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The PopMatters Film Blog
Shameless! Tasteless! Hilarious! The Films of Yakov Levi
Take trailer park titan Giuseppe Andrews, marry him to the king of trash John Waters, let them procreate under a sleazy South Park sky, and wean their wicked offspring on a deranged diet of former Soviet Union austerity and lunatic local color and you’d have the wonderfully wicked work of Yakov Levi in a nut-case-shell. Inspired by present patron Troma, as well as a myriad of hilarious homemade titles from around the globe, this Ukrainian crackpot is part jester, part janitor. He’s the humor section of a soiled Hustler Magazine come to life, a vaudevillian of the vile who works in outright sex and scatology.
Sure, there will be some who see him as nothing more than an arrested adolescent who probably should be, a grown man who should know better than to exploit toothless old hags the way he does. But after sitting through the recently released DVD from Lloyd Kaufman and company, it’s clear that Levi is as smart as he is smutty. Offering almost everything he’s done to date - The Killer Bra, Matroshka Dolls of Doom, Vanity Insanity, The Ghost of the Marquis De Sade, Penisella, Parts 1 - 4, Tasteless and Shameless - plus a bevy of bonus features, we get a rare glimpse at a cinematic universe that seems strangely familiar, and yet far removed from our own sense of social propriety and acceptability.
Levi will be the first to tell you of his love for Pink Flamingos and the whole of anarchic auteur John Waters’ work. He constantly references the man, making use of an aging old bat nicknamed “Baba Alla” (rumored to be a real life 80-year-old prostitute) as his own personal combination of Edith Massey and Divine. Trading on the whole “beauty in the grotesque” motif, Levi throws everything including the carnal kitchen sink into his silly short films, turning outrageous acts of deliberate debauchery into punchlines to jokes no one wanted to hear. Yet oddly enough, a lot of his oeuvre is made up of goofy little softcore sex farces, excuses for some comely Eastern European strippers to drop their shirts and show off their formerly Behind the Iron Curtain assets.
Indeed, both The Killer Bra and Matroshka Dolls of Doom use the horror genre as a basis for some otherwise inoffensive skin flicking. The first film focuses on some lethal lingerie, and the gullible girls who fall for its intangible ability to lift, separate…and slay! While it goes on a tad too long, it is definitely the most polished production here. Far more fun however is the juxtaposition of the recognizable Russian novelty and haughty hot honeys. Using the standard superstitions that still permeate the culture, Levi sets up a situation in which Baba Alla (keeping her clothes on for once) sets the perfect seashore tourist trap. Visitors to the beach rent a room from the creepy old crone - and suddenly find themselves transformed into those rolly-poly nesting toys.
Considering his love of gross-out gags and humor, Vanity Insanity is an oddly serious piece from Levi. It centers on a possessed mirror, a young woman, and the evil obsession with beauty and attractiveness that permeates the media. If anything in his creative canon has any kind of message, this mini-movie definitely strives for one. On the opposite end of the spectrum are The Ghost of Marquis De Sade and the Penisella series. The latter centers on a well-endowed woman (no, not where you think) that feels persecuted because of her massive male member. Over the course of four funny shorts, she celebrates the good - and the disturbing - about being a chick with a…you get the idea. Ghost, on the other hand, is a grindhouse stripshow with a whisper thin storyline. It features three pseudo skanks, a desperate plea for a French lover, and the séanced spirit of the famous sadist himself. From then on, it’s all pantomime porn.
The best material here remains Levi’s latest, self-described attempts to make the “worst, most irredeemable movies ever”. Frustrated by the many production problems he had on other films (especially Killer Bra and Marquis De Sade), he got his octogenarian hooker, tarted her up like trash, and featured here in two films focusing on young men desperate for action - and getting an atrocity instead. Loaded with sickening, over the top sight gags (including every bodily fluid known to man…and woman), Levi literally lets it all hang out here, tapping into his hapless horndog Id and releasing a pair of depraved demons in response. In the world of strident cinematic slaps in society’s face, Tasteless and Shameless are propriety’s Scylla and Charybdis.
The first film deals with a group of young men who come across Baba selling herself to help feed her middle-aged son’s heroin habit. A few revolting fake sex acts later, and its all bodily functions and foulness. The second short centers on a chronic masturbator who would prefer a little female companionship to his constant self-abuse. A call to an escort service later, and Baba is at his door, tormenting his raging libido in ways he can scarcely imagine. Both movies seem like mindless miscreant escapism, shock value for the sake of additional distress. But if you look closely, you can see Levi criticizing the paternalistic nature of his newly liberated culture. Even in a world opened up to the enlightened progress of the rest of the planet, women in the Ukraine appear to be slaves to the old school structures - no matter how old and ragged.
