| Best of QT Fest - Day 4 |
This article is part of Best of QT Fest
Back again for another night at the Alamo Drafthouse, for what was officialy billed as a double-feature (but which anyone who spent anytime online knew would actually be a triple feature). It was, for the most part, another very solid night. It seems as if each day of the festival is building on the previous day's kick-assness, to create a steaming, smoldering ball of cinematic coolness. Will the ball keep rolling, gaining speed throughout the festival? Or will tomorrow night's back-to-back screenings of Billy Jack and The Vanishing Point create a towering wall of anti-cool that'll violently stop our poorly constructed analogy? Well I guess we'll have to see, won't we? But for now... the films!
The Outfit (1973)
Directed by: John Flynn
Starring: Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan
Tarantino Introduction:
Before QT hit the stage, an AFS worker took the mike and announced "Tim League has something he wants to say." The crowd erupted in laughter, knowing what was to come. See, last night, Tim referred to Brotherhood of Death as "a piece of shit," a pronouncement that caused QT and several internet commentators (most notably Harry at AICN) to lambast what they saw as a lapse in Tim's otherwise sterling sense of taste. Tim mentioned that he was going to get on-stage and call into question some of Harry's cinematic opinions (good-sized laugh from the AICN crowd and the rest of the audience), "but that would be too fucking easy" (huge laughs, as Harry nodds his head, as if to say, yeah... you got me). Anyway, Tim officially retracted his negative four-word review of BoD... and as an aside mentioned "I was getting it confused with The Muthers," to which QT (who had programmed The Muthers as tonight's final film) exclaimed "oh come on!"
He'd finally had enough of Tim's abuse, so Tarantino came on-stage, shook Tim's hand, and launched into an overview of tonight's first two movies. For his money, as good as the noir stuff in the 30s and 40s was, QT prefers the 70's crime movies as the best crime-related cinema to come out of Hollywood. And tonight's two films, are classic examples of that sub-genre. When he first saw The Outfit, it was under the Tennessee title "The Good Guys Always Win," a title that he really didn't like... at least until he heard that line read in the film. Then he thought it was pretty cool.
The next part of Tarantino's intro was one of the more eye-opening intros I have heard from him. This movie was based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake - a novel that featured a master criminal called Parker. When QT described Parker as "the greatest professional criminal thief in the history of crime literature, and maybe in all of literature," I took notice. When he ran down the list of actors who'd played Parker, I was fucking blown away. It seems that Westlake would allow studios to make movies of his books, but because he loved the character so much, as was so afraid that it'd get associated with a bad performance, he would never let the Parker character be called Parker. For instance, in this movie, Robert Duvall plays the Parker character, and is called Earl Macklin. Parker has also been played by the likes of Lee Marvin (Point Blank), Jim Brown (The Split), Peter Coyote (Slayground), Anna Karina (Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A.), and Mel Gibson (Payback). Wow.
He also told us of two other 'unofficial' cinematic depictions of Parker: Harvey Keitel as Mr White in Reservoir Dogs and De Niro as Neil McCauley in Heat. And without going into how, Tarantino assured us that he knew the Heat/Parker connection as fact, not as some "cinematic, sub-textual guess." Having this invisible character pointed out to me was a perfect example of what makes this festival, and QT's introductions so amazing.
The Outfit was a sequel to Point Blank, with Duvall in the Lee Marvin role and Karen Black in the Angie Dickinson role. The film also features Joe Don Baker as Parker's friend, Cody. QT considers this, along with his role in Charley Varrick, to be Joe Don's greatest role. A final interesting note, when QT was in highschool, he actually spent some time talking to director John Flynn about this film, by - get this - calling him up and pretending to be an author writing a book about directors. That's really damn cool.
Trailers:
The Bonnie Parker Story - She's a cigar-smoking hellcat from the 40s!
Walking Tall - Part 2 - Or, as the trailer kept calling it, "Part Two - Walking Tall"
Walking Tall - Final Chapter - Again, we get "Final Chapter - Walking Tall"... was the script writer dyslexic, or what? "iYou say Bufford Pusser... now that's a man!"
The Movie:
The night starts off with a bang as Robert Duvall plays a man with no fear. After the events in Point Blank landed him in jail, this movie opens with the Macklin (the Parker character) getting out, and trying to re-start a normal life. But the mob is still pissed about him robbing them back in Point Blank, so they blackmail his girlfriend, Bett Harrow (Karen Black) into setting him up for a hit. Of course, she can't go through with it, and when the hitman arives to take him out, Macklin is waiting for him. In a great sequence, Macklin smashes the thug in the face with a vase, then proceeds to question him about who ordered the hit, while the poor bastard keeps moaning "oooowww.... there's glass in my faaaaacceeee!"
