Exploitation Cinema

My introduction to the slum of cinema, the exploitation genre, came with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double feature Grindhouse (their homage to the campy B-movies from the 70's they grew up watching.) I ended up liking Tarantino's Death Proof more, but both sparked my interest in the genre.

The reason why people went to see those movies was to be shocked and thrilled, because sometimes a raw experience like that is just more entertaining. If you take a peek through some of the old exploitation films you shouldn't be surprised to find lots of violence and lots of nudity - They're movies made for adults, that aren't pornography.

Death Proof, my choice of the newest double feature to have a wide release in years, is built like any Slasher film you may have seen in a 70's theater. It also has the components of other exploitation films. It has one of the greatest car chases I've ever seen, which was probably Tarantino seeing if anyone remembers the classic 1971 action/car chase movie Vanishing Point. There's even a Dodge Challenger in both movies.

A couple other aspects of Death Proof that are reminiscent of early exploitation films are its uses of violence and sexuality, and its role of women.

Firstly, exploitation films are never humble when it comes to violence. The bloodier the merrier. It may not always look real but there's usually some limbs hacked off, someone getting raped, blood-spewing stabbings, or in some cases cannibalism. Also there tends to be more sex and nudity than you'd expect to see. Sexuality was used a great deal to entice more audience members.

Secondly, female characters were usually given the same roles for all movies. Most of the time they were put in for being remotely attractive because if they showed some skin the film would get more viewers. However, the component that Death Proof recreates is a type of revenge plot which was frequently used in exploitation films, where a woman (or in this case a group of them) are in distress but rise up, kick ass, and get back at their male enemies.

One of the most infamous exploitation movies to come out of the 70's was the oh so disturbing I Spit On Your Grave. This film captures the extreme violence and sexuality, as well as having the female revenge plot line. The first half of the movie involves one woman being raped 4 times, but the second half is her time to get back at the men who violated her, killing them in such creative ways as boat motor mutilation, and castration. The famous critic Roger Ebert calls the film a "vile bag of garbage" he also adds, "at the film's end I walked out of the theater quickly, feeling unclean, ashamed and depressed." So, if you feel you're a sensitive film-goer you might want to stray from the exploitation genre, or at least from I Spit On Your Grave. Even Ebert let his emotions get to him with that movie.

One thing I found easily when I dove into this gritty genre of films is that sometimes they can just be really, really dumb, and hilarious in a dumb way. For instance, the movie Blood Feast, which is hailed as the first "splatter film" (a movie with a tremendous amount of graphic violence and gore) is awfully funny when it shouldn't be. With acting worse than Stephen Baldwin, some really fake looking internal organs, and a lousy plot-line, Blood Feast is probably the campiest movie I've ever seen. At least I got a laugh from it though.

I thank Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez for making Grindhouse and introducing me to the sewer of American film-making. If you're reading this and aren't familiar with many exploitation films, I'll give you my top 3, so you can have a place to start if you're interested.

3. I Drink Your Blood - This movie is hilarious in its stupidity and its outrageous violence. When a group of satanists come into a peaceful town and start to terrorize the people there, a boy transfers the blood of a rabid dog into meat pies and serves them to the satanists. The result - Lots of killing and foaming at the mouth.

2. The Last House On The Left - Extremely scary, and truly shows how awful violence is. It gets disturbing to the point where you feel a little depressed about being human, so quite obviously it's a very powerful film. A group of killers have fun with and then kill 2 girls, then they naively stay in the house of one of the murdered girls and her parents take their revenge. Btw, these bad guys don't seem like actors, they seem more like real psychopaths that were put in front of a camera.

1. Coffy - After finding out her sister has become a heroin addict, a nurse takes the law into her own hands by personally taking down all the drug dealers and pimps. That nurse is played by Pam Grier, and she is one of the coolest and sexiest ladies to ever have been on screen. As the original film poster explains she's, "the baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town." Having a real hip lady as the hero really empowers women and evidently also happens to form my favorite exploitation film.

The Matrix - A True Classic

Over a decade old and the Wachowski brothers' sci-fi, action phenomenon is still relentlessly awesome.