Indeed, the best aspect of the entire Shameless, Tasteless DVD experience - aside from the sick, twisted Jokes from the John nature of the humor - is the rare glimpse into this formerly closed off country. Levi’s commentaries discuss the standard amateur filmmaking woes, but every once in a while, he’ll say something that argues for the constant back and forth between antiquated and still forming ideologies. Even in the interviews with Kaufman and others, Levi’s perspective appears shrouded in said truths. While underground film is always a source of controversy and contempt, Levi has clearly tempted proto-party fate with his desire to explore the unnatural and the unholy. It’s a struggle that this wonderful Troma title reminds us of over and over again.
As we slowly march into the next decade of the newest millennium, it’s refreshing to see someone embrace the “Toxic” tenets of the last production company still producing real independent motion picture art. While Kaufman and company may be dismissed as nothing more than purveyors of filth, fright, and juvenile funny business, it’s hard to deny their impact on the artform in general. For every one director striving to be the next Hitchcock, there’s literally hundreds who see the DIY spirit of Troma and shout, “ME TOO!!!” One such voice is Yakov Levi. Call him an opportunist or an outrage, but one thing’s for certain. In a world awash in mainstream mediocrity, he’s decided to buck - and bugger - the trend. The results are truly shameless, tasteless…and hilarious.
—Bill Gibron
3:15 pm
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‘Goats’ Constantly Gets In Its Own Way
At this point in the post-modern, cynical dicta, nothing really surprises us about the military. From defense contracts which result in kick-back rich toilet seats to useless wars which tend to foster the power in the purveyors, not the people, a structured citizen soldiery is an unhealthy combination of jingoism and bumbling bureaucracy - and no place is this more obvious than in Grant Heslov’s proposed satire The Men Who Stare at Goats. Based on the “mostly” true tome by UK journalist Jon Ronson, we are told that throughout the ‘70s and early ‘80s, America was developing a kind of “super warrior”, one that would use a priority of peace (and a well-honed psychic ability) to resolve conflicts. But instead of resonating with the kind of comedy we expect from such oddball ideas, Heslov mismanages his narrative, bringing in ancillary elements that derail his attempts at insight.
When we first meet struggling American reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), his wife has just left him and he feels his career going nowhere. So he decides to become a war correspondent, heading to Iraq to cover the country post-“Mission Accomplished”. Stuck in Kuwait and desperate for a way in, he runs into the mysterious Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who turns out to be a deactivated black ops agent whose recently returned to the game, on a mission deep in the heart of enemy territory.
Turns out, he was once part of a top secret experiment known as Project Jedi, the brainchild of forward-thinking officer Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) who employs New Age philosophies and counterculture ideas to find a way to make enlisted men as lethal in peace as they are in war. Unfortunately, a failed sci-fi writer named Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) becomes part of the company. Jealous of Lyn’s abilities, including the power to stop a goat’s heart with his mind, the angry author decides to undermine the project - an effort that continues to this very day.
Neither as quirky as it thinks it is nor as witty as it wants to be, The Men Who Stare at Goats is a low grade military send-up. There are moments when Ronson’s true “tall tale” sizzles with a kind of silly authenticity, a jaw-dropping reality that makes Americans wonder just what their men in uniform are up to. Every time the story travels back to the moment when Django and company create their re-imagined model, the movie soars. It provides a clever combination of nostalgia and insanity, Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” chugging along in the background while a long-haired Clooney shakes his booty magnificently. Whenever Bridges is onscreen, Goats gives over to his Dude-induced bliss, and everything is better for it. Along with our updated Gable, he brings a lot of hilarious heart to the material.
McGregor, sadly, has the exact opposite effect. Stuck in a one-note joke of a role (the big gag? He doesn’t understand the concept of a “Jedi”…think about for a moment…), he is a sad sack as a plot device, a means of getting us to the updated Cassady, the story behind the entire psychic project, and the last act reveal about what has happened to the concept since. He adds nothing to the narrative, and in fact draws our attention away from entertainment possibilities with his incessant whining and fake-accented antics. It seems odd that a British actor would be hired to play an American reporter (especially when Ronson himself was from Wales), but one imagines some studio interference in the decision. And let’s not even discuss a dull-eyed Spacey doing ‘villain’ in his sleep. As two facets of the failed modern material, they both sink Goat‘s chances of succeeding.
