Category Archives: Imaginary US Cinema

Detective, Drama, Imaginary British Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema, Thriller

#174 – Black Book, The

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(1985, US/GB, 106 min) Dir James G Marshall. Cast Gabriel Byrne, Theresa Russell, Ian Holm, Billie Whitelaw, Phil Daniels, Alexi Sayle.

Alexander Kasin (Byrne) is a rising star in the KGB tasked with tracking down the author of the so-called Black Book of the title, dozens of copies of which have been disseminated across the Soviet Union via the producers of handmade publications known as samizdat. The file on said book is very thin – no copy has yet been found by the authorities though numerous references have been logged from intercepted mail, bugged telephones and the confessions of criminals. “There are not many copies in circulation,” he superior tells him, “But so far as we can tell the contents of this book are so volatile none can be tolerated.” So Kasin begins his investigation in the usual places – checking in with his informers, known black market operators and the samizdat slinging intelligentsia – but not only draws a blank but meets a kind of frightened resistance totally uncommon to him in his usual course of work. As he digs ever deeper and finds himself on a trail that leads to the obscurer ends of his homeland it occurs to him that he’s not on the trail of something new, but of a cancer as old as his country with a dark purpose at its heart. A classy, creepy detective film full of unplumbed darkness. An US/GB co-production directed by a Canadian, populated almost entirely with British actors and fantastically shot by veteran Irish DOP Brendan Bradley in snow bound Finland, The Black Book was made on the back of Gorky Park’s success but was sadly unable to replicate it. Not to be confused with Verhoeven’s Black Book nor indeed the Dylan Moran sitcom Black Books.

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Documentary, Imaginary Spanish Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema

#171 – Camino de Santiago

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(2003, US/Sp, 104 min) Dir Emmanuel Pascal, Andrea Filipe.

The first in Pascal and Filipe’s four years in the making Walks Trilogy. The directing duos films are the very paragon of simplicity, following a process or – in the case of their Walks Trilogy – journeys. In Access Road they follow the construction of a mining road in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and with Camino de Santiago they turn their cool lens on the route and the walkers of the famous European pilgrimage. It’s simple – the film begins in Roncevaux and ends in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela recording the landscape along the way. To some it’s the very definition of cinematic wallpaper but to others the way they record the changing of the landscapes, the relationship of the people within it and the places where the modern world runs up against a path that has remained unchanged in hundreds of years all tells a story that no words could adequately convey. As you can tell I’m a fully paid up member of the latter camp. Still a stunning film on the small screen it plays all the better in the cinema. Pascal and Filipe followed this up with The Inca Trail and Shikoku Pilgrimage, both as stunning as this.

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Action/Adventure, Imaginary US Cinema

#161 – Operation Oracle

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(1989, US, 105 min) Dir Hector Malevich. Cast Roddy Piper, Malcolm McDowell, Rae Dawn Chong.

In a part of Iran that looks suspiciously like Arizona a Navy SEAL team headed by “crack infiltrator” Cole Baskins (Piper) lands under cover of night. Their target – the top secret lab where Dr Rodney Deems (McDowell) is believed to be working on a super weapon for the Ayatollah that could wipe out the United States. The nature of the weapon is unknown but the threat is very real. The raid goes awry, an Iranian Army brigade waiting for them – obviously a tip-off. Baskins makes it out and recuperates thanks to the kindness of some passing Bedouin, falling for one of their kind in the shape of Fallah (Chong). Once he’s fit enough he can return, defeat his enemy and root out the mole that has infiltrated his team and it will be a battle to remember. Only then will the nature of the super weapon be revealed… Knuckleheaded doesn’t really cut it – the script is beyond laughable, the cast uniformly bored and the casting of obviously not Middle Eastern Rae Dawn Chong is questionable at best. The whole thing plays out like a child’s retelling of a Rambo marathon without the enthusiasm or geopolitical nuance. How Malevich, once one of the titans of Soviet cinema, came to this is beyond me.

