"HEAT" INCENDIARY

          Michael Mann's crime-drama masterpiece.
          From the director of The Last of the Mohicans this riveting story about an LAPD detective who puts the heat on a crack crew of heisters.
          Boasting a stellar cast, top-notch writing featuring clear, believable characters, intense action, and a great visual style, Heat (1995) is as much a thrill-ride as it is a lesson in the art of acting.
          One great thing Mann does is present a strong supporting cast casting against type. This blurs the lines and creates dimensionality to see actors famous for bad guy roles as the detectives hunting down the heisters. You don't want Scarface, Jame Gumb, and Magua out to get you.
          Not even if you're Jim Morrison. Val Kilmer plays the amiable tactical weapons specialist and personal friend of the mastermind, Neil McCauley (De Niro). Tom Sizemore and Danny Trejo round out Neil's core squad.
          Mann marbles in just the right amount of attention to the relationships of the characters, specifically the wives and girlfriends. Impaired by the severity of their partners' work, the women on both sides of the law are shut down from communicating, yet wind up being the redeemers of obsessed men.
          As Neil, De Niro is razor sharp, very controlled. His mistake is to take a new guy into a job, and maybe to allow himself to get close to anyone.
          Opposite him, Pacino is in standard rare form. In a scene where the lieutenant he plays is trying to find out something from an informant, Pacino suddenly explodes with the demand for the guy to tell him everything he knows, explodes in a way that could not be written on the page. Just one of many great moments showcasing the art of bringing the story to life.
          When the detective played by Ted Levine simply uses a pen as a pointer at a crime scene, it's incredible to remember he's the same actor famous as Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.
          Ashley Judd, Henry Rollins, Tone Loc, Hank Azaria--disparate talent supporting established heavyweights. Ultimately, we know it's a showdown between Pacino and De Niro. The mutual respect the two characters develop for each other speaks at a weird meta-level to the respect we like to feel must be shared by the formidable thespians for each other.
          "At the drop of a hat," the lieutenant assures his men, "these guys will rock and roll."
          According to IMDb, Mann began his career writing for Starsky and Hutch, so it was very much in his skill-set when in 1984 he created his own successful buddy-cop TV show, Miami Vice. In 1986 he directed Manhunter, the first film to feature the character Hannibal Lecter.


HEAT
Starring Al Pacino,
Robert De Niro,
Val Kilmer,
Tom Sizemore,
Ashley Judd,
Ted Levine,
Wes Studi,
Natalie Portman,
Jon Voight
Written and directed by Michael Mann
Runtime 170 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"HARD DAY'S NIGHT" DRUMS UP TRUMPETING

          The best of the movies starring the world's best band is a lighthearted and zany lark, a decades-earlier "Seinfeld"-esque "show about nothing" beautifully shot in black and white.
          Top-notch photography and innovative filmmaking give A Hard Day's Night (1964) a classy look. From the clang of the opening note of the film's title song, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are in motion--specifically attempting to escape the mobs of shrieking fans.
          It's a musical unlike any other because it's a slapstick comedy combined with a sort of documentary, true in the sense of accurately recording the inarticulate excitement of youth culture for the Beatles. Also unique in that most musicals require the bizarre conceit of groups of people suddenly breaking into songs and dances in stagey ways.
          Not so here.
          For the Beatles, playing themselves necessitates musical performances, and ultimately a televised concert in front of a genuinely ecstatic studio audience.
          As a subplot to this, Paul's grandfather (Brambell) is a little old man, very clean, who requires constant supervision because he is, in Paul's words, "a villain."
          Paul's grandfather, like all of the older folk in the film, acts childishly and can not be trusted to behave properly. When an old man discovered in a cupboard wants to accompany the Fab Four down to the hotel casino to find Paul's grandfather, John has to tell him no, "You're too old!"
          When asked at a press luncheon, "Are you a mod, or a rocker?" without missing a beat, Ringo replies, "I'm a mocker."
          Reporter: "What would you call that hairstyle you're wearing?"
          George: "Arthur."
          As a sub-subplot, Paul's grandfather, being a "king mixer", tweaks Ringo's inferiority complex, assuring him that fans will "pick on" Ringo's nose.
          Upbeat flick that it is, A Hard Day's Night features full song performances and incomplete portions woven frequently in, including "I Should Have Known Better", "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love", and many more.
          Help! (1965) is the other classic (although not quite as good) catching the Lads From Liverpool in the act of being fun and silly. Let It Be (1970), not a wacky slapstick, is the documentary that accidentally records the beginning of the end for the band.
          Director Richard Lester a decade later directed the excellent Three Musketeers films featuring Michael York, Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston, and an all-star cast.
          The timeless trendsetter freely available online.


A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
Starring John Lennon,
Paul McCartney,
George Harrison,
Ringo Starr,
Wilfrid Brambell,
Norman Rossington,
John Junkin,
Victor Spinetti,
Anna Quayle
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Alun Owen
Runtime 87 minutes
Rated G


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

Click link to books:
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"DRIFTER" RIDES HIGH