In fact, both the past and present in this particular movie offers limited entertainment value. Heslov, taking the reigns of a major feature film for the first time, clearly needs a few more turns behind the lens before tackling material this complex. It’s not just a question of comic timing or overall tone. As a director, he truly doesn’t understand where the best bits lie. Whenever the flashbacks fill the screen, Bridges et. al. doing their best bemused hippy shtick, we are immediately whisked away to a more innocent - and enjoyable - era. The jokes flow and the sight gags click. But then, just as we are getting into the groove, Heslov brings back the War in Iraq road movie and things simply die. No matter their level of talent, Clooney and McGregor are an unsuccessful Hope and Crosby.
But more importantly, Goats really has no point. The script doesn’t find a fresh way of dealing with military incompetence or the often surreal situations surrounding same. In fact, the most telling attempt comes at the expense of excellent actor Stephen Lang, who definitely gets the deranged Dr. Strangelove nuttiness involved. Yet beyond one or two brief moments of comedic clarity, Goats doesn’t “get” it. Instead, it throws random scenes at the audience and hopes that they make the necessary critical connections. With Bridges, such cinematic heavy lifting is easy. Everyone else, however, only increases the burden. While Heslov should get most of the blame, the script by Peter Straughan doesn’t help. After all, this is the man responsible for disemboweling Toby Young’s bitter magazine publishing rant How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, turning it into a tired media spoof.
Somewhere buried in all the screwball struggles and inconsistent time shifts is a potent film about outsized ideas and the perversion of same. When Bridges is explaining his notion of an “Earth First” army, we easily recognize his goal. Too bad few in the film follow in his footsteps. As another example of Clooney’s patented “mainstream/iconoclastic” back and forth, career wise, The Men Who Stare at Goats is a likeable failure. There may not be enough here to completely satisfy, given the inconsistency behind the scenes, but at the very least there are individual sequences that illustrate what this wacky military farce could have been. We expect a little lunacy from those invested with keeping out country safe. Unfortunately, the bumpy approach to this particular “true” story thwarts its intentions.
—Bill Gibron
11:10 am
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Critical Confessions: Part 18 - Fool Me Once for a ‘Fourth’ Time
The Fourth Kind is NOT the truth. It is a piece of fiction using other pieces of fiction to verify its already fake plotline.
No one likes to be taken advantage of. It plays with already questionable self-esteem issues, especially for those who fancy themselves as smug, smart-ass know-it-alls. Especially in today’s cynical, post-modern age, it’s hard to pull the wool over the audience’s eyes - cinematically, artistically, or factually. Cracks in the defining demeanor always appear, letting you know full well that everything you’ve just experienced is a lie. We critics fancy ourselves as ace detectives in the world of filmic bullshit. We love to call out amateurism, arrogance, a lack of imagination, and all other facets of filmmaking that get under our skin.
So perhaps this is why the recent screening of Universal’s The Fourth Kind has left me in such a quandary. I consider myself a smart man (though several in the online readership may doubt that claim) and, at 48 years of age, quite capable of uncovering a con-job when I see it. A few years ago, when everyone was yelling about how Borat was all “real”, about how obviously talented Sacha Baron Cohen captured segments with Pamela Anderson and others as part of a “guerilla comedy” style of filmmaking, I recognized the ruse and called it out. After dozens of hate filled emails and comments, the actor (and studio) eventually admitted to ‘staging’ several of the sequences. Score!
Similarly, I have a hard time falling for films that propose to be the truth (the whole Blair Witch Project prerelease hype) or use a matter of fact basis for selling their story (Paranormal Activity). I often chalk it up as being too old, too wise, and very intolerant of the trade’s tricks. So when I went into the alien abduction thriller by Olatunde Osunsanmi, supposedly based on ‘actual’ footage captured by psychiatrist Dr. Abigail Emily Tyler, I didn’t know what to expect. The thought that some unknown filmmaker had (a) found an individual with actual recordings of creepy close encounters, and (b) was using the real material as part of his narrative in a major studio release should have sent off big fat, “listen up fool” warning flags. Instead, I went in completely naïve…and got taken. Big time!
That’s right - up until the moment when the “real” Dr. Tyler (a now obvious actress) went into her horror film inspired trance and turned into a monstrous hellbeast with the voice of a rotting Regan MacNeil - I was convinced that Osunsanmi had stumbled across one of the greatest under-reported stories of the last decade. I was floored by the first few “hypnosis” sessions, watching the actors recreate what the split-screen showed were “authentic” moments of terrifying recall. Sure, all the stuff about owls and bright lights sounded like a combination of Twin Peaks and a lame episode of In Search of…, but it reeled me in and set its hook. After the eerie initial “recording” of Dr. Tyler’s own experience with abduction (including that shocking voice spewing what turns out to be Sumerian), I was ready for anything.