When I was younger The Matrix was the pinnacle movie of the entire action genre. I must have watched it at least 20 times. My brothers and I were so fascinated by it we even started to choreograph and script out our own sci-fi action film. It also made me want to become a stuntman because I wanted to hang from wires and look cool like Keanu Reeves.

Re-watching it again after at least 5 years I was content to find that it hadn't really lost its charms. Sure there are a few parts where Keanu butchers his dialogue, but all in all it's still one of the greatest movies of my generation.

One thing that sets it apart from so many other action movies is its plot line - it has one, and a really damn good one at that. Not that I really think a movie has to suffer if its plot is hard to define, otherwise I wouldn't be a fan of the Rambo series, but it makes The Matrix that much better that it has an engaging story. Isn't it kinda scary to think that this may not be the real world, and that we're all just part of some computer program? Well, I think it's interesting.

The movie was in the right hands. In 1999 the Wachowski Brothers really were masterful directors. I was happily surprised to find out now that I've matured and become more sophisticated in my film-viewing that they really did make a great movie, with great cinematography. The final product is that dark look, de-saturated from all colors except green. It was very original at the time and has had its fair share of copycats since.

Enough of all the technical stuff, the movie is just ridiculously cool at parts. The kung-fu and shoot out scenes are really exceptionally put together. Plus, how cool was that part when the security guard tells the main character Neo to remove all metallic items such as keys and loose change and then he opens his trench coat and he happens to be carrying a full arsenal of firearms on his person.

One thing I happen to love about The Matrix is that it seems like it should have a cult following, but it doesn't (of course though it would be hard to be a cult classic if you have 2 unworthy box office smash sequels that came out after it.) Nonetheless it carries some qualities of other cult favorites, but instead of being unheard of by the majority of the public it actually got the recognition it deserves. I guess the people buying tickets that year were smart and didn't let a true gem get hidden.

To close I shall say, The Matrix is really a good movie, and I suggest if you haven't seen it in awhile to watch it, but just stop there. I feel like its mythology should've ended with the first movie, without creating a trilogy.

Leonard Cohen Is Your Man

The half documentary, half tribute concert for Leonard Cohen, appropriately titled Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man was by no means a great movie, but it did manage to get me into Mr. Cohen's music more.

I'm sure most people would recognize the tune "Hallelujah" because it has been covered countless times, and has been used in a plethora of movies. But have you heard the original recording, sung by the man who wrote it? Well if you have then you've heard Leonard Cohen. Before seeing this movie, that song was one of the only ones I had heard by him. Now I'm starting to understand what I've been missing out on. Leonard Cohen's songwriting puts him in the same ring with other greats like Conor Oberst, Tom Waits, and the greatest of them all- Bob Dylan.

It is a pity that the only documentary I've seen about him turned out to not be a good one, but then again it shouldn't be a big surprise because it's rare that I find a documentary I really like. I did enjoy just listening to him speak though. Leonard Cohen seems like a man who knows a little something more about life than the rest of us and that's why you really pay attention to him. I found out that he even became a monk for awhile. He is quite unique and intriguing

The other half of the movie, the tribute concert, was mostly unmemorable. There were multiple performers but only one I had ever heard of (that would be Rufus Wainwright.) He and his sister Martha Wainwright did exceptional covers of a few of Cohen's songs. It was nice to hear other people singing Cohen's music because to tell you the truth even an up and coming fan like myself, I find that Leonard Cohen's voice can be confusing. I'm not always 100% blown away by it, so other people singing his poetry is alright by me.

Two of the members of the band U2, Bono and The Edge, made appearances in the movie. They both have been greatly influenced by Cohen. The Edge describes Cohen as if he were a religious figure. Bono says he has been humbled and humiliated by him. Bono also says that his favorite song by Leonard Cohen is "Tower of Song" which contains the lyric, "I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice." That may seem conceited to say about yourself, but I totally agree with him when he sings it. Here is his golden voice -





I would recommend you to skip the movie Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man because anything in it that is worth seeing is already chopped up into parts and put onto youtube. However, I would recommend you to listen to the music of Leonard Cohen, because I'm starting to really get into him myself. I'm a sucker for stand-out vocalists and adept songwriters, so he really sparks my interest. Here is one of his songs that I've fallen in love with recently -

The Phantom Carriage

The Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House is great because of its wide variety of films they screen. I considered myself lucky to get to see a silent film for the first time on a big screen this week. The movie was called The Phantom Carriage, a Swedish film by some director whose name I can't pronounce.

