a few years later but nothing materialized and most of the crew were spooked anyway after one of the crew members removed one of the bones from the ossuary scene and encountered an angry ghost. The crew member didn’t realise that the ossuary was in fact real and the crew were said to be split on whether they should continue, so they would unlikely return for a remake, which was one of Soavi’s terms. It’s better left the classic cult film that it is.

Street Fighter
Dir: Steven E. de Souza
1994
*
Street Fighter was a phenomenon back in the early 90s that I’m not sure kids these days can really appreciate. Not because it’s the best game ever made, but more the way in which we used to play it. I’m talking arcade. Everyone had their spot and the mission was to be the high-scorer at that spot for the rest of time. My spot, or I should say, my arcade machine, was located in the back room of my local independent video rental shop (another thing kids these days probably won’t appreciate). There were three or four machines back there in total, I can’t remember what the others were, but during the summer holidays of 1991, Street Fighter was king. I have no idea how I was able to afford it or how much a go used to cost but I literally spent every day of every week in that little back room. I think I was top of the table twice but not for very long, but I was however, always in the top ten. My name was pretty safe too, with two entries if I recall, giving me the opportunity to excel at fighting as more than one character. Years later, when I got a home console with the game, I was terrible and never managed to get the hang of it – to be honest, it just wasn’t the same. The arcade, the video shop, the smell…. how I miss them. Literally the only thing that got us kids out of the arcade and spending money on something other than gaming back then was the cinema. There was a lot of rubbish out then, nothing really for kids in their early teens - which they were allowed to see legally anyway. So when our favourite video game was suddenly adapted into a big Hollywood action movie it was a no-brainer, we had to go and see, and see it we did. It really was a no-brainer. Street Fighter only ever had a loose story, I felt that the possibilities were fairly endless for a film adaptation, all you needed was a good cast, some great design, attention to detail and loads of great fights. The film had very few of these things. I’ll start with the good, it won’t take long. There were tiny flourishes, blink and you’d miss it details, which were very pleasing to a hardened Street Fighter. The gold statue in Sagat's business parlor (the lady lying on her side) is the same statue that can be seen in Sagat's backdrop in the game, the fresco found in the training room of Bison's base of a tsunami is a reproduction of the stamp found in Honda's stage, on the wall of a bathroom, in the game and when M. Bison is in his podium at the end of the movie you can see that it is controlled by arcade buttons and a joystick – a lovely touch that was appreciated by us fans. My friends at the time were of differing levels of obsession, some were pleased with the variations in costumes, while others were horrified that Guile was wearing his blue tank top/camouflage pants, which was based on his Street Fighter II Turbo variation and Chun-Li was wearing her red lady dragon dress, which was based on her Street Fighter II: Champion(ship) Edition variation. Even at the wise old age of fifteen, I realised that the costumes were the least of the film’s problems. I think the biggest problem I had, apart from the awful story they came up with, was the lack of one-on-one fighting – Street Fighting basically. I wanted to see my favourite characters brawl and fight it out against each other – seeing as that’s what the game is literally all about. A fight between E. Honda and Zangief should have been epic, and while I appreciated the Godzilla homage, it was totally out of place and made very little sense to me – especially as E. Honda was Samoan in the film, rather than Japanese as he is in the game. And why did Zangief turn good? Why was he depicted as being a fool? He was my favourite player goddammit! E. Honda did slap him at one stage but I wanted to see his proper full on ‘Hundred Hand Slap’ attack like in the game. Ryu did a ‘Hadouken’ move early on but didn’t make the noise – so it doesn’t count, he also does his hurricane kick while Vega gives him his rolling stab, but neither are very exciting or convincing. I think Ken did a shoryuken but again, no sound effects mean it doesn’t count. Guile’s flash kicks look nothing like they should and only Bison’s psycho crusher looks like it does in the actual game. I wanted a sonic boom goddammit! They could have at least smashed a car up half way through the movie. I was looking forward to seeing Dhalsim stretch his arms to punch Vega in the face (as I had made him do a thousand times before) but he didn’t. He totally could have, the film was camp and over the top, a few ridiculous special effects would have been a huge improvement and could have made the film something of a cult classic. Dhalsim doesn’t look anything like he does in the game until the end of the movie, in his second-to-last scene his arm is splashed with chemicals, which is clearly referencing (or foreshadowing) his stretching-limbs move which I’m guessing, was intended to appear in the sequel. A fairly arrogant move, assuming a sequel when they’ve put little money of effort into it. Director Steven E. de Souza claimed he was a big fan of the game and blamed many of the film’s restrictions/issues on Capcom – makers of the game and co-financiers of the film. Capcom required that they approved every aspect of the production before it was actioned, but I can’t see them denying certain basics of the game. They did enforce a strict filming schedule and I think this was a big factor on the lack of story, as Souza himself admitted he wrote the script in one night, knowing the Capcom people would be in town the following day. I can’t help but think he must have been a cheap director. Capcom had always wanted Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and asked him to be cast. He actually turned down the role of Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat to do it, which is like jumping a shark only to land in the mouth of a killer whale. After Van Damme was cast and Raúl Juliá was cast as the villain Bison, most of the casting budget had been spent. Van Damme's fee alone took nearly 8 million dollars of the film's 35 million dollar budget. This meant that the majority of other parts had to go to little-known or unknown actors. Kylie Minogue was cast as Cammy as a result of the Australian Actors' Guild wanting Souza to hire an Australian actor. By the time he received the request the only part not cast was that of Cammy. De Souza first learned of Minogue from her cover photo on a "World's 30 Most Beautiful People" edition of Who magazine. Japanese actor Kenya Sawada appeared in the film as a part of a promotional contract with Capcom, it was all about the money at the end of the day. The MPAA gave the first submitted cut of the film an R classification which was unacceptably high for Capcom, who had stated from the start that it should be a PG-13 film. I would love to see all the scenes cut from the original movie, it’s probably a much better film with them but we’ll never know. There is no getting around the fact, Street Fighter the movie is awful. The only wonderful thing about the whole film is Raul Julia. Julia, who knew he was terminally ill with cancer, asked his young kids what his last movie should be. He wanted to leave them with something, a film and a performance for them, and they chose Street Fighter. Bloody kids. Of course Julia honoured his promise and he gave it his all, even though it was clear he was in pain and weak. His performance is spot on, it’s just sad that this was to be the great actor’s last film. His brilliant performance didn’t really help the film much though, as his brilliance only highlighted the terrible acting of his co-stars. Because his condition wasn’t initially known to Souza, his schedule involving world karate champion Benny Urquidez and stunt coordinator Charlie Picerni didn’t quite go to plan. Picerni took the job with the condition that he would need ample time to train the cast. Initially plans were to shoot Juliá's less intensive scenes first while the rest of the cast would train with Picerni, however upon seeing Juliá, de Souza realized that they could not show him in his current weakened state and was forced to switch the filming around. This meant that the cast would generally be trained only right before their scenes—sometimes only hours ahead. I can forgive the film a lot because of Julia’s selfless act. It’s not often a wonderful story comes from such an abysmal film, so I forgive the absence of Fei Long, I am no longer upset that Fabio was replaced in the role of Vega and I can overlook the final scene and the recreation of the collective character’s ‘Win’ screen. However, I cannot forgive them for what they did to Blanka. What in the name of all that is holy, was that? Unforgivable, and like that, I rate 1994’s Street Fighter with the shameful one star it deserves. Horrible.