Little did I know that The Fourth Kind would tempt me at every turn to discover its hoax. The story takes us to a police standoff where a patient of Dr. Tyler’s, a typical Alaskan burly man named “Tommy”, takes a gun and starts shooting up his family. As the “recreation” sits side-by-side with proposed police tape, I stared in stunned disbelief. They were actually going to show this horrific deed onscreen, I wondered, trying to imagine how a story like this fell outside the purview of the mainstream media for so long. As the pixilated ending played out, I was mortified. How was Osunsanmi getting away with this, I thought? Of course, the best ballyhoo was yet to come.
When Milla Jovivich (as Dr. Tyler) is accused of negligence in Tommy’s case, she reluctantly puts another patient named Scott under, hoping to clarify and certify what’s happening. Within minutes, she’s convinced its aliens, and within another couple of scenes she is called to the same man’s house. Again, a camera is set up, and in perfectly DePalma-esque execution, Osunsanmi shows us how Scott, possessed by his memories of being taken up with the extraterrestrials, brings on his own demon voice and literally levitates above the bed. That’s right - actual footage of an actual human being hovering over his bed is shown, even as the material freezes and mis-frames (due to the advanced technology of the aliens present in the room, naturally).
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! The sound of BS bells going off! I should have heard them, but didn’t. After all, wouldn’t YouTube be making a mint off such “proof” of extraterrestrial contact? Wouldn’t the Amazing Randi, famed magician and longtime debunker of such F/X falderal, have to cough up his $1 million reward after witnessing such a stunning example of life beyond our planet - or at the very least, a real example of paranormal powers? Huh? But no, I was still sitting there, oblivious to the chicanery on display. I marveled at another police tape, this time showing a spaceship-like shape hovering over the Tyler home with complementary freaked out officer narrating what the scrambled image wouldn’t allow us to see. And took it all in and felt the occasional tingle down the back of my spine. God - what an IDIOT!
Ninety-eight minutes later, I walked out of the screening believing that, somehow, an unknown filmmaker had found an equally unreported story about Nome, Alaska’s history of alien abduction and nurtured it into some manner of documentary/docudrama where actors told the story while actual recorded material supplied the proof. Upon arriving home, I immediately went into my office and starting researching my review. I looked up Dr. Abigail Tyler. Nothing. I went to Olatunde Osunsanmi’s IMDb page. He was a relative newcomer to filmmaking. I tried to track the movie’s claim that these events happened over the course of nine days in October of 2000. Nothing. Everywhere I looked, there was no way to verify the main threads of The Fourth Kind‘s claims. And then I found the articles by the webheads who actually had the ability to dig deeper than I…and my huckstered heart sank.
Talk about feeling like a grade-A stone-faced sucker. Alaskan authorities had never heard of Tyler, her supposedly dead husband, her missing daughter - and most importantly - her proposed licensing as a psychiatrist in the State. No such person exists. Period. Sites sourced by Universal and its PR didn’t come online until 2009, meaning that nothing about The Fourth Kind‘s events was available for research until a few months ago. There is no information anywhere about the murder-suicide of Tommy and his family, no account of police staking out Dr. Tyler’s home and seeing flying saucers. Unless there is a massive attempt to cover-up the truth by some rogue government agency (shut up, conspiracy theorists!), Olatunde Osunsanmi tricked us all - or better yet, enter into a deal with the Universal devil to sell his unorthodoxed thriller as something it clearly is not.
You see, The Fourth Kind is NOT the truth. It is a piece of fiction using other pieces of fiction to verify its already fake plotline. Imagine, for a moment, if Robert Zemeckis told everyone that Forrest Gump was a real person, that the footage claiming to be actor Tom Hanks interacting with President’s Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and talking with Dick Cavett and John Lennon was actually all 100% legitimate. It just so happens that the real life rube looks an awful lot like one of America’s favorite superstars. Now take it a step further and watch as Paramount plays along with the joke, creating websites celebrating the real Mr. Gump’s life and the different historical events he was part of. As you sat back in entertained wonder, trying to figure out how this remarkable story missed your radar entirely, somewhere in a Tinseltown skyscraper, studio heads and staffers are laughing - laughing all the way to the bank, laughing at you for being so undeniable gullible.
That’s what’s happening now with this oddball entry. I am not sure what to make of The Fourth Kind. Growing up in the ‘70s, UFOs and stories of alien encounters were part of my formative years. It was a hot topic three decades ago, having died down quite a bit thanks to the Internet, X-Files, and an overall belief that, if we are not alone, we should be left as such. Many critics are slamming the film - not for its lack of truth, but for its jumbled, almost incoherent approach. Others are simply shouting “shenanigans” and leaving the effort to die amongst an already overloaded box office. If I had known it was all a joke from the moment I walked into the theater, my opinion of The Fourth Kind might be very similar. But I was a clueless mark when I took my screening seat and the grafters got me. I got swindled. Like the old adage says, shame on me.