The thug eventually names Jake Menner as his contact, and Macklin goes to a card game where Menner (who he's never met) is playing. He bursts into the room, tells the men to toss their wallets on the table, then asks a flunkie to "bring me Jake Menner's wallet." The flunkie immediately walks towards Jake, and asks "How does he know you, Jake?" to which the disgusted mobster replies "He didn't until now... you idiot." Macklin announces to Menner that the hit failed, and instead of just telling the mob that everyone should call things even, he tells 'em that they now owe him $250,000! How's that for balls? Not only that, but he lets 'em know "$250,000 is the price... I keep hitting you until you pay. Anything I take between now and then... is extra." Then he walks out of the room, tosses the door-clerk a quarter, and drives off.
From there on out Macklin recruits his buddy Cody (Joe Don Baker in a surprisingly subdued role) to help him and the duo (along with Ms. Black) proceed up the chain of mob command, stealing and killing until they reach the top. Macklin's single-mindedness is the film's greatest asset. At one point a girlfriend of a guy he's killed rhetorically asks "Why'd you have to kill him?" Macklin replies, like it's most self-evident fact in the world, "He owed me money." My other favorite line comes when Macklin goes to a bar to find one of the Mafia guys (I forget his name, let's say Vito). He asks for Vito, and the bartender tells Macklin that while he won't go get him, Macklin's free to leave a message. Macklin sizes the guy up, and dismissively says "I don't talk to guys wearing aprons. Go. Get. Vito." Really fun film, and a great way to start the night.
The Dion Brothers (aka The Gravy Train) (1966)
Directed by: Jack Starrett
Starring: Stacy Keach, Frederic Forrest, Margot Kidder, Barry Primus
Tarantino Introduction:
"Is that Robert Duvall a bad mother-fucker or is he a bad-mother fucker?" Cheers from the entire audience. "So now we go from two of the best criminal masterminds to two of the worst." Tarantino launches into a really enthusiastic intro extolling the virtues of stars Stacy Keach and Frederic Forrest. Keach in particular he praises for really using his star power to create cool, envelope-pushing movies (citing the Doc Holliday movie "Doc" and the Travelling Executioner). Tarantino somehow gets on a mini-tangent about the movie Race With the Devil, and how he's always tried to stick that trailer's tagline - "If you're going to race with the devil, you've got to be as fast as Hell!" - into one of his movies. He promises that one day, we'll hear one of his characters say it. The great thing about that admission, is that earlier today, Brian had given me a CD-R of quotes he's ripped from movies over the years. One of the clips on that CD? The tagline from Race With the Devil. Come to one of these things long enough, and you become of one mind with Tarantino, I suppose.
Tarantino's intro, as I mentioned, was really energetic. He really seems to be into this film (and - as I would soon discover - for good reason). He starts riffing on the movie's dialogue, and gets to a line that was featured in the trailer we saw last night. "It doesn't really make sense in the trailer... wait, it doesn't actually make sense in the movie, either. There's this guy in a bathtub, alright, and he yells..." by this point QT is laughing so hard that he can barely string 2-3 words together at a time, and the entire audience is eating it up, laughing along with him without knowing why "...I need my pants! I have. To see. My MOM!" There's not much more you can do to get a crowd of movie geeks primed than promise a line like that, so he stepped offstage, and away we went.
Side Note: At one point during this intro, Taranino slipped and referred to the Alamo Drafthouse as the Alamo Grindhouse. I looked over to where Tim and Lars were sitting, and thought I saw Tim say "hey... I like that!" One of those funny slips of the tongue.
Trailers:
Dillinger - Starring the late-great Warren Oates
Moonrunners - Just some down-home folks trying to make a dishonest living
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry/Vanishing Point - This was combined trailer for a road-movie double feature.
Rolling Thunder - Just a tease for tomorrow night's midnight movie. When Devane starts to sharpen his hook-hand on a whetting stone, the audience when crazy. Can't wait for tomorrow night.
The Movie:
Well hot damn. Joy House just got bumped from it's #1 perch in my book. This movie is, in a word, genius. Keech and Forrest are spot-on in their performaces as dimwitted good-ol-boy wanna-be criminals. The diaglogue in this movie is insanely quotable, and funny, and amazing. I honestly been in a theater where people were laughing that hard since the midnight screening of the Aristocrats at SXSW last year. I was furiously writing notes down at first, before finally realizing there was simply too much goodness to write down. Here are just a few choice moments from this classic movie:
- The opening scene where Stacy Keach quits his 'busy work' job at a bean-packing plant, tosses off his shirt, beats his chest and proclaims "I've got the makings of a Kirk Douglas. Lookit me! Kick-Fuckin'-Douglas!"
- When Forrest sees a the cops coming, and yells to his brother "Hit the Lights" while literally diving towards a lamp - smashing it to pieces - instead of turning it off.
- A classic 'fancy restaurant scene' where the boys show-off their newfound wealth (and lack of manners) by ordering "fill-et mig-non... well done, and charred on the outside... with A-1" Keach orders what Lars promises is his new favorite drink: Granddaddy and Seven Up," then tips a snooty waiter $20 to "get a new face."
- The rapid-fire insane southern colloquialisms, like "I've got more tricks than a monkey on a hundred yards of grapevines" and "take that, Pizza-puss."
- Margot Kidder as a 'junkie with no brassiere,' and her romantic scene with Forrest while both of them have BBQ sauce from eating ribs smeared on their faces.