          Clint Eastwood's mostly ghostly Western.
          In the tiny town of Lago (means lake), at the edge of the world where gulls caw, a lone rider in the hazy heat shimmers into view like a horseman from hell.
          Small, isolated town though it be, Lago has officials. Nervous, sweaty officials considering hiring a gunslinger to protect them from three outlaws on their way to settle a score. So when a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) appears and shows his handiness with arms, the townspeople (who carry a dark secret) decide to give the stranger whatever he wants in order to protect them.
          But the stranger has his own agenda.
          High Plains Drifter (1973) is the second motion picture directed by the iconic actor, and his first Western. (In 1971 he directed and starred in the excellent thriller Play Misty For Me.)
          The cinematic premise of the gunslinger ostensibly defending the town while actually looking out for his own needs goes back to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), wherein a crafty masterless samurai played by Toshiro Mifune plays rival towns against each other. That was re-made in Italy by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and starred Eastwood as the Man With No Name character who appeared twice more in sequels--For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966).
          Eerie music with a sort of "tortured soul choir" lends a spectral atmosphere unique to the genre. Several aspects of the film set Drifter apart from the Western herd. Prior to the emergence of Clint (in the late-'50s he played Rowdy Yates on TV's Rawhide), the lead in a Western was much more "white hat-ish".
          We see the events which account for the mysterious gunslinger's vengeful spirit through flashbacks of a Marshall Duncan receiving a group bullwhipping in the street at night.
          "Damn you all...to hell," he barely manages to hiss. Sometimes, that's all it takes.
          Death by group bullwhipping, the most tragic way to go. Strangely, although we are able to see it's Clint being disciplined, somehow none of the townspeople recognize him. Not even the little person, Mordecai (Curtis), whom the stranger makes sheriff. And mayor.
          "What did you say your name was again?" Mordecai asks lighting a match for the stranger. (Mordecai is a Hebrew boy's name meaning "warrior", by the way, and Duncan is an Anglicized form of a Gaelic name which can be taken to mean "dark warrior".)
          To which the stranger hisses, "I didn't."
          Well, he doesn't do a lot of things. For instance, he doesn't last more than literally 40 seconds with a woman he abuses in a barn. Sleazy downer scene aside, most of the film is entertaining as hell.
          For one thing, everybody except for Clint shines from excessive sweat. None more so than the barber with the shaky hands and the greasy strands of combover slicked across his sweaty head.
          Gradually the tight-knit dysfunctional townspeople realize that their new solution may be worse than the original problem. But at that point it doesn't matter, because the stranger's decided to paint the town red!
          Look for Eastwood's latest film The Mule, which he directs and stars in, about a 90 year-old horticulturalist who becomes a mule for a Mexican drug cartel. In theaters now.


HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER
Starring Clint Eastwood,
Verna Bloom,
Mitchell Ryan,
Billy Curtis,
Geoffrey Lewis,
Stefan Gierasch,
Jack Ging,
Marianna Hill,
John Hillerman,
William O'Connell
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Ernest Tidyman
Runtime 105 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

Click link to books:
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"BRAZIL" SHINING CINEMATIC SWORD

          The story of Terry Gilliam's career as a director is to make a brilliant movie, watch it go over audience's heads, receive filmmaker's probation because it didn't bring in enough money, then watch it become a cult favorite.
          Brazil (1985) is the former Monty Python member's dystopian masterpiece (one of two, actually, the other being 12 Monkeys). Jonathan Pryce (Gov. Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) plays Sam Lowry, a nebbish dreamer trapped in a dark and lonely world of obedient, lifeless functionaries.
          The drab 1930s retro-future aesthetic, replete with automaton-like office personnel, calls George Orwell to mind. A prescient film from a visionary artist, if Brazil has lost any impact 33 years later, it's because now it hits too close to home.
          Think Orwell meets Kafka, only funnier.
          In a world of TVs everywhere, and helpful Fatherland reminders such as DON'T SUSPECT A FRIEND, REPORT HIM, and SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE, Sam Lowry dreams of flying in a shiny metal suit with big godly hair, spreading his mechanical wings and turning somersaults in the clouds, a majestic superhero of love free to live a fulfilling life--until he wakes up again and has to get shoved around in the stifling nightmare of ducts and hoses and bungled procedures.
          An alarmingly simple clerical error results in the Secret Police storming into an innocent family's apartment and taking the dad away in chains. They were looking for a Tuttle and instead they got a Buttle. A neighbor asks if the mom with the kids and the abducted husband is okay, and immediately the Secret Police start shooting.
          "That is your receipt for your husband. And this is my receipt for your receipt."
          When asked on TV to what he attributes the rise in terrorist attacks, the Deputy Minister proclaims, "Bad sportsmanship!"
          "The bombing campaign is now in its 13th year."
          "Beginner's luck!"
          Blackly comic images of surreal satire abound: a tug-of-war with a desk shared between two closet-size office rooms, a secretary with mechanical assistance connected to her flesh transcribing cries of anguish from ongoing torture like a court reporter.
          Featuring an all-star supporting cast including Robert De Niro, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, and Michael Palin. Plus stunning, perpetually rewarding visuals and a musical leitmotif as ironic and dissonant as Kubrick's use of "We'll Meet Again" in Dr. Strangelove.
          As his daydream self, keen of eye and swift with shining sword, Lowry sees a recurring beautiful woman. What happens when he meets in the actual grimy world a woman who looks just like his dream girl and who fights the dystopian state of the Faustian future is the story that reminds us, "We're all in this together!"


BRAZIL
Starring Jonathan Pryce,
Robert De Niro,
Ian Holm,
Kim Greist,
Katherine Helmond,
Jim Broadbent,
Bob Hoskins,
Michael Palin
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Written by Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard,
Charles McKeown
Runtime 132 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

COSMIC CAMERA

When I hang out with Weston Simonis, we jam. And together, we're The Man. Listen to The Man. Got a gnarly new tune for ya. And now...COSMIC CAMERA
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Once after I stopped my car in the street,

walked back to the one behind,

and without a word

inserted my fist in the driver's puss

I got back in,

parked in the lot

and walked across campus

to the room where I sat

waiting for students to drop in

for writing help.

I remember thinking,

Here's one for the cosmic camera.

It's easy for people to talk about restraint

when they don't have a choice.

Even now, electric Celtic warriors

on foot and horseback roar behind me overhead,

flanked by two calm Druids.

It's true what you hear.

Sometimes your best friends

are the dead and the unborn.