—Bill Gibron
12:06 pm
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Great by Greatness: Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘North by Northwest’ 50th Anniversay Edition (1959): Blu-ray
If only his mother wasn’t playing bridge. If only Roger O. Thornhill (“My own personal motto - R.O.T.,” he snidely explains), twice-divorced New York ad man hadn’t forgotten that important facet of his parent’s social calendar. He wouldn’t have rushed to his important meeting with some important clients. He wouldn’t have called on the Western Union boy to send a telegram (explaining to his secretary the locational faux pas). And he wouldn’t have incurred the curiosity of a pair of thugs, hitmen working for a foreign spy desperate to learn the identity of infamous secret agent George Kaplan. That afternoon card game eventually cost Thornhill his security, his safety, and his sanity as he becomes part of a major international conspiracy involving missing microfilm, double agents, and a conspiracy moving ever across the United States.
Scripted by dependable collaborator Ernest Lehman (who set out to create the ultimate version of the Master of Suspense’s style) and featuring film’s singular leading man, Cary Grant (replacing intended star Jimmy Stewart), Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest remains the seminal example of the fabled director’s artistic proficiency. It’s thrilling, sexy, funny, fresh, inventive, exhilarating, and ultimately, a first-class illustration of the “they don’t make them like they used to” adage. Sure, some can argue over the legendary director’s constant shifts in locational perspective (in studio one shot, on location the next) and the highly formal manner in which he handles action, but Alfred Hitchcock is a legend for one obvious reason - he is a true cinematic visionary, someone who literally defined - and then proceeded to destroy - the limits of the motion picture artform.
By mistakenly drawing the attention of two hired goons, Thornhill comes face to face with crafty Cold warrior Phillip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard. Believing his is CIA operative George Kaplan, the duo threatens his life unless he converts to their cause. Of course, our oblivious businessman has no idea what they are talking about. Narrowly avoided an attempt on his life, Thornhill is soon framed for the murder of a United Nations contractor, forcing him on the run and desperate to seek out the real Kaplan. Learning that he might be in Chicago, our hero hops a freight, only to come face to face with sophisticated industrial designer Eve Kendall. She wants to help him. He winds up in ever deeper trouble. Soon, the government gets involved, letting Thornhill know that if he plays along with the Kaplan ruse, his name will be cleared. But there are complications, including how Eve fits into all of this.
Along with Vertigo and Psycho, North by Northwest is indeed the seminal suspense experience. It makes brilliant use of the everyman lost in a world of intrigue and danger ideal, and then amplifies the prospect by making Grant’s Thornhill more adept at these spy games than the villains. True, it takes a lot to show up James Mason and Martin Landau (getting a lot of mileage out of underplaying their roles), but this is Archibald Alexander Leach we’re talking about, the dashing, debonair superstar who more or less gave birth to the mainstream man crush. Grant agreeably gives his greatest performance here, at times both cosmopolitan and comically clueless. Just watch the scene where a completely inebriated and barely coherent Thornhill is trying to tell the police what happened to him. It’s a master class in bridging the gap between post-modern believability and studio system shtick.
So are his entendre-laced clashes with Eva Marie Saint. No slouch as the femme fatale with a couple of troubling secrets up her designer sleeves, she is a flawless foil to Grant’s well-groomed wolf. There is absolutely no doubt about what’s on their mind when they meet, and later, when it looks like they will consummate their newfound friendship, the dialogue is just delicious. In the commentary track to the new blu-ray release (which looks AMAZING, one must say), writer Lehman lets us know about how careful he had to be with the words and phrases he chose to champion. Censors were already nervous about a middle aged man and a twenty-something sharing a train compartment. Several lines were snipped or trimmed when studio moralists believed they were too suggestive. In the end, Lehman actually got his way, if inadvertently. The scene between Grant and Saint in her darkened quarters remains one of the steamiest non-explicit moment between two people ever - all because of the oblique nature of the exchanges and Hitchcock’s handling of same.
But the real North by Northwest showstoppers are the various edge of your seat sequences used to intensify the terror. Grant’s near accident while intoxicated is indeed harrowing and the classic crop duster attack remains a singular cinematic moment. The best is saved for last, of course, as Grant, Saint, and Landau traverse the various cliff-like edifices of Mount Rushmore. That’s right - Hitchcock had always wanted to conduct a chase across the façade of the fabled American monument, and thanks to some tricky F/X work (massive photos of the landmark were created, and then dimensionalized on a equally huge Hollywood set), he pulls it off magnificently. Indeed, watching Grant and Saint juxtaposed against this backdrop renews your faith in the power of filmmaking. While it may seem logistically impossible - or worse, highly improbable - Hitchcock makes it wholly believable. Like all of North by Northwest, his craftsmanship overcomes any shortcomings in “realism”.
