Land of the Dead – Zombies of The World, Unite

Article first published as Movie Review: Land of the Dead – Zombies of the World, Unite on Blogcritics.

It’s a brave new world out there in George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead (2005). There are zombies everywhere, the living are the new minority. The living have built themselves a walled city to better be able to defend themselves against the hoards of the undead.

Zombies come in all shapes and sizes, as anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the genre are well aware of. These zombies start out as the good old-fashioned kind. They shuffle forth, looking for something to feed on, but they neither fast, nor organized. Like most zombies they can infect the living through their bite and once they’ve brought down a living human they tend to overwhelm and devour them, rending flesh from bone in no time at all.

The living are forced to forage outside their walled communities, as in all good post apocalyptic scenarios and there are teams of mercenary soldier types who take care of that. There is also a very hierarchical structure within the walled city, where only the really affluent can live well, in a skyscraper that is a cross between a mall and a luxury hotel. The ordinary folks live in ghetto-like circumstance.

Our main protagonist is Riley Denbo (Simon Baker), one of the foragers, his companion Charlie (Robert Joy) a savant with a special talent for fancy shooting. They work with Cholo (John Leguizamo) who is frankly not a very nice person and they work for Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) who is down-right unpleasant. Kaufman is the king in this little hierarchy, the boss at the top of the skyscraper who never actually has to get his hands dirty.

The zombies start out as brainless as ever in this tale, but they suddenly begin developing the ability to work together under the ”leadership” of Big Daddy (Eugene Clark). They are mindlessly fascinated with fireworks and stand around going “arrrgh” up ’til that point. Not that they aren’t plenty dangerous enough when they get hungry.

Once the zombies start to organise they attack the walled city and all the high and mighties get their comeuppance, as you might expect. That, and a story line about an enormous tank nicknamed ”Dead Reckoning” is what keeps this narrative moving forward, but forget all that for now. Forget Dennis Hopper looking sharp in a nice suit and the entertainment in the pit where you throw a live girl in with two zombies to see who can eat her first.

This is all about the zombies. You have to have a particular love for zombies to enjoy a movie like this. There are so many of them and they are all lovely, they really are. You have to be able to enjoy the lingering close-up of the tableaux created by sweeping a camera along with a flashlight over a group of zombies feeding on soldiers that they have brought down. Much tearing and rending of flesh ensues.

Romero is the granddaddy of this kind of zombie movie with his classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). There is really no one who does it better. This is gore and blood and guts. There is a thin veneer of social commentary, which keeps the film students happy, but mostly it’s about what you can do with effects and fake blood. Romero makes sure that the camera slowly and lovingly tracks how someone gets their intestines pulled out of their chest cavity and gnawed on.

If you like that, and spunky female characters – big props to Asia Argento (Slack) and Joanne Boland (Pretty Boy)- and much shuffling in the shadows of zombies about to grab and eat you, you should be plenty entertained by this.

Me? I like a zombie-movie that gives good ”raahhh”. And this one definitely does. Dennis Hooper as a thoroughly unsympathetic Rumsfeldian bad-ass is just the icing on the cake.

Land of the Dead (2005) directed by George A. Romero stars Simon Baker (Riley Denbo), John Leguizamo (Cholo DeMora), Dennis Hopper (Kaufman), Asia Argento (Slack), Robert Joy (Charlie), Eugene Clark (Big Daddy), Joanne Boland (Pretty Boy), Tony Nappo (Foxy), Jennifer Baxter (Number 9), Boyd Banks (Butcher), Maxwell McCabe-Lokos (Mouse) and Pedro Miguel Arce (Pillsbury).

The Last Ride – Car chases do not a hit movie make

Article first published as Movie Review: The Last Ride – Car Chases Do Not A Hit Movie Make on Blogcritics.

Why, oh, why? That is sometimes the question… Like with this movie, The Last Ride. There’s a definite why? in here somewhere. Now, Dennis Hopper was one of those actors that could literally blow you straight out of the room when he was on, and there was a good script to back him up and he was being used wisely. Sometimes, though, even actors have to eat. And that’s where movies like this one come in.

The young Matthew Rondell (Chris Carmack) seems to have inherited his love for cars and racing from his grandfather Ronnie Purnell (Dennis Hopper). Ronnie is just about to get out of prison after having served a thirty year sentence for robbery. The sheriff Darryl Kurtz (Fred Ward) has taken a personal interest in Ronnie’s affairs, even to the point that he took in his son Aron (Will Patton) and raised him as his own. Now everything is about to come to a head as Ronnie gets out of jail.

The movie tries to span three generations, the wild and reckless 60s outlaw with a social agenda and a heart of gold, represented by Ronnie, the staid and law-abiding Aron and the disaffected youth Matthew. Ronnie’s Robin Hood/Bonnie-and-Clyde thing, stealing money meant for soldiers’ wages, was meant as an anti-war protest. There’s a revenge theme as well since Ronnie’s wife was shot when he was arrested.

The disaffected youth represented by Matthew doesn’t agree with his father’s view on Ronnie’s life and they also share a love of cars, which explains the opening sequence that looks like something out of The Fast and the Furious. Cars matter here. Ronnie’s 1969 Pontiac GTO is a character all it’s own and there is a little too much caressingly slow camera gliding along bumpers and stick shifts for my taste.