Total Balalaika Show

Dir: Aki Kaurismäki

1994

*****

I found an old music festival poster while sorting through junk in my house the other day. I was amazed at just how many great bands had been playing while I was watching absolute garbage somewhere else at another stage. I didn’t know of many of the great bands there, indeed, many weren’t very big at the time but the list of bands I missed, that I will never be able to see again, is long. The number of gigs I’ve missed, thinking that I was tired and I’d see them next time, is disgustingly long too. Sometimes living in London I forget just how lucky I am to see so many great artists play in venues just down the road from me, I take it for granted. Now, I’ve never been to Helsinki, have no plans to go and certainly didn’t go in 1994 but, if the Leningrad Cowboys announced they were getting back together, resurrecting passed members and playing tomorrow, I’d be on the next plane. Total Balalaika Show is the concert I’d go to if I had a time machine. The concert features the was fictional, now factual band Leningrad Cowboys, who featured in Aki Kaurismäki’s 1989 film Leningrad Cowboys Go America and its sequel, LeningradCowboys Meet Moses. The Cowboys are joined on stage by The Alexandrov Ensemble, the official army choir of the Russian armed forces. The concert took place on 12 June 1993 on Senate Square in Helsinki, Finland. The event drew a crowd of approximately 70,000 people from two nations - Finland and Russia (the fictional band were Russian, the real band were Finnish) - that had been engaged in a state of "peaceful coexistence" during the Cold War. The concert featured an eclectic mix of Western rock and Russian folk music, and folk dancers performing to rock songs. These included:

•        Finlandia

•        Let's Work Together

•        The Volga Boatmen's Song

•        Happy Together

•        Delilah

•        Knockin' on Heaven's Door

•        Oh, Field

•        Kalinka

•        Gimme All Your Lovin'

•        Jewelry Box

•        Sweet Home Alabama

•        Dark Eyes

•        Those Were The Days

Now it’s not much of a movie, but more of a performance. The same could be said for both Leningrad Cowboys Go America and Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, you just have to let yourself be engulfed by its satisfyingly surreal style. It feels like the final chapter of a trilogy and the completion of a bigger story; the band finally made it, both fictionally and in real life. It’s my favourite concert movie by far.

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses

Dir: Aki Kaurismäki

1994

*****

I absolutely adored Aki Kaurismaki’s 1989 film LeningradCowboys Go America but it was one of the rare films that I would argue didn't need a sequel. However, I'm so glad he made one. Just as you thought the Leningrad Cowboy’s story couldn't get any more surreal, it does, and then some. It could never have the same impact of the first film, so the change in direction was cleverly though out and I would say it's probably funnier. The character of Moses, played by the late great Matti Pellonpää, is inspired. Half the band die of tequila poisoning, Siberia becomes "the Promised Land" and the Statue of Liberty gets her nose stolen. If that's not great writing, I don't know what is. After the events of the first film, the band (now a real band and not just a fictional one), have been enjoying success in Mexico. Enjoying success a little too much in some cases, as half the bad have become tequila alcoholics and half of them have died of excessive drinking. The rest have become fully fledged Mexicans, represented by the fact they have all grown moustaches and wear Ponchos (but still have their pompadours and winklepickers of course). Destitute and down on their luck, the band suddenly receives a telegram requesting their presence at a gig in Coney Island, New York. Igor, now their road manager, smuggles them across the border and gets them to New York, where they discover the sender of the telegram is none other than their ex-manager Vladimir (once again played by the brilliant Matti Pellonpää). Since Vladimir abandoned the band in Mexico at the end of the last film, he had gone through the experience of being re-born and now goes by the name Moses. He explains to them that, for purposes that are to be explained later, they must travel back to the Promised Land (Siberia). They agree and they board a boat back to Europe, just after Moses steals the Statue of Liberty’s nose as a souvenir. Instead of taking the boat, Moses stows away on the wing of a plane which he promptly falls off mid-flight and lands in the sea. He is reunited with the band as he is washed up at precisely the same time and place as their boat is harboured. Meanwhile, a CIA agent has learned of the missing nose and it hot on Moses’s tail. When the band is met by old friends from Serbia, they all take a bus to Brest to play the first of a few gigs in order to make money for travel. The CIA agent soon catches up with them and poses as a record producer but is soon found out and held prisoner by the band. They stop at Frankfurt, Leipzig, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia and find out their quest has something to do with the birth of a sacred calf but it’s a ridiculous ruse. Eventually the CIA agent also becomes born again and the bad live happily ever after in Siberia, where, people have warmed to them since their departure. There is always a fear that the sequel will tar a memory but not here. Everything that made the original film great is matched and bettered. One wonders whether they might have had another film in them, rather than Total Balalaika Show which is a concert movie. It’s a nonsensical masterpiece with music, my kind of silly and just about the coolest comedy ever made.

Boy Meets Girl

Dir: Ray Brady

1994

****

When I first saw Ray Brady’s now infamous Boy Meets Girl I remember thinking it was a somewhat cheap independent movie that had a few good ideas but didn’t quite live up to them. On a recent rewatch I believe the teenage me missed the point entirely. Natural Born Killers was the talk of 1994, so a film like Boy Meets Girl was duly overlooked, even though it became notorious as being one of the only films of the 90s to be banned by the BBFC – for eight whole years no less. It’s no ‘Video nasty’ though, quite the opposite. The film was banned due to the implications and suggestion of sexual torture, rather than because of brutal sex or gore. Boy Meets Girl is far more intelligent than that, which kind of makes it far darker. The premise is simple, a man meets a woman at a bar and they hit it off, after a few drinks the man goes back to the woman’s flat and they watch naughty films together. Thinking he’s on to a winner, the man happily drinks his drink and prepares himself for a night of passion. Instead, he passes out due to being drugged and wakes up strapped to a dentist chair. He is then duly tortured by the woman for the rest of the film. The poor quality film is a reflection of the film’s small budget and the battered old camera that was used, but somehow it gives the film a gritty edge, makes it realistic and somehow more sordid, like it’s an amateur snuff video or something. However, the fairly dreadful acting keeps the film firming within the low budget independent film category. It is the look, the dialogue and the idea that make Boy Meets Girl a unique success. It’s really not easy to watch, and even though the acting isn’t great, some of the reactions are quite blood-curdling. When filming in a council flat location in south London, Georgina Whitbourne was so convincing in her portrayal as a hysterically screaming victim that two vans loads of policemen arrived and stormed the set to save her, bringing filming to a halt. Quite a few films have pinched elements of the main idea for themselves but no other film has yet matched its unique style of psychological horror. I suspect the film isn’t exactly what it seems, and I suspect this is more a case of Pier Paolo Pasolini style symbolism, a metaphor, much like Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, for fascism. If you read up about serial killers, egotists, megalomaniac etc, the characters in the film fit the descriptions perfectly, but this is more than just a film about a serial killer. It explores the torturer and the tortured, the relationship and characteristics that could lead two people to this sort of situation. It could be a little bit if serendipity but I don’t think so, I think Boy Meets Girl is one of the most subtle but complex horror/thrillers that the world has never seen. Well, I say the world but there are quite a few successful film directors who have clearly seen it, and I’ll leave it at that.