I have always loved silent movies and I don't understand why they have been forgotten by so many people. What's great will always be great, and that includes movies that aren't talkies. Usually my tastes in silent movies end up in the comedies of people like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. This time however I found myself enjoying something a little darker than gymnasts putting their bodies at risk for a good laugh. A serious drama, that's even scary at parts, about death and redemption. What I would call the Swedish Christmas Carol.

In the film, the legend goes like this - The last person to die on New Year's Eve has to drive the ghostly carriage and collect the souls of the dead for the next whole year. Each day feels like a hundred for that poor person who is forced to work for Death himself. The main character, a man named David Holm, was the last person to die that New Year's. When the previous carriage driver confronts David, instead of passing the black cloak and scythe onto him, he shows David all the mistakes he has made in the past and allows him the chance to be forgiven. By the close he even gives David another chance to live and carry on a better life.

There were many reasons I found this thoughtful movie to be good. One thing I really enjoyed was that in the actual theatre the music was being played live, the sombre piano rolls in the front of the room helped set the tone of the movie exceptionally.

One thing I was surprised by was the acting in the movie. The Swedes were apparently a bit more Brando than the Keystone Cops or some other group of people you're used to seeing from the silent screen. There was one very climactic scene that looks almost like the movie The Shining directly re-created it. The character David, in a flashback, takes an axe to the door of the room where his wife and children are hiding. Emotions run high in the scene and the acting is really marvelous and captivating.

The direction of the movie fascinated me. At that time film making wasn't really centralized around direction, but the director actually seemed to have a unique vision at parts. The special effects of the time still hold up for me. The spirit-like qualities that were given to the souls of the dead were really... Scary. Yeah, at times it almost seemed like a horror movie. I think if I was a viewer of the film in 1921 when it came out, I would have had trouble sleeping.

Now, not to make the movie sound cheap, but my favorite moment of the night at the Dryden's screening of The Phantom Carriage was the end of the movie. Not because I hated the movie and I was happy to see it be finished, but because of the Swedish word for "End" which consequently is "Slut." Yes, some of the other audience members and I got a good chuckle from that.

I would recommend The Phantom Carriage but there's not going to be a lot of chances for you to see it. So, I fervently recommend you to keep up with what is showing at The Dryden Theatre. Take a chance too, see a movie you wouldn't usually take the time to. You may end up having a pleasant experience with a real "Slut" finish.

Totally Random: Movies You Should See, and Avoid

SEE THESE

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb -

Considered by most to be Stanley Kubrick's best film, it is pure, unbridled political satire. If you can handle a more intelligent and disguised platform of jokes, you'll love this movie. See the 3 hilarious performances of Peter Sellers as a war room full of politicians try to avoid a nuclear holocaust from happening after a crazy General named Jack Ripper sends a fleet of B-52s to bomb the U.S.S.R. Also, you'll get to see the infamous sequence of a pilot (played by Slim Pickens) ride a nuke to the ground, waving his cowboy hat and "Yeehaww-ing" all the way down.

Bubba Ho-Tep -

This movie single-handedly takes the cake for the greatest plot-line ever presented in film history. A geriatric Elvis Presley and a black JFK fight for their nursing home when a mummy wearing cowboy duds starts to suck the souls from the other elderly patients, oh and Elvis has cancer on his penis. From second and third viewings I realized the movie isn't as strong as its plot-line, but nonetheless it's still a really fun movie. It features a very cool original soundtrack composed by Brian Tyler, who has scored other campy B-movies like Six-String Samurai. It contains a few of my favorite quotes, like when JFK reads graffiti on the bathroom wall that the mummy wrote in hieroglyphics- "Cleopatra does the nasty." Also I'd consider Bruce Campbell's performance in the movie to be quite underrated, I thought he was exceptional. See the movie, have fun, but don't expect too much from a "redemptive Elvis, mummy picture" as the actor Bruce Campbell puts it.