As the introductory entry of the Master onto the new digital format, Warners works wonders with the North by Northwest blu-ray. The picture presentation is immaculate - clean, sharp, and loaded with detail. Indeed, there is no arguing with the 1080p transfer. The sound has also been remastered, giving Bernard Herrmann’s memorable score a whole new level of epic urgency. There are also some fascinating added features here, including the Lehman commentary, an hour long documentary on the making of the film, as well as a look at Cary Grant’s career and Alfred Hitchcock mythos. But it’s the chance to see North By Northwest as it was initially conceived - original aspect ratio and as close to theatrical quality as the home video domain can deliver - that really makes this masterpiece a must-own. One can only imagine the kind of optical bliss awaiting blu-ray remasters of Rear Window, or even better, Vertigo.
In a career that spans a stint in British silent movies and as part of television’s grandiose growing pains, it was his stint in Hollywood (and the stunning films he created during that tenure) that took Englishman Alfred Hitchcock from trivial to titan - and North by Northwest is an example of the genius at the height of his professional powers. Indeed, it’s hard to watch a post-modern take on the genre and not see this Cary Grant title as an obvious inspiration. Sure, it’s oddly out of place ‘domineering mother’ subplot makes the Thornhill seem slightly less than macho and we never really find out what Vandamm and his men are after (the classic Hitchcock ‘MacGuffin”). Still, if it wasn’t for that blasted card game, none of this would have happened - and that really would have been a shame. That’s because, as cinematic classics go, North by Northwest is one of the greatest of all time.
—Bill Gibron
2:00 pm
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Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale: Walt Disney Treasures - Zorro:The Complete First and Second Season
People like to complain that Disney - or better yet, the mega-multimedia side of the 2009 version of the company - owns the world. What with video, television, movies, music, theatrical productions, theme parks, networks, cable subsidiaries, all manner of merchandising, and a creative catalog that includes such divergent elements as The Muppets and Marvel Comics, the House of Mouse does seem like an omniscient entertainment enterprise. But back before there was such a thing as DSL, digital delivery, the satellite dish, and the coaxial connection, the world that Walt built was an equally influential amusement giant. During the ‘50s, they practically owned the fledgling novelty known as TV. Between The Mickey Mouse Club, the various Disneyland anthologies, and Guy Williams action-packed take on famous pulp character created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley, they were as well known then as now.
For many a sullen pre-teen suburbanite, growing up in the Conservative afterglow of two terms with Eisenhower, Zorro was the original superhero, a Robin Hood of the Southwest combining a cavalier attitude with dashing good looks and a full blown mastery of the sword. Along with his mute sidekick Bernardo, Zorro - aka Don Diego de la Vega - protects the people of colonial California from shady cattle barons, corrupt bandits, mean-spirited members of the military, and all others who would take advantage of the poor and disenfranchised for their own immoral gains. Along with his well-meaning nobleman father, Don Alejandro de la Vega, and a fat, friendly magistrate Sergeant Demetrio López García, the local legend rides out into the wilderness, righting wrongs and fighting the good fight.
Like the Lone Ranger, Daniel Boone, and any other number of Wild West folk heroes, Zorro tapped directly into the post-war zeitgeist that saw young people, raised on tales of grandpa and dad’s GI derring-do, yearning for their own place at the champion’s table. While too immature to achieve it themselves, regular TV serials like this gave kids an escape, a way of seeing the triumphant acts they’d only heard about realized in a simple, moralistic manner. While Zorro was fond of a black cape and mask, his actions were indicative of the old school ‘white hat’ sense of justice. As a result, almost every villain was hyper-evil, given over to the kind of hand wringing and moustache twirling that the silent films fostered nearly 50 years earlier. While TV was still nothing more than radio in motion, the chance to move the visual from one’s imagination to “reality” was a great leap forward for many fledgling fans.
Now Disney is offering an opportunity for post-modern munchkins to dig on what the older members of the clan clamored for back five decades ago. As part of the company’s exclusive metal box Walt Disney Treasures collection, Zorro: The Complete First Season (1957-58) and Complete Second Season (1958 - 59) arrive completely remastered, restored, and presented over 12 separate DVDs. In addition, the set also includes the four one hour specials created when rights issues halted production during the height of the series’ popularity. As nostalgia, it’s a knock-out, a wholesome slice of pre-cynic spectacle where the House of Mouse’s patented production value is draped onto a collection of continuing story arcs involving cautionary tale tenets like greed, disloyalty, and underhandedness.