Matthew has issues with his father, Aron and Aron has issues with his father, Ronnie. The sheriff Kurtz (Fred Ward) has issues with everything. He’s very clearly a bad guy, but that doesn’t seem to register with Aron until it’s pretty late in the game. Sound confusing? Yeah, well, this is what happens when you don’t really have a main focus to what you’re doing. Instead of being a bit of everything, trying to please everyone, this movie doesn’t really please anyone. The cast gives it its best, but having an actor like Dennis Hopper and using him like this is a waste. There are moments, little glimmering nuggets, but they don’t really get a chance to shine and that’s just too bad.

This is a made-for-TV movie and if you’re having popcorn on the couch it’s probably not going to merit you actually throwing your popcorn at the TV. Still, it’s bland and that’s too bad, all things considered.

Most movies have a derivative strain, there’s no escaping that. But, there is a difference between paying homage and cobbling together a new plot of several old familiar ones. Clichés are fine, they are a part of the attraction most of the time, but there still needs to be something more to it.

There are alternatives to this that will ensure you have a good time. I recommend you watch Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Running on Empty (1988) or even The Fast and the Furious (2001) if car porn is your thing.

The Last Ride (2004), directed by Guy Norman Bee stars Dennis Hopper (Ronnie Purnell), Will Patton (Aaron Purnell), Fred Ward (Darryl Kurtz), Chris Carmack (Matthew Rondell), Nadine Velazquez (JJ Cruz), Peter Onorati (Burt Walling).

Mule

Leo – Southern Gothic

Article first published as Movie review: Leo – Southern Gothic on Blogcritics.

Leo (2002) directed by Mehdi Norowzian stars Joseph Fiennes (Stephen/Leo), Jake Weber (Ben Bloom), Elisabeth Shue (Mary Bloom), Justin Chambers (Ryan), Sam Shepard (Vic), Dennis Hopper (Horace), Deborah Kara Unger (Caroline), Mary Stuart Masterson (Brynne), Davis Sweatt (Leopold, age 11) and James Middleton (Louis).

This is an ambitious movie. It starts as Stephen (Joseph Fiennes) is released from prison. The very first scene we see him in will tie in nicely with the last scenes of the movie, so there’s a cyclical movement here and two timelines that twist together nicely. We get to see the story unfold in more or less chronological order, interspersed with the chronological events of the story’s “now”. There is also a voice-over letting the viewer know that the past is being retold in literary form as a book that Stephen is writing.

The past is as intricate as the present. It’s safe to say that Stephen’s relationship with his mother Mary (Elisabeth Shue) is a complicated one. His father Ben (Jake Weber) and his younger sister die on the night of his birth. His mother is convinced that Stephen is the result of an adulterous mistake she made with the handyman Ryan (Justin Chambers) in desperation when she thought her husband was being unfaithful to her. She sees him as her punishment and treats him accordingly.

In a way this is a perfect Southern Gothic tale, complete with a huge decaying Southern mansion, rich in connotation for anyone who has read their Faulkner and Poe. There are a lot of conventions in play, both in the first timeline and in the second one. What saves it from being no more than a quick game of cliché bingo is the performances from Fiennes and, above all, Elisabeth Shue. Shue delivers a complex and nuanced performance as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and later as the embittered alcoholic bent on self destruction.

After the death of her husband, Mary (Shue) keeps up the relationship with Ryan and it becomes increasingly abusive and violent. It all culminates one night when it escalates to the point where young Stephen steps in with a frying pan and kills Ryan. The subsequent trial is painful to watch, Mary does not step up and defend her son’s actions, instead consigning him to fifteen years in prison. To add insult to injury it’s actually at the trial that she finds out that Stephen is her husband’s son. She has been punishing him his whole life for no reason. Stephen takes the fifteen years as his due, and tells his mother that they can finally be done with all this now.

What I realize as I’m working on this review is that there is a lot of content here. The story is  also told with a specific visual sensibility, all very crisp and clear and obviously very carefully thought through. There are some interesting choices when it comes to the colour and feel of the visual aspects. There are also visual representations of the literary voice-over that try to illustrate the imagery of the words. And it works really well, even if it feel a little overly artistic at times. Like I said in the opening paragraph, it’s a very ambitious movie.

The “now” of the story takes place mostly at Vic’s motel and diner. The owner Vic (Sam Shepard) takes in convicts, not out of the kindness of his heart, but because they are cheap labour. Vic’s is in part owned by Horace (Dennis Hopper) who acts like he owns everything in the place, up to and including the harried waitress Caroline (Deborah Kara Unger). Hopper gives his usual bad guy-performance, a role we’ve seen him in before, but you can’t really fault the director on that. Hopper plays that kind of sexualized evil with the ease of familiarity, just like Sam Shepard plays the grumpy Vic with all his quirks in the same all-under-the-surface manner that we’re accustomed to.

The now and the past eventually converge when Leo/Stephen meets himself running along the banks of the Mississippi. They have a conversation about the past, the present and the future and it all rounds out the literariness of the story very nicely. There are really no lose ends.