AVOID THESE

The Starfighters -

To put this movie's plot line into simplest terms, I guess I'd have to say that there is absolutely no plot line whatsoever. I currently hail this piece of crap as the worst movie I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. To try and pander to my blog's audience, I'll do my best to try and explain the content of the film. It's about a pilot in the airforce during a non-war time who only wants to fly planes. The trouble is his Father, a congressman, wants him to fly a different kind of plane than the kind he wants to. Confused? I know I was, but I could go more in depth for you. Basically, a bunch of planes refuel in the sky, on the ground they talk about how sharp the planes are, people talk in a restaraunt about corn, the pilots shoot targets from their planes, there's another refueling scene, a bunch of pilots float in a pool wearing floatation outfits known as "poopie suits", and then the movie ends with more plane-flying. Disgustingly Awful.

Glen Or Glenda -

The worst film of Edward D. Wood Jr. the man who is frequently called the worst director of all time. It is about a man who has to struggle through life as a transvestite, a fact that not even his fiancee is aware of. I will at least say there was some intelligent thought behind its production. Ed Wood was a transvestite himself and as you can imagine, in 1953 a man dressing in women's clothes was frowned upon. Wood used this film to try and make people understand the difficulty of hiding something because of fear that others will make you feel ashamed. With that said, what a horrendous film this is! Most of the movie is recycled stock footage of cars on highways, the army firing cannons, and stampeding buffalos, and I assure you Mr. Wood does not connect it with the point of the movie. There is also an odd character played by Bela Lugosi, the man famous for playing Dracula. Lugosi plays a scientist who appears at random points in the movie and yells stuff like, "Pull the string!" Finally, there is a dream sequence where the Devil ties a woman up on a couch- I found no symbolism in the scene, but I was slightly disturbed by the bizarre sexual images being presented. All in all, a failed attempt at trying to fix a social problem, and one of the worst movies I've ever seen (if you'd call it a movie.)

The Tenant - A film that shows how sometimes relationships with neighbors can be quite complicated

Roman Polanski's psychological thriller The Tenant may start off kinda slow, but by the second half it spirals out of control into one of the most terrifying things ever filmed.

It takes place in France where a man named Trelkovsky (Polanski) moves into the apartment of a girl named Simone Choule who had recently committed suicide. The longer he lives there the more sure he becomes that it was the other tenants of the apartment building that drove Simone to kill herself. Now Trelkovsky believes their most recent scheme is to drive him to a similar fate while at the same time turn him into the deceased Simone herself. You get to see his psychological decay as odd things continue to happen, such as teeth appearing in his walls, and people standing in windows staring at him for hours.

I first heard about this movie when the actor Bruce Campbell mentioned it in an interview as the scariest movie he has ever seen. Campbell has starred in many lower-class horror films such as The Evil Dead. He knows that the quality of his work in the slasher/exploitation genre differs with Polanski's thriller, and that is why I felt compelled to check it out. As much as I respect and love Bruce Campbell, it takes more than buckets of blood and spewing guts to get me scared. So, I get excited whenever I hear about a movie that could genuinely scare me.

Upon viewing The Tenant I could fully understand where Bruce Campbell was coming from. What makes the movie scary is the fact that you never know if the other tenants really do have an evil plot, or if Trelkovsky is crazy and it's all a part of his imagination. If you like being comfortably confused by things as you try to make sense of them in your head, then this movie is splendidly designed for your pleasure.

One good aspect to the film is Polanski's interesting camera techniques which mimic Trelkovsky's road to insanity as the film progresses. He'll film a slanted shot of a staircase as people are walking on it and you'll feel like you're looking through the confused eyes of Trelkovsky himself.

It is obvious that English was not the original language that all the characters in the movie spoke in. So, if you are easily offended by some bad overdubbing than you might be put off. It shouldn't be a problem though considering the dialogue is not at all the most important thing in the movie. However there is one monologue spoken by Trelkovsky that I liked quite a bit. He speaks of the levels of importance of his various body parts, he says, "If you were to cut off my head, what would I say... Me and my head, or me and my body? What right has my head to call itself me?"