- The final action sequence that takes place inside a deserted 6-story building as it's being demolished by a wrecking ball. So you literally have a shoot-out, punctuated by rooms getting pulverized, and characters getting thrown out windows by this giant ball. Its actually really amazing looking.
- At one point during the fight, the brothers wander into a room that has a few chickens in it. Out of nowhere, this obese black guy with a dirty yellow shirt and stained headband wanders in and demands - in a completely mush-mouthed voice - "What the hell are you doing in the chicken room!" The brothers try to explain to him that he's in danger if he stays there, but he resolutely claims "You'd better not fuck with my chickens." Finally, the black guy's seen enough of people getting shot at, mutters to himself "fuck it," picks up his chickens, and walks out. Best. Performance. Ever.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop here, and tell you that hands down, this is the film I'd have everyone reading this track down. It's high time some of these saying make thier way into our language, so help the cause, and start doing things "Dion-Style." You can pick up a copy through Gravedigger Video, along with a shitload of other great hicksploitation and redneck rampage movies.
The Muthers (1976)
Directed by: Cirio H. Santiago
Starring: Jeannie Bell, Rosanne Katon, Trina Parks
Tarantino Introduction:
"It wouldn't be a QT fest without a Philipino action movie!" QT intros this one as having "none of the Hollywood production values of The Dion Brothers... we're talking grade-Z shit.... but I still like it... in fact, I'd say it's one of my favorite fucking movies, and I'll defend it against all comers, alright?"
Tarantino points out that these Philipino blaxploitation movies usually only had one black person in it... mostly because the cost of buying a plane ticket for more than one actor/actress became cost prohibative ("That damn ticket cost more than their salary!" He described how, once the actors and directors had been shipped to the Phillipines, they'd stay there for a while and crank out 3-4 movies back-to-back so they could keep the overhead down. The thing that's different about The Muthers is that is actually has four beautiful (well, three are beautiful) black actresses.
Tarantino proceeded to launch into a mini-filmography for each main actress, and when he blanked on one girl's name, Lars was there to shout it out. "Thanks Lars... you always keep me honest... I don't run to IMDB before I do this shit, so it's all off the top of my head." The best thing that QT can praise these women for is that they really commit to their roles. He compares it to kids playing Star Wars in their backyards: "They commit way more than Hammill or Ford ever could... and that's not a knock on those guys, it's just a complement to little kid's ability to commit." Pretty funny. Anway, because of these actresses' commitment, by the middle of the movie, QT promises up that we'll really care whether they can get out of the jungle or not.
Trailers:
The Mack - Goldie, GOOLdie, GOOOLLLDDIIEEE!
Tarzoon - Great trailer for this QT6 opening-night classic. It's got the great (legally-required) tagline: Warning Jungle Fans: Tarzoon wsa not written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Coffy - When you mess with Coffy, you'll get no sleep.
Freebie & The Bean - This cop movie screened back at (I think) QT3, and apparently was a huge hit.
The Movie:
An odd combination of pirate movies/blaxploitation/WIP/jungle survival movies, The Muthers very much seemed like a 'throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" movie. The girls start off as pirates, then go undercover at a coffe-bean slave camp, then escape and spend 20-30 minutes schlepping through the jungle, avoiding (kinda) snakes and shit. I'm guessing this was one of those movies where they'd cut different trailers and slap on different titles every few years to trick people to rebuy tickets for a movie they'd already seen. Unfortunately, it doesn't really do any of the genres well, and there was way too much angsty "you can cage my body, but you can never cage my spirit" type stuff.
What should have been the movie's greatest line - one of the girls gets bit on the chest by a snake and moans "Just like all the other snakes in my life... can't leave my tits alone" - ended up coming off kinda flat, partly because we'd just had 4 or 5 other lines about how awful men were, how they only wanted one thing, etc. (Strangely enough, it appeared that one of the other Muthers sucked the venom out of the snake-bitten girl, but in anti-exploitation fashion, it was done off-screen and not really mentioned. I would have stuck that shit in the trailer had I been directing it). I will give the film credit for a really awesome death sequence for the main bad guy... he gets machine-gunned in the gut 5-6 seconds by one of the Muthers, then another tosses a knife in his back for good measure. You know... just to make sure he's really dead.
This movie was pretty good, I guess... at least most of the crowd seemed to enjoy certain parts of it. Ultimately, however, I think I was just exhausted from and overloaded by how cool The Dion Brother was. I'm having a hard time coming up with anything you could screen after The Dion Brothers that wouldn't be a disappointment. Holy Wednesday or Impulse could probably hold their own, but beyong that I start to draw blanks.
Ok, I've gone on record as not being happy about tomorrow night's first two films. I've seen Billy Jack and found it to be pretentious and boring, and Vanishing Point keeps getting compared to Two Lane Blacktop, another boring, pretentious flick. Whether the added bonus of an enthusiastic QT intro will change my perception of either of these films remains to be seen. Catch you in 24. |
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Author: Micah
Post Date: 04.27.06
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