Legends of the Fall

Dir: Edward Zwick

1994

***

1994's Legends of the Fall is something of a sprawling epic, based on 1979 novel of the same title by Jim Harrison, about the rivalry of three brother, covering several decades. The three brothers, played by Aidan Quinn, Brad Pitt and Henry Thomas, live with their father (played by Anthony Hopkins) at the family farm in the wilderness and plains of Montana in the early 20th century. The three brothers share a bond but are completely different from one another, their competitive nature often getting the best of them. Alfred (Quinn) is the eldest and looks after his brothers as best he can, always following his father's rules and doing the best he can at everything he attempts. His resentment runs deep, as his wayward younger brother Tristan (Pitt), who consistently flees the farm and adopts the traditions of the Native American, is openly regarded as his father's favourite. The younger son Samuel (Thomas) is his mother's favourite and adored by both his older brothers who are fiercely protective of him. The film covers the best part of five decades and sees the brothers abandoned by their mother, fight in World War II, compete for the same woman (Julia Ormond), fight bears (played by Bart the Bear, Hollywood legend) and run for congress. Much of the film is overcooked for that classic 'epic' feel. The film looks great throughout but I'm far too cynical to fall for its dream-like allure, no one ages over the forty odd years and the 'and so time passed..' montages became quite tiresome after the hundredth time. If it weren't for the montages and long, slow panning landscape scenes (and the fact everyone speaks so slowly) the whole film could have been wrapped up in an hour or so. That said, nothing ever feels like filler, far from it, it almost feels like 133 minutes wasn't enough time to tell the story properly. Had Legends of the Fall been adapted these days it would have been a mini-series, although I'm not sure who would watch it. Indeed everyone I know who has a soft spot for the film are all women in their late thirties. My wife regards it as one of her favourite films, I asked her what it was about and she couldn't tell me, she just remembered that it featured Brad Pitt on a horse. There is a lot to like about the film, even if you're not that bothered about sex-symbols and equestrianism but I would argue that there was nothing to really get excited about (unless all you're bothered about are sex-symbols and equestrianism). I can't fault the direction or acting, I just found it all a little too melodramatic and just that little bit hollow.

Once Were Warriors

Dir: Lee Tamahori

1994

*****

Based on the bestselling 1990 debut novel by Alan Duff, Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors has been voted best New Zealand film of all time and was famous for outselling Jurassic Park there in the early 90s. It's a devastatingly bleak look at what has become of many of the Māori families in modern society following development and economic progression. The land no longer belongs to the Māori people and many feel left behind. While this isn't an attack on the Māori people or New Zealanders in general, it just shows a very real struggle that many indigenous people have around the world. The story centres on one family, led by Jake "the Muss" Heke, a volatile and violent man with unpredictable mood swings. Along with his wife the couple have five children and live in the same dishevelled state house they've lived in for eighteen years. The children, two who are reaching adulthood, have become accustomed to their father's outbursts and late night parties their parents have. After one particularly rowdy evening, where Jake beats his wife Beth to the point she is completely unrecognizable. Due to her disfigured face, she is unable to attend a court appearance her second eldest son has for petty crime and she realizes that life like this can't continue. When her eldest son joins a gang and has his face completely tattooed in the Māori tā moko style and her other son is taken into a young offenders institute and starts learning the ways of old Beth realizes that her family are in the middle of an identity crisis and that she needs to go back to her roots and leave Jake. Jake, who is widely feared, doesn't take it lightly and the families struggle to leave him becomes a living nightmare that has cataclysmic conclusions. It is a brutally real and graphic depiction of domestic violence that shows the truth that many families face. It's also an in-depth look at the distortion of tradition and culture, of poverty and alcoholism. Temuera Morrison is terrifying as Jake "the Muss" Heke in one of the most villainous roles in cinema's history. Rene Owen is also brilliant as his long suffering wife Beth and while the performances from the supporting cast can be a bit amateurish at times, the two leads share some of cinema's most powerful scenes together, making Once Were Warriors an unforgettable experience. The subject matter is handled brilliantly, the crux of the message is grabbed with both hands and the film is only subtle when it has to be. I love it and it remains director Lee Tamahori's best film without a shadow of a doubt and I would suggest that it one of the most influential and important films of the 90s. If in years to come people look back at films that capture a decade, then Once Were Warriors should be towards the top of the list.