One of the best things about Zorro was its decision to mimic the antiquated matinee serial style that was waning toward the start of the ‘60s. By giving each initial 13 episode span a legitimate linking story, the show guaranteed to have audiences coming back each week for another exciting chapter in the tale. The first narrative dealt with Don Diego de la Vega’s arrival and his ongoing battles with the cruel Commandant Captain Monastario. The next focused on a conspiracy by Magistrado Galindo to rule all of California. The final story in Season One revolved around the identity, and defeat, of The Eagle, a member of the aforementioned criminal cabal. Season Two found the hero falling in love with the lovely Ana Maria and then competing for her favors with an old rival named Ricardo del Amo. Several smaller plotlines involved an attempted assassination on the Governor of California, a visit from Cesar Romero as Diego’s ne’er-do-well uncle, and more backdoor power plays and politics.
As the star, Guy Williams was a perfect choice. Italian by heritage (his real name was Armand Joseph Catalano), his rugged good looks landed him limited work in Hollywood before the chance at playing Zorro came along. Personally interviewed by Walt himself, Williams stepped into shoes previously filled by Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power and more or less made the part his own. With a noticeable twinkle in his eye and the physical prowess to pull off the many high energy fencing scenes (he trained with an Olympic champion), he made both parts of the developing superhero dynamic - champion and chump - into likeable, identifiable figures. Though set many decades before the then modern tenure of the ‘50s, Williams seemed to represent the domineering new male of the era, a well turned out icon that offered up grace, machismo, and a sense of ethics and fairness.
Sure, some of the storylines seem dated, especially when placed alongside the uneven updates featuring Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. But for all their high tech Tinseltown scope, there is something far more fun about Williams and his merry band of recognizable Disney character actors. Another intriguing aspect of this collection is watching the supposed guest stars wander in and out of Diego’s life, including the fetching Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, Everett Sloane (of Citizen Kane fame) and TV stalwart Richard Anderson. They add an element of familiarity for those of us old enough to remember when Mickey and the Gang’s returned to TV stations in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. There, show-within-shows like Spin and Marty continued the familiar boy’s adventure tale style that Zorro utilized throughout its run. Fifty-two years later, it all comes across as rather fake and freakishly wholesome, but when held up against contemporary examples of same, these terrific tales of frontier justice hold up quite well.
Thanks to Disney’s attention to detail, the desire to preserve their heritage for future generations to enjoy, these limited edition box sets are like stepping back in time and witnessing the series premiere as it originally aired. Film critic and company expert Leonard Maltin is on hand to guide us through the experience (does this man ever age?) and the hour long specials, while padded in places, are solid attempts to keep the Zorro franchise moving forward. Williams would go on to yet another iconic series when Irwin Allen hired him to play John Robinson in his sensational sci-fi schlock-fest Lost in Space. But this is where the actor first found major mainstream success - and for a couple of years, America was indeed mesmerized by his character’s combination of swashbuckling and savoir-faire. Slice a “Z” into a piece of paper (or some other object) nowadays and you’re bound to get more than a few dumbfounded looks. In 1957, however, everyone knew the mark of Zorro. Thankfully, the House of Mouse is giving us a chance to experience this hero’s magic all over again.
—Bill Gibron
12:00 pm
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Still Scandalous: ‘Natural Born Killers’ 15 Years Later
“At its heart, it’s a love story…albeit a relatively strange one” or so says Oliver Stone at the beginning of the latest DVD version of his 1994 murderers-on-the-run masterwork, Natural Born Killers . Fashioned from a script by then hot-eur Quentin Tarantino and styled after the maverick director’s other ‘90s masterpiece, JFK , this combination commentary and cultural coming of age was turned from a exploitation thriller into a demented overview of our media-saturated society, the continuing obsession with crime (not punishment), the profiler like scenarios that jumpstart death sprees, and the always raging internal demons that fuel the carnage of onscreen characters Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis). And then there is the visionary aggrandizement of director Stone himself.
True, if you strip away all the quick cut complexities, if you remove the genre-bending approach to child abuse and molestation (rendered in repugnant ‘50s sitcom style), super cop corruption (policeman Jack Scagnetti - a sober Tom Sizemore - is just as perverse as his internationally idolized prey), and a seemingly ever-present obsession with Native American mysticism, what you wind up with is Badlands with an added satiric element. No matter what Tarantino intended with this screenplay, Stone literally skinned it alive, using the passion felt by Mickey and Mallory (and their violence illustration of same) as the basis for a denouncement of everything tacky and tabloid circa the end of the millennium. By taking the audience to task over its love of sex and violence (which the movie simply drowns in) Stone suggests we’re all Mickey and Mallorys…at least to a point.