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Drama, Imaginary US Cinema, Thriller

#156 – This Burning Rock

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(1978, US, 120 min) Dir Arthur Penn. Cast John Travolta, Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms.

Appalachian set eco-thriller based on mountaintop removal mining and the opposition thereof. Frank (Bridges) and Joe (Travolta) are buddies that went their own ways after high school – Frank to University and Joe to work. It’s been a few years but Frank’s back in town on unknown business. He and Joe go out for a few drinks to catch up on old times. Now Joe hasn’t told Frank but he’s working with the crew that are going to blow the top off Eagle Rock Mountain to mine it for coal but that’s okay – Frank hasn’t told Joe that he’s there to monkeywrench the operation. Of course we know what’s going on and we know at some point that the two of them are sure to collide. In the meantime the film winds itself ever tighter with the mechanics of the mountaintop removal as nail-biting as Frank’s nocturnal recces and basement bomb building. A fine example of that Seventies brand of gritty thriller, like a French Connection in the wild with plenty of time to lay out its characters along with the action. Produced after the megaflop of The Missouri Breaks, this taut, economical thriller didn’t do much better despite also having a stellar cast but it’s reputation has improved with age.

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Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#155 – Movements

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(1982, US, 98 min) Dir Edgar Pooley. Cast Dudley Moore, Daryl Hannah, Martin Short.

Dudley Moore stars as pretentious experimental pianist Radley Moone who has been sequestered in a secluded beach house by his manager (Short – yes, manic) to work on his newest compositions for the New York Festival of Contemporary Music. His star is on the wane, his reputation stalling and this is to be his big comeback. Radley’s gimmick, as a musician, is that each piano piece he composes is directly inspired by the feeling of passing his bowel movements but disaster has struck – he’s constipated! He spends his days munching bran, guzzling prune juice and walking along the beach which is where he meets budding young cellist June (Hannah) and comes to think that maybe there’s more in life to write music about than his bodily motions. It’s an absurd premise played straight and it flopped hard – audiences who flocked to ‘Cuddly Dudley’ in the previous years’ 10 weren’t hot on seeing him obsess about his leavings. The only silver lining are the times when Moore gets to play the piano, in particular an extended seduction scene where he ably mimics the playing style of a dozen or more pianists, much to the obvious and unfaked delight of both Hannah and he.

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Drama, Imaginary US Cinema

#147 – Is This Love?

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(1996, US, 121 min) Dir Charles V. Holden Cast Halle Berry, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Chris Tucker, Vivica A. Fox.

An R&B version of A Star is Born with Halle Berry as the Whitney Houstonesque singer Pamela Brown who catches the eye of Vondie Curtis-Hall’s music mogul Eric Hitz. He coaches her to success with the help of dance instructor Ice (Chris Tucker in his usual role of ‘comic relief’) and singing coach Alicia (a cameoing Aretha Franklin whose acting is shaky but still has the voice). Needless to say she becomes a star and she and Hitz become a couple despite the dire warnings of his ex, who is herself a fading star. Unlike A Star is Born this ends on a real bum note that could be seen coming a mile off – Brown’s star goes into descent and she soon finds that Hitz is seeing one of her backing singers (Fox) who he leaves Brown for and then coaches to success as well. At the end Halle Berry’s nursing a big ol’ bottle of vodka and watching Fox picking up some award while blowing kisses to her new husband, the bastard Eric Hitz. Despite a strong, vulnerable performance from Berry the film is let down by pedestrian direction, a predictable plot and, worst of all, an unmemorable soundtrack.

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Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#146 – You Have To Start At The Bottom… To Get Your Way To The Top!

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(1958, US, 110 min) Dir George McAnderson. Cast Anthony Perkins, Shirley MacLaine, James Mason.

