"DRAGON" HITS 45

          Bruce Lee's best movie remains unsurpassed in the martial arts genre.
          "We need emotional content," he instructs a student at the beginning of the film. "Don't think! Feeeel."
          In Enter the Dragon (1973) Bruce Lee plays a martial arts expert recruited by a British intelligence man named Braithwaite (Weeks) who places great disdain on guns: "Any bloody fool can pull a trigger."
          Lee learns he must spy on Mr. Han (Shih) in order to bring him down, and the way to get to him on his forbidden island is for Lee to accept Han's invitation to his private martial arts tournament held every three years.
          To complete his mission, Lee must bypass tight security and face many dangers, including a chunky dude named Bolo (Yeung), and Oharra (Wall), the man who killed Lee's own sister.
          For the fist to hit all by itself, and to have a technique of no technique, because in reality there is no opponent, and the word "I" does not exist--these are examples of the philosophy conveyed by the film, a philosophy essential to understanding Lee's art on-screen and off.
          For Lee's part, Enter the Dragon gathers everything the Seattle-born star had developed, starting with his childhood martial arts instruction in China and early film roles there, and unleashes it all with the phenomenally empowering masterpiece of his unique career.
          Also starring John Saxon as a guy entering the tournament because he owes some people a lot of money, and Jim Kelly as a guy looking for money, and a good time, and a good way to get away from bad cops he beat up.
          The music by Lalo Schifrin is out of sight--and so is one of Mr. Han's hands, but he compensates for the missing appendage with a wide array of custom prosthetics, like Captain Hook, bearing varying sorts of sharp metal features.
          What makes the film unforgettable is of course Bruce Lee himself, who choreographed the fight scenes which demonstrate his legendary skill (spectacular bits with nunchucks, for example) to maximum effect--and with emotional content.
          He wasn't the biggest, but he was the best. And made everybody want to start Kung Fu fighting.
          He'd achieved notoriety as the kicking sidekick-chauffer on the campy "The Green Hornet" TV show in the '60s and taught martial arts to Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But Enter the Dragon showcased Lee's talents with the best production value of his career.
          At the time of his death July 20, 1973, one month prior to the movie's release (his death probably being due to complications related to medication), Lee had seen the finished film and was proud of it.
          His son Brandon Lee, who starred in The Crow (1994) died during filming as the result of an accident with a prop gun.


ENTER THE DRAGON
Starring Bruce Lee,
John Saxon,
Jim Kelly,
Kien Shih,
Ahna Capri,
Robert Wall,
Geoffrey Weeks,
Angela Mao,
Bolo Yeung
Directed by Robert Clouse
Written by Michael Allin
Runtime 102 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby works for the United States Forest Service and writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and 
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"LEBOWSKI" ABIDES

                   
          Twenty years of the cult favorite. And it really is a cult. There's actually a Dudist religion.
          Written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, The Big Lebowski stars Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken by hired goons for a millionaire also named Lebowski. On the surface, the story concerns the Dude's attempt to receive restitution for his living room rug which one of the goons soiled when they roughed him up.
          The rich old guy with the same name, wheelchair-bound, takes the Dude to task for his slacker ways, but does offer the Dude gainful employ as a bagman to pay kidnappers for the return of his wife.
          Incongruous combinations (a mysterious cowboy narrator waxin' rhapsodic about a hippie) and wildly eccentric characters leap out of a complex plot which is ultimately unimportant. John Goodman plays the Dude's Vietnam vet bowling partner, Walter. Steve Buscemi is Donny, another bowling partner, forever told by Walter to shut up. Julianne Moore is Maude, an avant-garde feminist artist. Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Peter Stormare, Tara Reid, Sam Elliott and more also all contribute something unforgettable.
          "The Making of The Big Lebowski" and "How The Big Lebowski Became a Lifestyle," short documentaries free on YouTube, offer interesting insight. The Coen Brothers reveal the Dude is based on a hippie friend of theirs living in L.A. Though the filmmakers reference Raymond Chandler specifically, they never mention The Big Sleep by name.
          In that film can be seen many elements appearing in The Big Lebowski, including a rich old man in a wheelchair with a job for the protagonist, a stained rug, and pornography.
          Loaded with great lines--"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling, there are rules"--and packed with fantastic music, the film seems effortlessly creative, yet ties aspects together brilliantly. The opening image of the tumbleweed, for example, which rolls like a bowling ball, or the Dude himself as he goes with the flow.
          Goon to Dude with Dude's head in toilet: "Where's the money, Lebowski?"
          Dude, dripping: "It's down there somewhere. Let me take another look."
          According the Coen Brothers, they wrote some of the parts with the actors who played them in mind. Jeff Bridges embodies the role so perfectly, "takin' 'er easy for all us sinners," it's impossible to imagine anyone else. When the Dude has a special lady at his pad, no one can sniff the armpit of a t-shirt off the floor checked for freshness before putting it on and inquiring, "Cocktail?" like Jeff Bridges.
          The Brothers excel re-imagining an existing work in an incongruous context. Lebowski does that, as does O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), which loosely sets Homer's Odyssey in the Great Depression with hilarious results. Take Miller's Crossing (1990), their hard-edged ode to Dashiell Hammett, add in the quirky, wry deadpan of Raising Arizona (1987), and you get their stoner noir masterpiece.


THE BIG LEBOWSKI
Starring Jeff Bridges,
John Goodman,
Julianne Moore,
Steve Buscemi,
David Huddleston,
Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Tara Reid,
John Turturro,
Peter Stormare
Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Written by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Runtime 117 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT

and

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"UP IN SMOKE" DOWN IN HISTORY

          The granddaddy of all stoner movies turns 40.

          To this day, the opening notes of War's "Low Rider" call to mind images of a guy with a Groucho Marx-like mustache, red knit cap, yellow tank top, red suspenders, and half-lidded eyes dusting off his lowrider. The one that says Love Machine and MUF DVR.

          Similarly, when one feels the burning need to advertise rock-ribbed counterculture affiliation, one obtains the curly brown hair and beard, red bandana, Hawaiian print shirt, and round John Lennon glasses available in one's Tommy Chong kit.

           For forty years now, film fans and stoners alike have paid homage to Cheech Marin by waking up on a couch assaulted by dirty diaper scent and placing a foot in a bowl of soggy Cheerios.

          Up in Smoke (1978) is the heroic story of Pedro (Marin) who picks up Anthony (Chong) while hitchhiking, and together they smoke pot and score with ladies on their way to a rock n' roll competition. Meanwhile, spectacularly inept cops led by Stacey Keach are on the lookout for a big dope shipment coming in from Mexico, unaware that the van being driven by the equally oblivious Pedro and Anthony is the shipment itself made entirely of pot.

          Featuring memorable cameos by Strother Martin as Chong's angry dad and Tom Skerrit as a crazy Viet Nam vet pot dealer, the film focuses on the hypocrisy of the older generation and roasts authority in general as often as possible. (A judge, for example, gets caught drinking vodka in court.) But Cheech and Chong, who wrote the movie, also skewer themselves and the Hippie drug culture. 

          Cheech asks Chong what they're smoking. 

          "It's mostly Maui-Wowie, man, but it's got some Labrador." 

          Cheech doesn't understand. Chong explains his dog got into his stash, so he had to follow it around for a couple days to get it back.

          Nine years earlier, the '60s ended with Easy Rider, with which Up in Smoke compares, except it's a comedy.

          Being counterculture is what drove the movie. Made in the days when pot was really illegal, the sight of a motorcycle cop too stoned to remember what he was doing by the time he reaches the driver's side window because he just passed through the fumes resonated.

          Years later, Cheech changed his ways and became Don Johnson's sidekick on a TV show. Chong, who remained true, did prison time ostensibly for selling bongs during the Bush-Cheney years because of his name being synonymous with pot. And then years after all that, they got back together and started touring again as Cheech and Chong.

          Followed up by a couple sequels--Next Movie and Nice Dreams--Up in Smoke retains its status as the original pot comedy.

UP IN SMOKE

Starring Cheech Marin,

Tommy Chong,

Stacey Keach,

Strother Martin,

Tom Skerrit,

June Fairchild

Directed by Lou Adler

Written by Thomas Chong and Cheech Marin

Runtime 86 minutes

Rated R