In all his films Polanski seems to delve into a lot of dark material, and this movie is no exception. So, what kind of stuff should you expect to see? You'll see someone get hit by a car, you'll see child abuse, transvestitism, bouncing human heads, and of course the occasional suicide. Probably the thing that disturbed me the most was one horrifyingly awful scream given from a woman in a full-body cast. That cry of mortal despair brought more fear to me than any horror movie's scream ever could.

If you're interested in seeing something that could mess with your head a little and show you the darker, more twisted side of human nature then see Roman Polanski's The Tenant. You might just end up getting a little freaked out.

Here is a video of people explaining why they think it was so scary

Music in Movies

It's clear to me that a good soundtrack is really what makes a lot of those shining sequences of brilliant cinema what they are. It's that combination of something visually stunning and a great song, that's what keeps you glued to the screen, it keeps your heart pumping with excitement. I thought I'd take a shot at coming up with my (not set in stone) top 5 musical tracks from a movie.

First of all I set up some rules. There will be no songs originally composed for a movie. So, there goes "Mrs. Robinson" from The Graduate. There will also be no songs that the actors sing themselves. So, that goes for any musical, or perhaps just a random song sung by an actor, for instance Paul Newman plays "Plastic Jesus" on a banjo in Cool Hand Luke. Finally, no classical music, just pop & rock is what I was looking for.

5) 2000 Man - The Rolling Stones

from the movie "Bottle Rocket"

I have Wes Anderson to thank for my love for The Stones, he directed and picked the music for this cool little flick starring Luke & Owen Wilson. In the movie they take part in a heist that goes wrong. This tune is playing as Owen Wilson makes his on-foot getaway from the cops and leads them into the warehouse that they tried to rob, as the police take him down, Mick Jagger's voice and the organ in the song pound through the speakers and truly make a great scene.

4) Heart of the Sunrise - Yes

from the movie "Buffalo '66"

This crazy rock 'n roller of a song plays as the actor Vincent Gallo walks into a strip-club and looks for a man he's trying to murder. Really it's a perfect song for the state of mind someone would have to be in to want to murder someone. It's fast and crazy and works perfectly as he pushes his hair back and aims his pistol. What happens next in the movie I won't say, but you can be sure that it was tracked well with the perfect song.

3) Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel

from the movie "Reservoir Dogs"

This song is actually sorta going against my own rules because it's playing on a radio in the room the characters are in, and you can hear the actor Michael Madsen quietly sing-a-long to it for a few seconds, but I think if you see the scene you'll know why I had to put it in the list. As the radio DJ K-Billy says in the movie, the song is a Dylan-esque, pop, bubble-gum favorite, and the cheerfulness of the song works entirely too well as Madsen does his dance with his razor as he's about to torture the cop they suspect of knowing something. Of course though, what makes the scene horrifying, and the reason this happy song is on the list is because he was just gonna torture him for fun, not to get anything out of him.

2) Big White Cloud - John Cale

from the movie "Smokin' Aces"

This classic song barrels in as an assassin makes his way into a hotel room to off a snitch that everyone is after, the snitch is played by Jeremy Piven. There's some desperate quality to the song that magnifies how pathetic Piven's character has become in the movie. When the assassin arrives Piven is in the bathroom, he has evidence of drugs around his nose, and he has these big dark circles around his teary eyes. The song with its heavy piano chords and the best portrayal of a drug addict I've ever seen for some reason moves me, especially as Piven puts in contacts to change the color of his eyes. You'd really have to see the movie to understand.

1) Atlantis - Donovan

from the movie "Goodfellas"

One of my favorite movies, and just one of the best scenes ever filmed in my eyes. It's the definition of a great moment in film, great acting, cool look to the way it is shot, and of course the perfect song to go along. Martin Scorsese is without a doubt the master of mixing movies with the best classic rock songs, and this one is beautiful. The scene - the actors Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent get into a verbal argument, Pesci leaves, Pesci comes back, Pesci and his friend played by Robert De Niro beat the living hell out of Frank Vincent. Seems simple, but for some reason as De Niro is burying his heel in Vincent's face I'm completely captivated. There's also this great part where Joe Pesci is about to shoot Frank Vincent but De Niro hits the gun out of his hand, and it's just as the snare drum is picking up in the song, and then Scorsese gets a shot of the gun falling apart on the ground, it's beautiful. Then they stop the beating and respectfully apologize for getting blood on the floor of Ray Liotta's bar. This is my personal favorite musical moment in a movie.

Buffalo '66 - A tragic story of love, football, and murder

Buffalo '66 gives a dark portrayal of the sad, mundane existence that comes with living in an uneventful city. It is brilliantly put together by Vincent Gallo, the movie's writer, director, and main actor.

Billy Brown (Gallo) is back from his CIA government job and is coming back to visit his parents to show off his new bride. The trouble is he doesn't work for the CIA and he isn't married. It's actually his first day out of prison and his fake wife is a tap-dancer named Layla (Christina Ricci) that he kidnapped. All he wants is some appreciation from his unloving parents, and to get back at Scott Wood, the Buffalo Bills kicker who missed a field goal in a game he was betting on and consequently made him spend 5 years in prison.

As Billy's murderous mission unravels we see the very core of a man's pain and abundance of emotion. It is the greatest character study since Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. However strange it might look at first glance (and the first 15 minutes of the movie is just a guy trying to find a bathroom to use) the movie is extremely gripping, and will in some way cause you to have feelings for the characters on the screen.

One great aspect to the film is the amusing dialogue. For instance when Billy kidnaps Layla and informs her that she'll have to put on a show as his wife, he says, "If you make me look bad... I will never ever talk to you again." A line like that pretty much goes down in film history as the most bizarre threat a kidnapper has ever said to his captive.

Billy's parents are played devilishly well by Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston. They're so evil and uncaring for their own son that you don't have to wonder why the Billy character has so many problems. In the movie his mother holds a grudge against him because his birth made her miss a Buffalo Bills game. She loves the Bills so much she even declares, "I wish I never had him."

Every frame of the film is dark, and wonderful photography. Gallo certainly delivers great cinematography in his debut. In particular the climactic scene near the close of the film wherein he enters a strip-club to find the former Buffalo-Bill Scott Wood, it is without a doubt some of the most interesting camera-work I've ever seen.

The movie may confuse you, it may disturb you, it may make you cry, it may cause you to laugh hysterically, in my case it made me hate the Buffalo Bills, but it will certainly hold your interest and leave an impression on you afterwards. It is also one of my favorite romances and it has a very unexpected "cute" ending.

I would urge you to take a chance with Buffalo '66, as it is one of my favorite movies.

Introduction

Hello, my name is John Shaff, and I love movies. Since a very early age I've been fascinated by them. Movies are like an escape, they can take away all the pains of reality and transport you to another world. In that manner, movies have kind of been the best counselor a boy like me could ever hope to have.

I sorta have my father to thank for my immense interest in cinema because my whole life he has constantly been dragging me in and out of the theater. He also never minded a film's rating, just so long as it was good, we'd go see it.

One particular memory was seeing the movie Gladiator when I was 6. I remember glaring in amazement at the Colosseum on the big screen and realizing I had started a life-long love-affair with movies. I was only in the first grade but I was already rooting for a movie to win Best Picture, and sure enough Gladiator did.

When I got into the second grade most of the other boys in my grade wanted to become firefighters, but I wanted to be a soldier. Why? Just because Saving Private Ryan was my favorite movie at the time. Movies have always had a strong influence on me, and I'm sure if I had loved the movie Backdraft as much I would've wanted to be a firefighter too.

As I get older my passion only grows more. I can't go a day without watching at least one movie, and my basic goal in life is to have an encyclopedic knowledge of films and film history. I hope to someday be able to direct and make great movies, much like Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Howard Hawks, and Charles Chaplin (some of my personal favorites.) I think of it like this-movies have given me so much, and I'd like to give a little back.

To this day, sitting in a theater is more like a religious experience than just a leisurely way to spend a couple hours. Cinema is the highest art form, it encapsules all other forms, such as music, photography, and writing. It is truly majestic. A good movie can set fireworks off in your soul.

So, I'd like to use this blog to share my opinions on movies I've seen, because it makes sense to talk about something you know.