The story centers on the couple’s notoriety and the desire by Aussie reporter Wayne Gale (a brilliant Robert Downey Jr.) to get an exclusive story. When Mickey and Mallory get lost in the desert, they come across a shaman who suggests that actual demons run through these antisocial outlaws. Eventually trapped inside a local pharmacy, the duo are captured and taken to jail. There prison warden Dwight McClusky (a Loony Tunes like Tommy Lee Jones) makes a deal with Scagnetti to transport his star prisoners out of the facility (the agreement is that Mickey and Mallory will meet an untimely “accident” along the way). However, their plans are thwarted when Gale lands a post-Super Bowl interview with the pair. Mickey uses the opportunity to escape, grabbing guards and using them as hostages, all in an effort to be reunited with Mallory.
Several things stand out about Natural Born Killers some 15 years later. Like the other great films of the era (Pulp Fiction, The Matrix, Se7en), Stone’s dark comedy about the fall of post-modern man is, today, a much imitated and mimicked effort. Entire subcategories of cinema rose out of this cacophony of images and collage of sounds. It’s also frightening how dated the declarations against the news media (and the public consumption of same) really are. If Mickey and Mallory could see what Fox News and the like have wrought, they wouldn’t waste time plugging police. It would be pundits in their well worn crosshairs. While the level of violence is minor compared to the once new, now old trend of torture porn, and there are still touches of studio stargazing when it comes to the casting (Harrelson, though not the original pick for Mickey, was a hot property back in ‘94), this is a still a subversive effort that remains relevant.
What keeps this otherwise marginalized movie controversial is its desire to let no one off the hook for what these mass murders do. Everyone is to blame in Stone’s film - miscreant parents, apathetic politicians, power mad law enforcement, copycat criminals, as well as the conspiratorial, clueless masses who drink in the couple’s appalling antics and revel in their repugnant hatred for humanity. Of course, Natural Born Killers would argue that Mickey and Mallory only kill “bad” people - men who mash on innocent young girls, rednecks who reject propriety to spew their brazen bigotry on an unresponsive world. But it’s the confrontation with the past and the accidental death of the medicine man that dooms the pair. In fact, what Stone is saying throughout this amped up narrative is that, while driven by fate and a mutual need and necessity, Mickey and Mallory are only as bad as circumstances make them. Murder a pedophile and you’re a hero. Take down a crooked policeman and you’re head for the electric chair.
With this latest DVD expanding Stone’s vision to include much of the gore removed from the initial release of the film, Natural Born Killers becomes more of a royal romantic geek show than ever. While our gun totting terrors spread fear around the countryside, the trail of blood and entrails leads directly to the gates of Hell (or in this case, a prison recreation of same). There is a Pilgrim’s Progress quality to the storyline, Stone taking his characters through various religious and moralistic stages of denial/acceptance before setting them before the great God/Devil itself - TV, in the persona of Downey Jr.‘s Wayne Gale. As perhaps the most important piece of the entire cinematic puzzle, this investigative hack, hoping to score enough ratings to up his profile (and keep his wife and girlfriend happy), represents the ultimate stand for our loathsome lovers, their 15 minutes-plus of fleeting fame - and they play him perfectly.
As with many Special Edition digital packages, this offering is loaded with intriguing added context. Disc two houses an amazing documentary that outlines the controversies surrounding the film, from the various protestations to the unusual court case where Natural Born Killers was accused of “inspiring” the criminal acts of two clearly misguided teens. All the while, Stone puts up his best bruised ego demeanor, taking the assault in stride (perhaps recognizing that any hype, including publicized hate, is good for the box office bottom line). Elsewhere, deleted scenes give us a chance to see cutting room floor performances from Ashley Judd, Denis Leary, and the Barbarian Brothers while a 44 page booklet outlines the various issues surrounding the production, as well as the film’s place in motion picture history.
There is no denying Stone’s artistry and vision, even if you’re nauseated by the images and ideas he’s offering. Just like he did with his take on the Kennedy Assassination (or later look at the Nixon Administration), this is a director who has an uncanny knack for opening up a can of worrisome worms, and then using said bait to lure the truth - or a version thereof - out of hiding. While we are still no closer to discovering the actual facts about what happened that sad day in November ‘63, Natural Born Killers has actually enlightened us toward the addiction and insidious nature of the shock speculative style of reporting that passes for news nowadays. Sadly we learned little from these lessons, turning Stone’s showboating maelstrom into one of the most prophetic films ever. Like the equally enlightened Network, what was once satiric and sly is now too real to be funny. Instead, like a huge neon warning that everyone ignored, Natural Born Killers gets to say I told you so - and yes, it really does have to wallow in our shame and relish it so.
—Bill Gibron
10:00 am
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