Using clichés like this… it requires a lot of finesse. I am sufficiently steeped in literary- and cinematic knowledge to be familiar with all these things, the connotations and the literal intertextual references and the viewer has to accept that there are going to be things about this that feel naggingly familiar even if the way the clichés are used is original enough that it still feels worth while to watch and interesting to ponder afterwards. There’s an very economic use of these conventions and clichés here that really make each scene incredibly dense in meaning.

This is a movie that requires a little more than causal couch potato watching – and that’s a good thing in my book.

Mule

The 2403rd Star – Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) passed away the other day. He made it to 74, who would have thought?

The thing about Hopper for me has always been his ability to hook your attention – even when the quality of the movie might not be … well, you know – stellar.

Hopper’s career was chequered, to say the least. You got the feeling that occasionally he just needed to pay the rent, and I can respect that. There’s no shame in working.

When he was good, on the other hand, he was really good. Some performances stand out by a country mile: Easy Rider (1969) and Blue Velvet (1986) being the ones that pretty much everybody remembers.

But there’s also the very young and clean-faced Goon in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the surprisingly funny Huey Walker in Flashback (1990) opposite Kiefer Sutherland. Hopper’s performance as the father in Rumble Fish (1983) is one of my personal favourites, it seems so effortless. Then again there’s the scene between Hopper and Christopher Walken where they discuss the heredity of being Sicilian in True Romance (1993) which still gives me a big happy. Apocalypse Now (1979) is one of those performances that makes perfect sense too, the crazed gleam in Hopper’s eyes probably not all the way an act.

There’s also Hoosiers (1985), The Indian Runner (1991), Paris Trout (1991), The Osterman Weekend (1983), The American Friend (1977) and Basquiat (1996).

Then, on the other hand … Waterworld (1995), Super Mario Bros. (1993) and Firestarter 2: Rekindled (2002) aren’t exactly shining moments for anyone involved. Like I say – sometimes you just got to pay the rent.

Hopper also directed. Easy Rider (1969), The Last Movie (1971) – which was a spectacular failure. Out of the Blue (1980), Colors (1988), Catchfire (1990), The Hot Spot (1990), Chasers (1994) and the short Homeless (2000).

If you look at his career as an actor, he worked with some of the very best directors, and if you look at what he did as a director he worked with some spectacular actors. Directors include Sam Peckingpah, Robert Altman, David Lynch, Sean Penn, Julian Schnabel, Francis Ford Coppola, Nicholas Ray, George Romero and Wim Wenders. That’s a whole hell of a lot of talent all around.

Hopper also collected modern art and exhibited his own photography and painting.

Squandered talent always kind of angers me and Hopper was lucky in a way that he didn’t fall from grace completely, succumbing to substance abuse early in his career. He did abuse his fare share of substances there for a while, though, and got a sharp awakening and cleaned up his act.

Some actors have this ability to tap into a real dark streak, mainlining something close to evil, and Hopper is one of them. He has been the good guy too, the tough cop, all that, but he is just more in command of the stage when the darkness bleeds through.

Like with most creative souls there’s a restlessness, a sense that there is never world enough, or time. A feeling that you have to rage against the dying of the light. In his best moments Hopper gave the viewer all that and a feeling that there was an active intelligence at work behind it.

I asked around amongst my less film enthusiastic acquaintances about Hopper when the news of his death became public. I asked what they remembered seeing him in, what they thought of him, and the funny thing to me was that no one seemed to like him much. I just went “huh?” because, man I didn’t get that. I guess it makes sense that you don’t like him if all you’ve seen is Blue Velvet, because Booth is not a very likeable guy. Hopper played bad guys, like Booth or Paris Trout, with so much fire and honesty, that it makes sense.

In Apocalypse Now the Photojournalist dances about like a mad monkey on speed, lost in the jungle in so many ways and he delivers the following lines about Kurtz to Marlow: “What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans, man? That he had wisdom? Bullshit, man!”

And there it is.

There was more to him, though.

Hopper’s character Father in Rumble Fish has this lovely dialogue with Rusty James;

-Every now and then, a person comes along, has a different view of the world than does the usual person. It doesn’t make them crazy. I mean… an acute perception, man… that doesn’t, that doesn’t make you crazy.
-Could you talk normal?
-However sometimes… it can drive you crazy, acute perception.
-I wish you’d talk normal ’cause I don’t understand half the garbage you’re saying. You know? You know what I mean?
-No, your mother… is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He’s merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river… with the ability to be able to do anything that he wants to do and finding nothing that he wants to do. I mean nothing.

That is one of my favourite pieces of dialogue for whatever strange and intangible reason. It has to do with the setting, the pitch of Hoppers voice and the earnestness, the slight exasperation and the honesty with which he delivers it. Hopper’s character’s rumpled suit, his greasy hair, the stubble and the signs of neglect, all of it tells the story of a man with a sharp intelligence who has fallen from grace and lost his footing due to heartache and heavy drinking.

Hopper doesn’t so much sell a performance as live it.
And that’s how I will remember him.

Mule