FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / January 2022 / Gabriel Ricard
Image © Neon
We’ve made it to another year, gang.
Good for you!
And my resolution to stop writing one-sentence paragraphs is going very, very well.
Good for me!
As always, Drunk Monkeys takes December off. That’s a good idea for everyone concerned, and it gives me an extra month to think about 2021 and movies. While going to theaters to see movies more is probably influencing my opinion here, I feel better about at least the quality of movies generally being made. I’m not going to waste my time trashing superheroes and other increasingly disheartening safe bets. There is ultimately room for a lot of different films, and I think 2021 releases like Spencer, The Last Duel, and The French Dispatch lends weight to my opinion.
Sure, I can be disheartened over the increasing attention being paid to movies that are more about concepts than literally anything else, the blandness which is increasingly apparent in the larger budget epics, or the fact that I had about a week to see any given movie in my local theater that wasn’t a sequel, a superhero story, or an animated feature. I could, but I’m not going to. Better writers and fans of film have said enough that I can only just agree, and wish this technology and access meant more different types of movies are being made than ever before.
But I did see several good, clever movies that weren’t any of the categories I mentioned above. Nothing in the universe of a true independent film spirit, but I’ll take what I can get right now. Good movies are still being made across the boundless potential of film itself.
Even if you aren’t seeing these movies, enjoying these movies, or even making the minimum effort required to see these movies, I believe this to be true.
The Ripper (1985): D+
Image © United Entertainment Pictures
I wanted to like this movie from the imaginative Christopher Lewis. While you certainly must guard your expectations for a shot-on-video slasher from the mid-80s, featuring a haunted ring which turns the wearer into Jack the Ripper, Tom Savini as the Ripper himself can be enough for a very particular form of entertainment. Not the ironic kind, but at least something where you admire the movie, more than actually like it.
The Ripper just didn’t get to that sweet spot of enjoyment for me. Like a lot of bad 80s horror movies, the mention of a star like Savini can mean any number of realities. Here, it means Savini shows up for a few minutes, stalks a girl, does his best with a mediocre, confusing screenplay, and then departs into the ether of the endless foggy evening. By the time you get to those scenes, it’s difficult to even remember that the foundation of this story is a professor with an occasionally laughable obsession with Jack.
Difficult because the movie barely seems to have enough to finish out its unfathomably long (for this kind of thing) running time of 104 minutes. In other words, not only is this movie difficult to like, but the parts that do occasionally work are few and far in between.
A lot of this movie is just waiting to be surprised. I don’t even know if your emotions will carry you that far.
The Dead (1987): A+
Image © Vestron Pictures
John Huston rounded out a long, stunning career with one of the most joyously depressing movies you’ve ever seen. The title, and the basic trivia of knowing Huston was on the way out while shooting this with his daughter Anjelica Houston in the lead—a captivating take on a difficult, quietly complex character—can give you a pretty clear idea of what to expect.
Yet The Dead is also quite vibrant with its characters, based on a James Joyce short story, and adapted by John Huston’s son Tony, and with even the saddest or most painful moments of the intimate holiday gathering which unfolds. Long conversations, songs, declarations, and confessions are carried out by the members of this family, gathered in a comfortable home in Ireland on a snowy, barren evening.
I can almost guarantee that you’re going to become engaged with these relatively unimportant characters, who are given space by Houston to be human and fascinating on their own terms. However, the rest of your enjoyment of The Dead will depend on where it connects you to your own ideas of family, love, and regret. Every experience with a film like this is truly unique, which is why it’s one of the best from the latter half of one of the best filmmaking careers ever established.
Your Vice is a Lock Room and Only I Have the Key (1972): A+
Image © Titanus
Directed by Sergio Martino with seemingly no regard for logic or sanity, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is one of the most glorious examples of a movie living up to the title. What really impresses me is how accurately it also describes what you’re going to experience.
A tired, hacky writer, played with stunning sleaze and increasing waves of crazed desperation by Luigi Pistilli, becomes the suspect in an ongoing series of brutal murders of women. The murder sequences themselves are highlights of this genre, with unique blends of unreal circumstances and characters with almost blindingly colorful blasts of splashy giallo violence. The presence and performance of the stunning Edwige Fenech doesn’t hold Your Vice back from being memorable either.
You can already imagine what you’re in for here if you’ve ever seen a single giallo film. If you haven’t, this is a hell of a wild place in which to start. However, if you can stick with something this unpredictable and occasionally vicious, you’re ready for the nastiest giallo movies around.
The Cotton Club Encore (1984): B-
Image © Orion Pictures / American Zoetrope
A director’s cut of a movie, especially one poorly edited and/or released, can be a vital second wind for everyone involved, including the audience. The Cotton Club Encore, one of many examples of Francis Ford Coppola tinkering with one of his works after the fact, is a strong reminder of all of this.
The current “RELEASETHECUT” trend is often plagued by the selfishness of the fans of the movie, as well as our collectiveness unwillingness to just let things go sometimes, but I hope that doesn’t narrow anyone’s view of a director taking on one of their works, entirely of their own choice, for a second time.
When it works, it works. In the case of this revitalization of the uneven 1984 film, it works enough to make for a much better 2nd attempt at this movie. Still, there’s a lot going on with Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Nicholas Cage, Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, Lonette McKee and everyone else who makes up this musical gangster epic with shades of the familial drama elements that Coppola likes to delve into sometimes. In any iteration, it could be argued that The Cotton Club is just too much of the various characters, plots, musical sequences, and everything else that makes up this frenetic movie.
But it’s fun to watch something like that in this case. With a longer, stronger story, the best parts of The Cotton Club shine, and several of the performances, particularly Gregory Hines’, stand out with a stronger overall film to support them.
However, as it stands, nothing is ever going to make Richard Gere’s character, a horn player, or his story, worth remembering.
Showgirls (1995): C-
Image © MGM / United Artists
One of the most deliriously bizarre, unpopular movies of the 1990s, Showgirls will never be the societal satire that its director and writer apparently think it to be. This is a movie that simply aspired to be worthwhile by going thousands of miles over the top on common sense, tension, or character motivation. I don’t imagine anyone thought it would be quite the disaster site the movie was perceived to be, and largely still is, even with the benefit of hindsight, but this is still one of the biggest and boldest (and most expensive) embraces of campiness that anyone is ever going to attempt.
Can you do satire with that kind of campiness? Absolutely. I just still don’t believe director Paul Verhoeven or screenwriter Joe Eszterhas ever intended for this story of a young woman (Elizabeth Berkley, who at least meets this material with impressive scope and enthusiasm) trying to succeed as a stripper to be anything but a sweaty, coked-out soap opera.
Owing to a cast that includes Kyle MacLachlan and Gina Gerson—who seem to get and use their characters to their full potential—Showgirls deserves more affection, as well as even a little respect, than it often still receives.
Gabriel Ricard writes, edits, and occasionally acts. His books Love and Quarters and Bondage Night are available through Moran Press, in addition to A Ludicrous Split (Alien Buddha Press) and Clouds of Hungry Dogs (Kleft Jaw Press). He is also a writer, performer, and producer with Belligerent Prom Queen Productions. He lives on a horrible place called Long Island.