Bright cartoonish comedy set in the world of big business. Anthony Perkins is Osgood Berenson, a country kid come to the Big Apple with his County College Certificate of General Excellence in his suitcase and the will to achieve in his heart. After a promising interview with Flexible Industrials he turns up on his first day dressed for his very own office only to be met by the mop and a bucket needed for his new position as janitor. By chance he meets the head of Flexible Industrials, the business titan Olivier Welles (Mason), when he’s taking care of the private washrooms up on the 32nd floor and makes an impression with his can-do attitude. “I have to say you seem like a most competent and assured young man,” says Olivier, “Which makes me all the more impressed that you’re willing to work your way up to the boardroom from down in the basement. I’ll see you up here in a year and I’ll make you partner, how does that sound?” That’s when Olivier’s daughter Pat (MacLaine) comes in and the smitten Osgood’s mind is made up, kicking off twelve months of begging, borrowing and stealing his way up the greasy ladder. A fine fun and funny film.

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Drama, Imaginary French Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema, Thriller

#145 – Operation Reptile

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(1988, Fr/US, 130 min) Dir Roland Sacher. Cast Christopher Lambert, Antonio Banderas, Fernando Rey.

Tense Day of the Jackal style thriller based on true life events surrounding the assassination of former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle while he was living in exile in Alfredo Stroessner’s Paraguay. The guts of the film detail the lead up to the act itself – how the team entered the country, how they were armed, the months of meticulous monitoring of Debayle’s movements. The scene of the assassination itself is suspense brought to the point of dread perfection – as if the lead up to Debayle’s car being stopped in the road wasn’t bad enough the rocket launcher that is to deliver the killing blow suddenly stops working and Banderas’ character has mere seconds to act. I could feel everyone in the cinema leaning into the screen at that moment and could hear the sound of gripped armrests creaking under the stress. Everything works here from the unshowy performances to the matter of fact photography to the clear, propulsive editing. This is the film that set Sacher back on the straight and narrow after a string of flops and misfires, setting him up nicely for his streak of classics through the nineties.

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Erotic, Imaginary US Cinema

#144 – Hot Box, The

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(1982, US, 79 min) Dir Leck Mitchum-Arsch. Cast Al Pachinko, Joey Fantastic, Gorey George.

Infamous rebuttal to Friedkin’s Cruising by then notorious (and now respected) gay punk director Leck Mitchum-Arsch here working with almost half a budget for the first time following a half-dozen shoelace shorts with the money allegedly provided by Andy Warhol (though why a self promoter as thorough as he decline credit gives lie to the rumour). Much like Cruising, Detective Corleone (Pachinko) is sent undercover to the homosexual underground (as typified here by the titular gay club) where he’s tracking down a serial killer. Also as in Cruising the detective gets to like the hot man on man action he’s privvy to. The difference being that in The Hot Box the culprit (SPOILERS!!) is in fact the very chief who put him on the case (played by old horror ham Gorey George himself), his motive to attract Corleone’s attention. To cut a long story short Corleone shoots the chief dead and goes back to the swinging manly life he’s grown accustomed to, much to the consternation of his poor fiancé (marvellously essayed by drag queen Fantastic). To be honest it’s about as offensive as Cruising itself was but in more of a fun John Waters kind of way.

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Action/Adventure, Black and White, Imaginary US Cinema

#134 – White Hell

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(1930, US, 100 min, b/w) Dir William Z Dolman. Cast Henry Lensing, Piper Pitt, Tom Claus.

Two fisted ice-bound thriller. A heavily moustached Tom Claus is underhanded seal baron Ogdon Bush, a man content to lord over his own personal fiefdom in the frozen wastes of Alaska until rogue philanthropist Lou Seward – quietly played by the ice eyed Lensing – drags his wind lashed carcass into Bush’s town. Bush sees the errant Seward nursed back to health by his mistress Amy (a glowing Pitt) and God knows he tries to get the man on board but aside from being a man of business, the principled Seward is also a dedicated animal lover hell-bent in beating back the seal pelt industry even if it means taking men like Bush on one at a time. Thus the stage is set for a battle of iron wills with the love crossed Amy stuck in the middle. A none more rousing finale make exceptional use of the abandoned Arctic paradise sets left in ruins from Hans Bismark’s 1924 flop The Cogs of the World as the set of a ten minute firefight that ends, as firefight are wont to do, in tragedy. The first landmark film from forgotten genius Dolman.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms